Chapter 40
It took too long to get to the cabin. I knew he was taking her there, to the place where this had started weeks ago. My team was following any leads in town, in case I was wrong. My gut drove me, screaming that I wasn’t wrong, that time was slipping away, and with it, my chance to save Quinn. I pushed my SUV to the limit on the mountain roads and covered most of the trail at a dead run. Still, it took too long. I slowed on the last quarter mile, leaving the trail to loop around the west side of the cabin so I could approach from the back.
I”d never been afraid like this. Even as the words crossed my mind, I realized they were inadequate. This wasn’t fear. This was a bone-deep terror. I could handle fear, knew how to set it aside and get the job done. But this—this was beyond anything I’d felt before. This was Quinn. He had Quinn.
How had we missed Jay Reynolds? I’d looked through her client records. There could have been a Reynolds. There definitely wasn’t a Jay Reynolds. That I would have remembered, no question. Memories flashed through my head as I moved through the trees. Reynolds was a sociopath, completely without empathy. People were game pieces to him, their only purpose a means to an end. Jay Reynolds would kill Quinn without hesitation if it served his purpose. I needed to get her away from him.
I stopped in the trees behind the cabin, taking measure of the situation. Smoke twined up from the chimney, filling the crisp winter air with its comforting scent. It was cold, but not cold enough that they needed a fire for safety. He was making a point, marking territory he saw as mine. But it wasn’t mine. It was Quinn”s. Which made it all that much worse. He’d touched her. Taken her. They’d been alone for almost two hours. What could he have done to her in that much time? Was she still alive? Had he?—
I forced myself to lock down my spiraling terror, the urgency to get in there, to free her at whatever cost.
I needed to think. I had years of missions behind me, but none as important as this one. This was the one I had to get right. Nothing was going to happen to Quinn. I couldn’t let it.
I scanned the back of the cabin, but Reynolds was ready for me. He”d covered both the bedroom and the kitchen windows. There was nothing to see from back here. Moving around to the east side, I saw he”d done the same there as well. He was herding me, forcing me to come in through the front.
If I”d had more time, I could have worked out a better approach, but every second Quinn was in his hands, the danger increased. I didn”t have time. I had to move. I had to get her away from him.
The front door of the cabin was wide open. Keeping low, I made my way around the corner, easing closer to the door. From my vantage point, I caught the flicker of flame in the woodstove. I thought about trying to devise a way to see inside without exposing my position, but everything took too much time.
Hand on my weapon, I unsnapped the holster and stepped into the open doorway.
The first thing I saw was Quinn, duct taped to one of the kitchen chairs, a strip of tape over her mouth. Her eyes were wide with fear, but alert. The second she saw me, she shook her head frantically, her eyes sliding to something off to her left.
I got the message. She wasn’t alone. He was there, to the left. And I knew without words that she wanted me to leave, to run, to save myself.
Like that was going to happen. If only one of us was leaving this cabin, it was going to be her.
I stepped inside, ready when a dark shape moved in from the left to stand behind Quinn. He wore faded brown and green camo with matching gloves and dirt-smeared boots. A deep green winter hat was pulled low over his forehead, shading his eyes. He’d wrapped a dark brown scarf around his neck and mouth, leaving me to guess at the rest of his face.
I got an impression of dark eyes, of contained rage burning in the shadows. That was it.
I thought of Randell, the paid thief, and those phone calls. How he thought he knew who he was talking to but couldn’t be sure. Was this Reynolds? Maybe not. I didn’t know. Whoever he was, I needed to get Quinn away from him.
His hand came into view, fingers wrapped around the hilt of a hunting knife. I took a step closer and the knife went to Quinn”s throat. I froze, feet glued to the floor. I was afraid to breathe. Afraid to blink.
It had been years since I”d been in the same room with my former CO. He”d been a monster then. I had no clue how far he”d go now. Not when I didn’t know why he was here.
“Drop the knife, Reynolds,” I said. “She”s not a part of this.”
He didn”t react except to press the knife against Quinn’s pale skin. He hadn’t drawn blood. Not yet.
I stayed where I was. I couldn’t spook him. A jerk of his arm and Quinn would be dead.
“Drop your weapon,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. Not a natural speaking voice.
“I’ll put my weapon down,” I countered, “after you let her go.”
The knife shifted and Quinn whimpered, her blue eyes swimming with angry tears, begging me to run. Begging me to leave her. That wasn’t going to happen. I was going to get us both out of here. Alive. It would be a hell of a lot easier if I had a fucking plan and I wasn’t dealing with a sociopath.
I could give up my weapon if it would buy me time. The weapon in my hand wasn’t my only defense, just the most visible. Raising my left hand in the air, palm out, placating, I said, “I’ll put my weapon on the couch, okay? Move that knife away from her throat, and I’ll put it down.”
I got the sense of his eyes narrowing. The knife eased back. Not far enough, but it wasn’t pressing into her skin. Slowly, I pulled my weapon from the holster and laid it on the couch, closer to me than to Reynolds.
I put both hands up and stepped back. “Let her go. She doesn”t have anything to do with this.”
“She has everything to do with this,” he growled. In a flash, his hand came up, and the knife was flying through the air directly at my face.
I didn”t think. I moved. My hand closed around the hilt, the blade slicing into the side of my finger. I stared at the knife in my hand and back at Reynolds in confusion. I wasn’t naive enough to think he was unarmed now that he’d lost his knife. His cmo jacket probably hid a sidearm. But why give up the weapon he”d been using to keep Quinn under control?
“Drive that through your heart,” he said, “and I’ll let her go.”
Quinn shook her head, muffled pleas smothered by the duct tape. I knew what she was saying. No. Hawk. No.
I raised the knife, aiming the tip at my heart.
“This is what you want? For me to kill myself? And then I”m just supposed to trust you to let her go? You just said she has everything to do with this. You can’t think I”d be that stupid.”
His hand closed over the back of Quinn”s neck, fingers tightening. She let out a scream behind her gag, the sound part terror and part pain.
I got the message. He didn”t need the knife to kill Quinn. She was duct taped to that chair, and he had two good hands. He could snap her neck in a heartbeat, long before I could close the distance between us.
I could have thrown the knife back at him. I could take a chance and dive for him. But that would risk the woman I loved.
I stayed exactly where I was, bringing the knife closer until the tip dug in, slicing easily through the fabric of my sweater and shirt beneath. It was so sharp I barely felt the burn as the tip cut into the skin above my heart.
Quinn sobbed, tears streaming down her cheeks. I wanted to comfort her, to tell her to trust me. But I wouldn’t lie. I didn’t have a plan. The best I could do was play along until I figured out what the bastard wanted. My death seemed to be at the top of his list. Only a few months ago, I might have made it easy on him, the weight of guilt clouding my desire to live. But things had changed. Quinn had changed me, had shown me I deserved life, deserved love. That I had something to offer the world that might make up for the wrongs I’d done.
Better to atone than to give up. I wasn’t going to let Reynolds take my future. He’d taken too much from me already.
“More,” he demanded.
“Step away from Quinn and I’ll give you more.”
He shook his head. “You owe me pain.”
That didn”t make any sense. None of this made sense. “I don’t owe you anything,” I said. “You landed on your feet after I got out.”
And he had, as far as I knew. I”d fucked with Reynolds’s operation once I figured out what he was really using my team for. But he”d never faced charges, and he had contacts everywhere. He’d been better off than he deserved to be. Diminished, maybe, but not out of the game.
His fingers tightened on the back of Quinn”s neck, then slid around to rest on the front of her throat, her chin lifting to ease the pressure. A second ago, she”d been begging me to leave with her eyes, the fire I loved very clear. Now they were wide with terror, no plea left. Only fear.
“Did he tell you?” he asked Quinn, looking down into her raised eyes. “Did he tell you the things he did? The people he killed?” His fingers tightened, cutting off her air supply.
“I’ll do whatever you want if you let her go,” I said. I wasn’t playing this game. I wasn’t letting him use me to torture Quinn with fear until he killed us both. I had to get Quinn out, whatever the cost.
Even if that meant I had to hurt myself to do it.
“Did you tell her about Neva?” he asked.
Hearing that name, I went cold inside. Neva. My last official kill working for Reynolds. The death that pushed me over the edge. The loss that woke me up. And of all the missions Reynolds sent me on, the one I knew was actually justified.
“Yes,” I answered truthfully, my voice hoarse with guilt and well-worn pain. I’d done the right thing when it came to Neva, but that didn”t ease the agony of killing a friend.
He dropped his hand from Quinn”s throat, her breath drawn in a gasp. Reaching up, he unwound the scarf from his neck, dropping it to the floor. With a jerk of his hand, he pulled off his hat.
The face he revealed was not that of Jay Reynolds, my former CO. I stared into the brown eyes of the man who’d been my friend. Almost a brother. The man I’d thought I’d lost along with Neva.
“You”re dead,” I said stupidly.
Obviously, Emmett Blake was not dead. Emmett Blake was standing in front of me, very much alive. He dropped his hat to the floor and slid his hand back around Quinn”s neck, his long fingers squeezing until she squirmed.
“Let her breathe,” I said, and his fingers relaxed the tiniest fraction.
“You killed Neva,” he accused. “I let you live because you were a brother. I was so close to taking your life in exchange, but I let you live. You were suffering. For a while, I thought the guilt would kill you and do the job for me. But you found the Sinclairs and Griffen Sawyer, and you let them convince you to live. I watched you. All these years, you were alone. You worked. You helped people. And you suffered. Alone. Exactly like you deserve to.”
Quinn whimpered, jerking her head to the side when his fingers tightened again on her chin, pulling her head back to look up at him.
Leaning down, his mouth by her ear, he said, “He put a bullet in her heart. My love. His friend. And he murdered her.” Standing, he dropped his hand from Quinn and stared at me. “Didn’t you?”
“I did,” I said.
There was no point in saying anything else. We’d both been there. He’d seen me pull the trigger. Moments later, Emmett Blake had disappeared. I’d never imagined he’d been out there, watching me. Shouldn’t I have felt him? Shouldn’t I have known? But then Emmett had always been one of the best. He was a shadow in the night, capable of getting in almost anywhere, of disappearing into a crowd. Of hacking almost any system, even back then.
I should have known, and I hadn’t. Hadn’t seen this coming at all.
“So many times,” he said, “I had you in the sights of my rifle. So many times, I almost pulled the trigger. But I let you live because you suffered. Because you paid more alive than dead. Death would be a release that neither of us deserves. Then you came here, and I followed. I watched you living in that run-down gatehouse. Getting scraps from the Sawyers’ table. You were alone, and you suffered like you deserve to suffer. But then you weren’t suffering anymore, were you?”
Emmett reached up with his free hand to stroke Quinn”s hair back from her face, the gesture tender. Gentle. And terrifying.
“I saw the way you looked at her,” he said. “The way you changed your morning rounds to check on her while she slept. She was different, wasn’t she? Long before you ended up in this cabin, long before you touched her. She was different.”
My throat tight, I nodded with a jerk of my head.
“That morning the bear cubs played under her hammock, I knew.” He tucked a strand of Quinn”s sleek hair behind her ear. “I knew you weren’t suffering anymore. Not the way you had.”
He dropped his hand away from Quinn and stepped back, all his focus on me.
“You don”t get to live a full life, Hawk. You don”t get her. You don’t get a home and a family. You don”t get any of it. You took all of that from me, and you only get to live if I let you live. You only get to live if your life is a punishment.”
I dropped my hands to my side, the knife clattering to the floor. I wasn’t going to stab myself in the heart. That wasn’t going to save Quinn. I wasn’t sure what would save us now. Emmett was right. I had taken his love away from him. And now that I had Quinn, I could imagine all too well how far he’d go to exact his revenge.
All I had was the truth. I hoped it would be enough.