Dead Man's Curve

Chapter Two

It had happened in the span of a couple of seconds. One second, Ava Trent been turning back toward the path that had brought her within sight. The next, a man in the familiar jungle camouflage pattern of an El Cambio rebel had risen from behind a thick mountain laurel bush and slammed into her like a linebacker. They’d both gone down, but Ava had taken the brunt of the impact, struggling to breathe as the man grabbed her up and jammed a pistol under her chin.

Sin’s heart hammered in terror as he scanned the area for an accomplice. There. Emerging from the trees, a second man glided into view, grabbing Ava by the arm.

Two against one, with Ava as the wild card. She’d been carrying a weapon, and back at the crime scene she’d been moving about like a woman with a purpose. Law enforcement, maybe? She’d been circumspect about what she’d be doing when she returned home from vacation, but some things she’d said had hinted at a police job.

Had she recognized him across the parking lot and come out here to find him?

He was armed because Quinn had told him he’d be stupid to walk around unprotected. But despite his reputation, he wasn’t a man comfortable with violence. He never had been.

But he could be, under the right circumstances. He’d learned that much about himself in Sanselmo.

Pulling the pistol from the hidden holster inside his jacket, he wished he had a rifle instead. Better accuracy from a distance. But the Taurus 1911 would do.

Across the woods, the man holding the pistol to Ava’s chin drew his hand back, bringing the pistol muzzle away from her face. But as he did so, the second man grabbed her from behind in a bear hug, eliciting a grunt of surprise from her as she started to struggle against his hold.

The man with the gun pressed it to her forehead, and Sin aimed the Taurus in his direction, his finger sliding onto the trigger.

Ava slumped suddenly, her arms sliding up and her body dropping, catching the man holding her by surprise. She slipped from his grasp, down to the forest floor.

Sinclair would never get a better chance.

Aiming down the barrel of the Taurus, he fired. Simultaneously, another shot rang out, the crack echoing in the trees, almost drowning out the report of his own weapon. The man reaching for Ava fell backward into the underbrush. The man in front of her pitched forward, firing off a shot of his own as he fell.

Ava’s body jerked, even as she rolled away from the falling man, scrambled to her feet and started running. She made it about ten yards before she started to stagger, her legs wobbling beneath her as if they’d gone boneless. She fell forward into the thickening underbrush, disappearing from his view.

Keeping an eye on the two fallen men, Sinclair dashed after her, his heart racing faster than his churning legs. She lay crumpled, facedown, but he could see by the rise and fall of her body that she was still breathing. He stopped next to the two fallen men. The one who’d grabbed Ava first lay facedown, unmoving. The back of his camouflage jacket had a bloody hole in it, somewhere in the vicinity of his left shoulder blade. He didn’t appear to be breathing. Nudging with his foot, Sin rolled the man over and took a long look at his face.

Emilio Fuentes, he thought, staring into the glassy brown eyes of a man he’d once called friend. His heart contracted.

He picked up the pistol Fuentes had dropped and shoved it into his pocket. He checked the second man, the one at whom he’d aimed his own pistol. Carlito Escalante. A bloody hole in the side of the man’s neck was the only obvious injury. Sin checked for a pulse and found none.

A queasy sensation filled his gut, and he swallowed the urge to be sick.

He searched Carlito’s body, found a hunting knife besides the pistol the man had dropped, and added both to his pocket, trying not to let his rapid respirations escalate to hyperventilation. He needed his wits about him. His life had just gotten a thousand times more dangerous.

By the time he found the pistol Ava had dropped when she was attacked and turned back to her, she was on her hands and knees, trying to crawl away. He hurried to her side, crouching beside her.

She whirled at his touch, swinging her arm up in a shaky arc before he could react. Suddenly, he was staring down the muzzle of a Glock aimed right between his eyes. Now he knew where the second shot had come from.

She’d had another weapon.

“Ava,” he said.

“You’re supposed to be dead.” Her voice had a raw, uneven tone, the shaking in her hand growing to an alarming wobble.

He reached out and moved her hand away from his face. She struggled but didn’t pull the trigger before he took the gun away and wrapped his arm around her as she started to fall backward. “Whoa, there.” Dropping the Glock to one side, he gave her a quick appraisal, looking for her injury.

There. Under the hem of her jacket. Blood spread across the right side of her charcoal trousers and seeped upward onto her olive-green blouse. As she tried to slap his hands away, he tugged the blouse up and away, revealing a ripped furrow in the waistband of her pants. Beneath it, the bullet’s path had carved a bloody gouge in the soft flesh just above her hip bone.

“Ow,” she groaned as he plucked a piece of scorched fabric from the wound.

He needed to get her back to the motel. And he needed not to get caught. Irreconcilable goals.

“You didn’t blow yourself up,” she muttered. He looked up from the bullet wound to find her hazel eyes focused on his face.

“Says who?” he asked, reaching in his back pocket for his multibladed knife. There was a set of tweezers tucked into the handle, if he wasn’t mistaken. Given the messy condition of her wound, he was probably going to need them.

“You’re wanted by the FBI.”

“I’m not on the list anymore,” he disagreed, sliding the tweezers out. “Dead, you see.”

Her mouth twisted with frustration. “You’re not dead. And you’re under arrest.”

He couldn’t hold back a grin at her serious expression. “Can I finish cleaning this wound before you take me in?”

“This isn’t funny.” Moving more quickly than he thought she could, she grabbed the Glock he’d taken from her and swung it back in front of her. This time, her hands didn’t shake nearly as hard.

Fear battled with grudging admiration. She was tougher than she looked. “What are you going to do, shoot me?”

“If I have to.”

“Getting back to the motel on your own isn’t going to be pleasant,” he warned, sitting back on his heels.

“I’ll deal.” Keeping her pistol aimed at his chest, she pushed to her feet, struggling not to sway. “Sinclair Solano, you’re under arrest for the murder of three American oil company employees. For starters.”

“I didn’t kill those men.”

“We’ll let the courts sort that out.” She twitched the Glock’s muzzle at him. “Move.”

He wasn’t going to let her take him in. He’d had his chance to face justice years ago and had traded it for a chance to make things right. But Alexander Quinn had warned him there were no easy outs. Once he went back to El Cambio and pretended nothing had changed, he might never be able to clear his name.

He’d taken the chance. Now, it seemed he might have to pay.

“Do you know who those men were?” He nodded toward the two bodies lying several yards away.

Her gaze slanted toward them briefly before locking with Sin’s again. “No. Do you?”

“The one who grabbed you was Emilio Fuentes. Major player in El Cambio’s military wing. He was Alberto Cabrera’s top commander.” He watched her expression for any signs of recognition. Her eyes narrowed; she knew something about El Cambio, he thought. “The other was Carlito Escalante.”

“The Spider,” she murmured, recognition dawning.

She wasn’t just playing at whatever job she was working, clearly, if she knew Escalante’s nom de guerre. He tried not to stare into the muzzle of her Glock. “Why do you suppose two of El Cambio’s top enforcers were wandering around the Smoky Mountains?”

“They’re looking for you.”

He gave a brief nod. “They’re looking for me.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not one of them. Because I betrayed them a long time ago, and somehow, they figured out I’m not dead.”

Her eyes narrowed in her pain-creased face. “Betrayed them how?”

“Long story, carida. Remind me to tell you about it sometime.”

“Are there others out here?”

He suspected there were. If Cabrera had sent two enforcers, he’d probably sent a dozen. The arrogant son of a bitch had never economized on anything. “The motel is about a mile in that direction,” he said, nodding toward the northwest. “But I can’t promise you won’t run into more like those two.”

Her nostrils flared, the only sign of reaction to his words. “Or maybe you’re just telling me that so I’ll let you go.”

He shrugged. “Your call.”

She pushed painfully to her feet, keeping the pistol barrel pointed at his chest. “Walk.”

“I’m not going back to the motel with you, so you might as well shoot me now.”

A muscle in her jaw twitched dangerously. “Why did you even come back here? You had to know you’d be arrested if anyone ever found you.”

“There’s a man named Alexander Quinn.” Her forehead creased slightly with recognition, so he proceeded without further explanation. “He recruited me years ago. Not long after I joined up with El Cambio.”

“Recruited you for what?”

A flash in the gloom behind her distracted him. It was quick, but his instincts were honed for action after all these years living on the edge of the razor. He threw himself at her, praying she wouldn’t shoot before he knocked her to the ground.

A sharp report shattered the air around them. It took a moment for him to realize it had come from the woods, not from her pistol.

He held her down, lifting his head just enough to peer through the underbrush for more signs of movement. Beneath his body, she wriggled, her breath coming in short, pained gasps.

“Shh,” he whispered, dropping his head back below the underbrush.

“Was that—?” Her words came out in a raspy wheeze.

“Someone shooting at us?” he whispered, shifting to give her room to breathe. “Yes. Yes, it was.”

* * *

RAIN NEEDLED HER FACE, soft prickles she could barely feel. All of her senses seemed gathered on the burning ache of her torn flesh and the dizzying sensation of Sinclair Solano’s very warm, very alive body covering hers. She expected more gunfire, but it didn’t come.

“They didn’t just leave,” she whispered, hating that she was on her back, blind to the angle of attack. But moving more than an inch or two might make them easier targets. Sometimes, waiting for a more advantageous situation was the only reasonable option.

Not that she had to like it.

“I know.” Sin edged slowly to one side. As the weight of his body eased from hers, she sucked in a deeper breath. Almost immediately, she wished she hadn’t, as the rise and fall of her diaphragm tugged the skin around her wound.

Biting her lip, she carefully rolled to her side. The movement brought her close to Sin again, but she had a better view of the woods in front of them. “There could be people coming from all directions.”

“I know.”

She had held on to the spare Glock, she realized with a twinge of surprise. For a few moments there, when he’d slammed her to the ground, all she’d been aware of was gutting pain. She eased the pistol forward, trying not to rustle the tangle of undergrowth that hid their position.

“If we can get back to the motel, we’ll have backup,” she added, slanting a look at him. “Want to rethink the whole resisting arrest thing?”

“I’m not guilty of murder.”

She couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. It sounded like the truth, but his gaze slanted away from hers as he said it.

“And you’re willing to die to avoid defending yourself?”

“Where’s your cell phone?” he asked.

She almost banged her head on the ground in frustration. What the hell? Why hadn’t she already pulled out her phone and called in the cavalry?

As she dropped her hand to her right pocket, her palm grazed the wound over her hip, and she sucked in a hiss of breath. Biting her lip, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the phone.

It was in pieces. The bullet had apparently hit the metal phone case and deflected into her hip. But not before it smashed into the phone itself, cracking it in two.

She looked at Sin. “Don’t suppose you’d lend me yours?”

He shook his head. “I’m not letting you take me in.”

“Then I guess we both die out here.” Grinding her teeth in anger, she lifted her head briefly, long enough to see above the underbrush. Movement to the south caught her attention, and she ducked again. “They’re circling around to the south.”

“Maybe checking on Fuentes and Escalante.”

She turned her head toward him, her heart freezing for a long, dizzying moment as she realized he gripped a large Taurus 1911, a shiny silver monster of a pistol with a walnut grip.

His gaze met hers. “I’m not going to shoot you.” He nodded toward the south. “Might shoot him, though.”

She followed his gaze and saw a man dressed in dark green camouflage moving quietly through the underbrush. The same man who’d already shot at them? Or someone new? She wasn’t sure.

“How do we get out of here?” she whispered, trying to ignore the burning pain in her hip. If she crouched here much longer in one position, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to move when the time came.

“We need a distraction,” he murmured.

“Got any ideas?”

“Yeah, one, but I should have pulled the trigger on that option about thirty minutes ago,” he answered, his gaze still on the man creeping through the gloom in front of them. “Too late now.”

A streak of lightning lit the sky overhead, and the man in camouflage jerked in reaction, especially when a booming crash of thunder followed only a second later.

“Just great,” Ava muttered. As if the rain wasn’t enough.

“Just might be,” Sin said quietly.

She glanced at him. He was still watching the other man, his eyes narrowed in thought.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, uneasy at how quickly they’d gone from opponents to allies with the addition of the new intruder. She’d do well to remember that, no matter what help Sinclair Solano might be offering at the moment, he was still a wanted man. He was suspected in over a dozen terrorist bombings in Sanselmo, many of which had killed innocent civilians—men, women and even children.

But Sin wasn’t the one hunting her now, so she had to be pragmatic about the situation. He seemed to know where he was and what he was doing. And she was bleeding and growing stiffer by the minute.

Another flash of lightning cracked open the sky. This time, the thunder sounded right on its heels, stopping the man hunting them in his tracks. Ava took the opportunity for a quick look around for more men in camouflage. She didn’t see anyone else out there, but Sin was probably right. If Cabrera had bothered to send two of his top lieutenants to look for Sin, he’d have sent more than just three people. There might be a whole squad of killers roaming these woods.

Getting out of here wasn’t going to be easy.

“Next flash of lightning, I want you to run east, as fast as you can. Due east. About two hundred yards in that direction, you’ll find a tent covered with a Ghillie net. Get inside and be ready to shoot anyone who sticks his head inside.”

She shot him a look. “Even you?”

“I’ll say, ‘Alicia is missing,’ and you’ll know it’s me.”

“Alicia is missing?” she repeated, not sure if it was smart to admit she knew the connection between her kidnapping victim and the man beside her.

“She is, isn’t she?” His throat bobbed as he turned his gaze toward the man still creeping through the trees. “Cabrera’s people almost certainly have her. They took her as a way to put pressure on me.”

“Why would they think it would?” she asked, wondering if he’d tell her the truth.

“Because Alicia Cooper’s maiden name is Solano.”

“Your sister?”

He looked at her oddly. “You already knew that.”

She didn’t deny it.

He sighed. “I have to find her before they do something that can’t be reversed.”

“She’s with her husband. He’ll help protect her.”

Sinclair nodded. “If they don’t kill him first.”

Lightning streaked across the sky, one jagged crack after another. Thunder rolled in a continuous roar, and Sin gave her a nudge. “Now!”

She reversed position, clamping her teeth together as pain raced through her side to settle in a raw burn at the point of her hip. Staying low, she raced east. Or, at least, what she hoped was east. She heard a commotion behind her, gunshots stuttering through the drumbeat of rain.

Head down, she ran faster, deeper into the woods. Pain squeezed tears from her eyes, but she couldn’t slow down. Footsteps crashed through the underbrush behind her, but she didn’t look back.

The Ghillie shelter rose up in the gloom so quickly, she almost ran headfirst into the tent. Spotting the opening, she wriggled into the small tent and turned until she sat facing front, her knees pulled up to her chest despite the howl of pain from her torn hip. She held her Glock steady by using her knees as a shooting rest, willing her heartbeat to slow and her ragged respiration to even out.

Alicia is missing, she thought, trying to piece together the disparate shards of information she’d gleaned over the past half hour. Alicia Cooper was originally Alicia Solano. Sinclair’s sister. Chang had told her that much. But did Alicia know her brother was alive? Did she know why Cabrera’s men had taken her and her husband?

Was Gabe Cooper even alive?

“Alicia is missing.” Even without the code words, she recognized Sinclair Solano’s voice. “I’m coming in.”

The flap of the tent opened. She tightened her grip on the Glock, her trigger finger sliding down from where she’d held it flattened against the side of the pistol. She tried not to hold her breath, but air wouldn’t seem to move in or out of her lungs while she waited for him to appear.

Then, in the space of a blink, he was there, crawling inside the tent, little more than a dark shadow within the darker confines of the shelter.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“I think so.”

“I shot a third man when he shot at me. He’s dead. But there are others out there. I heard them calling to one another.”

She pressed one hand to her mouth, feeling sick. “And we’re sitting ducks in this tent.”

“We’re under shelter. There are alarms outside to let us know if intruders are getting close.” He reached for a blanket that lay beside her on the tent floor. She hadn’t even noticed it, hadn’t realized how hard she was shivering until he draped it over her shoulders. Warmth rolled over her like a wave, driving out some of the chills.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded. “I didn’t notice any alarms outside.”

“You wouldn’t have,” he said with a quirk of a smile. He hunkered down next to her, sticking close enough that the searing heat of his body was as good as a blazing fire. The only thing missing was the comfort of light. The tent remained dark and would only get darker as night continued to fall.

“So what now?” she whispered.

He blew out a long, slow breath. “We wait out the storm and hope those fellows don’t find us.”

Chapter Three

As plans went, waiting and hoping weren’t high on Sinclair’s list of great ones. But his burner phone had no juice left. He’d have to get to civilization to charge the phone, and even then, he wasn’t sure what, if anything, Alexander Quinn could do to help him find Alicia and her husband.

“I need to go back to the motel,” Ava said after a few moments of tense silence. “I have work to do.”

“You’re a cop?”

She gave him a strange look, then released a soft huff of breath that was almost a laugh. “Oh, right. I left the other jacket in the car.”

“What other jacket?”

He could barely make out the curve of her pained smile. “The blue jacket with the big yellow FBI on the back.”

“FBI.” Great. Of all the old acquaintances he could have run into in the middle of the woods, he had to run into the one who worked for the federal agency that had once had his face tacked prominently to every wall of every field office and resident agency in the country.

“We think you’re dead, you know. Well, everyone else does.”

“I’d love for it to stay that way.”

“Too bad. I’m not your friend, Solano. I can’t look the other way. So if you’re going to kill me to stop me from ratting on you, go for it now so one or the other of us can get on with trying to stay alive.”

“I’m not what you think I am.” He sighed as she gave him a look so skeptical he couldn’t miss it even in the near darkness. “I know you’ve probably heard that before.”

“You reckon?”

“There’s a lot you don’t know.”

“Let me guess. You were really a double agent working for the CIA to bring down El Cambio from the inside.” Her sarcasm had a sharp bite.

Well, he thought. There goes the truth as a viable explanation.

Awkward silence descended between them again. Strange, Sin thought, how hard it was to talk to her now, when back in Mariposa, all those years ago, talking to Ava Trent had seemed as easy as breathing.

She’d been nothing like any girl he’d ever known, growing up in San Francisco, and he supposed maybe the sheer novelty of her had been the initial attraction. That and her curvy little figure, displayed not in a skin-baring bikini, but a trim racer-back one-piece, standing out on the Mariposan beach amid all those skimpy thongs and barely-there tops. She’d swum the ocean as if it were a sport, tackling waves with ferocity of purpose, all flexing muscles and determination.

Somehow, her lack of self-consciousness about her appearance had only made her more attractive in Sinclair’s eyes. And when she’d opened her mouth and that Kentucky drawl had meandered out, he’d been leveled completely. There had been no other word for the way she’d made him feel, as if the earth beneath his feet had liquefied and he couldn’t hold a solid thought in his head.

She’d declared he’d like Kentucky, if he was looking for somewhere new to visit. And he’d almost talked himself into going back there with her.

“How sure are you that it’s Cabrera who has your sister?” Ava’s whisper broke the tense silence filling the tent.

“Pretty sure,” he answered. “Do you have evidence to the contrary?”

She was silent for a moment. “I just got here this afternoon. I didn’t have a lot of time to investigate before I went on a ghost hunt.”

Feeling her gaze on him in the gloom, he turned his head to find her watching him, eyes glittering. “I didn’t think anyone would see me.”