Brace For Impact

As if his appearance or age mattered. But better to think about him than her situation.

He wanted to inspect all the places where she hurt. Since she hurt all over, was she supposed to take her clothes off?

“Do you...” She cleared her throat. “Do you have some aspirin or something?”

A smile did astonishing things to a face that had scared her at first sight. “I do. But I want to be sure I know about your injuries before I give you anything.”

“Oh.” If only she wasn’t so fuzzy. And cold. “I’m not sure. My shoulder or arm or something. And—” she flapped her good hand toward her torso “—kind of everywhere. Maybe my knee.”

“All right. Can I look in your bag?”

She stared at him, puzzled. Without waiting for permission, he unzipped her duffel, sorted through the contents and pulled out a blanket he partly wrapped around her, his enormous hands careful. Then he untied the shirt she’d been using as a sling, and studied her T-shirt.

“You attached to this?”

“What?” She glanced down. “No.” Too bad if she had been. It made her shudder to imagine dipping it in a sink filled with cold water. The blood would tint the water red, not just pink.

When she looked up, she saw the knife that had appeared in his hand and shrank back.

“Hey.” He waited until her eyes met his. “I need to cut the shirt off you so we don’t have to lift your arms. I swear I won’t hurt you.”

Her teeth chattered a few times before she could get her jaws clamped together, but she nodded and closed her eyes, clutching one edge of the blanket. If he’d meant to kill her, she’d be dead already.

A minute later he said, “Damn.”

Her eyes flew open. “Damn?”

“The humerus is broken. Upper arm,” he said absently. Fingertips slid along her collarbone, pausing at a sizeable bump she could see when she craned her neck. “Pretty sure the clavicle is, too.” He sank back on his heels, obviously thinking. “Let’s pack your arm with snow for a little bit before I put a splint on.”

He had a splint? Did mountain climbers usually carry things like that, or did he because of his medic training?

He had her lift her right arm, nodded in satisfaction, and explored her rib cage, which even she could see was bruised, and suggested that her ribs might be cracked. “I’ll bind them,” he told her. “That should make you more comfortable.”

A shot of morphine might make her more comfortable. Too bad she doubted he could produce anything like that from his pack.

Instead, he came up with two plastic bags, filled them with snow, wrapped each with what appeared to be one of his T-shirts and had her lie down. Then he placed one snow pack on her upper arm and had her hold it. The other he laid across her rib cage.

“I know you’re freezing,” he said apologetically. “These will help if you can hold out for a few minutes.”

She gave a jerky nod.

He got busy untying her boots, pulling them off and easing her jeans down her legs, too.

She ought to feel self-conscious or unnerved, but she didn’t. It was more as if she was standing behind an observation window, watching.

A big purple bruise showed on her kneecap, but the knee still bent fine and without significant pain. “I fell on my knees a few times,” she offered.

One corner of his mouth turned up. “That’d do it. I think it’s okay.”

That was when she remembered she had a first-aid kit, too. When she told him, he found it in her duffel bag, opened it, grunted and closed it again.

“Nothing really helpful right now.” He laid a hand on her calf. “You’re cold.”

Teeth clenched, she nodded. The heat of his big hand felt so good. She was really sorry when he removed it so he could explore the contents of her duffel more thoroughly. He pulled out the pajama bottoms and clean jeans, then gently dressed her in the two layers. Appearing unsatisfied with the couple of shirts she’d brought, he dug around in his own pack and pulled out a green flannel shirt. It might be way oversize on her, but the fuzzy flannel felt really good when he tugged it on her good side.

Kneeling beside her, he moved the ice on her arm once, finally deciding it was as good as it would get. The splint just looked like a roll of foam to her, but he adjusted it and closed the Velcro fastenings. He frowned when he sat back.

“I should splint your entire arm, but unless you’re airlifted, we have to walk out of here. Plus, I don’t want the weight of your arm hanging, given the break in the clavicle.”

He used the knife on the flower shirt, making a simpler sling that went over the borrowed flannel shirt. Then he rolled the sleeves up half a dozen times, helped her sit up and gave her ibuprofen with water followed by a handful of almonds.

After he tucked the blanket back around her, Maddy saw his expression change, become flat, even hard.

“All right,” he said. “You need to tell me what’s going on. Why you’re scared. And where the wreckage is.”

Her fear blasted through that observation glass and was no longer nicely kept at a distance.

She grabbed his arm. “You can’t use the radio or the beacon. If you won’t promise, I won’t tell you where it is.”

His eyebrows rose at her challenge. “I found you. I can find it.”

Oh, dear God, she thought suddenly. “Have you already called and told anyone what happened?”

His eyes narrowed. They were gray, she’d already decided, clear and occasionally icy. “No,” he said after a minute. “No coverage.”

Maddy sagged. “A bomb brought the plane down. That’s what...” She broke off, trying to think. How much did she have to tell him? Should she still be Cassie or give him her real name? What if he didn’t believe a word she said? Not that he was the enemy; he’d been too kind, too gentle and too thorough with her. Still, he might talk to the wrong person. If she started lying now, would he know? Would he be willing to help her get out of this wilderness, just him?

He wouldn’t if she lied, that was for sure.

So she took a deep breath, which hurt, of course, and said, “One of the men with me was a US marshal. He was alive when I found him. He said it had to be a bomb, and that meant he’d been betrayed by someone in his office. Not to trust anyone there. He said somebody would show up to be sure I was dead. And that I should run.” Unable to read what this hard-faced stranger was thinking, she finished. “So I did.”

And then she held her breath, waiting for him to insist the head injury had made her delusional.

WILL DIDN’T LIKE a single thing she’d said. If she hadn’t been so obviously scared out of her skull, he’d have discounted a story so unlikely. Sure, he was climbing in the backcountry of the North Cascades when a bomb took down a plane carrying a now-dead United States marshal and a woman fleeing...who? What?

He muttered something under his breath he hoped she didn’t make out and rubbed a hand over his face. He didn’t care if he sounded brusque when he said, “You need to tell me everything.”

Now she was unhappy, showing the whites of her eyes. Either deciding how much to say or dreaming up lies.

As he waited, he watched every shifting emotion on her pinched face. For the first time it struck him that she might be pretty or even beautiful when she wasn’t injured and in shock. So much of her face was banged up, he wasn’t sure, but...she did have delicate bone structure and big, haunting eyes, mostly green-gold. Calling them hazel didn’t do the rich mix of colors justice.

She bit her lip hard enough that he almost protested, but then she started talking.

“My name is Maddy... Madeline Kane. I’m an attorney with Dietrich, McCarr and Brown in Seattle. I was sent to talk to a potential client at her home in Medina. Um, that’s on the other side—”

“I know where it is,” he interrupted. Medina was a wealthy enclave on the opposite shore of Lake Washington from the city. Was Bill Gates’s house there? He couldn’t remember for sure, but it wouldn’t be out of place.

“While I was there, I had to ask to use her restroom. I wouldn’t usually, but—” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. The thing is, I heard the doorbell ring, and the client let someone in. She screamed. I started to come out just as she said, ‘Please, I don’t understand.’” Maddy’s eyes lost focus as she went somewhere he couldn’t go. “She was on the floor, trying to scoot backward. He... I only saw him in profile. He said she was a problem for Brian Torkelson. And then he shot her. Twice. It...was sort of a coughing sound, not very loud.”

Suppressor. Tense, Will waited for the rest.

“And he said, ‘Problem solved.’ He started to turn, but—” She’d begun shivering again. “I stepped back, made it into the bathroom. If he’d walked down the hall—”

Will covered her good hand clutching the blanket to her throat with his hand. “He didn’t.”

“No.” She looked away. “I keep having dreams where I hear his footsteps approaching.”

“Yeah.” If he sounded gruff, he couldn’t help it. “That’s natural. I have nightmares, too.”

Gratitude showed in her eyes when they met his again. “Do you know who Brian Torkelson is?”

The name rang a bell as if he’d seen it in the news recently. But he had been making an effort since he got out of rehab not to follow the news, so he shook his head.

“He’s—well, he was—a Superior Court justice here in Washington. Back when this happened, he’d just been appointed to become a federal circuit court judge, which is a big deal.”

“But he had some dirty laundry.”

“Apparently.”

“And you’re the only witness.”

“Yes. I came very close to being run down in a crosswalk only a few days before Torkelson was arrested. It might have been an accident, but I don’t think so. I ended up going into hiding. I’ve spent the last year in eastern Washington, living under a different name.”

“Witness protection.”

“I haven’t talked to my family or friends in thirteen months. It’s been hard, although at least I knew it wasn’t forever.”

“So Torkelson’s trial is coming up.”

She shook her head. “Not his. The hit man’s.” She made a funny, strangled noise. “I can’t believe I’m even using that word. But I guess that’s what he is. I sat down with an artist, and the police recognized him right away.”

“That can’t be enough to convict him.”

“The police watched surveillance cameras and those ones at stoplights. I’d gotten to the window to see him drive away. I couldn’t see the license plate, but I described the car. It turned out the next-door neighbor had cameras, too. He’s a big businessman who’s really paranoid. Anyway, once they had a warrant, they got his gun.”

“Ah.” Hell. “So you’ll have to testify in two trials?”

Looking almost numb, she nodded. And that was when she got to the kicker. The dead marshal had told her not to trust anyone in his office except a friend who also served as a US marshal.

“I think I can trust the two detectives I worked with, but word might get out. I’d rather hide until I can talk to Scott’s friend.”

This was a lot to take in, but Will was reluctantly convinced. “The handgun the marshal’s?”

She bobbed her head, although doing so made her wince. “I thought I might need it.”

“Have you done any shooting at a range?”

Maddy nibbled on her lower lip again. “No, I’ve always been kind of anti-gun.”

Will’s laugh didn’t hold much humor. Man, he was lucky she hadn’t accidentally pulled that trigger.

“Good thing I do know how to use one,” he said. “I didn’t see any extra magazines in your bag. Did you grab some?”

“No. I didn’t think of it. I hated the idea of going through his pockets. It was all I could do to make myself unsnap his holster and take the gun. He had a duffel bag, too, smaller than mine, but I never found it,” Maddy concluded.

“All right.” Will rose to his feet, not surprised by the stab of pain in his left thigh and hip. It was sharper than usual, probably because he’d climbed a mountain this morning followed by the difficult traverse and downhill scramble to get here. He wasn’t done for the day, though, not even close. “We need to move,” he said. “I’d like to scavenge anything I can from the plane, and I want you tucked out of sight while I’m doing that.”

And verifying the truth of her story, given how wild it was. He didn’t really doubt her, but he wasn’t good at trusting strangers.

“I thought...here...”

He shook his head. “Nope. I spotted you from a quarter mile away. We need to descend to better tree cover.” Her attempt to hide her dismay wasn’t very effective. “I’ll help. I can carry you if I have to.”

Her chin rose. “No. I got here, I can go farther.”

BEING THIS HELPLESS was a humiliating experience. To begin with, she couldn’t even put her own boots on this time, far less tighten the laces and tie them. Either the pain had caught up with her, or the cushioning shock had begun to wear off.

Oh, heavens—would she be able to lower or pull up her pants when she needed to pee?

Prissy, she scolded herself. Well, she came by it naturally. She loved her parents, but they had been older than her friends’ parents, and acted like a much different generation, too. The idea of seeing nature in the rough wouldn’t appeal to them, that was for sure.

She tried not to sound stiff when she thanked Will.

When he boosted her to her feet, she thought for a minute she was going to pass out. She tipped forward to lean against him, her forehead pressed to a broad, solid chest.

“Give it time,” he murmured, his hand—an enormous hand—clasping her upper arm while his other arm came around her back. Maddy knew he wouldn’t let her fall.

Finally, her head quit spinning and she forced herself to straighten, separating from him. “I’m all right.”

They both knew that she wasn’t, but she’d made it this far and she could keep on doing what she needed to.

“All right.” His frowning gaze belied what he’d said. “Tell you what. I’m going to help you down then come back for my pack.”

“I can carry mine—”

“Not a chance.” He closed a zipper on her duffel and swung it over his shoulder. “Now, which way is the crash site?”

Turning her head, Maddy saw rocks and fir trees—or maybe spruce or hemlock, she didn’t know—all set on a precipitous downslope. How on earth had she made it up here? “I...don’t know,” she said after a minute. “I climbed because I thought anyone who came to the crash site would assume I headed down.”

“Good thought,” Will agreed.

“I...don’t know if I came straight up, or...” She couldn’t look at him. His air of competence made her feel more inept. She couldn’t even remember where she’d come from. “I’m sorry.”

“No.” His hand closed gently over hers. “You fell out of the sky. You hit your head and have broken bones. You should be in a hospital getting an MRI. I’m amazed that you were able to get together the supplies you needed and haul yourself up this mountain.”

“Is it a mountain?” She started to turn to look upward, but that made her dizzy again.

“Right here, just a ridge, but that way—” he pointed “—is Elephant Butte and beyond it, Luna Peak, and that way, McMillan Spire and... It doesn’t matter. Mountains everywhere.”

“I saw from the plane.” Just before that terrifying bang.

“Okay, we need to move.”

Maddy wasn’t sure she would have made it any farther without his help. At moments he braced his big booted feet and lifted her down a steep pitch. Occasionally, Will led her on a short traverse, always the same direction, she noticed, but mostly they picked their way straight down.

The trees became larger, at times cutting off her view of the sky. Not that she looked. As she had climbing, she focused on her feet, on the next step she had to make—and on Will’s hand reaching to steady her. Once they slid fifteen feet or so down a stretch of loose rocks, Will controlling her descent as well as he could. Then they went back to using spindly lower branches to clamber down.

When he stopped, she swayed in place.

“This will do,” he said.

Maddy stared dully, taking a minute to see what he had. The trees weren’t quite as stunted as they’d been above, but were still small. What he was urging her toward was a pile of boulders that must have rumbled down the precipitous slope any time from ten years ago to hundreds. The largest rested against another big one, framing an opening that wasn’t quite a cave, but was close enough.

Without a word, she crawled inside, awkward as that was to do without the use of one arm and hand. By now, she hurt so much she had no idea if this was doing more damage. Mostly, she was glad to stop—to crouch like an animal in its burrow until coming out seemed safer.

Will squatted in front of her, arranging her limbs to his liking and nudging her duffel bag into place to serve as a giant pillow.

“I want you to stay low,” he told her. “The rocks will keep you from being seen from above—the air or the ridge above—but if somebody happens to come along in the twenty yards or so below you, they might catch a glimpse. When I get back with my pack, I’ll see what I can find to hide the opening.”

Maddy nodded. “You’ll be able to find me again, won’t you?”

His smile changed his face from rough-hewn and fiercely male to warm and even sexy. “I will. I memorized some landmarks.”

“Okay.”

He reached out unexpectedly to stroke her cheek, really just the brush of his knuckles, before he stood. Two steps, and he was out of sight. She could hear him for a minute or two, no more—and she bit her lip until she tasted blood to keep herself from calling out for him, begging him not to leave her.

She hardly knew him—but somehow she had complete faith that he wouldn’t abandon her.

WILL MOVED AS fast as he could. He didn’t like leaving Maddy alone at all, but they’d need what he had in his pack. Fortunately, the ascent went smoothly, although his hip and thigh protested like the devil. Still, he swung the familiar weight of the pack onto his back, checked to be sure that they hadn’t left so much as a scrap of the packaging that had wrapped the gauze pads, and retraced his steps. Given how he was tiring, he was glad to recover his ice ax to use for support.

This time during the descent he paused several times to scan the forest with his binoculars. Raw wood caught his eye, where it appeared the tops of trees had been sheared off. Yes.

From there, he calculated the route he’d take from Maddy’s hiding place. He wished she was farther from the crash site, but still believed her hiding spot to be nearly ideal.

When he reached the rocks, he got hit by a jolt of alarm. What he could see of her face was slack, colorless but for the bruises that seemed muted in color since he left her. Was her head injury worse than he’d thought, and she’d lapsed into unconsciousness?

But then she let out a heavy sigh and crinkled her nose. She shifted a little as if seeking a more comfortable position.

Asleep. She was only asleep, and no wonder after multiple traumas.

She awakened immediately when he touched her, her instinct to shrink from him.

“You all right?”

After a tiny hesitation, she said, “I think so.”

“Good. I’m leaving my pack here and going to the crash site after I cut some fir branches to cover the opening. Unless you need to, uh, use the facilities...”

She blinked several times before she understood. “No. I’m fine.”

“All right. I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

Her hand closed on his forearm. “You won’t call for help? Or...or let anyone see you?”

“No. I promise.” He didn’t know what else he could say. It was hard to believe anyone else would show up at the site but another hiker or climber who, like him, had seen the crash and come to help.

Relieved to be unburdened by the pack, Will sliced off a few branches to disguise the opening in the rocks, then left her. He kept to a horizontal path as much as he could. He hoped the crunch of his boots on the rocky pitch wasn’t as loud as it seemed to him. When he paused to listen, all he heard was the distant ripple of one of the streams plunging toward the valley, a soft sough of wind and a few birdcalls.

He’d reached the first trees torn by metal, had seen a white scrap that could be from any part of the plane, when he heard the distinctive sound of an approaching helicopter.

Chapter Four

The roar of the rotor blades was familiar if discordant music to Will’s ears. On deployments, he’d spent too much time in the air, often hoping to scoop up wounded men and lift away without being shot down.

He ducked beneath the low-growing branches of a hemlock. Chances were good this would be a search and rescue helicopter arriving at the site in response to a phone call from someone else who saw the plane going down, but Maddy’s fear stayed with him. So did the US marshal’s prediction. Even aside from Will’s promise to her, he wouldn’t have made contact no matter who showed up at the site. For now, Maddy had to disappear.

The helicopter remained out of sight, wasn’t moving closer. Will needed to see it.

On this sharp incline, approaching without knocking rocks loose to clatter downward wasn’t easy. He did his best, knowing the helicopter made enough racket to drown out most other sounds.

He progressed to what he estimated to be fifty yards, spotting other fragments of the plane but not the cabin or wings. Between one step and the next, the black helicopter appeared between trees. With no place to land, it was hovering, as he’d expected.

Will found cover again and lifted his binoculars. From this angle, he was unable to read the FAA required numbers near the tail. He couldn’t even be sure they were there. The windshield was tinted, allowing him to see the pilot but not his face. Wearing green-and-tan camouflage, another man crouched in the open door on the side. A rope ran from it toward the ground. The guy turned and seemed to be yelling something to the pilot. Then he lowered himself, swiveled and grasped the rope. Lugging a big-ass pack on his back, he slid down the rope as if he’d done it a thousand times.

Strapped to the pack was a fully automatic machine gun, an AK-47 or the like.

Will had a dizzying moment of seeing double. The other scene had different colors. Vegetation, uniforms, even the painted skin of the helicopter, were shades of tan and brown. At the sight of enemy combatants, adrenaline flooded him and he reached for his own rifle. When his hand found nothing to close on, he blinked. Damn. That hadn’t happened in a while. He rubbed his hand over his face hard enough to pull himself back to the here and now. This wasn’t Afghanistan, but it seemed to have become a war zone anyway.

He couldn’t afford to flip out.

He continued to watch as another man reeled up the rope, waved, and the helicopter rose. It didn’t swing around to head back toward civilization, however; instead, it continued forward, a little higher above the treetops but low enough to allow the men on board to search the landscape.

The thing wouldn’t pass directly over him, but near enough. Glad to be wearing a faded green T-shirt, he pushed into the feathery branches of the nearest tree and compressed himself behind a rotting stump.

When he was sure the helicopter was receding, Will held a quick internal debate. Forward or backward? Had to be forward. He needed to know more about the men who’d been left behind at the wreckage. He had to trust that Maddy would follow his instructions, and that the pile of fir branches he’d placed to hide her would look natural from the air.