State Of Emergency

“Then why are you afraid to stand trial?”

“Innocent men and women are convicted every day.” His shoulders straightened. He stood over six feet tall, and he seemed to grow stronger by the minute. “I won’t go back to jail. I’d rather die.”

“You can’t live outside the law, Jordan.”

“Let’s go.”

This was it. Her best chance to make a run for the car. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”

She left the back bedroom and hurried toward the bathroom. She shoved the door closed with a loud slam, hoping he’d think she was inside, and palmed her car keys from her jeans pocket. Quietly, she eased toward the front door. In her heavy-soled hiking boots, total stealth was impossible, but she only had a few steps before she was outdoors. Was it enough of a headstart?

As she stepped onto the porch, Pookie bashed open the screen door. The dog bounded down the three stairs. “Moof, moof.”

From the back bedroom, Jordan called out, “Emily, what’s going on?”

Now or never! She leapt down the porch steps and raced toward the stand of Ponderosa pines where she’d parked her ancient Land Rover. Please, God, let it start on the first try!

She heard Jordan behind her but didn’t look back. Would he shoot her? The muscles between her shoulder blades tensed, expecting a bullet.

Her boots skidded on the loose gravel, costing her valuable seconds. She had to make it. The Land Rover was only ten feet away.

Her arms stretched out, reaching for the driver’s side door.

Before she touched the handle, she was tackled from behind. Jordan fell on top of her. She hit the ground hard.

With the wind knocked out of her, she couldn’t breathe. She was stunned. A tingling darkness danced in her peripheral vision. Jordan’s weight pressed down, heavy as the tons of snow in an avalanche. She was suffocating. Air. She needed air.

In an instant, he was off her. He rolled her onto her back, and she gasped. The first breath burned her lungs. She exhaled, then gulped down another breath. Her blurred vision cleared. She looked up at his face, silhouetted against overhanging pine boughs and blue sky.

He leaned over her. Closer and closer, he came. His mouth was almost touching hers. Instinctively, she wanted to close her eyes and welcome the taste of his lips joining with hers. Instead, she shoved at his chest. “What are you doing?”

“Mouth-to-mouth,” he said.

“Don’t need it.”

She gasped again, then her breathing settled. No serious damage had been done.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This shouldn’t have happened.”

None of this should be happening. Emily squeezed her eyes closed then open again, as if she could change reality with a blink. She shouldn’t be lying on the ground with an escaped convict kneeling beside her. She shouldn’t be excited about the possibility of a kiss.

This was all his fault. Why did he have to be such a sympathetic person? She would’ve felt better if he slapped her. Instead, he was gentle and apologetic.

Ignoring his own injury and pain, he helped her to her feet. She leaned against him, intensely aware of his warmth and strength. Her hand slipped inside his unbuttoned shirt as she braced herself. When she touched him, he shivered. And she knew his reaction wasn’t due to a sudden chill. It was the opposite. He was hot for her. And she felt the same way about him. A terrible magnetism drew them together. “This couldn’t be any worse.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said. “Do you hear that?”

A distant whir signalled the approach of a helicopter. Emily should have guessed that the chopper pilot, Harrison Perry, would fly by and check on her. They’d worked together on several S.A.R. missions. Last winter, they’d gone out on a couple of dates.

Jordan hustled her back inside the house. He turned her toward him and held her arms, forcing her to look directly at him. “Quick. Tell me about the chopper.”

“A police helicopter. The pilot is a friend of mine. He checks up on me.”

“What do you usually do when he flies over?”

“I step outside and wave.”

The noise of the rotary blades racheted loudly. He was hovering over her cabin. Outside, Pookie danced an enthusiastic but clumsy puppy welcome.

Jordan peered deeply into her face. His dark eyes glowed hot as charcoal embers. “I’m not a killer.”

“But the evidence—”

“If I’m recaptured, a great injustice will be done. Please, Emily, give me this chance.”

“I want to believe you.” The noise from the chopper was deafening.

“Go outside and let the pilot see you’re all right.”

She nodded.

“Emily.” His voice was low and intense as he stepped away from her and took the gun from his waistband. He didn’t need to state his threats. The presence of the weapon was reminder enough. “You hold my life in your hands.”

Emily went onto the porch. Now was her chance to turn him in. She could easily signal Harrison Perry, letting him know she was in trouble. She could scream. She could make a thumbs-down gesture. He’d find a place to land and radio to the sheriff. Deputies would surround them. This ordeal would be over.

But what if Jordan truly was innocent? What if he’d been framed for a murder he did not commit? His escape attempt might be the last nail in his coffin. The death penalty was seldom used in Colorado, but life in prison was worse. She imagined Jordan being locked away forever with shackles on his wrists and ankles. How could she do that to him? She was a nurse. Her life was dedicated to nurturing.

She stood outside her cabin with Pookie at her side. The dog’s liquid brown eyes seemed to accuse her. Don’t do this to him. She looked up at the chopper and felt her lips pull back in a false smile. The downdraft from the rotary blades swirled around her. Her arm lifted and she waved. For good measure, she made an O with her thumb and forefinger to let Harrison know she was okay.

He waved back. Then, like a giant dragonfly, the police helicopter moved away. He hovered low, searching the wooded landscape for an escaped convict, searching for Jordan. The noise faded to stillness as she stood, unmoving. Possibly, she’d just made the biggest mistake of her life.

She heard Jordan approach. He said, “You did the right thing.”

That remained to be seen. “Harrison will report that everything is okay in this area. It’ll give you a little more time for your escape.”

“It’ll give us more time.”

When she turned, Emily saw that Jordan was already wearing his backpack. In his hand, he held a length of nylon rope which he looped over her head like a lasso and cinched around her waist.

“What’s this?” she demanded.

“Insurance,” he said. “In case your conscience needs a little reminder.”

Furious, she yanked at the rope. “A leash! You’ve got me on a leash!”

“It’s no use in tugging, Emily. This is a fisherman’s knot. On a double rope like this, you won’t be able to untie it because the other ends are attached to my belt.”

“I hate this!”

“Too bad,” he said. “I need both hands free for climbing, so I can’t carry the gun. But I need some way to control you.”

After everything she’d done for him—treating his wounds and chasing away the chopper—he repaid her with a rope. To control her. She wanted to tell him off, but Emily was utterly incoherent with rage.

Since she had no alternative, she stomped back toward the house and maneuvered into her backpack. She’d been a fool not to signal the chopper. She wouldn’t make that mistake again. On the trail, she’d take her revenge. This wouldn’t be an easy hike in the mountains and she would definitely leave a trail.

With adrenaline pumping, she left the house and set out toward the open field at an aggressive pace. The rope pulled her up short and she whirled around. “Now what?”

“We should stay under the cover of the trees until nightfall. Your friend with the chopper might be back.”

“Fine,” she snarled.

“I suggest we head in a roughly northeastern direction,” Jordan said. “Back toward Aspen.”

“That’s about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Everybody’s going to be looking for you in Aspen. Why would you want to take that risk?”

“Investigation,” he said.

“Of what?” She’d just about had it with his cryptic responses. Even if he didn’t think she’d understand his logic, she deserved to know what was going on inside his head. “Tell me, Jordan. Just what do you think you’re going to investigate in Aspen?”

“I’m going to find out who murdered my wife.”

AFTER TWO HOURS and twenty minutes of hiking, Jordan ached in every cell of his body. The gunshot wound in his arm was nothing compared to the screaming muscles in his thighs and lower back. The tight throb of the stitches in his face penetrated his cheekbones and spread across his skull. Though he’d been in the high country for a couple of months and had acclimated to the altitude, his lungs couldn’t suck enough oxygen from the thin mountain air.

It didn’t help that Emily chose consistently uphill routes or that she purposely pushed back tree branches and allowed them to snap back at him. Though she claimed to hate the rope that tied them together, she yanked at the cord every five minutes, sending a jolt through his midsection.

Still, Jordan hadn’t complained. Neither he nor Emily had spoken for over half an hour.

The only one who seemed happy about their cross-country trek was Pookie. The dog bounded ahead of them, scrambling over rocks and darting through the firs. The dog suddenly froze, alert and watching. Had he seen something? Were the searchers approaching?

“Hold it,” Jordan said.

“Why?” Emily halted and turned toward him. An evil grin spread across her lovely face. “Are you tired?”

Damn right! But he’d never admit weakness to her. “Pookie sees something.”

The hairs on Pookie’s back stood up, then he charged through the trees. His bark was different, deeper. “Whooo-whoo-woof.”

“What’s that mean?” Jordan whispered. “Why’s he making that kind of noise?”

“I don’t speak dog,” she said archly.

He directed her toward the cover of a prickly shrub and ducked down. Clumsily, he retrieved the gun from his backpack. Truly, this pistol was a peashooter. With a.22 caliber automatic, he couldn’t trust his aim at any distance. But it was better than nothing.

“Moof.” Pookie bounded back toward them, almost strutting. The pup looked real proud of himself.

“What was it, boy?” Emily grinned at the dog. “A vicious chipmunk? An evil deer?”

Pookie gave a full-body wiggle.

“Nothing to worry about,” she said. “Unless you’re afraid of being recaptured by an army of rabid tree squirrels.”

Easy for her to say. Emily wanted to be found.

Jordan thanked his lucky stars for her momentary lapse into kindness when she’d waved the helicopter away. His escape could have been over at that moment, but she’d saved him. He didn’t expect that sympathy again.

“Ready?” she challenged.

“Let’s make tracks.”

She set out at a fast pace, and he was hard-pressed to match her speed. Her energy amazed him. Surefooted as a bighorn sheep in Kletter boots, she hiked higher and higher on slender, almost nonexistent forest trails. Uphill, dammit, always uphill.

He wished he had a pair of hiking boots like hers. Jordan’s shoes were cheap, canvas, prison-issue sneakers that offered little traction and no protection against the rocks he constantly tripped over. But there was another lack in his mountain climbing gear that worried him more. He didn’t have a jacket.

Though Emily owned a warehouse of camping supplies, including two sleeping bags, she wasn’t prepared with a parka in his size. Come nightfall, Jordan was going to be mighty chilly. By God, he hated these mountains. The climate was cold and arid, inhospitable to human life. Rugged terrain gave him no pleasure. The jagged spires of rock were teeth waiting to tear into his flesh.

Stumbling again, he stared down at the dry bed of pine needles below his feet. In the fall, there wasn’t much green in these forests, and it wasn’t the brilliant tropical green he was accustomed to seeing in Florida. Colorado’s palette ranged from khaki to the army drab of pine and spruce.

A tug on the rope told him they were headed uphill. Again. He glanced up toward Emily. Since she was leading the way, he should’ve had ample time to admire the fit of her snug Levi’s, but Jordan was denied even that small diversion. From the rear, she looked like a big red backpack with legs.

Finally, they reached a pinnacle on a high ridge. There was no more up. Finally, they’d be hiking downhill.

The first few steps felt good. The change in muscle groups refreshed him. After they’d covered a couple hundred yards and entered an aspen grove, his legs turned to rubber. He couldn’t control his momentum. The space between them shortened. He was only an arm’s length away from her backpack.

Then, inexplicably, Emily stopped short.

“No!” He barely dodged around her. But he couldn’t stop. His equilibrium was off. Flailing, he crashed through the slender white tree trunks. The rope pulled taut, and Jordan went down flat on his back.

Emily followed, almost tumbling. In an amazing display of agility, she stayed on her feet.

Half-stunned and totally exhausted, Jordan looked up through the aspen boughs. His wounds throbbed, but he willed the pain away. In the fading light of dusk, the air took on a golden hue. The leaves trembled delicately like a shower of golden coins, nature’s wealth. Numbly, he said, “It’s beautiful.”

She squatted beside him. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen an aspen before.”

“Only from a distance, and I never understood why you people get so excited about a couple of yellow trees.”

“You don’t really appreciate Colorado, do you?”

“’Fraid not.” Jordan was a southern boy, born in Atlanta where the lush hardwood forests were far more forgiving than the stern, rugged Rockies. Even then, Georgia’s hilly terrain had been too much for him. All those trees felt claustrophobic. On the Gulf coast of Florida, he found wide vistas and open space, palm trees and sultry, ocean-scented air.

He inhaled a deep breath. The cool breeze smelled fresh and earthy. And the gold shimmered all around him.

When he looked up at Emily, hovering over him like an angel, her face seemed to glow. Her curly blond ponytail glistened like warm honey. She wasn’t strikingly beautiful, not like Lynette. Emily was the sort of woman who might be overlooked in a crowd, but when you noticed her, you knew you’d discovered a hidden treasure.

She clambored to her feet and dusted off her jeans. Disdainfully, she said, “If you think you can make it that far, there’s a stream up ahead.”

“Okay.” He forced his legs to move.

Beside the trickling stream which was only a few feet wide, they shed their backpacks and sat side by side on a wide weathered rock. Though Jordan was still enjoying the golden leaves, he felt a warning chill in the air. The sun was about to dip behind the mountains. He started to pull off his shoes, thinking how good the cold, clear stream water would feel on his ten stubbed toes.

“Don’t,” she said.

“Why not? My feet are killing me.”

“On a hike, it’s always better to keep your feet dry. Besides, putting your shoes back on again will be sheer agony.” She groaned. “I don’t know why I bothered to tell you. You deserve the pain.”

Her job was healing. He didn’t think she’d willingly allow suffering. “What’s that motto for S.A.R.?”

“…That Others May Live.” She glared at him. “But I don’t think it applies to escaped convicts.”

He called on her wisdom again. “I know you’re carrying a little water purifier in your pack. Is it safe to drink from the stream?”

She shrugged. “You take your chances.”

But Jordan followed her example, taking a swig of lukewarm liquid from the canteen in his backpack. Not as satisfying as scotch and soda, but it was liquid. With all this exertion, keeping hydrated was important.

Pookie, on the other hand, seemed to think the Rocky Mountain spring water was just fine. The pup splashed through the glistening ripples.

“Pookie!” Emily reprimanded. “Get out of there.”

“Moof, woof.” He slipped on a rock and got completely drenched.

“How am I ever going to train him?” Emily asked.

“Leave him be. He’s just a pup.”

“But he needs to start learning now or he’ll never be any use as a rescue dog.”

“I understand about working dogs,” Jordan said. This was the closest they’d come to a conversation, and he wanted to prolong the moment, to win her trust. “When I was a kid, I had a bluetick hound that I trained for weeks to be a good hunting dog.”

“Do you hunt?”

“Not anymore,” he said. “Do you?”

“No, but I have two older brothers who used to go hunting all the time. I’d go with them.” But Emily had never taken pleasure in stalking and shooting. “I’d patch them up when they sprained their ankles or cut themselves with their hunting knives.”

“You liked nursing even when you were a kid.”

“It comes naturally.” In spite of her warrior heritage, she didn’t need to kill anything. She carried on the family tradition by being a healer, just as her father had taken on the job of medic before he was killed in Vietnam.

She watched as Jordan dug into his backpack, pulled out the walkie-talkie and tuned to the police band radio. Listening to the static dispatches, he stretched out on the rock and stared up into the quaking aspen leaves. Though she considered his hatred for the mountains to be a damning quality, she couldn’t quite believe he was a murderer.

Still, she removed the package of tissues from her pocket and tore off a small piece which she dropped to the ground. All along their route, she’d been leaving markers which Jordan was too preoccupied to notice.

“I have a question for you,” she said. “If you despise the mountains so much, how did you end up married to a woman from Aspen?”

“We met while she was on vacation in the Florida Keys, had a whirlwind courtship and got married before we figured out that we didn’t have a single thing in common.”

“Opposites attract,” Emily said.

“But they don’t stay together for long. We were married for two years and probably lived in the same house for only two months of that time.”

“The newspapers said you were going to ask her for a divorce.”

“That was why I came to Aspen,” he said. His lack of apparent emotion seemed odd. The newspaper reports had hinted that Jordan’s motive for killing his wife was passion. “Did you still love her?”

“Not love. Not hate.” He stretched the muscles in his back. “There weren’t any strong emotions left.”

“And you asked for the divorce?”

“That’s right.”

“What did she say?”

“She agreed. It was all real civilized and calm. But she asked me to wait a month so she could clear up some kind of financial problem with her estate.”

If Emily eliminated passion as a motive, it had to be the money. Lynette Afton-Shane was a multi-millionaire who owned two ski lodges and prime real estate. Even by Aspen standards, her wealth would be considered impressive. “How much do you inherit?”

“We had a prenuptial agreement that gave each of us ten percent of the other’s estate.”

“In Lynette’s case, that might be a million dollars,” Emily said.

“I really don’t know,” Jordan said. “I wasn’t in her class financially, but I do okay. I have my own computer hardware manufacturing company in Florida with twenty-seven employees.” And Emily remembered that he’d written the ten-thousand-dollar contribution to S.A.R. on his own account. Jordan certainly didn’t project the image of someone who needed to kill for the inheritance.

He bolted to a sitting posture on the rock, concentrating hard on the reports from the police band radio. “They’re coming closer to Cascadia. Do you have those maps, Emily?”

She reached into a zippered pocket on her backpack and pulled out three different maps.

He unfolded the worn paper and studied the detailed terrain which included topography and landmarks as well as roads. Though Emily wasn’t good at map-reading, she had an innate sense of direction in the mountains that seldom led her astray.

“Does this stream have a name?” he asked.

“I don’t think so. It’s too small.”

“But you’ve been here before,” he said. “You knew there was a stream at the bottom of the hill.”

“I knew because I heard the rushing water,” Emily explained. “Plus, we’re at the base of a slope, and the presence of aspens generally indicates that the water table lies close to the surface.”

He pinpointed their location on the map. “I’d say we’re about here.”

Pookie bounced up to them, paused and shook himself, sending out a spray of ice-cold stream water.

“Not on the map,” Jordan said. “Geez, Pookie. Get a grip.”

“You were the one who didn’t think he needed training,” Emily reminded him as she corralled the wet dog in her arms, then pushed his butt to the ground. “Sit, boy.”

“Moof,” Pookie said.

Jordan’s attention returned to the map. “Pretty soon, it’s going to be too dark for the helicopters to search. We need to stay far away from the roads.” He pointed to a small black rectangle that didn’t seem too far from their location. “What does this represent?”

“A warming hut for hikers and cross-country skiers.”

“Warming hut?”

She explained, “It’s a small cabin that people can use if they get stuck in bad weather. It may be a good place for us to spend the night.”

His eyes narrowed. “It also might be the first place for searchers to look. The sheriff’s department has maps like this, don’t they?”

She nodded but didn’t offer any advice. When it came to the bottom line, Emily didn’t want to aid in his escape. Jordan’s guilt or innocence was for the courts to decide.

To ensure somebody figured out that he’d taken her and Pookie with him, she’d left a trail from her cabin that a blind man could follow. At every opportunity, she’d broken branches off trees and trampled shrubs as well as dropping shreds of tissue and all the change from her pockets.

“It’s going to get cold tonight,” Jordan said, watching her for a reaction. “And I don’t have a jacket.”

Her recommendation would be to risk staying in the shelter of the warming hut and avoid the potential danger of hypothermia. But she said nothing.

“I need a good night’s sleep,” he said. “And time to recover from my injuries.”

Again, he assumed correctly.

Jordan asked, “How far to the warming hut?”

“A few hours if we stay under the trees. Less time if we step out in the open.”

“With your bright red backpack marking our location like a signal flare,” he said bitterly. “It’s a chance I’ll have to take. We’ll go by the most direct route.”

He tucked away the maps, rose to his feet and shouldered his backpack, flinching slightly as the strap brushed his wounded arm. His ability to endure painful injuries without a single complaint was impressive, but Emily refused to acknowledge any positive attribute in Jordan Shane. She didn’t want to like him and certainly wouldn’t help him.

He led the way from the aspen grove into a wide-open field of dried buffalo grass and weeds. With virtually no cover, they’d be visible from half a mile away. If there were search parties in the area, they’d be spotted.

Apparently, Jordan had realized the same probability because he came to a halt. He threw an arm in front of her. “Don’t move.”

Emily looked down. Three feet away, a snake slithered off a sun-warmed rock at the edge of the path. A snake! Adrenaline shot through her veins. God, she hated snakes! Oh God!

Chapter Three

Seconds after Jordan noticed the snake—which was only three feet long and probably a docile, nonpoisonous variety—three things happened simultaneously. The reptile vanished in the high grass. Emily let out a shriek louder than an air-raid siren. And she leapt in a gravity-defying vertical jump, about three feet in the air.