Spirit Of A Hunter

Her mouth opened, greedy for air. And she had nothing. No money, no family, no job.

She’d seen him break more than one person to get what he wanted—starting with his own wife and children. She couldn’t leave Scotty alone to be raised by such a hard man.

She rolled through the gate and shuddered. Once past the corner of the property, the concrete holding her shoulders stiff and high cracked, releasing them, and her breathing became freer. She’d often wondered if Scotty’s asthma was related more to the caustic air in the mansion than to inflamed lungs.

At the stop at the end of Camden Road, she hesitated, her foot tap, tapping the brakes. Tommy, where are you?

Band on the Run. Route 66. Deep Water. Graceland. Talking Heads: 77. What are you trying to say?

The blast of a horn behind her jolted her in her seat. She signaled a right and, after checking both ways, turned. She searched all the places Tommy liked to take Scotty. The ice-cream parlor on Juniper Street. The school playground off Red Barn Road. The pet store on Woodpecker Lane.

By lunchtime, she’d looked in every park and playground of Camden, at every trailhead, at every boat ramp, and she hadn’t spotted Tommy’s battered Jeep. He wasn’t answering his cell phone and, according to his boss, he’d cashed in his two weeks of vacation time.

What if, as the titles suggested, he’d run? Ice doused her veins. No, he wouldn’t do that, not knowing how much it would hurt her. He’d have included her in any escape plan. He knew Scotty was her life.

Unless.

The rock of her heart sank to her shoes and a cold sweat soaked her through.

Hadn’t Tommy said that the Colonel had first shipped him out to military boarding school at eleven? And military school hadn’t suited Tommy—just as it wouldn’t suit Scotty. If he was off his meds, then Tommy could become fixated on saving Scotty.

Cold seeped into her bones, clacked her teeth. What if he was headed to California and planned to hide with Scotty—as far away from the Colonel as he could get?

You should have talked to me, Tommy. The Colonel and I have an agreement. No boarding schools. Ever.

Bent over the steering wheel, peering out the windshield for any sign of her son, she inched on White Mountain Road along the Flint River. She cranked up the heat and the radio. She wasn’t panicked. Not yet. “Tommy, please help me.”

“Burning Down the House” by the Talking Heads blasted over the speakers. Her brain fired with a bright light, and she bobbled the steering wheel, lurching toward the rain-swollen river. She jammed on the brakes, crunching on the shoulder’s gravel, and part of Tommy’s message became clear. “Oh, no, Tommy. What have you done?”

Chapter Two

Nora braked to a halt on the gravel shoulder. On the other side of the car, the Flint River pulsed and pounded over its rocky bottom in perfect imitation of Nora’s gushing thoughts.

Talking in code had been the only way to communicate certain things while living under the Colonel’s prying eyes. Talking Heads—telephone. 77—the last two digits of the emergency number Tommy had given her in one of his delusional phases. Her hands shook on the steering wheel, and she gripped it harder.

If you’re ever in trouble, Nora, Tommy had said, instructing her to memorize the number in blue ink he printed on her forearm. Call this number. Next to you, Sabriel’s the only person in the world I trust. He’ll help you. He owes me.

Sabriel Mercer. Tommy’s best friend. Anna’s husband. One of the unfortunate victims of the Colonel’s vengeful bent. He’d been Tommy’s best man at their wedding. That was the one and only time she’d met him. They’d barely exchanged more than a few words. She couldn’t even bring up a clear picture of the man other than dark and brooding—a little scary, actually, with those feral green eyes peering out of the shadows of the room. The ex-Ranger seemed alone even in the roomful of acquaintances Tommy had gathered to witness their exchange of vows—an event unsanctioned by the Colonel. She’d had no idea the flak that would cause once he heard the news.

She didn’t know much else about Sabriel Mercer, except that something had happened to him and Tommy at Ranger School, something that Tommy would never talk about. Something that had changed them both.

And if Tommy was asking her to call Sabriel Mercer for help, something was terribly wrong.

The mountains spread out in front of her in an endless vista. The rusty blanket of dying autumn leaves faded to blue and purple in the distance. Centuries of wind and rain had sculpted the granite and trees. Those mountains were both an awe-inspiring beauty and a treacherous territory that swallowed up hikers like sacrificial offerings. They were the only place Tommy had ever felt at home. The only place his broken spirit could rest.

A sinking feeling weighed her down into the seat, making it impossible to breathe. Band on the Run. Like he had that summer with Sabriel when they were fifteen? If he’d sought refuge in the mountains, then she would never find him, and the Colonel would win. Scotty would lose his father, and she would lose another foothold in directing Scotty’s upbringing.

Her chest stuttered. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t go into those mountains and hope to find her son. Not alone. She didn’t even know where to start.

But Sabriel would.

The tightness holding her breath hostage released a finger of its hold. Sabriel had wandered those mountains with Tommy. He might know what Route 66, Deep Water and Graceland stood for. He’d know where to look. He’d know where to find Tommy before the Colonel’s trackers did. And if she brought Scotty home instead of the hired muscle, then the Colonel would have to respect the status quo.

The tires squealed as Nora pulled a U-turn in the middle of White Mountain Road and pointed the car toward Camden. She’d grown paranoid over the years and was sure the Colonel somehow monitored her cell phone as well as her social calendar and her food intake. After all, she was a Camden and Camdens were expected to behave in a certain manner.

She piloted the car to the local gas station—a lowly place the Colonel would never frequent—and parked in front of the convenience store. The crazed ding-ding-ding of the open car door chased her to the pay phone. The expectant hiss of the receiver added to the static of her mind. Squeezing her eyes closed, she brought up the image of Tommy inking Sabriel’s number on her forearm. She fed coins into the machine, dialed and waited, biting her lower lip, while the number rang and rang and rang.

“Mercer.”

Nora jumped at the terse sound of the voice. “Tommy’s friend?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Nora Camden.” She wriggled her body until she faced the parking lot and Main Street, scanning both for signs of the Colonel’s men. “Tommy told me that if I was ever in trouble, I should call this number.”

Silence. Had the line died? “Mr. Mercer?”

“Are you in trouble?”

She scraped her fingernails along her scalp, pulling her hair tight when she reached the crown of her head. “Yes. No. I mean, Tommy’s in trouble.” She puffed out a breath. “He took our son. If the Colonel finds him before I do, he’ll take Scotty away from me, and he’ll deny Tommy visitations forever. You know how the Colonel is. No give. Those visitations mean the world to Tommy. He needs them as much as Scotty.”

More deafening silence.

Nora cradled the receiver with both hands. “Mr. Mercer? Are you there? If Tommy’s off his meds, then Scotty could be in danger, too.”

Still no response. But in the background, a voice intoned some sort of incantation.

“Scotty has asthma,” Nora continued, compelled to plead her case. Surely Sabriel wouldn’t be heartless enough to let a sick boy die. “He left with an inhaler that’s almost empty. I need to get his medicine to him. If he has an attack out there, he could die.”

Her top teeth sank into her bottom lip and drew blood. He doesn’t care. Tommy was wrong. Sabriel wasn’t going to pay his debt. She blinked back the tears scoring at her eyes. “I think he’s planning on hiding Scotty from the Colonel. I think he thinks he’s helping Scotty. I think he’s gone into the mountains.”

“Was there a note?”

“Yes.”

“Read everything on the paper.”

She did, even describing the drawing of the moose.

“I’ll find him,” Sabriel said with a certainty she envied.

“I’m coming with you.”

“No.”

“Scotty needs his medicine. It’s cold out there, and cold is one of his triggers.” So was anxiety. She couldn’t help the desperation crowding her voice.

“I work alone.”

“Do you know what it’s like to not be able to breathe? He’s just a little boy, and those attacks scare him.”

Her body straightened against the hard skeleton of the phone cubicle. She was going with him. She needed to know Scotty was all right. She had to get Sabriel to come to her.

A cheer erupted in the background, drowning out Sabriel’s nerve-shredding silence.

“I can’t go back to the estate,” Nora continued, voice strong with resolve. “Not without Scotty. The Colonel’ll use my failure as ammunition to take more control over Scotty. I can’t let that happen. I can’t let him turn Scotty into another Tommy.” She flinched at the put-down of her ex-husband. She wasn’t the manipulative type. At least not usually. But if she didn’t stand up for Scotty, who would?

“Where are you?” Sabriel finally asked.

For the first time since she’d found the note, a sense of hope rose up to calm her. She was not alone. Somebody understood. Somebody would help her find Scotty. “I’m at a pay phone at a gas station in Camden.”

“Were you followed?”

Her gaze darted and flitted at the passing traffic on Main Street. Pickup trucks, SUVs and beaters in various stages of decomposition trundled by, but no black Hummer like those driven by the Colonel’s security staff. “I don’t think so.”

“Do you know where Black Swan Lake is?”

“North of Camden. But he’s not there. I’ve already checked the boat ramps.”

“There’s a camp on the west side of the lake. The Lemire Adventure Camp.”

Could finding him really be that easy? A pressure valve of release sagged her against the phone. “You think that’s where Tommy went?”

“No. A friend of mine runs it. I’ll meet you there.”

“How long will it take you to get to the camp?”

“An hour.”

An hour was a lifetime when you couldn’t breathe. “How long before you can find them?”

“Depends on their head start.”

The small thread of hope unraveled. She had no idea what time they’d left the estate. Would Tommy have made Scotty hike in the dark? That sounded so dangerous. How far could he get with a ten-year-old in tow?

The pulse of time running out ticked much too loudly in her brain. Find him. Find Scotty. Find him now. Today. Before night fell again. Night always made Scotty’s symptoms worse. “Hurry.”

SABRIEL CORNERED Falconer as he was leaving the church. Departing guests created a buzz that wavered through the high-ceilinged vestibule and grated against Sabriel’s already raw nerves. “I need some time off.”

Falconer hiked an eyebrow in question.

“Personal,” Sabriel said.

Although Falconer knew about Ranger School, about Anna, about the Colonel, Sabriel’s fingers twitched on the live wire of his shame. He couldn’t hide anything that was on record from the man who’d given him more than one second chance. But Falconer didn’t know about Tommy or the experiment gone wrong. Or the pact they’d made at fifteen to always watch each other’s backs.

Sabriel couldn’t let Tommy charge into a suicide mission. The Colonel was too strong for the broken man his friend had become. And Nora was right. He couldn’t allow the Colonel to turn Scotty into another Tommy. He owed his friend that much.

Falconer grinned. “Trying to get out of the reception?”

Sabriel shook his head, though missing the shindig would be a bonus. Answering the same curious questions about his mixed heritage made him feel like a gorilla in a cage. He loved every branch of his crazy family tree—Japanese, Irish, Abenaki and French Canadian. He just didn’t like discussing them.

“Everything okay with the family?” Falconer asked as if he’d been reading his mind.

“Something I have to take care of.”

Falconer’s eyebrows met in the center of his forehead. “How much time?”

“A week, tops. Harper can take the lead on the Carter case. Smuggling’s up his alley.”

“You haven’t missed a single day of work since you signed up with Seekers eight months ago. Not even after you broke your wrist and ankle tracking the piece of garbage who tried to kill Liv. Or when you were with the Marshals Service.”

Falconer’s keen gaze sliced into him, jabbing past the tough skin to the tender organs. Sabriel stood unmoving, gaze locked with Falconer’s, unflinching. Time off would have given him too much time to think. And some questions, he’d discovered, shouldn’t be answered.

“You’re overdue,” Falconer said.

Sabriel nodded once, relief calmed his juiced muscles.

“If there’s anything we can do,” Falconer said, “we’re here for you.”

The rest of the Seekers would stand by him, though he’d never given them a reason to. And that counted for more than he could admit out loud. Though he was loathe to ask for a favor, with the Colonel involved, Nora could be in danger. “A friend might need a safe house.”

“Call.”

Sabriel nodded, thankful Seekers had found him and given a purpose to his empty days. He cast a glance Reed and Abbie’s way, and a flash of Anna—head thrown back, laughing—leaked out of its locked memory box. Frowning, he squeezed it back in. “Give them my apologies.”

“I will.” Falconer’s curious gaze followed him out of the church, but Sabriel dismissed it. Falconer would give him space—no questions asked. That trust was why Sabriel was still at Seekers.

He pulled into the dirt drive leading to his half-finished log cabin in Harrisville in less than fifteen minutes. A record, even for him. He changed into hiking gear and grabbed the rucksack he kept at the ready.

Wait for me, Anna. The remembered plea in his voice was smoke in his brain. A slap of nausea rammed his shoulder into the wall, stopping his mad dash, leaving him panting. Anna, studying the sea, appeared on the screen of his mind. Her long blond hair whipped over her face in a silky veil. Always a little part of her hidden from him, just out of reach…

“I’ll be there tomorrow.”

“There’s a storm coming in,” she said, and he could hear tight despair in her voice. “I need to get the dive in before the rain hits. The sponsors—”

“Can damn well wait. I’m your safety diver.”

“I’ve got a whole crew to take care of me.”

The nausea swelled, lacing his throat with acid.

This wasn’t Anna. He wasn’t half a world away. He’d get to Tommy in time.

Don’t think. Don’t feel. Just do.

Swallowing down the bitter bile, he pushed himself off the wall. From a temporary metal pantry he extracted enough freeze-dried meals to last a week. As he filled his water bladder, his thoughts drifted to Nora’s call.

He couldn’t place the fear-sharpened voice on the phone with the beaming face of the woman who’d walked down the aisle on Tommy’s arm and made him look happier than Sabriel had ever seen him. Watching Nora spin around the dance floor with Tommy, her brown hair with its golden light flying around her, her bright laughter more melodious than the music playing in the background, Sabriel could see why Tommy had fallen for her, and he’d been glad for his friend. And when he’d noticed the old-soul scars in Nora’s golden-brown eyes, he’d wished them both the happiness they deserved.

Sabriel stashed the water bladder in its rucksack pocket. He knew about Scotty, knew about the divorce, knew about the peace Tommy had found as an outfitter for a local resort from yearly birthday e-mails. But they hadn’t talked to each other since the wedding. Too much pain. Too much guilt.

He booted up the computer in search of a weather update and a bird’s-eye view of the mountains. Snow wasn’t unheard of at this time of the year, and he wanted to be prepared. The rain had broken, for now, but another wave was due by the end of the week. How long could it take to track down Tommy? No more than a day or two. The kid had to slow him down.

Sabriel figured that Tommy had gone to one of three places—Goose Neck Mountain, Mount Storm or Pilgrim’s Peak. But if Tommy was smart, he’d avoid the obvious and head for new territory. The Colonel still had trackers at his bellow, and like an elephant, he never forgot. The mountains would be the first place he’d look for Tommy, especially Mount Storm, where his trackers had found them at the end of their stolen summer.

Clicking over to the White Mountain National Forest site, Sabriel wondered for the millionth time what he could have done differently. As always, the stack of possibilities clashed against a blank wall of reality.

He forced himself to focus on the loading Web page. Heavy rain in the past week had swollen streams and saturated the soil. Water crossings, trails and gravel roads could be difficult or dangerous to negotiate, according to the hiker’s warning on the home page.

Was Tommy off his meds? Was his judgment impaired? Taking a sick kid on such a rough hike, what was he thinking?

The only way to know Tommy’s ultimate destination was to follow the clues he’d left behind. The Smiling Moose was a café halfway between Camden and I-93. 66 was 6.6 miles past the café to the trailhead off White Mountain Road where the Flint River took a sharp jog out of the mountains. And Graceland was the whole damned White Mountain National Forest—780,000 acres of pure wilderness.

Sabriel loaded his biodiesel-powered Jeep and smiled at the memory of Tommy at fifteen, so eager to be free. When Will Daigle—the mountain man who’d taught him and Tommy to survive invisibly in the mountains—had told them about the songlines many ancient navigators used to orient themselves, Tommy had mistaken the meaning and fallen back on his vast knowledge of music to keep track of his place in the woods. Their shared joke would help keep the Colonel’s men stranded for a while. That should give Sabriel a chance to find Tommy before he got himself killed.

But just because he was willing to trek after Tommy, didn’t mean he’d let an inexperienced hiker tag along. Nora would slow him down and speed was of the essence. He’d get the kid’s medicine, make her see that he’d get to Tommy faster if he tracked alone, then stash her at the Aerie—Seekers, Inc.’s headquarters—where Falconer and Liv could keep an eye on her.

He pocketed his cell phone, a hunting knife and, as an afterthought, climbed to the loft and retrieved the 9mm Beretta he’d stashed in a locker beneath the camp cot. He turned the weapon over in his hand, heavy with potentiality, black like death.

Once when Sabriel was twelve, he’d complained to Grandpa Yamawashi that he couldn’t hold his ground against his bigger, stronger brothers, and wished he had a gun or a knife to up his odds. Grandpa had said, “The greatest warrior is one who never has to use his sword.”

In the Army, an unspoken but understood position was that the winner carried the bigger gun. The Colonel and his men lived by that belief. Risking a showdown unarmed was suicide.

And as much as guilt was a noose around his conscience, he wanted to face death on his terms, not the Colonel’s.

Sabriel holstered the pistol and strapped it on. The alien weight jarred his gait. He added two extra fifteen-round magazines to his rucksack, fervently hoping he’d find Tommy before he had to draw.

THOMAS PRESCOTT CAMDEN III stood at the window of his office and surveyed his realm. His chest puffed up at the sense of history and achievement spread out before him. Generations had turned this parcel of rocky land into a showpiece, with its artful gardens, manicured lawn and hand-stacked granite wall.

One fist balled at his side.

What an ungrateful grandson he had. How could he turn his back on all the advantages that had been laid at his feet? Didn’t he know men would kill for what was handed to him on a golden platter?

Nora’s fault, of course. She was too soft on the boy, always coddling him, petting him, hugging him. How was the boy supposed to grow a spine that way?

Thomas, like all Camdens, had been raised in a heritage of ambition, success and expectations. Camden men went to West Point. Camden men joined the Army and shone through Ranger school. Camden men retired from stellar military service to their country after twenty years, then, with pride, took over the helm of Camden Laboratories, and continued their service to their brothers at arms by developing products and supplements that would ease a soldier’s hard life.

Camden men had founded this town—which bore their name—over a hundred years ago. There they were kings, respected by all. Producing a male heir to follow in their footsteps was a Camden man’s duty and honor.

Thomas had followed the preordained path. He’d lived up to and surpassed every expectation. He’d done everything right.

A too-familiar rumble growled in his chest. To have his son prove a failure and his daughter die before she could give him a grandson was hard enough to take. But to have this woman—a street urchin, no less—ruin his last chance to pass on his legacy galled him to no end.

She’d destroyed Tommy’s bright future, and now she was using Tommy to steal away his only grandchild. The balled fist rattled the window frame. He refused to let her win this battle.

His narrowed gaze zeroed in on the bronze of the original Thomas Prescott Camden, sword raised in victory, and Thomas’s fist unclenched.

The boy’s weakness would disappear once his smothering mother was out of the way. All the boy needed was a firm hand, the right training, some toughening up. There was still time to save him from Tommy’s unfortunate fate. Tommy had failed because of his own feckless character, not because of a transfer of defective genes.

And Anna? What else could you expect from a woman? They weren’t meant for the battlefield of business. That she’d crumpled at the first sign of conflict wasn’t a surprise. It was his error in judgment for thinking that Camden blood made her different.

As for Nora, she needed to learn that, when it came to Camden family business, his word was law. She’d defied him for the last time.

Thomas spun on a perfectly polished heel to face Melvyn Boggs, who stood at attention before the original Colonel’s desk. Boggs was his greatest success story. Thomas had handpicked him right out of Ranger School—the same class his son had failed so miserably.

At thirty-six the soldier’s body was harder and fitter than most men a decade younger in this spoiled generation. Only the lean, sun-baked face betrayed the hours of training in the harsh elements. The man had nerves of steel and a mind as sharp as the keenest of blades. The experiment that had corrupted Tommy’s gray matter had enhanced Boggs’s fine instrument. No mission was too stressful. No task too arduous. No environment too severe. Boggs would follow orders without question.

“Find her,” Thomas said. “Make sure she has an accident. Then bring the boy back to me. Unharmed.”

Thomas strode to the wall-mounted topographical map of the area and circled Mount Storm with his index finger. “This is where Tommy’s headed.”

People tended to follow the path of least resistance. In moments of stress, they turned to points of comfort. And for Tommy that was the mountains. Even in this vast area, Tommy—like the animal he’d become—had staked out territory over the years. He’d track through familiar trails, and an ace like Boggs would have no trouble following his trace.

“What about Tommy?” Boggs asked.

Tommy was a failure beyond redemption. “Put him out of his misery.”