Eye Of A Hunter

“That’s all, gentlemen,” Falconer announced. “Check your PDAs for updates. Reed, stay behind.”

Four sets of curious eyes appraised him as they filed out.

After Kingsley closed the door, Falconer sat on the corner of the conference table. “How much sleep have you had?”

Gray flashed him a smile. “You know me. I can sleep anywhere. I got some shut-eye on the plane.”

“It cuts close to home.”

“I know.”

“Can you handle going back?”

The strange thing about Falconer was that he asked for everything and somehow you felt compelled to give it to him. He knew the deep, dark secrets of each of his team’s men. But the courtesy didn’t extend both ways. He was still a mystery to them. But there was trust. And that said a lot. Falconer knew about Echo Falls, knew about the strained relationship between him and his sister, Brynna, knew the hard time he’d had surviving the unforgiving label of coward branded onto him by small-town narrow-mindedness.

But he didn’t know about Abbie. Gray had never told a soul about Abbie.

Gray leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, arms splayed wide—the image of relaxation. “Yeah, I can handle going back. That’s why I took your job offer in the first place.” Sort of.

Falconer turned the remote in his hand. “You’ve been here over a year and you haven’t set foot in Massachusetts.”

Gray popped a careless shrug. “Guess I just needed a push.” If he had, he’d have known about Abbie’s father and could have helped her.

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

“I know her. I know Echo Falls. I can find her faster than anyone here.”

Someone within the program wanted to harm his golden girl. He might have had nothing to offer her thirteen years ago, but now he could keep her safe from the bullies who wanted to hurt her. “I understand her. I understand where she’s coming from. I understand the program that betrayed her.” He was her only chance.

“It’s not just Abrielle, Reed. There’s WITSEC’s reputation and the lives of soldiers at stake.”

“I get that.”

A long silence loaded the room with tension, high-strung and expectant. Never let them see you sweat.

Falconer reached forward and with a finger flicked Gray’s glasses so they rested on top of his head. “Tell me about Abrielle.”

Gray willed his naked gaze to meet Falconer’s straight on. Never let them see your pain. He grinned and made a joke out of the feelings that had nearly eaten him alive. “She was the princess in the mansion and I was the guy from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“I see.”

Gray feared maybe Falconer was seeing too much. “I never stood a chance.”

“A schoolboy’s first crush can make him blind to boundaries.”

“But he still understands their restrictions.” Especially when they were pounded into him.

“Make sure you do.” Falconer rose and gathered his files. “You find her and you bring her in. Is that understood?”

“Crystal clear.”

“Mercer’s my best tracker. He’s going with you. This is too important.”

Just what Gray needed—a shadow to witness his weakness.

ALL PRISON TELEPHONE conversations were taped, so Raphael Vanderveer had to learn to talk about what to the censors would sound like treason as if it were apple pie. But what did the little minds know about how the world really worked? They didn’t understand he was selling defective merchandise to the enemy while working on the real thing for the U.S. government. Why shouldn’t he profit from the enemy’s greed? “I’ll need a new suit for court.”

“Check.”

That’s what he liked about Pamela Hatcher—her efficiency. With just those few words she’d know what to do. It wasn’t that they were intimate. He’d hired her because he wasn’t attracted to her. She was a steel stork of a woman, with a face like a scarecrow and delusional fantasies of being the next Lara Croft. But her mind was sharp enough to cut paper and she understood him. So few people did. A vengeful woman was a force more fearsome than an atomic bomb, and he never wanted pleasure to interfere with business. No sex. No jealousy. No need to worry about female revenge. Pamela got that. What she wanted from him wasn’t passion; it was adventure.

“Have my tailor cut a dress for you while he’s at it.” Raphael pulled on the cigar he’d paid a small fortune for.

“Really?” Pamela’s squeal of delight was real. In his generous understanding of her fantasy, he’d offered her the kind of assignment that would send someone like Pamela in throes more satisfying than any orgasm. How often had she asked for a more hands-on part in this game he was playing with his captors? Now she’d get to tackle the role of private investigator.

“Any word on the Belgian chocolates yet?” Abbie was a sweet more delicious than any candy, as Pamela already knew. But Abbie had escaped the box he’d put her in, and he needed her back.

“You don’t pay me enough for all this runaround.” Pamela pretended to whine.

Another little ruse. The censors heard an overworked, underpaid assistant. But Pamela knew the worth she brought him, and he paid her accordingly. Nothing Uncle Sam could get his hands on, mind you. All part of the fun for Pamela. “I just gave you a designer dress.” Out of fabric so secret, being caught wearing it would have her tried for treason.

“Um, so you did.” She giggled like a schoolgirl, already anticipating the thrill of the hunt. He beamed at his foresight to hire her.

“Check the order confirmation and track down that chocolate. And make sure the contents aren’t damaged.” He blew out rings of smoke. As soon as he got what he needed from Abbie and erased her from the picture, he could get back to business. She’d already cost him almost a year of his life. He’d make her pay for all of her sins. “I want to celebrate my release in style.”

Chapter Two

Gray had sent Mercer to sniff Abbie’s trail at its last known point, but the shortcut to information lay in this armpit Gray had sworn he’d never come back to.

The skeleton of houses forming the backbone of Echo Falls appeared through the rain-drenched windshield of his Corvette. How could so little have changed in thirteen years?

Echo Falls squatted in northwestern Massachusetts, east of Highway 91, north of Route 2. A town lost in time, tucked in its own little world. Settlers had followed the law of least effort, taking advantage of the natural fall of water from Holbrook Pond to Bitter Lake, which then emptied into the Prosper River and into the Connecticut River. To make up for the falls’ lack of grandeur, the founding family had somewhere along the road built a spectacular granite arch bridge over the fast-moving river.

Originally water powered the wool mills; now it was electricity. The surviving mill buildings still stood on their original site, reflecting on the pond on sunny days. Built in 1774, Holbrook House still faced south, overlooking the river. As the family grew, more estates were built on Holbrook land. Five grand brick homes once lorded over the lower village where the peons lived in boardinghouses on Peanut Row. In the late 1800s, that constituted enough political power to divert a railway to this nothing town.

The train had long ago stopped coming and the tracks turned into nature trails. Modern gabled capes, contemporaries and colonials mixed in with the old brick homes, Victorians and farmhouses. Posh homes still cropped up in the small upper village. Working stiffs still lived paycheck to paycheck in the larger lower village. Of course, Holbrooks didn’t own all the fancy homes now, only the original house on Mill Road.

As Gray crested over the last hill, he let out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d held. Orange construction barricades closed off the old bridge and redirected traffic through the lower village. Great. He’d hoped to avoid meandering through the center of town.

At least the rain watered down the hard edges. He didn’t really want to see the old hometown and all the bitter memories that stagnated there. The plan was to talk to his sister, get a lead on Abbie and get out of this hellhole as fast as possible. Take it in like a reporter, Gray. Or a travel writer. Notice, don’t feel.

He gritted his teeth as he passed the middle school. Even through the slosh of rain and the tint of his sunglasses every ugly detail glared at him. His grip tightened on the steering wheel and he pretended not to see the redbrick building. Voices from the past crowded in, making his skin shrink too tightly around him. Cry-baby. Loser. Wimp. You can’t do anything right. Run, you coward, run.

Coward.

He rolled his shoulders, trying to dislodge the old taunts that had been the steady staple of his school years.

To his left, the high school’s mustard-brick facade smeared between swipes of his wipers. There he was voted most likely to fail and end up in jail. This in spite of being ranked ninth in a class of one hundred and three, lettering in three sports and working twenty-five hours a week. Ironic really that his job was putting scumbags back behind bars where they belonged. Including, once, a former classmate. The all-grown-up Mr. Soccer Star still liked to pick on boys who were smaller than he was.

Who’s laughing now?

It was all in the past. He was no longer the runt who had to play class clown or run to save his hide. He no longer had to fight his sister for the last scrap of food on the table. He could stand up straight and be proud of who he was and what he’d become. He was good enough for anyone—including Abbie.

Yeah, right. Her old man would still have found fault with him.

At Peanut Row he slowed. The old weight of doom he’d dragged around like a ball and chain fitted itself around his neck. He loosened his tie. You’re not that kid anymore.

Spinners’ Tavern still stood on the corner. Still had a steady clientele even at eleven in the morning. His mother had probably spent more time on the second bar stool from the right than she had at home. Like a stick of peppermint gum was going to mask the booze and fool them into thinking she’d actually gone to work for a change.

The last house on this dead-end street looked better than the last time he’d seen it. The door and shutters wore a fresh coat of lipstick-red paint. But not even the bright color could erase the tired slouch of the roofline or the defeat of the sagging siding. The wipers taunted him, coward, coward, coward.

Now that he was here, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. The last time he’d talked to Brynna, she’d screamed at him to never call her again and had slammed down the phone. All of his calls after that were screened through a voice box, and she hadn’t returned any. But then Bryn had never played by anyone’s rules; she’d made up her own. That’s what got her kicked out of the police academy. Last he’d heard she’d gotten a P.I. license. He couldn’t imagine that business was booming for her here.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he was a coward for not pushing the issue. Maybe he had run from his responsibility to her. But only an idiot went where he wasn’t wanted.

Rain drummed impatiently on the ragtop of his Corvette, reminding him of his mother’s red nails clicking against the cracked kitchen table. Are you just going to sit there? Her shrill voice taunted. For heaven’s sake, Grayson, grow a spine. Do you want to end up like your father?

Don’t know. That might be a good thing.

The imagined smack of his mother’s slap stung his cheek.

He twisted off the ignition and, rounding his shoulders against the pelt of rain, trotted across the street to the red door. For a second his hand hovered above the glossy red paint, then he knocked.

A volley of small yips answered him. “Quiet, Queenie!”

Bryn. Yet not Bryn. Something was off in her voice. “Bryn, it’s Gray. Open up.”

The silence on the other side of the door was so deep, it seemed to suck the breath right out of his lungs “Bryn. Please.”

“Go away.”

“I need to talk to you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re a decade too late.”

“Open the door, Bryn.”

“I can’t.” The broken tone of her voice tore him apart. What on earth had happened to her? Why was her hatred of him so deep? He was the one who had been all but driven out of town. What could she possibly hold against him?

Something slid down the other side of the door, rattling the wood on its hinges. “You left me, Gray. You left me with her.” Her voice, low on the other side of the door, hardened. “You left me with them.”

Gray swore silently and slid down the front side of the door. They sat back to back with the door between them. “I couldn’t take you to basic training. You know that.”

“You left me, Gray.”

Rain blitzed his face, soaked his suit and sank into the Italian leather of his shoes. “You liked it here. Mom always took your side. Mama’s baby never had to do anything. You and Abbie, you were the toast of the town. Queen of this. Princess of that. Brynna Reed and Abrielle Holbrook. Everybody’s friends. Why would you want to leave that?”

“Things change.”

Hands draped over his knees, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the hard wood. “Talk to me.”

“It doesn’t matter. You should leave now.”

He thought he heard tears in her voice. What the hell was he supposed to do with that when she wouldn’t talk? “This isn’t about me, Bryn. It’s about Abbie.”

“Abbie’s safe wherever she is.”

“No she isn’t. Someone within WITSEC is selling her out. If I don’t find her, she could die.”

Silence, except for the sting of rain spiking against the concrete stoop and rattling against the siding.

“She’s already lost so much,” Gray said. Noncriminals paid a higher price than criminals in WITSEC. Loss of identity, self, dignity. Abbie was a woman of her world. She belonged here in the same way he never had. Losing her father, her life, her world, he couldn’t imagine how she’d survived it all. “She doesn’t deserve to die for a mistake her father made.”

“Elliot died to protect her.”

“What makes you say that?” That tidbit wasn’t in the briefing notes.

“I’m not going to betray her.”

“It’s not betrayal when you’re helping her.”

“She’s safe.”

Stubborn. Hardheaded. Foolish little witch. It wasn’t her life she was playing with; it was Abbie’s. But he swallowed the barbwire of anger and talked to his sister as if logic would make a difference. “People on the run tend to go back to the familiar. I need to know if she came to you for help.”

“She’s safe.”

“Did you know that her safety was compromised three times in the past three weeks? That three deputies died trying to protect her? That right now Raphael Vanderveer is negotiating with teams of lawyers and that, if Abbie chooses not to testify at the trial, he could end up out on the streets again.”

“Like you said, she’s lost so much. Maybe she feels she has nothing more to lose.”

“There’s her life.”

“What’s the point if she always has to live in fear? Maybe she’s tired of running, Gray. Did you think of that?”

A skewed barb? “I couldn’t take you with me, Bryn. And even if I could have, you wouldn’t have come. You fit too well here.”

“Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

Nothing he could say would change her mind. “I care about Abbie. You know that. I have to find her before Vanderveer’s snitch does. In your heart you know that, too. Where is she?”

But Bryn didn’t answer. The push of her body against the door yielded a loud creak.

He sprang up and pounded on the door. He wrenched the doorknob, but the lock wouldn’t give, and he’d long ago lost the key. “Bryn, you have to help me. Please. I don’t care if you hate me till the day you die. But you have to care that Abbie’s life is in danger.”

Bryn’s footsteps padded away. The dog’s toenails clicked on the linoleum as it followed its mistress.

A moment later “Stayin’ Alive” blasted from a stereo.

He wasn’t stupid. He got the hint. As always in this town, he was on his own. He turned and strode toward his car. His being here was causing Bryn grief, and whatever he represented to her was a threat. Too bad she couldn’t think of her friend. He needed to find Abbie to help her stay alive. Couldn’t Bryn see that? He yanked the car door open and fumbled in his soaked-through pocket for his keys. With one last look at the sad house that looked like a tired, made-up whore, he cranked on the ignition.

As the engine growled to life, a smile cracked his lips. He reached into the glove compartment for the holey gym sock he kept there to wipe fog off the windshield and dried his sunglasses.

“Stayin’ Alive.” From the soundtrack of Saturday Night Fever. Maybe Bryn hated him, but she did care about Abbie after all.

DON’T THINK OF IT, Abrielle. Nobody knows where you are. Nobody can find you. Still, the edge of her peace started to curl at the sound of the ferry’s horn. Once a day it brought supplies, mail and possibly people. And a troop of fear. That was the one chink in this otherwise perfect armor.

Out here in her refuge of growing fog, she listened for Bert’s footsteps on the rocky path that were the pre-arranged all-clear signal. Only the gentle lap of water against rocks reached her. Was there a problem this afternoon? Had someone suspicious gotten off the ferry? She fiddled with the aperture ring on the camera Bert had loaned her. Let it go, Abbie.

Bert wouldn’t spill her secret.

Strains of “High Noon” crept into her mind as Abbie imagined five-foot-two Bert in a showdown with one of Rafe’s thugs. She laughed out loud and the fog swallowed her voice, replacing it with the quiet push and pull of water on rock.

After the chaos of the past year, this quiet was a blessing. She lifted the camera and forced herself to relax into the calming rhythm of nature around her. Back to basics, Abbie. The first essential of a good photograph was awareness. What personal statement did she want to make today?

“Part of finding your God,” Bert had said when Abbie first showed up on the convent doorstep begging for sanctuary, “is finding yourself.”

And here in the cool afternoon air, with a pale white haze on the horizon, Abbie could almost believe she’d have a chance at connecting with her lost self—and surviving for another eight days.

Though the Sisters of Sacred Heart were in the midst of their summer tourist season, Bert—Sister Bertrice Storey to everyone else—had found a room for her in the old granite convent. People came to Retreat Island at times of transition—divorce, death, milestone birth-days—that made one want to look deep into oneself or beg some higher source for answers to questions that really had none. But the quiet did heal and it had a way of leading one to some sort of peace.

There were no televisions here, no mad schedules, no hectic running from one appointment to the next. There was room for a dozen overnight visitors to find their own voices in the silence. They could join the sisters in their daily prayers. They could work in the gardens. They could walk in the woods. If someone needed to talk, a sister was there with a willing ear. Chapel bells woke the residents at six every morning, and small signs on the walls discreetly reminded guests that their silence was their gift to their companions.

Though Bert had insisted they had a full house, the island was big enough that Abbie hadn’t run into any of the other guests. They, like her, were seeking solitude. And two days into her ten-day retreat, that sense of peace was starting to envelop her as thickly as the fog bank tucking in around the island.

Fear retreated and she lost herself in the beauty of nature around her. Viewpoint and composition. Light, form and tone. Texture. Pattern. Through the lens of the camera she searched. The scent of spruce and sea air and damp earth connected her to the here and now and grounded her to her surroundings. Crouched among the rocks and boulders that lined the western shore, she aimed the camera at the departing ferry that was moving into the fog like some sort of spaceship and snapped the shutter.

Fog folded in around the ferry’s departing bulk, swallowing it whole. Bert’s footsteps crunched on the path. All was safe for another day.

Her sigh filled the night air. With a smile she straightened, threw her head back and spread her arms like Julie Andrews at the beginning of The Sound of Music, then twirled on her rocky perch to meet Bert. Before she could start singing, the sight of a wind-carved spruce bending over a ledge of rocks caught her eye. She lifted the camera and focused on the image that gave the impression of a pointy-hatted gnome stroking its long, bristled beard.

Bert’s footsteps stopped on the trail.

“What took you so long?” Abbie asked, moving one foot to a neighboring boulder in order to accentuate the spruce gnome’s nose. “I was starting to think something happened.”

“Your Sister Bertrice is one tough cookie. It took me a half hour to convince her I was one of the good guys.”

At the sound of the male voice Abbie jerked around, lost her footing on the wet rock and landed hard on her backside. Fear serpentined through all of her limbs, setting them shaking. How could Bert have trusted anyone after what Abbie had told her? Men—all men—were a threat to her. No matter how charming—especially if they were charming—they belonged to Rafe, and the only thing Rafe wanted from her was permanent silence. Scrambling, she managed to get up and over the rock, away from this threat.

“Abbie! Hey, wait, no!” The dark shape scurried after her, swearing as he slipped on the slick rocks. “It’s me. Gray.”

“Gray?” Heart hammering, she froze, holding the camera against her heart like a pitiful shield. Gray had once had a way of making her feel as if her mere presence in this world made it a better place. What teenage girl didn’t want to see herself as a goddess in a handsome boy’s eyes? Then she’d ruined it all with just a few words. “What are you doing here?”

“Can we climb down from here?”

“No.” She needed distance. This was too unexpected, too startling. Gray, here, now. Wrong time. Wrong place. She shivered and wished she’d worn a sweater over her sleeveless blouse. He detached himself from the fog, and she sucked in a breath.

Familiar features formed as he drew closer, and the sizzle she’d thought of as teenage infatuation stirred her blood. His sandy hair now sported a salon do instead of the home-butchered bowl cut. His high cheekbones still begged for a camera’s attention. His lips were still tempting. He still wore the mirrored shades he’d taken up in high school. Cool then, scary now because she couldn’t read his intent in his eyes.

Her hands tightened around the camera and she struggled with her desire to inch it up to her eye to capture this ghost from her past. That sleepy smile. That careless pose. That air of endless time on hand. They were all a skin he wore to protect himself and hid a steely determination. She’d admired that survival instinct in him, that fire to succeed that no one could douse no matter how much water they threw at him. That relentless ability to pursue suited his job, but it would also return her to a captivity that doomed her to die. “Stay where you are.”

“I’m here to help you, Abbie.”

“I was safe until you showed up.” She stepped up to the next boulder and away from the frustrating tug of outgrown teenage hormones that had once made her do crazy things like swan dive into the quarry to get his attention.

Balancing himself on the slippery soles of his leather shoes, he followed her. “I don’t work for Vanderveer. I don’t work for the Marshals Service. I work for a private firm. I’m here to help you. You know me, Abbie. Trust me.”

“I can’t. Leave me alone.” She continued putting distance between him and her on the path of rocks she’d traveled time and again over the past few days. She couldn’t trust him. She couldn’t trust anyone. She was learning that lesson blow by painful blow. Look where trusting Bert had gotten her. Where would she go now? “How did you know where to find me?”