Hunter/Prey (A Revenge Thriller) Read online

  And she didn’t have all night.

  She had one night.

  No. She didn’t have time for that. She had come this far, gotten this close, and—

  Goddammit.

  She pushed off the wall and bent over as she moved across the window, staying under the windowsill. She made it to the other side unseen (or, at least, she hoped she had) and walked straight up the rest of the way.

  Instead of going around the porch and using the steps, she climbed up from the side. The door wasn’t far away from the edge, but the wooden planks creaked loudly under her as she tiptoed across them.

  The door had a lever with a hasp lock, probably for the owners to lock the place up when the cabin wasn’t in use. She gripped the metal lever and twisted. It moved slightly and without resistance.

  She let go and took a step back, then sucked in a deep gulp of the chilly night air.

  He’s in there. Go get him.

  She gripped the lever again with her left hand, her right holding the shotgun at her side.

  Finish it.

  Finish it!

  On the third deep breath, she yanked the lever down and the door moved out of its frame. She pushed it forward as hard as she could—and it snapped against a chain on the other side and refused to open any further!

  No, no, no!

  Alarm bells flooded her senses and she took a quick step back, angled her left shoulder against the door, and threw her entire body into it. The chain snapped and went clink-clink-clink as pieces of it sprinkled across the floorboards.

  The door swung open in a wide arc and she stumbled inside, losing her balance temporarily. Got control, raised the shotgun, and reached for the forend with her left hand. Got a firm grip and spun to her right, where the four people were gathered in the living room in front of a fireplace that hadn’t been lit in God knew how long.

  Wide-eyed, they stared back at her. The two girls and their male friend, and him, still seated in the chair with one hand over his bandaged side and the other reaching for a knife in its sheath against his left hip.

  She smiled at him.

  Got you, motherfucker.

  She started to pull the trigger when she realized one of the girls—the brunette who had dressed his wounds—was standing too close, and if she fired now—

  “Get the fuck away from him!” she shouted.

  The brunette didn’t get the fuck away from him. She stood frozen in place, paralyzed with fear, that deer in the headlights look the only thing keeping her from being ripped apart by buckshot at any second.

  A loud thump! drew her attention, and she swung the shotgun over at the blonde, who had dropped a plastic first aid kit box from her numbed fingers. The young man slid protectively in front of her, throwing up his arms as if that was going to stop the Remington. “Don’t shoot!” he shouted.

  “Get the hell away—” she started to say, when blinding pain exploded through her body as something—a tank, maybe—smashed into her from behind, knocking her forward.

  Knocked forward? No. More like tossed forward.

  She landed on the dirt-caked floor about the same time the shotgun, jostled from her hands by the blow, clattered a few yards from her outstretched fingers. It kept skidding until it bumped up against the point of a steel-toe boot, where it rested.

  Her back screamed as if the spine had been snapped. She had landed on her stomach and one side of her face, and the pain was excruciating, though she couldn’t tell which hurt more—her stomach or face or, more likely, her back. But all of that was nothing against the voice screaming inside her head, telling her to Get up! Get up now, before it’s too late! You’re too close! Don’t let him get away!

  But she couldn’t get up because something heavy had fallen on top of her, and it took her a moment to realize it was a man sitting down on her back. Large, strong hands grabbed her arms and twisted them backward, and she became aware of someone screaming.

  Her. She was screaming.

  Because the man was pinning her arms back in a way that the angle was all wrong, and she was certain both arms would snap at any second.

  “Stop it!” someone shouted. One of the young women. “You’re hurting her!”

  “That’s the point, Sabrina!” a male voice said. It was coming from the heavy thing sitting on her back. “Someone grab that shotgun!”

  “I got it,” another male voice said.

  No. No, not him. Not him.

  She managed to lift her head despite every inch of her body protesting just in time to see the state trooper bending and picking the Remington up from the floor. He held the shotgun and looked down at her, meeting her stare. Her eyes dropped a bit to the nametag over his right breast pocket: “Beckard.”

  There was a glint in his eyes—the same brown eyes from earlier in the woods when he was convinced he was the hunter and she the prey. Then, the corners of his lips began to curve slowly until they formed a smile. It was on the sly and meant only for her. And just like that it was gone, before the others in the cabin could see it.

  “Thank you, guys,” he said. “You just saved my life.”

  Chapter 6

  Well, shit, this worked out pretty well.

  He had to summon every ounce of willpower just to keep from grinning from ear to ear for longer than half a second at a time. It was hard. Even more difficult to keep the laughter from bursting out of him. Definitely one of those LMAO moments. Or maybe even a LMFBO.

  Because this was funny. This was so goddamned funny.

  “Is this her?” the brunette who had patched him up asked. She was staring at the woman as the big jock continued to hold her down. “She doesn’t look dangerous.”

  “Trust me, she’s dangerous,” he said, turning the Remington over in his hands.

  “Is that yours?” Wade asked, nodding at the weapon.

  The kid (well, he was a kid to Beckard, anyway) stood protectively over his girlfriend, Rachel, while one eye remained fixed on the woman struggling on the floor. The big kid, Donnie, had her pinned in some kind of wrestling move. He had at least a solid hundred pounds on her and had both of her arms wrenched back. It looked painful.

  “He’s dangerous!” the woman shouted, her eyes darting to everyone in the cabin except him. “You don’t know what you’re doing! He’s going to kill all of you!”

  “You’re the one with the shotgun,” Rachel said, leaning around Wade just far enough to get a good look at the woman.

  “He’s a killer!”

  “Shut up,” Donnie said and put more pressure on her arms, making her cry out.

  “Donnie, stop it,” the brunette said, walking over. She was a small thing, and too skinny. Definitely not Beckard’s type. “You’re hurting her.”

  “I would stop if she didn’t keep trying to get up,” Donnie said.

  “Just go easy, okay?”

  The big guy nodded and relaxed his grip a bit on the woman’s arms. “Better?”

  “Yes,” the girl said. She crouched in front of the woman and gave her an almost apologetic look. “Please stop struggling. You’re only hurting yourself.”

  “He’s dangerous,” the woman said through clenched teeth. She was focusing on Sabrina, obviously having decided that was where her salvation lay. “He’s not who you think he is.”

  “He’s a cop,” Donnie said.

  “He’s a killer!”

  “You’re the one who kicked in our door with a shotgun,” Rachel said. She had emerged out from behind Wade’s protective force field, apparently having decided it was safe again.

  “I had no choice!”

  Beckard almost felt sorry for her. He could see the strained expression on her face, a mixture of pain and irritation. Maybe mostly pain. She looked past Sabrina and glared at him, and Beckard, again, had to summon all his willpower not to grin mischievously back at her. He was close, so close, but he could feel Wade watching him and managed to rein it in.

  “You still have that cell phone?” he asked Wade
instead.

  The twenty-something nodded and turned to his girlfriend. “Babe, go get it for him, will you?”

  Rachel hurried off, disappearing into a hallway in the back. The bedroom was back there, Beckard guessed. He made a mental note of that for later.

  “How’s the reception?” he asked Wade.

  “Spotty,” Wade said, “but we’ve been able to connect every time we’ve tried since we got here.”

  “Good to hear.” He let his eyes dramatically fall back to the woman squirming on the floor when he added, “I need to call for some backup. She’s a lot more dangerous than she looks.” He touched his bandaged side for effect. “I didn’t see it coming at all. One minute she’s in the back of my squad car, the next she’s gotten the handcuffs off.”

  “How did she get your shotgun?” Donnie asked.

  The woman had stopped struggling against Donnie, probably realizing she wasn’t going to get free. She was now listening, glancing from Sabrina to Wade and back to him. He could practically imagine her mind turning, processing, trying to get a grip on the situation. He couldn’t help but be impressed with her attitude.

  We could so make beautiful music together…

  …if only she’d stop trying to kill me.

  “I wish I knew,” Beckard said. He let out a disappointed sigh. “I don’t even know how she got out of those cuffs. I’m just lucky she didn’t finish the job and that I found you guys first.”

  “She took your gun belt, too?” Wade asked.

  “Yeah. I was unconscious for a while after we crashed.” He shook his head. “She’s a lot tougher than she looks,” he said, directing that at Donnie. “You should be really careful with her.”

  “She’s not going anywhere,” Donnie said. “I can sit on her all night if I have to.”

  “Hopefully you won’t have to.”

  Rachel came out of the back with a cell phone and handed it to him. He noticed her hand was still shaking slightly even though she was putting on a brave face.

  “Thanks, Rachel,” he said. Then, with as much concern as he could muster, “You okay?”

  She shook her head, and he decided he liked the way her long blonde hair flitted from side to side when she did that. “I’m just really freaked right now, that’s all. I’ll be fine.”

  “You’re doing great, babe,” Wade said. He held out his hand and Rachel walked over, took it, and slipped back into his protective force field.

  Ah, must be true love, Beckard thought. “Don’t worry, I’ll get her out of your hair soon and you guys can go back to enjoying your vacation.” He smiled at Rachel. “You’ll be all right, I promise.”

  She gave him a half-smile back and Beckard thought, Damn, I poured that on pretty thick. Hopefully I didn’t scare her off.

  “Got any bars?” Wade asked him.

  He nodded. “Plenty,” he said, walking to one of the windows and pretending to look out while he dialed a number on the phone.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the woman, catching her defiant glare. He was surprised she had given up trying to convince the kids. Then again, she was smart and probably figured out she had no chance of success. Or very little. After all, he was a pretty damn good liar and held all the cards. And now he had the shotgun, too.

  The kids were milling about as he dialed, but he caught the small brunette watching him curiously, almost suspiciously.

  She’s gonna be a problem, that one.

  Someone finally picked up on the other end of the phone call, the voice coming through the speaker placed against his ear where only he could hear it. “The number you have dialed is no longer in service,” a computerized female voice answered. “Please hang up and try again.”

  Beckard ignored the voice and said into the phone, “Hey, Diane, it’s me.” He paused briefly before continuing. “Yeah, tell the captain I ran into some trouble escorting that woman back to the station. We got into a car accident and she escaped.” Another dramatic pause, followed by, “I almost died but I’m okay, thanks to some kids at a cabin in the woods.” He threw a quick look back at Wade. “What’s the address here?”

  Wade told him, and he repeated it into the phone.

  “…please hang up and try again,” the computerized voice repeated for the fourth time.

  “Yeah, as soon as you can,” he said into the phone, then wiped at a string of dirty sweat on his forehead. “Great, thanks Diane. I’ll wait for them here.” He ended the call, walked over, and handed the phone back to Rachel. “Thanks for letting me borrow it.”

  She nodded and put the phone away with one hand, the other still wrapped tightly around Wade’s waist.

  “What’d they say?” Sabrina asked.

  “They’re sending two squad cars over to take us back,” he said before glancing down at his watch. “I guess two hours?”

  “That’s a long time,” Wade said.

  “The station’s about twenty miles up the highway, and they’re going to have to look for this place. I’m just glad they had enough people on the night shift to come get us. We’re usually pretty low on manpower after sundown.” He looked at the woman. She was still staring daggers at him from the floor. “She’s dangerous, guys. We have to be really careful with her.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Donnie said. “You got your shotgun back, and I’m sitting on her. What’s she gonna do?”

  Beckard smiled. “Good point, Donnie.”

  “What now?” Wade asked.

  “Sit back and wait for my reinforcements to arrive. Then we’ll be out of your hair, and you guys can all pretend tonight never happened.” He touched his side for effect again. “Well, it’ll be a while yet for me, but it’s all part of the job, I guess.”

  “Hey, Donnie, we packed that duct tape, right?” Wade asked.

  Donnie thought about it, then nodded. “Back in the van, in my bag. Why?”

  “So we can tie her up, since—” he turned to Beckard “—you don’t have your cuffs anymore, right?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what she did with them. Probably threw them into the woods.”

  “He’s lying,” the woman said. “Don’t believe anything he says. He’s a killer!”

  “Who?” the brunette asked.

  “Him!” she shouted, staring at Beckard. “He’s dangerous!”

  Beckard ignored her and said to Wade, “Can you go get that duct tape?”

  “Sure,” Wade said. Then, he added, looking over at the woman, “Maybe we can use it to shut her up, too.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Beckard grinned back at him.

  Chapter 7

  Ten years of research, six years of training, and three years of getting ready for this moment…and this is how it ends. Sitting on the floor of a cabin in the woods, bound and helpless. It wasn’t even close to what she had imagined during all those lonely nights lying in bed alone trying to picture every scenario in her head; all the things that could go wrong and all the twists and turns that had to be accounted for. She had it all figured out.

  Or thought she did, anyway.

  And the night had started off so promising, too.

  “What’s your name?” the small brunette asked her.

  “Allie,” she said.

  “What did you do, Allie?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” she said, looking back at the girl who had just patched up the man she had spent the last ten years of her life trying to find, and having found, had just failed to kill.

  It’s not over yet. You can still salvage this.

  She leaned slightly forward, toward the girl. “He’s lying.”

  “About what?” the girl, Sabrina, asked.

  Not really a girl. A young woman. Twenty? Twenty-one? Young enough to be on break from college and old enough to actually be in college. The last time Allie was on a school campus, that was when—

  No! Concentrate on the present!

  There’s still a chance to save this!

  They had sat her in one co
rner of the cabin with her wrists and ankles bound with duct tape they had retrieved from the van outside. The restraints cut off most of her ability to move and drove home her dire situation.

  Ten years of research…

  They had wanted to cover up her mouth to keep her quiet, too, but Sabrina argued in her favor. For some reason they listened to the girl, even the two big guys. Donnie, the jackass who had tackled her from behind and then sat down on her, and Wade, the tall lanky one with the blonde girlfriend.

  “Allie,” Sabrina said, directing Allie’s attention back to her small round face. “You said he was lying. What’s he lying about?”

  “About everything. Don’t believe anything he says. Every word that comes out of his mouth is a lie.”

  She was in the living room with Sabrina, with Donnie in the kitchen to her right pulling meat cuts from a cooler and preparing a portable skillet. Donnie seemed disinterested in their conversation, as if none of the last hour was in any way out of the ordinary for him. Wade and Rachel had gone into one of the bedrooms in the back, while Beckard was in the bathroom “cleaning up.” He had been gone for two minutes, but soon he’d be back.

  She focused on Sabrina. “He’s not who he claims to be.”

  “Beckard?” Sabrina said.

  “Yes.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He’s a killer.”

  “You mean because he’s killed someone in the line of duty?”

  “No. Because he’s a killer.”

  Sabrina looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s not a cop.” She shook her head. “At least, I don’t think he is.”

  “You don’t think he is?” Again, that look of confusion. Maybe a little suspicion had even slipped in there.

  No, no, I’m losing her…

  She struggled for the right words, but they were elusive. “In all the research I’ve done, nothing ever pointed to him being a cop.”