Backcountry Escape (Badlands Cops Book 3) Page 8

  Gage stared at her, his face hard and unreadable. “I’m not Brady,” he said sharply.

  That snapped through some of her panic. She scowled at him, insulted and maybe even hurt. She couldn’t name half the feelings pulsing inside of her. “I was under no illusion you were, Gage.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Yes.” She grabbed the pack and fastened it onto her back with jerky movements. She was not going to argue with him about Brady. She hadn’t even thought of Brady until Gage had brought him up. “W-we have to m-move.”

  She didn’t wait to see if he followed, and she refused to acknowledge her stutter. She started marching along, carefully avoiding slick spots. She was entering more familiar territory as they neared the ranger station.

  She kept them away from the main road even as they approached the station. She was tired, parched and starving, but she didn’t want to stop. Darkness was approaching and there was no time to stop.

  So she told herself. Better than thinking about what she might have to face if they stopped.

  Felicity came up short as she saw a figure in the distance. At first she thought it might be another ranger doing rounds, but the figure was wearing a baseball cap, not a park uniform.

  “Just keep hiking. Act casual. Normal,” Gage instructed. “It might be our ride. It might not be. If she approaches us, just act like you would with any other hiker.”

  Felicity swallowed at the nerves fluttering in her throat, but she nodded and kept hiking again. No matter where Felicity and Gage walked, the figure moved so their paths would cross.

  When Felicity saw that she was a woman dressed all in black, with no signs of backpacking gear, she prayed to God it was someone from the secret group Cody had worked for last year.

  Because if not, it was bad news indeed.

  “Howdy,” the woman greeted as they finally met on solid ground covered in grass. “Nice evening for a hike, isn’t it?”

  “Getting a little late,” Felicity offered, working hard to keep her voice steady and without stutter.

  “It is.” The woman tipped her unnecessary sunglasses down. “You guys need a ride?” She jerked her chin in the direction of the road. “You’re looking a little worse for wear, and I’ve got a truck not far off.”

  Felicity exchanged a glance with Gage.

  “Sure, Shay,” Gage said.

  The woman smiled and winked. “Follow me, Wyatt.”

  Felicity blew out a breath. It was their ride, thank God. They still had a good mile walk, and exhaustion pounded at her temples. She had no idea what Gage had in mind once they got to her cabin. They’d been through a tornado, and miles and miles of hiking. All she wanted to do was sleep.

  Shay led them to a big black truck with tinted windows Felicity doubted were legal. She climbed into the back of the truck anyway, Gage getting into the front seat. Gage and Shay spoke in low tones and Felicity tried to pay attention, but she couldn’t stop herself from dozing as the truck began to drive.

  She awoke with a start when she realized the vehicle had stopped. Shay and Gage were outside, heads together as they spoke. Felicity looked around. They were in the grove of trees not far from her cabin.

  When she pushed the door open and stepped out, Gage and Shay immediately stopped talking.

  Felicity frowned at them.

  Gage leaned close to Shay and whispered something.

  Shay nodded. “Thanks. Good luck.” She smiled at Felicity as she walked back to the truck. “Especially for you.”

  Felicity didn’t know what to say to that, but Shay was gone in a flash anyway. “What was that?” she demanded of Gage.

  He shrugged, studying the trees. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Don’t worry about... Are you... You can’t...”

  “Calm it down, Red.”

  “I’d like to punch you.”

  “I’d like to see you try,” he returned mildly.

  She was tempted. She’d convinced Tucker to teach her how to land a decent blow before she’d gone off on her first seasonal park ranger job in Kentucky. But something told her even if she threw a decent jab-cross combo, Gage would never let them land.

  “Come on. Let’s get to the cabin.”

  It was dark now, the air cool. Everything felt wrong and eerie, and she had a flash of the woman’s body at the bottom of the canyon.

  The woman who was apparently her sister.

  She shuddered as they walked as silently as possible. The tornado clearly hadn’t been through this way, though a few downed branches suggested some heavy storms. She hoped her cabin hadn’t sustained any damage.

  When they reached the edge of the trees and she could detect the outline of her cabin in the moonlight, she felt her stomach sink in despair. Not because of damage, though. “There’s police tape,” she whispered.

  “Lucky for you, I’m the police.”

  “Gage.”

  He was already striding forward. He went to the back door and began untying one side of the Do Not Cross tape. Felicity stood in the clearing of her cabin and stared, openmouthed. “You can’t—”

  He cut off her directive. “Come on now. We’ve left following the rules behind. Keep up, Felicity.” He motioned her forward.

  * * *

  SHE STOOD AS if she wasn’t going to listen to him. But Gage knew there was no other way right now. Maybe they wouldn’t find any leads in her cabin, but it would give them a place to sleep for the night—a place no one would dream of looking for them.

  Finally Felicity moved forward.

  “Got your keys?”

  She didn’t answer, just frowned deeper and pulled keys out of her pocket. She unlocked the door and gingerly stepped inside. Gage tied the police tape back to the banister and walked in behind her.

  She stood, miserably surveying her tiny kitchen. “They moved things,” she said. “Went through my home and...” She shook her head.

  He gave her shoulder a squeeze, though it made her jump. Still, he couldn’t stand to see that look of utter defeat on her face. She’d gotten through the past forty-eight hours on grit and determination and strength. He knew how hard it was to hold on to that when things seemed bleak.

  But she needed to.

  “Don’t get sad. Get mad, Felicity. Someone came through here and planted evidence against you. The cops are doing their job, and it sucks that’s their job, but let’s focus on who’s trying to make you into a murderer.”

  She didn’t say anything for the longest time. When she finally did, she did it moving toward the fridge. “I’m hungry.” She opened it, studied the contents and shook her head. She slammed the door, wrenched open the freezer, then brought out a tub of ice cream.

  She grabbed a spoon, settled herself down at the tiny table in the corner and went to work.

  “We might want something a little bit more nourishing.”

  The look she gave him could have melted that ice cream in front of her.

  “I do, anyway.”

  “Help yourself,” she said through a mouthful of ice cream, gesturing at the small refrigerator and pantry.

  Gage poked around, found some mixed nuts and a beer, and helped himself. Not exactly nourishing, but maybe she was right that comfort food was the way to go tonight. He settled into the chair across from her, wondered if she ever had any cabin guests that necessitated another chair and kept his opinions on that to himself.

  He lifted the beer. “You sit around drinking a lot of beer by yourself?”

  “Slugs,” she replied. “Kills ’em.”

  He chuckled. He had no earthly understanding of why he found that endearing or why he could so easily picture her putting out little trays of beer for slugs just as Grandma Pauline always had.

  “I’m giving myself five minutes to wallow,” she said, scooping up another
large glob of ice cream. “I survived a tornado. I’m wanted for murder. A murder I didn’t commit. You...” She trailed off before she finished that sentence. “I get five minutes to wallow.” She shoved the entire bite of ice cream in her mouth.

  “Then what?”

  She swallowed and looked down at the container. “I don’t know.”

  “I tell you what. Let’s extend the wallow. Ten minutes with the ice cream, then about—” he checked the clock on his phone “—five hours of sleep in a bed.”

  “Then what?” she asked, echoing his own question back to him.

  “In the morning, we check in with my brothers and see if they’ve made any progress or have any idea where Ace is. We’ll go through your cabin and see if we can find anything off or missing. Then...I want to go look at where you found the body.”

  She shoved away from the table, abruptly sticking the lid on the ice cream and putting it back in the freezer.

  “Felici—”

  She whirled to face him. “Tell me one of your stories.”

  “Huh?”

  “Those crazy stories you pull out whenever everyone’s down and you want to get a laugh.” She pointed to herself. “I’m depressed.” Then to him. “Now, cheer me up. Make me laugh.”

  “I can’t do it on command.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for starters, it’s not what you need right now.”

  “Oh, really. What do I need?”

  He stood. He could do without the beer and they’d have a chance to eat in the morning, so he left both on the table. He walked over to her and, as gratifying as it was that her eyes got wide and dropped to his mouth, he didn’t do what she was clearly expecting him to.

  He simply wrapped his arms around her and gave her a squeeze. “We need sleep,” he said. Much as he wanted to hold her a little closer, stroke a lot more than her hair, it wasn’t the time.

  He pulled back from the friendly hug and she blinked up at him. “I guess you’re right,” she said at length. “I have extra sheets for the couch.”

  He snorted out a laugh, which he tried to bite back when she glared at him. “Bad news. We’ve still got to be careful. We’ll want to be out of here before sunrise, and we need to be close. No separate rooms, Felicity.”

  “Just what are you suggesting?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. We’re going to have to sleep in the same place. Whether it’s your couch or your bed, you’ve got a sleeping buddy tonight. So, pick your poison. My guess is your bed has more room.”

  “You’re not going to sleep in my bed. With me,” she returned, all shrieking outrage.

  Gage didn’t figure arguing with her was going to get him anywhere, so he shrugged and headed for the door he was pretty sure led to her bedroom. She scurried after him, blustering without forming any actual words.

  He opened the door, walked over to the bed, toed off his boots, gave her a look that said try and stop me and settled himself onto one side.

  She stood there and stared at him, mouth open, little sounds of outrage escaping.

  God, he was too tired for her outrage. “You can tie me up if it’d make you more comfortable. Might give me some ideas, but if it’d make you feel better, be my guest.”

  She scowled at him. “I’m not afraid of you.”

  She certainly seemed it. Well, maybe afraid was harsh. She was nervous. Jumpy and high-strung—keeping as much space between her and him sprawled out on the bed as possible.

  “Want to talk about earlier first?” He couldn’t say he particularly wanted to talk about that kiss, but it was muddling his mind when he needed to be lucid and think about how on earth they were going to clear her.

  “No!” she squeaked.

  The squeak amused him even if it shouldn’t. “Suit yourself.”

  “Fine. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  “No, you won’t, Felicity. You’re in here with me, if I have to tie you up.” He might have ended it on a joke, but he was deadly serious and she seemed to understand that.

  After huffing and crossing her arms over her chest, then throwing them up in the air a second later, she finally stalked to the bed. She wrenched off her boots, muttering the whole time, then lowered herself onto the bed.

  In Gage’s estimation, the full-size mattress was hardly adequate for one person let alone two.

  No matter, she was putting as much space between them as if they were on a king-size.

  It was dark in here, but it smelled like her. And if she thought she was ticked off about the sleeping arrangements, she had no idea what was going through his head.

  He was almost asleep when she finally spoke.

  “You kissed me,” she said, as if it was some grave accusation.

  “That I did.” And he didn’t regret it in the slightest, even if she hated him for it. She’d kissed him back.

  Him. Not Brady. There might be a little sibling jealousy there, but when he’d said he wasn’t Brady earlier she’d looked so shocked he had to believe she hadn’t been thinking about Brady when she’d kissed him back.

  “Why did you do it?” she asked, her voice soft, and he would have said timid if he didn’t know how damn strong she was.

  “Because I wanted to.”

  “That’s hardly an answer.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t just suddenly want to kiss someone after never wanting to kiss them.”

  “Who said I never wanted to?”

  She was quiet at that, so he rolled onto his side with an exaggerated yawn. “Night, Felicity.”

  She didn’t respond, and he fell off into a deep sleep.

  * * *

  HE AWOKE TO something vibrating against him and realized it was his phone.

  He swore internally when he saw it was four in the morning, but it was a text from Jamison: Call ASAP.

  He slid out of the bed, tempted to spend a little too much time staring at Felicity in the glow from his phone. She was still dead asleep, face relaxed, hair a mess around her head.

  Prettiest damn thing he’d ever seen, and he did not have time to dwell on this too-soft feeling going on inside of him.

  He moved into the living room and called Jamison. “What do you have?”

  Jamison didn’t waste time or words. “Prints came back last night—one of Tuck’s friends sent him an email. Tuck just got off another case and called me.” Jamison was in full cop mode, and Gage didn’t interrupt. “They found Felicity’s biological father’s prints on the evidence they sent for DNA testing. They’d also found his prints in her cabin. Tucker’s going to go talk to the detectives this morning, explain that Felicity hasn’t had a thing to do with her father so this is unusual. With the tornado damage, Felicity isn’t high on their list of priorities—which is good and bad. Good, you guys should be able to remain undetected. Bad, they’re not going to worry about dropping the warrant yet.”

  “Her father had something to do with it?”

  “It’s looking that way to me. Added to that? He’s disappeared since the tornado, and I doubt he’s a casualty.”

  “Why do you doubt that?”

  “We’ve done some digging. The real reason I called you. There’s something bigger at play.”

  “Something bigger than someone framing Felicity for murder?”

  “Bigger or more connected anyway. Gage, Michael Harrison visited Ace in jail. Before the murder.”

  “How? We’ve been tracking that.”

  “He signed in to speak to another prisoner, but after looking deeper into it, there was a switch and he managed to talk to Ace thanks to a paid-off guard.”

  Gage let that sink in. Felicity’s biological father had visited Ace in jail. His father and hers were connected.

  And he had no doubt his father was behind it all.


  Chapter Ten

  Felicity had never been a particularly good sleeper. Night terrors had plagued her as a kid, and while she’d grown out of those for the most part, vivid dreams still afflicted her often. Not always bad ones, just clear and real-feeling.

  She opened her eyes, her body hot and heart racing, more than a little embarrassed at just what her vivid imagination had been up to. Steeling herself, she turned her head, but Gage wasn’t there.

  She told herself she was relieved, even blew out a breath as if to convince herself she was. But some echo of the dream was still thrumming inside of her and at the center of that thrumming she was most definitely not relieved.

  Then from somewhere outside the room she heard Gage swear, quietly but in an uncharacteristically serious tone she knew meant bad news.

  There was no rest from the true, important, pressing issues in their lives. But the words that rattled around in her head as she slid out of bed weren’t anything to do with being accused of murder or Ace being on the loose.

  It was Gage’s voice, grave and completely unflinching, saying because I wanted to over and over again.

  She didn’t have to work to silence that voice when she stepped out to the living room, though. Gage turned to face her. The pure gentleness in his look might have totally undone her if it didn’t scare her to the bone.

  “What is it?”

  “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  “What is it?” she returned, trying to do his one-eyebrow quirk.

  He didn’t say anything. She wasn’t sure he even breathed, which made it very hard for her to.

  “Jamison and Tucker have been busy,” he said, with a hesitance in his voice that felt very un-Gage-like and even more disconcerting. “Looking into things and...there are things.”

  “Be specific, Gage.”

  “They found your father’s prints in the cabin and on the evidence.”