Heart Of A Hunter. Sylvie Kurtz

moon, making everyone a little crazy.

      Cabin fever. That was it. She’d be back. He’d give her a day, then he’d show up at Paula’s and take Olivia home where she belonged. Better still, he’d take her for that long-promised vacation and they would talk—really talk.

      “Falconer,” Edwin Sutton barked into the phone. Sutton was the executive in charge of a thirty-man, seven-state, ongoing Fugitive Investigative Strike Team covering the northeast. He liked for operations to run smooth, for the felon arrest numbers to run high, and he liked to play those successes to the press. With no wife, no kids, not even a dog, the Service was his life and ambitious couldn’t even begin to describe him. “Head for Connecticut. We just lost two of our men.”

      A personnel loss wouldn’t look good on Sutton’s scorecard. He’d want closure and fast. “Who?”

      “Sean Greco and Robert Carmichael. They were on transport. There was a fire. Two prisoners are dead. Three escaped. Somehow they cornered Greco and Carmichael outside the building, had them drive getaway, and cut the hell out of them under an overpass on I-95. This is going to get us blowback. I want it contained, and fast.”

      Bad PR would tarnish Sutton’s record. With D.C. his next planned step up the ladder, he had to keep the stain from spreading. “Any leads?”

      “We’re working on IDing the three pukes on the run. Two more turned to toast in the fire. We gotta sort them out. I want you on this full time till they’re back in their pen. And Falconer, the Feebs are involved. Crossed state lines and all that bull.”

      “Great.” That meant the case was officially the FBI’s, but protocol allowed participation of the slain officers’ agency. He didn’t want to work with the Feebs. They couldn’t pass wind without permission and tended to mess up investigations. Not to mention their tendency to let the Service do the work, then steal their glory. This was not going to be fun. And it would mean putting Olivia on hold. Again.

      No wonder she’d left him.

      “One more thing, Falconer. The mutt slated for transport was Kershaw.”

      Sebastian went cold. “Is he one of the missing?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Dead?”

      “Won’t know till the toast are IDed.”

      One life deserves another. Don’t turn your back on that pretty wife of yours, Falconer. I’ll take from you what you took from me. Kershaw had made that promise five years ago and the cold determination in the snake-yellow eyes had matched Sebastian’s determination to put him behind bars. That’s why he still checked on Kershaw’s welfare once a month. “When were Greco and Carmichael killed?”

      “We found them a few hours ago.”

      “When were they killed?”

      “As best as the M.E. can make out, about four hours ago.”

      Four hours. Enough to get from Connecticut to New Hampshire. With time to spare. He dropped the phone and raced up the stairs, taking them three by three. “Olivia!”

      She jokingly called this place “Falconer’s Aerie.” He’d built it for her high on the mountain. To keep her safe. He’d vowed to her father on their wedding day that his work would never touch her. This house, this mountain, was a haven. For her. For him. And now she was out of his reach on the road on a dark night with a madman licking at her heels.

      THE NIGHT WAS EERILY CALM, making the car’s engine sound as if it roared. Thick and white, fog rose from the road and made the mountainside seem to smoke. To her right, the dark fronds of pines and winter-bare limbs of oaks and maples poked through the mist, reminding Olivia of ancient druids in ceremony. To her left, the meager shoulder dipped into a black abyss, making the scaly snake of road appear too narrow for her car. At odd intervals, runs of wet snow slipped from the mountain’s flank to slide under her wheels, making the steering feel sluggish. Each curve on the winding road flashed jagged arms of trees, points of rocky outcroppings or dizzying flirtations with the edge of the road. Olivia had never liked carnival fun rides, and this nightmare was no exception.

      Turn back, her weak side urged. No, not this time. This time she was going to be strong. “Stick to the plan.”

      Trying to stay on the road, she hunched over the steering wheel and peered through the wavering curtain of fog.

      The tears weren’t helping.

      Why was she crying when she was the one who’d chosen to leave? And this short separation was to strengthen their future. “For once in your life grow a backbone, Olivia.”

      She swiped at her eyes with the back of one gloved hand. She hadn’t known it would be this hard to walk away from him. That she would miss him so much in so little time. That the emptiness in her would feel as dirty and as desperate as the fugitives Sebastian chased.

      “You’re a fool, Olivia,” she told the haggard reflection haunting her on the windshield. She had a great home. She had work she loved and didn’t have to worry about making money from it to survive. She had a man who loved her and supported her. Security. “You have everything a woman could want.”

      But all of these chains of overprotection were sucking the juice from her creativity. She hadn’t painted in a month. Hadn’t felt the drive or the pleasure. Her next memory trunk still sat in her studio with only its priming coat on.

      And the last thing she wanted was to resent the only man she’d ever loved because she’d lost herself inside his strength. This quarter apart would give them both the needed distance to view their relationship more clearly.

      As she followed a curve, the slope of the mountain angled less sharply than before. The turn for the main road was only half a mile away. She eased her grip on the steering wheel and blew a small puff of relief.

      A deer jumped onto the road. Olivia gasped, jerked the wheel to the left and stomped on the brakes to avoid the animal. Mistake. The slush on the road became as slippery as oil. Her wheels churned. The car slid sideways. She lifted her foot off the brake, spun the wheel in the opposite direction and fishtailed.

      Smoke billowed up from the dashboard. The acrid smell made her choke. The black cloud blinded her. She tried to straighten, but the back end of the sedan kept going, then dipped over the edge of the road. There the car paused.

      Holding her breath, Olivia leaned forward as if her weight could counterbalance the downward pull and tried not to cough on the toxic smoke. The engine whined. The headlights swirled in the mix of black haze and white fog. The undercarriage creaked beneath her as the car sought its fulcrum.

      Please, don’t let me die. I promise I’ll go back. I promise I’ll try harder. I won’t complain. I promise—

      Gravity sucked the car down. Olivia screamed as she scratched at the dashboard as if she could escape her fate through the windshield. The car careened down the rocky slope, gathering speed. Boulders and trees didn’t slow the metal skeleton. It simply bounced from the obstacles in pinball madness, up and over, side to side, tossing her painfully around the safety harness. Wrenching metal screeched. The air bag deployed, burning her face and suffocating her for a desperate moment. As a branch thrust through the windshield on the passenger’s side, glass cracked and the blanket of crazed glass wrapped around the sprung mushroom of air bag.

      Then the right rear quarter panel smashed into a granite monolith, grinding the car to a sudden halt, canting it sideways, and sending her head crashing through the side window. She saw stars and a bright pinprick of light. A warm rush flowed over her brain, turning everything blood red, then black.

      Panting, she swiped at her eyes. If she couldn’t see, how could she work? How could she paint? How would she fill the endless emptiness of Sebastian’s absences?

      The car slipped again. A foot. Two. She stilled and bit back the scream clawing at her throat. Please…

      The car came to rest with the small bump of a landing elevator, bobbing