Cold Case Secrets. Maggie K. Black

deep breath of confidence filled his lungs. Nobody was ever going to die at a criminal’s hands as long as he had something to say about it. He cast one final glance at the outline of the woman below, now pelting through the trees with her attacker close on her heels.

       Stay strong. Don’t give up. I’m coming for you.

      * * *

      The blow from behind came so hard and suddenly that Grace Finch felt the air knocked from her lungs even before she hit the ground. For a moment, her body’s own natural instinct to freeze threatened to overwhelm her. Then she reared, kicking up hard with both legs and felt herself break free. She rolled and tried to get her feet beneath her before a swift punch to the temple knocked her back against the ground.

      The blunt and scarred face of Barry Cutter glared down at her, and Grace felt his entire rap sheet flash through her mind, just as clearly as if she’d been sitting at her crime reporter desk at Torchlight News, reading his bio in her news files. Bartholomew “Barry” Cutter, age fifty-four, convicted to fifty years in prison for the brutal murders of five women.

       Help me! Someone! Anyone! Please!

      A large hand with thick fingers grabbed her by the throat and pushed her down. The semi-automatic SIG he waved between her eyes looked police-issued. And suddenly she felt the journalist inside her wanting to ask him how he’d gotten there, what he was doing out of prison and if it had anything to do with the Search and Rescue helicopter she’d seen flying overhead. There was a major news story here, if she got out of here alive to tell it. She swallowed a breath and reminded herself that if Cutter wanted her dead, he’d have killed her by now. Then slowly she began to slide her right hand toward the stun gun in her jacket pocket.

      “Where’s your car?” Cutter snapped. She felt her mind filtering out the threats and curses that peppered his voice, listening only for facts. “Take me to your car. Now! You’re driving me out of here!”

      Didn’t he know where they were? Night was falling, and she’d spent the better part of the day getting this deep into the woods. Her car was at the entrance to the park, at least six hours of canoeing and portaging away. For that matter, how had he even gotten here?

      As for her, she’d been coerced here, lured here, out into the middle of nowhere by another convicted killer, Hal Turner, on the promise of finding information that would clear him of his crimes, prove he’d been set up by some shadowy cabal of senior cops and free Grace of the specter of blackmail he’d been holding over her life. Ever since she had risen as a star crime reporter, Turner had been blackmailing her and threatening to destroy her life and career by telling the world a truth she’d spent her entire life concealing.

      That Grace Finch was really Hal Turner’s biological daughter.

      That the country’s most prolific and award-winning crime reporter was really the child of the so-called dirty cop turned cop killer.

      In her business, reputation was everything. Her biological father was one of the most hated convicted killers in the country, especially as far as those in law enforcement were concerned. What if sources refused to talk to her because of who her father was? What if someone with a grudge against Turner decided to come after her? After all, he’d not only betrayed his badge and worked with organized crime, he’d then besmirched all of law enforcement with wild stories of a deep-seated conspiracy of criminal cops. No evidence had ever been found to back up his claims. What if she was fired from her job at Torchlight News and blackballed from the industry for keeping the truth about her identity secret? Even if Turner was somehow right—he had been set up by someone, and this evidence he’d sent Grace to find would prove it—how would anyone in her life ever trust her again for keeping her identity secret so long?

      Let alone forgive her.

      No, she’d worked too long and hard to build a life on her own terms to let it all be taken from her now.

      Not to mention her incredibly strong mother, and Mom’s kindhearted husband, Frank, who’d raised Grace as his own, both deserved better than to have their lives dragged through the mud.

      So she’d hiked and paddled into the woods in search of a secluded cabin where he’d claimed to have left evidence proving his innocence. It was a simple transaction. She’d publish the evidence, his lawyer and the courts would do their thing, Hal Turner would keep his mouth shut about the daughter no one knew he had and he’d disappear from her life for good.

      But she hadn’t found the cabin. Instead, a killer had found her.

      She’d been desperate. She’d been foolish. And now she was going to die.

      Cutter leaned closer, shifting some of his weight off her body. The stench of him filled her nostrils. “Don’t fight. Don’t scream. We’re just going to get in your car and take a nice ride to the American border and then I’m going to let you go.”

      No, he wouldn’t; he’d hurt her and he’d kill her, that much she knew with every fiber of her being. And she’d die fighting before she agreed to take him anywhere.

      The helicopter’s spotlight flashed above them, dragging her attention to the sky. A figure, tall and broad-shouldered, now dangled from underneath it, suspended from a rope like something out of an action movie. She blinked. Cutter looked up and swore.

      It was an unexpected distraction, but she’d take it. Her right hand dove into her jacket pocket, yanked out the stun gun, flicked it on and pressed it hard into his side. Cutter bellowed in pain. The gun fell from his hand. She kicked up, threw him off her and scooped up the gun. Then she stumbled to her feet and ran, pushing and pelting through the branches until she’d lost him in the trees.

      The helicopter light swung above her again like a searchlight, filtering through the leaves and illuminating the rock face ahead of her, and that’s when she saw the gap. It was narrow, like a slanted alley only about three feet wide. She ran for the gap in the rocks, slid her body inside and pressed herself against the wall. She heard the sound of branches breaking and a voice swearing as Cutter ran by her hiding spot. It was only then she realized her hands were shaking. Hot tears filled her eyes.

       God, if You’re even still listening to me, thank you so much that I’m still alive! Now, what do I do?

      She couldn’t remember the last time she’d prayed. But somehow the fear pounding through her had poured out into the need to cry out to the God she’d long stopped talking to for help. She put her stun gun back into her jacket pocket, but kept the gun she’d taken off Cutter clutched tightly in her hand. Could she really shoot and kill a man if it came to it? If his face appeared at the entrance of her hiding place, did she really have what it took to look him in the eyes and pull the trigger?

      How much was she really her biological father’s daughter?

      No, no, she wouldn’t let herself think that way. Her father had killed for his own selfish ends, not in self-defense. She was nothing like him. She never had been and never would be.

      Her head leaned back against the rock and her eyes closed as she listened to the sounds of the helicopter in the distance, wind brushing the trees, light rain hitting the rocks around her and a river rushing somewhere nearby. Maybe if she could get up to higher ground, she could find a way to signal the helicopter. Maybe she could even spot the cabin, run there and retrieve whatever Turner had left for her. But for now, she was on her own, with a phone that hadn’t been able to get a signal in hours and a killer looking for her.

      “Grace Miranda Finch!”

      Her heart froze mid-beat as suddenly Cutter bellowed her name.

      “Senior crime reporter!” His voice grew louder. Twigs snapped and branches cracked. It sounded like he was coming back through the woods, looking for her. “Torchlight News, Queen Street, Toronto. Born April third. Age thirty-six.”

      No! She grabbed her side as if suddenly realizing she was missing an organ. He had her wallet! She hadn’t even realized it had fallen from her pocket.

      But