Hidden Identity. Alice Sharpe

rifle in his hands. No uniform. No bells or whistles on the car. Within a few moments, two more armed men came out of the house and joined him. They moved under the protection of the eaves, apparently unaware he and Chelsea had escaped via the river. The blond guy took out his phone and made a call while the others watched.

      An instant after lightning pierced the dusky skies, an explosion rent the air. Adam jerked his binoculars toward the forest on the other side of the meadow. Flames climbed the trees where the helicopter had gone down. The lightning must have made a direct hit. One man immediately jumped off the deck and took off across the meadow, while the other two held their ground. And then one of them began a slow turn toward the ridge on which he stood. It appeared he’d found Adam’s good binoculars and now he held them to his eyes. Adam immediately lowered the set he held, but not before he saw the man’s lips move and his arm shoot out toward the crest, seemingly right at Adam.

      Adam stood without breathing, without moving, until the need to know what was happening outweighed the risk of looking. He all but oozed backward into the shadows before raising the binoculars again.

      More lightning flashed, followed by thunder still startlingly close by. In that moment, Adam witnessed the man previously seen hurrying toward the explosion now running to the cabin, presumably called back by the other two. They all hopped into the van and tore off down the road.

      Adam had seen enough. They might know he was up here but he knew the low clearance of their vehicle wouldn’t handle eroded roads and trails. That meant they would locate the main highway and watch for him, or at least that’s what he would do in their place. So, instead of finding a nice paved highway and leaving the forest, he’d stay on logging roads until he found a suitable place for them to spend the night. His first priority was to get Chelsea to a doctor and then he needed to study a map. There were decisions to be made and in her current condition, those decisions would have to come from him.

      He’d envisioned his final escape many times over the past few weeks, but he’d never imagined he’d have to drag another person along with him. A month ago, when he’d asked Chelsea to be his wife, he’d thought he was safe and in the clear, never dreaming she would wind up in danger because of him. None of that mattered now because the only reality existed in this moment—not yesterday and certainly not tomorrow.

      And now it wasn’t just her—it was their baby, too.

      Once more he got back in the Jeep.

      “What did you see down there?” Chelsea asked.

      “Three armed men. I think they’ll try to cut us off.”

      Her gaze darted around the landscape. “What do we do?”

      “Stay in the forest,” he told her.

      She nodded, but she had to be thinking the same thing he was: sooner or later they would have to leave the shelter of the trees. Then what?

       Chapter Four

      Determined not to pepper Adam with questions, Chelsea channeled her energy into gripping the Jeep’s rusty frame with both hands. Instead of questioning her own origins and identity, she concentrated on the few facts she knew. One, she was the sole survivor of a crash and a man she knew had found her. Two, someone had shot the pilot. And three, someone was now chasing after them, causing great fear in her heart, something she saw mirrored in Adam’s eyes. Except on him, the fear came across more as anger.

      She snuck a look at him, struck by his strong profile and the aura of concentration his body language communicated. Rain had flattened his bleached blond hair close to his head while drops glistened in the short beard that darkened his jaw. His gray eyes peered into the ever-increasing twilight, apparently discerning signs of trails she could barely see. But, of course, she wasn’t trying very hard to see anything. For now it was enough to trust that this man who seemed capable of anything would get them through the night in one piece. She had to face the fact that her brain wasn’t up to much work right now. All she wanted was to lay her head down and sleep for a week.

      It appeared they were traveling deeper and deeper into the forest. Every once in a while, Adam would slow down and check a compass, but as it got darker, even that ceased. At least the rain had quit; heavy, humid air filled her lungs.

      As darkness claimed the underbelly of the woods, Adam switched on headlamps but then immediately turned them off.

      “What’s wrong?” she asked.

      He laughed softly. “What’s not wrong?”

      “Why did you turn off the lights?”

      “They’re too bright. I’m not positive how close we are to the highway. No need to advertise our location.”

      “Then you think those men are still out there?” she said with a quivering voice and a strong reprimand to pull herself together.

      “Yes, I do,” he said. He veered off the semi-road they’d been traveling and followed a gully of relatively clear land back behind a grove of small trees. When he finally applied the brakes and turned off the key, the quiet and stillness tucked itself around them like a heavy blanket. For a few seconds, they sat very still, as though waiting.

      Waiting for what, she wondered. Waiting for whom?

      “Do you see any lights anywhere?” he asked her at last, his voice little more than a whisper.

      “No. I guess we aren’t that close to a highway after all.”

      “I guess not. Let’s make camp.”

      Camp meant lying down and, truthfully, that’s the only thing in the world she desired. Her body protested as she unwound herself from the front seat, aches and pains radiating to and fro, maybe the result of the crash she’d survived, maybe caused by the constant adjusting to the motion of the Jeep navigating roads that had seen much better days. Her left knee throbbed and she limped between the dark shadow of the Jeep and the darker shadow of a small tent. Adam had erected it with an apparent wave of his hand, and was now carrying rolled damp bedding, which he dumped inside. He soon handed her a flashlight and took one for himself but it was a few seconds before either one of them turned them on.

      “It’s so bright,” she mumbled.

      He turned his off.

      “Do you have any tissues anywhere? I need to find a bush.”

      He snatched a small tissue package from the pocket in the Jeep door and handed it to her. “Don’t go too far,” he cautioned, and stared down at her with a worried expression.

      “I won’t.”

      “Are you hungry?”

      “No, just tired,” she replied.

      “Other than that, do you feel okay?”

      “Kind of.”

      “Where else do you hurt?”

      “My knee.”

      “No pain, you know, like inside, like internal bleeding or a ruptured something-or-other?”

      She cocked her head. “No. What exactly are you asking?”

      “You were in a terrible crash,” he said, studying her face. Then he shrugged as though dismissing his earlier concern. He switched his light back on as he retrieved an ice chest. “I’m just trying to make sure you’re not seriously hurt,” he added over his shoulder. “You’ll tell me if any new pain develops or bleeding or...anything?”

      “Who else am I going to tell?”

      “I mean it,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll find you a doctor—”

      “Let’s take it one day at a time,” she said. With that, she walked away from him, using the flashlight in spurts to make her way until she found a big downed tree and climbed over it