Page 19 of Into the Veins

His attacker tapped his leg twice, and he released his grip around her throat. Damn it. He could’ve killed her. But he’d made a deal. Rachel Faulkner’s killer in exchange for his investigative fee. He had to bring her in alive. For now.

A sharp gasp for oxygen broke through the drugging haze slowly suffocating his senses.

Just before the blade sank beneath his Kevlar vest.

A scream tore from his chest, and he fell back into vines and mud. Blood gushed from the wound as the suspect rolled to her feet. Standing over him, she pulled the blade free.

Another nauseating shot of agony shattered his control.

“You should’ve stayed at the trailhead.” She crouched beside him, moonlight highlighting the red stain across the steel surface of her blade. She wiped the knife clean on her pant leg. Water beaded over the black ski mask. “You think it hurts now, but believe me, you haven’t even seen my bad side yet.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

She couldn’t control the shaking in her hands and feet.

Blair battled to stay conscious as the numbness consumed her. Lightning exploded above her as she crawled onto the rocky bank of the river and triggered another round of distorted patterns at the edges of her vision. Her teeth chattered together. Whether from the draining effects of the ketamine or the below freezing temperatures, she didn’t know.

The rangers had to be on their way by now. They would find her. They had to find her, but there was no telling how long it would take them to search these woods. She couldn’t wait for help.

A chunk of her hair broke off as she slid along her belly. Her legs dragged behind her. Useless. Numb. This wasn’t how she was going to die. She’d been through worse, survived the crushing effects of grief and guilt. She’d physically trained every morning to destroy the chances of her ever being as helpless as she’d been all those years ago. She could do this. She had to keep going. Her boots cleared the river, and she collapsed face down onto the bank. The skin of her lips cracked under the pressure of forming words. “Mo…ve.”

Blair hiked her knee alongside her hip and pushed off. Dead twigs and nettles scratched her skin, and she focused every sense she had onto feeling the pain. It was the only thing that was going to get her through this. The incline she’d fallen down sloped to an impossible angle in front of her, but she couldn’t see any other path out of the gulch the river had carved into the landscape. She forced herself to wrap frozen fingers around the nearest clump of vines and pulled. Her toes skimmed over smooth rocks, water trickling from her soaked clothing and socks. She had to keep moving, had to fight the heaviness weighing her down. Because giving up meant giving in, and she wasn’t about to let a killer win.

She grabbed onto the next section of vines. Over and over again, until she’d left the river behind. The buzz of crickets had been buried under the ringing in her ears. Air scraped up her throat, shallow and rough all at once. The vines thinned as she neared the top of the rise, and a clump uprooted in her hand. A terrified moan escaped her control has she slid a few inches back down the hill. Pinpricks of light danced around her, and she closed her eyes against the hallucination. The ache at the base of her skull intensified, but she kept moving forward, higher, farther, until the ground leveled out underneath her.

She collapsed into the mud. Rain reached the ground more easily here, and she opened her eyes against the onslaught of pain and sluggishness. She worked her fingers beneath her shoulders and pushed to all fours. Her senses reached into the surrounding darkness, but she’d lost her flashlight when the suspect had taken her badge and weapon. There wasn’t enough light to illuminate a trail or anything familiar. Smoothing her hand through the mud, she gauged which direction rainwater flowed. The killer had dragged her higher up the mountain. It only made sense she’d find her way back to the parking lot—back to Colson—by heading down.

Her attacker knew of his involvement in the case. It was only a matter of time before she tied up that loose end, but it wasn’t only a matter of warning him. Despite her initial assessment of the private investigator and her despise for people like him, there was a ridiculous part of her that purely needed him. Needed him to look at her the same way he’d admired her art. Needed him to make her laugh by asking one more inappropriately revealing question. Needed him to be her goal to get her down the mountain. She hadn’t needed anyone in her life as much as she needed him right then. She didn’t know why, didn’t care, but it was enough—he was enough—to push her to keep going when all she wanted to do was fall apart and lie down in the mud. She’d stopped shivering. His voice penetrated through the multitude of doubting voices in her head as she imagined what he’d ask her next. “What’s the…weirdest…thing you’ve ever done in front of a mirror…Sheriff?”

Water pooled around her wrist from the right, sloping down to the left. Blair stretched her hand out and braced herself against the nearest tree. Bark scraped against her jacket loud in her ears as she took the first step. Her balance wavered, but she took the next. Then the next. Using the trees for support, she followed the water’s guidance, testing each step before sinking her full weight into it. She wasn’t sure how long she’d walked, how many times she’d frozen in place as the shadows seemed to whisper around her, but she made it to what looked like a washed-out trail cutting across her path downhill. Only there were boot prints here. Fresh. Large, most likely male. She set one foot beside the imprint and pressed down.

Mud suctioned beneath the sole as she pulled away. Not Thompson’s. The tread didn’t match the shoes worn by all of her King County deputies. Not her attacker’s. The killer had been distinctly female as far as Blair had been able to discern from a mixture of memory and hallucination, and these treads were too big. There was only one other person who would’ve come into these woods. “Colson.”

The footprints led higher. Away from rescue. Away from safety. Her fingernails bit into the nearest tree as she fought off the blackness creeping in from the edges of her vision. He was out here with her, with a killer. Damn it. She couldn’t leave him to face the elements himself. Summoning the energy to break away from her support tree, she went to the next. She followed his footsteps sculpted into the earth as the storm raged more ferociously. She’d ordered him to stay with her patrol vehicle and Garcia. What had he been thinking? Each step vibrated up through her bones, but she wasn’t as numb now.

Her eyes sagged closed. Once. Twice. The trees divided into neat lines as she struggled into a small clearing exposed to the most violent face of the storm. Lightning shot across the sky and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. Recognition prickled her instincts, almost like deja vu. She scanned the trees, caught sight of the line of weeds trampled under a frantic escape. She’d come full circle. Colson must’ve tracked her here. She blocked the hard sting of rain with one hand as she searched the area. No sign of him. “Come…on.”

A wider disturbance in the weeds materialized a few yards to her left where the boot prints seemed to end, and her heart shot into the rawest part of her throat. Wiping streams of water from her face, she forced one foot in front of the other. The lack of feeling clung to her veins, barely giving up control of her nervous system, but it wouldn’t stop her from finding him. She’d taken an oath to serve and protect the people in her jurisdiction. She’d never given up before, and she wasn’t going to start now.

A dark outline solidified through the haze of the drug’s effects.

Dirt and weeds bit into her knees as she collapsed beside the unmoving shape. Hesitation cut off her oxygen as she considered the consequences of contaminating the evidence. She had to know. She had to be sure for herself. Blair rolled the victim onto their back. Recognition lit through her as lightning streaked across the sky.

Not Colson.

A long oval face, framed by dark hair, and high cheekbones accentuated the beauty of the woman in front of her. Smile relaxed around framed perfectly pink lips, climbing to a long-thin nose too small for the woman’s angelic features. Dark eyelashes brushed against pale skin as though she’d fallen asleep right there in the middle of the clearing, but the lack of a pulse said otherwise.

Blair didn’t have to search the denim jacket for identification. She already knew.

Cardin Townsend.

A small part of her hoped there was still a chance, but under the brutal chaos above them, the social media influencer last seen with Rachel Faulkner four nights ago was dead. A low hiss tunneled into Blair’s consciousness, and she backed away as movement from within the victim’s clothing brought her back into the moment. A ruby-eyed pit viper slithered through the hole of Cardin’s black T-shirt to seek protection from the elements.

How had she been so wrong? The evidence had been there, right in front of them. The SUV caught on surveillance footage from Rachel Faulkner’s home security system, the video posted to thousands of social media accounts and blogs detailing the exact time and location both victims had argued with one another. Blair melted into the knee-high grass around her, afraid if she didn’t move now, she might not be able to stand again. Cardin Townsend wasn’t a suspect. She’d been targeted as viciously and venomously as Rachel Faulkner. The drag marks leading up the mountain. This was the body the killer had been disposing of tonight. Which meant… “She’s… still out here.”

The weeds tickled and scratched at her hands as she turned her back on Cardin’s remains. A streak of light cut through the trees on the other side of the clearing, faint, but didn’t diminish. The beam remained steady, unmoving. Not a hallucination. A flashlight? The search and rescue team should’ve arrived on location by now. It was possible they’d already initiated their search pattern. A sob exploded from her chest as desperation clawed through her. Rain battered against her, but a renewed determination helped her put one foot in front of the other. She wasn’t alone. She was going to get out of here.

The light clarified the closer she neared, pulling her in. Breaking through the tree line, Blair dropped to her knees and brushed low plants and vines out of the way. Relief and tears tornadoed into a cruel combination and destroyed the remnants of her control as she uncovered the flashlight. It was the same model, same brand, as the light she’d strapped to her vest before hiking the trail. The brightness blinded her for a split second and produced white dots in her vision. Colson had been here. He was close.

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