Page 56 of Scent of Peril

Ironic that their early morning search had in fact led them to their quarry. But not in the way she’d hoped.

They’d depended too much on Teddy’s tracking ability, which had been hindered in part due to the gunman standing down in the ravine. She had no doubt Teddy would have found the cave.

Too bad the masked gunman had found them first. Maybe he’d even come out of the cave in time to hear her sliding on her fanny down the side of the ravine.

She mentally kicked herself for not paying closer attention to the reason Teddy had stopped like that, but there was no time for regrets. Her new goal was to stay alive long enough for Logan and Doug to find her.

While doing her best to avoid getting shot.

They seemed to walk through the cave forever, until finally the corridor widened into a room. There were boxes stacked along the wall, and from the way Teddy sniffed the base of them, then sat to look at her without barking, made her realize they held drugs. Or more likely, the components used to make synthetic drugs.

Again, she gave Teddy the hand signal to heel. The dog quickly returned to her side. She eyed the masked man warily. “I assume you’re Craig Benton?”

“I knew that pilot had come back to find me for a reason.” Disgust laced his tone. “He should have just minded his own business.”

“Logan didn’t come back to this area because of you.” Jess frowned, hoping to buy time by keeping him talking. “He saw a piece of a tail fin that may have been from my parents’ plane wreck from a crash that happened five years ago. We returned to find it, to take it back with us, not to search for you.” She gestured to the cave and the subsequent boxes stacked along the far side. “If you’d have just left us alone, we wouldn’t be standing here right now. None of this would have happened.”

He said nothing for a moment, then shrugged. “Maybe not. But now that you’re here, I have little choice but to remove you as a threat.” He lowered the barrel of his gun toward Teddy. “And him too.”

“Listen, I don’t care about your drug business.” Another lie, but she didn’t think God would mind. “There’s no reason to kill us.”

“It’s too late; you shouldn’t have come back here.” His tone hardened. “And how did you know what was in those boxes?”

She inwardly winced at her second mistake in a matter of minutes. She really needed to stay focused! Striving for a casual tone, she shrugged. “I don’t know what’s in them, but it must be something illegal, or you wouldn’t be standing there holding a gun on me.”

“It’s that dog of yours, isn’t it?” He glared at Teddy.

“No, Teddy didn’t alert on anything. He would have barked if he’d caught the scent of drugs.” Another lie, and there were so many now that she was losing count. She tried to think of a way to defuse the situation but was coming up empty.

How long would it take for Logan and Doug to find her?

Too long, based on the way the masked man was glaring at her.

When he lifted his wrist to look at his watch, she realized why they were standing there. He was waiting for someone.

She cast a quick glance around the cave, desperate for a way out. If others were on the way, she couldn’t wait for Logan or Doug.

There was a shadow behind the stack of boxes that could be another tunnel. Would it lead deeper into the mountainside?

Should she make a run for it?

Without giving herself time to think it through, she gave Teddy the hand signal for go as she darted toward the shadow. Her movement must have caught her captor off guard because the guy didn’t shoot at them as she and Teddy disappeared down the tunnel.

It was dark, so she had to keep one hand on the wall as she ran.

Within seconds, she was proven wrong. A crack of gunfire echoed from behind her. She’d expected it, so she did her best to ignore the sound while continuing to move farther into the cavern. The darkness would hide Teddy more than her, and that was okay.

When her head smacked into something hard, she realized the tunnel was narrowing. Not good. What if she ended up in some dead-end tunnel with nowhere to hide?

Forcing herself to go slower, she felt along the way for an offshoot of what seemed to be the main tunnel. This had to be an old gold or silver mine of some sort. Something they should have considered when they hadn’t seen any above ground structures.

For all they knew, they had a full drug operation going on down here.

“You can’t escape,” the gunman called. His low, raspy voice bounced off the walls in an eerie echo.

She bit back the urge to respond. Maybe all she was doing was buying more time, but it was better than nothing.

Then she suddenly realized she could see the tunnel up ahead. The darkness wasn’t as complete as it had been, which meant the masked man behind her had a flashlight.

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