Page 34 of Close Pursuit

The engine cut off and she fumbled frantically at the radio. Dammit, she should have paid closer attention when Alex showed her how to use it a few days ago.

“Katie!” a familiar voice called out low.

She sagged, nearly peeing her pants in her relief. “Over here,” she replied.

She stood up and, when Alex reached her, threw her arms around his neck and squeezed the stuffing out of him. “I have never been so glad to see another human being in my entire life,” she confessed.

His arms closed around her tightly as she buried her face in his neck.

“How’s the baby?”

“Fine. About ready to eat again. I think she won’t need mother’s little helpers to take the fluid and swallow it this time.”

“Too bad. And your little helpers are not little, by the way.”

Her face heated up and she was grateful for the darkness to hide her blush.

“I got us a ride. Unless, of course, you’d rather walk the last twenty miles.”

She laughed under her breath. “No, that’s okay. Where’d you get the ATV?”

“Took it from its owner.”

“Did you kill him?”

“I hope not. I stopped his bleeding. I give him fifty-fifty odds of making it.”

She shrugged as she threw a leg on the seat behind Alex and settled Dawn in front of her. There was no time for compassion, right now. There was a baby to get to food and warmth, and her own life to protect. She wrapped her arms around his hard waist, savoring the strong, capable feel of him.

“Where are we going?” she asked over the engine noise.

“It’s a secret,” he called back.

They drove for a couple of hours, banging uncomfortably over the rough terrain. But it was a hell of a lot better than walking all this way.

They wound up into the mountains again and followed a one-lane dirt road through another pass. This time, the plain that opened before them as they topped the mountain peak was vast, stretching away as far as she could see. It was to one side of this huge, open plain that Alex guided the four-wheeler.

He paused to pull out his cell phone and use the GPS function to check his position. He took a visual fix on something up in the hills and eased the ATV forward once more. In about ten minutes he stopped and turned off the ignition. “We’re there,” he announced.

While he piled dead brush over the four-wheeler, she looked around and saw nothing but dirt and rocks and looming mountains.

“Where are we?” she finally asked him.

“Follow me.” Alex took off on foot up a steep, but short, hillside. With every step, the expression on his face waxed more thunderous. What about this hillside was making him so mad? Fury rolled off him in eddies and whorls that were practically visible to the naked eye.

He stopped at the base of a giant cliff and she joined him, frowning. A cluster of crude carvings caught the moonlight and cast shadows that were definitely man-made. But they were just lines and dots. She’d never seen the Karshani people use any symbols like that when she’d been around them. Alex ran a hand across them and then his fingers fisted together.

He ground out, “I probably ought to give you a speech about having to kill you if you reveal what I’m about to show you. But, in fact, I doubt anyone would believe you if you told them, anyway.”

Perplexed, she followed him into a high opening in the rocks that was more of a crack than a cave. He stopped, dug out a cyalume stick, and bent it to activate it.

He held it out to her. “Hold this.”

She took the glowing plastic tube and watched with interest as he pulled out his wallet and dug out a scrap of paper. He moved turned to face the wall of the narrow passage, and that was when she spotted the steel door.

“WTF?” she breathed.

He threw her a grim look and proceeded to dial in a five-number combination on an old-fashioned rotary combination lock. He took a deep breath in what sounded like resignation and let it out. As if this was a point of no return for him. He turned the massive handle and pulled.

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