Page 8 of Manhunt in the Narrows
“That one I don’t regret, considering you currently have the best access to whatever is happening below my belt, which we will never discuss ever again, right?” Agent Broyles didn’t wait for her to agree. Good thing, too. She wasn’t sure she could keep her end of that deal when it came to unloading crazy stories at the next ranger meeting. “As for the biggest stupid decision? I got myself sent here. Chasing some low-level killer instead of being out there saving the world against the cartels and weapons dealers I usually handle.”
“Is that really such a bad thing?” Low-level killer? The man they were chasing had already murdered five people, including a victim in this very park. Didn’t bringing him to justice count for something, or was it the power trip that got Agent Broyles’s rocks off? A sour taste coated her tongue at the thought. She’d known too many agents like him. Ones who liked to hold that control over others, who served their own agendas despite the promises they’d made. Sayles cleaned his wound as best she could with the alcohol wipes from her kit. Maybe with a little too much force as irritation built behind her sternum.
Agent Broyles hissed at the burn. Good. She didn’t know a whole lot about his personal case history, but she knew one thing. Stopping a killer—no matter the bastard’s track record—was just as important as all those big fish he preferred. Didn’t he see that?
His voice lowered, barely reaching her above the slap of rain against the rock they stood on and the solar blanket overhead. “I got a witness killed.”
Chapter Six
The injury wasn’t just trying to eat through his thigh anymore.
It’d caught fire.
Ranger Green slapped a clean bandage over the wound, following it up with a couple pats around the edges. Something told him she’d left the alcohol pads on a little too long for a reason. In punishment. “You’re done.”
“Thanks.” Elias tried to fold the solar blanket back into the neat little square it had come in, but it was no use. So he crumpled it in one hand and made quick work of pulling his jeans back into place, then offered it to her.
“You keep it.” She repacked her first aid kit and pocketed the latex gloves she’d donned. Pack it in, pack it out. The kit went in next. Seemed everything in her pack had a place, and she wasn’t the type of woman to break that habit. “I have another.”
Their hot and cold back-and-forth was giving him whiplash. One minute she offered to dress his wound, the next she couldn’t even seem to look at him. Like he’d offended her.
The rain’s assault had lightened up over the past few minutes, but the river was still too angry for them to get back in it. The only consolation in losing the limited time they had to catch up with their killer was the bastard was just as stuck as they were.
The bandage pulled at the hairs along his thigh as he took his seat again. His knee knocked into hers, and he couldn’t help the change in her body language. Too rigid. It only lasted a second,but while his career had taken a nosedive the past couple of months, he hadn’t lost his observational skills.
Pulling a yellow deck-size box from her pack, she thumbed through a stack of playing cards. But they didn’t look like any normal playing cards he’d seen at the countless convenience stores he and Grant had visited over the past few weeks on the road. No face cards or icons but numbers, bullet points and short paragraphs instead. The pack was color-coded. Blue diamonds, purple spades, red hearts and green clubs with a few black edges for jokers. They each seemed to mean something significant. “What’s your poison? I’m really good at go fish.”
Elias grabbed the deck from her hands and shuffled through it over his crossed boots. “I tell you I got a witness killed, and you want to play cards?”
“I figured if you wanted to offer the information, you would.” A slow rise and fall of her shoulders tried to convince him of her casualness. It was all a lie, though. This woman was anything but casual out here in her element. Constantly aware of her surroundings, scanning the river every few minutes as if looking for something specific. Maybe a body? Always on guard. Especially around him. “It’s none of my business why you’re here. Just my job to make sure you get out of this canyon.”
He kind of liked that. Someone with enough self-awareness to know when to push and when to pull. Why exhaust yourself trying to decipher someone else’s moods when putting the responsibility on them to communicate saved everyone time and frustration? He needed more of that in his life. “Fair point.”
Elias studied the cards before handing off ten to her. Flipping over the bright yellow-and-orange box they’d come in—thicker than a normal deck—he absorbed the oversize lettering on the front. “The don’t die out there deck. Survival tips? Figured you rangers were above resorting to tourist souvenirs for guidance.”
“Funny.” She took the cards with a little too much force. “I brought them for you, Agent Broyles.”
Ouch. Well, he’d walked right into that one. He’d yet to deal his own set of ten for their game—because who the hell actually knew when they were getting off this rock?—and read the first card in his stack. “If you are lost. Keep your cool. Don’t panic. Take a break for food and water. Use your map. That’s some great advice. For a five-year-old.”
“Why do you think I brought them for you?” Ranger Green reshuffled her cards with a wide sardonic smile. Hell, the look fit her perfectly. A little wild and a whole lot daring. Most people had a healthy avoidance of law enforcement. Not overly obvious. Just wary. Like when their nerves get the best of them during a routine traffic stop. She wasn’t one of those people. No. Instead, she carried something heavier.
“I see how it is.” Elias dealt the cards with the rest of the deck positioned between them. “All right. You want to play, Ranger Green, we’ll play. Best of this hand, and when I win, you have to tell me why you don’t like me.”
Her smile slipped. Barely enough to convince him he hadn’t really seen the change. “And if I win?”
“What do you want?” He was far more interested in her answer than he should be. What did a woman like Sayles Green want more than anything? And why the hell did he care?
“If I win, you aren’t allowed to speak for the next hour.” Those intense green eyes brightened at the idea.
“Wow,” he said. “You could’ve asked for anything, and that’s what you’re going with?”
“I like my quiet time.” She slipped one card free and slid it toward the back of her hand. “It’s why I come out here so often, away from everybody else. When I’m not on the trails, it’s easier to believe the world isn’t as cruel as I remember it being.”
The rush of the river filled the silence between them.
Elias shifted his position on the rock beneath them, a very sharp edge working its way into all the wrong places. “All right. Do you have any fives?”
She was forced to give up two cards. And over the next few minutes, his pile grew while hers dwindled. Until he’d collected everything he’d needed to win.
