“Now you’ve seen it,” Mike said. “Anything else?”
“I want to snap a few quick shots, then we can be on our way.” She pulled out her camera and began to take photographs, changing her angles and position around the area so that nothing would be missed. “I really appreciate your taking the time to come out here unscheduled, by the way. The faster the job goes, the sooner your company can start building. That is, provided we don’t find anything that otherwise halts the—wait a minute.” She paused, seeing an out-of-place streak of white through the camera’s viewfinder. “It looks like...bone. I think that’s a phalange. But see how it’s just lying there? Something about this doesn’t look right.” She pulled the camera away from her face and studied the area with bare eyes. “In fact, none of it does. The whole site looks as though it’s already been disturbed, like someone has come through and hacked at the ground with a shovel—”
Pain exploded in the back of Kara’s skull, and she pitched forward. Her camera flew out of her hands and rolled across the ground, coming to rest next to a tree several meters away. She landed hard on her shoulder, palms and knees carving shallow trenches in the dirt as she skidded to a stop. Sparks danced in front of her eyes as she tried to cry out, but she couldn’t tell if the muffled sounds she heard came from her or someone else. What’s happening, Lord?
She curled her fingers in the dirt and squeezed her eyes shut. The foreman! She forced her eyes open and exhaled in relief—there were still white stars in her vision, but she could see through them. Unfortunately, what she saw was a person wearing a ski mask standing over the motionless body of the foreman. Instinct drove her to help while she still had breath to do so, but when she rose up on her forearms and reached for Mike, the masked person’s gaze snapped to hers and then to someplace behind her. Pain exploded in her side as she felt the tip of a boot collide with her kidney.
“Someone’s coming,” a male voice growled behind her. “Let’s get out of here.”
“But we haven’t—” said another.
“We’re done here, let’s go!”
Kara heard a deep snort that sounded an awful lot like...a horse? But why would there be a horse in the woods? She pressed her palm against her temple as the throbbing in her head intensified. Were these men trying to kill her and the foreman? Would they finish them off before disappearing?
The sound of pounding hooves grew louder and then diminished, along with the sounds of shouting. And then the woods grew quiet again, save for her heart hammering with adrenaline against her rib cage, the rustling of the leaves above her and the occasional birdcall.
“Mike?” she tried to inch her way across the disturbed earth. “Mike, are you all right?”
He groaned but didn’t move. A flood of fear spilled into her veins. The foreman needed medical attention immediately, and while she had some on-the-job first aid training—no self-respecting field archaeologist didn’t—she had no equipment or supplies to help him, and her satellite phone was in her vehicle. She’d planned to charge it tonight in town. Everything hurt, but what other option did she have but to push through and somehow get the foreman inside her car and into town? She needed to find the strength quickly, before their assailants returned. They might have been scared off by someone else, but for how long? And what if the person who’d scared them was even worse?
“Mike, don’t move,” she said, frustrated at the breathiness of her voice. It was hard to inhale, which meant she had to consider the possibility of broken ribs. “I’m going to—”
Footsteps thundered through the brush. Before she could react, thin black equine legs stopped several feet away.
“I suggest you take the same advice,” said a new, male voice. “Don’t move.”
The voice tugged at a thread of memory, but her head and body ached too much to remember. She stopped moving anyway, in case the new arrival was a worse alternative to the people who’d attacked her and Mike. Lord, protect us. “I’m hurt and unarmed, and this man needs medical assistance. We’re no threat to you.”
She heard a sharp exhale as the visitor slid from his saddle. “Sam Thrace, RCMP. I’m no threat to you either, ma’am.”
Her stomach lurched. Sam Thrace? That Sam Thrace? The boy she’d dated in high school? She managed to peer at him from the corner of her eye, jaw nearly dropping at the sight of the insignia patches on his grayish-blue jacket and black vest. Royal Canadian Mounted Police? Had she entered some kind of alternate dimension?
She took a deep, shaky breath and turned her face to him. “Hey, Sam.”
* * *
Sam froze in place. He’d thought that voice sounded familiar, but it had been a long time since he’d heard Kara Park’s low, stern tones on the other end of a phone line. Even longer since they’d spoken in person. Eighteen years, in fact. A full half of his lifetime. What was she doing out here in the wilds of northern BC?
He’d ask later. Right now he had a job to do, potential assailants to watch out for and an injured man to transport back to town for medical assistance. He nodded at Kara once and offered his hand. She didn’t take it, instead choosing to stand on her own, one hand rubbing the back of her head.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She tried to shake her head but winced. “Not particularly. It hurt to breathe for a few minutes, but it’s getting easier. Do you have a satellite phone or a cell that gets reception out here? Foreman Helfer needs a doctor.” As if on cue, the foreman groaned and shifted, trying to raise himself up on his elbows. Sam shot to the man’s side, but Kara had the same idea. They bumped heads as they both crouched, rocking back on their heels.
“Sorry,” Sam muttered. “Maybe you should let me have a look, okay? You might need medical assistance, too.”
She raised both her hands in surrender. “Fine by me.”
“Sir?” He spoke loudly as the foreman coughed and tucked in his knees, attempting to sit up. Sam didn’t see any visible exterior wounds or bleeding, but that didn’t mean the man wasn’t badly hurt. However, it would take some time to get emergency services out here into the woods, so if there was any safe way for the man to get back to the vehicle that brought him here, it would be a faster process. “Can you tell me your name?”
The foreman nodded as he rose to his knees—then promptly wobbled and tipped sideways, taking a shaky breath. “What happened? I’m... I’m Mike. My chest hurts.”
“One of those guys kicked me in the side,” Kara said. “I didn’t see it happen, but they might have done the same to him. He could have broken ribs, a punctured lung...”
Sam pulled his satellite phone out of his belt. Guess they’d need emergency services out in the woods after all.
“Don’t bother,” Kara said. “I’ll drive him back. It’ll be faster.”
Sam narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re hurt, too.”
“I told you, I’m feeling better already. I played hockey in high school. Don’t you remember how excited my dad was when I joined the team? Hockey wasn’t popular in Korea until long after my parents immigrated to Canada, but he fell in love with the game during the 1976 Stanley Cup Finals when the Montreal Canadians swept the Philadelphia Flyers four games to none. My dad came to every single one of my games and practices, and built me that little rink in the backyard. I still know how to take a hit, thanks to that.”
“Without gear or a helmet?”
“Okay, well, no. But I can work through pain. I’m all right, Sam. Honest. I’ll get checked out back in town if you insist, but I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t think it was safe. You know it’ll be faster for me to drive him in.”
Sam