Annoyed, he blew out his pent-up breath, asking himself what the hell had just happened. Just who did she think she was? Some sort of psychic? His long-lost soul mate?
Yeah, right. It’d be a cold day in hell when he started believing in that kind of delusional mumbo jumbo.
Jaw clenched, he stowed the binoculars and surged into motion. Carefully hugging the shadow of the trees, he began to work his way toward the back of the cabin, his powerful body making short shrift of the thigh-high snowdrifts.
Enough cat and mouse. It was time to take her down.
Genevieve set the bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. Chilled despite the warmth of her parka, she rubbed her arms and did her best to dispel her lingering sense of unease.
Try as she might to downplay it, she’d had the most uncomfortable sensation of being watched while she was outside. It had been sharp, overwhelming, eerie—as palpable as an actual touch. Alarm had flickered along her spine; gooseflesh had erupted on her arms and prickled the nape of her neck.
She’d felt a powerful urge to run.
That’s what you get for staying up late last night reading Stephen King. Keep it up, and the next thing you know, you’ll start to think the trees are alive. Or that a mutant squirrel is coming to get you….
A wry little smile tugged briefly at the corners of her mouth. Okay. So maybe she was a wee bit jumpy. It wasn’t really surprising, not when her stop in town to get supplies had filled her with such conflicting feelings.
Typical of her current existence, she’d been scared to death that someone might recognize her while also wishing fervently that she might see a familiar face. Which was not only illogical and contradictory, but also highly improbable since the last time she’d been in the area for more than a night she’d been barely fifteen, nearly half the age she was now.
Still, she knew she was taking a chance by coming here. How to Vanish without a Trace, the book that had been her bible these past months, warned against seeking out known and familiar places.
And yet…Not only was she running dangerously low on money, but she’d changed her identity so many times they were starting to run together. She needed a break—just a week or maybe two—to rest and regroup. And surely, after all this time, anyone still looking for her would have written this place off.
Lord, she hoped so, she thought, turning to glance fondly at the cabin’s simple interior. The structure was a standard, open-concept A-frame. Toward the back, an L-shaped kitchen occupied one side, while the bathroom and a sleeping area with a massive built-in bed occupied the other, the two areas separated by a narrow stairway that led up to a small loft.
A bank of windows stretched across the cabin’s front, divided by a floor-to-ceiling native-stone fireplace equipped with a glass-fronted heat insert. Although the oversized navy couch, the trio of maple occasional tables and the pair of padded rocking chairs were new, chosen by the property management company she’d hired when the place had passed to her and her brother, they had clean, uncluttered lines, like the old furniture she remembered, and were placed to make the most of the sweeping view of the surrounding peaks.
If she closed her eyes, she could almost believe it was fourteen years ago and that any second her great-uncle Ben would come clattering through the door, an adoring twelve-year-old Seth dogging his heels. The two would snatch away whatever book she happened to be reading—her little brother complained that Genevieve was always reading—and tug her out on the deck to see the sunset or watch an eagle soaring overhead.
Except that Uncle Ben had been gone more than a decade, the last to pass of the quintet of elderly relatives who’d done the best they could to provide their great-niece and great-nephew with some occasional normalcy. While Seth…
Her heart clenched at the memory of the last time she’d seen her brother. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit, his hands weighed down with shackles, Seth’s normally easygoing expression had been closed and implacable as he faced her through the mesh divide of the visitors’ room of the Silver County Jail. “No. No way, Gen,” he’d said flatly. “You go into court and refuse to testify, they’re going to throw you in jail, too.”
“But—”
“No. It’s bad enough that you’re probably going to lose your house—and for what? To pay an attorney who thinks I’m guilty? But I swear to God I’ll confess before I’ll let you sacrifice your freedom.”
“Seth, don’t be foolish—”
“I’m not kidding. It’s a slam dunk I’m going to be convicted.” His voice had been even, almost uninflected, but his eyes had been so defeated it had taken all her strength not to lay her head down on the scarred counter between them and weep. “The best thing you can do is accept that I’m a lost cause and just…move on.”
As if, Genevieve thought fiercely now. The mere thought of giving up on her little brother was inconceivable. They’d never known their father, and it had been just the two of them ever since their mother had abandoned them for good when Genevieve was ten and Seth was seven. She certainly wasn’t about to sit back now and do nothing while he was punished for something he hadn’t done. Any more than she would play a part, however unwilling, in making him appear guilty.
So, after considerable agonizing, she’d decided to run. It was far from a perfect solution—she accepted that eventually she’d have to pay for defying the court—but so far, at least, she’d done what she’d set out to. The trial had been delayed, buying Seth some time. And there was always a chance that one of the dozens of people she’d written to over the past three months—policemen, attorneys, private investigators, her congressman—might actually decide to do what she’d begged and look into the case.
In the meantime, she was doing okay. Sure, she was lonely—just as How to Vanish warned, the hardest part of disappearing wasn’t constructing a new identity or not leaving a paper trail or even not staying too long in any one place.
The hardest part was having no one to talk to. She couldn’t count the number of times during the course of a day that she longed to hear a familiar voice or see a familiar face. As much as she missed home, what she missed even more was someone to confide in, someone she could trust.
Still, as long as she had her books, her freedom and her sincere belief that if she just continued to insist on Seth’s innocence somebody somewhere would eventually listen, she could survive anything.
Uh-huh. Except for that killer squirrel that’s lurking outside, just waiting to get you.
Well, really. What was she going to do? Let herself be controlled by a nonexistent bogeyman, animal or otherwise? Crawl under the bed, cover her eyes and hide?
She drew herself up. Heck, no. She had enough legitimate worries without letting her imagination into the act.
Before she could lose her nerve, she zipped up her parka, strode to the door and flung it open. Marching outside, she caught her breath as a blast of frigid air swept over her, but she didn’t falter. Planting herself at the top of the stairs, she scanned the clearing one more time, determined to put an end to her foolish fears. She scoured the snow for telltale footprints and searched the shadows at the base of the pines for anything out of place.
Nothing. Yet she still had the strangest feeling….
Determined to be thorough and be done with this once and for all, she turned and marched out onto the large, prow-shaped section of the deck that jutted from the cabin’s front. Again she looked and listened, but there wasn’t a thing to suggest another human presence. There was just a glint of sun on snow, the intermittent call of a hawk and the whisper of the wind sighing through the surrounding trees.
See?