Paula Graves - Dead Man's Curve

Another sound seeped into her consciousness. Footsteps. Careful. Furtive.

Turning a slow circle, she let her gaze go unfocused. Let the wall of green become a blur against which movement might become more evident. She slowed her breathing deliberately, remembering lessons from the shooting classes she’d taken in pursuit of her career, determined to be the best at any task she took on. Her own weapon, a Glock G30S, sat heavily in the small of her back. She reached behind her slowly and eased it from the holster.

She wasn’t dressed for stealth on purpose, but her brown jacket, olive-green blouse and dark trousers didn’t make her an easy target. She had ordinary brown hair, not a bright shock of red curls that might draw attention her way. Plain olive-toned skin, unlikely to stand out in the gloom. She was in many ways a nondescript woman, which had served her well on the job.

But right now, she felt utterly exposed as the crackle of underbrush filtered through the patter of rainfall.

Someone was watching her. She felt it.

Edging back in the direction she came, she tried not to panic. Coming out here alone had been reckless, especially when she probably could have convinced Landry to come along with her if she’d made the effort.

She hadn’t wanted to tell him what she’d seen. That was the truth of the matter. She hadn’t wanted to see his skepticism or, worse, his ridicule. Didn’t want to hear that she was imagining things.

She knew what she’d seen. She’d looked at Sinclair’s photograph for years, even after his death, wondering how the sweet-natured, passionate man she’d met in the Caribbean could have become a terrorist.

The wind picked up, swirling leaves from the trees to slap her rain-stung cheeks. Blinking away a film of moisture, she quickened her steps.

A dark mass rose out of the gloom to her right, slamming into her with a jarring blow before she could react. She staggered against the impact, trying to keep her feet, but shoes slipped on the rain-slick leaves carpeting the forest floor and she hit the ground. Her pistol went flying in the underbrush, out of reach. Breath whooshed from her lungs, and her vision darkened to a narrow tunnel of blurry light.

Rough hands grabbed at her as she gasped for air. Twisting, she tried to see her captor, certain she would see Sinclair Solano’s face staring back at her. But the dark-eyed man who held her in his painful grasp was someone she’d never seen before.

He shoved his pistol into the soft flesh beneath her chin, the front sight digging painfully into her skin. “¡Silencio!”

Her pulse rattling in her throat, she had no choice but to comply.

Chapter Two

It had happened in the span of a couple of seconds. One second, Ava Trent been turning back toward the path that had brought her within sight. The next, a man in the familiar jungle camouflage pattern of an El Cambio rebel had risen from behind a thick mountain laurel bush and slammed into her like a linebacker. They’d both gone down, but Ava had taken the brunt of the impact, struggling to breathe as the man grabbed her up and jammed a pistol under her chin.

Sin’s heart hammered in terror as he scanned the area for an accomplice. There. Emerging from the trees, a second man glided into view, grabbing Ava by the arm.

Two against one, with Ava as the wild card. She’d been carrying a weapon, and back at the crime scene she’d been moving about like a woman with a purpose. Law enforcement, maybe? She’d been circumspect about what she’d be doing when she returned home from vacation, but some things she’d said had hinted at a police job.

Had she recognized him across the parking lot and come out here to find him?

He was armed because Quinn had told him he’d be stupid to walk around unprotected. But despite his reputation, he wasn’t a man comfortable with violence. He never had been.

But he could be, under the right circumstances. He’d learned that much about himself in Sanselmo.

Pulling the pistol from the hidden holster inside his jacket, he wished he had a rifle instead. Better accuracy from a distance. But the Taurus 1911 would do.

Across the woods, the man holding the pistol to Ava’s chin drew his hand back, bringing the pistol muzzle away from her face. But as he did so, the second man grabbed her from behind in a bear hug, eliciting a grunt of surprise from her as she started to struggle against his hold.

The man with the gun pressed it to her forehead, and Sin aimed the Taurus in his direction, his finger sliding onto the trigger.

Ava slumped suddenly, her arms sliding up and her body dropping, catching the man holding her by surprise. She slipped from his grasp, down to the forest floor.

Sinclair would never get a better chance.

Aiming down the barrel of the Taurus, he fired. Simultaneously, another shot rang out, the crack echoing in the trees, almost drowning out the report of his own weapon. The man reaching for Ava fell backward into the underbrush. The man in front of her pitched forward, firing off a shot of his own as he fell.

Ava’s body jerked, even as she rolled away from the falling man, scrambled to her feet and started running. She made it about ten yards before she started to stagger, her legs wobbling beneath her as if they’d gone boneless. She fell forward into the thickening underbrush, disappearing from his view.

Keeping an eye on the two fallen men, Sinclair dashed after her, his heart racing faster than his churning legs. She lay crumpled, facedown, but he could see by the rise and fall of her body that she was still breathing. He stopped next to the two fallen men. The one who’d grabbed Ava first lay facedown, unmoving. The back of his camouflage jacket had a bloody hole in it, somewhere in the vicinity of his left shoulder blade. He didn’t appear to be breathing. Nudging with his foot, Sin rolled the man over and took a long look at his face.

Emilio Fuentes, he thought, staring into the glassy brown eyes of a man he’d once called friend. His heart contracted.

He picked up the pistol Fuentes had dropped and shoved it into his pocket. He checked the second man, the one at whom he’d aimed his own pistol. Carlito Escalante. A bloody hole in the side of the man’s neck was the only obvious injury. Sin checked for a pulse and found none.

A queasy sensation filled his gut, and he swallowed the urge to be sick.

He searched Carlito’s body, found a hunting knife besides the pistol the man had dropped, and added both to his pocket, trying not to let his rapid respirations escalate to hyperventilation. He needed his wits about him. His life had just gotten a thousand times more dangerous.

By the time he found the pistol Ava had dropped when she was attacked and turned back to her, she was on her hands and knees, trying to crawl away. He hurried to her side, crouching beside her.

She whirled at his touch, swinging her arm up in a shaky arc before he could react. Suddenly, he was staring down the muzzle of a Glock aimed right between his eyes. Now he knew where the second shot had come from.

She’d had another weapon.

“Ava,” he said.

“You’re supposed to be dead.” Her voice had a raw, uneven tone, the shaking in her hand growing to an alarming wobble.

He reached out and moved her hand away from his face. She struggled but didn’t pull the trigger before he took the gun away and wrapped his arm around her as she started to fall backward. “Whoa, there.” Dropping the Glock to one side, he gave her a quick appraisal, looking for her injury.

There. Under the hem of her jacket. Blood spread across the right side of her charcoal trousers and seeped upward onto her olive-green blouse. As she tried to slap his hands away, he tugged the blouse up and away, revealing a ripped furrow in the waistband of her pants. Beneath it, the bullet’s path had carved a bloody gouge in the soft flesh just above her hip bone.