Angel Fire

Chapter Thirteen

“So how did you get your name?” Sam asked. They were traveling on even ground and didn’t seem to be climbing at all. The forest was a little thicker here than in the last two days. She found the hiking easy this morning. Easy enough to talk and not be out of breath.

“You mean since I’m a killer?”

“Well, your mother must have thought you were special. She gave you such a beautiful name.”

Angel stopped suddenly but didn’t turn around. Sam wondered if bringing up his mother was taboo.

“My mother was the angel,” he finally said. He turned to look at her then. “She died,” he said without much emotion.

“I’m sorry,” Sam said immediately. His eyes had a faraway look, and she knew he was remembering her.

“I…I was sixteen. And I have yet to forgive my father.”

“He…he killed her?” she asked quietly.

Angel nodded. “A car accident. He’d been drinking. He was always drinking. He took a corner too fast. Swerved to miss another car and ended up flipping them over. He walked away without a scratch.”

Sam instinctively reached out and squeezed his arm. “I’m so sorry. Did you have siblings to turn to?”

“No. And the son of a bitch didn’t even do jail time. I left home, went to live with the family of a friend. When I turned eighteen, I joined the military.”

She wanted to ask a hundred more questions, but she held back. She let him reminisce without her pestering him with questions. After a few seconds, he nodded and she let her hand slip from his arm. He started walking again and she followed. But of course her curiosity got the best of her. She waited what she thought was an acceptable amount of time before asking her next question.

“So the military? What did you do?”

He laughed. “Do you really want to know?”

“Do I not want to know?” she countered.

“I ended up in a Special Ops unit,” he said.

“Okay. That means what?”

“My team was made up of sharpshooters.” He stopped again and turned to her. “I was a sniper. I assassinated people.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Yeah. That’s where I got my start. You’re trained to kill without thinking about it. It became too easy,” he said. “And I was very, very good at it.”

Okay, so this conversation is going downhill fast.

“What else do you want to know?” he asked.

She met his gaze. “That’s probably more than enough.”

“Thought it’d be.”

* * *

“What the hell?”

“What is it?” Andrea asked.

“I got two trails here.”

“What do you mean?” Hunter asked as she walked up beside her.

Cameron pointed up the hill. “They go up here. This is what we’ve been following.” Then she pointed to the left, into the woods. “But I’ve got a broken limb on this scrub brush. See the indention where this rock has been moved?” She stood up. “So the trail goes this way.”

“Maybe it’s from other hikers,” Andrea suggested.

“No. It’s them.” Cameron squinted into the sun as she looked up the ridge. What the hell was he doing? “Backtracking?”

“What?”

She shook her head. “Thinking out loud.” She walked up the trail a few steps then turned back. “It’s very steep. I can’t believe he’d take this route.” She motioned to Andi. “Andrea, please stay there.” Andrea nodded. “Hunter, come with me.”

“Sam’s not crazy about heights,” Tori said as she looked over the edge. “And right now, I’m not either.”

“See the rocks dislodged. They definitely came up this way.” Cameron hurried up, knowing in her gut that they’d backtracked. Maybe he’d gone up here for show. Maybe he wanted to confuse them. Hell, maybe it got too steep and they had to turn around. She felt like they were wasting precious time, but she had to be sure.

She stopped when she saw the skid marks off to the side, the smooth dirt where a body had been dragged. Christ, did she go over the side? Cameron looked down, seeing where the skid stopped.

“Look here,” she said.

“What does that mean?” Hunter squatted down. “Looks like someone slipped here.”

“Yeah. That someone is your Sam.”

Hunter looked up at her. “What are you saying? She fell off the goddamn side?” Hunter stood back up, peering over the side much like Cameron had done.

“No, no. It’s not like it’s a sheer drop off. She would have only slid down twenty feet or so. But no, the marks stop there,” she said, pointing. She walked up the trail a little more but found no evidence that they’d continued. “My guess is, this was steeper than he thought. Not only was it slowing them down, Sam being an inexperienced hiker proved to be a liability.”

“So they went back down and took an easier route.”

“Exactly. But route to where?” Cameron pulled out her GPS, intending to look at the new route into the forest. “If I had access to my computers in the rig, I could put our daily coordinates into one of the algorithms Jason wrote for me. We could at least get a probability of his intended target.”

Hunter stared at her. “You can do that? So why don’t you, like, remote in or something.”

“Yeah, if it were only that easy.” She held up the device. “This is all I got. No computer.”

“Can’t you call it in? Have someone else do it?”

“Who? One of the rangers? The sheriff’s deputies?”

“Murdock?”

“Yeah. I could do that. When we stop tonight, I’ll compile our coordinates. If I’ve got a strong enough signal, I’ll email it to him. Maybe he can get Jason on it.”

She studied the terrain, trying to see where he might be heading. This route, along the ridge, looped back down to the other side. If they are now traveling around it, while still going slightly up, they’d end up…where?

“There’s a river,” she said. “He’s probably carrying less water than we are. He’d need to refill.” She looked at Hunter. “I’m guessing that’s where they made camp. Sound plausible?”

Hunter nodded. “Works for me.”

“Yeah. Let’s go.” She headed back down to where they’d left Andrea.

“So who is Jason? Is he on your team?”

“My team is Andrea. No, Jason is at Quantico. Computer geek. He designed my setup in the rig and the truck. He wrote all of the programs I use.” She grinned. “Like I said, I’d really be dangerous if I knew how to use them all.”

Andrea was waiting where they’d left her, and she raised her eyebrows questioningly. “They went this way, right?”

“You turning into a tracker?”

Andrea smiled at her. “Yeah. Because this way looks a lot easier.”

“Yeah. We found where they stopped. Looks like Sam may have stumbled and gone off the side a bit.”

“What? Like fell?”

“No, just slid a little,” Tori said. “Maybe she did it on purpose, trying to slow him down.”

“Could have,” Cameron said. “She’s been doing great by leaving marks behind. Like breaking this limb here.” She headed into the woods. “Let’s see if we can’t make up some time on them.” She paused, her eyes going to the sky. “Listen,” she said.

“What? I don’t hear anything,” Hunter said.

“Wait for it.”

Maybe it was her military training, but she’d recognize the distant low rumble of a helicopter anywhere.

Andrea was the first to hear it. “Helicopter.”

“I hear it now,” Tori said.

“Let’s hope Angel can hear it too.”

* * *

Sam tilted her head, listening. Angel stopped, doing the same. He turned to her.

“Looks like they finally gave up on finding us with a roadblock,” he said.

“They don’t sound like they’re very close,” she said.

“Probably doing a perimeter search around the campground in all directions,” he said. He started hiking again. “If that’s the case, they probably won’t get up this far until tomorrow.”

Sam hurried to catch up with him. “You don’t sound worried,” she said.

“I can hide from a helicopter.” He glanced back at her as he kept walking. “As long as you don’t do anything stupid.”

“Have I done anything stupid so far?”

“No. You’ve been a model hostage,” he said with amusement in his voice. “Why is it that you haven’t tried to escape?”

“Where would I go? I mean, say I could outrun you because, well, maybe you trip on a rock and knock yourself out,” she said with a quick laugh. “So I get away. Then what? I don’t know where I am. I have no food or water. I have no tent.”

“True.”

“And then there’s the fear of a mountain lion. Thank you for putting that seed in my head,” she said.

“So you’ve accepted your fate, huh?” He looked back at her again. “Or are you still holding out hope that you’ll get rescued?”

“Yes. Tori is coming for me. I know it.” And she did. It was more than wishful thinking. She could almost feel her coming.

“I admire your faith,” Angel said.

“It’s easy. She loves me. She would do anything in her power to find me.” When he didn’t say anything, she decided to probe. “You ever been in love, Angel?”

He paused only a moment, then answered her with a very curt no.