Smokies Special Agent. Lena Diaz
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clouded. She was close to passing out from the pain.
“Fight, Remi. You can do this!” Her sister’s voice echoed in her mind.
The ratcheting sound of the cuffs locking into place sounded behind her. He shoved his hands into her jacket pockets, took her cell phone. Then he ran his hands quickly up and down her body. She cursed at him and tried to arch away.
“Stay there. Don’t move.” The command from her captor sounded more like an angry growl than an order. His weight lifted off her and once again he was gone.
She collapsed against the ground, the fight draining out of her. There was nothing else she could do. She squeezed her eyes shut. I’m so sorry, Daddy. Please forgive me, Becca. A whimper clogged her throat. Becca. Her sometimes sweet, always impetuous, infuriating twin. Maybe it was fitting that they’d both die in the same place, together as always, cradle to grave.
Remi lay unmoving. What was her assailant doing now? Without him weighing her down and her struggling against him, the agony in her shoulder became bearable. The black fog dissipated and the fuzziness in her head evaporated.
A low murmur had her turning her head. The man who’d cuffed her was on his knees again beside his partner in crime, saying something to him. His neon orange backpack strained across his broad shoulders, the color contrasting sharply with his black pants and black shirt. The wounded man writhed on the ground, his teeth bared like a rabid animal caught in a trap.
“Idiot! Stop wasting time. Get up while he’s distracted. Run!”
Her sister’s voice was so loud inside Remi’s head that she half expected to see her forever-seventeen features twisted with fury.
I’m so sorry, Becca. It’s all my fault. Everything is my fault.
Pent-up grief swept through her like a tsunami, obliterating everything in its path. It drowned her in a sea of sorrow that was just as fresh now as when she was a teenager. Losing both her mother and her sister the same year had nearly destroyed her. The death of her father a little over a year later had destroyed her, or at least, the person she used to be. She’d had to remake herself into someone new just to survive. A harder, tougher Remi Jordan. Or so she’d thought. Yet here she lay, helpless, about to die. You’re right, Becca. I’m an idiot.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Remi. Get your lazy butt up and run! Now! You owe me!”
You owe me. Her sister was right. She had to at least try. Remi tried to jerk upright, then gasped at the white-hot pain that shot through her shoulder. She shuddered and braced her forehead against the cold ground, gulping in short breaths of arctic air.
“Get up!” Becca yelled again.
Remi drew a ragged breath and awkwardly wiggled her body. Without the use of her hands to push herself up, it took a ridiculous amount of time to make it to a sitting position. But at least with her hands cuffed behind her back, the pressure on her shoulder was making it go blessedly numb. Maybe she could do this, after all.
She braced herself to try to stand, and risked a quick glance at the two men. The one who’d cuffed her had his backpack on the ground beside him and had taken out a first aid kit. With one hand pressing gauze bandages against the injured man’s side, he sat back and reached his other hand toward his waist.
Remi stiffened, expecting him to pull out a gun, maybe even hers. Instead, he lifted the edge of his jacket to reveal a thick black belt.
A utility belt.
With various leather holders clipped to it, like the kind that held handcuffs.
And a two-way radio.
A horrible suspicion swept through her, freezing her in place.
He grabbed the radio and pressed one of the buttons on the side. As if he sensed her watching him, his gaze flew to hers. The radio crackled and he spoke into the transmitter.
“This is Special Agent Duncan McKenzie. I located the woman the witness at the shelter reported seeing with a gun. But not before she shot a hiker. I need a medical crew up here, ASAP.”
The blood drained from Remi’s face, leaving her cold and shaking. Her gaze flew to the man she’d shot. He was pale and still on the forest floor, his eyes closed. And beside him, hanging out of his pocket, was the gun he’d pulled on her.
Except it wasn’t a gun.
It was a cell phone.
Dear God. What had she done?
Hunching in his jacket against the bitter wind, Duncan paused behind the unfamiliar SUV in the gravel lot by the office trailer. The vehicle’s plain exterior and dark color would typically help it blend in and avoid being noticed. Not here. Surrounded by white vehicles with green stripes down their sides and the brown National Park Service arrowhead shield on their doors, the SUV stuck out like a white-tailed deer in a herd of elk.
The license plate was federal government issue, but not the kind used by the NPS. All Duncan knew for sure was that whatever alphabet agency was here, they hadn’t simply dropped by on their way someplace else. Nestled deep inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, this satellite office was miles from the nearest town, Gatlinburg. The steep, winding access road was a challenge during the summer, nearly impossible during the winter without a four-wheel drive. Which meant their visitor was here on purpose. Something big must be going on, and Duncan aimed to find out what that was.
He jogged up the salted concrete steps at the end of the long trailer to the only door, a solid steel monstrosity designed to keep out the occasional curious black bear. The deep scratches in the prison-gray paint proved just how solid, and necessary, that precaution was. Even the huge metal storage shed at the end of the lot was reinforced with heavy steel bars. Working in the wilderness was dangerous in more ways than one. He pulled open the door and stepped inside.
Seventies-era dark wood paneling sucked up most of the light, in spite of wide windows set high up on the longest opposing walls. Four desks were tucked end to end beneath those windows, leaving a center aisle of worn rust-colored shag carpet. His boss, Yeong Lee, faced him from behind another, larger desk at the end of the aisle. Across from him, occupying the two metal folding chairs reserved for visitors, were a large black man in a charcoal-gray suit and a petite Caucasian woman with long blond hair cascading down her back.
As Duncan hung his jacket and gloves on hooks beside the door, he exchanged greetings with the only other people inside, Rangers Nick Grady and Oliver McAlister. Skinny freckle-faced Grady was a green-around-the-gills new recruit, while white-haired McAlister, with his gravelly smoker’s voice and stout frame, was a permanent fixture in the park. Dubbed Pup and Pops, the two were sitting together to the right of the door at McAlister’s desk. As usual, Pops was mentoring Grady about something on the computer screen.
Duncan paused beside McAlister. “Thanks for helping me out this morning. Did the prisoner give you any trouble?”
He shook his head. “No trouble at all and no thanks needed. If you hadn’t been here at 0-dark-thirty and taken the call for us, we’d have been the ones assigned to head up there, anyway. What’s the story on the hiker? Did he make it?”
“He got lucky. The bullet passed through the fleshy part of his side. Lost a lot of blood and they’ve got him on IV antibiotics to stave off infection. But he’s expected to make a full recovery.” He motioned toward the couple across from Lee. “Which agency decided to pay us a visit? Any idea why they’re here?”
McAlister exchanged a surprised look with Grady, his bushy eyebrows climbing like albino caterpillars to his hairline. “You don’t recognize the woman from this morning?”
Duncan frowned and studied her as best he