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Wade braced her with his hands clamped to her waist. “What’s wrong?”
“All this time we’ve been wondering if Deputy Smith was a serial killer who acted alone.”
“Um, right, but what made you start thinking about that, right now?”
“Your injury reminded me of that day, when Deputy Smith was waiting for us, to shoot us.”
“I remember it too damn well.” His grip tightened around her.
“Serial killers have an MO, right? All the old cop shows stress that.”
“Because it’s true.”
“So if Deputy Smith killed all those other people with a knife because he was a serial killer, doesn’t it make sense that he would follow that same pattern in trying to take us down?”
Wade went still. Very still. The gush of water filled the silence between them as she could all but see the wheels turning in his mind.
Sunny continued. “Maybe he was just desperate, but it’s worth considering alternatives to the serial killer scenario. According to every true-crime show I’ve watched, serial killers have their rules, their patterns—a particular method. They have to stick to the ritual to get the thrill. Rand Smith killed my friends by slashing their throats. If he’s a serial killer, it stands to reason he would have used the knife on us instead of the gun. We have to seriously consider the possibility that he’s an assassin, hired by someone higher up the chain.”
Wade cursed low under his breath, his face hardening back into warrior mode. Her tender lover had faded away.
A noise cut the night, a door opening. He tensed, tucking her to his chest before she could say so much as “I can take care of myself.” Although given that they were both naked, outside in Alaska, that made them both plenty vulnerable.
She looked to the entrance leading back inside. The brown door opened wide, the two figures backlit, faces indistinguishable.
They stepped forward as one, a man and a woman. The female eased forward and Misty’s face came into focus. Sunny sagged with relief. Her sister stood with Flynn Everett, who apparently hadn’t gone home for the night after all. Wade’s uniform and Sunny’s clothes littered the ground around their feet.
Now that the initial freaked-out fear had gone, awkwardness crept over her. She was in the middle of the hot springs, naked with a guy.
“Um, would you mind turning your backs for a second so we can get some towels and our clothes?”
“Of course,” Misty said quickly, spinning around and pushing at Flynn’s shoulders for him to follow. “Could you hurry? It’s really important.”
“Right…” She half swam, half walked across the small pondlike springs until she reached the steps, feeling Wade’s bulk behind her.
She snagged a towel and robe, tossing one to Wade. Yanking the terrycloth over her body and half dancing to keep her toes from freezing on the deck, she allowed herself a quick glance at him. He pitched aside the robe in favor of yanking on his camo pants. So quickly his body had become familiar to her, from his taut butt to the green footprint tattoos walking up his shoulder. With the world unraveling around her, he was fast becoming her one constant.
As she rushed to follow her sister and Flynn inside, she saw Wade shrugging into the rest of his uniform, damp splotches mottling the camo pattern from where the fabric had rested on the icy deck. It was almost as if his body was immune to the cold.
The thick wood door eased closed, sealing the four of them in the dimly lit corridor. She started to suggest they go upstairs to her apartment, but Misty grabbed her by the arm.
“I got an email tonight from a woman named Andrea Livingston. She forwarded documents and correspondence that suggest her husband plans to blow up a power plant. And he’s doing so with the help of someone here.”
Wade stepped forward, his face set. “Time to wake up Flynn’s father and use his satellite phone again.”
“Right,” Flynn said. “He’ll need to know the latest development anyway.”
“Wait, Wade.” Sunny clasped his arm, his muscles tensed under her grip. “Who are you calling? The police? Shouldn’t we hear more about the emails to make sure we don’t go off in the wrong direction?”
“I’ve done this your way since we started up the mountain. I’ve respected your boundaries, your way of doing things, your concerns for your family. Now it’s become bigger than us. Bigger than your family. It’s time to do this my way. It’s time to set off my emergency beacon so my people can locate us. We need to call in the reinforcements.”
***
The kitchen wall clock showed four in the morning.
Brett paced his way across the tile floor in the sleeping house. He couldn’t risk going into the bedroom since Andrea might wake up and note what time he’d come in. The sitter slept like a log and didn’t know yet that Andrea intended to fire her, so that wasn’t a problem. The sitter only woke up for the alarm connected to an emergency button in Andrea’s room and one on her chair.
He would stretch out on the sofa in the office. He would simply tell his wife he’d been at the plant late and didn’t want to wake her once he got home, pretty much the truth. A dim glow lit the hall. Every room had night-lights rechargeable by the sun, so no matter what time of day, even in a blackout, Andrea would be able to find her way around the house.
