Page 36 of Undertow

Moving nothing but her hand, Cara reached out, desperate for something she could use to defend herself. Her fingers grazed a rock, smooth, the size of a softball, wedged in the creek bed. She grabbed it.

He was five feet away. Flashlight pointed downstream. Back to her.

She launched it—not at him. Past him. Ten yards downstream.

He spun. Moved toward the sound. Two steps, three⁠—

Cara was out of the cutout and up the bank in a single motion. Mud. Roots. Hands tearing through wet earth. She cleared the top and ran—northeast, back toward the highway, lungs burning, ribs screaming from the slide down the slope.

The trees thinned. She could see the highway—a dark strip with the faint sheen of rain on asphalt. Their car was a hundred yards east, parked behind a stand of Douglas fir where Wade had tucked it on approach.

Behind her, the man had figured out the rock. She could hear him coming—crashing back up the slope, the pretense of stealth abandoned. He was angry now. Angry was good. Angry made mistakes.

Fifty yards to the car. Forty. Her ribs were a white-hot line of pain along her left side with every stride.

She broke through the tree line. The car was there. She yanked the passenger door open.

Wade was in the driver’s seat.

He was bleeding—a gash above his right eyebrow that was painting one side of his face dark. “Get in.”

She slid in. Her pursuer burst through the trees as the door closed—close enough that she saw his face in the dome light. Young. Hard. Professional. Not police. Not amateur.

Wade put the car in gear.

The man reached for the door handle. But Wade didn’t accelerate. He opened his own door—a sharp, controlled shove that caught the man in the chest and sent him stumbling backward into the gravel. Then he pulled the door shut, dropped the car into drive, and hit the highway without headlights.

Neither spoke for a mile.

Cara’s hands were shaking. Not from fear—from the cold and the adrenaline and the tremor that came after your body released the chemicals it had been hoarding to keep you alive. She pressed her palms flat against her thighs. Her left side was a solid wall of pain.

“Report,” Wade said. Eyes on the road. Voice level.

She swiped at the trickle of blood running down her cheek. “I’m okay.” Physically, anyway. “You?”

“Gash. Knee.” He adjusted the mirror. “Strictly cosmetic.”

“Your cheek’s bleeding, Wade.”

“Cosmetically.”

Wade looked from the arm pressed to her side and back to her face. “Ribs?”

She nodded. “Just bruised, I’m sure.”

“We’ll confirm that later. If they’re busted, that’s no joke.”

She held her arm protectively against her side. “I’m aware.” Been there. Done that.

Tom’s voice in the earpiece, tight with controlled panic: “Wade. Cara. Status.”

“We’re clear,” Wade said. “Both phones?”

“Went dark the second it started. Both of them. Simultaneously.” A pause. “Coordinated.”

Cara leaned her head against the cold window. Rain streaked across the glass. Someone had anticipated surveillance and built a trap into the meet. This wasn’t Pirelli’s play. The doctor had been the bait.

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