Page 56 of Hunted in Hope Town

He slipped out the door, into the cold. Probably should have put a jacket on, but he didn’t have time. Whatever was out here wouldn’t make it to Kirsten. No matter what. He surveyed the gray day around him. The snow was high, the world quiet. No footprints in the snow.

The motion detector had gone off in the back of the house, so once he was sure there was no one out front, he moved around the cabin, gun drawn, stealth his number one priority. They didn’t have cameras on the cabin, just some motion detection. It could have been an animal, but animals hadn’t been setting it off the days they’d been here.

No, Ellis truly believed someone was out here. Zach would be able to check the wildlife cameras, but someone could have avoided those. Though he didn’t know how they avoided a watch person at the lone entrance and exit.

Unless something big had happened.

But Ellis couldn’t think in worst-case scenarios. He had to focus on the present. The cabin was secure, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something out beyond the trees or outbuildings.

Then he heard it, the faint little nothing of a sound, but Ellis knew. He whirled, gun drawn and ready to shoot.

“Freeze.”

And then he followed his own order, because a man with a gun very similar to his, a pose identical to his, had said the exact same thing. To him.

Besides, even with the heavy winter gear, he recognized the intruder.

“Boyd?”

“Ellis?” Boyd seemed as surprised to see him as Ellis was to see Boyd.

It both took them a few seconds to lower their guns. Then Boyd blew out a frustrated breath.

“Hell, I followed the wrong damn trail,” Boyd muttered, taking a few steps toward Ellis, crunching through the snow. “I thought I was tracking down who was in cahoots with Colleen and Tom. Instead, I’m tracking you?”

It felt…off, and yet there was real pleasure in seeing his friend. A strange disorienting dichotomy of seeing a piece of his old life, that life he wanted back especially now that Kirsten was remembering, but he couldn’t forget where he was in the here and now. And what had brought him here.

Boyd studied him critically. “You don’t look quite as bad as you did last time I saw you.”

“Yeah, it’s been a while.”

“I’m freezing my ass off here, Sutty,” Boyd said, using that old FBI nickname. Not exactly clever. “I get how it looks, but… Seriously. You didn’t give me the whole picture, did you?”

Ellis didn’t answer, but Boyd kept on.

“Don’t you know better than to ask an FBI agent to look into something without giving them the whole story?”

Ellis sighed, looking back at the cabin. There was definitely a lot of the story he’d left out. “I guess not.”

“Everything you told me about, I could tell someone else had already been poking through. I thought I was following the bad guys, but apparently I was just following the trail to…you.”

He sounded so disgusted by this, Ellis just…didn’t know how to doubt him. Particularly knowing how adept Boyd had always been on the tech side of things.

Still, was he sure enough to let Boyd inside to understand…everything?

“Whatever you’ve got yourself messed up in, I’m here to help,” Boyd said. Seriously. Earnestly—and that had never been his friend’s strong suit. He even reached out, gave Ellis a little punch on his shoulder—his left one. The one that hadn’t been shot.

Ellis let out a slow breath. Could he really doubt the man he’d been friends with for so many years? Maybe if there was a leak in the FBI it felt like a betrayal, because he’d known and worked side by side with those people, but Boyd wasn’t just Colleen or Tom West.

Case in point, he held out the gun. Handle to Ellis. “This is all I’ve got. Take it. Disarm me however you want. I get it.”

“You can be lethal without a weapon,” Ellis said, but he still took the gun. At least for now.

Boyd grinned at him. “So could you. Once upon a time.”

“Still can,” Ellis muttered, making sure the safety of the gun was on before shoving it into his pocket.

“Then what do you have to worry about, Sutty?”