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Vishenko’s mind was working furiously. He’d planned on killing D’Arcy first, then taking his time with Caterina. But if D’Arcy had his own transportation, if he merely pointed him in the right direction instead of taking him all the way there, that could throw a kink in the works. He would have to somehow lure D’Arcy into accompanying him to wherever Caterina was located. He would also have to assume D’Arcy would be armed, and take that into account. He wasn’t armed now—his men would never have let the other man board the plane otherwise—but D’Arcy wasn’t a fool. Just because he’d never been able to legally pin anything on Vishenko didn’t mean he was foolish.
Perhaps D’Arcy suspected a double cross, and that’s why he’d arranged his own transportation. Perhaps he suspected what Vishenko had in mind for him—he did have the reputation for being uncannily omniscient. If that was the case, Vishenko would have to postpone killing him.
The other five million was sitting in a suitcase by Vishenko’s seat. He’d brought it along just in case D’Arcy had insisted on seeing it before their departure—and he had. But Vishenko had no intention of giving it to him now...or ever.
* * *
Liam and Cate were almost all the way to Kaycee when she suddenly gasped and turned to him, dismayed. “My books! I left my books in the cabin.”
Liam eased his foot off the accelerator. “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.” She pounded the heels of her hands against her forehead as if to knock some sense into her head. “I put them in the closet so they’d be out of the way. I only packed the one I was reading.” She grasped his arm. “We have to go back. We have to!”
“If we do we’ll be late getting to Casper. And we won’t have time to stop for lunch.”
“Please, Liam. I don’t care about lunch.”
“It’s likely we’ll be going back there tomorrow or the next day anyway, so—”
“But you said yourself we might not. I can’t leave my books, I just can’t.” Her voice took on a note of desperation. “You gave them to me.”
How well he remembered that moment. Cate had been as giddily happy over those few books he’d bought her as if he’d given her diamonds. If anything prevented them from going back to the cabin...
He saw an exit coming up and flicked on his turn indicator. His stomach was already growling—one honey bun while doing laundry didn’t really cut it for him—and now they would miss lunch, too. But Cate expected so little and asked for even less—he was damned if he wouldn’t do this one little thing for her.
* * *
They pulled into the dead end near the cabin just before one. Liam hadn’t even shifted into Park before Cate had her seat belt off and her door open. He snagged her arm just in time, and pulled her back. “Hang on a sec,” he told her, turning off the engine and pocketing the keys. “Don’t go anywhere without me, okay?”
“Sorry. I was just—”
“I know,” he said, cutting her off. “But just because we were safe here when we left doesn’t mean we shouldn’t exercise caution now.” He undid his own seat belt and said, “Come on, let’s get those books and get back on the road.”
They made their careful way down the path to the cabin, Liam in the lead. They were halfway there when Liam stopped abruptly, his eyes on the ground, and Cate almost ran into him.
“What’s wrong?”
His face was grim. “Something’s not right.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look.” He pointed at the dirt path. At first she didn’t know what he was talking about because all she saw were several sets of footprints crisscrossing each other, leading to and from the cabin. But then she got it—the top set of footprints headed toward the cabin, not away from it.
“Sheriff Callahan?” she suggested.
“Maybe. But if it’s him, where’s his SUV? Besides, he knows we’re not there. And he told me he wouldn’t come out here unless we were gone more than a day.”
An icy chill ran down her spine, and despite the warm summer day she shivered. And when Liam drew his SIG SAUER from its shoulder holster, she knew it was scarier than he was letting on—which was bad enough. She touched his forearm. “Let’s go back.”
He shook his head. “We need to know if someone found this place. If he tried to take this path without knowing what to watch out for and avoid, Callahan’s trap—the one right before the clearing—would stop him. If it’s Callahan, the trap will be unsprung. Come on.” Quietly, so quietly Cate couldn’t believe it, Liam moved toward the clearing. He’d gone several yards before he turned around and saw her standing frozen exactly where he’d left her. He held a finger to his lips, then waggled his fingers for her to move toward him. She wasn’t quite as stealthy as he’d been, but she was proud of the way she managed to make very little sound.
