Jace felt his guts liquefy at Ava’s words.
“I have Kayley. If you don’t want her death on your conscience, then you will do exactly as I say.”
His throat ached from the fear. “Don’t hurt her.”
“That’s up to you. If you betray me again by going to the sheriff, I won’t have any choice.” She sounded as if she was talking about taking in a movie. Her lack of emotion terrified him all the more.
“I won’t do that. I promise. Just tell me where to meet you. I’ll come alone.”
“Good. We’re waiting for you. I’ve had a lot of time on my hands, so I’ve been reading up on the history of your hometown and the area around it.”
She sounded so damned normal that he had to shake himself. What the hell was she talking about?
“I’m fascinated by the gold rush and these old gold mines around here,” Ava was saying. “Do you know the one north of your ranch?”
His heart was pounding. “That mine is dangerous.”
“But you like danger. Isn’t that why you left Whitehorse to become a spy?”
“I’m not a spy.”
“No, you’re like some undercover James Bond.”
“Hardly.”
“Oh, don’t be modest. You’re a hero. But I must warn you not to try anything heroic with me. I don’t want to kill Kayley, but you know I will if you force me to. Do we understand each other?”
She was playing with him. “Yes, we understand each other perfectly.” He would strangle this woman with his bare hands when he got hold of her.
“I’m looking forward to seeing you again,” she said. “We have had so little time to just talk. I really think you will find that we have a lot in common.”
He swore silently. “I’m headed toward the mine right now. I just want to make sure we’re talking about the same one.”
“It’s the one you and Kayley used to ride your horses to when you were kids.”
He caught his breath. How…? Of course. She’d been in his house numerous times. She’d had a key made. She’d put away his clothing, left him presents. Why hadn’t he realized she wouldn’t hesitate to go through his mother’s things, especially her photo albums of him and Kayley? And all those letters she saved not only from him but from Kayley.
He cursed himself for not realizing that Ava Carris’s obsession with him might lead her to Kayley.
“I was so sorry to hear about the baby you and Kayley lost.”
Jace felt an icy steel shaft of fury move through him. He warned himself not to let his emotions make him more careless and stupid than he had been already. He had to think like the operative he was. The problem was that those jobs hadn’t been personal. This was beyond personal. A crazy woman had Kayley.
“I want to speak to Kayley.”
“Now, Jace, you don’t get to ask for anything.”
“I speak to Kayley, or I’m not meeting you at the mine.” He had to demand proof of life, and yet he realized he wasn’t dealing with a normal kidnapper. He wasn’t dealing with normal at all.
He listened to the silence, his heart in this throat, petrified that she’d hung up on him. That she would just kill Kayley out of spite. That he’d blown it.
“I’ll have to get her. You don’t mind holding, do you?”
“I’ll be right here.” He drove down the road and turned in at the mailbox that read Dennison, his mind racing as to what to take up to the mine. He would have to be ready for anything. A mind like Ava’s could be diabolical in its complexity for deception, for intrigue, for cruelty.
All his instincts told him she would want to punish him. She knew about him and Kayley, knew that they’d gotten close again.
He couldn’t keep beating himself up over that. He’d let a woman like Ava Carris get so close that she now was holding the only woman he’d ever loved hostage.
Whatever it took, he would free Kayley—or die trying.
He’d just entered his uncle’s house when he heard Ava come back on the phone.
“Keep it short,” he heard her say.
“Jace.”
He closed his eyes at the sound of Kayley’s voice, trying to breathe with his heart near bursting. If Ava didn’t kill her, Kayley could be killed in a cave-in. That mine tunnel was as unstable as Ava Carris.
“It’s okay,” he said, fighting to keep his voice from giving away his emotions. “I’m coming for you.”
“No Jace, she’s—”
He winced at the sound of Kayley’s cry, fisting his free hand in fury.
“I’m getting impatient, Jace,” Ava said in her soft, innocent voice after just hurting Kayley. “I don’t think you want me to have too much time on my hands, now, do you?”
“No.” It was all he could do not to reach through the phone for the bitch’s throat. “I should be there within twenty minutes. I’ll call back in ten minutes to make sure Kayley is still able to speak on the phone.”
Ava chuckled. “Okay, Jace, but that won’t be necessary. We’ll all be here waiting for you. Did I mention that my sister is here? She has the worst crush on you, so this should be very interesting. All these women willing to die for you.”
He heard Ava make a sound like she’d just had the air knocked out of her. He could hear a struggle in the background. “Ava? Ava?” The phone went dead.
Even more worried now, Jace moved quickly through the house. His uncle Audie had been a hunter and active outdoorsman. Everything Jace might need inside the tunnel was here.
Rope. Small, folding shovel. Headlamp. Weapons.
He’d never told his mother, but Uncle Audie had once taken him inside the mine. That alone should have panicked Jace, since he knew how dangerous it was. He and Audie had set off a cave-in by accident and had to dig their way out.
They’d been lucky. Jace hoped to hell that luck held today.
He filled an old backpack, taking the .357 Magnum but knowing that would be the first thing Ava would insist on taking from him. He holstered it and grabbed one of his uncle’s hunting knives, then a smaller, sleeker one for inside his boot, thinking about how much Ava apparently enjoyed knives.
Ava would expect him to be armed.
He didn’t want to disappoint her.
Slinging the backpack strap over his shoulder, Jace headed for his uncle’s three-quarter-ton, four-wheel-drive pickup. He wanted to make sure he didn’t get stuck going out to the mine. He couldn’t take any chances with Kayley’s safely.
He tried not think about what Ava had done to her so far. Or what he was going to do to Ava. One thing was certain. Ava Carris would never have to worry about being sent back to a mental institution.
As he drove toward the foothills where the gold mines had been dug deep into the cold darkness of the hillside, he tried to reassure himself that Kayley was all right. She was the strongest woman he’d ever known. That scene back at her kitchen proved that she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
He felt the lump rise in his throat as he recalled how she had tried to warn him not to come for her. He shook his head, amazed at the irony of it.
It had taken him so long to admit to the mistake he’d made twelve years ago. Kayley had waited for him because she’d known they belonged together. She’d never lost faith in them. In him.
After all these years of fighting it, he now knew that he wanted her more than life itself—and he was going to have to prove it. Because if he wasn’t the best trained killer he could be, Kayley was going to die.
“WE FOUND THE HOUSE Ava has been renting,” the deputy said when the sheriff answered.
It had been the craziest of mornings after the big storm. Normally there were the usual accidents, people snowed in and needing help. This morning McCall had a murder on her hands—and a missing psychopath. On top of that she had two different parties stranded to the south by Fourchette Bay down on Fort Peck Reservoir.
Both had campers, food and fuel and said they could last for several days, so she’d kept her deputies working on the murder case—and searching for Ava Carris.
The county would be plowing, getting roads open, and all other law enforcement—including her game-warden fiancé, Luke Crawford—were helping in the search for Ava or assisting motorists.
“It’s over here in Dobson,” the deputy said.
“I’ll be right there.”
McCall made the drive in thirty minutes even on the snow-packed, slick road. She felt as if a clock was ticking, no doubt because Ava Carris was a live time bomb.
The house on the far edge of the neighboring town of Dobson was small and white with a one-car garage. She could see how Ava had managed to seemingly disappear. Dobson was a tiny town, with little more than an independent convenience store and a school.
The deputy was waiting for her with the owner of the house, a tiny, elderly man who was full of questions about why the sheriff was looking for such a sweet woman.
“What could she have possibly done, a little, meek thing like her?” the owner said.
McCall asked him to open the door and please wait for them outside.
“You aren’t going to try to tell me this woman is dangerous,” he said with a laugh, then sobered as he caught the look the sheriff and deputy exchanged before pulling their weapons and stepping inside.
The interior of the house was as McCall would have expected. Small, old and scented with that unique smell closed-up old houses always had. The furniture was minimal as they moved through the living room, checked the one bedroom and bath before entering the kitchen.
In here, the smell was convenience-store fast food. Several bags were in the garbage can by the back door.
McCall spotted a paper bag on the floor by the table and stepped toward it, stopping short when she saw the knife lying on the floor in the shadow of the table.
“See what else you can find,” she told her deputy as she holstered her weapon and pulled out an evidence bag and latex gloves. She bagged the bloody knife, then looked around. Why would Ava leave this just lying here?
McCall reminded herself that she wasn’t dealing with a necessarily logical-thinking woman. As she stepped into the bedroom, the deputy motioned to the closet and the suitcase open on the floor next to it.
“She was either packing or moving in,” he said.
McCall would guess packing, assuming that for some reason she’d left in a hurry since she’d apparently been stopped in the middle of the job.
She moved to the end table beside the bed. A stack of vacation brochures from the area cluttered the small scarred table.
“Did you find any sign that Kayley has been here?” he asked.
Something caught her eye.
“Did you find something?” the deputy asked.
McCall carefully picked up one of the brochures about Montana’s history. Someone had circled a section about some old gold mines.
Why would Ava Carris be interested in gold mines?
“Where are the closest old gold mines around here?” she asked the deputy.
“Used to be a lot of gold in the Little Rockies.”
McCall remembered when the mines had shut down about ten years ago. Everyone had thought Whitehorse would wither and die because the town had become so dependent on the money the miners spent.
Whitehorse, even though it was an hour away, had been the closest town, where everyone had shopped for groceries and supplies. People joked about the last person in town turning out the lights on their way out.
“You know there’s those old mines north of town just up from the river,” the deputy said.
“Near the Dennison ranch.” McCall felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. Since she’d joined the sheriff’s department, she’d worked on instinct. “Let’s close up here. I want you to park somewhere inconspicuous and watch the house. I think I’ll go check those mines.”
She could tell the deputy thought she was the one with the screw loose as she left. Who hid out in an old, dangerous mine tunnel on a cold, snowy, late-November day?
She knew it was a long shot. But Ava Carris had circled the story. Add to that the fact that the mines weren’t far from Jace Dennison’s house.
JACE TOOK THE BACK WAY, not surprised to see that Ava had done the same thing. That explained how he’d missed her. She couldn’t have left Kayley’s house much before he had, and yet he hadn’t seen her on the highway.
He realized with a start that this hadn’t been impulsive. She had planned this, scoped out the area, decided where she was going to take Kayley. She would have seen the mine tunnel from the photographs of him and Kayley in the albums at the house, recognized the location and possibly even explored the mines.
Which meant she had the home-field advantage.
Jace tried not to think about what Ava hoped to gain out of this—or how far she would go as he drove down the narrow, snowy road. What scared him was the struggle he’d heard before the phone had gone dead.
He’d tried to call back but got voice mail. He prayed Kayley was still alive as he followed the single set of tracks up the road toward the large bare-limbed cottonwoods that stood stark against the snowy landscape. It was there that the road ended—at the Milk River.
This part of the valley had gotten a lot less snow and while it had still blown in some, the storm hadn’t closed the road.
If the storm had been more extensive, Ava wouldn’t have been able to get in even with a four-wheel-drive SUV; she would have high-centered on the drifts and had to abort her plan. Unfortunately, that hadn’t happened.
As he drove in, he knew the sound of his uncle’s pickup’s engine would carry for miles along the river bottom. Ava would know that he was coming.
But she already knew he would come. That was why she’d taken Kayley. She knew his weakness. She’d read the letters his mother had saved from Kayley, including the ones that mentioned the baby she and Jace had lost. She’d seen the photographs of the two of them. She had been more aware of his heart’s desire than he had.
Now, though, he had to believe that she wouldn’t hurt Kayley. That the person she really wanted was him.
The road ended at the fishing-access site in a stand of huge cottonwoods. Deep in the shadows sat a silver SUV.
Jace parked next to the SUV and got out, dragging the backpack he’d brought with him. For a moment, he stood looking toward the mountainside. The mines had been dug into the side of a cliff overlooking the Milk River back in the early 1900s during a late gold rush. A narrow trail led up to the first opening.
This spot was a popular fishing-access site in the summer, but no one used it this time of year. Jace figured it was why Ava had chosen the mine. There was little chance anyone would stumble on to her. And since there’d been only the one set of vehicle tracks in, now it was just him and Ava.
The wind whipped the branches over his head and moaned across the top of the vehicles, sending a shower of snow into the air. He saw no sign of Ava or Kayley, but he could see where they had made a trail through the fallen snow. The tracks had blown in, but there was still a shallow shadowed indentation where they’d walked.
Figuring Ava was watching him from the darkness beyond the partially barred entrance to the mine tunnel, he started up the trail. He knew Kayley was with Ava in the mine. Ava must have gone into the mine to get her for the phone call. That was good. It meant they hadn’t ventured far into the mine, where anything could set off a cave-in.
He thought of the narrow, cramped tunnel inside, could almost feel the cold rock walls and imagine Kayley’s fear. Had Ava now taken her deeper into the tunnel?
In his mind, he tried to picture the maze of tunnels inside the mine. He remembered the main tunnel forked: to the right the tunnel went upward: to the left it dropped deeper into the mountainside into a honeycomb of tunnels.
The ground was so unstable that a portion of the mine had caved in years ago, leaving a cavernous hole where the ground had given away above the upper tunnel, dropping into the lower ones.
If Ava took the right fork, he didn’t have to worry about Kayley having enough oxygen, since the tunnel ended in a cliff with blue sky above it from where the ground had given way.
The problem was that the tunnel ended in a cliff—the drop to the rocks below was a good fifty feet.
But if Ava had taken the lower tunnel, it would eventually end in a wall of rock because of the old cave-in.
Jace hated to think where Kayley was being held. Anywhere beyond the entrance was bad. The deeper Ava took her in the tunnels, the harder it would be to get her out safely. That’s if he could find her in that maze inside the mountain.
And if she was still alive.
He smacked that thought away. He had to stay focused. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d gone into a situation knowing little about what he would be up against until he got there. The difference was there’d never been this much at stake.
Before, it had been only his own life he was jeopardizing. With all his other covert operations, the expected outcome was bad, because he wasn’t called in unless there was little to no hope of getting the person out alive.
It was part of the job. There were always losses, because he wasn’t called in unless all other alternatives had failed. But failure was not an option in this case.
He tried the cell-phone number again. No answer. He could see the mine opening just ahead. Behind what few boards still blocked the entrance, all he could see was darkness.
“Ava!” he called as he pulled the .357 from the holster. “Ava!” She either wasn’t answering or she was deeper in the tunnel.
He moved cautiously. Standing to one side of the opening so he wasn’t silhouetted in the entrance, he pulled the headlamp from his backpack, slipped it on and snapped on the light.
Then he stepped through the space between the boards, ducking his head as he entered the mine.
The inside of the mine was cold, damp and cramped. Each footfall echoed through the tunnel. Jace had gone only a few yards inside when he’d stopped to listen. He could hear water dripping somewhere ahead and feel a breeze against his face.
Cautiously, he moved deeper into the mountainside. The tunnel was narrow. In places he had to bend down to clear the rocky crags overhead. He and his uncle Audie had gone in a few hundred yards—to the point where one tunnel went down and the other went a little to the right and upward.
“Bad deal,” Audie had said, shaking his head. “That lower tunnel will weaken the earth under the other. If it hasn’t already caved in, it will.”
They had taken the high tunnel but hadn’t gone much farther when his uncle whispered for him to stay back. Jace had felt the fresh air on his face and known even before he reached his uncle that there had been a cave-in from overhead.
What surprised him was that the earth had dropped into the lower tunnel, leaving a crater, the ragged rocky edge high above as if a hole had been punched in the sky.
He and his uncle had turned back, with Audie eliciting a promise from him that he would never enter the mine again.
Jace had kept that promise. Until today.
As he reached the fork where the tunnels diverged, he saw a piece of cloth stuck in the rocks and recognized it as a strip of fabric from a shirt Kayley had been wearing just a few days before.
His heart pounded at the sight of it and the realization of which tunnel it marked. Weapon in hand, he took the higher tunnel—the one with the piece of cloth marking it—knowing that it ended abruptly on a ledge of unstable ground with a deadly fall to the rocks below.
He stopped again to listen, hoping to hear voices or the scuff of a shoe on the tunnel floor. All he could hear was the pounding of his own heart. He moved forward, his headlamp cutting a swath through the darkness ahead.
The tunnel turned. Jace bent to go under a low-hanging rock.
She came out of the darkness like a ghost, startling him not only by her sudden appearance, but also by the look on her face.
He straightened as the tunnel ceiling opened a little. “Ava.” His voice sounded funny to him. It echoed around him. “Ava, where is Kayley?’
She stood at the edge of the cave-in, light spilling in from the opening to the sky. He realized what had startled him was the frightened look on her face.
Jace was doing his best to remain calm and patient, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it together. “Ava, what did you do with her? Is she all right?”
“Evie has her. She’s my identical twin sister. That’s how she knew about Kayley. I told her Kayley wasn’t a threat, but I’ve never been able to keep secrets from her.”
Jace took a step toward her. Ava took a step back. He stopped, realizing how close she was to the edge of the cliff. He had to know what she’d done with Kayley.
“Evie doesn’t have her. Your sister Eva is dead. She died when you were born.”
Ava shook her head adamantly. “Papa just said she was dead. She was dead to him because she defied him when we were both fifteen, but Evie’s not dead. Remember how she was always around, and you used to get so tired of it, John? You used to say—”
“Ava, you have to listen to me. I’m not John. I need to find Kayley. You have to help me.”
“Evie—”
He was losing his patience. Every minute they were in this tunnel, the less chance they had of getting out of here without causing a cave-in. “Take me to Evie. If she has Kayley—”
“It wasn’t my fault,” she said in a little-girl voice.
His heart dropped. “What wasn’t your fault?”
She cocked her head to one side, her eyes filling with tears. “Eva took her down the other tunnel. I think it caved in.”
Jace swallowed hard. Kayley had to be all right. If he could just find her quickly… “Ava, I need you to go with me.”
She looked and sounded like a little girl. “I can’t. Evie will hurt me, too. I always get blamed for what she does,” Ava cried, closing her eyes as she shook her head from side to side. “She does horrible things. Horrible things.”
Jace reached for her, needing her to lead him to the spot where she’d last seen Kayley, but Ava took a step back, now just inches from where the tunnel floor ended and the earth dropped away to end fifty feet below in a pile of rocks.
“Ava,” he said, lowering his voice. “Just show me where Kayley is. I will help you. I will make sure that Eva gets the blame for everything. I will protect you from her.”
She opened her eyes and smiled ruefully. “No one can protect me from my sister.”
“Ava, you’re not like her. You’re a nice person. I know you didn’t hurt Kayley.”
“I wouldn’t hurt anyone. I only followed you because I thought…” She looked confused. “Evie said you are John come back from the dead. I knew you weren’t, but I missed him so much. John loved me. He never loved Evie. He always wished she would go away and never come back.”
Suddenly her head jerked to the side. Her eyes widened in alarm, and he could see that she was listening to something. Someone.
“Ava, what’s wrong?”
Suddenly, her gaze swung to a spot just over his right shoulder. Her eyes widened in terror. “Ava—”
When she opened her mouth, her voice was an eerie whisper. “Evie. She’s right behind you.”
Jace felt the hair rise on the nape of his neck as he swung around.