Cold Pursuit - Carla Neggers [101]
And, possibly, to implicate Devin at the same time.
A diversion.
From what?
Elijah debated tracking his attacker, but only for a half second. Jo was right behind him, and she needed to know what was going on.
The snow was several inches deep as he headed back to the trail. He dropped down onto it just as Jo came around the curve. He felt a dangerous rush of emotion. He had no regrets about last night, he decided. Not one. But that didn’t mean it had been sane to make love to her.
She fastened her turquoise eyes on him. “What happened to you?”
“Someone tried to play King of the Hill with me.”
“You were attacked?”
“That sums it up.” As he eased his pack off his shoulders and set it down in front of him he gave her a quick rundown of what had transpired.
“You don’t know who it was?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Have you seen anyone else out here since you started up the mountain?”
He shook his head. “Just me and the chickadees. And you, of course. Didn’t like being left behind, did you?”
She ignored him. “I haven’t seen anyone, either. Let me look at your hand. Do you have a first-aid kit?”
“Yes, but all my hand needs is a glove. It’s damn cold out here.”
“Elijah—”
He interrupted her. “The storm’s moving in fast. We’re already up here. Let’s just find Nora and Devin.” He unzipped his pack’s main compartment and got out his gloves, noting that Jo was decked out in high-end hiking gear and clothing—A.J., he thought. “You have a price tag hanging from your spanking-new backpack.”
“I’ll cut it off later.”
“We can go our separate ways, or we can stay together.” He put on his gloves, ignoring the sting of his knuckles. “Which?”
“We stay together,” she said without hesitation.
“You armed?”
Jo gave him a tight look that reminded Elijah she was a federal agent.
“Because I am,” he said.
He lifted his pack and shrugged it back on as he walked up through the trees onto the knoll, in order to bypass the pile of rock and dirt that now blocked the trail. He thought he heard Jo mutter something about Camerons and rules, but when he glanced back, she was right behind him. “I’m not letting you out of my sight,” she said.
“Same here, sweet pea.”
She fell in beside him. “It wasn’t Nora or Devin who set off that landslide. You know it wasn’t. A.J. said Rigby was checking up at the falls, but I didn’t see him. There’s cell phone coverage back there. I tried him a few times. No answer. I don’t trust him, Elijah.”
“Whoever attacked me knows he has company up here.”
“He knows who it is, too,” Jo said. “The storm’s getting worse. If he’s smart, he’s beating a path off the mountain and out of Black Falls. But I never count on bad guys being smart. We need to find Nora and Devin before he does.”
Elijah didn’t respond. He knew he didn’t need to.
Jo moved with assurance, gripping the front straps of her pack as she ducked around the low branches of a hemlock. She’d been hiking for hours and her pack had to be heavy, but she looked tireless, determined. That was the Jo Harper he’d always known. How the hell had she ended up protecting the vice president’s kids?
How had he ever let her go?
But he had, and there was no going back.
They intersected the trail about a quarter-mile out beyond the knoll and took it uphill—no sign of footprints. Both the wind and snow picked up, reducing visibility. Elijah had snowshoes, but Jo didn’t. Luckily, conditions were still fine for boots.
They were close now to where his father’s body had been found by the teenager he’d befriended.
“Elijah.”
Jo touched his arm and slowed her pace, but he’d heard it, too—a moan, a shuffling sound up ahead. He took off his pack, unzipping the outer compartment to locate his weapon, a .45-caliber Smith & Wesson. Her Sig, he’d already observed, was in a belt holster on her waist, under her new jacket.
He heard another moan, this time mixed with a sob, but left his gun where it was in his pack when he saw Devin stagger out from behind a snow-covered balsam fir. He tried to speak. “Nora…” He was ashen and in obvious pain as he clamped one arm to