Silver Falls - Anne Stuart [25]
In the end she almost gave up. Each rise looked like it would be the last one, but the mountain reached higher and higher. Her hiking shoes were caked with mud, her jacket turned out to be water resistant, not waterproof, and the wind picked up, lashing rain into her face and eyes. She kept climbing, trying to follow the omnipresent sound of rushing water, but it seemed to come from all around her. It had been too long since she’d climbed—she was out of shape, but she was damned if she was going to let this weak-ass mountain get the better of her.
But it was getting late, and not even pride would keep her from getting back to Sophie on time. She’d almost given up hope of finding the actual falls when she suddenly came upon a clearing in the dense undergrowth. The heavy torrent of rain had slowed to a sullen mist, and as she moved to the steep bank she pushed the hood off her head. The thunder of the waterfall had been muffled by the jacket, and she moved closer to the steep edge, peering into the dark, foamy water.
The pounding noise would drown out any sound a woman could make. A scream would be swallowed up in the rush of the river, and she shivered, taking a step back. She didn’t want to think about it, think about the poor girl caught in the branches of the Silver River. Old folk songs were slipping around in her head. “I met her on the mountain, there I took her life.” Had Jessica Barrowman met her murderer on this mountain, expecting a lover’s tryst and finding only death? Was that what had happened to Tessa?
What drove men to seduce women only to kill them? What strange, twisted need did that meet? Was it Freudian, reaching back into the womb? Maybe they felt abandoned by their mothers. Or maybe they had gender issues or were acting out their fears. Or maybe, just maybe they were sick fucks who got off on pain and suffering. In the long run she was better off not knowing. She could happily live the rest of her life without ever understanding the inner workings of a killer’s mind. She had no intention of getting any closer to one than reading about it in the newspaper.
Mist was rising, swirling from the water as it sluiced down the hillside, and for a moment she thought she could see something, a ghost, a memory, and she took a step closer, blindly. The earth crumbled beneath her feet, and she was falling, the mud slick beneath her, the water coming up to meet her, and she tried to scream—
The hands on her were rough, yanking her back from the precipice, strong arms around her, and she fought, kicking back until they released her. She went sprawling in the mud, sliding backward until she ended up against a tree, the wind knocked out of her, and all she could think was that she was going to die.
She looked up as she struggled for breath, staring at the dark, hooded figure that loomed over her, his face obscured. He reached down for her, and she tried to say something, tried to scream. It didn’t matter that he’d just saved her—he was going to throw her over into the deadly falls and when his hand caught her arm, she lunged at him, trying to fight him off.
He shoved her, and she fell back onto the muddy ground. Her breath came back with a sudden burning tear at her lungs, and she tried to get up again.
“Don’t make me hit you,” Caleb Middleton’s cool, laconic voice came from beneath the rain hood. “I’m trying to save your goddamned life and I don’t appreciate being attacked for my efforts.”
She managed to get to her feet, ignoring the searing pain in her chest. He stood between her and the falls, and she wondered whether she dared try to rush him again, to tip him over into the deadly water. She’d do anything to stay alive for Sophie’s sake, and she eyed him warily.
“Don’t even think about it,” he said. “You try to shove me over the falls and I’ll take you with me.” He shoved the hood off his head, and he looked annoyed, not deadly. “In case you