“You with that reporter got me thinking is all.”
Don’t ask. Don’t ask— “Why.”
“Take a left up here. Time to cut down to the river’s edge.”
Matthias did as he was told, thinking it was probably a good thing that the conversation dried up.
“Take a right here.”
He hit the brakes and eyeballed the break in the tree line—and the sharp rise. “That’s a footpath.”
“Unless you drive on it with a car. Then it’s a road.”
Matthias eased the Taurus off the asphalt and onto the twin tire grooves carved out through the rugged undergrowth. Talk about taking your time. Between the puddle holes and the steep ascent and the occasional downed branch that was the size of a body, it was not a road less traveled, but a road no-traveled.
Or should have been.
And yet they made it to the end—which was a modest cliff, as it turned out. And twenty feet down? There was a whole lot of lake.
As Matthias put the engine in park, he glanced over at the roomate. “This is perfect.”
“Duh.”
The water below looked like an offshoot of the river, a supplier that channeled the rainfall from the mountains to the Hudson when the level got high enough—which it was now, thanks to the spring rains. The site was also perfectly isolated—evergreen everything all over, with no houses, no other roads, no people.
There was only one problem. “We don’t have a ride home. And I can’t walk that far—”
Adrian pointed across the seats.
In the trees, hidden just out of sight, was the Harley that the guy had used before.
Matthias cranked his head back around. “When the hell did you have time to get your bike out here?”
Jim’s roommate leaned in. “Considering what you and I fought this afternoon, are you really asking me to explain shit.”
Matthias blinked, the rational part of his brain cramping up briefly—and then releasing. “Good point.”
As Adrian got out and started to clear the way to the lip of the cliff, throwing big branches off to the side like they weighed no more than paper clips, Matthias put the sedan in reverse to give them a little bit of a runway; then he got busy finding a heavy rock and dragging it over to the open driver’s-side door. All they needed to do was put the weight on the accelerator, flip the engine into gear, and get the hell back.
Adrian was going to have to do that part.
“You humans always take the hard road,” the roommate muttered as he came over and got the gist.
Matthias glanced across his shoulder. “Humans?”
“Whatever.”
Three minutes later, Adrian jumped out from behind the wheel as that sedan roared forward in a straight line, did a swan dive off the cliff, and plowed into the lake with a massive splash.
Matthias went to the edge and watched the bubbles rise to the surface. “And it’s deep enough.”
The roar of an engine brought his head back around. Adrian had mounted up and was combat-booting that big-ass bike out from the tree cover.
Not exactly the most discreet way of getting them away from the scene. But with his limp, he was hardly in a position to argue for quiet.
As he mounted up behind the roommate, he knew there was a GPS on the sedan—so XOps was going to come and take that body out of the trunk at some point. But at least he was making them work for it. And as for the proximity to Jim’s? It wasn’t as if they didn’t know where the guy lived.
Besides, Jim wasn’t the target.
As Mels lay on her back and stared at the boathouse’s rafters, she tried to get her bearings while water dripped off her hair and her clothes.
Cold was the big one. Gratitude was the second. Third was a big WTF….
Held under the water. Choking. On the verge of death. And then just before her strength left her completely, whatever had pulled her under released its hold: Her arms had suddenly found traction against the river, pulled her up to the surface, gotten her to the air.
As she had broken free, coughing out the water in her throat, her vision had cleared, and from over the edge of the dock she’d dimly seen Jim Heron attacking someone in her defense—
The swallows came back, flapping around and finding their nests, suggesting time was passing.
“Are you okay?” Heron asked her on a mumble, as if he’d been hurt.
Any answer she could have given him was drowned out by his starting to retch. Curling over onto his side, he pushed himself up on bowed arms as his stomach staged a full-on revolt.
Okay, she might have just nearly drowned, but he looked like the one who needed medical intervention. Scrambling around, she prayed that her purse hadn’t gone for a swim as well—
Thank God. It was over by where she’d felt that great push on her body, hiding among some PFDs.
Mels meant to stand up and walk to it; she really did. But the vertical thing didn’t go well, and instead, she had to drag herself across the dock, fits of coughing still grinding her lungs, her head all fuzzy. Except she wasn’t about to give in to all that.
They needed help.
When she got to her purse, she cranked the thing open. Her cell was right in the proper pocket. So was her wallet. And so was her collapsible raincoat—which was going to come in handy in another few minutes when she changed out of her soaked clothes.
Clearly she hadn’t been the target of a robbery.
Crab-legging it back to Heron, she said, “Is there any way you’ll let me nine-one-one this?”
He shook his head until another round of the barfies took over.
Of course he wouldn’t. “So who am I calling?”
She had to repeat the demand twice before the digits started rolling out of his mouth, and she immediately punched them into her phone. When she hit send, she wondered who was going to pick up.
Ringing. Ringing. Ringing—
Distortion, big-time. Like whoever answered was standing next to a jet airplane. Then there was a rustling as if the phone were changing hands…and the roar dissipated somewhat. “Yeah.”
Pause. And then for no good reason, she got a little teary. “Matthias?” When nothing came back at her but that noise, she spoke louder. “Matthias? Matthias!”
He had to shout in return. “Mels? Mels! Are you—”
“I’m with Jim. Heron, that is. Listen, we’ve got some trouble here—”
“What happened—”
“I’m okay, but Jim’s down for the count—”
“Was he shot?”