the solace of the swamp and the mountains. He was a healer. A psychic surgeon. He was compelled to heal others. It was so ingrained in him he couldn’t stop himself. He was also a predator. He needed to hunt and to kill. That was ingrained in him as well. That was something he didn’t share or talk about.
He knew he’d been born with the ability to push aside his feelings when he needed to. He wouldn’t have been able to hunt his sister’s killers otherwise. He had been the one to calmly get his rifle and tell his mother he was going after the men who had killed his sister—he’d be back when they were dead. He hadn’t asked Diego to come with him. He hadn’t expected Diego to come, although it hadn’t surprised him. Where he went, Diego went as well. They were like-minded. That was the dichotomy—killer and healer. Rubin accepted it, but it was hell to live with, his mind always at war.
Hunting the men who would kill his brother and Jonquille, the men who Whitney had been foolish enough to send after him, gave him a much-needed excuse to let the predator in him loose—the one he held so strictly in check.
A large animal moved off to his left and he hunkered down, crouching low, waiting for it to get a drink. Elk were returning slowly to the area but were rarely seen. He’d put miles between his cabin and where he was, but he was still surprised by the sight of the large animal dipping its head warily into the stream. The animal lifted his head twice and looked around as if sensing a possible hunter, but unable to find the hidden threat.
Rubin inhaled, once more letting his senses flare out to scan the night. There was no sound to alert him. Nothing that would tell him he was being hunted, but like the elk, he was suddenly uneasy. He eased into the deeper foliage and went perfectly still, fading completely into the dark of the shrubs. He was so quiet and stealthy, the elk never looked his way, as wary as the animal was.
Again, Rubin took stock of his surroundings, letting the wind talk to him, bring him information. An owl flew silently overhead. Shrews scurried under leaves and cones in an effort to stay hidden as they fed in the dense foliage, protected by the trees and brush. A family of raccoons chattered back and forth farther downstream, scolding a skunk that didn’t care one way or the other, oblivious to whatever the elk seemed leery about.
It wasn’t raining, but the wind was by turns gusting or still. The clouds were stacked overhead across the night sky, towers rising high. Occasionally Rubin could see flashes of light in the purpleand-black-laced edges, forked tongues like snakes lashing out at the restraining barriers holding the electrical energy in.
Several tree frogs serenaded back and forth, uninterrupted. Salamanders skittered through the leaves and debris on the forest floor near the stream bed. The night insects sang. Still, Rubin didn’t move. Now the hairs on his body reacted, telling him something unseen was in motion. Something was coming toward him from his left and behind him. Low to the ground. It was in one of the tunnels foxes and other animals used to navigate quickly through heavy brush.
Rubin relaxed the fist that had been around the hilt of his knife at his waist. He stayed where he was, his hand still on the knife. That was no fox in that small tunnel. That was a small woman, a little lightning bug that could move fast and track just as well as Diego. If she was already coming after him, there was no doubt in his mind that his brother was as well. So where was Diego? Was he tracking Jonquille? Or him?
So much for any of them getting sleep. He thought about closing his eyes for a few minutes. It would take Jonquille another fifteen minutes at least before she made it to him, and that was if she didn’t slow her pace, which she would if she didn’t want to get caught. Diego was another matter altogether. Diego was a huge question mark. To reach him as fast as she had, Jonquille must have started after him almost as soon as he’d left. That meant Diego was already out of the cabin or she couldn’t have gotten away safely.
If Diego had come after him first, he