the time without lighting the screen on my phone and potentially giving away my position. I stared up at the moon, followed its pale blue glow into the woods.
And then I saw it. Another flicker of light. Not in the valley in which the charred house stood, but to the east, where the land dipped away again, thick forest receding to flat moonlit fields. A wider valley, right next to the one Regan had been leading me to. In a clearing below me, someone was walking, shining a red torch to light their way through the tall grass.
I headed down the other side of the ridge.
Chapter 96
ON THE VALLEY FLOOR, approaching through the blackness with my gun drawn, I realized the torch carrier was another tactical team member, probably assigned to the valley adjacent to the one where the trap had been set. I looked up the incline behind me toward the stone house, wondering if I should return there so that I could see the activity in both valleys at the same time. But the radio the figure was carrying would likely have access to the tactical channel, and hearing what the police team was up to would be advantageous to me.
The figure had the shape and movement of a woman. I thought I could see a bun poking out from the back of her ball cap. She had walked to an ancient sandstone structure in the middle of the field and now sat heavily on the stones, wiping her brow and setting her rifle on the surface beside her. As I crept forward, low enough that my silhouette wouldn’t be visible across the top of the grass, I saw that the structure she was resting on was the remnants of an old well.
She was peeling off her black gloves as I emerged from the grass.
“Freeze,” I said.
She gave a little yelp of surprise and threw her hands up, one palm gloved, the other bare.
“Oh, shit!”
“Turn around and put your hands on the well. Reach for the gun and I’ll slug you.”
“Oh, fuck.” Her voice was tinged with the same shame I’d heard from the young officer I’d put down in the other valley. “I can’t believe this.”
She acquiesced with my commands reluctantly, slumping forward with her hands on the well. I took the cuffs off her belt and tucked my pistol into the back of my jeans.
“Don’t feel too bad—” I began. But before I could continue, she’d twisted back around, and I could feel the press of a sharp point in the soft flesh of my throat.
“Oh.” Vada smiled in the dark. “I don’t feel bad at all.”
Chapter 97
BREATHE, I TOLD MYSELF. Just keep breathing. Don’t panic. This isn’t over yet.
The mental pep talk didn’t work. I was so surprised by Vada’s presence, so shocked at my sudden loss of the upper hand, that I stumbled, my weak leg giving out, almost pitching me forward into the well. She had both my guns and my knife before I could even comprehend how she had taken them. I dropped the cuffs, and they were lost in the shadows, too risky for Vada to crouch down and try to find. She shoved me down onto the sandstone, ratcheting my hand behind my back.
So stupid. So thoughtless. I’d been so caught up in my realization about Regan’s plan that I’d completely forgotten his partner.
This is about me. But it is also about you.
It was also about Vada. At least for now.
The knife that she put on the stones beside my face was bloodied. This woman had already killed tonight, and she was handling me so roughly that her fingernails dug into my wrists as she bound my hands with cable ties. She yanked me upward. Unnecessary force. This was personal for her. I could feel the hate coming off her in toxic waves.
I let her shove me into a walk through the grass toward the edge of the forest. My leg hurt, but now I limped badly, wanting her to believe I was less mobile than I really was. Make your opponent think you’re weak. Make them underestimate you until you can form a plan. I feigned a stumble over some rocks, and her fingers bit harder into my arm.
“None of your bullshit, Harry,” she snapped. “Try anything funny and I’ll put another bullet in you.”
I walked, one of her hands clasping my wrists, the other pressing the knife into my shoulder blade. My brain was in full panic mode,