an emergency room table.
Morgan stood, wiping blood-covered hands on his shirt. “That man was my friend,” he spat, seething with rage. “You worthless little whore, I’m—”
He stopped midsentence as more barking erupted outside. A contemptuous smile spread across his face. “That will be Donna,” he whispered. He threw on his coat and hat, and dragged Sarah to her feet.
“Come on,” he said, dragging her toward the door. “I’m going to help her with the dogs. You can explain how you just split Rick’s face in half.”
Sarah pedaled backward with her bare feet on the rough plank floor, attempting to pull away. He only pulled harder, nearly tearing her arm out of the socket.
“My shoes . . . What about a coat?”
“Forget ’em,” Morgan said, flinging open the door to the raging blizzard. “We won’t be—”
A white dog came out of the curtain of snow, free from any lines or sled. Another dog, darker, and colored like a small wolf, came next. Both were tentative, investigating.
“Something’s not right.” He pulled Sarah in front of him, like a shield, then reached inside the door, coming out with Rick’s big rifle. “Donna!”
Squinting against the wind, Sarah thought she saw someone in the trees to her right. Morgan saw it too and turned to look.
“Donna!” he called again. “You all right?”
A bright light suddenly cut through the blowing snow directly ahead, casting long shadows among the trees. The growl of an oncoming ATV rumbled over the wail of the storm.
Morgan Kilgore came up on his toes like he’d just been shocked. His whole body stiffened. “This isn’t right,” he said again, a hoarse whisper now. He looked to the right, where they’d seen movement before, then ahead at the oncoming light. He was deciding what to do.
Sarah Mead gave him a nudge.
CHAPTER 45
Cutter watched from the back of the ATV as a man dragged a barefoot woman out of the house. She wore no coat or gloves. Birdie had thrown a couple of meat scraps at the door, causing the dogs to rush in snarling for food, luring the man outside. There was only one of them, which was not what Cutter had expected—but he’d learned long ago not to expect any particular scenario too often. It was much better to roll with the punches.
The man looked back and forth, called for Donna over the wind, and then reached around the doorjamb to come out with a rifle.
The woman suddenly threw her feet out from under her, falling out of the man’s grasp and into the snow. Instead of reaching down to gain control of her, the man took one look at the approaching headlight and fled pell-mell into the trees.
The woman just sat there in the snow, dazed, looking out at nothing. Cutter relaxed a hair when no one else came out to secure her. He circled around, keeping the cabin between himself and the place where the man had disappeared.
One glance inside the cabin told him what had happened. Sarah Mead said the man’s name was Morgan Kilgore and he’d been on the verge of raping and killing her when they’d arrived. Birdie held her rifle close, and told Cutter to go.
And he did.
Tracking a man in the snow is simple. Following that man in the dark when he is armed is tricky business, especially since Cutter was teetering on the razor’s edge of hypothermia. He felt and looked like Jack Nicholson in the last scene of The Shining, certain there were icicles hanging off his forehead. He moved quickly, his hand a frozen claw around Ned Jasper’s .270 rifle. There was a round in the chamber, and three more in the magazine. If that wasn’t enough, he’d resort to his pistols. The blowing snow helped to give Cutter some concealment, but Kilgore could easily just lie down in the snow and wait for him. Cold seeped deeper into Cutter’s bones with every step, and he couldn’t help but think he’d freeze to death before anyone had a chance to shoot him. For some reason, the thought of cheating Kilgore out of the opportunity made him laugh into the howling wind.
After he’d trudged through calf-deep snow for fifteen minutes, the trees began to thin. Kilgore was moving back to his right in a big arc, circling back the way he’d come. It was likely an unconscious move, common in people who ran without thinking. People who were lost often walked in circles, thinking all the while that they were walking out of