The Perfect Outsider. Лорет Энн Уайт

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СКАЧАТЬ recorded the location of her find on her GPS.

      Using her bandanna to pick the weapon up, she aimed the muzzle to the ground, released the clip. Three rounds remained inside the eleven-round magazine. She racked back the slide, popping another round out of the gun chamber. Once she was certain it was unloaded, she wrapped it in her bandanna and secured it at the bottom of her backpack.

      June carried her own handgun in a holster on her hip tonight.

      Anxiety whispered through her as Eager brought his toy back, snuffling like a happy pig. June took it from him, told him to be quiet. She listened intently to the forest, and an eerie sense of a presence nearby rolled over June. With it came a sharp stab of vulnerability.

      She and her dog were in the dark, surrounded by miles of Wyoming wilderness, and even if she wanted to call for help, there was no cell reception on this side of the mountain. June’s sole backup was a two-way radio connection to the safe house in the next valley. Even so, the current occupants of the safe house were ill-equipped to help her out of a pickle. And the radios were for serious emergency calls only—there remained the possibility that Samuel’s henchmen could be in the area and pick up a broadcast should they manage to tune in to the same frequency.

      Inhaling deeply, June got up from her haunches. She took hold of her dog’s collar, which made him look up into the glow of her headlamp, his eyes reflecting the light like a zombie beast.

      “Eager, are you ready?” she whispered. “You want work, boy?”

      His muscles quivered as he waited for the release.

      She let go of his collar, swinging her arm out in the direction she wanted him to work. “Search!”

      And off he went sniffing the air, left to right. She followed, fighting down fatigue and despair as the first gray light of dawn fingered through the leaves and rain.

      Eager suddenly got wind of fresh human scent, and his head popped sharply in a ninety-degree angle to the left. His tail wagged loosely as he zeroed in on the scent cone.

      “Not too far, Eager!” June yelled, trying to keep up, but suddenly he vanished.

      She stopped in her tracks, breathing hard, heart hammering. Then she heard the crash of breaking brush, followed by wild barking. Quickly, she scrambled in the direction of the barking, but as she pushed through low scrub, the ground suddenly gave out under her and she realized too late that she’d overshot the lip of a ravine hidden by a tangle of brambles. Groping wildly for purchase, June tumbled down a steep bank.

      Her fall was halted as her shoulder whumped into a log. She gasped in pain and lay still for a moment, mentally regrouping as sweat and rain dribbled into her eyes. Tentatively she edged onto her side and with relief she realized she wasn’t badly hurt, just bruised. She kicked the toes of her boots into the loam on the steep slope to find purchase, and she began to inch down to the ravine floor. Eager came gamboling and crashing back up the slope, oblivious to the precariousness of her situation, and he hit her body with his front paws, as if to say, “Come, come, I found it, Mom, I found it!”

      “Good boy—take it easy,” she said a little shakily. “I’m right behind you, buddy.”

      It was dark at the base of the bramble-choked gulley as June pushed branches aside and saw what Eager had found.

      A man lay on his side. Big. Maybe six foot two. His face was hidden from view and his dark hair glistened with rain. His denim jacket and jeans were soaked through. June noted he wore serious hiking boots, and the bottom of his left pant leg was soaked in what looked like blood.

      “Good boy, Eager,” she whispered, tossing his toy to the side for him to play with as she crouched down beside the man.

      June carefully rolled him over. His head flopped back, exposing a mean gash across his temple. She felt his carotid. He was alive, but unconscious, his skin cold.

      Her peripheral thought was that he was devastatingly good-looking, in a rough, tanned, mountain-man kind of way, and maybe in his early thirties. She hadn’t seen him around Cold Plains before—a guy like this would be hard to miss.

      Then she caught sight of the leather holster at his hip—empty. And for a nanosecond June froze. It must have been his Beretta she’d found.

       Had he fired at Lacy and her children?

      Sweat broke out over her body and her paramedic training warred with a need for safety. Because if this man was carrying, he could very likely be one of Samuel’s henchmen.

      Samuel eschewed weapons in the hands of his Devotees, but his personal murderous militia were the exception.

      Bitterness filled her mouth as she reached quickly for his leather belt, first removing a GPS handheld device so she could undo his buckle, which was engraved with the name Jesse. It sounded like a brand of Western wear. June quickly undid the buckle and the zipper of his jeans. She edged his pants down over his hip. And there it was—a small D tattoo—the branding mark Samuel Grayson personally gave each one of his true Devotees. And if this Devotee was carrying—he was most certainly a henchman.

      Bastard.

      But before she could think through her next move, the man’s eyes flared open and he grabbed her wrists. A hatchet of panic struck into her heart. She tried to jerk free, but his grip was like iron.

      He blinked into the glow of her headlamp, and June saw his eyes were a deep and unusual shade of indigo-blue. In them she could read confusion.

      “What are doing with my pants?” His voice came out hoarse, rough. Eager growled, hackles rising.

      “Quiet, Eager,” June whispered, fighting to tamp down the fear swelling inside her. “I’m here to help you,” she said as calmly as she could. “I … needed to see if you had the Devotee tattoo on your hip—to see if you were a local, one of us, from Cold Plains.”

      Confusion filtered deeper into his eyes. “Devotee?” he said.

      “You have a D tattooed on your hip, the one Samuel Grayson personally gives his true followers,” she said.

      He stared at her, features blank. Then he tried to move his head, wincing as he did. The movement caused fresh blood to flow from the gash down the side of his face. His jaw was dark with stubble. She wondered how long he’d been lying here.

      “Where am I?”

      “Looks like you took a tumble into the ravine,” she said. “You’ve got a pretty nasty cut on your head and your leg is bleeding. Let me go so I can look at it.”

      He stared at her, refusing to relinquish his viselike grip on her wrists. His hands were big, calloused. He was impossibly strong, even in his injured state.

      June’s mouth went dry. She could easily disappear down here with her dog, and no one would find her until it was too late.

      “I haven’t seen you around Cold Plains,” she said as calmly as she could. “My name is June Farrow. I’m a part-time paramedic with the Cold Plains Urgent Care Center, and a SAR volunteer. This is Eager, my K9. He’s pretty friendly, but if he thinks you’re going to hurt me, he’ll attack. I’d hate for that to happen, so why don’t you let go of me and maybe I can help СКАЧАТЬ