body. He was cocked and locked then, ready to roll as soon as he caught sight of her.
A few more steps would bring him into range. His caution was the wariness of a hunter afraid of scaring off the game. Underestimating her. She was the hunter here. He had become the game the moment he stepped onto her hill. Everything except her awareness of him faded away, and she watched intently as he moved closer and closer toward the kill. Just a few more steps.
The flashlight beam played over the trees at the top of the hill. He took a step. He took another. Clare squeezed her hands around the branch. Waiting for him to give himself up to her. He shifted the flashlight away from the crest of the hill and scanned the first group of trees again. He paused, searching slowly and carefully with the light. Clare’s lungs burned, reminding her to breathe. One. More. Step. One more. Step. One more step. His face still turned downhill, he walked into her trap.
CHAPTER 24
Clare let go the draw. She heard, rather than saw, the swish of the sapling, the snap of the draw whipping the air, the shower of displaced snow. She seized the river rock and was on her feet before the full force of the young tree caught her assailant across the shoulders and back. The gun went off with a deafening hammerclap. His yell of pain cut off abruptly as he crashed belly-first into the snow. She launched herself into the air, smashed full-length onto his back, levered herself to a straddle and raised the rock over the back of his wool-covered skull. He bucked hard as she clubbed downward. Her killing blow fell off-center with a sound like rotten wood breaking open. He gurgled and sagged limply beneath her thighs.
She scrambled backwards, off his body, the rock banging and bruising her fingers as she staggered into a standing position. Crouching, she raised the rock again for the strike that would split his skull open.
She dropped to her knees and shoved both hands underneath him, flipping him with a grunt. She tugged her gloves off with her teeth and unsnapped the big pockets on his thighs, digging frantically for keys to a car, a truck, a snowmobile. At his waist the pockets had zippers with freezing cold tangs that bit into her fingers as she yanked and wiggled and pried them open. Nothing. The zippers on his arms were the same way, sticking tight, either frozen shut or jammed. She gave up trying to open them, instead compressing and sliding the fabric between her fingertips, hoping for something small and metallic. One pocket held a pencil or pen inside that rolled under her thumb, the other was empty.
Clare squatted back on unfeeling heels, her wet pants clinging to her thighs. Whatever he drove, the keys must still be in it. She pulled her gloves back on. She would have to make her way back to the junction of the camp and mountain roads. He had to have parked somewhere within walking distance of where he first assaulted her. He had to. She breathed deeply, striving for calm.
She looked about for the gun. The flashlight was lighting up a snowbank halfway down the hill, but she didn’t see a weapon anywhere. She stood up and circled around her opponent, casting about for a hole in the snow that could hold a firearm. She bounded loosely down the hill, retrieved the flashlight, and played the light over the snow while she hiked back to the unconscious body. Nothing. She blew out a breath in frustration. She was zero for zero. No, that wasn’t true. She was awake, on her feet, and had the flashlight. That put her way on top, for the time being.
She crouched at his head and tugged at the ski mask covering everything except his closed eyes. It was a long one, the dark wool disappearing into the zippered and snapped neck of his snowmobile suit. It stretched slightly, but stayed on. She tugged harder. It obscured his eyelids as it slid, then pulled up tight against her grasp. It was either caught in the zipper or fastened inside somehow. Clare tugged again, harder, and his head tilted. He moaned.
She leaped to her feet, raising the flashlight as if to club him senseless again. Except there was no way to ensure that hitting him on the head hard enough to put him out wouldn’t also kill him. She didn’t want to kill him. She didn’t have to kill him. He breathed out, a sigh. All she had to do was make sure she got to his vehicle before he did.
She circled around him and crouched just below his feet. He wore leather and rubber hunting boots, the kind LL Bean made, tucked beneath the elastic opening of his snowmobile suit. Clare pushed the padded nylon up his calf. His boot was laced and knotted tightly to a good five inches above his ankle. She yanked her gloves off again, stuffed them into her pocket, and picked at the double-knotted bow on top. It fell apart under her fingers. She hurriedly unhooked the laces from the endless series of hooks on either side of the tongue, then undid another double-knotted bow. Cradling the heel and toe between her hands, she wrenched the boot off. She wrinkled her nose at the sour smell. He moaned. Louder than the first time.
Clare shoved the other snowmobile suit leg up out of the way and tore at the top knot of his left boot. He moaned again. His leg twitched. She unlaced as quickly as she could down the rows of hooks, her fingers clumsy with tension and cold. She heard his head shift slightly. She scrabbled at the second knot, her fingernails shredding, her heart thumping in her ears. She loosened the knot a few inches before it caught and tightened again. She dug her hands into the boot’s tread and yanked, getting her legs under her. She landed on her backside, boot in hand.
Her assailant cried out something unintelligible. Clare dropped the flashlight into one of her cargo pockets, tucked a boot under each arm, and scrambled downhill, slipping and sliding. It took her several seconds to find the false trail she had laid down. Night was no longer imminent, it had arrived, and details that had stood out in the twilight blueness were completely obscured by the darkness and the relentlessly falling snow.
She jogged off at a fast shuffle, headed for the spot beneath the ridge where she had started her ambush trail. If she had kept the relative directions straight in her mind, that ridge should lead toward the mountain road. The flashlight in her pocket banged heavily against her thigh. Useless for finding a way to the mountain road through the trees and the storm. She would use it only as a last resort, if she had to retrace her route all the way from here to the spot on the camp road where the man had tried to shoot her. Otherwise, it would only make her an easy target. She hugged the boots more tightly under her arms. Not that she thought he’d be able to catch up with her now.
From the hillside behind her, she heard an enraged bellow. She skidded to a halt. She turned around, her feet deadened, her legs burning and stinging with cold, her arms cramped and aching. She clutched the boots in her stiff, clumsy hands and shook them over her head.
“Suck wind, you loser! I’m gonna put your boots over my fireplace and laugh at you every time I see ’em!” She spun around and bounded away. Another garbled, angry cry. She could make out, “Bitch!” and “kill you . . .” There was a sound of branches cracking, a deep whumpf as a heavy load of snow slid off an evergreen. Was he coming after her? Clare churned through the snow, blinking away the flakes that landed on her eyelashes, desperate to find that ridge.
She fell onto it, face first, when her nerveless feet rolled over a branch hidden underfoot and sent her
