Inked

Chapter 11

The Mustang jolted over one last rut and rocked to a stop in the packed earth at the base of a craggy hill. “We’re there,” Lily said into her phone. “Putting you on speaker now.” She did so and slipped the phone in her pocket, clipping it to be sure it stayed.

Steve’s body hadn’t actually been left on the hiking trail, but slightly off it, in a small cul-de-sac walled by rock and packed earth. There were two ways to reach that spot—the trail itself, which was used often enough that it had a parking area at its foot. And the route she’d be taking.

No one came this way, according to Ma

So did Adele, but it seemed she hadn’t come this way today. Her car wasn’t here.

“Jason hasn’t reached the parking area yet,” she said, throwing open her door. “But he’s close. We aren’t waiting.”

“Okay.” Ma

She’d called out backup of the unofficial kind—Jason, who was close. And Rule’s brother Benedict, who was not. But he was in charge of security at Nokolai Clanhome, and he was good. Very, very good. He was bringing some of his people. “ETA forty to fifty minutes. We’ll move in and I’ll assess the situation. If it’s stable, I’ll wait until they’re in place.”

“If not?”

“Then I don’t wait. You remember the signals?”

“You’ll tap my shoulder if you’re close enough. Otherwise you’ll tap your head or face or whatever you think I’ll see. One tap means stop, freeze, hold. Two taps means keep going or come closer. Three taps—get the hell out of there any way I can.”

He answered easily enough, but he was taut. Jumpy. She was insane to bring him. “It’s okay to be nervous, you know. I’d be worried if you weren’t. Just remember your role—guide and consultant on the magic stuff, if needed. Not Rambo.”

“No Rambo shit. Right. I’m cool with that. Did you ever notice how everyone but Rambo gets killed?”

“Yeah,” she said dryly. “I have. Let’s move.”

This part she didn’t like. Every instinct said she needed to get out in front. She had the badge, the gun, the training. She couldn’t be affected by charms or whatever magical hoodoo Adele might pull.

But she didn’t know the way. Ma

He led her around a boulder the size of a Buick standing on end. There was a path of sorts—at least, there was a route up among the tumbled rocks.

For maybe fifteen minutes they went up—almost straight up at times, scrambling over rock in all shapes and sizes, slithering up scree. Slipping a time or two, but not badly. Here the stone was granite, some loose, some fixed, earth’s tawny bones poking through where the skin was thin. Many of the larger boulders bore a reddish residue from the aerial spraying used on a wildfire a few years back. Grass sprouted in the oddest places. So did pines, scrub oak, and thorny manzanita.

Lily’s breath was labored by the time the ground leveled out some, and she’d scraped one palm. No snakes, though. If they made it the rest of the way without seeing a snake, she’d count herself lucky. They set out along a narrow vee between two steep, stony shoulders shrugged up by some distant geological upset. About ten paces in, Ma

Smoke wisped up in a tattered tail, barely visible against the blue of the sky.

She nodded grimly. Smoke meant a campfire, which meant Adele Blanco, not Robert Friar, waited ahead. That’s what she’d expected, but confirmation was good. Lily took out her phone. No bars.

No surprise. They’d thought they would lose coverage as they moved up among the rocky hills. She had to hope Jason spotted the smoke, too, and avoided getting a whiff of it. Lily tapped Ma

They were close, dammit. She wanted to shove him aside and race to Rule—but that was stupid, and stupid got people killed. Ma

Problem was, while she could get her feet and hands to do what they were supposed to, she couldn’t make her mind behave. And she couldn’t make sense of this. Why had Adele taken Rule? Had she just wacked out and decided to kill everyone who’d ever pissed her off? Had Rule caught her doing something that revealed her guilt?

Maybe she was willing to kill just as a distraction. Lily had run up against killers c old-blooded enough for that—people who’d kill a second time just to throw the cops off the scent. She might have set up some cockamamie alibi. Or did she have some crazy notion of using Rule to bargain with?

But she hadn’t tried to contact Lily. Hard to arrange a bargain if you don’t let the other side know about it. No, she meant to kill him.

But she hadn’t. Not yet.

Why not? If she had Rule paralyzed, he was helpless. There were so many ways to kill a helpless man—quicker, easier ways than tattooing a spell around his neck. But Adele hadn’t gone for quick and easy. Lily knew that much, held on to that certainty. If Rule had been killed, the mate bond would have snapped. It hadn’t.

How long did it take to ink a tattoo all the way around a man’s neck?

Lily didn’t know. She didn’t have any goddamned idea, so all she could do was keep going forward and pray. And all she could manage for prayer was oh, God, oh, God, oh, God…

Ma

The crevice led to Rule. Lily’s heartbeat picked up. She gave Ma

This was where she took over the lead.

It wasn’t a tricky climb. Hard work, but not tricky. The hand-and footholds were good. But it was impossible to make it completely silently. Every scuff of a foot, every loose pebble, sounded horribly loud. Her scraped hand stung as she hauled herself up on nearly two wide feet of blessedly level ground.

Hard to say who was more startled, her or the rattler she’d disturbed.

Lily took two hasty steps back. It didn’t seem to calm the snake any. It was curled up except for the tail, which shook—and the head, which was lifted, testing the air with its tongue.

No time. She had no time—Ma

Lily pulled off her jacket, lunged forward, and tossed the jacket over the snake just as Ma

The two separated in midair. Ma

She barely waited for him to make it safely up before hurrying to the crevice. It was low and narrow. She got on her knees, twisted sideways, and started wiggling forward.

It was about a yard long, and taller at the other end. According to Ma

He was still alive. She’d made it in time.

Slowly she peered around the rocky lip of the crevice.

Ahead of her—rock. Below was more rock, this with some dirt atop it. And Rule. He lay on his back on a bright blue blanket, his eyes closed, his head a couple feet from a small camp stove. His hands were handcuffed in front of him. At his feet was an ordinary ice chest. And those were…rose petals? Someone had sprinkled rose petals on the blanket?