It could be worse. At least the fire pit where he was supposed to make the drop wasn't accessible from all sides. The hill behind it was too overgrown to negotiate with any stealth, and he had possession of the rest of the knoll where it curved around to form the second side of the site. Woods separated the third border from the next camp, and he had a clear view of the approach in front. Crouching next to a tree, Zach widened his visual inspection to include the surrounding area.
It appeared deserted, but when it came to the woods al night, there were always places to hide. Hell, the eroded bank alone a few feet to his left provided countless pockets of darkness that even his exceptional night vision couldn't penetrate. There were simply too many shadows cast by the huge uprooted trees canting down the hill.
But if the kidnapper lurked in one of them, he'd have to come out sooner or later to collect the money. Zach eased back through the woods and down the hill, then made a production out of approaching Site 32 from the road. When he'd made the drop and left, he clomped down the road. But once around the bend, he raced with swift silence back to his place on the crest of the hill, where he hunkered down to keep the bag under surveillance. He had a wealth of experience in patiently blending into the background and waiting, and that's precisely what he intended to do now.
All night long, if necessary.
As it turned out, he didn't have very long to wait. He'd only been there minutes before he heard someone making his way up the road… and not with any particular stealth. The kidnapper didn't exactly march up the middle of the road like the redcoats coming to put down the rebellion, but he may as well have done. Soles scuffed occasionally against the blacktop, and toes came into obvious contact with pinecones, for three separate times Zach heard the distinct skitter of the latter as they rolled across the pavement. When whoever it was grew closer, Zach could even discern agitated breathing.
And he was torn. This was one of those situations in which a one-man watch sucked. You never, but never took your eyes off the object of your surveillance. But neither did you bypass the opportunity to find out all the information you could about your opponent, because the more you knew, the better you could maintain the element of surprise—and sometimes that was the only advantage you had. Unfortunately the two directives were diametrically opposed since he'd have to break the first rule to accomplish the second.
Shit. It really took two to affect an airtight stakeout in a case like this.
Then Zach mentally shrugged. So, big deal; who was it likely to be but the kidnapper? And if it was someone else, going over to check it out wouldn't put him so far from the ransom bag that he couldn't intercept an approach from another direction. Crab-walking foot by careful foot, he eased over to the verge.
The already undermined bank threatened to give beneath his foremost foot, and he edged back several inches. Pulling his nine millimeter from his waistband, he rested it against his knee and peered down to where the kidnapper would come into view any moment now, if the ruckus he made was any indication.
When the person suddenly did round the bend and come into view, however, every muscle in Zach's body went ti°ht and he had to bite his tongue against voicing the obscenities that rose up in his throat. But, shit fuck hell. He'd know that head of kiss-me-daddy hair anywhere. Not to mention that walk—simply changing from her usual four inch heels into a pair of strappy, flat-heeled sandals had done nothing to disguise it.
Lily.
When he'd smelled her in the Jeep earlier, apparently it hadn't been merely the residual scent transferred from their rolling around on his bed. Zach ground his teeth. What in hell did she think she was doing putting herself in danger, and screwing up his op? Shifting his weight onto his forward foot, he glared down at her.
A rock broke loose from the edge and rattled down the bank, and he moved back before he started an avalanche. Dammit, he had to get her out of here, but how was he supposed to do that and keep an eye on the ransom at the same time?
He was so focused on her that he didn't immediately heed the small hairs rising on the back of his neck. But they were an atavistic warning system that had stood him in good stead for eighteen years, and he didn't have to hear the faint crack of a branch on the ground behind him to realize that Lily wasn't the only one in the woods with him. Bringing his gun up, he was turning toward the sound when a light suddenly flashed on and caught him full in the face, blinding him. He aimed just to the left of the dazzling circle of light, but down on the road Lily screamed his name, and there was such fear in her voice that for one ill-advised moment he froze. Jesus. He couldn't see a thing.
He could hear the footsteps rushing him, however, and his finger once again exerted pressure on the trigger. But before he could squeeze off a shot, the light flared in an arc, and the side of his head exploded in agony.
Then everything went black.
Chapter 17
AWASH IN A STEW OF FIGHT-GR-FLIGHT impulses, Lily froze. Seeing Zach spotlighted above her, his profile fierce and a gun the size of a cannon to her unaccustomed eyes in his hand, adrenaline shot through her system with such force she thought her heart would burst. As if she needed another reason to be scared out of her wits! She was already completely freaked by how out of her element she was—to have him suddenly pop up on the hill like an illuminated commando frieze in some avant-garde West Hollywood production darn near made her wet her knickers.
That was nothing, though, to the moment when the light shining on his face swirled sickeningly and he suddenly vanished. Her initial fear had been for herself. Now her tenor was for him. It was swiftly superceded by a surge of red-hot fury at the thought of some faceless coward hurting him, and her paralysis shattered. Screaming at the top of her lungs, she charged up to the campsite.
Keeping her eye on the knoll, she scrambled over the woodsy debris that littered the area. When a darker shadow in a night already way too dark suddenly detached itself and hesitated on the ridge just above her, she slid to a stop, her heartbeat hammering in her chest, her throat, her ears. Ohgawd, ohgawd . Whatever had possessed her to think she could be of any earthly use to Zach ? What seemed like such a good idea in the well-lit Beaumont mansion had revealed itself for the brainless folly it was the moment she'd crawled out the back of his Jeep. But the thought of him going into this all alone had been unendurable.
Now, more desperate to get to him than she was afraid of the kidnapper, she snatched up a rock to use as a weapon and forced herself to stalk toward the shadowy presence on the hill. It tossed its head like an enraged stallion, but then to her immense relief ran crashing through the woods in the opposite direction. The instant the kidnapper was gone, she stepped forward and hissed, "Zach!"
There was no answer and she called his name again, with a little more volume and a lot more insistence. Silence, broken only by creepy, shifty, nocturnal sounds, greeted her frantic demand, and shivering with pure reaction, she started up the hill, her feet sliding in their leather-soled sandals.
She paused when she reached the top, her breath sawing as she tried to reconcile where Zach's position, as seen from the road, was likely to be. Before she could figure it out, she heard a low groan to her right and, thrilled to hear evidence he was alive—and more shamefully, that she wasn't alone after all in the middle of the woods in the dead of the night—she headed that way.
She hadn't taken three steps when she tripped over something underfoot and fell hard onto her hands and knees. Her breath catching just shy of a sob, she pushed herself upright, feverishly brushed her hands against her jeans to free them of the muck clinging to her skin, then picked her way with more care over the uneven ground. "Zach?"