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parachuted in alone. He used his medic training to secure the patient, then the helicopter hoisted them both up.” He shook his head. “He didn’t even break a sweat.”

    She considered herself pretty fearless after numerous treks around the mountain alone.
    She taught courses in survival and wilderness trekking. Yet even thinking about what he described sent her stomach freefalling.

    The fact that he told a hero story about his friend rather than bragging on himself impressed her all the more. “Do you and your buddies try stuff like that on a regular basis?”

    “It’s a kick-ass rewarding job with a kick-ass high,” he said dismissively. “What made you come to Alaska?”

    The laser focus of his coal black eyes told her he hadn’t been fooled by her diversionary questions for even a second. Once he got off this mountain, he would learn there wasn’t an unaccounted-for woman in the climbing team. She certainly didn’t want to leave him with so many unanswered questions that he started poking around.

    If he did, she wanted him to be looking in the wrong direction, to protect the
    community’s location. And most important of all, to protect her brother’s identity.

    “Guess I should come clean with you.”

    ***

    It was a clean kill.

    Flat on his belly, he adjusted the arctic adapter over his NVGs for a better look at Sunny and her military rescuer. Tough to do in this storm, even with the high-tech gear. But he needed to monitor them from the cover of the tiny snow igloo he’d carved out after offing Ted and Madison.

    He didn’t want to kill Sunny and the guy as well—unless he had to. It was one thing to take out a couple no one would report missing. Even Sunny’s death could be hidden, since nobody in the outside world would miss her.

    However, it was another thing entirely to murder a member of the military who couldn’t so much as go on vacation without permission. The big guy’s disappearance would bring on a full-scale search party where there were too many secrets dumped down the fissures and crevasses of Mount Redoubt. But these next five days were crucial to his mission. Five days until the big payoff for his real boss over on Bristol Bay. Five days until some of that payoff came his way, more money than he was making at the sheriff’s department, and a helluva lot more than he ever could have dreamed of making as a cop writing speeding tickets in backwoods Oklahoma.

    Sunny and her “savior” seemed occupied for the moment, hunkered down with the dog between them. His fists clenched around his NVGs.

    He really hated her fucking dog.

    The beast had never so much as growled at him. But he could see in that canine’s creepy almond-shaped eyes—one blue and one brown—how much it wanted to go for his jugular.
    Someday, he would take care of that freaky beast for good.

    Content Sunny wasn’t going anywhere for now, he sank back on his haunches and pulled off his NVGs. Might as well make the most of his time tonight and take care of some clean-up.

    He scooped his hunting knife off the ground and swiped the jagged blade through the snow. Blood stained rusty red through the slush. At least this landscape made for a more forgiving killing field than most. Blizzards, combined with repeated thaws and freezes, dispersed evidence. Already, snowflakes muted the splashes from crimson to muddy brown.

    Rushing to get back into the pit he’d carved for himself in the snow, he dried the blade that had sliced through flesh just an hour ago. He’d slashed Ted’s neck first, taking out the stronger of the two. Madison had fought harder than he’d expected. If she’d been his first kill, she might have actually hurt him.

    Instead he’d used the tools at his disposal, sliced her up quickly, then pushed her into a deep crevasse. Her screams had been swallowed by the howling roar of the storm. He’d pitched Ted’s body in after hers.

    He should have been back at the police station by now,