Read Edge of Survival Online

Authors: Toni Anderson

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Suspense, #Contemporary

Edge of Survival (3 page)

He shook his head. Yes, she’d been young, but she’d known what she was doing. He spat his disgust onto the surface of the clear lake and was surprised by the reflection of the old man who stared back. A stickleback darted near his toes and brought him out of his reverie. He slapped his reflection.

The water was so cold his penis retracted like a turtle in its shell, the temperature snapping at his foreskin. His fingers grew raw in patches as he scrubbed, but the blood would not wash out. He raised his face to the sky and inhaled deeply. He waded back to the shore, goose bumps rising on his flesh where the wind licked his wet skin.

A caribou dipped its heavy rack toward the water, satisfying its thirst before ambling toward the great herd. Summers here burst with life in a brief flash of startling energy. It was the long winters that crushed the soul—the frigid temperatures, the relentless isolation.

He gathered kindling and started a fire. He’d burn them, even though they were good clothes—just because she was a greedy, lying little whore. He hesitated and the tiny flicker of flame died on the breeze.

What if she hadn’t been lying?

His heart stuttered.

He frowned and struck another spark, fed this flame with dried leaves and dead grass. She’d only ever been good for whoring, but what if, this time, she’d been telling the truth?

He sighed. He needed to check it out.

He positioned small branches on the fire, building the blaze until it spat hot sparks and gave out a fierce roar.

Long ago he’d loved a woman but she’d moved south. He squeezed his eyes shut on a lifetime of longing. He picked up his damp clothes and started feeding them to the hungry flames. A wolf howled far in the distance, taunting him with melancholy. Soon he’d be rich and he’d buy himself all the company a man could want. He squeezed his fists into gnarly knots as the orange flames ate the bloodstains. No stupid drunken hooker was going to take that away from him.

***

It was after 11 p.m. and Cam couldn’t sleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw that woman’s vampire-white face contrasting vividly with the crimson splatter of blood down her front. Getting out of bed, she pulled on workout gear and grabbed a bottle of water.

The top bunk was empty. Vikki had gone off with the first mate for a tour of the bridge, charming everyone who possessed dangling genitalia with her Colgate smile and Clairol streaks. Usually it made Cam smile. Whatever else she thought of the girl she’d known for over a decade, Vikki had never poached her boyfriends, not even her ex-fiancé Dean. More surprising since it had turned out Dean had a penchant for cheating with cheap blondes.

Fact was, Vikki was probably getting down and dirty with Daniel Fox right now, and that disturbed her in a way she’d never experienced before. Cam tried not to think about it as she headed down two levels into the bowels of the ship and began searching the narrow corridors for the gym. She’d been trying not to think about it the whole time she’d lain awake in her bunk. She wasn’t interested in that guy any more than she was interested in Dwight Wineberg, the mine foreman. Fox was hot, but so was an active volcano, and she was in no rush to get too close to one of those either.

She found the gym, last on the left in the bow of the ship, and slipped her hands over cold metal and turned the handle. The lights were blazing inside, thank God, because she didn’t think she’d enter a dark room again anytime soon. She blinked in surprise because—wouldn’t you know it?—she wasn’t alone, and of all the sixty-six guys and three women aboard this ship, here was the absolute last one she wanted to see.

At least he was alone.

Daniel wore shorts and a damp T-shirt as he sat doing bicep curls, his body more hard-packed and muscular than she’d appreciated earlier. Sweat made his short hair lie flat against his scalp.

“I didn’t know you’d be here.”
Jeez
. She hadn’t felt this sort of emotional jumble since her hormone-ridden teenage angst. But she didn’t want him thinking she’d followed him down here like some optimistic groupie. Dean had taught her all about groupies.

“Come in. I don’t bite—usually.” His eyes glittered as he worked the bar.

She didn’t understand him. Although a loner by all accounts, he obviously liked women. In the canteen she’d watched him go from staring at Vikki as if he was already inside her to charming the enormous pants off the two hundred and fifty-pound mentally challenged KP washing dishes in the galley. But he hadn’t looked at Cam, and it bothered her because she’d thought they’d shared some sort of bond earlier. More fool her.

She whipped her towel from around her neck and marched over to the rowing machine. Despite the charm, he made her nervous and she didn’t know why. While she might not win any beauty pageants, she wasn’t ugly either. Her issues went deeper than skin and were not as esoteric as intellect. So why did she care what Daniel Fox thought about her?

All she wanted was to be so exhausted she didn’t see the image of that dead woman when she closed her eyes. She concentrated on settling her breathing, adjusted the rowing machine to fit her shorter frame, and took a swallow from her water bottle. The air was laden with hot male sweat. Her body was rigid with tension. She rolled her shoulders and tried to loosen the muscles in her neck, then started a slow steady pace to warm up.

“You didn’t believe me when I told you I didn’t kill Sylvie.” His voice was light, but she detected a thread of underlying antagonism.

He was mad because she’d checked his alibi? She stopped rowing and turned to look at him. “I was examining my study area—”

“Come on, Doc.” His eyes held scorn. “You can do better than that.”

“So I checked the logbook.” Cam shrugged. She wasn’t frickin’ stupid. “I needed to know you weren’t lying. I need to be able to trust you.”

“So now you trust me?” He smiled and a ripple of warning shot through her body. “Funny, because you look smarter than that.” On the outside he was gorgeous, but his eyes burned with restrained anger. “Well guess what? Your instincts were right. The world is full of cheats and liars. But don’t be fooled by something as mundane as a logbook. Logs are written by men, and men can be bought.”

He stood, uncurling a body that was all muscle and no fat. Cam froze as he came toward her, her legs braced on the machine, arms taut in readiness. Suddenly she was scared and she didn’t like it. Her blood raced through her veins as he squatted so they were nose to nose. She could smell his scent, and she closed her eyes because she didn’t want him seeing her reaction.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere, Doc.” His voice was soft without inflection. “I’m not on radar. I can land that helicopter on a dime and do whatever the hell I want as long as I get the equipment to the site at the specified time.” He ran a finger along the line of her throat, and her pulse jumped. “Think about it.”

She opened her eyes and glared at him. She wanted to speak, but her mouth was so dry the words stuck to her tongue.

“But I’ll let you in on a little secret. If I were going to kill someone using a knife…” Gently, he touched his knuckle to a sensitive spot on her lower back and she flinched. “I’d stick it in the kidney from behind.” His touch was velvet but drove ice into her spine. “It’s so painful you can’t even scream. Death’s quick so there’s less blood.”

In the nadir of his eyes she glimpsed an intimate knowledge of death. Fear ballooned in her throat and made it impossible to breathe.

His breath brushed her cheek. “It’s a quicker, more silent kill.”

Her heart thundered loudly in her ears. The charming smile was a terrible façade, masking a dangerous individual. He made no move toward her, offered no threat, but she knew he’d planted a knife in someone’s back and held them while they died.

She found her voice. “How could you kill another human being?”

A rush of emotion swept through his eyes. If they were the window to the soul, his was a dark and treacherous place. He stood and stared down at her, his Adam’s apple working in his throat. “Innocents like you—”

“What do you mean
innocents
like me?”

They locked gazes for a long moment.

Finally he looked away. “This is a dangerous place, Doc. Just don’t take everything at face value.” Then he left, closing the door quietly behind him, leaving Cam with the certain knowledge that not only was Daniel Fox a handsome sonofabitch, he was also a cold-blooded killer.

Chapter Three
Ready for Anything
The Parachute Regiment

Thirty-four years old, at the peak of physical fitness, and he was absolutely fucking useless. Except at scaring women. He took another drink of contraband beer. Yep. He was damn good at scaring women.

Christ.

The look on the Doc’s face in the gym made the alcohol turn sour in his belly. She’d looked as though he was about to knife her on the spot. And wasn’t that what he’d wanted? To maintain his distance? To keep her at arm’s length?

She wasn’t his type. He liked women who knew the score, who wanted to play the game. No commitment, no strings, no promises. Women who liked a bit of fun and physical release. Girls like Vikki. And Sylvie…

How could you kill another human being?

Loneliness echoed around the empty room. He scrubbed a hand over his face and turned up the music to fill the void. He couldn’t change the past any more than he could tap dance on a landmine without getting blown to shit. He sucked back a can of Moosehead and willed the alcohol to kick in.

Breaking the rules. Again.

Between the ship’s reformed-sinner captain and the overzealous local government, alcohol was considered the epitome of evil aboard this vessel. If they found it in his cabin, it was immediate grounds for dismissal. But a couple of beers wouldn’t do any harm unless he got caught. It helped him relax when he wasn’t flying. And seeing Sylvie’s murdered corpse today had unearthed some memories he’d rather forget.

Some days he felt like a ghost…as if he’d died but no one realized it yet.

He tried not to think about the past, but for the last twenty-three months, one week and five days, not thinking had been a hell of a lot easier with a beer in his hands. Or an aircraft. Or a woman.

Wouldn’t it figure the Doc would turn up in skintight spandex that left nothing to the imagination? If Vikki had been with her they could have sweated out a threesome and rocked his world. But the Doc had turned up alone after questioning the first mate about his movements that day, and then said she needed to trust him?

So, yes, he’d scared her. He wasn’t proud. He just wanted to be left alone.

Christ
.

Just touching her the way he had…that stupid innocent caress had supercharged his blood and made him yearn for things he hadn’t thought about in years. And he’d wanted to put his hands in all sorts of places that were strictly forbidden. He screwed up his eyes and squeezed the bridge of his nose. He’d never get involved with a woman like her, no matter how great her ass looked in shorts. He pulled the tab on a second beer and thumped his head three times against the wall because he did not need to be thinking about Cameran Young’s ass, or her eyes, or her soft mouth.

There was a knock on the door. He drained the beer then shoved the crushed can inside his boot. He wiped his mouth, turned the music down, went to the door. “Who is it?”

“I’ll give you a clue.” The voice was teasing and seductive. Female. Vikki Salinger. His groin tightened, his body in direct conflict with his instinct that told him to steer clear of the females on this boat.

He didn’t want to get involved. He especially didn’t want to get involved with Cameran Young, and Vikki Salinger was Cameran’s friend and colleague.

Memories pressed against his skull. Blood. Death. Hatred. His hand tightened over the doorknob. Daniel closed his eyes against circumstances he couldn’t change, took a breath and opened the door.

“Hello, lover.” And there she stood, ranged against the wall, wildness and attitude scrawled indelibly over every inch. Tall, gangly as a fawn, she clutched a half bottle of vodka inside her jacket.

Looking at Vikki was like staring at his own reflection. She was glitter over nothing more substantial than dust. No challenge, no threat, knew exactly what she was getting into. She didn’t want emotional entanglement, she just wanted to bury herself in booze and exorcise the demons that haunted her. Her lips curled upward and she flicked her long hair over one shoulder.

“You gonna invite me in?”

“What if I said no?”

“Then I’d go find a real man.” Her gaze traveled over him and his body responded. Her grin widened and she straightened away from the wall.

She was enough of a distraction to occupy his mind for a few hours. Enough of a distraction to get him through the night until he could fly again. And taking her to bed was a surefire way to keep Cameran Young out of it.

He pulled her inside and locked the door.

***

Staff Sergeant Griff Kershaw of St. John’s Major Crime Unit pulled his overnight bag from under his seat as they taxied along the gravel runway in Nain. His dick was as hard as a Cleopatra’s Needle, thanks to his wife and their sex therapist. Now he could get it up. He just couldn’t get it back down again.

“What’s up?” asked his sergeant, Johnny Leland.

Griff glanced sideways to see if that was some kind of smart-ass double entendre, but Johnny’s concern looked genuine.

Griff grunted. “The usual.”

“Marcia.” Johnny nodded shrewdly and his lip curled. “You should get the hell out of that marriage.”

“That marriage has my kids in it,” Griff murmured, standing and holding his bag in front of his problem. He wasn’t abandoning his kids for anything.

“You are a goddamned saint.” Johnny patted him on the back as they walked to the door of the aircraft.

Griff grimaced. He was no saint. He was a man whose job regularly kept him away from his family. Whose wife had turned from a sweet girl who understood the importance of putting away bad guys into an embittered shrew who no longer gave a damn about killers just so long as they didn’t interfere with date night. And he understood her reasoning, he totally got it, but he could not let go of the gruesome reality of his job. He could not let go of the victims.

He stood on the top of the steps looking out at the Labrador coast. Four-thirty a.m. Almost dawn this far north. A young officer stepped forward to take his bag but he shook his head. “I’ve got it, Constable.”

“Yes, sir.”

She was boyish looking with sharp, pointy features. One of her incisors was crooked and it made her look about twelve.

“They hire you straight out of kindergarten?” He meant it as a compliment, but she bristled.

“No, sir.” She was standing to full attention now.

Political correctness was a pain in the ass.
Don’t notice looks, don’t notice gender, don’t notice race
—as if those things didn’t shape what you brought to the job. As if noticing details wasn’t part of
his
job. He sighed as he looked over the spread of houses nestled beneath the snug hills and mountains that surrounded this small coastal community. What did it feel like to live on the edge of nowhere? Of course, Marcia thought Newfoundland’s capital city was the edge of nowhere.

“I’m twenty-five, sir.”

A smile tugged his lips. Twenty-five had been a good age.

Johnny Leland came down the steps behind him and gave the young officer a grin. “A rookie. This your first murder investigation, Constable?”

“No, sir.” But her eyes said this wasn’t easy for her.

Good. Griff didn’t relish working with rookies who were already immune to death. Johnny Leland opened his mouth to ask more questions. The guy would talk all day to a pretty woman but for once Griff pulled rank. “Take us to where we can drop our gear then we’ll head straight to the crime scene, Constable…?”

“McCoy, sir.” She turned and started walking away at a brisk pace.

Johnny and the rest of the team, Sergeants West and Peshavaria, and another three officers from the IDENT team went to grab their equipment. Griff had equipment of his own to deal with. This erection was pissing him off. Being manipulated by a shrink and his wife made him feel as if he’d lost control of his life and, dammit, he wanted that control back. He jogged after the young officer.

“Medical examiner here yet?” he asked, catching up with McCoy on a gravel embankment.

“Yes, sir. I sent her over on the chopper ten minutes ago. I’ll radio to make sure the pilot comes straight back to pick you up.”

Good. He just needed sixty seconds of privacy to get his head in the game because no way in hell was he starting a murder investigation with concrete tackle.

Constable McCoy braced her shoulders. “The victim is a local woman—”

He held up one hand. “Hold it.” Her brows lowered and drew together, and he could tell she was upset with him cutting her off.

How could he explain he didn’t want to hear about the victim in his current state? It felt disrespectful. But he could hardly tell her the truth, could he? He glanced toward the team, who were knee-deep in equipment. To hell with it.

“Constable McCoy.” He lowered his voice and she met his gaze with a question in her eyes. “A few hours ago, I took a Viagra pill in the vain hope of making love to my wife.”

Her eyes popped, and crimson spotted her cheeks. This whole episode could come back to bite him in the ass, but right now he didn’t care. Maybe if they suspended him for improper conduct he’d finally find the time to make his marriage work. “I’d appreciate some privacy to deal with the problem without every member of my team knowing I have ED.”

Her mouth opened and closed without words.

He smiled as if he hadn’t just told her his deepest, darkest secret. “So your orders are to take me to the barracks with a five-minute lead and then come back to pick up the rest of the team. Got that?”

She nodded, rendered mute by talk of impotence. Jesus, he knew the feeling.

“Let’s go.”

She marched ahead of him and he shook his head as he followed her. This was the last time he took drugs of any kind. He’d rather dangle in the wind for eternity than go through this shit again. He eased into the RCMP crew cab and noticed McCoy’s hands shook as she started the engine. In the wing mirror Johnny Leland was staring after them with a frown, taking a quick step forward. “Get a move on, Constable.”

She spun the tires when they took off and Griff held on. They sped down dirt roads, dust blowing up in their wake, local dogs barking and running after the SUV. Two minutes later they peeled up outside a neat row of townhouses.

“I prepared the house on the far end for you and your team, sir.” McCoy pointed to the building as he undid his seatbelt. “It’s open,” she called as he got out. She gripped the steering wheel tight, a nervous set to her mouth. Maybe she thought he was going to force himself on her.

“Can I do anything else for you, sir?”

He raised one eyebrow and she looked stricken. Then he forced a smile and they both let out an uneasy breath.

“You can keep my secret, Constable.” He pursed his lips, wishing he could change the fact that his wife hated him. “Apart from that? Go get the guys. I’ll see you in ten minutes at detachment HQ.” And he walked away, grateful to be alone.

***

The thump of his heart was a slow, hard drum. There were a thousand ways to die. Some hurt. Some didn’t. These bastards were going to get a taste of some of the ways that did. His grip tightened on his weapon. No mercy. No negotiation. No begging for forgiveness.

Silence saturated the predawn hour. Too early for prayer—or maybe too late. Time to say a personal
hello
to whichever god you worshipped. The measured pulse of his blood got faster, stronger, tapped his ribs. His breath rasped in his ears. He walked that corridor with his weapons raised, blood raging, looking for death. Excitement stirred along his arteries—danger, fear, anticipation—as potent as liquid amphetamine.

Contact!

Bullets bit chunks out of plaster and spat along the floor. A man wearing an Inter Milan soccer jersey fought back, but a bullet tore out his throat.

He
was the shadow of death. A woman with pretty black eyes turned toward him and he put a bullet in her head. Except it wasn’t a gun in her hand, it was a baby.
Oh shit.
Confusion ripped through him and his pulse exploded. He leaped to catch the baby before it hit the ground. He caught it, cradled it close to his body. The woman, now the journalist with green eyes and soft brown curly hair, reached out a hand for her child, but he pumped two bullets in her forehead.

Daniel opened his eyes wide, his heart pounding like a pneumatic drill.
Fuck
. Sweat poured off his body, the inside of his mouth acrid as bile.

“What is it?”

The mumbled words penetrated his consciousness. A hand draped across his stomach, heavier than lead. Shit, he had company. Daniel jumped out of bed and grabbed Vikki’s clothes from the floor. He caught her hand and pulled her upright. “Out. Please. Now.”

“What? Why? Is there a fire?” She squinted at him through bloodshot eyes as he dragged her to the door. “What are you doing?”

His hands were shaking. “Time to leave.”

She swayed unsteadily on her feet. “Lemme get dressed.”

Sweat bloomed all over his body as his blood pressure erupted and his skin felt like it was about to split. His fingers trembled so violently it took two attempts to grab the doorknob. Finally he managed to yank open the door.

“What are you
doing?
” Vikki screeched and tried to scramble away.

The corridor was empty so he pushed her out into the hall and dumped her clothes on the floor before slamming the door shut and locking it. Naked, he sank to the floor and buried his face in his hands. Great silent shudders ripped through him as he tried to breathe.

“You sonofabitch! No one throws me out.” She hit the door with her fist. “You just made the biggest mistake of your life, fucking asshole.” And she kicked the base of the door hard enough to jar his spine.

And still his head spun like a skydiver in freefall, and his throat constricted until he was strangling on his own panic. He crawled to the desk and pulled a paper bag from the bottom drawer, jammed it over his mouth and lay on the floor wanting to die.

***

The man moved away from the river, following an ancient path through low spruce. He sat on a clump of cotton grass, the breath wheezing in and out of his chest in emphysemic pants. Goddamned skunk-rat was here all right. He’d found tracks and what was left of a rank-scented moose carcass. Sylvie hadn’t been lying when she’d tried to blackmail him. He took a moment to try to grasp what it meant.

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