Page 98 of Lethal Threat

He smirks, a dangerous gleam lights his eyes. “I like the way you think. I knew I hired the right guy.”

He gives the pilot the command to fly to the GPS coordinates I provide.

The sky is pitch black when we reach near my cabin.

“You’re a crazy motherfucker. I like you,” Simona says as she helps Marshall drop the gigantic rope that I’ll slide down out the side of the chopper.

Lights from the bird flash off the swirl of snow that the chopper’s rotor wash is stirring up. It’s my first time fast roping into snow. Gonna be interesting to say the least.

Reaching for the rope, I catch it with one hand and loop my foot into it. “Thanks, man. Catch ya on the flip side.”

“Clear to drop. Over,” the pilot says over the intercom.

Without looking back, I step onto the skid and then drop from the chopper, zipping down the rope into the swirling white tornado. I count the seconds of the descent and crush my gloved hands and feet against the rope to stop myself at just the right time.

Exactly as planned, I reach the solid earth in one piece.

“On the ground. Over,” I report. The bird lifts into the sky and disappears into the night. The thump of the rotors soon replaced with quiet.

I’ve nearly crossed the field of hip deep snow when a call hits my phone. Please let it be Sierra.

Dammit, it’s Liam. I bite out my demand. “Tell me she’s okay.”

“I wish I could. She’s not here.”

“Fuck!” I bellow into the night sky. “What the hell? I’m almost to the house. It’s going to take me another ten minutes to get through the snow. Are you there?”

“Yeah. I’m in your kitchen. There’s a flannel shirt on the floor. A book laying by the couch. The lights on the tree are lit. Nothing else.”

“Is there a backpack on the stool in the kitchen?”

“Negative.”

“Jesus. She’s taken off. Is there a blue coat on the hook by the mudroom door?”

“Negative.”

The snow around my legs makes it nearly impossible to run. My heart is pounding harder than it ever has. “She left on foot.”

The screen door slams shut on the other end of the line. A truck engine growls to life. Liam says, “Call the sheriff, I’ll start searching.”

The faces of my four brothers are grim.

With the five of us, my parents, and Agile team jammed in the kitchen, I’m starting to feel claustrophobic.

Marshall’s got his nose in his phone, texting his connections, as Mom passes each of us a cup of coffee. Liam confirms what I already saw with my own eyes. “There’s no trace of her in the snow around the house, the wind probably covered her movement.”

Caleb scrubs a hand across his beard shadow as he reaches for a cup of coffee. “There were faint boot prints along the main road, but there’s been so much traffic, you can’t tell what kind of boot or shoe they really are. It could be anyone.”

The front door of my house creaks as it closes, all eyes flip toward the sound. A few seconds later, Sheriff Harris sticks his head in the kitchen.

He looks tired. Shit, we all look tired. It’s three-thirty in the morning. “We have a lead.”

I bolt off the stool. “Where? What kind of lead?”

He tosses a notepad on the kitchen table. “The details are there. Red-haired woman wearing a blue parka entered the corner store in Eden at approximately ten last night. She got out of a red GMC truck. About thirty minutes later, a white Subaru car pulled up and she left in it. Before she got in the vehicle, she shoved the blue coat she was wearing in the trash can outside the store.”

The boulder in my throat threatens to suffocate me. “She’s running. This is not good.”