Cover Me (Elite Force #1)(15)
Author: Catherine Mann

She stepped out onto the road and felt the vibration under her feet. She looked up sharply just as a rusted Reva screeched to a halt an inch away from hitting her. She held up a hand in apology to the electric car’s driver.

Come summertime, snow would melt away to open bike trails for even more traffic. Frozen lakes would thaw and fast fill with kayaks. But she wouldn’t hear the gurgle of the water or the laughter from the boats.

It was a perpetual vacation, and some thought she was crazy to leave. She already planned to search out a more open community after her surgery. Surely she could find one, with over two hundred thousand families living off-the-grid in the United States these days.

Surely Brett would join her.

Hands stuffed in her parka pockets, she tromped through the sludge on the sidewalks. Why did it have to be such a big deal because she wanted to leave, to have surgery, to have a future with Brett? He could come here, but that still wouldn’t help her, not in the way she needed. It was so unfair that life made her choose between being with her family and regaining her hearing.

She thought of the chubby-cheeked nephew she would never see grow up. Adult choices sucked. Not that she really had much of a choice. She had to leave this place to receive a cochlear implant, and the longer she waited, the tougher those good-byes would become—and the lower her chances of success would be with the procedure.

The local doctor assured her she was a good candidate. She’d been born with her hearing, only losing it nearly four years ago during the bout of meningitis. While they had a hospital here, the facility wasn’t specialized enough for the procedure.

She had no choice but to leave, and leave soon. Even though Sunny was the best guide, there were others who could escort her down. Still, Misty couldn’t bring herself to leave until Sunny came back. She had to say good-bye to her sister.

And then she would follow Madison and Ted’s path out of this place forever.

***

Brett downloaded the data received during the latest chat with Misty. Sometimes things were just too easy. He had Misty right where he wanted her, and his hired help from the local sheriff’s office was taking care of the messier details on the mountain. He was perfectly positioned halfway between civilization and no-man’s-land.

Clicking through the commands to file and save, Brett finished with a final tap, then spun in the leather chair to face the four-paned window. From his third-floor tiny office in the Alaska Peninsula Power Plant, he could overlook Bristol Bay in the distance, imagining it feeding into the Bering Sea. Fishing boats dotted the thawing waters along the peninsula that led to the Aleutian Islands.

And here he sat, in the perfect position to use the untapped potential of one of those islands. Far enough away from the scrutiny of major cities like Anchorage or Fairbanks, but not completely isolated on one of those godforsaken islands.

How naïve for Misty and her friends to think they could live off-the-grid as if the rest of the world didn’t exist. The world was too global, even in the remotest corners of Alaska. Those who grabbed control first, those who created opportunity out of even a barren wasteland, the kingdom builders like himself… They would survive in the end.

Above all, Brett was a survivor.

Communicating with Misty had offered the perfect means to install keylogger software into her computer, which in turn spiderwebbed into the community’s mainframe. The inside contact would be sure they couldn’t run the kind of advanced scan needed to detect the program.

Every keystroke made on their computers was logged and sent in daily emails to Brett. No one slipped anything past the keylogger. Printouts were made and checked for cooperation, for dissent. There was no room for mistakes.

The insular community had been all too easy to infiltrate, manipulate. What would young Misty think if she knew her own little society was corruptible? He’d only needed to figure out which ones to tempt with the promise of feeding an ecoterrorist agenda. Those corruptible few were the truly bloodthirsty ones, as the world would know four days from now.

How easy it was to fool people through a computer. With an Internet connection and some help from his hired goon in the sheriff’s office, Brett could pretend to be anyone on this end.

Even Ted and Madison.

Chapter 5

Sunny jammed her foot into the toehold Wade had carved out of the ice wall. Gut-gnawing terror fueled her determination. Her muscles strained and trembled as she clung to a tiny crinkle overhead, eyes locked on Chewie leaning over the edge, barking furiously. Panicked paws shifted and twitched, sending small snow showers down on her head. She’d stuffed her bulky overgloves into the bib of her snowsuit. Cold penetrated the thin undergloves, which were waterproof but not nearly as warm. A minor inconvenience, when she thought about her two dead friends below.

Her hand slipped.

Wade palmed her back and wedged his shoulder under her butt. How he managed that while keeping his own balance climbing, she couldn’t imagine and didn’t have time to ask. Ted and Madison lay lifeless twenty feet below, and since there was no sign of a third body, she had to wonder. Had the deputy gone for help and been killed? Was he out there now? Or oh God, could the deputy have killed them? And if not him, then someone else who might still be nearby?

She shivered and secured her grip with fingers so frozen they were stiff and numb. She refused to slow Wade down. She’d already done enough damage, bringing him out here with her during her reckless dash to escape. But if she hadn’t, then Ted and Madison’s bodies may never have been found. The people at home might never have known they were dead, since there wouldn’t have been anyone to report them missing. The only hint of their disappearance would have been the lack of emails, which would be easy enough to write off as making a clean break. God, it was too easy for a person to fall off the face of the planet.

But then wasn’t that what her family had made a point of doing, severing all ties with civilization?

So close. She was so close. Only a few more inches.

Slapping an arm over the edge, she hauled herself upward, groaning at the effort, afraid she wouldn’t be able to pull her own weight. Her arms trembled, and her toes cramped.

Chewie stretched over, his jaws open. His fangs flashed in the early-morning sun. Snap. He sunk his teeth into her parka, tugging, yanking with just the extra help… she needed until…

Sunny hitched a knee over the edge. Growling with exertion almost as loudly as her dog, she levered herself over and rolled away flat on her back. Exhausted. But she couldn’t afford to rest. She scrambled to the edge on shaky legs and reached for Wade in case he needed help.