Wanted Woman

Maybe not quite.

Although well-off financially, her parents weren’t the ideal adoptive candidates. Her mother had been confined to a wheelchair since childhood polio and her father was considered too old. He’d been fifty when Maggie had come along. But, according to both Mildred and Paul, they’d finally found an agency that understood how desperately they wanted a child and had given Maggie to them to love.

No child could have asked for more loving parents. But they’d been horribly overprotective, so afraid something would happen to her, that Maggie had become fearless in self-defense. By the age of twenty-seven, she’d tried everything from skydiving and bungie jumping to motorcross, heli-skiing and speedboat racing.

Her parents had been terrified. Now she realized they’d been afraid long before their only child had become a thrill-seeker. Now she knew why she’d seen fear in her father’s eyes all of her life. He’d been waiting all these years for the other shoe to drop.

It had finally dropped. He’d found out she was kidnapped and couldn’t live with the knowledge.

She heard a board creak behind her, heavy with a tentative step. “Norman, you have to tell the police what you told me. They’ll protect you.”

“Are you nuts? You can’t trust anyone. These people have already killed twice to keep their secret. Who knows how influential they are or what connections they might have.”

He’d seen the killer and knew something he wasn’t telling her. That’s why he was so afraid. Well, maybe the cops could get the truth out of him. “Norman, I called the detective on the case after I talked to you. Detective Blackmore.”

“What?” He looked around wildly. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done?” He grabbed for the saddlebag. “Give me the money. I have to get out of here. Quick. He’ll kill us both if—” Norman broke off, his gaze riveted on something just over her left shoulder, eyes widening in horror.

She heard the soft pop, didn’t recognize the sound until she saw blood bloom across the shoulder of Norman’s jacket. The second shot—right on the heels of the first—caught him in the chest, dead-on.

His grip on the saddlebag pulled her down with him as he fell to the weathered boards, dropping her to her knees beside him.

“Oh, Norman. Oh, God.” Her mind reeled. The police wouldn’t have shot him. Not without a warning first. But who else had known about their meeting?

The third shot sent a shaft of pain tearing through her left arm as she tried to free herself of the saddlebag strap and Norman’s death grip.

“Timber Falls,” he whispered, blood running from the corner of his mouth as his fingers released the bag of money and her. “That’s where they got you.” Adding on his last breath, “Run.”

But there was no place to run. She was trapped. Behind her, she heard the groan of a board, caught the scent of the killer on the breeze, a nauseating mix of perspiration, cheap cologne and stale cigar smoke.

She had only one choice. She fell over Norman, rolling him with her, using his body as a shield as a fourth shot thudded into his dead body.

As she fell, she looked up, saw the man with the gun come out of the fog. Shock paralyzed her as her eyes met his and she realized she knew him.

She let out a cry as he raised the gun and pulled the trigger. Two more shots thudded into Norman’s riddled body as she rolled off the end of the pier taking Norman and the saddlebag with her, dropping for what seemed an eternity before plunging into the cold, dark roiling water below.

Chapter Two

Outside Timber Falls, Oregon

Jesse Tanner had been restless for days. He stood on his deck, looking down the steep timbered mountain into the darkness, wishing for sleep. It had been raining earlier. Wisps of clouds scooted by on a light breeze.

He sniffed the cedar-scented air as if he could smell trouble, sense danger, find something to explain the restlessness that haunted his nights and gave him no peace.

But whatever was bothering him it remained as illusive as slumber.

A sound drew him from his thoughts. A recognizable throaty rumble. He looked toward the break in the trees below him on the steep mountain to the strip of pavement that was only visible in daylight. Or for those few moments when headlights could be seen at night on the isolated stretch of highway below him.

The single light came out of the trees headed in the direction of Timber Falls. A biker, moving fast, the throb of the big cycle echoing up to him.

Jesse watched the motorcycle glide like warm butter over the wet, dark pavement and wished that he was on it, headed wherever, destination unknown.

But that was the old Jesse Tanner. This Jesse was through wandering. Through with the open road. This Jesse had settled down.

Not that he still couldn’t envy the biker below him on the highway. Or remember that heady feeling of speed and darkness and freedom. There was nothing like it late at night when he had the road to himself. Just an endless ribbon of black pavement stretched in front of him and infinite possibilities just over the next rise.

He started to turn away but a set of headlights flickered in the trees as a car came roaring out of a side road across the highway below him. He watched, frozen in horror as the car tore out of Maple Creek Road and onto to the highway—directly into the path of the motorcycle.

He caught a flash of bright red in the headlamp of the bike and saw the car, a convertible, the top down and the dark hair of the woman behind the wheel blowing back in that instant before the bike collided with the side of the car, clipping it. The bike and rider went down.

Jesse gripped the railing as the bike slid on its side down the pavement, sparks flying as the car sped away into the darkness and trees, headed toward Timber Falls, five miles away.

He was already running for his old pickup he kept for getting firewood. Other than that, all he had was his Harley. Taking off down his jeep trail of a road in the truck, he dropped down the face of the mountain, fearing what he’d find when he reached the pavement.

At the highway, he turned north. It was darker down here with the forest towering on each side of the two-lane. In the slit of sky overhead, clouds scudded past, giving only brief glimpses of stars and a silver sliver of moon.

He hadn’t gone far when he spotted the fallen bike in his headlights. It lay on its side in the ditch, the single headlamp casting a stationary beam of gold across the wet highway. Where was the biker?

Driving slowly up the road, he scanned the path with his headlights looking for the downed rider, bracing himself for what he’d find.

A dozen yards back up the highway from the bike, something gleamed in his headlights. The shiny top of a bike helmet. The biker lay on his side at the edge of the road, unmoving.

Jesse swore and stopped, turning on his emergency flashers to block any traffic that might come along. He didn’t expect any given the time of the night—or the season. Early spring—the rainy season in this part of the country. People with any sense stayed clear of the Pacific side of the Cascades where, at this time of year, two hundred inches of rain fell pretty much steadily for seven months. The ones who lived here just tried not to go crazy during the rainy season. Some didn’t succeed.

Following the beams of his headlights, he jumped out of the pickup and ran across the wet pavement toward the biker, unconsciously calculating the odds that the guy was still alive, already debating whether to get him into the back of the truck and run him to the hospital or not move him and go for help.

As he neared, he heard a soft moan and saw movement as the biker came around. Jesse figured he was witnessing a miracle given how fast the motorcycle had been traveling.

“Take it easy,” he said as the figure in all black leathers coughed as if gasping for breath and tried to sit up. The biker was small, slim and a damned lucky dude.

As Jesse knelt down beside him in the glow of the pickup’s headlights, he saw with shock that he’d been wrong and let out an oath as a hand with recently manicured nails pulled off the helmet. A full head of long dark curly hair tumbled out and a distinctly female voice said, “I’m okay.”

“Holy…” he said rocking back on his heels. This was one damned lucky…chick.

She had her head down as if a little groggy.

He watched her test each leg, then each arm. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?” He couldn’t believe everything was working right. “Nothing’s broken?”

She shook her head, still bent over as if trying to catch her breath.

He waited, amazed as he took in the leather-clad body. Amazed by the bod and the bike. She was wheeling a forty-thousand-dollar ride that most men couldn’t handle. A hell of a bike for a girl. It was too heavy for anyone but an expert rider. No wonder she’d been able to dump the bike and not get hurt.

She tried to get up again.

“Give it another minute. No hurry,” he said, looking from her, back up the highway to her bike. This gal had nine lives, a whole lot of luck and she knew how to ride that fancy bike. He wasn’t sure what impressed him more.

“I’m all right.” Her voice surprised him. It was all female, cultured and educated-sounding and in stark contrast to her getup and her chosen mode of transportation.

But the real shocker was when she lifted her head, flipping back her hair, and he saw her face.