Page 31 of Handcuffed to the Bear

Casey thought about Roger Fallon, from what she’d seen of him in the office. He was a big, outdoorsy guy, more given to wearing T-shirts than suits and ties, but that wasn’t terribly uncommon in the Seattle business scene. He was always clean, though, with a sharp haircut. “Okay, you have a point. So if thereisa hunting lodge or something, where is it? Not on this side of the island, unless it’s well hidden. I haven’t seen anything like that.”

Jack began singing softly. After a moment, Casey recognized that he was singing the old children’s song “The Bear Went Over the Mountain”:

The bear went over the mountain

The bear went over the mountain

The bear went over the mountain

To see what he could see.

“And what did he see?”

“The other side of the mountain, of course,” Jack said. “That’s all there is to see.”

“Which might have a hunting lodge on it.”

“With phones,” he said, and shook the cuffs, making them rattle. “And tools to get these fucking things off.”

“And lions in it,” she pointed out.

“Not if they’re out hunting us.”

While they were talking, they’d broken out of the trees and were now picking their way across the windswept upper slopes of the mountains. The ground was bare and rocky, punishing on their bare feet. Cold winds tugged at them, and thunder rumbled occasionally. Even in human form, she could smell the wet, sweetish scent of the coming rain.

The area around Seattle wasn’t like this. Casey’s experience outside the city was limited, but she’d been hiking on the Olympic Peninsula a few times. Down there, the forest had big trees draped with moss, and well-groomed trails.

This place felt much more lonely and wild. In the woods below, the trees were less grand and more tangled together, the bushes thorny and uninviting. And up here, on these mountain slopes, it felt like they’d gone back in time to a world where no humans existed.

But even as she had that thought, her eye snagged on something squarish in the trees below.

“What?” Jack asked. “See something?”

“Remember how we were talking about hunting lodges? I think I see something.” She wished she had binoculars. Although it was midday, the light had grown as dim as evening, with a flat gray quality that made it hard to distinguish one thing from another. “Down there. A roof.” She pointed.

“Do you see smoke, lights, anything that makes it look like anyone’s home?”

She shook her head.

“Probably good. Anyone we’d run into would be bad news, most likely.” Jack sighed, and Casey noticed how exhausted he looked. She was pretty worn out herself, but Jack looked weary to the bone—probably a mix of being in pain, and his body cannibalizing itself in an attempt to heal his injuries.

Far-off thunder rumbled again. Casey looked up. The oncoming rain was visible now, a dark blue-gray wall that had already obscured the ocean and was in the process of swallowing the valleys below them.

At first she mistook the lion’s distant roar for another peal of thunder—then, an instant later, as the reverberations died away across the hills, she knew it for what it was. Immediately, another one took up the refrain. This time it didn’t stop; they roared back and forth until the woods rang with it.

“Guess they found Derek,” Jack said grimly.

Her mouth went dry. “Which means they’re on our trail now.”

“Shit,” Jack muttered. “We need to find somewhere defensible. Fast.”

CHAPTER10

Jack scannedthe treeless ridge around them, squinting to try to sharpen the blurred shapes of distant rocks. No cover—but the lions wouldn’t have that either.

Think, Ross. They’ll be coming up the mountain straight after you. They’ll be angry and moving fast. They can tell from the blood smell that you’re hurt. How do you use that to your advantage?

There wasn’t a whole lot to work with. He wasn’t going to be able to duplicate the trap he’d sprung on Derek. That had been a desperation move, taking advantage of the conditions of the moment.

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