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Forbidden River
Brynn Kelly
A dangerous game at the end of the earth…For French Foreign Legionnaire Cody Castillo, chasing deadly thrills is the only reprieve from a bloodstained past he can’t forget. But when the adrenalin junkie finds himself caught in a mass murderer’s crosshairs in the lonely wilds of New Zealand, he finds an unexpected…and intriguing…ally.Ex-air force pilot Tia Kupa has always found safety in nature, until a killer turns the wilderness into a playground. In this life-or-death game, the guarded woman who lives by the rules must rely on a risk taker with a death wish. The sexy devil-may-care legionnaire may be the wrong guy for her, but desire is just as primal as terror. Even if they outrun a predator, they can’t escape the sizzling bond neither of them saw coming.
A dangerous game at the end of the earth...
For French Foreign Legionnaire Cody Castillo, chasing deadly thrills is the only reprieve from a bloodstained past he can’t forget. But when the adrenaline junkie finds himself caught in a mass murderer’s crosshairs in the lonely wilds of New Zealand, he finds an unexpected—and intriguing—ally.
Former air force pilot Tia Kupa has always found safety in nature, until a killer turns the wilderness into a playground. In this life-or-death game, the guarded woman who lives by the rules must rely on a risk taker with a death wish. The sexy devil-may-care legionnaire may be the wrong guy for her, but desire is just as primal as terror. Even if they outrun a predator, they can’t escape the sizzling bond neither of them saw coming.
Praise for Brynn Kelly’s
Deception Island
A Booklist Top 10 Romance Debut of 2016!
“Intense and exciting...romantic suspense at its best!”
—Carla Neggers, New York Times bestselling author
“Captivating and cutting edge! Deception Island offers smoldering chemistry, cunning twists and a whole lot of heart. Brynn Kelly delivers everything I love in a romance.” —Heather Graham, New York Times bestselling author
“Kidnappings and pirates and romance—oh my! Deception Island is a keeper.” —Cindy Gerard, New York Times bestselling author
“Deception Island is the perfect book...one you’ll never forget.” —Sharon Sala, New York Times bestselling author
“Brynn Kelly pens a raw, dark, emotional novel of danger and intrigue that will keep readers turning the pages.”
—Kat Martin, New York Times bestselling author
“Sexual tension, mystery, and danger crackle off every page!”
—Laura Kaye, New York Times bestselling author
“Deception Island is nothing short of brilliant. I love this book and am salivating for more!” —Award-winning author Lena Diaz
“A taut romantic thriller readers won’t want to put down.”
—Library Journal, starred review
Praise for Brynn Kelly’s
Edge of Truth
“[P]acked with intrigue and jeopardy, while also rich with human emotion. This book is a non-stop thrill ride.... Kelly is proving to be a gift to the romantic suspense genre!”
—RT Book Reviews, Top Pick
“Edge of Truth has it all—danger, desire, and heart-pounding action. Brynn Kelly captures you on page one and doesn’t let go!” —Laura Griffin, New York Times bestselling author
“Edge of Truth is a breathtaking romantic thriller. The characters are so real they leap off the page, the love story is hot and the action never lets up. I couldn’t put it down.” —Karen Robards, New York Times bestselling author
“Dark and deep—a twisting romantic suspense that will grab you and never let go.”
—Cynthia Eden, New York Times bestselling author
“Brynn Kelly will capture your heart and leave you breathless in this passionate, harrowing novel of romantic suspense. A must-read!”
—Brenda Novak, New York Times bestselling author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#u12c5468c-ced7-5de2-909c-2cc98b7d3c48)
After an award-winning twenty-year career as a journalist, BRYNN KELLY has abandoned fact in favor of her first love, fiction.
She’s delighted that she gets to spend her days in a bubble of delicious words and fiendish plots, turning all those stranger-than-fiction news reports into larger-than-life romantic thrillers.
Brynn has a journalism and communications degree and has won several prestigious writing awards, including the Valerie Parv Award and Pacific Hearts Award. Her acclaimed debut novel, Deception Island, was nominated for a Golden Heart® Award by Romance Writers of America. She’s also the bestselling author of four nonfiction books in her native New Zealand.
www.BrynnKelly.com (http://www.BrynnKelly.com)
Forbidden River
Brynn Kelly
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#ucd1758a1-981b-58de-aebf-d228b4851d84)
Back Cover Text (#ue59d45bc-f034-5ceb-b0fe-66687f0f8715)
Praise (#ub8ef11a6-d5a3-52da-950f-8dcddc4af165)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#uea91dc5c-a53e-5b29-82f8-9721842404cf)
Title Page (#uc61e4fc0-fc33-5a1d-b14b-c62dc9352da2)
CHAPTER ONE (#u9ecbb8dd-7127-5971-bb83-33ca561afbf8)
CHAPTER TWO (#u11b4ceae-1cb7-57b7-8574-4bd7dc4dff48)
CHAPTER THREE (#u33de68b5-5ffd-5e92-b007-97475868f1f2)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u12c5468c-ced7-5de2-909c-2cc98b7d3c48)
THE CHOPPER APPEARED on the horizon, hovering like a dragonfly over the slate-blue mountain range. Right on time. A second later the bass throb of its blades ricocheted around the valley, on air so crisp Cody Castillo felt he could reach out and snap it.
He hauled his kayak and paddle from a baggage cart parked outside the airport terminal, loaded with the few supplies he needed for a river paddle. Food, pup tent, sleeping bag, thermals, first aid kit, safety gear, wet weather gear. His gut fizzed. One night in an alpine hut—alone, hopefully—and then nobody and nothing for four beautiful days. Fuck right off, world.
CROOKED VALLEY AIRPORT, the sign read. Well, Crooked Alley. The V had fallen off the line of letters spaced along the roof of the squat hangar that passed for a terminal. The Y was on its side, the T just hanging in there. Way out here at the end of the world, if you needed a sign to tell you where you’d wound up, you were crazy lost.
He’d been to plenty middles of nowhere—Marfa in Texas, the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia, Camopi in French Guiana... Like this, they weren’t the kinds of places you happened upon, pit stops on a road trip, derelict stations on a train line. Nope, it took full commitment to get nowhere. For him, in this case: a ride in a rattly legion Peugeot 4WD from his base at Calvi to Bastia, a ferry from Corsica to Nice, a flight to Paris and then Auckland, via Hong Kong. That sucked up the first forty-eight hours of his leave. Then to Christchurch and a two-day wait for a flight over the Southern Alps aboard a five-seater Cessna piloted by a farmer who might have learned to fly in World War II, going by his age and the way he dipped and dived like he was still dodging the Luftwaffe. Just one journey left—a chopper ride to the source of the legendary Awatapu River—and then he was on his own steam.
Cody laid the kayak on the deserted tarmac, grit scraping the hull. Yep, Crooked Valley/Alley was his kind of airport, where the arrival of a plane seemed to baffle the skeleton staff. No baggage carousels—just the cart pulled by a quad bike, driven by the ace pilot himself, once he’d shut down the plane. “Security” was a ninety-year-old unarmed guard in a uniform she might have worn for half a century, shrinking into it every year until it hung off her like a kid’s costume. No gates, no announcements—more a bus stop than an airport.
The helicopter began to descend, surfing the clouds sloshing over the range. Ah, New Zealand. A throwback to the days when the biggest threat to aviation was a Canada goose. One-third the size of home—
One-third the size of Texas. A long time since Texas had been home.
As it neared, the chopper mutated from insect to bird to machine, the blades beating a different note from the engine. An older model Eurocopter. Not the armored, camo-painted Puma or Tigre he usually rode but a tidy little Écureuil. A squirrel. He shaded his eyes as the chopper kissed the tarmac and settled, late-afternoon sun bouncing off the windshield. The rotors slowed until the disc dissolved and the blades became distinguishable—twelve, nine, six, then the regular three as they whined to a stop. What was the pilot’s name again? Cody squinted, trying to picture the address on the confirmation email. Tia, right? Tia Kupa.
The pilot’s door hinged back and he stepped out. No, not he, not with those curves rounding out the tight blue jeans and that thick black hair swaying to her shoulders. She, and one hell of a she.
She swiveled and walked his way, shoving her hands in the pockets of a black leather flight jacket. The kind of woman his mom would call handsome rather than pretty. Statuesque. Square jaw, cut cheekbones, smooth skin a little darker than his own, dark brown freckles splattered across her nose and cheeks. Maybe thirty, so about his age. She had the commanding aura of an officer, someone who quietly assumed she’d be respected, and thus was respected. Māori, he guessed.
“You’re my guy?” She pushed sunglasses off her face and looked him down and up. Her eyes weren’t the brown he’d expected—not that he’d stopped to think about it—but a blazing green, almost hard to look at with the sun striking them. “The kayaker?”
“Yes, ma’am. Tex—I mean Cody.” It felt weird to be that guy again—no one called him Cody anymore. But introducing himself as “Texas” felt off. His commando team had inflicted the nickname on him years ago but he didn’t offer it around.
She assessed his shiny orange kayak, nose to stern. “You might want to ditch the price tag.” She nodded at the ticket attached to a grab loop.
“Yeah. Easier to buy a new kit than transport it.” Not that he needed to explain.
“If you have the money, sure, why not?” There was a bite in her voice. Yep, she had him all figured out. The kind of adventure tourist who bought new gear and chartered a helicopter? He wouldn’t take kindly to that guy, either. But hey, who cared what she thought, as long as she dropped him somewhere remote and deserted. “I’m busting for a wee. Keep an eye on her for me.” She waved vaguely at the chopper.
He looked left and right. Apart from the security guard, who was sitting slumped at a graying bench dragged up against the hangar wall, there was no life for several dead-flat miles. “You expecting a hijacking or a parking ticket?”
“Funny,” she said, her tone indicating it wasn’t. “Don’t go any closer till I get back.”
She flicked her sunglasses onto her nose and walked away, ruffling her hair, her stride lithe and confident. Owning it.
He knelt over his kayak and pulled a water bottle from one of the dry bags stashed in the hull. He’d been crazy thirsty since Hong Kong, like the flight had sucked the water from his body.
“Hey, Cody,” Tia called from the hangar a couple of minutes later. “Give me a hand with these.”
He stowed the bottle and strolled over, the sun warming one side of his face. She waited by a roller door. Two single kayaks were lined up in front of her, faded and scratched, one yellow, one green, paddles balanced on top. As he neared, she nodded at the nose grab loops while she grasped the stern ones.
“It’s not meant to be a group tour,” he said as they lifted. They better not be taking anyone else.
“They’re for a couple of tourists who are climbing the glacier and crossing the peaks before doing the Awatapu. The conventional route.”
Right. Because he hadn’t earned the downriver kayak without first hauling ass uphill? Whatever.
“Glaciers are too slow,” he said, walking. The kayaks were lighter than he’d expected—but then, the climbers would be carrying a lot of their gear. “When are these guys due at the river?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
Extra incentive not to mess around. Not that people usually caught up to him on any river, let alone a fast one. They dropped the boats near the chopper and in silent accord returned for his kayak.
“You’ve kayaked before, right?” She knelt before the port skid and began fitting heavy-duty straps to it.
“Yep,” he said, yanking off his boat’s price tag. The elastic gave with a snap that made her head turn. He caught a hint of a smile. He’d taken it off so it wouldn’t flap during the ride, but he stopped short of explaining.
“You know the Awatapu is a grade six? Messy rapids, waterfalls, boulder gardens, sieves that’ll suck you under and keep you forever, snags to lose a battleship in...”
Tremendo. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You know no one does it solo?”
“I do a lot of things solo. I like it that way.” Not quite true. Not a lie. In a parallel life where things hadn’t gone to shit, he’d have been standing here with his brother, racing to be first into her good books and maybe even her bed. In this life, yeah, he was a loner, outside the legion. The shine had gone out of chasing women, like it had a lot of things.
“You know there’s no mobile reception, and no one passes by? These climbers are the only others up there.” Her lips tightened. “The only ones presumed alive.”
“You didn’t think of talking me out of it before I paid you?”
“Hell, no. I need the money. But we’ve already lost four tourists on the river this spring and it’ll be bad for business to lose a fifth. So just...don’t die.” Her tone caught somewhere between dry humor and genuine concern.
“Wait, four tourists? I heard about two, a month or so back.”
“Another couple went missing a fortnight ago. The tapu had only just been lifted after the last pair.”
“Tapu?”
“If a place is tapu, it’s sacred or forbidden. When someone dies up there, it becomes tapu until it’s blessed.”
“When someone dies. This happens often?”
“There’s a reason the river’s called Awatapu. But I’m hoping like hell both couples are waiting for us up at the hut, living off eels and huhu grubs.”
He noted her pronunciation—Ah-wah-tah-pu. Long vowels, a soft T, even stresses on the syllables. Not far off Spanish. “What’s it mean?”
“The forbidden river, the sacred river. Want to lift your kayak and paddle up here, and I’ll strap them?”
“And... Wairoimata?” he said, hoisting the craft, following her lead on the pronunciation, rolling the R. “That’s the name of the town I’m getting out at, right?”
“Yeah. Wai means water, roimata is tears.”
“Water of tears. Uplifting names. Did you fly them in—the missing tourists?”
She frowned as she strapped the kayak. “The ones from two weeks ago, yes. Danish couple. Experienced kayakers.”
“But not the others—the first couple?”
“I didn’t think they could handle the paddle. Both couples are officially still missing, but yeah, it’s a safe bet they won’t be walking out. We’ve had some late-season snowfalls so it’s not a good time to be lost in the bush. Not that there’s ever a good time.”
He pictured the terrain he’d flown over—the Alps, subalpine scrublands, rainforest... “Guess it can be tough to find people out there.”
She tugged at the kayak—it didn’t budge—then straightened and dusted her hands on her jeans. “Yep. I was up there long days, searching. I’ll be paying off the fuel for months.”
“You cover your own fuel on a search and rescue?”
She picked up the remaining straps and walked to the other side. “I’m funded to a point,” she said as they got to work. “But what am I supposed to do when the budget maxes out, leave them out there? And I took the second couple in, so... They’re probably snagged in tree roots, caught in a sieve. They’ll be flushed out soon, with the snow melting in the tops. The river always gives up its dead. The bush, not so much.”
“I’m getting the idea these aren’t the first people to disappear up there.”
She gave him a sideways look. “How much research did you do on this river?”
“Enough to know it’s one of the wildest kayaking runs anywhere.”
“See, I’d have thought that would warn people away, but it just seems to attract them. I’ve never understood that urge to put yourself in danger.”
“And yet you fly a helicopter.”
“I fly it very safely.” Her voice strained as she pulled a strap. “The lucky ones get airlifted out with broken limbs. Of course, by then they’ve usually been waiting awhile—hungry, dehydrated, hypothermic...”
“You trying to talk me out of it?”
She yanked. “Would you listen?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Would you heed the warning?”
“No, ma’am. You’re just saying that for the record, right? Covering your liability.”
“Yep. That and the fact I’m not your mother. I take it you’ve been in a helicopter before.”
“Many times.”
A dimple in her cheek twitched. “Okay, we’re good to go.”
“I’m a soldier.” Now, why did he feel the need to make that clear?
“You’re a soldier.” Not a question, more a sarcastic echo. She tipped her head and studied him like he’d blown her assumptions and she had to start over.
He laughed.
“What?”
“I can hear you thinking.”
“You’re a psychic, too? Wow.” Deadpan again, like it was the end of a long day and she didn’t want to encourage conversation. Neither did he, normally. Mindless chatter shriveled his soul. But she was fun. There was passion hiding in those eyes, a smile simmering under those lips.
“Yep,” he said. “You’re thinking, ‘What kind of soldier charters a helicopter rather than hiking in?’”
That dimple again. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“‘And what kind of soldier buys a new kit instead of stealing military supplies?’”
“Maybe you are psychic.” She folded her arms. “Or maybe you’re a rich-boy fantasist who thinks that because he’s in some hick backwoods at the end of the Earth he can reinvent himself into anything he wants—like, say, a soldier—so the gullible local girl will trip over herself to fall in bed with him.”
“Whoa.”
“And maybe you’re also a risk taker with a death wish,” she continued, a twitch away from a smile. “You’ve done so many reckless things—out of rich-boy boredom, let’s assume—that you’ve overridden your survival instinct and now it’s only a matter of time before you make headlines and everyone says all that bullshit like ‘He lived life to the fullest’ and ‘He died doing what he loved’ and ‘He’ll always stay beautiful.’ But you’ll just be unnecessarily dead like all the other unnecessarily dead people.”
Shee-it. She was ten kinds of cool. “You calling me beautiful?”
The smile broke through, curving her lips at an intriguing angle. An exasperated smile, but he’d take it. “Still, it’s not a bad thing that fate weeds out the risk takers. Makes the herd stronger. Just try not to die in my country, on my river.”
“Your river.”
“My people’s river. Ko Awatapu te awa, ko Maungapouri te maunga. Awatapu is my river. Maungapouri is my mountain.” She jerked her head at the highest of the snow-crowned peaks jutting up behind the deep green nearer range. “I haven’t always lived here but my whānau—my family—are anchored by these mountains and that river, guardians of them. So yeah, don’t die on my watch because you’ve screwed up your wiring and death is the only challenge left.”
Oh, he was getting a reminder that a very different challenge could still amp him up. He had zero time for women who were impressed by his uniform or his family’s money. A pity legionnaires with death wishes didn’t do relationships.
She walked past him, toward the cockpit. “See, to me, you look like a rich guy with too much time to spend at the gym.”
Okay, so that stung—his fitness had come from hard work, self-control and self-loathing. Those he could take credit for. But it also meant she’d been checking out his body.
Guessing he wouldn’t get an invitation, he circled the chopper and let himself in as she settled in the pilot’s seat.
She raised her chin in cool appraisal, clipping on her harness. “What’s your weapon?”
A test? “Le Fusil à Répétition modèle F2. Sometimes a Hécate II.”
She hovered long, slender fingers over the dials on the instrument panel, eyes narrowed, following their path. Not taking chances, even though the blades had just stopped spinning. Overkill, but he’d tolerate that in a pilot. “That’s the FR-F2, right? Sniper rifles.”
“You know them?”
“Those don’t sound like US military issue. So...what? You’re a mercenary? Sorry, I mean security contractor?”
“In a sense,” he said. “Just not a well-paid one.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of selling out—making money?”
“Not for me. I’m a legionnaire.”
She gave him that sideways look again, pulling on her headset and handing him his. “What, like the French Foreign Legion?” Her voice boomed through the intercom.
“Oui, Légion Étrangère, mademoiselle.”
“You are so full of shit you could be a long-drop at a campground in January.”
“No idea what that is, but it sounds bad.”
She checked the panel above their head, again following her fingers with her eyes, and adjusted a lever. “Seriously? You’re a legionnaire?”
“Yes, ma’am. Caporal Cody Castillo du groupement des commandos parachutistes du 2e régiment étranger de parachutistes de Calvi.”
She did a three-sixty check through the windows, and engaged the starter. “Commandos parachutistes,” she repeated disdainfully. “A parachute commando?”
“You know, most people are impressed by that.”
“You’ll never catch me jumping from a perfectly good aircraft.”
“Afraid of heights?”
“Only of falling from them, which is totally rational and something you should be grateful for right about now.”
“Yes, ma’am. That I am.”
“Are you for real with that ‘yes, ma’am’ thing?”
“Habit. My abuela would have me over her knee if I didn’t show respect to women.” Okay, so he might be hamming it up there. His grandmother controlled the family fortune from a laptop, not a rocking chair. Why haul your grandson over your knee when a withering stare was plenty scary?
As Tia worked the controls with deft fingers and sharp eyes, a muted whine filtered through the headset and the shadow of a blade glided across the ground in front, slowly pursued by another.
“Vous parlez très bien français,” she said.
“So do you.”
“Expensive education—and that’s about all I remember. But you had an abuela?”
“My family’s from Mexico.”
“And you’re not?”
“Texas—born and raised.”
She gave a sharp laugh. “Right, so you’re a legionnaire commando from Texas.”
“Now, what have you got against Texas?”
“Nothing. It’s just that you’re not what I...” She shook her head. “It’s just one of those places that seems, I dunno, mythical.”
You’re not what I...expected? Hell, neither was she. “Says the woman who lives in Middle Earth. But go ahead and believe what you want about me. I just care that you’re a good pilot.”
The seat underneath him hummed, as if the chopper were straining with impatience. He knew the feeling.
“The best,” she said.
“Where did you learn to fly?”
She sighed, a scratch through the headset. “Would you ask me that if I was a guy?”
“Uh, yeah.”
She increased the engine speed and the blades whipped faster. “I get asked that a lot and you know what? My male counterparts don’t. I’ve checked with them. They don’t get the question.”
Shit. Was she right? Would he ask a guy that question? “Ma’am, I got total respect for all pilots—planes, helicopters, fucking hang gliders. Takes guts and brains and composure, and that’s something few people have.”
She scoffed, as if she wanted to be pissed at that but couldn’t manage it. “Nice recovery.”
The chopper lifted without a shudder and skimmed above the tarmac. He liked the way she talked. Sharp and combative but with enough humor that she didn’t cross into mean or bitter. Sparring, not landing real blows.
“You don’t mention on your website that you’re a woman. You don’t have a photo.” Because he was damn sure it would’ve given him extra incentive to book her, on top of her stellar reviews and safety record. “Was that deliberate?”
“I don’t say I’m a man, either. If people assume the wrong thing, that’s on them, not me. I don’t want my gender to help me or hold me back. I’ve had journalists wanting to make a big deal out of it. Even a publisher once, though she was more interested in...” She frowned. “I say no to everything. I don’t want to be the ‘plucky aviatrix keeping up with the big boys.’”
He got the feeling that’d happened before—and that it was the big boys who did the keeping up. They rose over a braided river, the shallow, bleached water in no hurry. The Awatapu’s lower reaches. Around him the chopper felt weightless, a mosquito next to the albatrosses he was used to.
“I guess what I’m asking,” he said, “is how a civilian pilot in probably the least gun-crazy country in the world knows her sniper rifles.”
“Nine years in the New Zealand air force.”
Ah. “Flying choppers?”
“Yep, though I started on transport craft—Orions, Hercules.”
“They’re still making those things?”
“The ones I flew were Vietnam relics. Of course I grew up with visions of racing Skyhawks, but by the time I enlisted they’d been sold.”
“You didn’t fly other jets?”
“We didn’t have any.”
“An air force without jets? You serious?”
“And our emblem is a kiwi, a flightless bird. Go figure.” She activated the radio. “I’m just going to call in.”
She spoke in clear, clipped shorthand. Phonetic call sign, position, altitude, direction, destination. Ahead, the last of the spring snow clung to the range’s shadowy folds, in denial about the blue dome that curved above.
“To be fair,” she said when she’d signed off, “all that Top Gun shit went out with the nineties. The future’s in drones, which doesn’t leave many options for real combat pilots. I’m not into that remote-control crap. If you don’t have the guts to go to a place you have no business blowing it up.”
“Where did you serve?”
“Samoa, the Philippines, hunting pirates in the Middle East... Took a bunch of scientists to Antarctica one summer. Mostly disaster relief and humanitarian missions, which is how it should be.”
“Word. Though they can cut you up as much as combat. Why did you leave?”
Silence. “We had a...family crisis. My koro—my grandfather—he’s lived in Wairoimata all his life, and he was struggling to get his head around it. And my brother and I needed to...get away. So we made a pact to come down here for a bit. Lie low, look out for Koro. Of course, Koro thinks it’s us who needed him. Didn’t mean to stay this long but it’s one of those places that sucks you in. Besides, now I have this monster to pay off.” She slid a hand across the top of the instrument panel. “So I’m here for a while, like it or not.”
He got the feeling she liked it okay. There was more to her story, but if she didn’t want to share, then all good. Who was he to pry? Happy families weren’t his thing, either, not anymore.
“I know a guy you might know,” he said. “Ex-legionnaire. Came to us from the New Zealand army.”
“Yeah, because I know everyone in this country. We all went to school together. Or is this more of a ‘You’re brown, he’s brown, so you must know each other’ kind of thing?”
“Hey, I’m just as brown as you.”
“So you should know better.”
He laughed. He was almost sad it was such a short flight.
Way below, the chopper’s long shadow flickered over green rock-strewn foothills, like some slimy black creature rolling and jerking over the land.
“Okay, Cowboy, what’s his name?” Tia asked, the words rushing out, like she’d been trying not to ask.
“Austin something. Austin Fale—Falelo...”
She quietly swore, a whisper in the headset. “Austin Faletolu. He used to date my brother. I hate that.”
“What, that he dated your brother?”
“No, that I know the random guy you’re talking about.”
“It happens a lot?”
“More than it should in a country this size.”
They fell silent, he in awe, as the landscape got wilder. Barely tamed farmland gave way to rainforest, and trees in turn succumbed to a desert of jagged rocks and brown tussock. Along the edge of the range, fresh landslides left plummeting scars of scoria. A country on the move, tossing and turning and refusing to settle into sleep.
Man, he felt alive. Anticipation churned in his stomach and his skin buzzed. Not a wired adrenaline, like the start of an operation, but a lightness, a freedom. Escape in T-minus ten.
“You have travel insurance, a will?” Tia asked.
Aaaand bubble burst.
CHAPTER TWO (#u12c5468c-ced7-5de2-909c-2cc98b7d3c48)
CODY SHIFTED IN his seat. “Yeah, I got a will.” His father’s lawyers had insisted on a succession plan for the business, though if they were smart they’d skip him. “But you think any insurer’s gonna give a reasonable quote for this?” He could fund an evacuation anyway. Or the repatriation of his remains. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you’re well paid for the search and rescue.”
They cleared the seam of the range and turned south. The view switched to black and white, a rocky alpine plateau with fog filling the basins and dips. Farther into the mountains the ground snow thickened from tattered lace to a sheet to a blanket. In a valley between two craggy peaks spread a blue-tinted tongue of ice. The glacier. No sign of climbers.
He zipped his jacket higher. It was high-tech but lightweight, like most of the clothes he carried. Tia turned west and the sunlight bounced off the glacier, into his eyes. He shut them until the burn passed. Shame he wasn’t getting on the water until 0600. He needed to blast off the nerves in his belly. He felt a nudge on his thigh. Tia pointed down. Carving around massive boulders was a river of milky turquoise, so vivid it seemed to glow.
“Estupendo,” he whispered.
“Indeed. The Awatapu.”
“Hell. I thought the photos on the web were doctored.”
“Nope. Cool, eh?”
Tia followed the river’s winding path. Final approach to Nowhere. As the altitude dropped, rock and snow yielded to tussock and thick khaki scrub. The river narrowed into boulder-strewn white-water corridors, flared into blue pools lipped with beaches of ashen stones, narrowed, flared, narrowed, flared, growing faster and wilder as more streams washed in. Man, he wanted a piece of that.
Tia navigated down into a clearing beside a red-roofed hut along the river, blond tussock flattening under them. If he’d closed his eyes he wouldn’t have sensed the moment of contact. She radioed in as she shut down. He pulled off his headset. As the blades whined to a halt and the engine’s white noise ceased, silence washed in. She stared at the hut. Well, hut was ambitious. More of a shed with a couple small windows and a chimney. Under a corrugated tin awning, a gray dish towel slumped from a rope. Could’ve been there months. Tia screwed up her face as she removed her headset. No sign of any missing tourists.
He spent the next ten minutes trying to equalize his ears as he helped Tia stash the kayaks under the awning. He could be imagining the rush of water over stones, but the bell-like bird chatter was real. The biting stench of avgas lifted, leaving the scent of clean air and distant snow. No better perfume.
She nodded at a craggy white peak in the distance. A bird of prey was riding a thermal. “A cold front is blowing up from Antarctica. You should be out before it hits, but if the weather turns, ride it out in the hut or your tent and I’ll check on you when it clears.”
“Sure thing.” Like hell.
“Because that river’s going to get high and fast superquick.”
Even better. “Noted. Thanks.”
She sighed, like she knew he was a lost cause. “Camp well above the water level—it can change quickly this time of year. Your best launchpad is down that track.”
The “track” she pointed to was a slight gap between the prickly shrubs circling the clearing. “The river meanders for about a kilometer. Then you get your first challenge with a nasty, narrow little rapid. After that a big tributary joins and it really gets wild and pretty much stays that way. But the worst part, the part that makes it grade six, is the Auripo Falls, which you’ll reach about midday tomorrow. Eighteen-meter drop—that’s sixty feet to you—underwater whirlpool that’ll hold you forever—”
“Yeah, I’ve read up on it, asked around. You’ve kayaked this river?”
“God, no. Just rescued enough people to know where they get unstuck. Or rather, stuck. I know it mostly by air—and my brother runs canyoning trips in the lower reaches in summer.”
“Jumping off waterfalls? And you call me a risk taker?”
Almost a smile. “He’s very safety-conscious.”
“Like you.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“So your brother jumps off waterfalls—and throws other people off them—and you call him safety-conscious. And I put only my own life on the line, and I’m a risk taker.”
“He knows what he’s doing. But yeah, once was enough for me. I’m happy just being his taxi driver.”
“You canyoned? I thought you were scared of heights.”
“Not heights, just falling, as every human should be. And it confirmed I was right to be afraid.”
“So you just drop his victims to their fates instead?”
“I figure if you’re determined to kill yourself, you’ll find a way. It might as well benefit me.” Her tone dropped just on the side of teasing. She wiped her hands on her thighs, like she was absolving herself of responsibility. “Right. That’s me out.”
“Last chance to talk me ’round.”
She raised her chin. “You want me to talk you around?”
“No.”
“Good. I could use another search and rescue contract to pay off the last one. Just make sure you die in a place I can easily spot from the air. And keep an eye out for those tourists. I don’t like the idea of them lying...” She rubbed her eyes, as if trying to erase a mental image.
“I’ll do that.”
“Get off the river well before dark each day. When the light drops you can’t see the snags.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That was a bit ‘no shit, Sherlock,’ wasn’t it?”
Man, she was so close to a real smile. If he just worked a little harder... “It’s nice that you care.”
“You have someone waiting for word of when you reach Wairoimata? Who can raise the alarm when you don’t show?”
“No, ma’am.”
Was she asking if he was single?
In your dreams, numbskull. Not that he was looking to hook up, but she’d be a fun vacation distraction.
“Got a mobile?” she said.
“Yep.”
“It won’t work until Wairoimata. You have my number—call me when you get out. If I don’t hear by Wednesday, I’ll start asking around.”
“Will do.”
“Got a distress beacon?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded to the kayak.
“A GPS one? Bought locally, not overseas?”
“Yep.”
“Keep it on you. It’s no use in your kayak if you get swept out. But don’t use it unless you’re dying. I don’t want to fight my way up here at midnight in a cyclone to find you twisted your ankle.”
“This happens?”
“Some people treat those things like Uber. If you can kayak out safely, do it. It’ll make a better war story to boast about later.”
“Noted.”
She gave a sharp nod and walked away. Security briefing over.
“Well, thanks,” he said.
Right. He checked his watch. A few hours before dark. He’d scout out the river, get sorted for the morning, then settle in with a freeze-dried dinner and his e-reader. He rubbed his belly. Food would fix that empty feeling. Damn, twenty minutes in her company and now he had to get reacquainted with solitude. Maybe when he called her from Wairoimata he’d ask her for a drink. Even a place that small had to have a watering hole.
“Hey, Cowboy,” she called.
He killed his smile and swiveled. She was leaning into the helicopter, writing something on a clipboard.
“You got insect repellent?”
“Don’t usually get bit. No malaria here, right?”
She looked up. “It’s not the mosquitoes you need to watch for. It’s the sandflies.”
“I need to watch out for a fly?”
“You’ll see.” She pulled a spray bottle from a bag on the rear seat and lobbed it. He caught it one-handed. “I’ll add it to the tab. Oh wait, you prepaid, didn’t you?”
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“On the house, then. And watch out for wild pigs.”
“Pigs? For real? I fucking love this country. You’re saying the most dangerous wildlife out there is flies and pigs?” He was crossing into flirt territory, drawing this out as long as he could. He wasn’t even sure why.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. “Less Porky Pig and more a rhino crossed with a bull. I’ve seen boars up here twice your weight. There’s also stags but they won’t take you on unless you corner them. And chamois and tahr—wild goats—but the smell is the biggest danger there. At least they’re herbivores.”
“Unlike the sandflies?”
“Spoken like a guy who’s never stood beside a New Zealand river at dusk.” She pushed off the chopper. “And watch out for kea—big green parrots. Cheeky buggers. Don’t turn your back on your dinner.”
“Noted.” He stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his shorts. “Okay. Guess I’ll go look at this river of death, then.”
“Good luck.”
“I don’t intend luck to be a factor.”
She nodded, again with that almost-smile. He forced himself to turn and walk away. Seeing her again would be his reward for surviving this paddle.
Of the ten wildest kayaking runs in the world, he’d kayaked numbers ten, nine, eight, seven, six and five. How dangerous could one little forbidden river be?
* * *
TIA TURNED BACK to her flight log, resisting the temptation to watch Cody right up to the moment he pushed through the trees and disappeared. Yep, it’d be a damn shame for the world to lose a specimen like that—and it’d break her heart to locate that body. He was muscular but easy with it, like he spent as much time doing yoga as lifting weights, like his power wasn’t for show but function. A kayaker’s shoulders, a soldier’s athleticism, with the lived-in look of a guy who spent a lot of time outdoors.
She rapped her stubby fingernails on the clipboard. She’d give him until Wednesday night to call before hitting the phone. She didn’t need another death on her conscience.
A gust swept through the tussock. The nor’wester, picking up ahead of the front. She’d take the downriver route home in case any bodies had been spat out. Or, hope above hope, she found four live ones waving up from the swing bridge above Auripo Falls. She rubbed the back of her neck, staring blankly into the scrub. The disappearances had been gnawing at her since the day it became obvious the Danes weren’t going to arrive at Wairoimata. One missing person wasn’t unusual, even two. But four? She’d flown the river from glacier to sea, back and forth a dozen times, in case she’d missed some hazard that might explain things—a fallen tree, a crumbling cliff, a fresh rockfall.
She straightened, the tiny leaves on the trees coming into sharp focus. Something was out of place. She scanned the clearing. There, on a cluster of stones at the tree line, a twisted gray-brown clump. Damn. She crossed to it.
Yep, a kiwi. Mauled, bloody, decomposing. A big adult with a transmitter on its leg. Breeding stock. Would’ve been raised in captivity until it was big enough to defend itself. She crossed the clearing to the hut’s stoat trap—one of hundreds she’d dropped into the forest this spring, for Koro’s trapper mates. Another reason she wouldn’t turn a profit this year.
The wooden box was on its side, bait untouched. Whatever knocked it over hadn’t got in through the small wire tunnel, so not a rat or stoat. Possums didn’t tear kiwi apart like that. It must have struck since the trappers had swept through on their fortnightly checks. She searched the ground.
There—animal shit. Dog? She swore. How the hell had a dog got up here? One feral dog could wipe out a hundred kiwi—the forest’s entire population. She walked back to the bird, pulled out her phone and snapped photos for the rangers. They’d want to get here quick. If she left soon, she could bring them up before sunset.
Something rustled in the trees behind the chopper. Not a bird, something solid. She straightened. Nothing but tui warbling and trilling, and the rush of the river. Cody, probably. Sheesh, she was jumpy. The only person he was a danger to was himself. There was no stopping adrenaline junkies with an obsession. She’d played dumb earlier, but of course she’d Googled him when he’d emailed her to book, seeing as it was so reckless to kayak the Awatapu solo. He’d competed in the extreme kayaking world champs with his brother—and if he was also a soldier, that was good enough for her. The profile of him she’d found was a decade old and hadn’t mentioned the legion, but there were other hits she hadn’t clicked on. They’d mostly been about some San Antonio software empire his family owned, and she couldn’t care less about that.
The branches of a tall rata swayed. A kereru pigeon had swooped in, the sun catching the emerald of its breast, its weight bowing the branch as it twisted to eat berries.
A legionnaire, eh? What better way to stick it to your wealthy parents than run away to the legion? And she knew all about sticking it to your parents.
She was no sucker for a guy in uniform, but he’d look hot in khakis, with those broad shoulders tapering down to that tight arse, his sleeves rolled up over corded muscle, a serious slant to his jaw. Camo paint. Dirt. Sweat. Oh yeah.
She inhaled—and gagged on a filthy scent. Hell. That wasn’t the kiwi. She’d transported enough bodies to know that smell. Something big and fleshy, and very dead. A pig? She swiveled, checking the leaves on the taller trees. The breeze had turned west. Please, please, please let it be a pig. She unzipped her jacket and pulled her T-shirt over her nose and mouth, her legs working robotically, nerves bringing her focus and hearing into high relief.
She shoved through the scrub, branches scratching her hands and slapping her face. The low drone of blowflies, a lot of them. Her cheeks prickled. After a few minutes, she saw it, a flash of orange on the ground. Not a pig. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She pushed into a small clearing beside a boulder, her heart thumping.
Yep, a body. Curled up, sheltered under the overhang of the rock like it was hiding—that’s why she hadn’t spotted it from the air. The jacket. She remembered that jacket. Orange, with blue stripes. The Danish guy. Fuck it to hell.
CHAPTER THREE (#u12c5468c-ced7-5de2-909c-2cc98b7d3c48)
TIA EXHALED IN a rush. Don’t breathe through your nose and you won’t throw up.
The guy had died this close to where she’d dropped him off? Maybe he and his girlfriend got into trouble downriver and he hiked back up to find help. But why not use their emergency beacons? Tia had insisted they each carry one. She crouched and nudged his jacket pockets. In one, a boxy shape. She carefully unzipped it. The beacon, still sealed.
“What the hell happened, mate?” The silence sucked up her whisper.
He had to have died of exposure, hypothermia, at least a week ago. She’d better radio in, get him in a body bag, load him. Cody could help—he’d be used to dealing with death. Once the body’s smell was contained she’d have a better chance of figuring out if another one lay around here.
“Let’s get you started on the journey home, eh?”
She blinked her eyes clear. A few meters away, a broken branch hung from a leatherwood bush. She stood, brushing her knees. A mobile phone lay in the grass. He’d crashed through, desperate? And then what—collapsed? She did a slow three-sixty, pulling back her hair. The roof of the hut was visible. He couldn’t have been lost. But then, people with hypothermia didn’t always think straight.
A tragedy and a mystery. His phone was dead—no surprise there. She followed his trail through the scrub back as far as it was obvious. A lot of broken branches. Her nape prickled. Something else was wrong. She stopped, biting her lip. What wasn’t she seeing? A kereru swooshed overhead—the fat one from the hut. She laid her hand over her heart, willing it to slow, and forced herself to focus on her environment. Her brother, Tane, teased her about her “premonitions,” but he’d long ago learned to pay attention. The number of times they’d saved his arse... It wasn’t anything spooky, as he liked to claim, just her brain taking a while to catch up with her senses, her subconscious registering alerts before her conscious did—hearing or seeing or smelling something out of place a few seconds before it became obvious.
Yes, there—a rusty smear on a brushy branch at chest height. Blood. More than you’d expect from the usual forest cuts and scratches. She walked faster. More blood. Now she knew what to look for, it was everywhere—on leaves, branches, the ground. She bit the side of her cheek as she returned to the body. Nothing visible on his back.
She crouched, taking a closer look. Chunks of flesh had been ripped from his thighs and calves. The dog? A hawk? Pressing her lips together, she grabbed the guy’s shoulder and gently rolled him. A swarm of trapped flies flew up, their fat, furry bodies pelting her mouth. She swiped at them, her stomach lurching. Hold it together, for his sake.
Yep, a big, dark bloodstain on the chest of his torn jacket. Through the tear, a gaping wound. On the leaf litter and grass underneath him a bloodstain had spread into an oval, the liquid long since seeped away. Dogs and hawks didn’t puncture a man’s chest. They might have come by after death. Was he knocked down and gored by a boar? Attacked by a stag? She lowered him and stroked his shoulder. Death would have come quickly, if not quietly.
Forget the body bag. This was beyond her job description. She’d radio it in, leave Cody with the body and go for the cops. It was probably an accident or animal attack but that wasn’t her call.
She dragged her feet to the chopper. No sign of Cody but at least he was near. Suddenly the isolation wasn’t so friendly. She reached the pilot’s door and froze, her instinct pricking again. Oh God, what now? A pair of fantails flashed and dived beside the hut. The tea towel snapped in the breeze, making her flinch. Nothing amiss, so why did she have the urge to run? Maybe she was just strung out. A dead body could do that.
Her ab muscles tightened. Fuck it. Better to be paranoid than dead. She sucked in a breath and took off for the hut, her sneakers flicking up stones.
Crack. An echoing gunshot, from behind her. Shit. She upped her speed. A hunter, thinking she was wildlife?
“Stop shooting!” she yelled. “Identify your target!”
Another pop, the clank of a bullet hitting metal, the shot reverberating. The chopper. Potshots from a rifle. A hollow smack, a thump, and something flicked her hair.
Jesus. She clutched her head, the hut bouncing around in her vision. Her hair was hot but no wound. A third crack, another thump, and the hut’s front window shattered. The shooter couldn’t have her confused with wildlife—he’d have stopped by now. He was hunting her. She veered off course and plunged thigh-high into tussock beside the hut as a bullet punctured its front wall, a meter away. She rounded the back of the building and pushed her spine against the cold wall, chest heaving. A half-second gap between the sonic boom and the thump, so he was maybe four hundred meters away, elevated—any closer, she’d be dead. Holy shit. What now?
A burst of fire this time, spraying the other side of the hut, shattering glass, pinging into tin. Automatic fire. Not your standard hunting rifle. Hosing the place because he’d lost line of sight?
She couldn’t stay here. Too obvious. And a matter of time before a bullet went right through the hut.
Cody. Where was Cody?
Wait—a military loner with a death wish? Had she got him all wrong? Exactly what had he stashed in that kayak?
No. The tourist—the hole in his chest. That was no goring. What about his girlfriend and the other couple? The search had concentrated on the river but maybe the river wasn’t the culprit.
Whatever the situation, she had to retreat, one good, quick decision at a time. Get Cody; get out of here. Maybe lure the shooter away from the chopper and double back to it. Raise the alarm over the radio, alert the police Armed Offenders Squad. Alert the fucking army. Fly over the glacier, find the climbers.
The shooter had stopped. Gone stealth to stalk her? The forest had silenced, the birds flown off. She couldn’t even hear the river with her eardrums blown by the gunshots, just her own fast breath. She leaped across the tussock, to leave less of a trail than striding through, and ducked into the trees. Her jacket was black, at least—unlike Cody’s bright blue one.
She inched into the scrub, watching over her shoulder. Even tiptoeing, her sneakers crunched. When she could no longer see the hut, she exhaled. First task: find Cody.
Movement, to her right. Her breath caught. A weka charged from the undergrowth, its panicked little legs whirring like a squat brown Road Runner.
A noise, ahead. She swiveled and her nose smacked into a big navy-clad shoulder. She lifted a knee to the guy’s nuts but he spun her and caught her tight around the waist, pinning her arms. She stomped but missed his foot.
“Tia! Jesus!” he hissed.
He released her and she wheeled around. Oh God, it was Cody, his eyes wide, checking their surroundings. He’d taken off the blue jacket, leaving a skintight long-sleeved thermal. Damn, how much noise had they made?
“What the fuck is going on?” he whispered.
“Some nutter with a rifle—I didn’t get a look.”
He nodded sharply. “Let’s find cover.”
She followed him toward the river and down a rock bank, ignoring the hand he held out. Ahead, through the trees, the water rushed over stones, lit bright by the sun. A dog barked. The shooting started up again. More automatic fire. She pressed her back against the clammy stone. Next to her, Cody did the same. Ricocheting shots, smashing glass, clanging metal. Another dog joined in. “They must be in the clearing,” she whispered.
Cody’s eyes met hers, his jaw squared. “He ain’t conserving ammo.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“How do you know it’s not a woman?”
His mouth twitched. “I’m kinda more concerned about the firepower. Gotta be an assault rifle—pretty much the same weapon we use to hunt humans.”
“Did you just make a joke about hunting humans?”
“Wasn’t meant to be a joke. Sometimes when you’re looking through the scope, it feels like that... You okay? You’ve gone a little gray. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s not that.” She told him about the body. His expression grew grimmer by the word. Jolted out of holiday mode and into work mode. Lucky for her he wasn’t a lawyer or a...pianist. “He really is hunting humans.”
“Okay,” Cody said, as if that wasn’t at all problematic. “I’ll lure him away while you get to the chopper.”
“Yes. Then you can double back and join me.”
“No. You go without me.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“It makes sense. I’ll have to lead him far enough away that he’s out of range as you’re lifting. Going by that firepower, I’m thinking maybe a mile. No point in me then giving him time to return.”
“You don’t know this bush. I’m guessing he does—and so do his dogs. You might get lucky for half an hour, but...”
“He?”
“For convenience’s sake.”
A flicker of a smile at his tiny victory. “You said it yourself—I’m a risk taker with a death wish.”
“Cody, I’m not leaving anyone else here.”
“You’re leaving me.” His hand went to his hip, then froze. Checking for a nonexistent weapon. He fisted his fingers, and released. “Look, I’m not some hippie backpacker. I’m good at getting shot at. I’ll lead them away, then swim the river so the dogs can’t get me—assuming they can’t swim.”
“If they’re hunting dogs—and they sound like it—they’re all muscle and mouth and no fat. No buoyancy, especially in fresh water. They’ll sink like rocks.”
“Good. Then I’ll hide until help comes. Easy.”
“That river is basically just melted snow and ice. You swim it without a change of clothes, you’ll be hypothermic by midnight.”
“My clothes are pretty much made of plastic. They’ll dry quick.”
She shook her head.
“Tia, none of the options here are good. There’s no easy decision in a situation like this, no risk-free choice. You know that. You’ll be taking a risk in lifting off. I’ll be taking a risk in running and hiding. But if you don’t get away safely, we’re both screwed, and so are those climbers and the other tourists, if they’re still alive, and so are the next people who come wandering up here.”
Dammit. “Help probably won’t come until first light.”
“I can handle a night in the open.”
“A lot of tough guys say that, going in.”
A dog barked nearby. She shrank against the rock. Cody slung his arm across her belly, pinning her with his elbow. Like she was going anywhere. The gunshots had stopped.
She tiptoed to reach his ear. He was a couple of inches taller. In another situation she’d consider that the perfect height. “We’re downwind,” she whispered. “The dogs won’t be able to smell us yet. I’ll go back the way I came. You—”
She froze. A second later he held up a palm, frowning. Through the trees ahead skulked the silhouette of the shooter, rifle held low across his hip, machete slung across his back like a ninja sword, two dogs running alongside. One was a short dirty-brown mutt, wide across the forelegs, thick neck, big jaw. Bred for fighting. The other was a greyhound cross, its nose skimming the river stones. Pig dogs—an attacker and a tracker? With the sun in his eyes, the guy wouldn’t spot her and Cody, but she stilled her breathing anyway.
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Brynn Kelly
A dangerous game at the end of the earth…For French Foreign Legionnaire Cody Castillo, chasing deadly thrills is the only reprieve from a bloodstained past he can’t forget. But when the adrenalin junkie finds himself caught in a mass murderer’s crosshairs in the lonely wilds of New Zealand, he finds an unexpected…and intriguing…ally.Ex-air force pilot Tia Kupa has always found safety in nature, until a killer turns the wilderness into a playground. In this life-or-death game, the guarded woman who lives by the rules must rely on a risk taker with a death wish. The sexy devil-may-care legionnaire may be the wrong guy for her, but desire is just as primal as terror. Even if they outrun a predator, they can’t escape the sizzling bond neither of them saw coming.
A dangerous game at the end of the earth...
For French Foreign Legionnaire Cody Castillo, chasing deadly thrills is the only reprieve from a bloodstained past he can’t forget. But when the adrenaline junkie finds himself caught in a mass murderer’s crosshairs in the lonely wilds of New Zealand, he finds an unexpected—and intriguing—ally.
Former air force pilot Tia Kupa has always found safety in nature, until a killer turns the wilderness into a playground. In this life-or-death game, the guarded woman who lives by the rules must rely on a risk taker with a death wish. The sexy devil-may-care legionnaire may be the wrong guy for her, but desire is just as primal as terror. Even if they outrun a predator, they can’t escape the sizzling bond neither of them saw coming.
Praise for Brynn Kelly’s
Deception Island
A Booklist Top 10 Romance Debut of 2016!
“Intense and exciting...romantic suspense at its best!”
—Carla Neggers, New York Times bestselling author
“Captivating and cutting edge! Deception Island offers smoldering chemistry, cunning twists and a whole lot of heart. Brynn Kelly delivers everything I love in a romance.” —Heather Graham, New York Times bestselling author
“Kidnappings and pirates and romance—oh my! Deception Island is a keeper.” —Cindy Gerard, New York Times bestselling author
“Deception Island is the perfect book...one you’ll never forget.” —Sharon Sala, New York Times bestselling author
“Brynn Kelly pens a raw, dark, emotional novel of danger and intrigue that will keep readers turning the pages.”
—Kat Martin, New York Times bestselling author
“Sexual tension, mystery, and danger crackle off every page!”
—Laura Kaye, New York Times bestselling author
“Deception Island is nothing short of brilliant. I love this book and am salivating for more!” —Award-winning author Lena Diaz
“A taut romantic thriller readers won’t want to put down.”
—Library Journal, starred review
Praise for Brynn Kelly’s
Edge of Truth
“[P]acked with intrigue and jeopardy, while also rich with human emotion. This book is a non-stop thrill ride.... Kelly is proving to be a gift to the romantic suspense genre!”
—RT Book Reviews, Top Pick
“Edge of Truth has it all—danger, desire, and heart-pounding action. Brynn Kelly captures you on page one and doesn’t let go!” —Laura Griffin, New York Times bestselling author
“Edge of Truth is a breathtaking romantic thriller. The characters are so real they leap off the page, the love story is hot and the action never lets up. I couldn’t put it down.” —Karen Robards, New York Times bestselling author
“Dark and deep—a twisting romantic suspense that will grab you and never let go.”
—Cynthia Eden, New York Times bestselling author
“Brynn Kelly will capture your heart and leave you breathless in this passionate, harrowing novel of romantic suspense. A must-read!”
—Brenda Novak, New York Times bestselling author
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#u12c5468c-ced7-5de2-909c-2cc98b7d3c48)
After an award-winning twenty-year career as a journalist, BRYNN KELLY has abandoned fact in favor of her first love, fiction.
She’s delighted that she gets to spend her days in a bubble of delicious words and fiendish plots, turning all those stranger-than-fiction news reports into larger-than-life romantic thrillers.
Brynn has a journalism and communications degree and has won several prestigious writing awards, including the Valerie Parv Award and Pacific Hearts Award. Her acclaimed debut novel, Deception Island, was nominated for a Golden Heart® Award by Romance Writers of America. She’s also the bestselling author of four nonfiction books in her native New Zealand.
www.BrynnKelly.com (http://www.BrynnKelly.com)
Forbidden River
Brynn Kelly
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#ucd1758a1-981b-58de-aebf-d228b4851d84)
Back Cover Text (#ue59d45bc-f034-5ceb-b0fe-66687f0f8715)
Praise (#ub8ef11a6-d5a3-52da-950f-8dcddc4af165)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#uea91dc5c-a53e-5b29-82f8-9721842404cf)
Title Page (#uc61e4fc0-fc33-5a1d-b14b-c62dc9352da2)
CHAPTER ONE (#u9ecbb8dd-7127-5971-bb83-33ca561afbf8)
CHAPTER TWO (#u11b4ceae-1cb7-57b7-8574-4bd7dc4dff48)
CHAPTER THREE (#u33de68b5-5ffd-5e92-b007-97475868f1f2)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u12c5468c-ced7-5de2-909c-2cc98b7d3c48)
THE CHOPPER APPEARED on the horizon, hovering like a dragonfly over the slate-blue mountain range. Right on time. A second later the bass throb of its blades ricocheted around the valley, on air so crisp Cody Castillo felt he could reach out and snap it.
He hauled his kayak and paddle from a baggage cart parked outside the airport terminal, loaded with the few supplies he needed for a river paddle. Food, pup tent, sleeping bag, thermals, first aid kit, safety gear, wet weather gear. His gut fizzed. One night in an alpine hut—alone, hopefully—and then nobody and nothing for four beautiful days. Fuck right off, world.
CROOKED VALLEY AIRPORT, the sign read. Well, Crooked Alley. The V had fallen off the line of letters spaced along the roof of the squat hangar that passed for a terminal. The Y was on its side, the T just hanging in there. Way out here at the end of the world, if you needed a sign to tell you where you’d wound up, you were crazy lost.
He’d been to plenty middles of nowhere—Marfa in Texas, the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia, Camopi in French Guiana... Like this, they weren’t the kinds of places you happened upon, pit stops on a road trip, derelict stations on a train line. Nope, it took full commitment to get nowhere. For him, in this case: a ride in a rattly legion Peugeot 4WD from his base at Calvi to Bastia, a ferry from Corsica to Nice, a flight to Paris and then Auckland, via Hong Kong. That sucked up the first forty-eight hours of his leave. Then to Christchurch and a two-day wait for a flight over the Southern Alps aboard a five-seater Cessna piloted by a farmer who might have learned to fly in World War II, going by his age and the way he dipped and dived like he was still dodging the Luftwaffe. Just one journey left—a chopper ride to the source of the legendary Awatapu River—and then he was on his own steam.
Cody laid the kayak on the deserted tarmac, grit scraping the hull. Yep, Crooked Valley/Alley was his kind of airport, where the arrival of a plane seemed to baffle the skeleton staff. No baggage carousels—just the cart pulled by a quad bike, driven by the ace pilot himself, once he’d shut down the plane. “Security” was a ninety-year-old unarmed guard in a uniform she might have worn for half a century, shrinking into it every year until it hung off her like a kid’s costume. No gates, no announcements—more a bus stop than an airport.
The helicopter began to descend, surfing the clouds sloshing over the range. Ah, New Zealand. A throwback to the days when the biggest threat to aviation was a Canada goose. One-third the size of home—
One-third the size of Texas. A long time since Texas had been home.
As it neared, the chopper mutated from insect to bird to machine, the blades beating a different note from the engine. An older model Eurocopter. Not the armored, camo-painted Puma or Tigre he usually rode but a tidy little Écureuil. A squirrel. He shaded his eyes as the chopper kissed the tarmac and settled, late-afternoon sun bouncing off the windshield. The rotors slowed until the disc dissolved and the blades became distinguishable—twelve, nine, six, then the regular three as they whined to a stop. What was the pilot’s name again? Cody squinted, trying to picture the address on the confirmation email. Tia, right? Tia Kupa.
The pilot’s door hinged back and he stepped out. No, not he, not with those curves rounding out the tight blue jeans and that thick black hair swaying to her shoulders. She, and one hell of a she.
She swiveled and walked his way, shoving her hands in the pockets of a black leather flight jacket. The kind of woman his mom would call handsome rather than pretty. Statuesque. Square jaw, cut cheekbones, smooth skin a little darker than his own, dark brown freckles splattered across her nose and cheeks. Maybe thirty, so about his age. She had the commanding aura of an officer, someone who quietly assumed she’d be respected, and thus was respected. Māori, he guessed.
“You’re my guy?” She pushed sunglasses off her face and looked him down and up. Her eyes weren’t the brown he’d expected—not that he’d stopped to think about it—but a blazing green, almost hard to look at with the sun striking them. “The kayaker?”
“Yes, ma’am. Tex—I mean Cody.” It felt weird to be that guy again—no one called him Cody anymore. But introducing himself as “Texas” felt off. His commando team had inflicted the nickname on him years ago but he didn’t offer it around.
She assessed his shiny orange kayak, nose to stern. “You might want to ditch the price tag.” She nodded at the ticket attached to a grab loop.
“Yeah. Easier to buy a new kit than transport it.” Not that he needed to explain.
“If you have the money, sure, why not?” There was a bite in her voice. Yep, she had him all figured out. The kind of adventure tourist who bought new gear and chartered a helicopter? He wouldn’t take kindly to that guy, either. But hey, who cared what she thought, as long as she dropped him somewhere remote and deserted. “I’m busting for a wee. Keep an eye on her for me.” She waved vaguely at the chopper.
He looked left and right. Apart from the security guard, who was sitting slumped at a graying bench dragged up against the hangar wall, there was no life for several dead-flat miles. “You expecting a hijacking or a parking ticket?”
“Funny,” she said, her tone indicating it wasn’t. “Don’t go any closer till I get back.”
She flicked her sunglasses onto her nose and walked away, ruffling her hair, her stride lithe and confident. Owning it.
He knelt over his kayak and pulled a water bottle from one of the dry bags stashed in the hull. He’d been crazy thirsty since Hong Kong, like the flight had sucked the water from his body.
“Hey, Cody,” Tia called from the hangar a couple of minutes later. “Give me a hand with these.”
He stowed the bottle and strolled over, the sun warming one side of his face. She waited by a roller door. Two single kayaks were lined up in front of her, faded and scratched, one yellow, one green, paddles balanced on top. As he neared, she nodded at the nose grab loops while she grasped the stern ones.
“It’s not meant to be a group tour,” he said as they lifted. They better not be taking anyone else.
“They’re for a couple of tourists who are climbing the glacier and crossing the peaks before doing the Awatapu. The conventional route.”
Right. Because he hadn’t earned the downriver kayak without first hauling ass uphill? Whatever.
“Glaciers are too slow,” he said, walking. The kayaks were lighter than he’d expected—but then, the climbers would be carrying a lot of their gear. “When are these guys due at the river?”
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
Extra incentive not to mess around. Not that people usually caught up to him on any river, let alone a fast one. They dropped the boats near the chopper and in silent accord returned for his kayak.
“You’ve kayaked before, right?” She knelt before the port skid and began fitting heavy-duty straps to it.
“Yep,” he said, yanking off his boat’s price tag. The elastic gave with a snap that made her head turn. He caught a hint of a smile. He’d taken it off so it wouldn’t flap during the ride, but he stopped short of explaining.
“You know the Awatapu is a grade six? Messy rapids, waterfalls, boulder gardens, sieves that’ll suck you under and keep you forever, snags to lose a battleship in...”
Tremendo. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You know no one does it solo?”
“I do a lot of things solo. I like it that way.” Not quite true. Not a lie. In a parallel life where things hadn’t gone to shit, he’d have been standing here with his brother, racing to be first into her good books and maybe even her bed. In this life, yeah, he was a loner, outside the legion. The shine had gone out of chasing women, like it had a lot of things.
“You know there’s no mobile reception, and no one passes by? These climbers are the only others up there.” Her lips tightened. “The only ones presumed alive.”
“You didn’t think of talking me out of it before I paid you?”
“Hell, no. I need the money. But we’ve already lost four tourists on the river this spring and it’ll be bad for business to lose a fifth. So just...don’t die.” Her tone caught somewhere between dry humor and genuine concern.
“Wait, four tourists? I heard about two, a month or so back.”
“Another couple went missing a fortnight ago. The tapu had only just been lifted after the last pair.”
“Tapu?”
“If a place is tapu, it’s sacred or forbidden. When someone dies up there, it becomes tapu until it’s blessed.”
“When someone dies. This happens often?”
“There’s a reason the river’s called Awatapu. But I’m hoping like hell both couples are waiting for us up at the hut, living off eels and huhu grubs.”
He noted her pronunciation—Ah-wah-tah-pu. Long vowels, a soft T, even stresses on the syllables. Not far off Spanish. “What’s it mean?”
“The forbidden river, the sacred river. Want to lift your kayak and paddle up here, and I’ll strap them?”
“And... Wairoimata?” he said, hoisting the craft, following her lead on the pronunciation, rolling the R. “That’s the name of the town I’m getting out at, right?”
“Yeah. Wai means water, roimata is tears.”
“Water of tears. Uplifting names. Did you fly them in—the missing tourists?”
She frowned as she strapped the kayak. “The ones from two weeks ago, yes. Danish couple. Experienced kayakers.”
“But not the others—the first couple?”
“I didn’t think they could handle the paddle. Both couples are officially still missing, but yeah, it’s a safe bet they won’t be walking out. We’ve had some late-season snowfalls so it’s not a good time to be lost in the bush. Not that there’s ever a good time.”
He pictured the terrain he’d flown over—the Alps, subalpine scrublands, rainforest... “Guess it can be tough to find people out there.”
She tugged at the kayak—it didn’t budge—then straightened and dusted her hands on her jeans. “Yep. I was up there long days, searching. I’ll be paying off the fuel for months.”
“You cover your own fuel on a search and rescue?”
She picked up the remaining straps and walked to the other side. “I’m funded to a point,” she said as they got to work. “But what am I supposed to do when the budget maxes out, leave them out there? And I took the second couple in, so... They’re probably snagged in tree roots, caught in a sieve. They’ll be flushed out soon, with the snow melting in the tops. The river always gives up its dead. The bush, not so much.”
“I’m getting the idea these aren’t the first people to disappear up there.”
She gave him a sideways look. “How much research did you do on this river?”
“Enough to know it’s one of the wildest kayaking runs anywhere.”
“See, I’d have thought that would warn people away, but it just seems to attract them. I’ve never understood that urge to put yourself in danger.”
“And yet you fly a helicopter.”
“I fly it very safely.” Her voice strained as she pulled a strap. “The lucky ones get airlifted out with broken limbs. Of course, by then they’ve usually been waiting awhile—hungry, dehydrated, hypothermic...”
“You trying to talk me out of it?”
She yanked. “Would you listen?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Would you heed the warning?”
“No, ma’am. You’re just saying that for the record, right? Covering your liability.”
“Yep. That and the fact I’m not your mother. I take it you’ve been in a helicopter before.”
“Many times.”
A dimple in her cheek twitched. “Okay, we’re good to go.”
“I’m a soldier.” Now, why did he feel the need to make that clear?
“You’re a soldier.” Not a question, more a sarcastic echo. She tipped her head and studied him like he’d blown her assumptions and she had to start over.
He laughed.
“What?”
“I can hear you thinking.”
“You’re a psychic, too? Wow.” Deadpan again, like it was the end of a long day and she didn’t want to encourage conversation. Neither did he, normally. Mindless chatter shriveled his soul. But she was fun. There was passion hiding in those eyes, a smile simmering under those lips.
“Yep,” he said. “You’re thinking, ‘What kind of soldier charters a helicopter rather than hiking in?’”
That dimple again. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
“‘And what kind of soldier buys a new kit instead of stealing military supplies?’”
“Maybe you are psychic.” She folded her arms. “Or maybe you’re a rich-boy fantasist who thinks that because he’s in some hick backwoods at the end of the Earth he can reinvent himself into anything he wants—like, say, a soldier—so the gullible local girl will trip over herself to fall in bed with him.”
“Whoa.”
“And maybe you’re also a risk taker with a death wish,” she continued, a twitch away from a smile. “You’ve done so many reckless things—out of rich-boy boredom, let’s assume—that you’ve overridden your survival instinct and now it’s only a matter of time before you make headlines and everyone says all that bullshit like ‘He lived life to the fullest’ and ‘He died doing what he loved’ and ‘He’ll always stay beautiful.’ But you’ll just be unnecessarily dead like all the other unnecessarily dead people.”
Shee-it. She was ten kinds of cool. “You calling me beautiful?”
The smile broke through, curving her lips at an intriguing angle. An exasperated smile, but he’d take it. “Still, it’s not a bad thing that fate weeds out the risk takers. Makes the herd stronger. Just try not to die in my country, on my river.”
“Your river.”
“My people’s river. Ko Awatapu te awa, ko Maungapouri te maunga. Awatapu is my river. Maungapouri is my mountain.” She jerked her head at the highest of the snow-crowned peaks jutting up behind the deep green nearer range. “I haven’t always lived here but my whānau—my family—are anchored by these mountains and that river, guardians of them. So yeah, don’t die on my watch because you’ve screwed up your wiring and death is the only challenge left.”
Oh, he was getting a reminder that a very different challenge could still amp him up. He had zero time for women who were impressed by his uniform or his family’s money. A pity legionnaires with death wishes didn’t do relationships.
She walked past him, toward the cockpit. “See, to me, you look like a rich guy with too much time to spend at the gym.”
Okay, so that stung—his fitness had come from hard work, self-control and self-loathing. Those he could take credit for. But it also meant she’d been checking out his body.
Guessing he wouldn’t get an invitation, he circled the chopper and let himself in as she settled in the pilot’s seat.
She raised her chin in cool appraisal, clipping on her harness. “What’s your weapon?”
A test? “Le Fusil à Répétition modèle F2. Sometimes a Hécate II.”
She hovered long, slender fingers over the dials on the instrument panel, eyes narrowed, following their path. Not taking chances, even though the blades had just stopped spinning. Overkill, but he’d tolerate that in a pilot. “That’s the FR-F2, right? Sniper rifles.”
“You know them?”
“Those don’t sound like US military issue. So...what? You’re a mercenary? Sorry, I mean security contractor?”
“In a sense,” he said. “Just not a well-paid one.”
“Isn’t that the whole point of selling out—making money?”
“Not for me. I’m a legionnaire.”
She gave him that sideways look again, pulling on her headset and handing him his. “What, like the French Foreign Legion?” Her voice boomed through the intercom.
“Oui, Légion Étrangère, mademoiselle.”
“You are so full of shit you could be a long-drop at a campground in January.”
“No idea what that is, but it sounds bad.”
She checked the panel above their head, again following her fingers with her eyes, and adjusted a lever. “Seriously? You’re a legionnaire?”
“Yes, ma’am. Caporal Cody Castillo du groupement des commandos parachutistes du 2e régiment étranger de parachutistes de Calvi.”
She did a three-sixty check through the windows, and engaged the starter. “Commandos parachutistes,” she repeated disdainfully. “A parachute commando?”
“You know, most people are impressed by that.”
“You’ll never catch me jumping from a perfectly good aircraft.”
“Afraid of heights?”
“Only of falling from them, which is totally rational and something you should be grateful for right about now.”
“Yes, ma’am. That I am.”
“Are you for real with that ‘yes, ma’am’ thing?”
“Habit. My abuela would have me over her knee if I didn’t show respect to women.” Okay, so he might be hamming it up there. His grandmother controlled the family fortune from a laptop, not a rocking chair. Why haul your grandson over your knee when a withering stare was plenty scary?
As Tia worked the controls with deft fingers and sharp eyes, a muted whine filtered through the headset and the shadow of a blade glided across the ground in front, slowly pursued by another.
“Vous parlez très bien français,” she said.
“So do you.”
“Expensive education—and that’s about all I remember. But you had an abuela?”
“My family’s from Mexico.”
“And you’re not?”
“Texas—born and raised.”
She gave a sharp laugh. “Right, so you’re a legionnaire commando from Texas.”
“Now, what have you got against Texas?”
“Nothing. It’s just that you’re not what I...” She shook her head. “It’s just one of those places that seems, I dunno, mythical.”
You’re not what I...expected? Hell, neither was she. “Says the woman who lives in Middle Earth. But go ahead and believe what you want about me. I just care that you’re a good pilot.”
The seat underneath him hummed, as if the chopper were straining with impatience. He knew the feeling.
“The best,” she said.
“Where did you learn to fly?”
She sighed, a scratch through the headset. “Would you ask me that if I was a guy?”
“Uh, yeah.”
She increased the engine speed and the blades whipped faster. “I get asked that a lot and you know what? My male counterparts don’t. I’ve checked with them. They don’t get the question.”
Shit. Was she right? Would he ask a guy that question? “Ma’am, I got total respect for all pilots—planes, helicopters, fucking hang gliders. Takes guts and brains and composure, and that’s something few people have.”
She scoffed, as if she wanted to be pissed at that but couldn’t manage it. “Nice recovery.”
The chopper lifted without a shudder and skimmed above the tarmac. He liked the way she talked. Sharp and combative but with enough humor that she didn’t cross into mean or bitter. Sparring, not landing real blows.
“You don’t mention on your website that you’re a woman. You don’t have a photo.” Because he was damn sure it would’ve given him extra incentive to book her, on top of her stellar reviews and safety record. “Was that deliberate?”
“I don’t say I’m a man, either. If people assume the wrong thing, that’s on them, not me. I don’t want my gender to help me or hold me back. I’ve had journalists wanting to make a big deal out of it. Even a publisher once, though she was more interested in...” She frowned. “I say no to everything. I don’t want to be the ‘plucky aviatrix keeping up with the big boys.’”
He got the feeling that’d happened before—and that it was the big boys who did the keeping up. They rose over a braided river, the shallow, bleached water in no hurry. The Awatapu’s lower reaches. Around him the chopper felt weightless, a mosquito next to the albatrosses he was used to.
“I guess what I’m asking,” he said, “is how a civilian pilot in probably the least gun-crazy country in the world knows her sniper rifles.”
“Nine years in the New Zealand air force.”
Ah. “Flying choppers?”
“Yep, though I started on transport craft—Orions, Hercules.”
“They’re still making those things?”
“The ones I flew were Vietnam relics. Of course I grew up with visions of racing Skyhawks, but by the time I enlisted they’d been sold.”
“You didn’t fly other jets?”
“We didn’t have any.”
“An air force without jets? You serious?”
“And our emblem is a kiwi, a flightless bird. Go figure.” She activated the radio. “I’m just going to call in.”
She spoke in clear, clipped shorthand. Phonetic call sign, position, altitude, direction, destination. Ahead, the last of the spring snow clung to the range’s shadowy folds, in denial about the blue dome that curved above.
“To be fair,” she said when she’d signed off, “all that Top Gun shit went out with the nineties. The future’s in drones, which doesn’t leave many options for real combat pilots. I’m not into that remote-control crap. If you don’t have the guts to go to a place you have no business blowing it up.”
“Where did you serve?”
“Samoa, the Philippines, hunting pirates in the Middle East... Took a bunch of scientists to Antarctica one summer. Mostly disaster relief and humanitarian missions, which is how it should be.”
“Word. Though they can cut you up as much as combat. Why did you leave?”
Silence. “We had a...family crisis. My koro—my grandfather—he’s lived in Wairoimata all his life, and he was struggling to get his head around it. And my brother and I needed to...get away. So we made a pact to come down here for a bit. Lie low, look out for Koro. Of course, Koro thinks it’s us who needed him. Didn’t mean to stay this long but it’s one of those places that sucks you in. Besides, now I have this monster to pay off.” She slid a hand across the top of the instrument panel. “So I’m here for a while, like it or not.”
He got the feeling she liked it okay. There was more to her story, but if she didn’t want to share, then all good. Who was he to pry? Happy families weren’t his thing, either, not anymore.
“I know a guy you might know,” he said. “Ex-legionnaire. Came to us from the New Zealand army.”
“Yeah, because I know everyone in this country. We all went to school together. Or is this more of a ‘You’re brown, he’s brown, so you must know each other’ kind of thing?”
“Hey, I’m just as brown as you.”
“So you should know better.”
He laughed. He was almost sad it was such a short flight.
Way below, the chopper’s long shadow flickered over green rock-strewn foothills, like some slimy black creature rolling and jerking over the land.
“Okay, Cowboy, what’s his name?” Tia asked, the words rushing out, like she’d been trying not to ask.
“Austin something. Austin Fale—Falelo...”
She quietly swore, a whisper in the headset. “Austin Faletolu. He used to date my brother. I hate that.”
“What, that he dated your brother?”
“No, that I know the random guy you’re talking about.”
“It happens a lot?”
“More than it should in a country this size.”
They fell silent, he in awe, as the landscape got wilder. Barely tamed farmland gave way to rainforest, and trees in turn succumbed to a desert of jagged rocks and brown tussock. Along the edge of the range, fresh landslides left plummeting scars of scoria. A country on the move, tossing and turning and refusing to settle into sleep.
Man, he felt alive. Anticipation churned in his stomach and his skin buzzed. Not a wired adrenaline, like the start of an operation, but a lightness, a freedom. Escape in T-minus ten.
“You have travel insurance, a will?” Tia asked.
Aaaand bubble burst.
CHAPTER TWO (#u12c5468c-ced7-5de2-909c-2cc98b7d3c48)
CODY SHIFTED IN his seat. “Yeah, I got a will.” His father’s lawyers had insisted on a succession plan for the business, though if they were smart they’d skip him. “But you think any insurer’s gonna give a reasonable quote for this?” He could fund an evacuation anyway. Or the repatriation of his remains. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you’re well paid for the search and rescue.”
They cleared the seam of the range and turned south. The view switched to black and white, a rocky alpine plateau with fog filling the basins and dips. Farther into the mountains the ground snow thickened from tattered lace to a sheet to a blanket. In a valley between two craggy peaks spread a blue-tinted tongue of ice. The glacier. No sign of climbers.
He zipped his jacket higher. It was high-tech but lightweight, like most of the clothes he carried. Tia turned west and the sunlight bounced off the glacier, into his eyes. He shut them until the burn passed. Shame he wasn’t getting on the water until 0600. He needed to blast off the nerves in his belly. He felt a nudge on his thigh. Tia pointed down. Carving around massive boulders was a river of milky turquoise, so vivid it seemed to glow.
“Estupendo,” he whispered.
“Indeed. The Awatapu.”
“Hell. I thought the photos on the web were doctored.”
“Nope. Cool, eh?”
Tia followed the river’s winding path. Final approach to Nowhere. As the altitude dropped, rock and snow yielded to tussock and thick khaki scrub. The river narrowed into boulder-strewn white-water corridors, flared into blue pools lipped with beaches of ashen stones, narrowed, flared, narrowed, flared, growing faster and wilder as more streams washed in. Man, he wanted a piece of that.
Tia navigated down into a clearing beside a red-roofed hut along the river, blond tussock flattening under them. If he’d closed his eyes he wouldn’t have sensed the moment of contact. She radioed in as she shut down. He pulled off his headset. As the blades whined to a halt and the engine’s white noise ceased, silence washed in. She stared at the hut. Well, hut was ambitious. More of a shed with a couple small windows and a chimney. Under a corrugated tin awning, a gray dish towel slumped from a rope. Could’ve been there months. Tia screwed up her face as she removed her headset. No sign of any missing tourists.
He spent the next ten minutes trying to equalize his ears as he helped Tia stash the kayaks under the awning. He could be imagining the rush of water over stones, but the bell-like bird chatter was real. The biting stench of avgas lifted, leaving the scent of clean air and distant snow. No better perfume.
She nodded at a craggy white peak in the distance. A bird of prey was riding a thermal. “A cold front is blowing up from Antarctica. You should be out before it hits, but if the weather turns, ride it out in the hut or your tent and I’ll check on you when it clears.”
“Sure thing.” Like hell.
“Because that river’s going to get high and fast superquick.”
Even better. “Noted. Thanks.”
She sighed, like she knew he was a lost cause. “Camp well above the water level—it can change quickly this time of year. Your best launchpad is down that track.”
The “track” she pointed to was a slight gap between the prickly shrubs circling the clearing. “The river meanders for about a kilometer. Then you get your first challenge with a nasty, narrow little rapid. After that a big tributary joins and it really gets wild and pretty much stays that way. But the worst part, the part that makes it grade six, is the Auripo Falls, which you’ll reach about midday tomorrow. Eighteen-meter drop—that’s sixty feet to you—underwater whirlpool that’ll hold you forever—”
“Yeah, I’ve read up on it, asked around. You’ve kayaked this river?”
“God, no. Just rescued enough people to know where they get unstuck. Or rather, stuck. I know it mostly by air—and my brother runs canyoning trips in the lower reaches in summer.”
“Jumping off waterfalls? And you call me a risk taker?”
Almost a smile. “He’s very safety-conscious.”
“Like you.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“So your brother jumps off waterfalls—and throws other people off them—and you call him safety-conscious. And I put only my own life on the line, and I’m a risk taker.”
“He knows what he’s doing. But yeah, once was enough for me. I’m happy just being his taxi driver.”
“You canyoned? I thought you were scared of heights.”
“Not heights, just falling, as every human should be. And it confirmed I was right to be afraid.”
“So you just drop his victims to their fates instead?”
“I figure if you’re determined to kill yourself, you’ll find a way. It might as well benefit me.” Her tone dropped just on the side of teasing. She wiped her hands on her thighs, like she was absolving herself of responsibility. “Right. That’s me out.”
“Last chance to talk me ’round.”
She raised her chin. “You want me to talk you around?”
“No.”
“Good. I could use another search and rescue contract to pay off the last one. Just make sure you die in a place I can easily spot from the air. And keep an eye out for those tourists. I don’t like the idea of them lying...” She rubbed her eyes, as if trying to erase a mental image.
“I’ll do that.”
“Get off the river well before dark each day. When the light drops you can’t see the snags.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That was a bit ‘no shit, Sherlock,’ wasn’t it?”
Man, she was so close to a real smile. If he just worked a little harder... “It’s nice that you care.”
“You have someone waiting for word of when you reach Wairoimata? Who can raise the alarm when you don’t show?”
“No, ma’am.”
Was she asking if he was single?
In your dreams, numbskull. Not that he was looking to hook up, but she’d be a fun vacation distraction.
“Got a mobile?” she said.
“Yep.”
“It won’t work until Wairoimata. You have my number—call me when you get out. If I don’t hear by Wednesday, I’ll start asking around.”
“Will do.”
“Got a distress beacon?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded to the kayak.
“A GPS one? Bought locally, not overseas?”
“Yep.”
“Keep it on you. It’s no use in your kayak if you get swept out. But don’t use it unless you’re dying. I don’t want to fight my way up here at midnight in a cyclone to find you twisted your ankle.”
“This happens?”
“Some people treat those things like Uber. If you can kayak out safely, do it. It’ll make a better war story to boast about later.”
“Noted.”
She gave a sharp nod and walked away. Security briefing over.
“Well, thanks,” he said.
Right. He checked his watch. A few hours before dark. He’d scout out the river, get sorted for the morning, then settle in with a freeze-dried dinner and his e-reader. He rubbed his belly. Food would fix that empty feeling. Damn, twenty minutes in her company and now he had to get reacquainted with solitude. Maybe when he called her from Wairoimata he’d ask her for a drink. Even a place that small had to have a watering hole.
“Hey, Cowboy,” she called.
He killed his smile and swiveled. She was leaning into the helicopter, writing something on a clipboard.
“You got insect repellent?”
“Don’t usually get bit. No malaria here, right?”
She looked up. “It’s not the mosquitoes you need to watch for. It’s the sandflies.”
“I need to watch out for a fly?”
“You’ll see.” She pulled a spray bottle from a bag on the rear seat and lobbed it. He caught it one-handed. “I’ll add it to the tab. Oh wait, you prepaid, didn’t you?”
“You didn’t give me a choice.”
“On the house, then. And watch out for wild pigs.”
“Pigs? For real? I fucking love this country. You’re saying the most dangerous wildlife out there is flies and pigs?” He was crossing into flirt territory, drawing this out as long as he could. He wasn’t even sure why.
She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. “Less Porky Pig and more a rhino crossed with a bull. I’ve seen boars up here twice your weight. There’s also stags but they won’t take you on unless you corner them. And chamois and tahr—wild goats—but the smell is the biggest danger there. At least they’re herbivores.”
“Unlike the sandflies?”
“Spoken like a guy who’s never stood beside a New Zealand river at dusk.” She pushed off the chopper. “And watch out for kea—big green parrots. Cheeky buggers. Don’t turn your back on your dinner.”
“Noted.” He stuffed his hands in the back pockets of his shorts. “Okay. Guess I’ll go look at this river of death, then.”
“Good luck.”
“I don’t intend luck to be a factor.”
She nodded, again with that almost-smile. He forced himself to turn and walk away. Seeing her again would be his reward for surviving this paddle.
Of the ten wildest kayaking runs in the world, he’d kayaked numbers ten, nine, eight, seven, six and five. How dangerous could one little forbidden river be?
* * *
TIA TURNED BACK to her flight log, resisting the temptation to watch Cody right up to the moment he pushed through the trees and disappeared. Yep, it’d be a damn shame for the world to lose a specimen like that—and it’d break her heart to locate that body. He was muscular but easy with it, like he spent as much time doing yoga as lifting weights, like his power wasn’t for show but function. A kayaker’s shoulders, a soldier’s athleticism, with the lived-in look of a guy who spent a lot of time outdoors.
She rapped her stubby fingernails on the clipboard. She’d give him until Wednesday night to call before hitting the phone. She didn’t need another death on her conscience.
A gust swept through the tussock. The nor’wester, picking up ahead of the front. She’d take the downriver route home in case any bodies had been spat out. Or, hope above hope, she found four live ones waving up from the swing bridge above Auripo Falls. She rubbed the back of her neck, staring blankly into the scrub. The disappearances had been gnawing at her since the day it became obvious the Danes weren’t going to arrive at Wairoimata. One missing person wasn’t unusual, even two. But four? She’d flown the river from glacier to sea, back and forth a dozen times, in case she’d missed some hazard that might explain things—a fallen tree, a crumbling cliff, a fresh rockfall.
She straightened, the tiny leaves on the trees coming into sharp focus. Something was out of place. She scanned the clearing. There, on a cluster of stones at the tree line, a twisted gray-brown clump. Damn. She crossed to it.
Yep, a kiwi. Mauled, bloody, decomposing. A big adult with a transmitter on its leg. Breeding stock. Would’ve been raised in captivity until it was big enough to defend itself. She crossed the clearing to the hut’s stoat trap—one of hundreds she’d dropped into the forest this spring, for Koro’s trapper mates. Another reason she wouldn’t turn a profit this year.
The wooden box was on its side, bait untouched. Whatever knocked it over hadn’t got in through the small wire tunnel, so not a rat or stoat. Possums didn’t tear kiwi apart like that. It must have struck since the trappers had swept through on their fortnightly checks. She searched the ground.
There—animal shit. Dog? She swore. How the hell had a dog got up here? One feral dog could wipe out a hundred kiwi—the forest’s entire population. She walked back to the bird, pulled out her phone and snapped photos for the rangers. They’d want to get here quick. If she left soon, she could bring them up before sunset.
Something rustled in the trees behind the chopper. Not a bird, something solid. She straightened. Nothing but tui warbling and trilling, and the rush of the river. Cody, probably. Sheesh, she was jumpy. The only person he was a danger to was himself. There was no stopping adrenaline junkies with an obsession. She’d played dumb earlier, but of course she’d Googled him when he’d emailed her to book, seeing as it was so reckless to kayak the Awatapu solo. He’d competed in the extreme kayaking world champs with his brother—and if he was also a soldier, that was good enough for her. The profile of him she’d found was a decade old and hadn’t mentioned the legion, but there were other hits she hadn’t clicked on. They’d mostly been about some San Antonio software empire his family owned, and she couldn’t care less about that.
The branches of a tall rata swayed. A kereru pigeon had swooped in, the sun catching the emerald of its breast, its weight bowing the branch as it twisted to eat berries.
A legionnaire, eh? What better way to stick it to your wealthy parents than run away to the legion? And she knew all about sticking it to your parents.
She was no sucker for a guy in uniform, but he’d look hot in khakis, with those broad shoulders tapering down to that tight arse, his sleeves rolled up over corded muscle, a serious slant to his jaw. Camo paint. Dirt. Sweat. Oh yeah.
She inhaled—and gagged on a filthy scent. Hell. That wasn’t the kiwi. She’d transported enough bodies to know that smell. Something big and fleshy, and very dead. A pig? She swiveled, checking the leaves on the taller trees. The breeze had turned west. Please, please, please let it be a pig. She unzipped her jacket and pulled her T-shirt over her nose and mouth, her legs working robotically, nerves bringing her focus and hearing into high relief.
She shoved through the scrub, branches scratching her hands and slapping her face. The low drone of blowflies, a lot of them. Her cheeks prickled. After a few minutes, she saw it, a flash of orange on the ground. Not a pig. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She pushed into a small clearing beside a boulder, her heart thumping.
Yep, a body. Curled up, sheltered under the overhang of the rock like it was hiding—that’s why she hadn’t spotted it from the air. The jacket. She remembered that jacket. Orange, with blue stripes. The Danish guy. Fuck it to hell.
CHAPTER THREE (#u12c5468c-ced7-5de2-909c-2cc98b7d3c48)
TIA EXHALED IN a rush. Don’t breathe through your nose and you won’t throw up.
The guy had died this close to where she’d dropped him off? Maybe he and his girlfriend got into trouble downriver and he hiked back up to find help. But why not use their emergency beacons? Tia had insisted they each carry one. She crouched and nudged his jacket pockets. In one, a boxy shape. She carefully unzipped it. The beacon, still sealed.
“What the hell happened, mate?” The silence sucked up her whisper.
He had to have died of exposure, hypothermia, at least a week ago. She’d better radio in, get him in a body bag, load him. Cody could help—he’d be used to dealing with death. Once the body’s smell was contained she’d have a better chance of figuring out if another one lay around here.
“Let’s get you started on the journey home, eh?”
She blinked her eyes clear. A few meters away, a broken branch hung from a leatherwood bush. She stood, brushing her knees. A mobile phone lay in the grass. He’d crashed through, desperate? And then what—collapsed? She did a slow three-sixty, pulling back her hair. The roof of the hut was visible. He couldn’t have been lost. But then, people with hypothermia didn’t always think straight.
A tragedy and a mystery. His phone was dead—no surprise there. She followed his trail through the scrub back as far as it was obvious. A lot of broken branches. Her nape prickled. Something else was wrong. She stopped, biting her lip. What wasn’t she seeing? A kereru swooshed overhead—the fat one from the hut. She laid her hand over her heart, willing it to slow, and forced herself to focus on her environment. Her brother, Tane, teased her about her “premonitions,” but he’d long ago learned to pay attention. The number of times they’d saved his arse... It wasn’t anything spooky, as he liked to claim, just her brain taking a while to catch up with her senses, her subconscious registering alerts before her conscious did—hearing or seeing or smelling something out of place a few seconds before it became obvious.
Yes, there—a rusty smear on a brushy branch at chest height. Blood. More than you’d expect from the usual forest cuts and scratches. She walked faster. More blood. Now she knew what to look for, it was everywhere—on leaves, branches, the ground. She bit the side of her cheek as she returned to the body. Nothing visible on his back.
She crouched, taking a closer look. Chunks of flesh had been ripped from his thighs and calves. The dog? A hawk? Pressing her lips together, she grabbed the guy’s shoulder and gently rolled him. A swarm of trapped flies flew up, their fat, furry bodies pelting her mouth. She swiped at them, her stomach lurching. Hold it together, for his sake.
Yep, a big, dark bloodstain on the chest of his torn jacket. Through the tear, a gaping wound. On the leaf litter and grass underneath him a bloodstain had spread into an oval, the liquid long since seeped away. Dogs and hawks didn’t puncture a man’s chest. They might have come by after death. Was he knocked down and gored by a boar? Attacked by a stag? She lowered him and stroked his shoulder. Death would have come quickly, if not quietly.
Forget the body bag. This was beyond her job description. She’d radio it in, leave Cody with the body and go for the cops. It was probably an accident or animal attack but that wasn’t her call.
She dragged her feet to the chopper. No sign of Cody but at least he was near. Suddenly the isolation wasn’t so friendly. She reached the pilot’s door and froze, her instinct pricking again. Oh God, what now? A pair of fantails flashed and dived beside the hut. The tea towel snapped in the breeze, making her flinch. Nothing amiss, so why did she have the urge to run? Maybe she was just strung out. A dead body could do that.
Her ab muscles tightened. Fuck it. Better to be paranoid than dead. She sucked in a breath and took off for the hut, her sneakers flicking up stones.
Crack. An echoing gunshot, from behind her. Shit. She upped her speed. A hunter, thinking she was wildlife?
“Stop shooting!” she yelled. “Identify your target!”
Another pop, the clank of a bullet hitting metal, the shot reverberating. The chopper. Potshots from a rifle. A hollow smack, a thump, and something flicked her hair.
Jesus. She clutched her head, the hut bouncing around in her vision. Her hair was hot but no wound. A third crack, another thump, and the hut’s front window shattered. The shooter couldn’t have her confused with wildlife—he’d have stopped by now. He was hunting her. She veered off course and plunged thigh-high into tussock beside the hut as a bullet punctured its front wall, a meter away. She rounded the back of the building and pushed her spine against the cold wall, chest heaving. A half-second gap between the sonic boom and the thump, so he was maybe four hundred meters away, elevated—any closer, she’d be dead. Holy shit. What now?
A burst of fire this time, spraying the other side of the hut, shattering glass, pinging into tin. Automatic fire. Not your standard hunting rifle. Hosing the place because he’d lost line of sight?
She couldn’t stay here. Too obvious. And a matter of time before a bullet went right through the hut.
Cody. Where was Cody?
Wait—a military loner with a death wish? Had she got him all wrong? Exactly what had he stashed in that kayak?
No. The tourist—the hole in his chest. That was no goring. What about his girlfriend and the other couple? The search had concentrated on the river but maybe the river wasn’t the culprit.
Whatever the situation, she had to retreat, one good, quick decision at a time. Get Cody; get out of here. Maybe lure the shooter away from the chopper and double back to it. Raise the alarm over the radio, alert the police Armed Offenders Squad. Alert the fucking army. Fly over the glacier, find the climbers.
The shooter had stopped. Gone stealth to stalk her? The forest had silenced, the birds flown off. She couldn’t even hear the river with her eardrums blown by the gunshots, just her own fast breath. She leaped across the tussock, to leave less of a trail than striding through, and ducked into the trees. Her jacket was black, at least—unlike Cody’s bright blue one.
She inched into the scrub, watching over her shoulder. Even tiptoeing, her sneakers crunched. When she could no longer see the hut, she exhaled. First task: find Cody.
Movement, to her right. Her breath caught. A weka charged from the undergrowth, its panicked little legs whirring like a squat brown Road Runner.
A noise, ahead. She swiveled and her nose smacked into a big navy-clad shoulder. She lifted a knee to the guy’s nuts but he spun her and caught her tight around the waist, pinning her arms. She stomped but missed his foot.
“Tia! Jesus!” he hissed.
He released her and she wheeled around. Oh God, it was Cody, his eyes wide, checking their surroundings. He’d taken off the blue jacket, leaving a skintight long-sleeved thermal. Damn, how much noise had they made?
“What the fuck is going on?” he whispered.
“Some nutter with a rifle—I didn’t get a look.”
He nodded sharply. “Let’s find cover.”
She followed him toward the river and down a rock bank, ignoring the hand he held out. Ahead, through the trees, the water rushed over stones, lit bright by the sun. A dog barked. The shooting started up again. More automatic fire. She pressed her back against the clammy stone. Next to her, Cody did the same. Ricocheting shots, smashing glass, clanging metal. Another dog joined in. “They must be in the clearing,” she whispered.
Cody’s eyes met hers, his jaw squared. “He ain’t conserving ammo.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“How do you know it’s not a woman?”
His mouth twitched. “I’m kinda more concerned about the firepower. Gotta be an assault rifle—pretty much the same weapon we use to hunt humans.”
“Did you just make a joke about hunting humans?”
“Wasn’t meant to be a joke. Sometimes when you’re looking through the scope, it feels like that... You okay? You’ve gone a little gray. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s not that.” She told him about the body. His expression grew grimmer by the word. Jolted out of holiday mode and into work mode. Lucky for her he wasn’t a lawyer or a...pianist. “He really is hunting humans.”
“Okay,” Cody said, as if that wasn’t at all problematic. “I’ll lure him away while you get to the chopper.”
“Yes. Then you can double back and join me.”
“No. You go without me.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“It makes sense. I’ll have to lead him far enough away that he’s out of range as you’re lifting. Going by that firepower, I’m thinking maybe a mile. No point in me then giving him time to return.”
“You don’t know this bush. I’m guessing he does—and so do his dogs. You might get lucky for half an hour, but...”
“He?”
“For convenience’s sake.”
A flicker of a smile at his tiny victory. “You said it yourself—I’m a risk taker with a death wish.”
“Cody, I’m not leaving anyone else here.”
“You’re leaving me.” His hand went to his hip, then froze. Checking for a nonexistent weapon. He fisted his fingers, and released. “Look, I’m not some hippie backpacker. I’m good at getting shot at. I’ll lead them away, then swim the river so the dogs can’t get me—assuming they can’t swim.”
“If they’re hunting dogs—and they sound like it—they’re all muscle and mouth and no fat. No buoyancy, especially in fresh water. They’ll sink like rocks.”
“Good. Then I’ll hide until help comes. Easy.”
“That river is basically just melted snow and ice. You swim it without a change of clothes, you’ll be hypothermic by midnight.”
“My clothes are pretty much made of plastic. They’ll dry quick.”
She shook her head.
“Tia, none of the options here are good. There’s no easy decision in a situation like this, no risk-free choice. You know that. You’ll be taking a risk in lifting off. I’ll be taking a risk in running and hiding. But if you don’t get away safely, we’re both screwed, and so are those climbers and the other tourists, if they’re still alive, and so are the next people who come wandering up here.”
Dammit. “Help probably won’t come until first light.”
“I can handle a night in the open.”
“A lot of tough guys say that, going in.”
A dog barked nearby. She shrank against the rock. Cody slung his arm across her belly, pinning her with his elbow. Like she was going anywhere. The gunshots had stopped.
She tiptoed to reach his ear. He was a couple of inches taller. In another situation she’d consider that the perfect height. “We’re downwind,” she whispered. “The dogs won’t be able to smell us yet. I’ll go back the way I came. You—”
She froze. A second later he held up a palm, frowning. Through the trees ahead skulked the silhouette of the shooter, rifle held low across his hip, machete slung across his back like a ninja sword, two dogs running alongside. One was a short dirty-brown mutt, wide across the forelegs, thick neck, big jaw. Bred for fighting. The other was a greyhound cross, its nose skimming the river stones. Pig dogs—an attacker and a tracker? With the sun in his eyes, the guy wouldn’t spot her and Cody, but she stilled her breathing anyway.
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