Raintree: Inferno (Raintree 1)

line of blood penciling down his left cheek from a small, puffy cut high on his cheekbone. The skin around the wound was swelling and turning dark. His left arm looked bruised, too; the span from his wrist almost to his elbow was a dark red. He wasn’t cradling his arm or swiping at his cheek, any of the things people instinctively did when they were hurt. His injuries might as well not exist for all the attention he paid them.

He looked in complete command of himself and the situation.

Lorna thought she might be sick, she was so angry. What he’d done wasn’t fair—not that he’d seemed concerned about fairness before now anyway.

As if he were attuned to her thoughts, his head turned sharply and his gaze zeroed in on her. With two swift strides he was beside her, taking her arm. “You don’t have any color at all in your face. You should sit down.”

“I’m fine,” she said automatically. A sudden breeze blew a curtain of hair across her face, and she lifted her hand to push it back. Two RPD patrol cars were approaching on the other side of the highway, sirens blaring, and she almost had to shout to make herself heard. “I’m not hurt.”

“No, but you’ve had a shock.” He raised his voice, too, turning his head to watch the patrol cars come to a stop on the other side of the barrier. The sirens died, but other emergency vehicles were approaching, and the din was getting louder again.

“I’m okay!” she insisted, and she was—physically, at least.

His hand closed on her arm, moving her toward the concrete barrier. “Come on, sit down. I’ll feel better if you do.”

“I’m not the one bleeding,” she pointed out.

He touched his cheek, as if he’d forgotten all about the cut, or maybe had never noticed it in the first place. “Then come sit down with me and keep me company.”

As it happened, neither of them got to sit down. The cops were trying to find out what had happened, get traffic straightened out and moving again, albeit very slowly, and get any injured people transported to a hospital to be checked out. Soon a total of seven patrol cars were on the scene, along with a fire engine and three medic trucks. The drivers of the damaged cars that were still drivable were instructed to move their vehicles to the shoulder.

There were several witnesses to what had happened. No one knew whether road rage had caused the shooting or if the whole thing had been a conflict between rival gangs, but everyone had an opinion and a slightly different version of events. The one thing they all agreed on was that the people in the white Dodge had been shooting at the Nissan, and the people in the Nissan had been shooting back.

“Did anyone get the plate number of either vehicle?” a patrolman asked.

Dante immediately looked at Lorna. “Numbers?”

She thought of the white Dodge and three numbers came into sharp focus. “The Dodge is 873.” Nevada plates were three digits followed by three letters.

“Did you get the letters?” the patrolman asked, pen at the ready.

Lorna shook her head. “I just remember the numbers.”

“This will narrow the search considerably. What about the Nissan?”

“Hmm…612.”

He jotted that down, too, then turned away as he got on the radio.

Dante’s cell phone rang. He fished it from the front pocket of his jeans and checked the caller ID. “It’s Gideon,” he said, flipping the phone open. “What’s up?” He listened a moment, then said, “Royally screwed.”

A brief pause. “I remember.”

They talked for less than a minute when Lorna heard him say, “A glimpse of the future,” which made her wonder what was going on. He had just laughed at something his brother said when she suddenly shivered, wrapping her arms around herself even though the temperature was rapidly climbing toward the nineties. That awful, bone-aching chill had seized her as suddenly as if she’d been dropped into a pool of ice water.

Dante’s gaze sharpened, and he abruptly ended the call, tucking the phone back into his pocket.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, keeping his tone low as he pulled her to the side.

She fought waves of dizziness, brought on by the intense cold. “I think the depraved serial killer must have followed us,” she said.

NINETEEN

Dante put his arms around her, pulling her against the heat of his body. His body temperature was always high, she thought, as if he had a permanent fever. That heat felt wonderful now, warming her chilled skin.

“Focus,” he said, bending his head so no one else could hear him. “Think of building that shelter.”

“I don’t want to build a damn shelter,” she said fretfully. “This didn’t happen before I met you, and I want it to stop.”