Free Survival Instinct by Doranna Durgin Page B

eyes open.
    That he had to work so hard to manage it was enough to get him sitting up. The way he staggered when he got up…that triggered all his warning systems.
    What the hell had she put in his whiskey?
    And why?
    Dave acted without thinking, stumbling down the stairs in his boxers to check Ellen’s empty bedroom, and then straight to the bathroom where he cranked the shower on full and cold.
    The icy blast hit him hard; he managed to stay beneath it but only by snarling his best string of curses. Once he’d been through the litany twice, he figured enough was enough, and stepped out sputtering, reaching blindly for the nearest towel.
    It smelled of shampoo and of Ellen.
    Okay, that woke him up.
    Peeling off the wet boxers was no fun at all.
    From there he ran up the stairs—ran, because whatever she’d given him still hung in his system and he couldn’t afford to slow down—and pulled on clean underwear and a pair of jeans and an old Rochester Red Wings sweatshirt. He gulped down two of the caffeine pills he kept with his razor and ran back down the stairs and around to the back door, checking his watch on the way. Hours. He’d been asleep for hours.
    He didn’t have to know what she’d given him, or why. He only knew he had to find her. She was more than his best hope to help Rashawn. Now she was in trouble, and it was his fault.
    He shoved his way out into the cold night and discovered that leaving his coat in the car hadn’t been his best idea ever. The cold hit his wet hair and damp skin hard enough so his goose bumps might never fade. He fumbled for the car keys in the side pocket of the overnighter, hit the unlock key, and was never so grateful for the automatic interior lights. First things first: he threw his bag into the passenger seat and pulled on his dark Gore-Tex parka, listening to his teeth chatter.
    The next step was pretty clear, too. He slid in behind the wheel, firing the engine up—but he didn’t crank the heat up. It wouldn’t do to get too comfortable. Not until whatever Ellen had slipped into his whiskey was totally out of his system, and the caffeine had kicked in. But he was a man with a mission nonetheless; he reached into the passenger seat and pulled out his laptop, putting it aside to boot up while he grabbed his USB receiver. Then he found his glasses, knowing better than to try to work without them when he could barely focus in the first place.
    Oh, yeah, he’d felt guilty enough about that bug, even if at the time he was bugging her for her own protection and didn’t tell her only so she wouldn’t worry. As if she were still the old Ellen. Now his guilt dissipated somewhat, especially when the results of his two receivers—the GPS and the short-range RF—told her she was nowhere in the area. He took a closer look at the GPS map on his screen.
    What the hell was she doing at the border of West Virginia? She didn’t know anyone there…had no ties to the area.
    Running. Running like a rabbit.
    No, he told himself quite suddenly, listening to the gut instinct that had been poking at him since his arrival. Not like a rabbit, not anymore. Like a fox.
    But a fox who didn’t know she’d been tagged.
    The receiver beeped; he almost dismissed it in his attention to the laptop. But the beep meant the automatic scanning receiver had found success, and that made no sense. There was no way its range extended over a hundred miles. Dave alt-tabbed his way to the open receiver window and stared at it.
    Oh, shit.
    It was him. This car. Somewhere in the back half of it, probably under the wheel well.
    Barret’s man hadn’t given up at all. He’d just come back to bug Dave’s car, hang back and wait.
    Dave pushed the laptop aside and slid out of the car, running cold fingers along the inner wheel well, the bumpers, the second wheel well…and there it was. He pried the thing free and took it back to the car, flicking on the overhead light to get a better view of his prize.
    It was an