Free Incriminating Evidence by Rachel Grant

trust right now is you.”

 
     
     
    Chapter Seven

     
    “I ’m surprised Tamarack hasn’t been flooded with reporters,” Isabel said as Alec drove down the main highway that cut through town. It looked like a typical rainy Friday evening to her.
    “My campaign put out a statement that my disappearance began with swerving to avoid a moose and running off the road. I was unconscious for a number of hours. It is unknown whether or not foul play was involved or if I wandered in the woods after the accident, seeking help—which I found in the form of a female hiker.”
    “And the press bought it?”
    “No idea, but I booked and paid for every motel room in Tamarack and the two nearest towns to make coming to Tamarack unappealing to the press. The statement also said that given the ongoing investigation, no interviews would be granted, period. I think the rain has played in our favor. No one wanted to get stuck in Tamarack with no good leads and no place to stay.”
    “Was I named as the ‘female hiker’?”
    “No.”
    “I’m worried that whoever beat the crap out of you might think I can identify them.”
    She caught his grimace at her wording, but he didn’t deny it. “You’re safe as long as they don’t know who found me.”
    “But they already do.” She told him about her cell phone disappearing from the side of the stream during the fifteen minutes she was inside the cabin with him.
    “You’re certain?”
    “Yes. The only other possibility is I tucked it in my pack without thinking, and Westover or Joyce stole my phone. Paul Westover is kind of an ass, but I don’t see him running a stolen cell phone racket.” Outside the vehicle, trees sped by, blurred by streaks of water. She mentally added the price of a new phone to the tally of what helping Alec Ravissant had cost her.
    The car took an unexpected right turn, and her body flushed with adrenaline. She’d been waiting for this moment for months. “You’re taking me to the compound?” Her throat was so dry, she’d barely been able to say the words.
    “No. We’re going the back way to your cabin. The perimeter road is faster.”
    Disappointment settled in, and she wondered if she could get the restraining order dropped simply because he’d taken this shortcut. Probably not.
    “Don’t get any ideas. The restraining order is to protect you . I’m not about to let it go. But right now I’ve got problems, and I need your help.”
    Was she about to become… allied with Alec Ravissant? An insane notion if ever there was one.
    “If you suspect your own people of running you off the road and leaving you for dead, should you even stay on the compound? Isn’t that the lion’s den?”
    “Yeah, but I’m the lion king . It’s my den. There’s a reason I was attacked before I reached my compound.” He glanced at her askance, his focus on the road ahead, and she caught his wry smile. “Despite what you might think given the condition you found me in yesterday, I’m a damn good soldier. They caught me off guard, which won’t happen again. Anyone who attacks me or what’s mine will pay.”
    He made the turn to the compound, but before they reached the intersection with the perimeter road, he pulled to the side and put the SUV in park. They were probably less than a mile from the concertina-wire-topped fence that surrounded the structures that were popularly referred to as “the compound,” but in actuality, Raptor’s entire thirty-thousand-acre swath of pristine wilderness was the true compound. The hundred or so enclosed acres were only a tiny portion of Alec’s vast holding.
    What must it be like to be Alec Ravissant? To drive down this road and be the lion king—although after last night, she’d always think of him as the tiger king—knowing everyone on his land must answer to him, and his backyard was a paltry thirty thousand acres in the heart of Alaska. And this was just one of Raptor’s five compounds.
    He pulled his cell