Читать книгу The Return of Connor Mansfield - Beth Cornelison - Страница 8

Prologue

Through the thick fog of a Louisiana autumn morning, Victor Gale watched his prey from an abandoned hunter’s blind. Raising his rifle, he peered through the scope and drew a bead on his target’s head. Hatred gnawed his gut like acid, and his muscles hummed with tension and anticipation. Other men had used this camouflaged blind to hunt deer. Victor hunted a man. A traitor. A liability to his family, his livelihood, his freedom.

Last year, Connor Mansfield had found evidence of Gale Industries’ side business, had stolen company records to show the FBI and had testified for the prosecution at William Gale’s trial. Mansfield’s betrayal had cost Victor’s father everything. For that, Mansfield had to pay. He had to be silenced. He had to die.

Their father had taken the fall for the family to protect Victor and his brother, James, so retribution against Connor Mansfield fell to his sons. Victor relished the duty.

As quietly as the mist curled through the woods, Victor tracked Mansfield’s progress from his truck to the small cabin, a hunting camp deep in the pine forest of central Louisiana, waiting for a clear shot through the trees. He had to take Mansfield out before he went inside.

Before he lost his chance.

Mansfield hesitated at the cabin door as if reluctant to go inside, but a fat cypress obscured Victor’s line of sight. Damn it!

When Mansfield finally slipped inside and out of view, Victor growled his frustration and spit on the ground. He might not get another shot for hours, not until Mansfield left the camp. Unless...

Victor considered approaching the ramshackle cabin, peeking in the window and shooting Mansfield from closer range. But he risked being seen or heard, tipping Mansfield off, leaving evidence near the scene that could trace the kill back to him.

No. Better to have patience. Wait him out. Catch Mansfield when—

A deafening blast rocked the woods as the cabin erupted in a massive fireball.

The concussion of the explosion knocked Victor off his feet. Rang painfully in his ears. Thundered in his chest.

Debris rained down around him, piercing the thin walls of the hunter’s blind and stinging his skin when it hit. When all fell quiet again and his shock eased, he scrambled to his knees to peer out the blind’s slit of a window.

The cabin Mansfield had just entered was in ruin, the remnants ablaze. Stunned by the turn of events, Victor stared, his head buzzing from adrenaline and the damage of the loud blast.

Finally he pulled out his cell phone and punched in his brother’s number.

“Is it done?” James asked without preamble.

“Yeah, but...I didn’t do it.”

“What are you saying?”

“The freakin’ cabin exploded. Maybe a gas line leak that went up when he hit the light switch?” Victor shook his head, still gawking at the carnage. “No way he survived that blast.”

Silence answered him.

“Did ya hear me, man?”

James’s sigh rattled through the phone. “Yeah. I guess fate took its own revenge.”

Victor grunted, a tickle of suspicion pricking his neck. “Maybe, but...I don’t like it. I smell a setup.”

“What kind of setup?”

“Don’t know, but...I think I’ll stay and watch the place. See who shows up—whether they recover a body—how this gets handled.” Victor pinched the bridge of his nose, dreading the long hours of sitting cramped in the hunter’s blind, getting eaten by mosquitoes. But he had to be sure.

“Fine,” his older brother said. “I want a full report of everyone and everything that happens out there the rest of the day.”

Resigned to the task and more mosquito bites, Victor stayed and watched as the cops and fire department arrived and put out the flames. Grim-faced men in FBI jackets came next. A coroner’s hearse hauled away a body bag. And an attractive redhead drove up, broke down in hysterical tears and was stopped from approaching the smoldering remains of the cabin by two FBI agents.

When the scene was deserted several hours later, Victor rolled his aching shoulders and dialed James again to report in. “Did Mansfield have a girlfriend?”

“Yeah,” James said. “A redhead. Name’s Darby something. Kent, I think. Yeah, Darby Kent.”

“She showed up. Seemed pretty torn up about his death.”

James grunted, then fell silent again for several nerve-racking seconds.

Victor braced himself. He knew what was coming next.

“Find Darby. Follow her. See if she meets up with him. If the explosion was part of a setup, she’s the key to bringing him outta hiding.”

“You want me to take her out?”

“Naw. She’s nothing to us. But if she meant anything to him, and he’s still alive—”

Victor glanced at the burned-out husk of the cabin. His brother had a point. Family had always been Mansfield’s weakness. But Victor disagreed with James on one point. If Mansfield was still alive, pulling a hoax, Victor wasn’t as squeamish as his brother about collateral damage. If Darby Kent led him to Mansfield, he’d kill them both.