LITMIR.BIZ

       www.mirabooks.co.uk

      To Eric Curtis Certainly one of the world’s finest photographers

      Prologue

      Gabe Lange’s quarry was right in front of him.

      The chase had begun in vehicles, his a police cruiser. The perp had quickly taken the lead in a stolen Maserati. Still, Gabe had discovered that the police car was well equipped to handle such a race, and he’d been right behind him all the way. In fact, while the con had eventually crashed into a snowbank, he’d managed to swerve to a stop, without even spinning in the snow and ice as he might have done.

      Luke had surely faced some injury in the crash; sore muscles, if nothing else. Gabe had come out unscathed. But Luke appeared to be good at disappearing, even amidst a crash, and for a moment—when Gabe had followed him up the first steep hill that led to the road up the mountain—he’d lost him.

      He could not lose him; it was Christmas Eve. He couldn’t let Luke loose on some unsuspecting family about to settle down to a Christmas Eve dinner. He could already picture the kind of home where Luke might try to find entry; a couple placing the last of the presents under the tree, perhaps. There might be a crèche set up on a coffee table, a tree with brilliant lights facing the parlor or living room with a multipaned window allowing the lights to shine upon the snow. Little ones would be put to bed; the father might be doing the last work, scratching his head as he tried to follow the “simple” instructions for finishing a bike or a video system that would be there, big and beautiful, beneath the tree. Here, especially here, in the mountains of Virginia, people had a habit of being welcoming. The houses and old cabins were few and far between, and the neighbors, even those who only came for the summer and holidays, learned to be welcoming and giving. Usually, of course.

      Maybe Luke would happen upon the one family who was more than wary of strangers, and ready with a shotgun.

      But Gabe hadn’t lost Luke; when he came around a copse of trees, he saw him again, limping, but continuing upward once again. The roads here were poorly plowed, but even with snowdrifts swirling through the air and the few feet of accumulation, the path that led to the sparse population here was apparent; it was an indentation in the banks of snow.

      And Luke was heading toward it.

      Gabe quickened his pace, grateful that he had the kind of body that had been kept in shape; powerful arms and legs, and good lungs. That seemed especially important now. Breathing was good one minute—the air being so crisp, smogless, empty of diesel fuel, the fumes of buses and trucks—and then hard the next; the snow was still coming.

      He heard his own breathing as he surged on upward. Luke had a body that was honed as well; young, muscled and lithe. Had he been a gymnast or a sprinter at some time? He was moving just like—just like a bat out of hell.

      Huffing and puffing, Gabe kept climbing. When he reached the road, Luke had once again disappeared.

      He held very still, trying to listen.

      But the snow kept the dried branches of the naked, skeletal trees snapping and the wind that hurried the snow flurries along seemed to whistle and moan; he couldn’t hear any other sound.

      He turned, searching out the trees, and then he looked to his feet, hoping that the flurries weren’t falling fast enough to erase all signs of footprints.

      He could barely make them out. Luke had escaped across the road into the trees to the northwest, but it seemed that he’d somehow doubled back….

      That realization dawned just in time for Gabe to turn around halfway and almost ward off the blow that came his way when the perp, Luke, cracked him hard over the head with a massive oak branch. The wood was dry and brittle, and he could almost hear it cry out at the abuse as his own head began to spin, and the jarring pain took hold.

      Gabe fell to his knees. Luke let out the sound of delighted laughter. “Gotcha!” he said.

      No. It wasn’t ending here. Gabe wasn’t dying in a pile of snow while Luke went on to torment a family on Christmas Eve.

      Or worse.

      He reached out, glad of his strength as he snaked a firm grip around his opponent’s ankle, jerking him off his feet. Luke crashed down beside him. He tried to seize the advantage and jump on his quarry, but Luke rolled, and Gabe was left to stagger to his feet. There was something trickling down his forehead, blinding him.

       Blood.

      He let out a cry of determination and flew at Luke, tackling him down into the snow. Luke fell once again. Gabe landed a good hook to Luke’s left cheek, but he had no time for satisfaction. Luke, bellowing in pain, still managed to catch hold of something in the snow.

      A rock.

      “Oh, my old friend! The night is mine now. I’m ahead of you at every step!” Luke said with pleasure.

      Go figure. Luke found a rock on the road beneath the snow. As proud as a crow, he held it for a fraction of a second above Gabe.

      “The challenge is on—and you’ve lost already!” he said.

      He brought the rock down hard against Gabe’s skull, and Gabe went down….

      He saw the flurries in the sky, and couldn’t help but think, How beautiful. So much on God’s earth, even in winter, was stunningly beautiful …

      He slumped down, stars spinning before his eyes, and then fading away to the blackness of a moonless night …

      Gabe came to; he didn’t know how much later. He blinked away the pain, and pressed cold snow against his face, hoping that would help clear his head. It did.

      He tried to stagger to his feet. His first attempt failed; he tried again.

      When he stood, he realized that his vision was fine. The world seemed to be a strange shade of gray because dusk was falling. Somewhere, people were watching the extraordinary show of the sun sinking in the west; here, the day was just going from opaque and overcast to the murky gray that promised a very dark night very soon.

       Which way had Luke gone?

      He brought his gloved fingers to his face, and noted that something was off. He stretched out his arms and looked down at his legs, and groaned.

      Luke had stolen his clothing—his Virginia Department of Law Enforcement uniform.

      God help him. The challenge was really on now.

      Chapter 1

      The landscape was crystal, dusted in a fresh fall of snow that seemed to make tree branches shimmer, as if they were dotted with jewels.

      Of course, the same new snow that made everything so beautiful could also become treacherous, Morwenna thought, trying to adjust her defroster as the car climbed up the mountainside.

      With her initial reaction of, “How beautiful,” barely out of her mind, she wondered why her parents hadn’t decided to buy a retreat in the Bahamas, Arizona or Florida instead of forever maintaining the centuries-old, difficult-to-heat rustic old cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains. If the snow started up again—which forecasters were predicting—the beauty would definitely become dangerous.

      “Other people opt for warmth,” she muttered aloud. “Birds do it—they fly south for the winter!” If the snow had started up a bit earlier, she might have had a great excuse not

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