Cold River by Carla Neggers

killers—he still managed to save Nora Asher’s life. He warned her Rigby was after her.”
    “He and Nora survived thanks to Jo and Elijah,” Hannah said, picking up her snowshoes. She tucked them under one arm and walked past Sean in the doorway, brushing against his arm, remembering—for no reason she could fathom—the feel of it around her back in March when he’d hauled her out of O’Rourke’s.
    She stepped into the snow in her hiking boots, hyperaware of Sean watching her as she dropped her snowshoes side by side in front of her.
    “Hannah,” he said, “what’s going on?”
    She didn’t give him a direct answer. “Devin had his suspicions, but he didn’t know about this place. The police didn’t find it, either, when they investigated his death. Itseems so easy to find now, but if you don’t know where to look…” With the heel of her boot, she dragged one snowshoe closer to her. “Everything seems more obvious in hindsight.”
    Sean steadied his gaze on the sunlit snow and still shadows. “Rigby didn’t have to come back here after the storm,” he said, “but he knew he’d be marked for death himself if he failed.”
    Hannah looked at the evergreens where Kyle Rigby had concealed himself and taken cover in preparation for his assault on the cabin. “He knew what he was doing. He wasn’t crazy or suicidal.” She spoke in a steady voice, consciously keeping her emotions contained. This had always been her way, she thought, and wasn’t a skill she’d learned in law school. “He gauged his chances and did what he had to do.”
    “He assessed the terrain and picked his spot.”
    She took in a shallow breath, hearing, in her mind, the gunfire that frozen morning, picturing Elijah’s and Jo’s focus and intensity as they’d confronted the hidden shooter. “Rigby knew that failure wasn’t an option. His own people would kill him if he didn’t succeed up here. It didn’t matter to him that he was taking on a Green Beret and a federal agent.”
    “It was kill or be killed.”
    And he’d been killed, Hannah thought. A few hours later, his partner, Melanie Kendall, was blown up in her car at the lodge, presumably by the people who’d hired her and Rigby.
    Sean pulled the cabin door shut. “Why are you here alone?” he asked quietly. “Any of us would have come with you.”
    “Devin would have, too.” She eased her boot into the binding of her snowshoe. “I guess I just needed to come on my own. What about you? Are you alone?” She looked back at him with a quick smile. “Your brothers aren’t hiding in the trees, are they?”
    He didn’t return her smile. He lowered his sunglasses, making his eyes impossible to read. “I’m alone.”
    Hannah pulled off a glove and squatted down to adjust the strap on the back of her boot. “So you must not be afraid I’m the mastermind of this network of killers.”
    Sean leaned into one of his ski poles. “Long hike?”
    She realized she’d gone too far in trying to compensate for her self-consciousness around him—for not telling him the whole story about why she’d come up here. “Longer than I wanted it to be.” She stood up, feeling downright warm. “Did you follow me?”
    “I parked on the old logging road and came up the back trail.” His tone was even, pragmatic. “You can ride back with me.”
    She quickly put on her other snowshoe. Hike down the mountain with Sean? Sit next to him for the ten-mile drive back around the mountain to the lodge? She’d hiked up here for a reason, and he knew it, and he wanted to pry it out of her. Even under normal circumstances, she’d be reluctant to go with him, just because he was Sean Cameron.
    These weren’t normal circumstances.
    She tried to keep him from seeing her turmoil of emotions. “I don’t mind hiking the way I came,” she said, adjusting the strap on her second boot.
    “It’ll be dusk by the time you get back.” Sean spoke calmly, without pleading. “One wrong turn,