Covert Complication (Badlands Cops Book 2)

by Nicole Helm

  “He could—”

  “Stick to the plan, Nina. Your plan, remember? Think about what you’d do if you had Brianna.”

  She’d keep moving. It would be the only choice. She wouldn’t like keeping going with someone following, but she’d do it.

  So she did.

  Then there was the other element of danger that formative years on an isolated ranch in South Dakota made her all too aware of. She knew what lurked in this kind of night. She knew nature could swallow you whole simply for taking the wrong turn or tripping over the wrong animal.

  One scary threat at a time.

  She managed to put some distance between them and the moving light, which gave her some hope he wasn’t following tracks so much as looking for them.

  “Still no light, but let’s get the map out,” Cody suggested.

  Bringing out the phone would put off a small light, but she’d be able to mitigate how brightly it shined. Cody had showed her how to bring everything up, talked her through how to follow the map—just as he had the first time they’d had to use it. She paused just long enough to grab the phone and bring up the correct app.

  Cody held on to her coat so she no longer had to hold his hand. It made it harder to lead him around potential tripping hazards, but aside from a few stumbles he quickly righted himself from, they were doing okay.

  They had a hell of a long way to go though.

  Nina focused on the end result, just as she would if she was with Brianna. Get to the meeting point Felicity and Cody had agreed upon. That was all she could worry about right now.

  Get them to the agreed upon area, then wait till morning. Without their little friend back there catching up and finding them.

  She let out a shaky breath, but kept moving. She forced herself to only look back every once in a while, was gratified each time she’d put more space between them and the moving light. She wished they could lose him completely, but she had to follow the map.

  They’d initially planned to stop every hour or so, get a drink and a snack, but there’d be no stopping now. Just cold, endless hiking.

  Cody fell once, nearly brought her down with him but managed to release her coat just in time. She looked up at where the light was. She could barely see it now, but she could sense he’d stopped too. The light didn’t move.

  She helped Cody up, one eye on that light. “Maybe we should—”

  “Follow the map,” Cody interrupted, getting to his feet. “Follow the map, get to the spot. Felicity might not be there yet, but we can hold off whoever this is until she gets there. Then we’ll have help. Any help we’d get here is too long off.”

  He was right, of course, which was irritating. But irritating didn’t matter when you were running—or walking quickly—for your life.

  By the time she reached where the interactive map told her to stop, there was the faintest hint of light on the horizon. Morning was coming. She didn’t think they’d lost their stalker, but she couldn’t see his flashlight anymore.

  There were signs that they were entering national park land. Not much cover, as the Badlands wasn’t known for its forests.

  “Now what?” Nina asked, tired and achy and starving.

  “Felicity said we should be able to find some shallow caves around here.”

  “Caves.” Nina shuddered. “Great.”

  “It’ll keep us out of sight. We can sit, eat, rest.”

  Nina hefted out a sigh. “I’ll need my flashlight then. I don’t see the guy, so it might be safe.” She looked at Cody, standing there. It’d be so much easier if she could search for caves without having to maneuver him around the rocky, uneven ground.

  “Leave me here.”

  She frowned at how easily he read her. “I wouldn’t leave Brianna here. I thought we were doing—”

  “Leave me here, Nina. Find a cave. I’ll shout if I get scared.”

  She nearly snorted. He wouldn’t shout, because he wouldn’t get scared—even if he should.

  “Just go, Nina. I might be blind, but I’m not a small child. Give me some credit.”

  It wasn’t about credit, but she didn’t have time to argue with him. She’d go search for a place to hide for ten minutes tops, and if she didn’t find one she’d come back and get him. But she wouldn’t tell him that.

  “All right. Stay put. Give some kind of signal if you need me, Cody. Promise me that.”

  “Sure,” he replied.

  Because of course him admitting he needed someone was as likely as him admitting he was scared. Wouldn’t happen.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, and hoped it would be as easy as that.

  * * *

  CODY HEARD THE APPROACH, knew it wasn’t Nina’s. He held himself tense, ready, and listened closely to the sounds. Careful but confident, a lighter footfall could be Felicity or someone being careful to sneak up on him.

  Cody listened, angled himself toward the noise, and hoped to God Nina was being careful wherever she was.

  Though he knew it was likely still dark, he could tell his vision was worse again. Mostly grayness with no sense of light or shapes and his head ached and pounded. But that only served to give him some hope. If when he’d been well rested and calm he’d started to be able to have some concept of light and shadow, he’d been healing and his sight had been coming back. The walk and the handful of stumbles he’d taken had made the healing regress.

  But he could heal.

  He would heal.

  Another set of footsteps approached from behind him, and he could tell those were Nina’s. “I think I found—” Nina stopped her whispered sentence on a sharp intake of breath.

  “You two look like hell.”

  It was Felicity’s voice and Cody felt a relief so wide and deep he nearly stumbled. “You’re early,” he managed to rasp. He’d told her to wait. Give it until park hours started and make it look like she was just doing part of her job coming to this isolated area of Badlands National Park.

  He hadn’t wanted her followed or involved and God only knew what Ace had up his sleeve. But with a man following them and his vision worse, he could only be utterly grateful for Felicity ignoring his orders.

  Two sighted women with his instruction against one stalker was far better odds.

  “I have a program at nine,” she replied, her tone still oddly detached and cool when usually Felicity was timid but sweet. “I couldn’t get out of it, and I figured this would take a while.” There was a long pause. “God knows I was right. We’ve still got a way to go on foot. I couldn’t take my vehicle back here.”

  “Someone might have followed us,” Nina said, her voice hesitant and unsure. “This whole way. Someone was following us. I’m not sure we lost him completely.”

  Cody had almost forgotten that’s how she’d been at first, with everyone else. She’d always been fierce and determined with him. Or sad, which was worse than anything. But those initial meetings with Duke and the sisters—she’d had this timidity to her.

  Felicity’s pause made him wonder if Nina hadn’t been closer to the truth on Felicity’s feelings regarding Nina, but Felicity was here, to help. That was what mattered right now. Not what they needed to work out about the past.

  “Well, then let’s get going,” Felicity said at length.

  “Did you tell anyone?” Cody demanded as he felt Nina’s arm twine with his. She urged him to step forward.

  Again Felicity’s pause was telling.

  “I told you not to.”

  “You did,” Felicity agreed. “I’m sorry, I thought it best if someone knew. Not just for you, but for me too.”

  “They need to protect Brianna.”

  “I’m sure they’ll find a way to do both,” Felicity said gently.

  Admittedly, if not for her job, Felicity never would have been his first pick for help. Sh
e was gentle and shy. Liza and Sarah were all sharp edges, and Nina and Cecilia were wary edges, but Felicity and Rachel were sweet and soft and not fighters of any kind.

  But Felicity worked at the park, and that’s where they’d been. He really hadn’t expected her to go against what he’d told her.

  Cody grumbled his displeasure as Nina led him forward. “We can’t just walk. He’s tracking us at this point. If we just go to your vehicle, he’ll see what happened. He’ll mark you too.”

  “And as far as you know he doesn’t have a vehicle on hand, so what’s it matter?”

  “I don’t want him making you, Felicity. We’ve got enough people in danger. I called you as a last resort, and because I’d have the best chance of keeping you the hell out of it.”

  “None of us are out of it, Cody. Doesn’t anyone understand how this all works? We’re a family. We take care of one another.” There was a fierceness in her voice he hadn’t expected, but appreciated in the moment.

  Still. “The point isn’t what we are, the point is who Ace targets.”

  “Right now, he’s targeting you two.”

  “And our daughter.”

  “And your daughter. Don’t you trust your family to protect her, Cody?”

  He shut his mouth, because there was no good answer for that. He did. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t terrifying to put his daughter’s life in someone else’s hands no matter how much he trusted them. Especially when they were up against Ace.

  But they’d gotten this far, and Cody continued to believe Ace was incapacitated in some way.

  Nina stopped abruptly, and neither woman spoke.

  “What?”

  “Rattlers. We’re going to have to backtrack and go around the other side.”

  Since Cody couldn’t see he didn’t know what “other side” Felicity was referring to, but Nina turned him around and started leading him again.

  Backtracking was no good, rattlers or no. Surely dawn was beginning to streak across the sky and surely their stalker was closing in.

  “Look around, Nina,” he said in a low voice, hoping Felicity was far enough ahead of them she couldn’t hear. “Keep your eyes peeled for our friend.”

  “I am,” Nina returned easily. “Sun’s rising. He won’t need a flashlight anymore, but the trees and rock formations are still dark. He could easily hide in the shadows.”

  “I’ve got binoculars. Do you want to stop behind some cover and check?”

  As much as Cody preferred science, reason and technology, sometimes a gut feeling was all a man had, and the way the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, something was coming.

  “Give Felicity a gun, Nina,” he ordered, trying to figure out which way the threat was coming from.

  “I can’t have your gun, Cody. I’m a park ranger. It’s illegal to—”

  “Take the gun, Felicity. We’re going to need it.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Let’s get situated first,” Nina said, nodding toward a rock outcropping that would hopefully hide all three of them.

  Felicity moved in first, and without saying anything, Nina helped Cody into the spot before scooting in herself. Tight fit, but they would be mostly hidden from the direction their stalker had been coming from.

  She unzipped her pack and handed Felicity one of the guns they’d packed and then the magazine.

  “This is illegal,” Felicity muttered, though she took the gun and put it together with some ease.

  “Write yourself a ticket later,” Cody muttered. “You see anything?”

  Felicity lifted the binoculars to her eyes. She was quiet and scanning, and Nina had to close her eyes and inwardly count to five to try to find some center of calm. “He’s coming. Far-off, but on his way.”

  “We should just go.” She couldn’t help saying it. How could they sit here and wait around for a threat to appear when they could be fleeing it? “He doesn’t have a vehicle. How is he going to know we got one from a specific park ranger?”

  “How did Ace know where you were?” Cody countered.

  She didn’t have a good answer for that, so she kept her mouth shut.

  “So, what are we going to do, Cody?” Felicity asked.

  She wasn’t exactly as Nina remembered her. The Felicity she remembered had been shy to the point of running and hiding in her room when the Wyatt boys were around. She’d had a stutter for a while. Nina had always believed Felicity would grow out of that shyness a bit, but figured she’d always be more on the anxious, high-strung side of things.

  This Felicity was calm. There was something regal about her, and it wasn’t the drab brown park ranger uniform with a badge that gave that aura. It was self-possession and confidence.

  “Nina, you remember my idea back at the cabin?” Cody asked, though she knew it wasn’t a real question. He was going to lay out this plan like it was what they had to do.

  “No,” she retorted harshly. Not because she didn’t remember, but because there was absolutely no way the three of them were going to endanger themselves to try and capture their stalker.

  “The more information we have, the better chance of keeping Ace out of our lives better. Longer.”

  Which was tempting. She had to get Ace completely and utterly neutralized, though she didn’t know how that was going to happen without ending his life. Which was why this felt like an unnecessary risk. “What about the risks?”

  “We mitigate them.”

  She hated when he responded with those nonanswers spoken with such surety and conviction—both things she couldn’t muster now. She was exhausted and aching and starving.

  “For every moment we spend talking, he’s getting closer,” Felicity informed them, her binoculars trained somewhere beyond the rock.

  “Good. We want him close.”

  “You want him close,” Nina returned. “You don’t even know he has any connection to Ace. If they’re all this bad at coming after us, surely it’s because there’s some kind of conduit hiring them.”

  “Yes, and wouldn’t it be good to know who that conduit is?”

  She couldn’t argue with that. Still, this felt like putting their lives in danger for a chance instead of a sure thing.

  “I could pick him off. Shoulder or thigh or something,” Felicity said, still intent on the binoculars. “Slow him down.”

  Nina blinked at Felicity. “Could you really?”

  Felicity smiled over at Nina a little sheepishly. “A lot happens in seven years, Nina.” She turned back to the binoculars. “You’ll get caught up.”

  It was the first encouraging thing one of the sisters aside from Liza had said to her.

  “I don’t want you to shoot him,” Cody said. “Too risky.”

  “I’m a good shot. Ask Brady.”

  “Some things haven’t changed,” Nina muttered, hanging on to that same hero worship in Felicity’s voice that had always been there when it came to Brady.

  Felicity gave her a wide-eyed don’t you dare look that reminded Nina of old times so sharply she wanted to cry.

  But there still wasn’t time for that.

  They all swore in an echoing kind of unison, ducking farther behind the rock they were all huddled behind as a gunshot rang out and crashed into the rock in front of them.

  Cody’s face went grim, icy. “Okay, Felicity, shoot him. Try for the leg. We want him alive and able to talk. But make sure he’s stopped.”

  Felicity handed Nina the binoculars then lifted the gun Nina had handed her earlier. Nina watched in fascination as her shy, nervous sister calmly lifted the gun to rest on the rock. She waited with the rest of her body still hidden behind it before she carefully inched her way back up, clearly testing if their stalker would shoot again.

  “Easy,” Cody murmured, and Nina supposed it was just a general comment since
he couldn’t see.

  “Distract him, Nina,” Cody ordered. “Stick the backpack up or something he’ll shoot at or look at, but won’t hurt.”

  Nina scrambled to follow the order, and Cody kept giving clear, precise orders. “He shoots, you shoot, Fee, got it?”

  “Yup.”

  They were so calm, and Nina tried to find her own. She’d run away from men with guns before. She’d saved her daughter—and at least mentally that’d been easier. Because all she’d ever thought was how do I keep Brianna safe.

  There were too many people, too many layers now. She believed Brianna was safe at the ranch because she had to, but her, Cody and now Felicity were all in danger. Immediate, gunshot danger.

  But Cody had given her a job. She shrugged the lighter pack off her back. With shaking limbs she lifted the backpack slowly up so it was visible over the rock. The sound of a gunshot was almost immediate.

  “All right,” Cody said, each word cold and forceful. “Shoot.”

  * * *

  THE SOUND OF the gunshot next to him had Cody flinching even though he’d expected it, braced for it. Ordered it, so to speak.

  Felicity let out a little yes, and he took that as success. “Got a sense of where you hit?”

  “Thigh. Fell right down, but he’s trying to get back up.”

  “Nice aim. Okay, let’s get him.”

  “Let’s?” Nina demanded. “You can’t see.”

  “I love how you keep reminding me of that, Nina.” He stood to his full height, then ducked when a gunshot farther off slammed through the air. Judging by the sound as it impacted the rock not that far from his head, it was way too close.

  “He’s still got a gun, Cody,” Felicity said drily.

  “Gee, you don’t say.”

  “You should stay here,” Nina said next to him. “You can hardly walk over there not being able to see.”

  “And you two can hardly walk over there getting shot at,” he retorted. He thought he’d been handling his loss of sight pretty well, but right about now he would have sold his soul to be able to see and accomplish something.