For Her Protection

by Lauren Giordano

  “Dammit, I said don’t move. You’ll be dead before you get to the door.”

  Murphy’s gaze never left the cluster of trees fifty yards south of their position. The moment he detected movement, he squeezed off a round. Her heart in her throat, Jillian shut her eyes against the deafening reverberation and prayed that Samuel wouldn’t come to the door to see what was happening. Sarah was due to awaken soon. What if she began crying? Samuel would try to find her. Dear Lord, why, oh, why, had she left them alone?

  She opened her eyes when she heard Danny start cursing a blue streak. “What is it? Have you been shot?”

  “I left my freaking phone in the cabin,” he growled. “Luke’s gonna drive right back into the middle of it.”

  She shook her head, terrified at the thought of losing Luke. And then she moaned when she remembered who was with him. “Lord, no. He has James.”

  “Right now, we’ve gotta worry about ourselves. If this guy isn’t alone, we’re pretty much screwed. He’s got us pinned down damn good. The bastard.”

  She couldn’t help but notice a certain admiration in Murphy’s tone and fleetingly wondered at his sanity. She lifted her head a fraction of an inch and then yelped when a shot rang out almost simultaneously.

  “Aha. Just what I was waiting for,” he muttered and pulled the trigger several times. She heard a shout of pain. Several seconds passed before she heard a crashing sound as someone staggered out of the brush and fell to the ground with a lifeless thud.

  She took an unsteady breath. Her heart was about to gallop straight out of her chest and no amount of deep breathing would ever make it slow down. “Is it over?”

  “Dunno.” Still lying on his side, Murphy reached into his back pocket and withdrew another clip. He slammed it into place before doing anything else. “Don’t move a muscle. I’m gonna check out the shooter. I want you to take this pistol.”

  “I can’t,” Jillian said. “I’ve never even held a gun before.” Well, that wasn’t exactly true. But she didn’t think skeet shooting would count for very much right now.

  “You may have to.” His eyes had gone cold and he was deadly serious. “I need you to watch out for me. There’s no one else. If something happens to me, you run like hell to the cabin as fast as you can get there. Don’t stop and don’t look back. Lock the door and call for help.”

  “But what about you?”

  “Go straight to the cabin,” he repeated, ignoring her question. “You gotta warn Luke and you’ve got to call for help.” He grabbed her arm to quiet her and they both listened to the stillness for what seemed like a lifetime. When he seemed satisfied there was no one else out there, he motioned to her that they were about to move. He handed her the gun and she tried not to cringe at the heavy weight of the handle in her grasp.

  “Hold it steady, aim and shoot. There’s barely even a kick to it.”

  “What am I looking for?” She tasted blood on her lip and realized she’d chewed through several layers of skin.

  “Any sudden movement. Shoot first and ask questions later. Just make sure you don’t blast me.” He rolled into a crouch and indicated she should do the same. “I’m goin’ over to check him out. You watch my back until I give you the all-clear. Then I want you to run like hell up to the cabin. Don’t wait for me, you got it?”

  She nodded and said a silent prayer as he launched out of their hiding place. She got to her feet and scanned the area where the dead man had fallen and saw nothing. Her gaze traveled first to the left and then to the right of his hiding place. Then she turned her attention toward the cabin.

  Murphy was nearly there. He’d crossed the clearing without incident when she saw a flash of movement. A flock of birds alighted from a tree near the cabin, squawking in protest over being disturbed. Murphy must have seen it, too, for he spun toward the cabin, raising his gun as he reached the prone man on the ground.

  She nearly had heart failure a moment later when she saw the cabin door open out of the corner of her eye. Samuel’s little blond head peeked around the door frame, his startled eyes searching for Jillian.

  “Mama? Where you are? I come out an’ find you.”

  “Get back inside and close the door.” She shrieked the warning at the top of her lungs. A split second later, Jilly’s eyes snapped the pictures as though they were a camera filming a movie. She saw the shiny flash of a gun barrel appear out of the shrubbery at the base of the tree. Without stopping to think, she raised the gun that was clutched in her hand and fired in the direction of the movement.

  She didn’t realize she was screaming until she ran out of bullets. Hers was the only voice in the suddenly desolate silence. When she came to her senses, there were bodies everywhere. Another man had fallen out of the shrubs. And Murphy was lying on the ground near the first dead man.

  “Danny!” She staggered out from behind the car, tears blinding her eyes as she ran toward her friend. Halfway there, she remembered his words. Luke. She had to warn Luke. But, dear Lord, she had to get Murphy, too.

  “Samuel, get in the house straightaway.” She turned then, propelling herself toward the cabin, her legs trembling so badly she didn’t think they would support her weight.

  He handed her Murphy’s cell phone after she stumbled up the porch steps. “Mama, Luke’s on the phone.”

  He thought he would die while he listened to the gun battle taking place back at the cabin. He was still in shock over Jimmy’s announcement. His boss, the ASAC of one of the largest DEA offices in the country, was also one of the biggest drug smugglers in U.S. history. He was also a murderer. He and Murphy were seriously outmanned and outgunned. What was worse, he’d placed Jilly and the kids in terrible danger.

  Luke mopped his forehead with his bad arm, wincing at the sharp twinge of pain. When he pulled his arm back he was surprised to find blood. His hair was loaded with glass from the windshield, and apparently, so was his scalp. Dismissing it, he kept his grip tight on the phone. Despite his efforts, sweat still poured into his eyes, making it harder to drive the car at their current eighty-mile-an-hour speed. His eyes watered from the air streaming in through the shattered windshield. He’d finally cleared the airstrip road and was back out on the main drag. Which meant they were in even more danger from the helicopter that was sure to show up at any moment.

  Please don’t let them be dead, he prayed fervently. He’d nearly had a heart attack when Samuel answered the phone and told him Mama and Murphy were shooting people. He could have sworn he’d just heard Jillian scream, but prayed fervently that it was the wind howling past his ears.

  “Pick up the phone. Pick up the phone.” He heard Jilly sobbing and shouting at Samuel to get back in the cabin, heard the clatter as she stumbled into the cabin and slammed the door shut. And felt his heart start beating again. Relief poured through him and he clenched the wheel in an effort to regain control. He’d never been more relieved in his entire life. She was safe. She was alive. For the moment.

  “Luke? Are you there?”

  “Baby, I’m here. Are you all right?”

  “Murphy’s shot. He’s lying out there with the others.” He heard her taking in great shaking gulps of air. “I’ve got to go back out and get him.”

  “No,” he yelled, panic seeping into his voice as he swerved to miss an oncoming car. He was driving on the wrong side of the road. What others? How the hell many shooters were there?

  “I’m ordering you to stay inside. The police are on their way. Just stay put until they get there.”

  “Luke, I hear the helicopter. It’s comin’ up behind us,” James announced from his position on the floor.

  “Stay down, Jimmy. Make yourself as small as you can get,” he shouted over the roar of the wind. Into the phone, he issued another order. “Jill, dammit, you stay inside. Get my other gun out of the top drawer of the bureau. Take it out and get ready to use it.”

  “Does it have a kick like Murphy’s?”

  She’d stopped crying and, in fact, s
ounded almost icily calm. Luke wondered at the change. It was probably due to all the noise on his end because she’d been nearly hysterical only moments before.

  “It’ll be a bigger kick. The Glock has more power.”

  She was gone for a second, during which time Luke forced himself to focus on his own precarious situation. If he didn’t have Jimmy with him, he could have used himself as bait and lured Duncan away from the cabin. But with Murphy down, they were still in danger.

  She came back on the line. “I’ve got it.”

  “Get the extra clips, too. You pull out the spent one and shove in the new one. Once you hear it click, you’re good to go.” He heard the faint sound of sirens and prayed they were on her end. But his car was so freakin’ noisy he couldn’t tell if they were behind him or coming toward him.

  All he knew was that he wanted her safe, dammit. He loved her. He loved her kids. And as long as he were wishing for things that could never be, he wanted help for his partner. He prayed Murphy was still able to defend them.

  The fragment of a plan began to formulate. He would slow down enough to drop Jimmy somewhere safe and then he would keep going. The trick would be in making sure Duncan didn’t see the little boy. The ASAC would be forced to follow him until he was sure Luke was out of commission. With any luck he could keep them occupied for another fifteen minutes or so. He glanced at the gas gauge. He’d run out of time before he ran out of fuel. The strategy had switched from trying to win to simply staying in the game long enough. All he had to do was stay alive long enough to buy Murphy some time for the locals to arrive.

  “I’m about seven minutes from you. Is that sirens I hear on your end?” She paused a moment and came back on the line.

  “Nothing yet. It’s pretty quiet. I’m going to check on Danny. I think I can drag him up on the porch,” she announced.

  A swift, sharp burst of paralyzing fear knifed through his chest when his brain filtered her words. God, no. “No, dammit—”

  He resisted the urge to smash the phone against the dashboard while he filled the car with an angry tirade of curses. She’d hung up on him. “You’d better be alive when I get there,” he vowed.

  James’s disgusted voice floated up from the back seat. “Yeah, and she better have that bar of soap ready.”

  Jillian shivered and cracked the door open again. The woods were dangerously quiet as she took a step out onto the porch, Luke’s gun clutched tightly in her shaking hand. She’d changed her mind about the dangers of the bathroom and had locked Samuel and the baby inside, instructing him to sit in the bottom of the tub until she returned. She’d placed Sarah’s cradle in the corner under the vanity and retrieved a fresh bottle for when she awoke. If she ended up dead, at least Samuel would be able to feed his sister. She prayed they would be safe in there, prayed no one would find them until the shooting stopped.

  Nothing happened after her first step, so she carefully took another, her eyes scanning the area in front of her. Murphy hadn’t moved from the spot where he’d fallen and she quickly blinked back the hot tears that wanted desperately to fall.

  “You can’t cry,” she muttered. She had to stay cool. She had to be calm. Her heart pounded violently, its rhythm matching the pulsing tempo of the roar in her ears. Dear Lord, she felt as though she were about to faint. She took several cleansing breaths, all the while keeping her gaze moving over the landscape. Once she’d cleared the porch, she half walked, half staggered over to where Murphy lay curled up on his side.

  “Danny? Danny, love. Can you hear me?” She pried the gun from her trembling fingers and set it on the ground to run her hands lightly over the huge man. She felt quickly for a pulse and found a faint, thready beat in the side of his neck.

  “Jill? Get back inside.” His voice was weak, but it was an order nonetheless.

  “Not without you. Can you move at all? I don’t know if I can lift you.”

  “Can’t move. Shot.”

  “Where, Danny? Where are you shot?” Her gaze ran the length of him and she saw the blood pooling under his side. She took a deep breath and blew it out. Dear Lord, don’t let him die. Where the hell were the police?

  “Leg…stomach,” he rasped. He tried to speak again and began coughing. Panic flared through her and for a dreadful moment she thought he was dying.

  “Don’t die, Danny. Stay with me.” His eyes fluttered open again and he jerked her down toward him with surprising strength.

  “Gun.”

  Sweet Mother of God, couldn’t they think of anything else? “I’ve got the bloody gun. Stop worrying.”

  “No.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Get your freakin’ gun. Someone’s coming.”

  Her heart all but stopped when she heard the snap of a dry twig. Someone was coming up the trail. Her eyes wide with shock, she snatched up Luke’s gun and glanced down at Danny. Wincing in pain, he nodded and then jerked his head toward the car. He wanted her to hide behind the car. But that would leave him exposed in the clearing. She shook her head and he glared up at her.

  “Do it now, dammit.”

  She crawled over to the car and crouched by the front fender. Her insides felt as though she’d swallowed cement. If she were forced to run away, she knew her legs wouldn’t carry her. They’d all but locked up. The only part of her body that seemed to be working was her heart and it was pumping overtime. Any second now it would surely burst free from her chest. She forced herself to take in shallow breaths, forced herself to keep her eyes open when she wanted to scrunch them closed and hide. Biting her lip, she turned to glance at Danny and watched in amazement when he pulled his gun out from under him. Stifling an audible groan, he loaded a clip and slammed it home.

  She heard the faint sound of sirens off in the distance but had no idea of which direction to look. Instead she focused her attention on the dirt road beyond the car. Whoever was coming was getting closer. Part of her wanted desperately to peer around the end of the car, wanted to believe the person would be a friend. Please let it be someone who could help. A police officer perhaps. Maybe the cabin owner, come to check out all the noise.

  The realist in her remained glued to the grill of the car, flattened as small as she could get. The muscles in her thighs knotted agonizingly, crying out for movement. She felt a trickle of sweat course down her back and into her pants and shivered when the breeze blew through her too thin jacket and cooled her overheated skin. The scent of gunpowder still hung in the air when she took a great shuddering breath. She wanted to scrub at the goose bumps that had raised on her arms. Instead she held tight to the pistol clenched in her perspiring fist and waited.

  “Murphy, good God.”

  She heard the man’s footsteps pound the rest of the way up the trail after he made his discovery. He flashed by the car, skittering pebbles when he veered toward the center of the clearing where Murphy lay prone on his side, raised up on one elbow.

  “Jesus, are you all right?”

  Jillian didn’t hear Murphy’s response. She was too busy concentrating on the broad back of the man bending over Murphy, a man he clearly knew. She waited for Danny to call out to her. Why hadn’t he given her some sign that it was okay to come out of hiding? She felt the shudder of fear course through her, felt the rush of blood sing through her veins when he didn’t. And knew with overwhelming certainty that something was very wrong. When Murphy’s signal didn’t come, she pressed herself more firmly against the car and quietly raised her shooting hand up over the hood.

  The whirring thump of a helicopter grew louder in the distance and she realized it was about to pass directly overhead. She watched the man tilt his head back at the sound, smiling as he withdrew a gun from his jacket. He lurched up from his squatting position on the ground to stand tall over Danny. When he leveled his gun at her friend, Jillian gasped in recognition.

  Josephson couldn’t have heard her cry of outrage, not over the deafening sound of the chopper overhead. No, he had to have sensed her startled movement bec
ause he swung around to face her, his gun already raised and locked on her. She fired the Glock and felt the tremendous pull as she was jerked back off her feet. Her head spinning, she landed hard on the ground a few feet away and somehow managed to scramble around to the passenger side of the car. Her body felt as if it was moving in slow motion despite the danger. Her brain was working but her legs didn’t want to respond. When her brain told her to dive for cover, she threw herself to the ground and rolled under the car. She bit back a moan of agony when her shoulder protested the sudden movement.

  Dear God, what should she do now? Had she hit Josephson or not? Where was he? This very moment, he could be walking this way, intent on killing her, and she couldn’t hear a bloody thing. The commotion from the chopper was unbearably loud and her head vibrated with the excruciating sound. Her panicky sobs were swallowed up while she choked on the great clouds of dust that swirled overhead, her eyes burned as the sun-dappled forest turned into a thundering rain of earth and sticks and scattering tree limbs. Tasting dirt, she tucked her head down to the ground in a pathetic attempt to find clean air. She rubbed at the grit in her eyes, ignoring the white-hot pain that shafted through her arm and tried to locate Murphy from her new position under the car.

  Mercifully, the helicopter lifted higher, hovered for a moment and then twisted toward the east. But there wasn’t to be any relief. She cringed at the screaming sound of another chopper moving fast across the sky. Her ears still ringing from the first wave of sound, she could have sworn she heard sirens blaring up the narrow dirt road.

  She swallowed hard and gagged on the dust. Dear Lord, she felt light-headed but she couldn’t take the time to rest yet. She had to find Danny. What if Josephson found the babies? He had a gun, didn’t he? Yet, try as she might, she could barely keep her eyes open in the swirling clouds. The ground pitched and swayed each time she raised her head and the movement was driving her mad. This was it, she realized. She’d obviously snapped from all the stress. She’d finally gone ’round the bloody bend.