Did she want to do this? Not especially.
Was it the right thing? Yes.
Amy did the right thing. That was how she’d decided to define her life. When everything with her brother became clear, and she realized he worked for a cartel, she’d decided this. Maybe even before then. When Anthony had been born she’d been his primary caretaker, even though Jeremiah didn’t see that. He didn’t even thank her. Or help out with groceries, since teenage boys consumed more food than a small country.
His mother certainly hadn’t stuck around. She’d been gone since before Anthony’s third birthday. After that Amy did all those “mom” things, taking care of him as much as she could. Being there for him. He hadn’t turned out perfectly. Who did? But he was a good kid. Just a little...wild.
And convinced she’d betrayed him, the same way she’d apparently betrayed her brother. According to them. But her beliefs called her to stand for truth. To do the right thing, even if it cost her everything.
Which it had.
Though if she’d kept her head down and never testified, then she would never have met Noah. They’d never have had that...moment. What a tragedy that would’ve been. She’d take the good with the bad any day, even though the bad had been so hard. Still was. Not much she could do about that.
“I should go and see if Noah and the deputy are done talking.”
Maybe they would make a plan. Maybe it would be good, and it would work. This, however, would be much more efficient.
No loss of life.
Except hers.
“I don’t think you should—”
Amy hadn’t lied yet, and she wasn’t going to start doing it now. “It’s okay.” She held the nurse’s gaze for a second, not sure what else to say that wasn’t going to make it completely obvious what she was about to do.
The nurse started to object.
Amy strode into the hall, right into view of the front doors. She heard a shuffle behind her, but kept going. Walking fast made her arm hurt.
The nurse yelled, “Deputy Marshal Trent!”
Amy ran for the front door, shoved at the handle and was hit by a wall of cold January air. And a man.
She collided with his chest. Looked up at his face, and swallowed a gasp.
Her brother.
TWELVE
Noah ran into the hallway as soon as he heard the shout. The front door swung shut. She’d done it. She was outside, in the clutches of men who wanted to kill her.
He turned back to the deputy, who was already climbing out of the bed. He started to ask the guy if he had command of everything they’d just discussed.
Before he could say anything, the deputy waved him off. “Go. I’ve got this.”
Noah didn’t like it. The guy was seriously pale, and probably shouldn’t even be out of bed. He’d have disagreed if he had any other option. Or if he wouldn’t have said and done exactly the same thing.
There was no time.
No other way.
Noah ran to the front doors and shoved his way outside. The group was over by a collection of vehicles that had probably shown up like a convoy. Several turned when they heard his approach. He didn’t pull his own weapon, considering the lack of bullets. The cartel guy’s gun he’d left with the sheriff’s deputy so the man wasn’t unarmed.
Amy.
She looked over from beside a car, sandwiched between the frame and her brother. As though he was just about to shove her inside.
Noah picked up speed and barreled right toward them. He wasn’t exactly sure what he would do when he reached her brother. What mattered was that he did everything he could.
Two men came up from the sides. Noah collided with both, going down in a tangle of grunts and limbs. A gun barrel glanced off his ribs. Pain screamed through his arm where he’d been grazed and stitched.
Amy screamed.
Noah fought as hard as he could with one good arm and—what amounted to—a half. That was about all he had to draw on. Brute force and cunning. The will to do his job and protect Amy. These guys were wily, though. They fought dirty.
One kicked Noah’s thigh. White-hot pain sparked and his entire leg numbed like a flash—a light being switched off.
He cried out.
“No!” Amy yelled.
Would she have screamed his name? Had she started, then made it come out as, “No,” so her brother never realized who he was to her? That there was something between them. That they cared for each other.
He wanted to believe that. Tried to, even while the blows rained down on him. Kicks. Punches. He grabbed a boot and tossed the guy back. He just hopped a couple of steps, then slammed that same boot into Noah’s arm.
He cried out again. Right on his wound. The guy couldn’t have landed that more perfectly if he’d known exactly where the stitches were.
He gritted his teeth. Tasted blood in his mouth. Gasped a couple of breaths and tried to get a handle on what was happening. Overpowered. But he wasn’t out, despite being down for the count.
“Stop it!” Amy’s voice rang in his ears. High. Desperate. He’d never intended her to sound like that. To feel all those emotions for him so strongly she screamed with it.
Noah should never have let her fall for him.
His emotions were what they were, and he wasn’t going to allow himself to regret kissing her. Today or the moment when they’d almost kissed a year ago. Both had been the best days of his life. Despite the rest of it. Or maybe especially because of the time spent together, considering the affection was like a flash of warmth in the middle of the worst storm.
“Enough.”
The men backed off. Noah didn’t move. He just lay there on the frozen concrete and waited.
One of the men said, “Want me to kill him?”
The cartel wouldn’t care that he was a marshal. In fact, that might make them more inclined to kill him. He would be a trophy. A prize worth boasting about. Killing a marshal just for sport.
Either way, he’d done everything he could. The deputy would take point when the marshals and whoever else showed up. They would come and find Noah, and Amy. Or what was left of them. It was all a waiting game until then. Buying time and trying to stay alive.
He heard Amy whimper, but didn’t look at her. He couldn’t meet her gaze or he would probably lose it, as well. The last thing he needed was for these guys to see him cry over her.
“Bring him with us.”
Noah’s entire body hurt. They hauled him to his feet and he could barely stand. He locked his knees. Tasted blood in his mouth. He was pretty sure his nose was dripping blood, too.
He locked gazes with Amy then. Saw the tear roll down her face. Noah wanted to reassure her, to tell her that everything was going to be fine. Instead, he was shoved toward a different truck.
He watched her forced into a car by her brother, who got in the back with her. What would he say to her? Noah wouldn’t know until they got where they were going. He had to pray they would be taken to the same place. That he wouldn’t just be driven out into the snow in the middle of nowhere and left to die in the dark and cold of tonight.
Fear was like the wind, rolling in and touching everything as it moved on its journey. Leaving nothing unaffected.
Noah stumbled. No one caught him.
“Move.”
They took him to an SUV and shoved him toward the open back door. One of the men laughed. Noah tried to look at him, but his vision got all blurry.
At the last second he was struck from behind. Blackness rushed up from the ground to swallow him in a blanket of unconsciousness. At least there wasn’t any pain.
* * *
Amy hadn’t realized how much her brother would remind her of Anthony. The loss of her nephew from her life hurt. Probably more than anything else she’d suffered.
Jeremiah
thought he was dead.
Anthony was a vulnerability for all of them. A good part of the reason Jeremiah had come after her. Her reason for testifying, even if her nephew hadn’t agreed. A minor under the protection of Witness Security. While she was here, forced to face down her brother. Exactly the way it should be.
So why did she feel like this?
She glanced over her shoulder at those men loading Noah into their vehicle. “What are they going to do with him?”
Fear for Anthony had rolled through her. Now she was full of fear for Noah, as well.
Jeremiah shifted in his seat. “You don’t need to worry about that, considering what’s going to happen to you.” His voice was like road rash. Like scraping your skin on gravel.
If he thought she was going down without a fight, he was going to be sorry. Amy might have tried to give herself up to save everyone else, but that didn’t mean standing down. Noah clearly hadn’t agreed with her. But what else could she have done?
She studied her brother’s profile as the guy in the front seat drove. She would like to have said that he was so different now from the brother she’d known, but Amy didn’t think that was true. He’d always had that hard edge to him. A slice of something wild.
“I don’t care what you do to me.” She spoke to his profile. “But I don’t want you to hurt Noah. He’s a marshal. It’s only going to bring down a world of hurt on you and your associates.”
The man in the passenger seat, one of the cartel guys, twisted around. “You think we care he’s a fed? We kill guys like him just for fun.”
She kept her attention on Jeremiah and watched for his reaction. Maybe it was fruitless to expect something from him. That after all he’d done, there might be a shred of humanity inside him. But no.
His gaze caught the passenger’s and she saw the curl of his lips. Her brother didn’t care at all. He would have Noah killed, and he wouldn’t care at all.
“That’s it?” She didn’t know what she was expecting, but the words came out, anyway. “After everything you’ve done, you’re not even going to apologize. You’re just going to ruin my life again?”
“Ruin your life?” The words were snarled at her. A flash of white teeth in the dark of the car. “You’re the one who put me in prison.”
“Because you broke the law, and you were going to destroy your family.”
“Anthony is dead because of you.”
In a way, Amy figured, that was true. On paper, Anthony was dead. Because of her? Yes, because she’d taken the necessary steps to adequately protect him from his father. By having them declare his son dead.
“You think I don’t wish I’d gone with him?”
He scoffed. “You should have.”
Then they would both be “dead.” At least as far as Jeremiah was concerned. They might be talking about two different sets of circumstances, but they were on the same page. She would rather be with Anthony than here with his father.
Though only as long as she could also still see Noah.
God. She wanted to cry out to her Father in Heaven. To finally admit the truth. She didn’t want this life. She wanted to live a life where she had Noah and Anthony, but she’d been too scared to ask for it. Until now. There was nothing else for her to lose. Finally she had nothing but God’s will. And she was going to ask for everything. Her nephew. The man she loved.
She wanted all of it.
For too long she’d been scared to ask, for fear it wouldn’t be His will for her to have all the things she wanted.
I’m asking now. Please help me get out of this. Save Noah. Help me fix things with Anthony.
She’d been living half a life for so long. Scared. Alone. Getting by with the bare minimum. No roots. No relationships. Now she knew what she wanted, and there was nothing to lose by asking.
“What’s done is done.” She lifted her chin. “If I die, then I’ll do it knowing I did the right thing for my family.”
“You killed my son.”
It hurt to hear those words. To know her brother believed them. Part of her still loved him. She probably always would, considering he was her brother.
The car pulled up at an out-of-the-way house. Ranch and barn. Additional structures. Too many people, pretty much all of them armed. Like walking onto an enemy base.
Jeremiah got out. Then he leaned in, grabbed her arm and dragged her from the car.
“You’re really going to do this.”
“You’re the one who did this.” He walked her toward the barn. “Just remember that.”
She nearly stumbled. Maybe she should kick and scream. But what was the point? They were going to kill her no matter what.
She spun around, her heart winning out over everything else. She screamed, “Noah!” as loud as she could.
Jeremiah shoved her inside the barn. He shut the door and she had to listen to his laughter as he moved away and she just stood there in the dark.
Listening for the gunshot that meant the end of Noah’s life.
THIRTEEN
He’d heard her scream. The sound clenched his heart, right before it tore at it. Threatened to break it right down the middle. Amy. He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and fight off the tears for her. Noah couldn’t. Men like these didn’t understand emotion. And they for sure didn’t understand weakness like that.
They felt nothing.
It was kill or be killed in this world. And Jeremiah Sanders was not the king. That was clear enough when he turned from the barn door and walked to the suited cartel number two. Received his orders. Looked at Noah.
He stood his ground, unflinching under Jeremiah’s and his boss’s stares. Who cared what they thought? Or what they were going to do with him. Noah needed Amy to live until the marshals showed up. That was all.
How long would it be?
He couldn’t think about that. It would lead to a spiral that would suck him down into a depression. His feelings for her never realized. What could be would never come to fruition.
No. It was best to simply hope for the next five minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour.
Beyond that, it was up to God.
Please.
The cartel number two said something. Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed. A quick nod, then he walked to Noah and spoke to the man beside him. “Take him out back. Get rid of everything.”
“Copy that.” The man’s voice was like gravel crunched under tires. He jabbed the barrel of a gun into Noah’s kidney. “Move.”
Noah started walking.
He glanced over his shoulder in time to see the cartel number two call Jeremiah back over. They had some kind of business, probably involving Amy. Noah was just in the way—the fed they needed to get rid of quickly so they could get this done.
There were at least twelve foot soldiers that he could see. Hopefully the marshals would bring more men than that. Between an escaped federal prisoner and the possibility of apprehending one of the FBI’s most wanted—the number two cartel boss—he figured they would bring an army.
Don’t let her get caught in the cross fire, Lord. Protect her. Protect me.
Give us a future.
The barrel jabbed him again. “Left.”
Noah rounded the building. He walked out back to his death, his teeth gritted. The second he could make a move, he was going to. He couldn’t fight an army, but he could start with this guy.
Should’ve tied me up.
They thought they had the upper hand, because they had weapons and he didn’t. Noah took a couple more steps. Scanned the area.
No one was around.
He feinted right, shifted left. Dipped his head at the same time he turned. Probably looked like a great dance move, but there was no time to consider that now. He shoved the barrel of the rifle aside with the flat of his hand and tackled the guy.
He
could pick the whole thing apart when he reenacted it for Amy’s amusement. Because they’d be laughing about this later, right?
Ouch.
Enough trying to distract himself. They landed on the ground, the gunman on his back. Noah used the momentum to shove the rifle up far enough to hit the guy in the face with it.
Out cold.
Noah grabbed the gun and stood. Checked it. Blew out a breath. Adrenaline spiked in his blood, making his head swim and dulling the pain in his arm. He would pay for it later, but right now all the pain was pushed aside in favor of going after Amy. His job was to protect her, and that was exactly what he was going to do.
Two short high notes of a whistle sounded from the trees. Noah turned. The sight of armed, uniformed men emerging made him lower the barrel of the rifle.
He tried to pick out men he recognized, or someone in charge. They just kept coming. And coming. Armed men. SWAT gear. State police guys in uniform, vests on. All of them were out of breath.
Finally he saw someone he knew. “Withers.”
His boss lifted his chin. “This is Lieutenant Barnes.”
Noah nodded. “How did you know where we were?”
“Confluence of so many heat signatures,” Barnes said. “Got your witness?”
That stung. No, he didn’t have her. Not yet, anyway. Noah had to point to the barn. “In there.”
The first man lifted two fingers and motioned them forward, each one staying out of sight of the gunmen.
Guess it’s go-time, then.
Noah needed to get Amy back. That was his priority. The rest of them could deal with the cartel’s army.
He let the SWAT guys—probably FBI armed response—go first. After all, they wore helmets and protective gear he didn’t have, and suspect takedown was their job.
Noah watched as they engaged the cartel guys, staying out of sight. He had his shoulder against the barn wall. The same building Amy was in. He looked for a window.
A back door? He needed a way inside that didn’t put him in the line of fire trying to get to her through the front. He didn’t care about getting injured, but he also couldn’t save her if he was dead.
Colorado Manhunt Page 8