Manhunt in the Wild West

by Jessica Andersen

  The bad news was that she’d all but confessed it to Seth on the ride over. Guilt stung at the suspicion that she should’ve kept her mouth shut, as she’d promised Fax she would. She trusted Seth not to say or do anything that’d get her in trouble unless he thought it was absolutely necessary, but she suspected there might be a pretty big difference between Seth’s idea of “absolutely necessary” and her own.

  She had to face it, she was no good at this spy stuff. She’d caved under the first real pressure she’d experienced. But then again, why should she have expected anything different? This wasn’t a game, wasn’t an adventure or a story. This was real life and death, a threat to her career, her own safety and that of the people she loved.

  Of course she’d caved. She was a wimp.

  “Do you need to take a break and get some coffee or something?” the IAD investigator said dryly, warning Chelsea that she’d zoned out on him mid-question. For all she knew, she’d been snoring.

  “Sorry.” She smothered a yawn. “I haven’t been sleeping well.” For a variety of reasons, none of which she intended to share with IAD.

  Aside from her somewhat dented loyalty to Fax—and her belief that Seth was going to do right by what she’d told him—there was no way she was putting Sara and the ME’s office any further under the political crosshairs than it already was. She might be playing fast and loose with the career that had once been her life, but she wasn’t going to do the same with her friends’ jobs.

  “So,” Sampson prompted, “you were describing the van ride after your abduction.”

  He was a long, lean stretch of a man, with wide-palmed hands that fit with the rumor that he’d gone to college on a basketball scholarship and was headed in the direction of the NBA when a knee injury had ended the dream. His mid-brown hair was finger-tousled and in need of a trim, and his pleasant, regular features would’ve passed for attractive if it hadn’t been for his eyes, which were a very pale hazel and seemed to stare straight through whoever he was looking at.

  The effect was off-putting in the extreme. Add to that the few details Chelsea knew about the end of his and Sara’s short-lived affair, plus the power he wielded through IAD, and he was downright intimidating.

  At least he would’ve been, she realized, if she hadn’t spent the past few days learning out of necessity how to stand up to Fax, who was just as intimidating and wasn’t bound by the PD’s code of conduct. Where Romo Sampson was civilized in his pressure, Fax was anything but.

  “I’ve told you everything I remember,” Chelsea said to Sampson now. “Twice. I’m not sure how going through it a third time is going to help.”

  Sampson stared at her for a long, considering moment. Then he glanced down at his notes and muttered something under his breath.

  Fax did the same thing when he was annoyed with her, she realized, and couldn’t help the warm little bubble that rose in her chest at the thought she was learning to recognize his mannerisms. She was trying not to count the hours until dark, until she figured there was a very good chance he’d sneak through her back door to see her.

  And hello, she acknowledged inwardly, she had it bad. She was in full-blown crush mode for Jonah Fairfax—undercover, here-today-gone-tomorrow agent who needed her for her connections and maybe wanted her for her body, and that was it.

  She’d accidentally become a Bond girl, and everybody knew they never got their man.

  “Are we done here?” she blurted, interrupting Sampson mid-question.

  Surprise flashed in his pale hazel eyes, followed by irritation. “We’re not even close to done, and your boss assured me that you’d be cooperative.”

  “We both know Sara said nothing of the sort,” she said, fixing him with a look that warned him she knew at least some of what had happened between him and her friend.

  He scowled. “I was referring to Mayor Proudfoot.”

  Ouch. Chelsea winced at the direct hit, but the score didn’t stop her from pushing back her chair and rising. “Look, can you honestly say I haven’t cooperated? I’ve answered all your questions, haven’t I?”

  “To a point,” he conceded. “But you’re not telling everything, are you? Which leads me to ask myself who you’re trying to protect. Is it Sara or someone else?” He leaned forward. “How well did you actually know Rickey Charles?”

  She met his cool-eyed stare. “You’re on the wrong track, Sampson.”

  “So put me on the right track.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” She gathered her coat and bag. “You know where to find me, but don’t bother unless you have something new to ask me.”

  Knowing she was skirting, if not actually crossing, the line career-wise, she left without waiting for his answer. Fuming, but trying not to be afraid, she headed back to the ME’s office where she hoped she could find some sanity in the familiar routine of doing her job.

  The bodies of the dead didn’t give up their secrets easily, but at the same time, they didn’t play games, not really. In contrast, she couldn’t help feeling as though she’d inadvertently gotten caught up in far more contests than she’d intended to, or even been aware of. For a small person who’d always had a relatively minor impact on her corner of the world, she was suddenly playing bit parts in more dramas than she’d realized at first.

  Al-Jihad and his men had used her and discarded her, thinking her dead. Fax had rescued her so he could use her to gain access to information, and as an ally, albeit one of fairly limited means. She suspected Tucker’s appearance at her hospital bedside and Seth’s offer of a ride that morning were more than friendly support, which suggested they knew there was something going on with her. Enter Romo Sampson, who was sure of it, but wasn’t sure who was involved or how, and was convinced that Chelsea knew both. Add to that Sara, who was fighting for her department and had been subtly pressuring Chelsea to play along and not make political waves, little realizing that such a hope had long since been dashed.

  On the outskirts of all that were other dramas, other bit players, like Jerry and his ski-bunny girlfriend; Rickey Charles, who’d been a snake, but hadn’t deserved to die; and the four guards who’d been killed during the jailbreak.

  So many people’s lives were already intertwined, so many lives already lost. How many more names would be added if Fax was unable to root out the terrorist conspirators he was searching for?

  Thousands, Chelsea thought, and it was enough to send her stomach up into her throat. Or maybe it’d been there for a while now, she realized, feeling nausea like an old friend, along with the relentless pound of a stress headache.

  She was so far out of her element, she couldn’t even see her normal life anymore. Which was why, when she reached the ME’s office, she didn’t go to her desk, but instead poked her head through her boss’s door. “Can you cover me for the day?”

  Sara looked up, her expression immediately going concerned. “Are you okay?”

  “Tired, mostly,” Chelsea hedged, then before Sara could ask anything else, she said, “I just got finished with Sampson.”

  “Him!” The word was an explosion of pent-up breath. Sara scowled. “Like there aren’t enough criminals in the city that we need to go looking inside our own ranks for them? If I—” She broke off, pressing her lips together in a thin line of annoyance. “Sorry. You don’t need to hear this right now.”

  “I just want to lie down for a while.”

  “You’re okay to get home?”

  “I’m all set,” Chelsea said, letting her friend assume Seth was making the return trip, even though she was planning on catching a ride with her surveillance team. She loved her friends, and depended on them. Sometimes, though, she just needed the space inside her own head.

  “Then go.” Sara shooed her out the door. “Tomorrow’s Saturday anyway, and I’ll keep you off call. I may need you Sunday evening though, depending. The parade’s going to bring out the crazies, and you know what that means.”

  “Busy day,” Chelsea answer
ed wanly, nodding. “I’ll be here.” But the parade, which had been something she’d been looking forward to only days earlier, paled when she thought about Fax and the terrorist threat to attack on—

  She froze, making the connection, wondering if Fax knew about the parade yet.

  “Chelsea?” Sara said. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve got to go.” Mind racing, Chelsea rushed out of the office and found her assigned officers, and tried very, very hard not to look like a crazy person as she asked them to take her home, saying that she wasn’t feeling well and needed some downtime.

  She wasn’t even sure why she felt like she had to hurry—Fax probably wouldn’t be there until after dark either way, and she had no means to contact him and tell him to come sooner. But it suddenly seemed very important for her to be inside her own space, where he would look for her first.

  When the officer pulled the cruiser up into her driveway, she would’ve been the first one out if she’d had a door handle in the backseat. As it was, she had to wait for the driver to let her out, and had to stay behind him as his partner checked the house. Once he’d given the all clear, she headed for her house, for her sanctuary.

  She was halfway there when a shot rang out and the officer beside her crumpled and went to his knees, fumbling for his weapon.

  The other cop shoved her aside and down, and went for his gun, but a second shot dropped him where he stood. Screaming, Chelsea huddled between the two of them, exposed but unable to make herself leave the fallen men.

  She pressed frantically on the entrance wound in the first cop’s chest while tears ran down her face and she tried to get as flat on the ground as she possibly could, knowing there had to be a third shot on the way, this one aimed at her.

  Get up and run! her inner wuss screamed. Get out of here! But her medical training screamed louder, telling her to get in there, stay in there, keep her patients stabilized until help arrived.

  Then it did.

  “Goddamn it, get out of the line of fire!” Fax appeared out of nowhere, in the daylight on her front lawn, running for all he was worth, his eyes wild, his wrists lacerated and covered with blood.

  He grabbed her and yanked her away from her patients just as shot number three whistled past them and nailed the corner of her house.

  “No! They’ll die!” She yanked away and reached back for the cops, who were bleeding out in her yard.

  “So will you.” Fax cursed, got her around the waist and slung her up and over his shoulder. Then he was running for the cops’ cruiser, dumping her in the driver’s side and shoving her over to make room.

  He slammed the door, cranked the transmission and hit the gas, and they shot out of her driveway in reverse.

  She lay sprawled across the bench seat, staring at her hands, which were covered in the blood of men who might not be dead yet, but would be very soon.

  “Strap in,” Fax ordered grimly, scooting her over to the passenger’s side as he sped along the residential streets of the Bear Claw suburbs. “This is going to get bumpy.”

  “What?” she asked dumbly. “Why?”

  He jerked his chin over his shoulder. “We’ve got company.”

  Gaping, still in shock, Chelsea looked out the back of the stolen police cruiser. Sure enough, there was a dark SUV right on their bumper.

  “Down!” Fax grabbed her and dragged her head onto his lap.

  Seconds later, the men in the car behind them opened fire.

  Chapter Seven

  Cursing a steady stream under his breath, Fax yanked the steering wheel and sent the cruiser into a controlled skid, angling them away from the gunfire as best he could while he searched frantically for an escape route.

  Seeing a narrow one-lane road that claimed to lead to the highway, he thought he had it.

  “Hang on!” he said to Chelsea. She braced her feet against the dash and got her seat belt on just as he overshot the turn and spun back in a cloud of burning rubber. The cruiser caromed off the curb and a street sign, and lunged onto the narrow road, where it stalled.

  The dark SUV overshot, skidded, and flew into a ditch on the other side of the main road.

  At Fax’s shout of triumph, Chelsea straightened and looked back. Instead of whooping, she shoved at his shoulder. “Get us out of here!”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He cranked the engine, hit the gas and sent the cruiser hurtling along the narrow road he’d chosen, which soon opened up to a commercial district and the highway.

  Once they were on the open road, he took a long look at her, reassuring himself that the blood staining her hands and clothes had come from the cops, not her. When she looked up and their eyes met, he saw fear and shock, but no pain. “What happened to you?” she asked softly.

  He glanced down at his hands on the steering wheel which were streaked with blood, and his wrists, where he’d folded his sleeves up to keep them from chafing the raw marks and cuts he’d inflicted on himself while struggling to get free of his bonds. “My cover’s blown,” he said succinctly, “and they know about you.” He cursed under his breath, still not sure where he’d gone wrong. “I don’t know what happened. I thought I’d covered myself. Maybe they got something out of Jane before she died,” he mused quietly, feeling a hollow ache from knowing that Muhammad had confirmed his guess. She was gone, killed by the men he’d helped escape from prison.

  She’d been one of the strongest women he’d known—hell, one of the strongest people he’d known, male or female. She’d dragged him out of depression after Abby’s death; she’d given him a purpose, a reason to wake up in the morning. She’d taught him that sometimes it was better and more effective not to care, and she’d given him a chance to make a difference, a role where the cold, unemotional shell he’d crawled behind after Abby’s betrayal was an asset, not a liability.

  She was the only person who’d ever really accepted him as he was rather than trying to fix him. And now she was gone.

  She wouldn’t appreciate his grief, he knew, but she had it anyway.

  He was so wrapped up in those dark thoughts that it took a moment for him to realize the tense air in the cruiser had changed from fear to unease…and it wasn’t coming from him.

  “Chelsea?” he said quietly, concentrating on the road and calculating how far they could get before they’d have to pull over and switch vehicles. “What’s wrong?”

  Technically, the answer was “everything,” because nothing was right, everything was wrong. But he knew that whatever was bothering her, it was very close to the surface. She wasn’t the type to keep an important secret for long.

  Sure enough, she looked over at him, her face stricken. “It’s my fault.”

  Whatever he’d been expecting her to say, that wasn’t it. “What was your fault?” he asked carefully, not liking the suspicion that immediately came to mind.

  “Your cover being broken. My being shot at. The cops dying.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I told, Fax. That’s how they knew about us. I told.”

  Everything inside him froze to ice. “Who?”

  “Seth Varitek.” Her voice was very small.

  “The FBI agent who oversaw the autopsy with the faked records?” he said, volume inching up in disbelief. “What the—” He broke off, throttling down the surge of rage, of betrayal, burying it beneath a layer of deathly cold. “Damn it, Chelsea.”

  He said nothing more, couldn’t trust himself to say anything else on the subject, because once he started he might not be able to stop.

  They drove in silence until he pulled off the highway into a commercial zone that included gas stations and used-car lots, along with a few restaurants. He pulled in at the back of one of the restaurants, where the overflow lot was half-full of cars.

  When Chelsea glanced at him, he said tightly, “We need to ditch the car. It’ll have a GPS tracker.”

  She nodded. “I know. And, Fax—”

  “Not now,” he interrupted. “I can’t deal with this now.�
� If he tried, he might say—or do—something he’d regret in the aftermath.

  She sucked in a breath, but nodded. “I understand. You get us a car, and I’ll strip this one of anything we can use.” Glancing at him, she said, “Like a first-aid kit.”

  In other words, he wasn’t hiding his injuries as well as he’d thought. His wrists were killing him, and he didn’t want to look at his ankles, which had suffered similar abrasions and had all but stopped hurting—which he took as a potentially bad sign.

  He nodded shortly. “It’s a deal.” He climbed out of the cruiser and strode off, looking for an unremarkable vehicle to boost.

  It took him under a minute to settle on a late-nineties pickup truck with fat tires that’d work off-road and an oversize engine that ought to give it some pep across the pavement. Hopefully they wouldn’t need pep or off-road capabilities, but he’d never bet on optimism before and sure as hell wasn’t starting now.

  He’d just gotten the engine started by cracking the column and stripping and crossing the relevant wires when Chelsea climbed in the passenger’s side, carrying an armful of supplies along with her purse, which she’d managed to hang on to through the attack and subsequent flight.

  She didn’t look at him as she buckled up and pulled the door shut with a decisive thunk. “We good to go?”

  “As good as we’re going to get.”

  Fax backed the pickup out of its slot, hoping the owners didn’t look out the restaurant window to see that they’d gained a cruiser and lost a pickup. Before he turned onto the road, though, he looked back at the cruiser and felt a twinge of guilt, not about stealing the vehicle, but because he hadn’t gotten to Chelsea’s house in time to prevent the officers from being killed.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said, as though she was inside his head, following his thoughts. “It’s mine.”

  He said nothing, because there was nothing to say, and because the world was starting to go fuzzy around the edges, warning him that he either had a mild concussion on top of the cuts and bruises, or the drugs Muhammad had used on him weren’t totally clear of his system.