There was no mistaking that the woman still loved Alanna like a daughter. It was equally obvious that she felt deeply betrayed and probably blamed Alanna for the years she’d spent in jail, maybe even for her husband’s death. Peter could imagine things going shockingly well, that he might turn back and see Alanna ushering out two relieved kids and a sobbing Darcy. Or he might hear a series of shotgun blasts and then Darcy fleeing for safety alone.
Right now he had to trust that Alanna was right. That the love Darcy still felt for her was stronger than the hate. That the education in psychology Alanna had earned and her experience working with vulnerable people would have taught her how to navigate such a volatile situation. One thing he did know: Darcy hadn’t fired that shotgun at him before because Alanna had called him her friend. If he burst through that cabin door as an officer, Darcy would shoot.
Alanna had a chance. But his teammates didn’t. No way could Chance dig all of them out alone before someone suffocated.
Peter holstered his gun, grabbing his shovel and dialing his phone as he ran. “Chief,” he huffed when Chief Hernandez answered, “I need help out here fast. Avalanche.” He didn’t wait for her response, just tucked his phone back in his pocket and started digging beside Chance.
The big dog had already uncovered the legs of an officer who was facedown. “Good boy, Chance,” said Peter. The dog gave a quick bark, then left Peter to finish digging the man out. He bounded a few feet over and started digging again, his big paws sending snow flying, his strong nose right on target as another pair of boots appeared.
“Come on,” Peter muttered, trading the shovel for his thinly gloved hands as he got close to the man’s face. The fact that he hadn’t moved the whole time Peter and Chance had been digging him out was a bad sign, but as Peter swept snow off the back of his head, he suddenly groaned and rolled partway over.
Charlie Quinn was a longtime member of the force, someone Peter had overheard more than once complaining about working with “the pity-hire who can’t hear.” But when Peter had asked for backup, he’d shown up without complaint.
“You okay?” Peter asked, helping him to a sitting position.
Charlie put a shaky hand to his head, nodding.
“More help is coming,” Peter told him, leaving him there so he could go dig out the next officer Chance had found.
As soon as Peter got there, Chance gave him an encouraging woof and was off again, sniffing his way to a new spot.
“You’re amazing,” Peter breathed as he paused a second to watch the St. Bernard. Then he looked back at the partly uncovered officer in front of him and went to work. His hands, arms, and even his face stung as he shoveled snow aside and the cold seeped into him. Finally, he shoved enough snow away to identify the officer.
This wasn’t Tate either, but Nate Dreymond. He was the second-newest officer on the force, a twenty-year-old who’d been hired six months before Peter. He was already moving around, flailing and trying to get free of the snow.
“I’ve got you,” Peter said, dropping the shovel and pushing a heavy pile of snow off the young officer, who broke free of the rest covering him so fast and hard that he knocked Peter over.
Nate was gasping, tears and snot mixed with the snow he was raking off his face with bare fingers so pale Peter knew he couldn’t feel them.
“Be careful,” Peter said, pulling Nate’s hands free to reveal he’d scraped up his own face. “Go over there.” He pointed toward Charlie. “Help get him into my truck. The heat is on.”
As Nate stumbled that way, unsteady on his feet, Peter warned, “There might still be an armed fugitive in the cabin.”
Nate didn’t show any sign of hearing him, but Charlie looked up sharply, his hand already on the butt of his pistol. He nodded confidently at Peter, pushing to his feet with a grunt. Then the two of them were leaning on each other and moving toward the truck.
Peter spun away from them again, trudging after Chance, the snow up way past the top of his boots now. He was soaked almost to his hips, the cold making him shiver violently. Ignoring it, he took over from Chance’s latest dig and the dog was off again, toward an area of snow that was moving, someone clearly fighting to get free.
Yet again, the man Peter finished digging out wasn’t Tate. It was Lorenzo Riera, another veteran. As soon as he was freed enough from the snow to speak, he demanded, “Rook?” It was his nickname for Nate, who was his partner.
“He’s okay,” Peter assured him, glancing over at where Chance was digging away, praying his own partner was under there. How many officers had come to back him up today? How many were hurt right now because of a decision he’d made?
“Peter!”
Peter glanced back as a police SUV screeched to a halt at the edge of the woods, windows down and Chief Hernandez steering one-handed as she leaned partway out the window. The fact that she’d gotten here so fast meant she must have already been out somewhere on the edges of Desparre on a call.
“Status!” she demanded.
“We’ve got three dug out,” Peter called back. “Not sure how many more officers were out here. Presumably Darcy Altier is still in the cabin, armed, with the kids and now Alanna.”
The chief was scowling as she slammed the SUV door shut. She had her weapon out of the holster before the door was closed and she nodded at the two officers who stepped out of the back of the vehicle, both in bulletproof vests and helmets.
“Luna police are sending backup. The state police sniper and hostage negotiator are both on another call. We’re going to have to breach.”
“No!” Peter took two steps toward her, then glanced back at Chance, still digging.
The big dog looked over at him once, let out a long howl, then went back to work.
“Just wait,” Peter begged Chief Hernandez. “Give Alanna a chance.”
As he pivoted toward Chance and whoever was still buried in the snow, Lorenzo stumbled over next to him to help.
“It’s just Tate left. That must be him.”
Peter fell to his knees next to Chance, not even bothering to run back for the shovel he’d dropped. He started digging with his hands, shoving snow away from Tate, who’d been moving before but wasn’t any longer.
When an arm fell free, Peter tugged on it, trying to pull Tate out of the snow. His head appeared and while Lorenzo and Chance continued to dig around the rest of him, Peter cleared snow off his face.
Tate looked abnormally pale and his lips had a bluish tinge, but when Peter leaned close to listen for his breathing, Tate gasped in a large breath. Lorenzo cleared a big chunk of snow off his back and Peter helped pull Tate to his feet.
“We should have stayed on the road instead of hiding in the woods,” Tate choked out, which made Lorenzo let out a relieved laugh.
Peter threw his arms around his friend, hugging him tight. Then he dropped to his knees and hugged Chance. “Good boy,” he whispered, and got a big, slobbery kiss on the cheek in return.
Standing, he told Tate, “Now we need to get Alanna out of that cabin safely.”
The look on his partner’s face—one of dread and sorrow—made him spin to face the cabin.
Sam Jennings and Max Becker—the two officers who’d arrived in vests with the chief—were breaching the front door of the cabin, sending it right off the hinges with a powerful blow from a battering ram.
Peter’s “wait!” was lost beneath the boom of the flash-bang tossed through the threshold. As white light exploded behind the curtained windows, the two officers rushed inside.
Even though he knew it was too late, Peter started running. His heart pounded harder than it had for his first raid. Every freezing-cold intake of breath seemed to seize his lungs.
A flash-bang was disorienting—basically a stun grenade that rendered your eyes and ears useless. When used on civilians, they dropped their weapons to cover thei
r eyes or ears. By the time they figured out what was happening, they were being shoved to the ground by tactical officers.
But the Desparre police force rarely used them, and they didn’t have a tactical unit. All they had were regular officers who received special tactical and weapons training each month in case an emergency unraveled too quickly to wait for state police or the FBI. Five years in war zones had taught Peter that sometimes it didn’t matter what weapons or tactics were used. With a determined-enough opponent, impossible odds suddenly became possible.
He didn’t know a lot about Darcy Altier beyond what he’d read and what Alanna had told him. But he’d witnessed her state of mind. She was volatile, desperate, prone to big swings of emotion. And right now she had three hostages who might be between her and the officers who’d rushed inside blind.
Chief Hernandez was moving, arms spread wide, to block him from rushing into the house. Peter paused, unsure whether to race around her or run right through her.
Then Sam and Max emerged from the cabin, looking grim and shaking their heads.
Peter choked on the sudden emotion that rushed up his throat, then he was pushing the chief aside and running into the cabin.
He waved his hands around to clear the smoke, expecting to see all of them—Alanna, Darcy and the two kids—dead on the floor. But there was nothing but an abandoned shotgun on the floor.
He glanced around, wondering if he’d missed another room, but there were no doors except the open one leading out the back. Darcy and the kids were gone.
So was Alanna.
CHAPTER TEN
“Follow their footsteps,” Chief Hernandez ordered, already out in front with her weapon raised.
Peter hurried up beside her, insisting, “We need to be careful. We have to assume Darcy is holding the kids. She dropped the shotgun, but she still has a pistol. Alanna is probably trying to talk her down.”
Chief Hernandez gave him a look full of disappointment and disbelief, then motioned for Sam and Max to catch up.
They were tracking two fresh sets of footsteps that led away from the back door of the cabin, with stride distances that indicated the people who made them had been running. The tracks led through the woods in the opposite direction of where the officers had been buried under snow. Back in the direction of downtown Luna. But before that, they would hit a road that might take them toward Desparre or farther north into even more remote parts of the state.
There’d been no vehicle in the driveway, no garage. Had Darcy hidden it at the edge of the woods, near the road, so the cabin would look deserted? That was logical.
Peter put on a burst of speed, panting with exertion that would make his gun hand shake if he caught up to Darcy and she swung her pistol his way. He passed Chief Hernandez, Sam and Max, ignoring his boss’s curse and shout to wait. If they hadn’t already left, if Alanna was with them, Peter wanted to reach them first.
Darting around trees, Peter’s gaze shifted back and forth from the footsteps in the snow to the area in front of him, hoping he wouldn’t misjudge a step, run right into a tree and knock himself out. He slowed as the road became visible and then skidded to a stop at its edge, where the footsteps ended and deep tire indents marked the spot where a vehicle had once sat.
They were gone.
A big chunk of snow fell off a tree overhead onto his head, sliding down his face and inside the back of his coat. He wiped it away just as the chief caught up to him.
“This was a total disaster.” Holstering her weapon, Chief Hernandez got in his face—not an easy task, since she was a good four inches shorter.
Still, Peter straightened and clamped his jaw shut. He knew better than to piss off the chief—at least any more than he already had.
“When I tell you to wait, you wait.” She poked a finger at his chest, fury in her gaze. “You’re my responsibility, Robak. We’re not a big police force, but we’re a team. If you want to be part of it, you need to act like it.”
She strode past him, heading down the road back toward the cabin. Sam and Max followed her. Sam gave him an apologetic glance; Max ignored him entirely.
Peter’s shoulders slumped and a shiver racked his body as the cold and exhaustion hit. His jeans and gloves were completely soaked through and the snow that had dripped down the back of his coat was uncomfortable. He looked once more down the road, then followed his fellow officers.
Had Alanna chosen to get in that vehicle with Darcy? Or had she been forced inside?
He frowned as he glanced at the ground in front of him. Was that an extra set of footprints he was seeing? Had someone else come back this way? Had Alanna chased Darcy, been unable to catch her before she took off in her vehicle, then returned to the cabin?
He hurried to catch up to Chief Hernandez Sam, and Max, noticed them frowning at the extra footprints, too. The chief even had her weapon out again.
The walk back to the cabin didn’t take long—it was a straight line compared to the curved, roundabout route through the woods. But the frigid wind picked up and made him shiver harder, made it seem much farther than it really was. When they finally arrived, Tate was shivering by the road. Chance stood next to him, pressed up against his side as if trying to warm him.
“Did Alanna come back this way?” Peter asked. “And why are you out here? Why didn’t you warm up in my truck?” Peter glanced around, realized it wasn’t there and asked, “Did some of the officers take it back? Is everyone okay?” Was Alanna okay? Where was she?
“Everyone’s fine,” Tate said, his teeth actually chattering. “But it’s not us who took the truck.”
“What do you mean?”
“Apparently, while you were still digging me out and the chief was busy watching the front of the cabin, Alanna ran back from the road and took it.”
Peter frowned, realizing that Darcy had been gone long before they’d tried to track her through the woods. That meant Alanna had been climbing into his truck instead of running into the snow to help him pull out Tate.
Tate shivered harder, wrapping his arms around himself. “Nate and Charlie said she was alone. I guess they thought it was okay, since she’d been on your side the last time they saw her.”
“She’s still on my side,” Peter said, although suddenly, he wasn’t sure.
Chief Hernandez shook her head and holstered her weapon, heading past them toward her vehicle. Sam and Max followed.
Peter just continued to stare at his partner, trying to understand. Why would Alanna come back here but not wait for him? Why would she take his truck but not explain herself to any of the officers?
At least she was okay. She wasn’t a hostage. She wasn’t dead.
But if she’d taken his truck, she was trying to chase Darcy down alone.
“We need to catch up to her,” he told Tate. “She could be in trouble.”
“Right now, we all need to warm up and change or we won’t be good for anything.” Tate stroked Chance’s head with hands that shook. “Since Alanna took off, maybe we can make Chance here our K-9 representative.”
Tate had been trying to convince the chief they needed a K-9 unit for as long as Peter had known him. The chief had always countered that the department barely had enough money to pay for officers and their training, let alone add dogs to the mix. Maybe today would change her mind.
Chance looked up at Tate, then over at Peter, as if asking where Alanna was.
“We’ll find her, boy,” Peter told him.
“Robak! Emory! Get over here,” the chief called from inside her SUV. The rest of the officers were already crammed inside. “I’m driving you to the spot the other vehicles were hidden before this unsuccessful raid.”
Peter felt himself jerk at the term raid. The plan had been for the other officers to be backup, in case things went south. Not for them to jump into action from the outset. Hadn’t it?
He glanced sideways at Tate, wondering if anyone else had noticed the slipup. Or if his partner would look guilty for hiding the true nature of their “help.” But Tate was just striding toward the SUV, looking miserable.
Still, his fellow officers had hidden in the woods. They’d obviously waited while Peter and Alanna tried to talk Darcy down. Maybe a raid had been a last resort if the negotiation soured. Or maybe they would have run straight in if it had been clear they could get to the kids safely.
“No one who was in the avalanche is driving.” The chief looked Peter over as he, Tate and Chance joined her, then added, “Not you, either, Robak.”
He took her point. Everyone who’d been buried in the snow—and him, since he’d been hip-deep in it, digging men out—were soaked and freezing. Although all he felt was miserably cold, the rest of the team might have had their core temperatures drop enough to make driving dangerous.
Last night, even after waiting until they’d warmed up some, Alanna had still been violently shaking as she’d navigated those mountain roads. Thinking about her made him anxious to get moving and he yanked open the back door.
Tate’s eyebrows raised as they saw how crowded it already was. “I don’t think we’re getting two more men and a St. Bernard in there. Why don’t you come back for us?”
The chief scowled at him, then the back seat, then finally nodded. “We’ll be fast. The vehicles are less than a mile away. I want everyone who was in the avalanche checked out at the hospital.”
When most of the officers grumbled, she snapped, “No arguments.” Then the back door was slammed shut and the SUV was off, kicking up snow.
“Were you planning to surround me, Darcy and Alanna no matter what?” Peter demanded as soon as they were alone.
Tate turned to him, his lips still tinged blue, his face still too pale. “Are you kidding? Look what just happened here, man. Your backup hid and waited for your signal. Did you even see us out there?”
When Peter shook his head, Tate continued. “Yet somehow, Darcy knew. How do you think that happened?”
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