“We haven’t stopped praying since Sherri told us what happened.”
Cole relaxed at the news that she was there. “Thank you. I appreciate that. He should recover fine, thanks to Sherri. She was amazing last night. She refused to give up on him.”
“Yes, that’s our Sherri.”
Cole could hear the smile in her voice. “Is she up yet? May I speak to her?”
“Isn’t she with you?”
His heart lightened. “No. How long ago did she leave?”
“Leave?” Concern rippled through Mrs. Steele’s voice. “She never came home last night. She called and told us what happened. I assumed...”
“It’s okay. She must be at her apartment. I didn’t think to try there. I rode to the hospital on the ambulance and assumed she’d head back to your place after the deputies finished with her car.” But of course, she wouldn’t have wanted to drive it. Probably wouldn’t have wanted to face a night in her parents’ house after almost losing Eddie. He hated to imagine the nightmares that must’ve haunted her last night. He’d been so consumed with guilt. He hadn’t thought about how finding Eddie like that had to be eating away at her.
He scrolled through his contact list, highlighted her apartment’s home phone number and hit Connect. After five rings, it went to voicemail. “Hey, Sherri. It’s Cole. Call me as soon as you get this message. It’s important.” Please, Lord, let her just be screening her calls. But even as the prayer whispered past his lips, a chill shivered down his spine. If Joe had a key to Sherri’s car, he could have a key to her apartment, too. Cole hurried back to his brother’s room. “Do you remember how Joe got into Sherri’s car? Did he have a key?”
Eddie shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t come to until he’d already shoved me inside.”
“Is Sherri okay?” The concern in Dad’s voice stirred up the acid already burning Cole’s gut.
“I don’t know. I couldn’t—” Her keys were found on the mall floor. Joe must’ve borrowed them to make an imprint. Or Zeke’s nephew had. Cole shot a look toward the hall, suddenly doubting Zeke’s kid-sister story. “I couldn’t get a hold of her.”
“Then you need to go find her.”
Everything in him was already halfway out the door, but— Cole looked to Eddie.
“Go!”
He raced out to the parking lot and searched the lot for where the deputy had parked his truck. He punched the button on his fob and ran toward the sound of the horn. Swinging into the driver’s seat, he tried Sherri’s cell phone number again, slid the phone into its holder and swerved out of the lot.
On the third ring, the phone clicked on.
“Sherri? Sherri, are you there?”
“Cole, is that you? I’m sorry the reception’s terrible here.”
“Where are you?”
“What’s wrong? Is Eddie—?”
He mentally kicked himself for causing her more panic. “He’s awake. He’s going to be okay.” Cole explained how Joe drugged him, and assured her that Eddie wasn’t jealous of her. “We’ve issued an arrest warrant. But he’s still at large. Where are you?”
“I’m running on the trail along the river.”
Cole cranked a U-turn at the next intersection and sped toward the trailhead. “Get back to the parking lot now. I’m coming to get you. I’ll be there in seven minutes.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine. I’ll go back to my parents’. Your brother needs you.”
“You may be fine, but I won’t be until I know you’re safe and that psycho ex-partner of yours is behind bars.” The phone crackled. “Sherri? Did you hear me? Get back to the trailhead now. And be careful.”
“Cole? I hear a baby crying?” The phone garbled.
“Sherri. Sherri!”
“I’m just going to—” The phone cut out.
Cole floored the gas pedal.
FIFTEEN
Sherri cocked her ear toward the path ahead, every muscle primed to rush into action. The sound of the river’s rushing water. Songbirds welcoming the day. There it was again. Definitely a baby’s cry. She jogged ahead a few paces and the sound shifted. Coming from the riverbank. She peered down at the tangled vegetation hiding the river’s edge from view. “Hello, is someone there? Do you need help?”
An image of baby Moses, floating downriver in a little boat sprang to mind, only this river was no gentle stream and with the snow still melting off the mountain peaks, it was frigid. If the child’s parent had fallen in... The cries grew louder. More desperate.
She scrambled down the riverbank, slipping and sliding on the precarious slope. “It’s okay, baby, I’m coming.” She clawed through the brambles at the bottom, landing her first step out the other side right into icy water. She jerked back, clinging to the prickly bushes to keep from teetering off the edge.
The cries rose up to her right. Very close.
“Shh, now, it’s okay.” Sherri dropped to her knees and crawled toward the inconsolable whimpers. She swept aside rotted leaves and twigs, exposing a small animal’s den cut into the bank. Her stomach flip-flopped. Had it been a baby fox or other wild animal she’d heard?
The cries sounded again.
Very human.
What kind of monster would leave a child in a fox’s den? She clawed at the dirt to reach the poor dear. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” She stretched her arm inside. Her fingers grazed fabric. She stretched farther, caught the edge of the fabric between her fingertips. The baby kicked, tugging the fabric from her clasp. She tunneled the opening wider and tried again.
A twig snapped behind her.
“Shush, shush, shush,” she cooed to the infant, her fingers closing around a tiny foot.
Something smashed into the back of her knee.
“Ouch!” Releasing her grip, she jerked her arm out of the hole and rolled to her back. She shrank from the stranger looming over her, her hands grappling for a stick, a rock, something. “Who are you? What do you want?”
The man thumbed up the brim of his cowboy hat, his unnaturally blue eyes laughing at her, his mouth curving into a smile as broad as his hat. “Don’t you recognize me, darlin’?” The question oozed from his lips in a sickeningly sweet drawl.
She squinted at him. There was something familiar about his voice, but she couldn’t place—
Her heart jolted. Bald, blue eyes, goatee, paunch belly. “You’re...you’re Eddie’s friend.”
He threw his head back and laughed. “I wouldn’t call us friends.”
She flipped onto her belly to push to her feet.
He yanked her hair and snapped back her head, silencing her scream with a slash of duct tape. “Just like I wouldn’t call you and I friends.”
He’d dropped the drawl, and her veins iced at the familiar voice. Joe. She reared to her knees to ease the pain screaming through her scalp and hoofed back a foot.
He deflected it with his shin.
Screaming uselessly, she lifted a hand to rip the tape from her mouth.
He yanked her head back farther, and something cold dug into her neck. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
She didn’t listen to him and as she yanked on the tape, electricity jolted through her body.
She fell to her back, and Joe’s meaty hand, sheathed in a latex glove, silenced her cry of agony. Her muscles spasmed uncontrollably.
Grinning wickedly, he twisted the stun gun in front of her face and then pushed it back into her neck. “You going to be a good girl or do we need another lesson?”
She recoiled from the pressure.
He chuckled. “I thought you’d see it my way. It’s a shame, though. I do enjoy hearing you scream.” He bared his teeth in a sick leer.
“I’m sorry I cost you your job, Joe. Really I am.”
“Yeah, just like my wife’ll be sorry. You women are so predictable. I watched you go for a run last night after your boyfriend left,” he rambled. “You’d think someone was chasing you from the wa
y you flew.”
Her skin crawled at the thought of him watching her. Stalking her. Cole had warned her not to run alone, but after finding Eddie in her car, she hadn’t been able to shut the images out of her brain.
Joe’s hot breath whispered over her ears. “Your inner demons chasing you? You can’t escape them, you know.” His voice lifted to a sympathetic falsetto. “Letting Luke die. Driving Eddie to suicide. Those’ll haunt you until the day you die.” He grabbed her upper arm and yanked her to her feet. “So really...I’m doing you a favor.” He shoved her toward the river.
He was going to kill her. Drown her.
Her mind scrambled for a plan. Cole had said it would take him seven minutes to get to the parking lot. Maybe another five to reach her here...if he headed the right direction on the path and didn’t race right past. If she could stall Joe, keep him talking so Cole would hear them. Joe couldn’t have heard her phone call. If he’d known Cole was on his way, he wouldn’t have risked showing himself here.
She started to ask about the baby, but then thought better of it. If he was focused on her, he wouldn’t be hurting the baby and Cole would find the infant in time if...he was still crying.
The baby wailed, and Joe flashed a caustic glance toward the foxhole. “Shut up, kid. Be happy I saved you from that no good whore of a mother.”
Sherri gasped. He’d kidnapped the baby? From his ex-wife? “You set up the attack in the mall?” Sherri blurted to distract him from the infant’s cry.
“You sound surprised.” He slanted her an oily smile. “But you had to suspect. The police came to see me, after all. Seemed to think I might still be sore at you. Sore enough to hurt you.”
“I didn’t send them. I swear. I didn’t think—” Her voice broke. How’d he know how to scuttle the security? Let alone convince all those teens to risk their necks?
“You didn’t think I’d still hate you?” he asked snidely. They broke through the bushes to the river’s edge and, wrenching her arm behind her back, he pressed her to her knees.
She resisted the impulse to fight him, knowing another zap of the stun gun would end any chance of stalling him long enough for Cole to get to her. “I thought...I thought you were happy now.”
“You of all people should know appearances are deceptive.”
“Me? Why?” She strained to listen over the sound of rushing water. Was that a car door? She needed to stall him. “I...I don’t know what you mean.”
He chuckled. “Acting like nothing bothers you. Acting like everything that’s happened to you doesn’t scare you to death. Kind of hypocritical, don’t you think? Telling me I need help but refusing it yourself.”
“Is that what this is about? You wanted to see me break?”
He cackled. “No. My ex-wife I wanted to break. You—” he shoved her face under the water “—I wanted to kill.”
She clawed at his hand with her only free hand, flailed her head wildly to try and escape his grip. Her lungs burned. And just when she thought she’d black out, he yanked her out. She gasped, inhaled the air in hungry gulps.
He trailed his finger along her jaw and tipped up her chin. “But tormenting you proved to be way more fun than I’d ever imagined.” His maniacal gaze held hers in a chilling grip.
She swallowed hard. Somehow she needed to keep him talking. “The dispatcher. How’d you get her to help you?”
He threw his head back and laughed. “Your boyfriend figured that much out, did he? But not that she’s an addict?”
“You supplied her with drugs?”
He clucked victoriously. “An addict’ll do anything for a fix. And seeing your face when Atkins ranted at you at Luke’s funeral was priceless.”
She slipped her hand into the water. “You’re sick.”
“It’s called justice, honey. Only right you should experience firsthand what it feels like to have someone screw around with your life.” He wrenched her arm higher behind her back. “This is what you get for turning me down for that date. If you hadn’t, I would’ve put you out of your misery that night.” He shoved her face back into the water. “Instead, you gave me plenty of time to think of better ways to make you pay.”
Fighting not to panic, she grappled for a rock she could pull free from the riverbed. But they were big. They were all too big. Black dots bounced in front of her eyes as the oxygen seeped from her lungs. She lurched forward and her fingers closed around a football-sized rock. Blackness crept along the edges of her vision. She levered the rock over her shoulder.
His grip broke. He fell back, clutching his head and cursing.
She scrambled downriver. But the baby’s cry stopped her. She couldn’t leave him alone with the baby.
“Sherri!” Cole’s faint shout filtered through trees. “Where are you?”
She clambered up the riverbank. “Cole! Over here!”
Joe grabbed her foot, and she went down hard. He shoved something into her side and excruciating pain jolted through her body. “Nice try,” he sneered, as a whimpered “please” dribbled from her lips and everything went black.
Sherri startled to consciousness at the bite of icy water seeping through her shoes.
“Your boyfriend’s spoiling my fun,” Joe hissed into her ear, his arm hooked under her armpits and around her chest as he dragged her across a shallow part of the river. He paused in the center and planted her on her feet.
A roar filled her ears. She swayed, straining to gain her bearings.
He clutched the back of her head and forced her gaze to the ground.
Her heart dropped. They stood on the precipice of a ten-foot waterfall.
“But I’m thinking he’ll dive in after you.” He cackled. “Make for some good target practice.”
Sherri jerked back her head, felt the moment it connected with his nose.
The next instant his shove sent her free-falling.
SIXTEEN
A crash of water swallowed Sherri’s scream and ripped through Cole’s heart. He barreled down the riverbank, plowing blindly through the vegetation. At a break in the bushes, he caught sight of a bald guy at the top of the falls, feet braced apart, a gun aimed at the river below. Joe? Skidding to a stop, Cole drew his off-duty pistol from his ankle holster and squeezed off a shot. The bullet pinged the rocks and sent the man racing for cover.
Sherri’s cry rose from the water and was immediately swallowed again.
Cole dashed to the river’s edge. “Hang on! I’m coming.” He glanced up the other side of the bank, and seeing no sign of Joe taking a bead on them, tucked his gun in the back of his jeans and dove in.
The icy temperature stole his breath as the wicked undercurrent grabbed at his legs. Sherri, hang on, he willed, straining to see her through the inky blackness. His lungs burning, he clawed his way to the surface and whirled in circles, searching. The churning eddies made it impossible to see. “Sherri!” Oh, God, show me where she is.
Gunfire cracked the air, pebbled the water.
Blood swirled to the surface.
“No!” Cole dove under, flailing wildly, his heart screaming. His fingers grazed something. Clothing. He dug in with an iron grip and roared upward. The instant they broke the surface, he hauled her against his chest, swept the hair from her face. “I got you.”
She sputtered, and his heart kicked back into rhythm.
Clutching her with one arm, he surged toward shore. The powerful undertow tugged back, refusing to release her. She started to slip from his grip and cried out, grasped his shirt.
He curled his arm more tightly around her, kicked harder. “I’m not letting go!”
A gunshot hissed past his ear. It came from shore, too near where he was headed. Another shot slapped the water beside him. He shifted his body to shield Sherri, as his foot hit rock, found purchase on the riverbed. “We’re almost there!”
She got her feet under her and fire seemed to surge through her veins. “The baby. He’s going for the baby.”
Baby? Was Joe
the kidnapper? They tried to run for shore. But it was like wading in waist-deep molasses.
Another shot rang out, and Sherri’s body ricocheted against his chest. She went limp and slipped under the water in a swirl of red.
“No!” Cole heaved her out of the water and rocketed for shore.
Edging under the cover of bushes, he clasped the back of her neck and eased her to the ground. His stomach lurched at the red circle blooming over her chest. He whipped off his shirt and pressed it to the bullet wound. His heart scrunched up into his ribs. Her pallor was pasty white, her lips purple, the rise and fall of her chest barely perceptible. “Stay with me, Sherri. You’re going to be okay.”
Sirens grew louder. Finally, the backup he’d called for.
The sound of Joe lashing through the bushes rose a few hundred feet to his left. And getting closer, despite the deputies closing in.
Cole dragged Sherri deeper under cover and with one hand continuing pressure on her wound, he reached for the gun he’d jammed in the back of his pants. His fist clenched. The gun was gone. Now what?
A pitiful cry filtered through the trees.
Sherri’s eyes sprang open—wild and panicked. “The baby. You have to save the baby.” The order came out scarcely louder than a whisper.
“Shh,” Cole whispered. “It’s okay. Help is on the way.” He stroked wet strands of hair from her face, willing into his gaze a reassurance that with her warm blood seeping through the drenched cloth and over his fingers, he didn’t feel.
The baby wailed again, and Sherri wrestled against his hand holding her down, lashing her head from side to side.
Cole cupped his free hand around her head, straining to keep her still. “Easy,” he whispered, his lips grazing hers. “I’m here. And I’m not leaving you.”
* * *
Sherri’s heart ached at the promise she’d been longing to hear for too many years. “I love you, Cole. I’ve always loved you.”
His hot tears splashed onto her cheeks. “Stay with me, Sherri.”
Her chest was on fire, but she felt cold. So cold. And it hurt to breathe. Scrounging up all her strength, she lifted her hand to cover his. “I’m fine. You need to save the baby.” Her heart lurched at the words—Luke’s words, his plea to her. A bewildering peace cradled her as darkness edged her vision. With astounding clarity she realized that this was what Luke had felt, what he’d wanted her to know.
Emergency Reunion Page 17