by Rachel Lee
She saw the wisdom of that immediately. If the guy thought only one of them was outside... “Okay.” But he might see her as they slipped out the side door and climbed in.
Except that Jess had parked very close to the door, and as they stepped out he pushed her in through the driver’s door. No walking around the vehicles. She twisted herself over to the passenger side and scrunched as much of herself as she could get down to the floorboards. He dumped his backpack on the seat beside her head, then stacked both shotguns between the seats. In the brief moments of her exposure, she saw that the snow was blowing again. Either they’d had a fresh fall, or the crust had dried out again. Mini tornadoes whirled around.
The engine roared to life, and they began to move.
“Is anyone coming?” she asked.
“Half the cavalry, probably,” he answered. “I’m just worried about the cops in the car.”
“Gage didn’t want you to go out.”
“No. But someone’s life might be hanging by a thread.”
This, she thought, was the man who had gone to war as a medic. Saving a life above all else. She closed her eyes a moment, feeling a tearing pain for him that he should be forced to face this again.
But an instant later, she steadied and ordered herself to focus. There was too much at stake right now to let feelings get in the way. She needed to be alert and ready.
Catching her by surprise, Sara burst into her memory, smiling, and Lacy felt a sudden sense of peace with her friend’s loss. The first real peace she had felt. Sara was gone, but she was doing what Sara would want her to do. And she was glad that her best friend hadn’t lived to see this.
But maybe Sara had always understood there would be no future for her and Jess. Maybe, on some level, she had known, and that’s why she lived so much in the moment. Why she had never spoken of plans down the road beyond Jess’s next return. It wasn’t that she feared jinxing them, but rather that she sensed it would never be.
Regardless, peace filled Lacy, almost as if she could feel Sara with them. Maybe she was, letting them know she would always love them both, that she was watching over them. They could both use a guardian angel, that was certain.
The bumpy ride down the driveway began to slow. They must be reaching the police car. Jess spoke.
“When I open that police car door, the cabin lights are going to be like a beacon. You stay down until I see what’s going on. I don’t want him to see you even in silhouette.”
“Okay.” But as her muscles began to tighten from her cramped position, she wondered if she’d be able to move swiftly if it became necessary. And why wasn’t she hearing sirens? Shouldn’t the cops be on their way?
“See any police lights?” she asked.
“Not yet. But they might be approaching cautiously. No need for a light show.”
Good point. Why announce the reinforcements? On the other hand, maybe the guy hadn’t done this to lure them outside. If he had, surely he’d be expecting deputies to descend. Maybe this was another move on the weird game board of his own designing. Would he assume that Gage would call to let them know the deputies weren’t responding? But why should he?
She wanted to shake the swirling pointless questions out of her head. Now was not the time to wonder about unanswerable questions, but to just be ready to respond quickly to whatever happened next.
Jess brought the car to a stop. The first thing he did was turn off the dome light in his own car. “I’m leaving the headlights on,” he told her. He reached for the bag of medical supplies, then laid her shotgun across the seat in front of her. She reached up and closed her hands around it.
Then he grabbed his own and the bag, and climbed out of his car. He was going to stand out in the light from his headlamps. Stand out against any light from inside the police car. A clear target.
He left the driver’s door open, then pulled open the door of the police car. Smart man, she thought as he crouched in the space between the two doors. She could see an officer inside, his head tipped to one side. Jess reached for his neck.
“Alive. No evident injuries. Slow pulse, steady even breathing. Like he’s sedated.”
“Where’s the other guy? The one who’s supposed to be on patrol?”
No answer, of course. Neither of them had any knowledge of that. And how could this officer have become sedated?
Jess straightened a little, looking around through the two windows. “I don’t see anyone, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t out there. Hang tight. There’s no injury for me to treat that I can see. We’ll just wait here for the deputies.”
The balloon of tension eased a bit. Another inscrutable move? Maybe. A bomb that was a dud, and now a sedated police officer? None of this made any real sense.
She’d been prepared for a volley of gunfire, for something terrible to start the minute Jess got out of his SUV. But nothing. Nothing at all. Some kind of taunting and torture?
Was someone out there watching from a distance, getting his jollies? Probably.
Finally she heard the rumble of an approaching engine. The cavalry. About damn time, she thought. But of course they had no idea what they were getting into. Of course they’d be cautious.
Unlike Jess, who appeared willing to bet his life any time anyone needed help. Like her. What if some drug types had been coming for her? She could have brought a new hell down on his head, but he hadn’t hesitated to take her in.
“You know, Jess, you’ve got to stop this.”
“What?”
“Putting yourself in harm’s way to save everyone else.”
He snorted, surprising her. “It’s no big deal.”
No big deal. Just doing what he had to. The words of every hero, just as he’d once told her.
Then everything seemed to happen at once. A car rolled up, followed by another and yet another. Lights came on from every direction, and she dared to push herself up off the floorboards and look. Cops seemed to be everywhere, including the sheriff.
She heard Jess explaining what he’d found and that no, they had no idea where the other officer was. She heard Gage telling him to stay in the car with her. She watched as he climbed back in beside her and a loose cordon formed around both cars.
More cars lined the road. A fire rescue ambulance was pulling up. Whatever this was about, it was over for now.
Deeply disturbed, she tried to see past the lights, to look out over the plains and hills for any sign of movement. Impossible to see, except that men were fanning out, probably in a search pattern.
Then a helicopter arrived, floodlights turning night into day as they swept the area in ever-growing circles.
Jess sat behind the wheel, gripping it tightly and then astonished her by hammering his fist on it, just once. “I want this bastard.”
She’d never heard that tone from him before. It dripped with threat and fury. It dripped with death.
He’d been forced back to a place he had never wanted to go again, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. Not one damn thing.
She wanted the bastard, too.
* * *
Hours later, the night began to quiet down again. They’d found the officer walking patrol. He, too, had been sedated with a tranquilizer dart. He might have frozen to death out there, but they’d found him in time.
Both officers were carted off to the hospital. Several cops checked the house for them, and then they were back inside, in the kitchen with Gage. Coffee seemed essential, hot and good and full of caffeine. Lacy sat at the table, keeping her mouth shut while Gage and Jess talked, nursing a simmering anger.
“There was no sign out there that anyone approached the house, although the ground is so trampled now, who could be sure? And anyway, the snow is blowing around again,” Gage told Jess. “The whole thing was like that
bomb last night, pointless. Useless.”
Jess was limping back and forth the length of the kitchen. Apparently the cold had affected his leg. “So. Try looking at it from another perspective.”
Gage looked at him over his mug of coffee. “How so?”
“Intelligence gathering. He was able to put out two deputies. Probably pulled up out front and asked your man for directions, then darted him while they talked. He’d probably already gotten to your patroller, but he could do that from a distance. So no, he wouldn’t leave any tracks. But he saw how we handled all of this. Your response time, the size of your response, all of that.”
Gage nodded grimly. “A military man would do that. So what now? I have to tell you, Jess, I’ve dealt with a lot, but nothing like this before.”
“You’re not usually dealing with trained military men. So he got his measure, if that’s what he wanted. Now he knows how long he has when he acts.”
“He might be in for a surprise. We came up slowly.”
“I noticed.”
Gage half smiled without humor. “Probably seemed like forever to you two. What he may not know is how many guys were already here by the time we pulled up. We have enough special-ops guys in this county to put together a good stealth team when we need them. You weren’t alone even when it seemed like it. Micah Parish, for example, is a deadeye marksman at 1500 yards. He’s not the only one.”
Lacy stirred, finally speaking. “Someone was watching?”
“We were,” Gage said. “You were never uncovered from the time we realized we couldn’t raise our patrol.”
“Then why did you call Jess? He went out there and could have been killed!” Anger hit an instant boil.
“I hadn’t counted on that part. I was just trying to alert you to potential trouble,” Gage admitted, then faced Jess. “Don’t do it again. You two stay inside. We’ll put another patrol out front again, but they’re the face of the operation. This house is being watched full-time now, okay? I don’t need you or want you racing out there and providing a target. If Micah and the others are good at 1500 yards, that doesn’t mean they can shoot a bullet out of the air. Got it?”
Jess finally stopped pacing and pulled out a chair. “I get it. I exposed us.”
Lacy reached out and gripped his forearm. “You were worried about the cops out there.”
Gage refilled his coffee mug, then joined them at the table. “I understand, Jess. I know your motives were the best. It’s the kind of thing you do. I know how hard what I’m asking is for you. But if I call again with news like that, just remember I’ve got more people out there than you know about and we’re here to keep you two safe. All I’m doing is alerting you to potential trouble. Keep that in mind.”
He drained his mug in one draft, then put it down with a thud. “I don’t like this. If there’s a playbook for this one, I haven’t seen it. Keep in mind that you haven’t, either.”
A few minutes later, he took his leave. The house seemed awfully silent as the last cars pulled away.
Lacy, her hand still on Jess’s arm, squeezed it. “You okay?”
“Feeling like an idiot.”
“Never that,” she answered swiftly. “What you did was noble.”
“Screw that. I raced out there and risked both of us. Gage is right. I should have listened to him. And you! You should have stayed here even more than me. What happened to the timid Lacy who arrived here?”
She hesitated, biting her lip, feeling his green eyes bore into her. Then she admitted, “You.”
He grabbed her hand from his arm, twisted on his chair and lifted her onto his lap. “God, woman, you drive me nuts. I’m half crazed with wanting you, and I need to deal with this creep somehow, if for no other reason than I’d like to take you to bed again, and I can’t do that when we’re being stalked. You make me forget everything, and right now that’s dangerous. I thought we were safe for a little while last night, and where did that get us? No, we have to fix this.”
She felt her cheeks heat, loving what he was saying, wishing they could just tumble into bed, knowing he was right that it could be dangerous. The stalker was getting bolder. He’d attacked two cops tonight. But oh, how she wished...
Jess’s mouth clamped over hers and he stole her breath with a kiss so deep it seemed to reach her soul. When he at last pulled back, she gasped for air and heard him say, “We’ll get our chance, Lacy. I promise.”
“I’ll hold you to that.” Then she stiffened. “Jess?” she whispered.
“I heard it,” he whispered back. Moving slowly, he slid her from his lap back to her chair. When he reached for the shotgun he’d propped in the corner, she half rose and reached for her own. She glanced at him and saw his finger across his lips.
She nodded. The he pointed upward. She nodded again. A creak from upstairs. A settling house? Or had someone come inside during all the confusion? But the cops had checked the house. Or maybe they’d missed something?
Her heart began to pound, sounding loud in her ears. She wondered if Jess could hear it.
He leaned toward her, his lips to her ear. “If he’s upstairs, we need to make him come down here. We’d be exposed on the stairs.”
She nodded.
When he rose from the table, he slid the chair quietly. Then he astonished her by clattering the coffee pot. “You want some more?” he asked in a normal voice.
It took her a split second to realize he was trying to make it as if they suspected nothing. “Sure,” she answered, horrified to hear her voice crack a bit.
He clattered the pot again, but didn’t pour any coffee. He motioned to her and she followed him on tiptoes toward the mud porch. To her surprise, he opened a door there and realized it was a second entry to his bedroom. A door that she had thought led to a closet.
The room was dark, completely devoid of light thanks to the heavy curtains. He guided her through it to the corner farthest from the door. “Get down here in the corner behind the dresser,” he whispered. “When he opens either door, you’ll see him because of the light from the kitchen.”
“Okay. What are you going to do?”
“Get his attention. Do you have your safety on?”
“No.”
“Round in the chamber?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t make a sound. Just be ready.”
She clung to that shotgun like a lifeline. From the faintest of sounds, she could tell Jess was slipping across the room. He couldn’t get out of here now without letting light in here. What was he going to do?
Her heart racing, her mouth dry, she waited. Then she heard it again, a step overhead. Definitely not the house settling. Never had she thought she’d be glad for the creaky floors of an old house.
She shifted her position so that she was crouched and ready to spring. Then to her horror, she saw Jess open the door they had just come through, and step into the mud porch on the way to the kitchen. He was walking out there to meet this guy?
He partially closed the door behind him, leaving it open about an inch, allowing some light into the bedroom. Her eyes were beginning to adjust to the dark, and she wondered why he’d left the door open, then realized he didn’t want her to be blinded by sudden bright light. The man thought of everything.
Except that he wasn’t doing her heart any good by going back out there. Armed or not, this guy was coming, and she doubted Jess would just shoot him on sight. No, there had to be a real threat, and the possibility that it could backfire on Jess terrified her.
She adjusted her position carefully, desperately wanting to act but well aware she might make this whole mess worse. What did she know about dealing with stuff like this?
Waiting seemed to last forever. Her skin crawled, her muscles tensed, her stomach knotted and then flipped. She thought she heard almost
inaudible steps on the stairway. Then she heard voices and understood another part of the reason that Jess had left the door open: so that she could hear.
“Where’s the woman?” a nasal voice demanded.
“I told her to slip out the back,” Jess answered. “What the hell’s going on, Johnson? I never wanted to see your sorry face again.”
“You know.”
“That’s just it. I don’t know squat. All I know for sure is that you sent us into danger and that a little girl died because of that, and the next thing I knew I was in a hospital. What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing.”
“Then this game is pointless,” Jess said flatly. “Just get out of here and I’ll forget I ever saw you.”
“Right. Like Stoddard and Callins forgot.”
A silence. Did she hear movement? Was Jess even holding his shotgun? Her mind drew a picture of two armed men in confrontation in the kitchen, but she had no way to know. Her heart crawled into her throat.
“So you killed them,” Jess said finally. “I wondered.”
“Just like I’m going to kill you and then your pretty little girlfriend. She won’t get far.”
“What’s the point, Johnson? Why were you afraid of us?”
“Who said I was afraid? I just don’t like witnesses.”
“Ah,” Jess said. He paused. “So what the hell exactly happened that day? Why’d you send us into a friendly town and get all those people killed?”
“How do you know they were friendly?” Johnson demanded. “Word was, they were in with the insurgents.”
“You can tell yourself that, but all of us who were there know the signs. Those people weren’t frightened of us. Not at all nervous. So what was really going on in your mind? I’m sure it involved a medal.”
“The insurgents were moving in on them. You men were supposed to defend that town. You failed.”
“No,” Jess answered, “we didn’t fail. You failed. If you knew where those insurgents were, you had no business sending us into that valley with them up above us.”