Manhunt (A Rocky Mountain Thriller Book 1)

by Ann Voss Peterson

  Jace frowned. If someone was gunning for this woman, he didn’t want to get in front of the bullet. As a cop, he’d gone ten years without ever firing his gun. And he’d never been shot, either. He didn’t plan for that to change now that he was no longer on the job.

  Let the guys who hadn’t been kicked off the force handle it. “I’ll call the sheriff.”

  Panic streaked across her face. “No! You can’t!”

  He felt a tightening in his gut. He knew there was more to this. He could feel it. “Why not?”

  “The sheriff. He’s with them.”

  “He wants to kill you, too?” That was even harder to buy than the boss’s sudden homicidal urge. “This keeps getting better and better.”

  “You’ve got to believe me.”

  “I don’t have to do anything.”

  “Of course not. Of course not.

  “Why is the sheriff after you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I have a guess. You break the law?”

  “No. I told you. I thought I was getting a promotion.”

  Jace let out a heavy sigh.

  “I’m telling you the truth. We were supposed to be hunting deer, and my boss started shooting at me.”

  “And the sheriff? How does he fit in?”

  “He was there. Just standing there watching.”

  “Are you sure it wasn’t an accident? That he wasn’t shooting at, say, a deer?”

  Redness rimmed her eyes, as if she were about to burst into tears at any moment. “I’m sure. He came after me. He’s chasing me. The others are, too.”

  “The others, meaning, the sheriff.”

  She nodded. “And the CFO of the company where I work.”

  This was ludicrous. He shouldn’t believe her. But he’d seen her running along the line of trees. And God help him, she seemed scared out of her wits. “So what do you expect me to do? Stand out front and return fire?”

  For a moment she looked at him as if that was exactly what she was thinking. She shook her head. “Of course not.”

  “What then?”

  “Just lend me your truck. I’ll return it. I promise.”

  He almost laughed. “You must think I’m an idiot.”

  “I know it sounds bad. But I’ll return it. I swear, I will. I have to get out of here.”

  Movement caught his eye through the opening in the door. He held up a hand.

  The woman gasped. She covered her mouth with trembling fingers.

  Jace felt the weight of the shotgun. The last thing he wanted to do was get in some sort of old-west shootout. But what could he do? He might not believe everything this woman was saying, but that didn’t mean he could just hand her over to people who might want to kill her and wash his hands of the whole thing. He might no longer be part of law enforcement, but he was still a cop where it counted. A true cop. At least he liked to think so.

  He held out his hand, palm up. “Key.”

  She dropped the truck’s ignition key into his hand.

  “Get in the backseat and crouch down on the floor. There’s a blanket back there you can use to cover yourself.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jace didn’t know what to think about this woman. He sure didn’t buy her ridiculous story. Not without some kind of evidence to back it up. And if she was lying, he’d turn her over and not even bat an eye. “Don’t thank me yet.”

  He stuffed the truck’s ignition key in his jeans pocket. Turning toward the door, he held the shotgun at the ready.

  Here went nothing.

  He strode out of the garage. The brightness of the sun stunned him for a moment. Tilting his hat low over his eyes, he scanned the house, the barn, the corrals.

  A heavyset man circled the fence line. Dressed in a bright orange coat and sporting a silver belly cowboy hat on his head, he held his rifle as if he intended to use it.

  Jace pushed a stream of air through tight lips. It fogged in the cool autumn air. “You looking for something?”

  The man started slightly, but kept walking forward. “You the landowner?” he called out in a loud voice.

  “Yes. Jason Lantry.”

  “I’m Benson Gable. Sheriff around here.”

  Jace lowered his weapon. He pulled out his best relaxed smile and plastered it to his face. “Sheriff Gable? Of course. I voted for you.”

  The sheriff also lowered his gun and came to a stop two yards from Jace. “I ran unopposed.”

  “Anyone who feels responsible enough to run for office in this day and age deserves my support.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  “No problem. What brings you out this way?”

  “Fugitive in the area. Looks like she was headed to your ranch here.”

  “She?”

  He gave a sharp nod. “Reddish blond hair. Dressed in hunting garb. Orange coat, orange hat.”

  “Like you.”

  “Yes.”

  Jace had been hoping the sheriff would divulge a little more. Like something that proved the woman was lying. Something that would allow Jace to turn her in and walk away with a clear conscience. Well, if the sheriff wasn’t going to come out with it, there was nothing wrong with asking. “What did she do?”

  “Can’t go in to that. But she’s armed. And definitely dangerous. Mind if I take a look around?”

  “I’d like to help you, Sheriff. I really would. But there’s been no woman around this place for longer than I care to think about, and I have an appointment I really need to get to.” He glanced at his watch for emphasis.

  “You won’t mind then if we take a peek to make sure. She might have slipped in when you weren’t looking.”

  “We?”

  “I have a deputy circling the property.”

  The woman’s boss? The chief financial officer? Or actual deputies? With Jace’s luck, one had already slipped into the garage, found the woman, and they were about to arrest him for being an accessory to whatever crime she’d committed. Jace would land back in jail without even knowing what hit him.

  He stifled the shudder that thought inspired. “Got a warrant?”

  The sheriff shook his massive head. “Nah. Don’t worry about that.”

  “I’d feel better if you tell me what she’s wanted for.”

  The sheriff hitched up his pants. “Lover’s spat. Shot her boyfriend.”

  Was it possible? Had the woman’s terror been about being caught? Had she been feeding him a line of bull?

  Jace didn’t know. He couldn’t shake the sight of her hitting the ground at the sound of the rifle shot. No sheriff he knew would take potshots at a fleeing suspect with a deer rifle. Not if he was on the up-and-up. “I’d feel better if you had a warrant.”

  “No need for a warrant, son. We don’t suspect you of doing anything wrong.”

  “Happy to hear that.”

  Sheriff Gable took a step forward. Looking past Jace, he eyed the garage.

  “But you’ll still need a warrant.”

  “What’s your game, son?”

  “No game. I just want to protect myself. I was on the job once. Had to have a warrant for every damn thing. I figure now that I’m on this end, there might be something to it.”

  The sheriff gave him a look that suggested he’d rather shoot him than show him a warrant. “Where you from?”

  Meaning, where had he served as a cop. “Denver.”

  “Figures. Things aren’t done that way around here. People trust the law.” He narrowed his eyes and scanned the corrals and cabin beyond. “Unless you got something to hide. You got something to hide, Jason Lantry?”

  Jace held up his hands, praying he wasn’t getting himself in so deep he couldn’t dig himself out. “Nothing to hide. If this woman did what you say, I sure as hell don’t want her sneaking around my place.”

  Again, the sheriff eyed the garage. “What’s in there?”

  “My truck.”

  “That where you came from just now?”

  “Lik
e I said, I was getting ready to head out. I have an appointment.”

  The sheriff’s cheeks puffed into a smile. “You want me to get a warrant? You know how it works. You’re going to have to stay here and wait. No way you’ll make your appointment.”

  Jace canted his head to the side, as if considering this. It was the perfect way out. If he wanted to take it. If he trusted the woman. If he wanted to stretch out his neck and place it between the guillotine blades.

  Jace tried to keep his breathing even. He’d interrogated enough bad guys to know how good lying was done. But even after all his disappointments with the Denver P.D., the idea of not cooperating with the sheriff sat in his gut like a cold stone. A cop didn’t obstruct an investigation. Especially not when the most compelling reason he had to believe the suspect was a set of pretty green eyes. “Okay. Can’t say I see any harm in letting you look around.”

  The sheriff gave a satisfied nod. He glanced in the direction of Jace’s cabin. “Back door is open. I suppose it’s possible she could have slipped in there.”

  Jace followed his gaze just in time to see a man wearing hunting gear duck around the cabin’s corner.

  A man whose face he recognized.

  Jace glanced back at the sheriff. “One of your deputies?”

  The sheriff gave him a look as if to say, it’s none of your damn business. “Yup.”

  Jace nodded. There was no hope for an easy way out of this now. He’d seen that man on the nightly news, and he was no sheriff’s deputy. He was CEO of Wyoming’s most successful state-based mining operation, Anthony Barstow… and quite possibly the woman’s boss.

  Jace raised a hand and waved to the sheriff. “Okay, then. I’m out of here. Good luck finding her.”

  Jace’s voice sounded strained, gruff, even to his own ears, and he could only hope the sheriff hadn’t noticed.

  The sheriff raised a hand in a quick wave goodbye and trudged to the cabin.

  Not willing to waste one more moment, Jace strode back to the garage. The quicker he got the hell out of here, the better.

  Rounding the barn, he rolled up the garage door. He returned his shotgun to its rack near the garage door. He’d like to take it with him, under the circumstances. But he didn’t need to risk breaking Wyoming gun laws by having a loaded gun in the truck. Just in case he was pulled over. And there was no point in having it unloaded.

  Of course, all that might be the least of his troubles.

  He climbed into his pickup. He didn’t glance in the backseat or check the rearview mirror, but he knew she was there. He could smell the light scent of her, some kind of floral shampoo mixed with the metallic tang of fear. “Hold on, this is going to be a bumpy ride.”

  ______

  Understatement of the year.

  Shanna clung to the floor of the truck, her stomach growing queasier by the moment as the truck bucked and bumped. It was a good thing she hadn’t had much for breakfast, because she wouldn’t have been able to keep it anyway.

  “Here we go.”

  One big jolt and the truck rolled on comparatively smooth pavement.

  Thank God.

  “You can sit up now, if you want.”

  Shanna forced her cramped muscles to unfold. Sliding onto the seat, she looked at the rancher’s face in the rearview mirror.

  He looked average enough. Shaggy brown hair poked out from under a dark brown cowboy hat. His tanned, thin face sported a day’s growth of beard and a healthy number of laugh lines. But his eyes looked wary. As if he didn’t quite trust her.

  She could hardly blame him.

  She leaned back and rested her aching neck against the seat. “Thanks. You didn’t have to help me.”

  His eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror. “What’s your name?”

  Shanna hesitated. She’d been so relieved to escape Barstow and the sheriff, she hadn’t given much thought to jumping into a truck with a man she didn’t know. But although she really couldn’t read what he might be thinking in the mirror’s reflection, she didn’t feel afraid. Not really.

  Maybe at this point she was past fear. “Shanna Clarke.”

  “Listen, Shanna. I don’t know what you’re tied up with here, but I suggest you start telling the truth and I suggest you do it now.”

  So much for her short-lived relief. “I told you the truth.”

  “People don’t try to kill other people for no reason.”

  “I didn’t say he had no reason. I just don’t know what his reason is.”

  “I want to help you, Shanna. But you’re stretching my patience here.”

  “I’m telling the truth. I swear.”

  “The sheriff mentioned that you fired some shots, too.”

  “Me?” She jolted forward. Pain shot down her neck and gripped her shoulders.

  “He said you and your boyfriend had a little argument. That boyfriend wouldn’t happen to be Anthony Barstow, would it?”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend. Mr. Barstow is my boss. That’s all. I didn’t try to shoot anyone. I didn’t even fire my gun. Not at deer, not at anything. Not the whole time.”

  He angled his head to the side, the wide brim of his cowboy hat hiding his face.

  She didn’t need to see his eyes to feel the skepticism radiate from him in waves. “I know this sounds outrageous. I can’t wrap my mind around it myself. But when Mr. Barstow invited me on this trip, I was sure it meant I was getting a promotion. And it wasn’t just me. My friend Linda was sure, too. And then this morning, Mr. Barstow started shooting at me.”

  “And what did you do that made him change from wanting to promote you to wanting to kill you?”

  “Nothing! I don’t know what changed! I don’t know why he’s doing this!” She knew she sounded shrill, hysterical, but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t calm herself. She couldn’t breathe. “You’ve got to believe me. I don’t know why any of this is happening. I’m an accountant. People don’t try to shoot accountants.”

  “I don’t know, I’ve wanted to shoot mine on occasion.”

  “What?”

  “There has to be a reason. Out with it.”

  Despair filled Shanna’s throat, hot and thick, choking her. She knew what she was saying didn’t make a lot of sense, but she was telling the truth. How could she make him see that?

  She gripped the seat in front of her, steadying herself. He had listened to her pleas in the garage. She’d seen it in his face. The softening around his jaw. The sympathy in his eyes. And he hadn’t told the sheriff where to find her. There had to be something to that, something she could use to reach him now. “You didn’t turn me in to Sheriff Gable. You smuggled me out of your ranch. Why?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “You must have believed me. At least a little.” She searched the side of his face she could see under his hat brim, desperate to find that softness, that sympathy, that understanding she’d seen in his expression before.

  There was no hint of it.

  “Don’t you believe me?” she asked, her voice barely a squeak.

  “You haven’t given me reason.”

  She looked away from him and stared through the backseat window at layers of rock and arrowlike spires of lodgepole pine stretching to the horizon and stabbing the sky. Tears fogged her vision, turning the scene into a mosaic of green, gray and blue. She didn’t know what more she could say, what more she could do. “Haven’t you been listening at all? I don’t know why all this is happening. I don’t have any reason to give you.”

  The truck’s tires hummed on the two-lane highway. Shanna pressed her fingers to her eyes, wiping away tears. Just this morning she’d been looking forward to the promotion she’d thought was imminent and the raise in pay that would go with it. As she’d ridden her mare through the high mountain valleys, she’d daydreamed of buying a little house with a backyard for Emily. A dream Shanna hadn’t dared contemplate since Kurt had left them and she had landed the job in Wyoming. Maybe they would even have space for a gar
den. Fresh tomatoes in the summer. Emily loved tomatoes.

  Now all those dreams were over. Dead. And Shanna didn’t have a clue what would come next.

  She looked at the side of the rancher’s face, all hard planes and rough stubble. “Where are you taking me?”

  “To Copperville.”

  “Copperville?” She’d only lived in Wyoming a year, but she knew of the town. It was small, named for an old copper mine long since closed down, and on the other side of Bonner Pass. “Why Copperville?”

  “It’s across the county line. Different jurisdiction. You can talk to the sheriff there. Let him sort this mess out.”

  The law. Apprehension fluttered in her stomach. She swallowed hard. The sheriff in another county should be trustworthy, shouldn’t he? Of course, until today, she’d believed all law officers were trustworthy.

  Maybe she should have known better. After all she’d been through with Kurt, it was shocking she could still believe anyone was who they seemed to be. Not a mistake she was likely to make again. Not after this.

  “You have a problem with going to Copperville?”

  “No. No problem. Copperville’s fine.” Since he had offered to take her to Copperville, he must believe a little of her story. At least enough to think she would want help from the law. She was grateful for that.

  Unless he’d made the offer merely to test her.

  “When you talk to the sheriff in Copperville, keep my name out of it.”

  His name? “I don’t know your name.”

  His cowboy hat bobbed in a nod. “Let’s keep it that way.”

  She leaned against the back of the seat and strapped on the safety belt. It was going to be all right. He’d bring her to someone who could help. She might not have the job or the raise or the house, but she was going to make it home in one piece to hug her little girl.

  “Oh, hell.” The rancher pounded a hand on the steering wheel. “No good deed goes unpunished, does it now?”

  She sat up and craned her sore neck, trying to see out the dusty windshield to the road ahead. Lights flashed red and blue over a rise in the road. “What is it?”

  The rancher hit the brakes and swerved to the narrow shoulder. “Roadblock. Seems the sheriff has called in the real deputies this time.”