Cold Pursuit
A Cold Harbor Novel - Book Six
Susan Sleeman
Published by Edge of Your Seat Books, Inc.
Contact the publisher at [email protected]
Copyright © 2018 by Susan Sleeman
Cover copyright © 2018 by Susan Sleeman
All rights reserved. Kindle Edition Printed in the United States of America or the country of purchase. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Characters, names, places, and incidents in this novel are either products of the imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real people, either living or dead, to events, businesses, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
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1
One Month Earlier
Whitney’s mind spun frantically. Take the children. Run. Now. Fast. Far.
But how, when a monster with a gun held her captive?
Looking for an escape, she shot a look around the deserted alley. Angry clouds darkened the noon sky, and heavy rain pelted down on her, icing her to the core.
Percy backed her up against the alley wall, a gun barrel jabbed into her stomach. His mouth thinned into a hard, unforgiving line. “Where are my kids, Whitney? They’re mine, not yours, and I will have them back.”
She tried to escape, but he pumped iron on a regular basis, making him strong. Crazy strong. An indestructible wall of cruelty. He glowered at her with hard brown eyes, wet strands of coal black hair falling in his face.
Her breath stilled. She tried to take another. Gasped. Couldn’t manage it. The hospital Emergency Department, her place of employment, was merely a few feet away. No one would see her die right outside of their doors.
“Please,” she choked out.
He sneered at her. “Just tell me where the kids are, and I’ll let you live.”
He was lying. Get a grip. Do something. Save yourself.
He shoved a corded arm against her throat, his arm crushing her throat.
She opened her mouth. Tried for a breath. Even the tiniest sip of the chilly, wet Portland air. Nothing got through. Nothing but rasping in the back of her throat.
Panic settled in, clawing its way into her core, warning of death.
She felt her eyes bulging. Growing in their sockets.
She raised her hands in defense. Gun in her abdomen, she shouldn’t try to fight him, but she had to. Her arm shot up and clawed his face—nails digging, slicing, drawing blood.
He swore, a long curse filled with venom, and backhanded her face, the strike splitting her lip. He stepped back and swiped at the blood on his hand, rain smearing it.
Her lungs unlocked, and she gulped in a sharp breath. Too much too fast, and pain sliced through her chest. Her jacket and scrubs were soaked, and she shivered, gasping for air.
A sudden glassiness in his deep eyes was even more alarming, a slick grin following. He jammed the cold barrel against her temple. “Tell me where they are. You have until the count of ten.”
She would never reveal the children’s location. No matter the pain he inflicted. No matter if he killed her. She was their protector now.
She didn’t move except to breathe.
“Ten,” he snapped, a conqueror gloating over his prey. “Nine…eight…”
She tuned him out. So much could happen in ten seconds. Like Percy—her brother-in-law—escaping from jail as he awaited trial for murdering her sister. Her sweet, loving sister, Vanessa.
Escaped. He’d really escaped.
Overpowered a deputy on the way to the courthouse. Now here he was to claim his kids.
And to kill Whitney, as she was the reason he’d been arrested.
“Seven…six…five.” He shifted on his feet, drawing her attention.
I’m going to die. Right here. Here, where I can practically reach out and touch my coworkers.
“Four.” His face tightened, reminding her of the night three weeks ago when she’d found him standing over her sister’s broken body at the base of the stairs in their comfortable suburban home. A glare in his eyes. His chest heaving with anger. His face red, his hands fisted.
She’d run to her sister, checked her pulse, and when she found none, she called 911. He tried to calm her down and claim it was an accident, but Whitney knew differently and told the police as much. He’d been arrested, and as the police hauled him off, he threatened to make her pay.
And now he would.
“Three.” He grinned. He was enjoying this. The sick, sick man. No way would she ever let him find his children. Not while she was breathing—which might be only three more seconds.
“C’mon, Whitney. There’s no need for you to die.” He abruptly stroked the side of her cheek.
She flinched.
“Two.” Gone was the smile, a raging inferno burning in his eyes.
He really was going to kill her. Her heart slammed against the wall of her chest.
Please. Please. The kids need me. They can’t handle another loss.
Panic crawled up her spine. Her chest froze. Maybe her heart stopped.
He opened his mouth. She waited for the number. For one. For death.
A car careened around the corner and screeched to a halt by the ED door. Percy whipped around, mouth still open, that word—one—never uttered.
A lumberjack of a man jumped out of the vehicle. He was huge. Could overpower Percy. Not a bullet, but…
Scream!
She screeched with all her might. “Help!”
The driver spun, his eyes catching the scene. “You there. Leave her alone.”
Percy jerked back. His gaze darted around.
The monster-sized man came at them with big lumbering steps, bellowing and waving his hands. “Get away from her. Now. I mean it. Move.”
Emotions waged war on Percy’s face. He glanced at the gun. Lifted it.
“No!” She slammed her shoulder into him. Knocked him off kilter. He stumbled. Caught his footing.
Lumberjack man reached out to grab Percy. He slithered out from under the big beefy arms and sprinted away. Down the alley. Into the fog.
Lumberjack went after him. The sound of Percy’s sharp footsteps snapped into the air. Lumberjack’s solid thuds followed.
Whitney hyperventilated and fell back against the wall, rain cascading over her hair and running down her face, her mind a jumble of thoughts. She’d only known this level of terror one other time—the day she’d discovered her sister.
She wanted to drop to the rain-soaked ground, but she had to rescue the kids. She’d get to them before he could.
No. No. You can’t. The kids needed her to get it together. Act. Move.
Where could she go?
Think, Whitney. Think.
Not home. No way. Percy would find her there. Take her niece and nephew.
He obviously didn’t know which daycare she’d selected for nine-year-old Isaiah and three-year-old Zoey. She had to get to them. A plan forming in her mind, she scrambled around until she found her purse on the wet asphalt where she’d dropped it when he’d grabbed her. She snatched up the strap and ran for the parking garage. This could be the last time she ever saw this place since she started her nursing career eight years ago. She couldn’t even let them know she wouldn’t return.
She would have to cut all ties. Even with her parents.
She found her little Honda in the garage. Fumbled for the keys. Dropped them on the concrete. Scrambled to locate them and get the car open. Inside, she raced the engine and pointed it toward the nearest ATM. She couldn’t go home for anything and would need to take out as much cash as possible to survive until she could figure out how to get more. Change her identity. The kids’ identities too. And get a job. She couldn’t continue to work as a nurse. It would be too easy for him to find her that way.
How in the world would she support the three of them?
A wave of hysteria bubbled up inside.
How had her life come to this? Nearly dying. Planning to assume a new identity. Running with two young kids to…where? She started hyperventilating again. She wasn’t strong enough for this.
“Help me, God!” she cried out.
Calm down. Freaking out won’t help anyone.
Yes, she had to stay calm. For Isaiah and Zoey.
“Call 911,” she said to the car’s infotainment system.
The dispatcher answered, and she quickly recounted the attack, swiping at her tears, her voice catching, stopping and swallowing hard too many times to count, but she got out her story. All of it. Every necessary word.
“I’ve dispatched an officer to the scene,” the serene dispatcher said, her voice soothing, almost entrancing. “He’ll be with you soon.”
“I’m not at the hospital. I left. I have to go now. Find him. Please. Arrest him. He wants to take the kids. I can’t let him.” She ended the call and had the system dial her mother.
“Percy escaped from jail,” she blurted out. “Tried to kill me.”
A gasp filtered through the phone. “No. Oh no. It can’t be true. Are you okay? Where are you?”
“It’s true, and I’m fine,” Whitney replied, barely able to believe it herself as she recalled the attack. “I’m on my way to the daycare to pick up the kids. Then I’m taking off. Not sure where I’ll go, but I can’t tell you or he might try to get it out of you.”
“You think he’ll come here?”
Whitney hated hearing the frantic fear in her mother’s voice, but there was good reason to be afraid and hopefully it would help keep her parents safe. “Yes, and I think you and Dad should get out of town for a while, too. Try not to leave a trail that he can follow.”
“Oh, dear…no…oh my.”
“Go now, Mom. After me, you’re his next target.”
“Yes. We’ll go. I love you, sweetie.”
Tears came full force now. Whitney could barely see to drive. “I love you, too, Mom. I’ll keep watching the news and call you the minute he’s back in custody.”
She ended the conversation on that positive note. She had to believe law enforcement would find him and arrest him again.
She instructed her car to dial the daycare center. The phone rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
“C’mon. C’mon.” She slammed a fist into the wheel.
One more ring and the director’s cheery greeting rang out.
“It’s Whitney Rochester.” She tried to sound calm, but panic edged through her tone. “Isaiah and Zoey. Are they okay?”
“Fine, why?”
“My brother-in-law has escaped from jail.” When she’d registered the kids, she told them all about Percy as the staff had to understand the potential danger. “He knows nothing about your place, but I wanted to alert you and tell you I’m on my way to pick up the kids.”
“We should call the police.”
“My next call,” she said. “I’m ten minutes out. Hide them if you have to, but make sure they’re safe. Please. Please. Don’t let anything happen to them.”
“You know we’ll do our best.” Her sincerity was comforting, but what could a petite little woman of bird-sized proportions do against the anger-driven Percy should he show up?
Whitney floored the gas, the tires spinning and spitting over the rain-slicked road and prayed that their best was good enough to keep the precious children out of a rampaging killer’s hands.
2
Present day
Undercover assignments were notoriously unpredictable. Alex Hamilton ought to know. As a team member of Blackwell Tactical, he’d spent his share of time on them. But never had his success depended on a woman in this way.
But then, never had the mere sight of a woman gotten under his skin and troubled him, either. And he didn’t mean his fellow teammate, Samantha Willis, who was sitting at the restaurant table across from him. Sam was pretty enough—blond, shoulder-length hair, greenish-blue eyes, wide friendly smile—but she was a coworker, and that put her in “kid sister” territory for him.
But the woman across the room? The server who drew his attention the moment she stepped through swinging doors with a large tray balanced in her hands? There was nothing sisterly about her.
Whitney, he’d heard another server call her as they served the ski resort’s lunchtime crowd. A name that fit her regal posture and smooth way she carried herself. Graceful. Like a dancer. She was tall, thin, with curves in all the right places. Her hair a tumbling wave of chocolate ripples. He wished he was close enough to see her eyes, but she had her focus fixed on the water she was pouring into the annoying jerk’s glass.
The jerk, one Frisco McCray, was a known gun runner and the guy Alex and Sam had come to observe. In his early forties, McCray had dark penetrating eyes, bushy black brows, and long unkempt hair. His beard was equally as black and his mouth pursed.
The law hadn’t been able to touch him, and a survivor of his vicious assault had hired Blackwell to bring him down. He was drunk and coming on to Whitney, and Alex had barely been able to stay seated, but he couldn’t blow his cover. That would jeopardize the whole op.
McCray’s hand slid like a slithering snake around Whitney’s slim waist, and he jerked her close.
She cringed and glared at him. Alex got his first look at her eyes then, and they were spitting fire.
“Enough is enough.” Alex started to rise. “I can’t watch anymore. It’s a train wreck waiting to happen. I’m going over there.”
Sam grabbed his arm. “Wait. You can’t blow our cover.”
Alex freed his arm and planted his hands on the table. “I can’t let a woman suffer, either.”
“Gage is going to be mad if we blow this assignment.”
Yeah, their team leader, Gage Blackwell, wouldn’t like making a client mad. But… “He’ll be even madder if he finds out McCray was harassing this defenseless woman, and we did nothing about it.”
“True. Though she doesn’t look so defenseless.”
Alex glanced up to see Whitney had managed to step free from McCray’s clutches and was staring down on him, the water pitcher in her hands.
Didn’t matter. McCray reached out for her wrist, grabbed hold, and the pitcher tumbled to the floor.
Alex came to his full height. “I’m going.”
“Can you at least be discreet?” Sam gnawed on her lip. “Maybe get McCray to go to the bar with you for a drink or something rather than calling him out?”
“I’ll try my best, but a woman’s honor comes first.” Alex took off, and with each step toward the gorgeous brunette he had to wonder about his motives. He’d like to think he would protect any woman in this situation, not only this woman who he desperately wanted to meet.
�
�Whitney,” he said when he reached them, acting like he knew her. “I wondered where you were.”
McCray dropped her wrist, and she spun. She ran her gaze over him, and he felt as if in the flash of a moment she somehow had sized him up and found him wanting.
“Do I know you?” A delicate eyebrow raised over eyes he could now see were a color he couldn’t put a single word to. Gray, yet blue, with a hint of brown, too. Never had he seen that particular mixture, and he had to admit he liked having them focused on him.
Liked it too much and logical thought melted away.
“Well?” she asked.
Right. Focus, dude. “We haven’t met. My name’s Alex Hamilton. It looked like you could use some help.”
Her eyebrow lifted higher. “I’m fine on my own.”
“Yeah, she’s fine,” McCray said sounding like a parrot with a slurred voice. “We’re just getting to know each other is all.”
Alex shifted his focus to McCray, and his snide smile took the last of Alex’s self-control. He met McCray’s gaze and locked on. “It doesn’t much look like she’s enjoying you pawing her. What say you keep your hands to yourself?”
“I’ll put my hands wherever I please.” As if proving a point, he slapped Whitney’s bottom.
She spun so fast and cracked him across the face, landing a slap equal to the punch Alex wished he’d been able to deliver.
McCray’s head jerked back, and his chair toppled over. He crashed to the floor, the other diners gasped, and a wave of whispered conversation rushed through the dining room in a tidal wave of voices.
McCray lay stunned for a moment before his heated gaze locked on Alex. Moving to Whitney, he snarled and issued a growl of warning. He scrambled to his feet. Clumsy. Swaying. His focus never leaving her.
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