The Fugitive

by Nichole Severn

  “I’m not interested in anything you have to say. Now walk.” His voice lacked the slightest hint of the emotions he’d shown her while they’d been here, and the empty space inside only spread faster. He’d said he’d fallen in love with her, that he’d be there for her and the baby. Had it all been a lie? Beckett gripped the cuffs between her wrists and maneuvered her toward the cabin’s front door. “I risked my career for you, put my life on the line for you, and this is what I get for trusting a fugitive. The second I hand you off to the FBI, I’m going after Hank, and I’ll never have to deal with you again. My lawyer will be in touch to make arrangements for custody after the baby is born.”

  He was going to take her baby from her.

  “No.” Raleigh wrenched out of his hold, twisting around to face him, and he automatically reached for the weapon he’d borrowed from Reed’s arsenal upstairs. Her gaze lowered to his hand, then rose back to those defensive blue eyes. Would he shoot her? Would he risk his daughter’s life out of his misdirected hatred for the man who’d threatened to destroy them? “I didn’t have anything to do with Calvin—” she closed her eyes as disbelief reared its ugly head and forced herself to breathe evenly “—Hank stealing that money. If after everything we’ve been through together, you still don’t believe me, I can handle that. But you don’t get to pretend what we had didn’t mean anything to you and drive off into the sunset without facing me.”

  The veins along his forearms seemed to strain to break through the thin skin there, his hand still positioned over the gun in his holster. “What you can or can’t handle no longer concerns me.”

  “Tell me you don’t believe me.” She battled to keep her face expressionless. She wouldn’t back down until he said the words, until he confirmed her deepest, darkest fear. She wouldn’t let him see how much his betrayal hurt, how he’d broken her down to nothing all over again. She wasn’t going to let him see the destruction he’d caused. Not just for her but for their daughter. Raleigh stepped into him. “Lie to my face. Tell me you don’t love me so we can both move on with our lives after you realize what you’ve done.”

  One second. Two.

  “How could I love someone like you?” His words came through gritted teeth. “I don’t even know you, and neither will our daughter.”

  The effect hit her as though she’d been impaled with a piece of shrapnel all over again. Her throat burned with the sob building at the edges. She’d forgotten how to breathe, how to move, and all she could do was nod as numbness spread through her. No thoughts. No sensations. Just a sea of comforting black she’d been retreating into her whole life. “Then let’s get this over with.”

  Beckett reached over her shoulder and disabled the alarm panel before spinning her toward the door. Cold air worked under the superhero T-shirt and pale gray sweats she’d borrowed from Reed’s clothing rack as he led her outside. Her bare feet caught on the splinters sticking out from the aged front porch of the cabin, but she kept moving at his insistence. Dark stains spotted the stairs as they descended, a bloody trail of breadcrumbs leading them to the SUV she’d used to get them to safety. When she’d believed he could finally move past the hatred that’d been tearing him apart since he was sixteen years old.

  She’d been wrong.

  Raleigh focused on the SUV as they approached. She could run. She could head straight for the trees and never look back, but she’d spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder if she ran. Because Beckett Foster would never stop searching for her or for his daughter. The best chance she had of giving their baby the life she deserved—a family—would be to prove her innocence and fight for custody. No matter how long it took. No matter how much it hurt.

  “What did Hank promise you if you helped him steal all that money? A cut of his share? That he’d leave the entire foundation in your hands and let you live out the rest of your life in peace?” His humorless laugh broke through the slight ringing in her ears. He wrenched the back passenger-side door open but held her arm to keep her from getting in. The keys jingled in his hand as he unlocked one cuff and hauled her hands above her head before securing her to the handle above the seat. Beckett stepped aside as she got in, his hand resting on the outer edge of the door. “I think him hiring Emily Cline to take you out tells you exactly what kind of man you’ve gotten involved with. Because of you our baby—my baby—is in danger, and if anything happens to her, it’s on you. I hope you can live with that.”

  Nothing she said, no amount of evidence she presented to the contrary, would alter his belief about her or satisfy his anger. She doubted hearing it from the source of all that hatred would do any good either. Beckett had spent his entire life fighting to counterbalance the evil his father had carried out. She only hoped he understood it’d be a lifelong battle. Not with Hank Foster but with himself. She stared at the back of the front headrest as best she could with both hands secured over her head. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not talk the rest of the trip back to Portland.”

  “You got it.” He slammed the door, the force quaking through her as she followed his movements through the windshield. Not yet. She couldn’t break apart yet, but every step he took around the front of the SUV sealed her fate. He’d take her back to Portland. He’d hand her over to the FBI, and she’d never see him or her daughter again. Of all the promises he’d made over the past few days, this would be one he’d never break.

  Tears burned in her eyes, and she ducked her chin to her chest as he pulled himself into the driver’s seat. He didn’t love her, but she’d been through this before and survived. With every foster family who hadn’t been able to handle her violent attempts to protect her brother, with being forced to live with an aunt who’d only used them for an extra paycheck, with the loss of friends after her arrest. Then why, after so many others had discarded her out of selfishness, did Beckett’s admission hurt this much? He’d distanced himself from anything that had to do with her after her arrest four months ago, just as he was doing now. Why was this time any different?

  Staring out the window, she couldn’t focus on anything other than her opaque reflection in the glass. The answer was there, drowning in the storm of feelings reminding her she’d always be unwanted, worthless, unloved by everyone around her. That storm had built her into the woman who’d do whatever it took to succeed emotionally, professionally and physically, but this time...this time she’d let him in. She’d let her guard crumble for the off chance of building a life for their daughter, one where their baby would never doubt she was loved. But now Raleigh would have to be the one to suffer the consequences.

  The SUV’s engine vibrated to life, and Beckett directed them down the single dirt access road leading down the mountain. The cuffs hit against the handle above her head as the vehicle climbed over wayward rocks and dips in the road. His gaze lifted to the rearview mirror, connecting with hers for the briefest of moments, and her gut clenched. The trip back to Portland would take at least two hours. She could do this. For hers and Beckett’s daughter. You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have. Her brother’s words echoed as a memory of him reaching down to help her to her feet after a particularly nasty fight with another foster brother landed her with two broken fingers and a bloody nose. She didn’t have a choice now, but she’d sure as hell make sure her daughter did.

  She caught movement through the windshield a split second before a bullet penetrated through the glass. Beckett’s pain-filled groan filled the silence, and Raleigh ducked low as best she could in her seat as he veered the vehicle off the road. Her heart throbbed at the base of her skull. “Beckett!”

  “Damn it. I’m fine.” Cold air rushed through the hole in the glass as Beckett reached for his gun. He clutched his side. Blood spilled between his fingers, and before he could unholster his weapon, he slumped in his seat. Unconscious.

  “Beckett?” Raleigh leaned forward as much as she co
uld to reach him, but the cuffs kept her secured. She couldn’t get to him. The road forced the SUV to course correct, and they were once again headed down the mountain, increasing speed as they approached a sharp turn ahead. She pulled at her restraints, a desperate growl slipping past her control. The pines up ahead were growing larger through the windshield. They were going too fast. They were going to crash.

  Sitting back in her seat, she braced for impact as best she could. The vehicle’s tires caught on the edge of the opposite side of the dirt road, and the vehicle flipped. The ground rushed up to meet her window. A scream tore past her lips as rocks shattered through the glass and scraped along her shoulder, but before she could take another breath, the SUV rolled again. The tree line and the ground blurred as her stomach shot into her throat. Then everything was still. Absolutely still.

  A low thump reached past the haze closing in. Her body felt as though she’d been burned as cold air met the fresh layer of raw skin under the cuffs and the gravel embedded in her shoulder. She clutched the handle Beckett had cuffed her to and tried to sit up, broken glass and debris shifting under her heels, but the SUV had landed upside down in the middle of the road. There was no up. A deep groan reached past the echo of her uneven breathing, and her heart jerked. “Beckett.”

  The series of thumps grew louder. Closer. Footsteps? Hinges protested loud in her ears as her passenger-side door ripped open, and she closed her eyes to block the piercing sunlight as a dark outline closed in.

  “Hello, Raleigh,” a familiar voice said. Cold metal slipped between her skin and the cuffs before the steel links snapped. Her arms relaxed onto her chest as a second, more muscular outline reached in and pulled her from the vehicle. “You and I have some unfinished business to discuss.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “So this is what dying feels like.” Beckett gripped the ambulance bay door as the EMT threaded another stitch into his side. His pain receptors screamed in protest, but lucky for him, the bullet had been a through-and-through. A few more stitches and a clean dressing and he’d be back out there hunting his fugitive.

  “Stop getting shot, and you wouldn’t have to go through this again.” Chief Deputy Remington Barton adjusted the AR-15 strapped over her shoulder, barrel pointed down. A black long-sleeved T-shirt peeked out from under her dark tactical vest with US Marshals spread across the back. The radio specifically designed to reach the rest of the deputies on their team had been strapped to one side of the Kevlar, grazing her short black hair, but it was those intense blue eyes that said she was ready for the coming fight. Prepared to protect her team and get the job done. “Want to tell me I’m wrong about how close you are to this investigation again?”

  He wasn’t going to dignify that question with a response. Helicopter blades thumped loud from overhead. Last he’d checked, the dogs had tracked Raleigh’s trail north, but they’d lost her scent as soon as she and whoever’d gotten her out of the SUV had crossed the river about two hundred feet into the woods. They had the entire Oregon US Marshals Service working this manhunt, but Raleigh was smart. She’d managed to escape federal custody once. He should’ve expected her to try again. “Any sign of her?”

  “The footprints we tracked disappear at the river. Looks like whoever’d shot you and pulled her from the SUV carried her out, but we managed to pick up tire tracks on the other side until they meet up with the main road.” Remi studied the scene as the sun arced over the western half of the sky. “Whoever was behind the wheel most likely headed west, but enough time passed between the accident and when we arrived on scene, they could be anywhere right now. We’re running matches to narrow down the make and model of the vehicle from the tires and putting checkpoints in place. We’ll catch her.”

  “She won’t go back to her aunt’s cabin. Too risky.” Damn it. There was a piece of this case he wasn’t seeing, something his gut had been trying to tell him from the start. He just couldn’t think straight enough to figure it out. “What about Calvin Dailey? Any luck tracing the call he made to my cell?”

  No. Not Calvin Dailey. Hank Foster. His bastard of a father was still hurting anyone he came into contact with, consequences be damned, only this time Beckett would be ready for him. He’d do whatever he had to, to make sure the SOB didn’t hurt Raleigh. For his daughter’s sake. Pressure built behind his chest as he studied the wreckage. He’d cuffed her to the handle above the back seat. She wouldn’t have had any way to fight off the shooter if she was, in fact, innocent, as she’d claimed. The new set of stitches in his side stung, keeping him in the moment. There was no point imagining what’d happened after the crash. Raleigh wasn’t innocent.

  “The call was rerouted using an internet service. No location, but we’ve got units at the foundation and his home, and his photo and a list of possible aliases sent to every law-enforcement agent and officer in the state.” Remi’s ocean-blue gaze locked on him as Beckett shoved to his feet, her mouth lifting at one corner. “I’m sorry. Are you wearing one of Reed’s superhero T-shirts?”

  He stared her down. “They were the only clean clothes he had on hand.”

  “If you say so.” The chief deputy surveyed the other marshals around them, her expression weary as she stepped into him and lowered her voice. The side of her weapon caught on his shirt. After reaching into her pants pocket, she handed him a thin piece of paper. “There was something else we found while we were following Wilde’s trail to the river. Something I have a feeling you wouldn’t want anyone else to know about.”

  Beckett smoothed the thin paper, and a crushing weight took hold of his insides.

  The ultrasound.

  “You two were together twenty weeks ago,” Remi said. “The baby’s yours. That’s why you wanted to help her clear her name.”

  Panic cemented his feet in place. His blood pressure spiked as he ran one hand through his hair. Raleigh had done everything she could to hang on to the evidence of her pregnancy these past three days. Hell, she’d slept with the ultrasound right next to the damn bed and kept it in her sweats pocket when she was up walking around the cabin. He ran his fingers over the fresh fold marks. No exceptions. She never would’ve left this behind.

  Not unless she’d been unconscious.

  Or taken against her will.

  Which could mean... Raleigh was in danger. “Where did you find this?”

  “Northwest. About fifty feet past the tree line.” Authoritative blue eyes steadied on him, but Beckett was already maneuvering around his superior. “Beckett, she’s a fugitive. You knew that when you took on this assignment, and I can’t protect you if—”

  “I don’t need your protection. I’m going to save my family. With or without your help.” The scene vanished to the back of his mind as he headed for the nearest SUV. Raleigh was out there. She was in the hands of a killer who’d used her to play out his sick game, and Beckett had accused her of being one of the masterminds. Damn it, how could he have been so stupid? He’d let his hatred for Hank Foster destroy the last remaining chance he had of moving on with his life, of having everything he’d ever wanted, because he couldn’t let go of the past. If his father so much as broke a hair on her head, he’d kill the man himself.

  His boots sank in the damp earth as Beckett wrenched open the door to Remi’s SUV and climbed inside. Within seconds, he’d flipped the vehicle around and accelerated down the mountain. Pines thinned at the bottom of the road, his hands aching from his grip on the steering wheel. “I’m coming. I’m going to find you.”

  He had to think. Hank had spent the past three to four years as Calvin Dailey, but the man would still have his own habits, locations he would’ve visited over and over aside from the foundation or his home. Things the con man had been doing for so long, no alias could change. Beckett slowed at the bottom of the hill and shoved the vehicle into Park. He shouldered out of the SUV and rounded the hood. Dips in the old dirt road tried to trip him up, but
that didn’t stop him from crouching beside the fresh set of tire tracks. Remi had mentioned the driver of the vehicle had most likely turned west to head back to Portland, but this set of muddied tracks leading off the dirt road said otherwise.

  East. Toward Mount Vernon.

  Beckett straightened, gaze following the length of single-lane asphalt road about a mile off. The bastard was taking her back to where this had all begun twenty years ago. “He’s headed to the ranch.”

  New stitches stretched across his wound tight as he hauled himself back into the driver’s seat. Adrenaline brought everything into focus as he dropped the magazine out of the sidearm he’d borrowed from Reed’s home arsenal and counted the rounds. There were no guarantees Hank had been working alone when he’d taken Raleigh. He’d hired Emily Cline to do his dirty work, but Beckett wouldn’t be caught off guard this time. Not when his entire future was at risk.

  He put the SUV in Drive and turned east on 26.

  An undeniable rift tore through him at the thought of losing that future, at the thought of what he’d accused Raleigh of doing, at the thought of having to go back to the place where he’d lost everything that’d mattered to him as a kid. He’d spent most of his life trying to recover from the single event of losing his mother to violence, of having a father who’d chosen to hurt people. He’d put himself through high school, gotten his criminal justice degree, worked the ranch with his own two hands and gotten away from it all, but somewhere in the process he’d convinced himself he didn’t need anyone. There’d been one person in this world he could rely on when times got tough: himself. But deep down, somewhere he hadn’t dared look in a long time, he knew he couldn’t spend the rest of this life angry. On edge. Alone. Not when there was a woman out there who’d helped him forget all of that over these past few days, who’d...freed him from the control Hank Foster had held over him since he’d been sixteen years old.