Stephen had protested, as usual. They balanced each other out, Stephen’s safety-conscious streak and Micah’s willingness to take chances. They’d both had on their vests, should have been well enough protected had the Delaneys and whoever was with them not had such a high-caliber weapon. Why the round had hit Stephen and not Micah, who’d been only eighteen inches away, he didn’t know. The men had been aiming at both of them, Micah knew that, but guilt still ate at him. Why Stephen? Why not him?
But he couldn’t begin to think it through right now. He owed it to his partner to finish what they’d started.
He couldn’t think about this anymore. He had to do something. Find the Delaneys. No—foolish with only one officer. Better to focus his energies on getting off this mountain—ironically enough, called Hope Mountain—and into Moose Haven to see a doctor.
He’d thought he’d be able to come down here for a few hours, arrest the Delaneys and leave. When he and Stephen had discovered the Delaneys’ connection to the little Kenai Peninsula town and found evidence that their cabin on the outskirts had been used for illegal activities related to their theft ring, they’d thought it was a straightforward mission. Find the cabin, arrest the two brothers. No trip into Moose Haven proper necessary.
Nothing had gone as planned. And Micah felt like he’d been sent straight back to square one.
Now instead of avoiding the town and the people in it, he was going to have to head straight into the heart of his past, back where he’d been born and spent the first sixteen years of his life before his parents had moved to Anchorage for work and taken him with them.
Micah kept aware as he walked, scanning the woods, which were darkening. He glanced at his watch. Three o’clock, almost sunset here in the middle of January, at least not long before it. The darkness would make it easier for him to hike down undetected, but he didn’t relish the idea of finding his way in the deepening blackness. He had a flashlight—that hadn’t fallen from his belt, thankfully—but he couldn’t use it without risking detection. Micah wasn’t sure if they were after him or not, but figured there was a good chance. They wouldn’t want to leave anyone alive.
He didn’t like feeling hunted.
Micah crept along as quietly as he could, feeling keenly the difference between apprehending suspects on the city streets he was accustomed to and this kind of backcountry work. The last time he’d spent substantial time hiking on a mountain like this had been in high school, on this mountain, before his life had changed course dramatically. Back when he was practically an honorary member of Moose Haven’s Dawson family.
He wasn’t far from the Dawson lodge now. If he got down this mountain—no, when, because failure wasn’t an option—the first place he’d go was to find Noah and talk to his friend for the second time in fifteen years. He’d called Noah last week to give him a brief rundown on the Delaneys, since it seemed they were using Moose Haven as a base of operations even though most of their crimes were actually perpetrated in and around Anchorage. If Noah had been surprised to hear from him, he’d hid it, treated him the same as he had when the two were inseparable, chasing each other through these woods playing cops and robbers, honing their sense of justice as they played as kids.
Movement in front of him caught his attention, off to the left in the trees. He squinted in the gathering darkness. One of the Delaneys, but he couldn’t tell which. Where was the other brother? It was too much to hope for that he’d been injured during their earlier skirmish, because Micah had been coherent enough to know that only he and his partner had been hit by the bullets that flew.
He hated it when it felt like the bad guys were winning.
Keeping quiet, he crept toward the shadowed figure, followed him at a distance. Was he tracking Micah, but poorly? Or had he given him up for dead and was doing something else now?
That’s when he saw another figure, up ahead in the trail, just obscured enough by a stand of trees to be safe for now, but wouldn’t be for much longer if he or she was who Delaney was tracking. It was a woman, petite, but in excellent shape given the pace she was keeping. It wasn’t quite a run yet, but close, and she held herself tensely, like any second she’d sprint away.
Run. He tried to silently will her, eyes darting from her to Delaney, both of them too far away from Micah to do any good.
As he watched them, his foot caught on something. He glance down—tree root—and in the time it took him to look back up, a shot was fired.
Had Delaney fired it?
Micah assumed so, because the woman, whoever she was, was at a sprint now. One of the brothers must have fired the shot. Her pace in this snow was impressive; Micah looked at where Delaney had been.
Nothing.
He’d lost him in the dim midwinter light.
Biting back his frustration, he unholstered his own service weapon, which was thankfully still at his side, and moved forward. His arm throbbed and he realized he’d be shooting with mostly one hand, since his other arm was not able to grip as tightly as he was accustomed to.
He hurried through the woods, staying parallel to the trail, watching.
The sound of another gunshot gave him a chance to pinpoint Delaney’s location. There. Not far from the cabin the woman was running into.
Micah couldn’t let him reach that cabin.
He fired two rounds at Delaney when he had a clear shot, thankful that the last bit of daylight was enough. Any darker and he’d have had no choice but to put his weapon away. Micah had learned gun safety here in the woods, from Alaskans who took their weapons too seriously not to be safe with them.
Delaney fired back, reminding him of earlier, outside the Delaneys’ cabin. Remnants of the firefight echoed in Micah’s mind and he swallowed hard, his partner’s yell so loud in his ear he could almost promise it was happening right now.
He couldn’t get derailed by that, had to focus on right now.
Micah returned fire. God, help me keep it together. Make him stop shooting, and let me check on that woman. His prayers were disjointed but sincere. He shouldn’t be alive right now; that bullet his partner had taken had been meant for him. And this had been primarily his case.
God must have some purpose in keeping him alive. And that meant He wasn’t finished with Micah yet.
Help me, God.
Seconds passed. Nothing. Only silence.
Micah swallowed hard, moved through the trees toward the cabin, around to the opposite side where Delaney had been shooting. Darkness was almost all encompassing now, providing him the cover to get to the door. Hopefully.
He pushed at the door, surprised it wasn’t locked.
And found himself staring down the barrel of a .44 Magnum.
Held not by one of the Delaneys, but by a woman who looked uncannily like a girl he’d known fifteen years ago. She wore a winter hat that her dark hair spilled out of at the bottom, in silky brown waves he’d always wondered what it would be like to touch. Her eyes were mossy green. Focused right on him.
“Kate?” He barely breathed the word, heart squeezing in his chest.
Copyright © 2019 by Sarah Varland
ISBN-13: 9781488040436
Killer Exposure
Copyright © 2019 by Jessica R. Patch
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