“The deputy marshal showed me his badge when he ordered me to go out the back way, so I know you’re the good guys.” He turned and started down a barely discernable path between the trees. “Follow me. I’ll take you to where we can score some wheels.”
Lara cast a glance over her shoulder as she stepped out behind her young escort. Where was Ethan? The gunshots had ceased. Did that mean Ethan was dead? Her gut twisted. Was she now on her own against the powerful Drayton juggernaut?
* * *
Ethan crept deeper into the woods, keeping to the cover of trees and bushes as much as possible. Stealth, not speed, was his best ally now. Drayton’s hired guns would certainly follow them into the forest, and their priority would be catching up to Lara and the baby. He needed to be able to hear the enemy’s location without betraying his own and take advantage of any opportunity to ambush their pursuit.
A snapping twig, a thud and a muttered curse let Ethan know one adversary had stumbled about eight yards to the south of him. He froze in position, straining his ears for more sounds and his eyes for signs of movement. There! A figure stepped along, lifting his feet high and gazing around as if the trees were about to pounce on him. Good. Wilderness was clearly not this guy’s comfort zone.
Ethan eased himself in the man’s direction, stalking the thug, waiting for the best moment to take him by surprise. At his feet, a short but thick fallen branch presented itself as a possible club. Ethan scooped it up. Not-too-distant rustles in the foliage betrayed the locations of the other two hired guns—no doubt searching for clues to the direction Lara and the baby had gone. But Ethan maintained his course, intent on dealing with one goon at a time and possibly snagging a firearm.
“Over here!” a female voice called.
The thug Ethan was tracking grunted and abruptly changed direction, heading straight for Ethan. He stepped behind a tree, holding his makeshift club at the ready. The man blundered past him, gun and gaze swiveling this way and that but completely missing Ethan’s presence. Ethan swung his club like a bat at the guy’s head, and the thug dropped like a stone. The man was still breathing but unconscious. With zip ties from his utility belt, Ethan secured the hired hitter, helped himself to the extra ammo clip the man carried and scooped up the guy’s weapon.
Ethan moved on soundlessly in the direction of the snap-crackle-pop noises the remaining two adversaries were making as they hurried toward their quarry—Lara and Maisy. Ethan pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes. They didn’t know it, but now the hunters were the hunted.
* * *
Thankfully, Maisy had stopped crying and settled into Lara’s arms, gazing here and there with interest at her surroundings. Then Lara tripped over a fallen branch and nearly fell, startling a squawk from the baby.
“This way!” came a shout from an unfamiliar voice. “I heard them.”
Lara’s throat tightened. The outcry sounded far too close to their location for comfort.
Her teenage escort gripped Lara’s arm and pulled her along. “Just a quarter mile to my uncle’s place. We can call the cops and you can borrow a vehicle.”
“We’ll never make it.”
Bryan’s lips thinned. “It’s the cave, then.”
“The what?”
He didn’t answer as he plunged deeper into the forest. Lara followed willy-nilly. Soon, they came to a moderately steep cliff side.
“We’re trapped,” Lara whispered, sending a wide-eyed gaze over her shoulder. Their pursuers could come upon them any second.
“Watch this.” The teenager grinned at her, then crouched and leaped into the air.
His hands caught and held on to an outcropping of rock. He half pulled, half scrambled up the cliff side and onto the lip of what must be a ledge, though the width of it wasn’t visible from the ground. From her perspective, there shouldn’t be room enough for a human body atop the outcropping, but obviously, perception from this angle was faulty.
Lying on his stomach, Bryan reached down toward her. “Give me the baby.”
Lara’s grip tightened around Maisy. Hand her little charge to someone else? Nearly unthinkable. Thrashing and snapping noises from not too far away in the woods made her decision for her. She thrust Maisy up toward the youth’s reaching arms. The infant, along with all trace of Bryan, disappeared over the side of the lip. Lara’s heart did a little kabump.
“Come on up.” The teenager’s voice trickled softly down to her.
Lara jumped up and wrapped her fingers around the edge of the rocky lip. A little scrambling later, and she hauled herself up onto a ledge that formed the floor of a horizontal crevice leading into the side of the cliff. No wonder it looked from below as if the cliff side proceeded upward in an unbroken line.
A soft baby mewl drew Lara deeper into the crevice on her belly. Shortly, the narrow opening grew into a larger space where she could sit up. Light filtered dimly into the area, and she found Bryan nearby, sitting cross-legged and bouncing Maisy in his arms.
The whites of his teeth gleamed briefly in her direction. “Every kid in the area knows about this cave, but if you’re a stranger, you’ll never find it.”
“I can believe that.” Lara hauled in a deep, calming breath, and her pulse rate began to slow. “I’m worried about Ethan, though.”
“The guy acted like he knew what he was doing, but all that shooting going on back there didn’t sound good.”
Gunfire sounded on the heels of Bryan’s words. Goose bumps erupted on Lara’s arms. Ethan? He must still be alive and active down there in the woods.
“I’ve got to take a peek.”
She rolled onto her stomach and inched through the crevice. Her hand fell upon a hefty rock and her fingers curled around it. Lara reached the cliff’s edge, keeping her head and body flat against the rock beneath her. Her gaze searched the perimeter. Ethan! Her heart leaped. He was taking cover behind a tree, but behind him crept a burly man lifting his gun and taking aim at the deputy marshal.
* * *
Ethan glided into cover behind a tree trunk. One more bad guy—er, bad girl—was down and trussed up. But that left one adversary standing. And he didn’t know the location of the fourth one who had been sent after them. However, the guy had a good approximation of his location because of the shot he’d just taken.
Scarcely daring to breathe, Ethan went stock-still except for his head swiveling this way and that. A cliff blocked the way in one direction, but the dense forest offered many places for his enemy to hide. A worm of sweat inched its way down his nape and into the collar of his shirt. Behind him, a guttural grunt and a thud brought him into a whirling crouch, gun extended. The last gunman lay facedown in a nest of pine needles, not twenty feet from him. What had happened?
“I got him.” Lara’s voice came from the cliff above.
Ethan turned and looked up. Lara waved to him from a seat on what appeared to be a dangerously narrow ledge.
“How did you do that from there? You’re not armed.”
She grinned and shrugged. “I had a bird’s-eye view, and there’s plenty of rocks up here. Never underestimate the arm of the starting pitcher for a high school softball team.”
A pent-up breath gushed from Ethan’s lungs. “No, I guess I won’t make that mistake. Let me secure the perp, and then I’ll help you climb down.” He went over to the sprawled gunman, squatted down and checked the man’s pulse. The guy seemed fine, just out cold. He began making good use of more zip ties. “Where’s Maisy and that store clerk?” he asked with his eyes on his task.
“We’re here and we’re fine,” Lara said from a spot a few feet away.
Ethan jerked his head up to find her approaching him with the baby in her arms and the store clerk strolling in her wake. Electric warmth rushed through his muscles. Lara and Maisy were all right. Everyone was all right. Thank You, God.
Without a seco
nd thought, he opened his arms and Lara rushed into them. Pine needles were strewn in her hair, and their crisp scent filled his nostrils. She fit perfectly against him, even with the baby making a threesome.
“I thought you might have been killed.” Her words came out muffled against his shirt.
His insides clenched. What was he doing, holding the woman he was protecting? It was one thing to offer comfort after a terrifying experience and quite another to be enjoying the closeness. Professional distance, buddy. With an effort, he released her and stepped away. A hint of confusion passed over her face at his abrupt backing off, but then her expression went blank.
“Not dead yet,” Ethan said. “Thanks to your pitching ability.” He looked toward the young convenience-store attendant. “Thank you for looking after Lara and Maisy.”
“My pleasure.” The kid grinned. “Most excitement we’ve had around here in—like, ever.”
“This is Bryan,” Lara introduced the youth. “His knowledge of the local cave pretty much saved the day.”
“Along with your shooting.” Bryan nodded toward the gun in Ethan’s holster.
Ethan looked down at the groaning thug, who was starting to wake up. “I need to round up the other living perps. Then we’ll head back to the store. Bryan, why don’t you hustle on ahead and give local law enforcement a call to meet us there. And tell them to bring the county coroner,” he added with a grimace.
He could only be thankful that the latter official wasn’t being called on behalf of Lara or Bryan. Bullets had flown around the vicinity of a child because the Draytons had pulled out all the stops to grab her. Ethan’s teeth ground together. Ronald and his father, Vincent, took evil to the next level.
Within ten minutes, their group had reached the store. Bryan showed Lara into the break room, where she could feed the baby, who had begun her hungry fuss. Ethan watched them disappear into the back room. Funny how he’d already started to know what Maisy wanted simply by the way she cried. Was that a normal thing, or was he getting way too attached?
Ethan shook off the alarming thought with a ripple of his shoulders and herded his captives toward the store office, where he secured them to scuffed wooden chairs. The two men and one woman glared at him as he relieved them of everything in their pockets, especially their burner cell phones. He scanned through their call records and found nothing to indicate they had reached out to anyone when they’d found their quarry at the store, offering hope that no reinforcements were on the way.
Ethan allowed himself a deep breath and stared at them. “How about someone clue me in on how you found us?”
The trio’s jaws firmed, and they pressed their lips together in mirror images of stubbornness.
“What can it hurt to answer the question?” Ethan crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s not like I’m asking you to reveal your bosses’ location.”
One of the thugs sneered up at him. “We were driving past and spotted our pals’ car. Figured it had to be you.”
Ethan’s gaze clashed with the man’s stare. The thug looked away first and squirmed in his wooden seat. Something about the answer didn’t sit well, like information was missing from the story. Yet an accidental sighting was plausible if the Draytons had as many troops out hunting for Maisy as the marshals service suspected. But the answer had been too glibly and almost sarcastically forthcoming.
The female hireling snorted. “Don’t bother asking us where the boss and his son are. We don’t know.”
Ethan bottled a sigh. It seemed likely these hired killers didn’t know where Ronnie and Vinnie were located. These hired killers’ ignorance of Ronnie and Vinnie’s location seemed all too likely to be true. Still, he might as well continue questioning them. Maybe they knew something they didn’t know they knew.
Twenty minutes later, the county sheriff and a deputy marshal arrived, accompanied by the coroner. Ethan left the thugs in the care of the local authorities. He went to the break room and found Lara with Maisy on her shoulder, patting the child’s back. The empty bottle on the table said that Maisy’s appetite had not been affected by the recent excitement. He offered Lara a smile.
She looked up at him, gaze shadowed. “Did you find out anything from our attackers?”
“According to them, finding us was a bit of a case of right time, right place.”
“Will we be getting more company soon?”
“I hope not. There’s no record in their phones that they reported our location. But we shouldn’t stick around any longer than necessary.”
“Agreed.”
“Before we leave, I need to use the landline to call Terry.”
Lara gathered the baby’s things and trailed him to the office. The sheriff, deputy and coroner were still around processing the scene. They had taken the captured suspects to a squad car, so he and Lara, with little Maisy, were alone in the small room. Lara took a seat on one of the wooden chairs and began entertaining the child with a plastic toy key ring from the diaper bag.
Ethan got on the store’s phone and called Terry via the Virginia headquarters office.
“It’s me,” Ethan said when his partner picked up. “How are you doing?”
“Pretty well. I’ve been discharged from the hospital, and I’m at home cleaning up and changing.”
“Any update on tracking down the Draytons?”
“We still don’t have a clue to their location, but our computer tech was found staggering down a county road in the middle of nowhere, ten miles outside Cheyenne.”
“Has he been able to offer us any good intel on his captors?”
“He was given an overdose of ketamine and was completely incoherent when he was found. Since then, he’s lapsed into a coma and is in the ICU. It’s touch and go for him.”
“Sorry to hear it.” Ethan groaned. “For him and for all of us. Lara, Maisy and I just survived another attack.”
A sharp intake of breath sounded on the other end. “You need to go to ground quickly in a safe place. Being on the road gives our enemies an opportunity to spot you.”
“We found that out all right.” Ethan’s tone was wry. “We’re leaving shortly, and I’m going to arrange for another vehicle—one not known by the hired guns hunting us.”
“Smart.”
Lara’s eager nod at him confirmed she agreed with his plan.
“We’ll get some of our people out there as quickly as we can,” Terry said. “We need to squeeze those perps for every shred of information.”
“I did some squeezing myself,” Ethan said. “They were acting cagey about something. Maybe you can find out what it is, but we won’t be here when you arrive. I’ll get back in touch with you whenever and however I can.”
Lara nudged Ethan. “Any news about my mother?”
“I heard that,” Terry said. “Negative. She’s still MIA, but we’re beating the bushes.”
Ethan took the phone away from his ear and gazed down at Lara. “No sign of her. Is it unusual for your mother to be out and about all day long?”
She frowned and her brow furrowed. “I wouldn’t say it’s unusual, but under the circumstances, it’s worrisome.”
“Agreed,” Ethan said and brought the phone back to his ear. “What about Isabelle Drayton? The news report said she’d been found in a hotel room. Is that true?”
Terry’s deep sigh in response didn’t bode well, and Ethan darted a glance toward Lara. She perched on the edge of her seat with her gaze riveted on him.
“Mrs. Drayton was found in Cheyenne, badly beaten,” Terry said. “She was in the hospital in what appeared to be a coma, but now she’s disappeared. Took off on her own, apparently.”
“She what?” Ethan scrunched his brow. “How did she evade the protection detail stationed outside her door?”
Lara’s mouth opened with what must be a flood of questions, but Ethan held o
ut a quieting finger and she subsided.
“What can I say?” Terry grunted. “The woman is clever.”
“Are you sure she wasn’t kidnapped by the Draytons?”
“I doubt kidnappers would take the time to dress her in her street clothes prior to whisking her away.”
“Good point. Hang on a sec.” Ethan lowered the handset and turned his gaze toward Lara. “Isabelle slipped her protection detail and is in the wind again.”
Lara hugged little Maisy. “At least this child’s mother is alive for real. Poor Izzy. She’s probably more afraid of her husband and his father than she is confident that your people can protect her.”
Ethan frowned and nodded. He’d had bitter experience with that kind of thinking before. He returned the receiver to his mouth.
“I’m back,” he told Terry. “Anything else to report?”
“Not much.” His partner’s tone was dark. “All law enforcement personnel throughout the state are looking for Mrs. Drayton and Mrs. Werth.”
“I’m sure you’re leaving no stone unturned, but all of that hunting would be moot if we could lay our hands on the Draytons.”
“No kidding.” His partner snorted. “I hope to have good news to share when we speak again.”
“I’ll leave you to it, then.”
Ethan ended the call. Lara’s face had gone white and worry lines etched her forehead.
He knelt in front of her and clasped one of her hands in his. “We will find your mother.”
She squeezed his palm, then pulled her hand away. “I know your people will do their best, but how do we know my mother isn’t in enemy hands already?”
“Because no demands have been made.”
“That’s true.” She inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly as color returned to her face. “I’m okay now. What else did Terry have to say?”
Ethan rose and quickly updated Lara on what Terry had told him about finding the computer tech and the man’s current condition.
She bit her lower lip and looked away, blinking rapidly. “I’m glad your partner’s all right, but that’s terrible about your tech guy. So many people are getting hurt.”
In Need of Protection Page 6
