Safe House Under Fire

by Elisabeth Rees

  “I apologize,” David said quietly. “Goldie’s right. I’ll take you home if that’s what you really want. I’ll get some security measures put in place to protect you and Astrid from attack and hopefully this will be over soon.”

  “It can’t come soon enough,” Lilly muttered under her breath.

  She was done with this whole petrifying ordeal, with David and his stubbornness, with Henderson and his constant lurking presence. She was sick of running and if Henderson found her, she would fight him with her own bare hands if necessary.

  The only help available to her now came from her faith. Even amongst the arguments and recriminations, the Lord remained steadfast, offering a sense of peace and serenity.

  She put her hands together, closed her eyes and silently prayed for an end to this nightmare, for Astrid’s safety and for David’s anger to subside. As her lips mouthed the words, she felt Astrid tug on her arm, wanting to be part of the prayer her mom was making. Lilly smiled at her, took her hands and said the same prayer out loud, this time inviting a blanket of protection for each person in the car.

  As the car’s occupants said “amen” in unison, a roadblock came into view on the street that would take them out of the woods. A solitary police vehicle was parked behind a yellow barrier that displayed the sign Road Closed Ahead.

  As David rolled to a halt, an officer exited the vehicle and walked toward them, hand on his gun and a peaked cap pulled low over his face.

  “Can we turn around and go back the other way?” Lilly asked. “I’ve got a really bad feeling about this.”

  “I can’t see this guy’s features,” David said. “It might be Henderson, but it could be a legitimate cop.” He turned around to face Lilly. “Is this the guy who impersonated François Berger?”

  “I don’t know.” She narrowed her eyes at the policeman in the poor visibility of the torrential rain. “It’s hard to tell.”

  As the officer came to stand directly in front of their car, David activated the electric window and called out.

  “What’s the problem, Officer?”

  “There have been reports of a gunman in the area,” came the reply. “I want all occupants out of the vehicle, please.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” David said, pulling his badge from his jacket pocket and holding it out into the fat raindrops. “My name is David McQueen and I’m a federal agent. Let us pass.”

  The officer pulled his gun. “Get out of the car! Now!”

  David put the SUV in reverse and began to back up fast, just as the bullets started to fly. The windshield shattered, sending tiny fragments sailing through the car. Lilly saw blood, didn’t know whose it was and made a grab for Astrid. It was only when he yelled out in pain that she realized the blood was David’s. He was injured, making a desperate attempt to take them away from a deranged killer.

  Whatever animosity she felt toward him now had to be pushed aside, because her life was in his hands, along with that of her daughter. She had to trust him implicitly.

  TEN

  The car whined against its high speed in reverse, as David floored the gas pedal. Henderson had returned to his stolen patrol car and was pursuing their vehicle, gaining with each second. Soon they were nose to nose, Henderson firing erratically through the driver’s window. His bullets were off target, pinging past the car somewhere beyond Lilly’s vision as she cowered in the back seat, covering Astrid as much as possible.

  “We’ll be fine, honey,” she whispered to her daughter. “Keep down low.”

  “This is all my fault,” Astrid whimpered. “He found us because of me.”

  “Don’t think about that now. Just focus on staying out of sight.”

  In her peripheral vision, she saw Goldie kicking the windshield with her feet, trying to dislodge the shattered glass. But it was tough and wouldn’t budge, so Goldie leaned through her window to provide return fire, and each time her weapon discharged a bullet, Astrid’s whole body convulsed with the noise.

  “Hold on!” David yelled. “I’m turning around.”

  He yanked the hand brake, spinning on the asphalt, tires squealing. The turn meant that the car lost speed and the patrol car slammed into them from behind, sending Astrid and Lilly tumbling forward, stopped only by their seat belts.

  David unclipped his radio, requesting immediate assistance at their location.

  “I’ll get us out of here,” he shouted, pulling a sharp right. “There’s another exit on this road.”

  “It’s blocked,” Goldie shouted. “Watch out!”

  Lilly lifted her head to see a large motor home parked sideways across the road. Two cars had already stopped behind it, and their occupants were standing beside their vehicles in the rain, looking around for the absent driver. Henderson had obviously stolen the motor home in order to block the escape routes. As always, he’d planned ahead.

  “I’m going off-road,” David said, yanking the wheel to take them onto the grass. “I need to lead Henderson away from these people. Hold on to something.”

  Lilly only wanted to hold on to one thing—Astrid. Her daughter was shaking with fear and shame, knowing that their attack had resulted because of her naïveté.

  The car bumped and bounced across the slushy grass, and Lilly struggled to keep hold of Astrid as her limbs jarred with the force. Goldie stopped firing, obviously concerned for the lives of those people on the road, and this gave Henderson a little more confidence to shoot at will. There was the sound of bang after bang. The back window shattered and a bullet lodged in the door frame above Lilly’s head. She looked at it in horror, imagining the damage it could do to a human body.

  “He’s blown one of our tires,” David said. “I’m going into the woods and we’ll take cover there.”

  Lilly turned her head to look up out the window. Thick trees came into view, their foliage rushing past in a blur of green. The car twisted and turned without warning as David weaved through the woods, the blown back tire giving the car a strange lopsidedness.

  Then there was a crash and Lilly was flung forward. Both airbags deployed in the front of the car, rising up with a hiss.

  “We hit a tree,” David shouted. “We’ll have to shoot it out from here. Goldie, let’s go.” He glanced at Lilly, cowering in the back with Astrid. “Stay here, out of sight.”

  Then he was gone, leaving behind a crimson bloodstain on the upholstered seat. She heard shots being exchanged, lots of shouting and the hammering rain on the roof.

  As a lull in the gunfire came, Lilly felt confident enough to peek above the seat to try to work out their proximity to danger. She saw David a few yards away shielded behind a tree, Goldie behind another, both reloading their weapons. But where was Henderson? The patrol car he’d been driving was positioned right behind their SUV, battered from the chase and entirely empty. Through the trees, in the distance, a team of uniformed officers was pushing the motor home from the road to allow a convoy of police cars to head their way, following the muddy tracks made by their tires. Help was coming, and perhaps Henderson had been scared off.

  A movement caught her eye and she tracked it between the trees. It appeared to be a slow-moving bush, a pile of leaves and branches shuffling along the ground headed for their SUV. And sticking out the back of this bush was a pair of boots.

  “Come on,” she said to Astrid, opening the door as her heart pumped with adrenaline. “We gotta get out of here.”

  Astrid was reluctant to move from their seemingly safe hiding spot. “No, Mom. David told us to stay here.”

  Lilly pushed her daughter from the car. “And I’m telling us to leave. Go!”

  Astrid fell to the soggy ground with a squelch and Lilly dropped next to her, rain soaking through to her scalp in seconds. Then the bullets came from the opposite side of car, peppering the metal indiscriminately, one after the other. Lilly knew with surety tha
t both she and Astrid would have been killed if they’d remained inside.

  David appeared at her side, drawn by the bullets, the sleeve of his white shirt saturated with his blood. “Go take cover behind that tree,” he said, pointing to a thick trunk. As the gunfire ceased, he tilted his head, hearing the building sirens. “Backup is here. We’ll have him surrounded.”

  “That’s what we thought last time,” Lilly said, taking Astrid’s hand and pulling her to the tree, where they both slid down the rough bark and clung to each other, hearing the police convoy move ever closer.

  Goldie raced past, her red curls dripping wet, gun positioned and ready to fire. Within another few seconds the sirens flooded the woods, clashing with one other, until they ceased abruptly and a voice bellowed through the air.

  “I want to see your hands in the air. Drop your weapons.”

  David’s voice rang out in response. “We’re both FBI agents on an assignment to protect two civilians who’ve been targeted for murder by a known con man.”

  Lilly crawled around the trunk as she saw Henderson himself come into view, brushing wet leaves from his uniform, adjusting his peaked cap. Now that she could see him much closer, he was instantly recognizable as the man who had introduced himself as François Berger. Behind the false beard and eyeglasses, his freckled skin and icy blue eyes were seemingly innocent but powerfully chilling.

  “Stay there,” she whispered to Astrid. “I’ll be right back.” Then she stood up, pointed to the con man and shouted to the dozen or so officers surrounding David and Goldie. “Arrest him,” she pleaded. “He’s been trying to kill me.”

  “Put your hands up, ma’am,” one of the officers called. “Do you have a weapon?”

  Her hands shot into the air, reacting instantly to the order. “No, I don’t have a gun. You have to believe me, please. This policeman is not who you think he is.”

  On hearing this, Henderson strolled over to the officer and casually spoke into his ear.

  “This officer from Beaver County tells me he witnessed you people robbing a store in Beaver Falls and pursued you here after you failed to stop,” the policeman said. “It’s a crime to make a false statement to the police, so think carefully about what you’re saying.”

  “It was me who requested backup,” David said, his hands raised high and his gun on the ground. “You’re responding to my call.”

  Henderson yet again spoke quietly into the officer’s ear.

  “Nice try, buddy,” the policeman said to David with a smile. “But Officer David McQueen here made the call, not you.”

  “No,” shouted David. “His name is Gilbert Henderson. I’m David McQueen. Check my badge. It’s in my left pocket. You’re making a huge mistake.”

  The officer was clearly affronted. “You’re the one making the mistake. Whatever stunt you’re trying to pull won’t work with me. You’re all under arrest.”

  “No, no,” Lilly said. “He’s getting away.” She watched in dismay as Henderson ambled through the trees, making for the road. “You have to stop him.”

  The officer in charge was now in no mood to tolerate their protestations. “Officer McQueen is going to reassure those good people who were scared to death by your high-speed pursuit. Keep quiet and let him do his job.”

  Lilly could do nothing but stare in disbelief as her chance of freedom slipped away. The unfairness of it was staggering.

  “My daughter is hiding behind the tree back there,” she said, realizing that they were all out of options. “She’s only fifteen years old, so please be gentle with her.”

  With each second, Henderson was walking out of reach, his ambling walk full of arrogance and smugness. As he reached the road, he turned, smiled and gave a wave, as if taunting them. Then he strode right past the people he was meant to be comforting and vanished into the woods beyond, behind the blanket of rain.

  “We’ve lost him this time,” David said, shaking his head. “But next time will be different.”

  Lilly wanted to cry. He was deluding himself. Not only was Henderson outsmarting them at every opportunity, but she and David were fighting over Astrid and disagreeing about where to go next. Henderson had escaped, everything had fallen apart and she was mentally exhausted.

  Lilly intended to return home and request that David be replaced with another agent. It was painfully clear that she needed to call time on their relationship, both professionally and romantically.

  * * *

  David walked through Lilly’s single-story home with a sinking heart. This house was a bodyguard’s nightmare—three points of entry, plenty of dark corners in the yard and on a street wide enough to drive a tank down. They were facing a villain so cunning that David certainly didn’t want to give him any advantages.

  Lilly walked along the hallway, freshly showered, towel drying her hair and wearing her favorite blue sweat suit, the one that perfectly matched her eyes.

  “I needed that hot shower,” she said. “It’s nice to be home.”

  After being held in a police station for an hour, they had all been glad to be released without charge when their identities had been established. Beaver Falls Police had also confirmed that one of their vehicles was stolen overnight along with a uniform in the trunk. David’s superiors had given the arresting officers a stern rebuke for allowing a wanted man to escape so easily, but it would in no way compensate for the damage done. Thanks to their incompetence, Henderson remained a free man. The only upside to the latest incident was the inclusion of another charge on his arrest warrant: impersonating a police officer. For a man who usually left no evidence behind, Henderson’s decision to reveal his face to so many people showed how desperate he had been to escape. And he would be furious about the forced error, possibly now giving him a personal score to settle with David, as well as a desire to eliminate Lilly as a witness.

  “How’s your arm?” Lilly asked, touching the bandage that was visible beneath David’s shirt. “Is it sore?”

  “It’s fine. It’s just a small cut from the flying glass but it sure created a lot of blood. I put the shirt in the trash.”

  She smiled. “At least it was only the shirt that was seriously hurt.”

  A silence fell, awkwardness yet again settling between them.

  “How’s Astrid?” he asked. “I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to her yet.”

  “She’s happy to be home,” Lilly replied. “There’s no other place we want to be right now.”

  He cast a gaze around them. “Listen, Lilly, this isn’t an ideal location for me to protect you. I’d much rather you reconsidered your plan.”

  “You don’t have to protect me,” she said, wringing her hands. “In fact, I think I’d rather you weren’t here at all.”

  “What?” He couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “Goldie can’t protect you and Astrid alone. That’s not possible.”

  “I was thinking that you could organize a replacement,” she said. “Somebody new who doesn’t have the same history that we have.”

  His anxiety soared. His greatest fear was coming true. He was losing her. After wrestling with his feelings for what had felt like an eternity, he had finally overcome his doubts and let himself love Lilly. And now their relationship was crumbling, unable to withstand this test. Could he pull it back on track?

  “You can’t be serious.” He reached for her hand, but she drew it from his grasp. “I know we had a fight but is it really worth throwing away what we have? We mean something to each other, right?”

  “The way you treated Astrid after you found her with the cell phone was unforgiveable,” she said. “She made a mistake and you tore a strip off her, even after she apologized.”

  “Somebody had to make her understand what she’d done.” They had almost died numerous times because of Astrid’s disobedience. “She never seems to learn.”

 
“Yes, she does learn.” Lilly was obviously exasperated. “Every time she makes a mistake, she grows from it, but you’ve gone and decided that she’s a lost cause.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have a hard time trusting her after all the lies she’s told and the disrespect she’s shown. I thought she was growing up, but it was all just an act that totally fooled me.”

  “I’ve heard enough,” Lilly said. “Astrid is in her room, feeling awful about what she’s done and I refuse to let you punish her any more than she’s punishing herself already. I want you to go.”

  “Nobody knows this case like I do.” He locked eyes with her. “Nobody knows you like I do.”

  “Our relationship can’t go anywhere, David,” she said. “Not while you’re unprepared to forgive Astrid.”

  “It’s not a question of forgiving her,” David protested. “It’s about ensuring she doesn’t have the ability to put us in danger again.”

  “And how do you suggest we do that?”

  “By taking away access to all electronic devices, keeping a strict watch on her at all times and setting an alarm on her bedroom window to prevent Noah passing her another cell phone.”

  Lilly paced the hallway, crossing her arms and shaking her head. “I thought you’d changed but you’ve gone right back to the man you used to be.”

  He didn’t know what she meant. “The man I used to be?”

  “When we first met, you were determined to control Astrid’s behavior by forcing her to bend to your rules and not allow her any freedom. But you two made a breakthrough when you started talking honestly to each other. I really hoped you’d begun to understand her, to see her as a young adult rather than nothing more than a rebellious child. It looks like I was wrong. You haven’t changed at all.”

  This comment stung. David had changed and grown in character a lot since meeting Lilly and Astrid. He’d been made to understand that he’d pressured Chloe into seeking a career she hadn’t wanted, and he’d let go of his past regrets in order to become a much humbler person. His desire to control Astrid now was a necessity to protect everyone in the house. She couldn’t be trusted. Could she?