Expired Game (Last Chance County Book 5)

by Lisa Phillips

  Where were they anyway? If they’d headed northeast, they would be going up, but this terrain was mostly flat. That meant they’d reach the edge of the sledding hill soon enough.

  “You think you’re not worth saving.”

  “Does it matter? We’re probably dead either way. They’re right behind us.” And she was standing out in the open. Sure, she scanned the area beyond where he hid, but instead of crouching like him, she made herself a target.

  If she wasn’t going to hide…

  “We should keep going.”

  Jess frowned. “He’s looking at his phone.”

  “Can you steal it from him?”

  “Maybe if he was dead. They have to be wearing protective clothing, otherwise they’d be dead already.”

  And yet he and Jess were not. They were injured and on the run. Which meant the odds were seriously not in their favor.

  Ted got up, biting back the groan. “Come on.” They had to keep moving.

  Thankfully she didn’t argue. The gunshots had died down. Maybe the firefighter was saving his ammo also. Or he knew something they didn’t about what lay ahead.

  Ted shook his head. No, that would only be a problem if…

  He looked around.

  “What? What is it?” Neither of them slowed. Jess glanced as he’d done, but didn’t say more.

  Ted shook his head. “I’m just thinking about what we’re walking up to. There’s a spot where the drop off on the sledding hill is pretty steep. Zander skis down it.”

  “We’ll have to be on the lookout for—”

  Another gunshot rang out. Ted twisted to look back, ducking as he moved, but kept walking. Jess grasped his arm, her gaze in front of them. She gasped.

  His foot missed the next step, and Ted started to tumble.

  Fifteen

  Ted toppled over, pulling Jess with him over the edge and down the abrupt ledge of the hill. The sensation of falling rushed against her with the wind, and she waited for the end to come by way of a bullet to the back.

  One second alive. The next, gasping her last breath.

  But it never came.

  Ted hit the ground first. She landed on his stomach, her body splayed across his. She saw his arm hit the ground, and she flipped end over end. The grade of the hill was too steep to slow them down. Ted cried out, the sound cutting off quickly. Too quickly.

  Jess landed beside him the next time. Her head slammed on the ground and a spiked branch dug into her temple.

  She cried out, all while trying to bite the sound back. Before she could figure out why Ted had gone silent, they were already on their next circumvolution of somersaults. Over and over, end over end. She couldn’t get a good angle on where they were headed, they were going so fast.

  Breathlessly fast.

  Her head felt like someone was trying to pry it open. She reached out in a desperate attempt to grab onto something—anything—to slow her down even a little bit. Her fingers slipped through all the brush and twigs she grasped for. She was going too fast to stop herself.

  Ted clipped a tree stump, his legs jerking awkwardly. He looked like a ragdoll. He’s unconscious. Jess grasped his arm. Her elbow twisted awkwardly underneath her. She couldn’t help reacting to that aloud. They needed some serious help.

  Jess didn’t usually ask God for help, but this was crazy. The firefighter guy at the top of the hill would probably shoot them if they didn’t die first on the way to the bottom.

  She gasped. Help. Please.

  What else could she say? God was God. She didn’t usually need Him, but these were extenuating circumstances. She would have to work out her theology later. Like whether she had the right to ask Him for anything.

  The tops of the trees entered and then exited her vision, replaced over and over again with the jagged ground cover of the forest. Like she was in a giant washing machine. With pinecones. Jess cried out and tasted blood. They continued tumbling down the hill, picking up speed as they went. Dirt and grass kicked up. Birds scattered into the sky. Her forehead slammed into Ted’s collar bone. This wasn’t exactly her idea of a good day.

  Would they ever stop? She wondered if there was a bottom to this hill. Even as they continued to roll, she tried to train her eyes on a stationary point downhill in front of her. Three rotations later, she saw where they were headed.

  Then she wished she hadn’t.

  A cliff-like ledge. The prelude to an icy mountain river. There was no way to put the brakes on before they plunged over the side. Except there was a tree coming up. She hissed out a breath. This is going to hurt. Ted was unconscious, his body limp. Not even able to brace himself each time he tumbled over. It was up to her to stop them before they hit the bottom of the hill.

  And dropped off into oblivion. Going over the edge and sailing through the air before landing in the river—ice cold from snow runoff.

  Every January first, a group of high school kids—and other daredevils—jumped off this ledge into the water. More than a few times, they’d had to get Life Flight to the area to airlift someone to the hospital because they’d hit their head and developed hypothermia. It never got warm. If she even thought she would go into the water while paddle boarding, Jess always wore a wetsuit.

  Jess grasped onto Ted’s arm, winding hers through it. Yeah, this was really going to hurt.

  She leaned back and hauled him toward her so they were one, descending the hill feet first instead of on their sides. It slowed their momentum slightly. She only tumbled onto her head once as they flipped over headfirst. But she got her other arm out, ready for it.

  Ready.

  Set.

  Jess grabbed the tree. It slammed into her forearm, and she grasped the rough bark with her hand in a death grip. She had to stop herself and Ted. He outweighed her and would be no help.

  Ted kept going.

  Her teeth snapped together, and she bit down to avoid crying out as they rolled around her grasp on the tree. She felt her skin give way, a horrific sound and feel of her arm as it shredded, but she held on.

  She gritted her teeth and quit thinking about all the ways this could fail. She had to hang on.

  When she had killed enough of their momentum—and the skin on her arm—she finally let go. They rolled a few feet and Ted slid out of her grip, but eventually they stopped.

  Jess blinked up at the sky. Her head pounded. She moaned and tried to roll over, ignoring the mess that was now the inside of her arm. “Ted.” She gasped out a breath and looked up at the top of the hill.

  Thankfully, there was enough tree cover no one could see them. Would that firefighter hike down to look for them? Please, God. No. She couldn’t defend them in the state she was in, and they still had no way to call for help. Until someone got to Ted’s house and realized the barn was on fire, and they were missing, who would come looking for them? And where would they start the search?

  She’d told Conroy so many times that the department needed a K9. Usually they were drug dogs, or they found people hiding from the police. But a search and rescue dog was so much cooler.

  Is that helpful right now?

  Maybe not, but she was getting desperate.

  Cold air ruffled her clothing. She checked her ankle to be sure, but she already knew she hadn’t brought a backup gun with her. She’d have to change that for next time. But it didn’t help right now.

  Ted moaned.

  She crawled to him, laying her hand on his shirt. The wounds on her forearm made her grit her teeth. She was making a giant mess on his tee, but who cared?

  “Ted. Wake up, Ted.” She used her cop voice and repeated it a second time.

  I don’t want to be alone.

  She still couldn’t believe he had been so determined to get himself killed just to save her. Of course, she’d have done the same. She was a cop. She’d sacrifice her life for his without a second of hesitation. Was he allowed to do the same? No way. Not when he’d been in such a defeated place. That wasn’t nobility. It was
giving up.

  Not something she’d have thought he would ever do.

  Yielding was one thing. Though, she’d never done that either. It was probably why she and God had nothing but a cold détente between them. Jess didn’t give up control. Not even for a God everyone said was good. She’d have to experience it for herself.

  But this was about Ted, not her spiritual vacancies.

  “Wake up.” She whimpered. “Please.” She shook him with her good hand. “We need to get out of here.”

  His arms and legs shifted, and his eyelids began to flutter.

  “Please. I know it hurts, but you have to wake up.”

  His lips puffed out and a moan escaped.

  “Please.”

  “Jess?” His eyes focused, and she found herself in a locked gaze with him.

  Seconds stretched out, every breath she took rushing through her ears like the wind in a tunnel. “Hey. You okay?”

  He blinked, and the moment broke. “Jess, your arm!”

  Thankfully, he didn’t shout. She wasn’t about to do anything to let the men who’d shot at them know where they landed. “We need to get out of here.”

  “But—”

  She cut him off, sitting up. “We have to go.”

  Ted sat up. When he started to sway, she helped steady him. This wasn’t good. What if he couldn’t walk? What if those men found them again, and they fell over the edge for real this time? Her arm—and her pounding head—would be numb from the cold water, but she would also develop hypothermia.

  They’d have to carry each other out. Better to simply walk from here. However they were supposed to do that, when she had no idea where they even were, was a mystery to her.

  Ted pulled off his sweater one-handed. Once she figured out what he was doing, she held his sling while he tore off the bottom of his T-shirt. She glanced away, not wanting to be distracted by the sight of his abs right now. She helped him put the sweater back on, but he ignored the sling.

  He offered her a tight smile and reached for her bleeding arm. One bandaged palm holding her hand, and the warm fingers of his other hand wrapping the shirt like a bandage around her scratched and bloodied arm. “Here.”

  Jess swallowed down the acidic taste in her mouth as he tied it off. “I think I’m in shock. I can’t really feel it.”

  “Don’t worry.” He offered her an apologetic smile. “You’ll feel it later.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We can arm wrestle our injured limbs for use of the sling.”

  Despite everything, she felt herself smile. “Put it on, Ted.”

  Jess looked around for her gun. All she saw was pine needles and grass. A few rabbit holes. She’d seen them on some of the early mornings they’d hiked the foothills together.

  Ted groaned but clambered to his feet.

  “Do you see anyone?”

  He held out his good hand, and she clasped his wrist with her good hand to leverage herself up on her feet. Her head swam. Ted’s arm slid around her waist, and she leaned into him. This time he steadied her. Each holding up the other when they were too weak to stand alone. She smiled against his sweater. They were a team.

  When she looked up, his gaze was on the top of the hill. “I don’t see anyone.”

  “I can’t hear them coming either.” She scanned around them too. “But they will. Soon enough, they’ll climb down to make sure we’re dead.”

  “You don’t think they’ll assume we’re too injured to get up?”

  “Maybe. People underestimate us all the time.” She shrugged one shoulder. “What do you think?”

  He looked down at her. Nodded. “I think we might be good.”

  A quip she shouldn’t say rolled through her head, birthing a smile on her lips.

  “We survived. Again.” He matched her smile with one of his own.

  “Sure did.” She wanted to comment that they couldn’t be kept down. That West wasn’t going to beat them. Instead she sobered her mind, “But it’s still a long way out of here. We have no weapons, no protection, and no help.”

  “Someone will realize we’re missing. They’ll look.”

  She wasn’t so confident. “Until they find us, we should keep moving.”

  “Okay, but you just forgot one thing.”

  She frowned. “What’s—”

  Ted’s head swooped down, and he pressed his lips against hers.

  Oh. Jess wound up clinging to him, and it occurred to her that she didn’t especially like it when the woman in a couple did that. And yet, here she was doing that exact thing.

  Then she realized she was overthinking this. It would be much better to just relax, and be in the moment. If they weren’t going to possibly be found at any time.

  Ted’s chest shook, and she realized he was laughing. He pulled back a slight amount. “I can hear your brain working.”

  Jess said nothing. She reached up with her good hand to touch the back of his neck, tugging his mouth down to meet hers once again and decided to just get lost in it.

  What was the point in worrying? Or overthinking this. It only served to remind her of all the reasons this wasn’t a good idea.

  Plus, being in the moment kept her mind off the pain in her arm—the one loosely wrapped around his waist now. And it almost made her forget the pain in her head.

  A twig snapped.

  Jess’s body tensed. Under her arm, she felt Ted shift. They both looked toward the sound. A uniformed firefighter, his clothing mussed, held a gun on them.

  She shifted, moving a hand to point at him. Palm out. “Hold—”

  He pulled the trigger.

  The gun clicked. Nothing but the echo of the click. Jammed, or out of bullets.

  The man muttered a curse, and Jess ran at him. She launched herself toward his middle in a full-out tackle.

  Sixteen

  Ted barely had time to react before she’d tackled the guy to the ground. The man let out an “oof,” apparently as surprised as Ted over what Jess had done.

  He moved toward them. When she pinned the man’s hand out to one side, Ted stood on his wrist. “Got it.”

  She moved her hand, her arm soaking blood through his shirt now. How she wasn’t crying because of the pain, he didn’t even know. But she held her arm to her front and settled her weight astride the man’s chest, with one knee on his other arm.

  Jess tore off the man’s helmet.

  He blinked at them, like someone going outside to the sun after being in a dark room.

  “Anyone you recognize?”

  It took him a second to figure out she was asking him. Ted shook his head, then realized she wasn’t looking at him. “No.”

  “Me either.”

  The man struggled but didn’t have much fight in him. He seemed out of breath. Probably from running after them. Coupled with the amount of sweat dampening his hair, his bloodshot eyes, and the look of his front teeth, Ted figured this guy had been promised a fresh score of meth if he terrorized them.

  Kidnapped them.

  Killed them.

  Jess held her shoulders straight and tight. “Who is West?”

  The man grinned that macabre smile and lifted his head off the grass to snap his teeth at her. If she leaned down, he would probably bite her.

  Ted leaned more on the man’s hand.

  Jess yelled, “Who! Tell me now.”

  The man only laughed.

  “Who sent you to try and kill us?”

  His body shook under them. Was he high right now?

  Jess let out a cry of frustration. Then she punched the man’s nose. “Tell me.”

  He howled in pain, unable to cover his face because they had his arms pinned.

  Ted didn’t like that they’d been caught unaware. If that gun hadn’t been empty or jammed, or whatever happened to it, then one or both of them would be dead right now.

  The reality that they’d been kissing, and it had nearly cost their lives, wasn’t lost on him. It also wasn’t something th
at would be lost on Jess. With that solid core of “cop” she had in her, born and raised to wear that blue uniform, she would absolutely regret being caught off guard.

  After all, that dogged determination of hers to solve every crime in Last Chance so no one ever got hurt was the reason their relationship hadn’t progressed.

  He was hiding entirely too much from her to successfully date her. She would figure it out sooner or later. She would realize he was a giant fraud and that would mean losing her faith in her grandfather—and tarnishing her memory of him. She didn’t need to realize that Chief Ridgeman had made a mistake hiring him, believing he could do the right thing and go straight.

  Jess grabbed the arm beside his foot. “Ted.”

  He lifted his foot, and she hoisted the guy over by his arm, turning him onto his front. She patted down the bulky uniform.

  “Protective gear?” She’d shot this man and the other one who had been with him earlier, but neither seemed to have suffered for it.

  “Looks like it.” She pulled out a cell phone and tossed it onto the grass.

  “We should keep an eye out for the other guy.”

  She nodded. “Got it. Can you call for help?” She motioned to the phone.

  “Sure.” He wanted to feel useful while she was doing her cop thing. Ted scooped the phone off the grass and studied the top of the hill. It was hard to see through the trees, what with all the branches disguising the ridge.

  Behind him he could hear the rush of the water below. Fifteen feet down was the edge that attracted so many people wanting to jump off of it and into the icy river. Just for fun. Not him. Ted had been involved in enough life-endangering experiences, he sure didn’t need to go seek them out.

  After all, that was why he had an injured arm and was stranded in the middle of nowhere. They were about two miles from his house. Two hard miles of uphill hiking he wasn’t looking forward to.

  Ted thought about who to call and settled on just the emergency number.

  “9-1-1 this is—”

  “Bill, it’s Ted.”

  “Ted! Where are you?”

  Relief washed over him. His knees nearly buckled, so he locked them straight and kept watching Jess while he explained everything. She didn’t need to be caught unaware again. Not with her arm bleeding like it was and with a possibly-high man who could hurt her.