Of course, the shooter would be harder to see, too. But to get to Maggie and him, that shooter would have to come closer to the cabin. When that happened, Jake would have a shot of his own.
“Did you get a look at the guy?” Jake asked Maggie.
“No. I just saw the movement by the cottonwood tree.” Her breath was gusting, and he figured she was primed and ready for a fight. He certainly was, and the adrenaline continued to pump right through him.
Who was out there?
And why had the person fired the shot?
As far as Jake could tell, the bullet hadn’t gone into any part of the cabin, and while the place wasn’t big, someone just yards away by the cottonwoods should have been able to hit it.
Jake braced himself for another shot, but one didn’t come. The seconds ticked off in his head, turning to minutes, and he stepped forward just a little so he could get a look out the kitchen side window.
There.
He saw someone by the trees.
From the person’s build, it appeared to be a man, but Jake couldn’t tell if it was one of their suspects. Of course, it could be a hired assassin sent by Tanner.
Jake fastened his attention to the man. Waited more snail-crawling minutes. And he finally saw more movement. The guy dropped something on the ground and, much to Jake’s surprise, he turned and started to run back down the ridge.
Hell.
What was going on?
“Wait here,” he said to Maggie.
Jake hurried back to the door, opened it and looked around the area in front of the cabin. Nothing. Just the sound of running footsteps, and the person was headed right to the area where Jake had left his truck.
“I’m going with you,” Maggie said when he went onto the porch.
Jake figured he could waste time arguing with her or just let her follow him. So he went with the second option. In the back of his mind, he reasoned that Maggie would be a good backup, but he didn’t want her outside in direct danger. That’s why he’d have to make this quick, with a look over the ridge, and then get her back inside. Of course, then they would need to grab their things and leave right away since their location had been compromised.
Maggie stayed right behind him as they trekked their way through the ice and snow. It wasn’t deep, but it was enough for him to see the tracks the person had left behind. They did indeed lead to the ridge.
Jake slowed as they got to the rim, and he peered down at the trail below. Yeah. There was another vehicle and he didn’t recognize it. He couldn’t tell if the driver was already inside.
He heard the swishing sound to his right and, with his gun ready and aimed, he pivoted in that direction. The man was there. In a cluster of trees. And he must have spotted Jake and Maggie, too, because he turned to run.
Cursing, Jake ran after him.
Cursing, too, Maggie ran after Jake.
The guy wasn’t very fast, and it didn’t take Jake long to catch up with him. He launched himself at the man and tackled him, and the impact sent them both crashing to the frozen ground. Jake saw a star or two when his shoulder collided with a rock, but he managed to hang on to the guy, and he dragged both himself and the man to their feet.
“Don’t shoot!” the man shouted.
It was hard to see his face in the dim light and with the snow and ice on it, but Jake had no trouble recognizing that voice.
It was Wade Garfield, the man Jake had hired to break into the Justice Department files.
“Don’t shoot,” Wade repeated, and he lifted his hands in the air.
“You shot at us,” Maggie snarled. She held the Colt on Wade while Jake gave him a quick pat down. It didn’t take him long to find the small gun inside Wade’s pocket.
“I didn’t shoot at you,” Wade argued. “It went off by accident. I’m not used to handling weapons.”
Jake wasn’t sure he believed that, but he had so many other questions that he pushed that one aside and started with the obvious.
“Why are you here, Wade?”
The young man huffed. “Because I was looking for you. I told you Tanner was trying to kill me, but you ignored me. Well, I won’t let you do that now. You’ll tell me what the heck is happening.”
Since that was going to be one of Jake’s questions to Wade, he mimicked the huff. “If you wanted police protection, why didn’t you just go to the sheriff’s office? The night deputy’s there.”
“So are those marshals. Two of them, and they’re not saying what they want, but I figure it’s me and you. They’re here to arrest us, aren’t they?”
“They’re not after you,” Jake assured him. “In fact, there’s nothing that can connect you to the hacking unless you tell them. That’s why I used my own computer, not yours, and that’s also why I won’t say a word about you to the marshals or anyone else.”
That didn’t seem to calm Wade down any. He was shaking, but that could be from the cold, because Maggie was shaking, too. Jake didn’t want to take Wade into the cabin, but by God he wanted some answers, and he didn’t want Maggie to freeze to death while that happened.
“Follow me,” Jake ordered the man, and he put Wade’s gun in his pocket. If and when things settled down, Billy Kilpatrick, the night deputy, could check and see if Wade had a permit for the darn thing. Highly doubtful since Wade had claimed he didn’t know how to use it.
Jake didn’t reholster his gun. Neither did Maggie, and they ushered Wade into the cabin. She turned the heater back on while Jake put their guest into the chair so he could continue his unofficial interrogation. When he was done, he was either going to have to let Wade go or else call Billy and figure out a way to take the man into custody. Jake didn’t relish the idea of arresting the man who’d helped him with that hacking, but he couldn’t have people go around shooting, either.
“I want the truth.” Jake took the other chair, whirled it around so the back was to Wade, and he sat, facing the man. “Did Tanner send you?”
“No! I’ve already said I’ve got nothing to do with him. Hell’s bells, Sheriff, the man is on death row. Yeah, I hacked those files for you, and maybe I’ve done some things I wouldn’t brag about to a lawman, but I’m not stupid. And I don’t want any dealings with a man who’d gun down an innocent woman.”
There was enough fire and maybe fear in his voice to make it sound like the truth, but Jake wasn’t ready to cross Wade off his suspect list just yet.
Since Maggie was glaring at Wade and still had her gun pointed at him, Jake figured she felt pretty much the same.
“How did you find us?” Jake asked.
Wade didn’t jump to answer that question as he had the other. In fact, he leaned away from Jake and glanced at everything in the cabin but Maggie and him. It was enough of a reaction for Jake to curse.
“How?” Jake pressed.
“I’ll tell you,” Wade snapped. He tipped his head to Maggie. “But I want her to put away that gun first. I don’t want to be shot for taking a precaution or two.”
“A precaution?” Jake repeated. He didn’t like the sound of that.
“The gun stays where it is,” Maggie insisted. “Now start explaining.” Even though she was still shivering, she managed to sound like a cop.
Wade drew in several very short breaths before his attention settled on Jake. “Night before last when you were at my place and we were hacking into the files, I put a GPS tracking device on your truck.”
It took Jake a moment to process that, and he didn’t process it well. “When the hell did you do that? And why? I especially want to know the why.”
“I told you I had to use the bathroom, remember? Well, I sneaked outside and put the tracking device on the undercarriage of your truck.”
Maggie moved closer, leaned in. “You keep spare tracking devices at your house?”
“I do,” Wade said defensively. “Hey, I never said I was a Boy Scout. Sometimes, people come to me when they want to spy on their spouses. Or their exes. Hell, even their k
ids. For a fee, I help them out. I sell them the GPS and sometimes even hide it on the vehicles for them.”
Jake jumped right on that. “Who paid you a fee to put that device on my truck?”
“No one.” Wade got to his feet, but Jake put him right back in the chair. “I did it for my own protection.”
Jake wasn’t sure who huffed louder, Maggie or him. “Explain that,” Jake insisted.
Wade gave a crisp nod. “I’d never done business with you before, and I didn’t know if you were running some kind of sting operation. So, I recorded our conversation, in case I had to prove entrapment, and I put the tracker on your truck in case you ran off and left me holding the bag.”
It’d been a first for Jake, too, to do business with a hacker, and if he hadn’t been so desperate to find Maggie, he might have realized he couldn’t trust Wade. He might have looked for things like recording and tracking devices. But he hadn’t. And now, he had to consider what Wade had done—and would do—with that information.
Jake waited for Wade to say he wanted extra money, that he was blackmailing Jake, but he simply shook his head. “Will you give me police protection?” he asked.
Jake ignored him. “Where’s the recording of our meeting?”
“In a safe place.”
Maggie poked Wade’s arm with her gun. “Where?” she demanded.
Wade winced and rubbed his arm even though Maggie had barely touched him. “At my house, okay? Jeez, I thought you’d still be all torn up about your sister’s death. I didn’t think you’d turn renegade cop.”
“If I turn renegade, you’ll be the first to know.” Jake wasn’t getting any positive vibes from Wade, and he figured that recording would come back to haunt him. He only hoped it didn’t interfere in some way with Sunny getting the medical treatment she needed.
“Come on.” Jake stood and yanked Wade to his feet. “Show me where you put the tracking device on my truck and then give me the laptop or whatever device you used to monitor the tracker.”
“A laptop,” Wade answered, his voice suddenly shaky again. “And it’s in my car. If you take it, though, I’ll expect some kind of payment. That laptop wasn’t cheap.”
Jake didn’t want the laptop or the tracking device, but he wanted the latter off his vehicle. Once he had Wade on his way, Maggie and he would need to leave fast since Wade couldn’t be trusted to keep something like that secret.
Jake took a small flashlight from their supply bag. “Why don’t you wait here?” Jake suggested to Maggie.
She didn’t. She turned off the heater again and followed him, of course, and the three of them went back into the cold.
“When you leave here,” Jake said to Wade, “go to the sheriff’s office and stay there. As soon as I can, I’ll arrange protection.”
Of course, just Wade showing up at the office and requesting protection would create a ton of questions, but Jake figured a resourceful guy like Wade could deal with that himself.
Jake stopped when he got to the cottonwood tree where he’d first seen Wade skulking around. With the shot being fired, the chase and interrogation, Jake had forgotten something that might turn out to be important.
He’d seen Wade drop or throw something on the ground.
Knowing Wade, it could be bad news.
“Wait,” Jake insisted, and he snagged Wade by the coat while he had a look around. He finally spotted the small black object. It hadn’t sunk down into the snow but was instead just sitting on top of it.
“Care to tell me what that is?” Jake asked.
Wade didn’t even look at it. Definitely a bad sign.
Maggie inched closer for a better look. She studied it a moment and then whirled back around to face Wade. “That better not be what I think it is.”
Jake took a harder look. “That’s a GPS tracking device.” And he was about to ask if it was the one from his truck and why it was there.
But Jake soon had his answer.
With the sun peeking up higher now, he saw the vehicle making its way up the trail to where Wade and he were both parked. Not just any ordinary vehicle, either. Black, nondescript.
The kind federal law enforcement officers used.
“I’m sorry,” Wade said. “I had no choice. I took it off your truck and brought it up here so you’d be easier to find.”
The car stopped, both doors swung open and the two men stepped out. Armed. And they immediately pointed their weapons at Jake.
“Drop your gun, Sheriff McCall,” one of them shouted. “You’re under arrest.”
Chapter Ten
Maggie knew she had to do something to stop what had already been put into motion. Jake didn’t deserve to be arrested. But first things first, she had to make sure this situation didn’t escalate into a shooting.
She lifted her hands, so the marshals could see the weapon she held. Beside her, Jake did the same, and with their guns pointed right at Jake and her, the marshals made their way up the trail.
“Can I go now?” Wade asked one of the lawmen.
The taller one nodded, and Wade hurried away as if someone had lit fire to him. Maggie didn’t want that to happen, not exactly, but she wouldn’t mind blasting Wade for planting that GPS on Jake’s truck and then leading the marshals right to them. Of course, better the marshals than Tanner, but still, this situation could get ugly.
“Maggie,” the taller marshal greeted.
She released the breath she’d been holding because she recognized that voice. It belonged to Dallas Walker, the very officer who’d been monitoring her in WITSEC.
Maggie slipped the gun into her coat pocket. “You’re a long way from Maverick County. Why did they send you?”
“I volunteered when I heard what happened.” He was an imposing man, at least six-three, and even in the dim morning light, she could see the imposing glare he aimed at Jake. “I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal Walker, and this is my partner, Marshal Harlan McKinney, and you need to put down that gun. Use just two fingers and ease it onto the ground.”
Oh, mercy. They were treating Jake like a common criminal.
The moment Jake put the gun on the ground, Marshal Walker took the cuffs from his belt and went toward him.
Maggie stepped in front of the marshal. “Jake did what he did to save my life.”
“Maggie,” Jake warned. “You don’t need to do this.”
“Hush,” she warned him right back. She stared at the marshal. “Jake found out I was in danger, that Bruce Tanner had found my location and was going to send a gunman after me. When Jake couldn’t find me, he went into my files so he could tell me.”
“He did that to save you?” Harlan, the other marshal questioned.
Maggie nodded. Her breath was gusting now from the cold and the adrenaline, and she hoped she looked more confident about that answer than she felt.
The marshals exchanged glances. Walker mumbled something and he hitched his shoulder toward the vehicles. “Let’s go to the sheriff’s office and get this straightened out.” He reached down and retrieved Jake’s gun.
Jake just glared at her. “What do you think you’re doing?” he said in an angry whisper as they made their way down the ridge.
“The right thing,” she assured him.
Jake opened his mouth to argue with her, and she hooked her arm around him to pull him closer. “Think of Sunny. She needs you, and she won’t have you if you go to jail.”
There. That seemed to do it. Well, except that his muscles went rock hard. Jake had broken the law to find her, but lying about that seemed to be a higher crime for him. Maggie, however, thought the lies would be well worth it if they stopped this injustice from happening.
The marshals ushered them into the backseat of their vehicle and started the drive back down the ridge and toward town.
Marshal Walker met Jake’s gaze in the mirror. “Your daughter’s sick,” he tossed out there like a gauntlet. “There’s talk around town that you’ve been looking for a bone marrow donor fo
r her.”
“I have been.” And that’s all Jake said. His jaw muscles had tightened, his forehead had bunched up, and she was afraid at any second, he’d blurt out the truth.
“If you’re implying that’s why Jake found me,” Maggie said, “you’re wrong. It’s true he did want me tested, but like I said, he found me to save my life.”
“Talk is the sheriff hates you,” Walker added.
Maggie was beginning to despise those who were doing all this talking. “He does,” she readily admitted. Even though as she said that, she remembered the scalding kiss. And all that snuggling on the bunk bed. Still, there was some hate left. “But he saved my life by finding me.”
With his partner behind the wheel, Walker turned in the seat and stared at her. “Can we cut the BS? The sheriff hacked into a classified database to locate you so he could have you tested as a bone marrow donor for his sick child.”
“What would you have done in his place?” she snapped.
The staring continued before the marshal said something she didn’t catch, and he turned back around. “Probably the same, but I can’t give him a get out of jail free card on this. You could have been killed. I’m hearing reports of a gunman who attacked you right outside Coopersville.”
“Did you find the body?” Jake asked. “Or better yet, did you confirm who hired him?”
“No to both questions, but I figure you know who we’re dealing with—Bruce Tanner. He wants Maggie dead, and it was desperate and reckless for you to lead him to her.” He cursed, shook his head. “Desperate anyway.”
Yes, that pretty much described their situation.
The marshal drove down the trail and onto the farm road that rimmed McCall land. Maggie considered continuing the argument to get Jake free, but the timing was wrong. Mainly because Jake wouldn’t let her have that argument. He wasn’t just desperate, he was darn stubborn. Well, she was stubborn, too, and she wasn’t dropping this without a fight.
By the time they arrived in town, the sun was already fully up, and while there was a dusting of snow, it wasn’t as brutally cold as it had been the night before. A beautiful Christmas Eve morning. Or rather it would have been if not for Jake’s and her situation.
Christmas Rescue at Mustang Ridge Page 9
