Duck and Run

by TL Schaefer

  Oh God, he was right. That was what had been nagging her. She shot to her feet as well. “I’m going.”

  “No, you are not,” Linc’s voice was absolute.

  “You can’t stop me,” she said. “I know Wright best, I know what she’s capable of, and how to handle her. She’s here for me, Linc.”

  “And so we’re supposed to hand you to her on a silver platter?”

  “She knows I’ll come, Linc. That’s why she picked your house. She knows we’ll come, and she doesn’t care. That makes it even more dangerous for Nick. She doesn’t care.” Cris repeated. “She’s got something else planned, and we need to leave now, before it begins. Standing here arguing is going to get Nick dead.”

  Linc heaved a big sigh. “Fine, but for this you’re arming up.” He held up a hand when she would have protested. “Cristine, if you’re going with me, you’ll have a weapon. Period.” He leaned over and pulled a small Beretta out of an ankle holster. “My backup,” he explained to the room.

  Cris handled the weapon like she would a live snake, but she took it. Made sure the safety was on before taking the holster Linc had unstrapped. She hated the sound of the Velcro strapping the gun to her ankle, hated the weight of it, hated the fact he was forcing her into this position. But for Nick she’d do it.

  They headed out into the night, a cadre of Montgomery’s troops behind them. She knew uniforms were likely already rolling to Linc’s, to barricade the house, the street, everything. But because this was a hostage situation, they’d wait for a negotiator. Her. Just like Lori Wright wanted.

  They were ten minutes away from Linc’s house. Ten minutes of her imagining what Wright could be doing to Nick. Ten minutes of agonizing what she could have done differently. Ten minutes of hating the fact she’d brought him back to Oklahoma City, that she’d made him a target, even if it was voluntary and intentionally. Ten minutes of her losing her ever-loving mind, and maybe the only man she’d ever loved.

  Didn’t matter that it was too soon, that they were both messed up in the head. Nick was it for her and had been from the moment he stood in a darkened doorway and told her about how he’d been injured.

  Cris’ phone beeped with an inbound text. She raised the screen, dread pounding through her with each beat of her heart. The text was simply a link, a link to a livestreaming service.

  Cris opened the link, unable to breathe, unable to swallow past the lump in her throat.

  Jesus. The crazy bitch was livestreaming Nick on the bed, still bound, still gagged. His gaze threw daggers at the woman behind the phone, and then she was stepping in front of it.

  She was just like Cris remembered. Beautifully insane. So pretty that men, and most women, would give allowances for the crazy. Trent certainly had.

  She sat on the corner of the bed, a gigantic revolver in her hand, a brilliant smile almost splitting her face in two. “Hello, Cris. I can call you Cris, right? I’ve got your man, and I spent almost two years figuring out how to put this all together. You should know, I sent this link to the local news stations as well. Pretty sure they’re tuning in, since I see ten viewers now.” She laughed, and it was a light, tinkling thing. “Oh wait, now we’re up to twenty, thirty, oh my, we might just be going viral.”

  Cris sat, silent. There was no way to engage her beyond texting her back, which Wright wouldn’t see since Nick’s phone was obviously on a tripod of some kind. So instead, she stared hard at Nick, willing him to hang on as they crept closer. Seven minutes now, maybe faster if they blew through lights.

  Wright began speaking again. “Two years ago Cristine O’Connor killed my husband on live television. He was an innocent bystander, but her family covered it up, sent me to a mental hospital. So today, I’m going to return the favor. I’m going to kill her lover. Right here where everyone can watch.” She lifted the revolver. “But we’re going to make this a game. What do they call it? Russian roulette? I’m almost positive he’ll be dead before the cavalry arrives, but hey, you never know, right? Makes everything so much more interesting.”

  Cris’ stomach cramped and Linc pushed the car even faster, the bubble on his unmarked painting the night scarlet. Ahead of them two squad cars cleared the way. They were going to make it, they had to. But maybe…

  She grabbed Linc’s phone from the dash and dialed Nick’s number. The crazy bitch wouldn’t be able to resist putting her on speaker, taunting her. It would make her revenge that much better, and potentially stall her long enough for them to get there.

  As she suspected, as soon as the phone rang, Wright moved out of the frame, answered the call and put it on speaker without shutting down the feed. Technology could be used for good sometimes.

  “Ah, Cris is that you? Are you calling from a different number, hoping to trip me up?”

  “No,” Cris replied. “I’m watching you, just like you wanted me to. I knew you couldn’t pass up talking to me, putting me on your feed. And I was right.” Cris let the psychologist in her run the show now. She needed to cater to Wright’s madness, give them time to get there. “How’d you escape? Last I heard you were in a maximum-security hospital.”

  Wright moved back into the frame, standing to the side of the bed, the revolver still in her hands. But she had a smile on her face, a different one than she’d worn earlier. This one was satisfied, gloating, and Cris knew she’d win, if she continued to play the hand Wright had dealt. She was too confident, and that would be her undoing.

  “You shrinks are all the same,” Wright tipped her head, as if considering the camera on the cell phone. “I told them what they wanted to hear, banged one of the interns. He got me out, got me your address. Got me everything.”

  “And he’s dead now, yes?” Cris asked, clarifying.

  “Of course. Freakin’ dead weight. They’ll find him in the next few days.” The madness was shining fully in her eyes now, in her expression. “He was nice enough to get me this beauty, too.” She lifted the weapon.

  Cris glanced away from the screen to get a read on their location. Four minutes, maybe three.

  “You always were smart,” she said, giving Wright props without sounding pandering. And she wasn’t lying. Falsehoods would come through loud and clear, and get Nick dead. Two minutes. “Nick isn’t my lover, he’s my protection. While I’d hate to see you kill someone else, you’ve got the wrong guy. The interview and all that were meant to draw you out. It worked. There’s no possible way out, Lori.” The words tasted like poison as they crossed her tongue. Calling Wright by her first name was quite possibly the most distasteful thing she’d ever done. Even more than killing her husband. But the lie worked because Cris needed it to. Willed it to.

  Wright laughed again. “Sure, and you’d say that wouldn’t you? But I saw how he looks at you. Even if you haven’t screwed yet, you would have. If you haven’t, too bad. He looks like a prime specimen.” She sat at the edge of the bed again. “Now it’s time to play our game.” She spun the chambers of the revolver, then went out of frame again. “Wow, five thousand viewers and rising. I guess people really want to see a pig get slaughtered.”

  Jesus. One minute. The patrol cars in front of her went silent, only the strobes of their light bars cutting through the night.

  A smile curled Wright’s lips. “Let’s get this show on the road.” She cocked the gun, pointed it at Nick’s head, and pulled the trigger.

  Nick heard the click of metal on metal and felt his heartbeat stutter.

  He wouldn’t give her a second chance. But she had to sit down on the bed again, had to get closer.

  He moaned, making the terror shine through in his eyes. It wasn’t much of a stretch. He needed her closer, close enough to touch.

  His wrists were loose in the zip ties. While she’d been talking with Cris, taunting her, he’d worked himself almost free. One good jerk and he’d be there. Thank God the Corps had taught them how to get out of restraints as part of their survival, evasion, resistance, and escape training, what felt like a m
illion years ago.

  Wright sat down on the edge of the bed again. If his damned feet hadn’t been tied to the footboard, he’d have kicked her ass five minutes ago. But she’d known what she’d been doing.

  Now she leaned forward, and he moaned again, trying for helpless when all he felt was rage.

  “Oh, I like the sound of that, and I bet my viewers do too.” She tapped the fingers of her free hand against her lips. “I could take the gag out, just so we could hear those pretty little sounds, but you might spoil everything by talking. No, we’ll just keep things as they are. Are you ready, Agent McClain, for our second round?” She spun the cylinder again, and Nick tensed, poised. He’d only get one chance at this.

  She cocked the hammer and he lunged. The zip ties snapped at the weak point, and he surged toward her, his right hand grabbing the barrel of the gun, the fingers of his left stiff and aimed for her eyes. She’d flinch. Everyone did.

  The gun fired and Nick felt the burn along his fingers as the bullet raced down the barrel, waited for the projectile to hit him, and continued lunging for her eyes. But Wright was stronger than she looked. Crazier. She ducked but held onto the gun, ripping it from his fingers as he fell off the bed, the zip ties binding him to the footboard snapping. But it didn’t matter…his bad knee had been completely blown out by the effort.

  She laughed, and now the crazy was out in full force. “This is great fucking TV,” she exclaimed, then clapped her hands. “I hear the cavalry arriving. Just in time to reload.”

  She fished a bullet from her pocked and placed it in the chamber with practiced moves. No more than ten seconds had elapsed since she’d fired. He was hosed.

  Then he heard the front door splinter. She was right, the cavalry was here. They’d never make it in time.

  “Police, surrender your weapon,” Linc hollered.

  Wright laughed again. “You didn’t negotiate,” she chided, both to the incoming cops and the livestream. “I was counting on that.” She began to raise the weapon, not toward the door, but toward Nick, and this time he knew she wouldn’t miss.

  A gun coughed and Nick braced for the familiar pain, shutting his eyes for a brief second before he opened them again.

  Wright stood before him, a shocked expression on her face. Her hand was a mangled mess, the revolver on the floor in front of him.

  He lunged for it at the same time she did, a scream finally coming out of her throat at the same time one erupted from his as agony rolled through his knee, then his body.

  His fingers fell short and she grasped the gun in her left hand, swinging around as she did so.

  Cris and Linc stood in shooter stances. “Drop it, Lori,” Cris said, her voice soft, cajoling. “It’s over. This is one you can’t win.”

  Wright stood frozen for a long minute, then a smile crooked the side of her mouth. “Either way, I win,” she said, and raised the weapon.

  Cris and Linc fired at the same time, and Wright jerked as each bullet hit her. Blood from the exit wounds splashed the floor, splattered on Nick, but he knew it was finally over.

  Then Cris was by his side, helping lift him back on the bed as another officer cut through the ropes on his feet. She framed his face in her hands and gave him a long kiss. “No,” she whispered, “we won, you crazy bitch.”

  She and Nick sat facing each other on hospital beds in the ER, waiting for the doc to release them.

  Nick reached across the space between them and grabbed her hand. She clasped his fingers, tears a constant press behind her eyes. She’d never been so scared in her damn life.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” her voice sounded raspy, not so different than Lori Wright’s had.

  Nick surged to his feet and sat next to her, tugging her into the shelter of his arms as he kissed the top of her head. “Shh. I didn’t survive Iraq and Afghanistan to get whacked by some nutso broad.” His knee had to be painful, but he was there, solid and all hers. If she wanted to take the chance.

  She smiled in response, but they both knew how very close they’d come, both against Smith and Wright. She thought about how she’d felt when Lori had revealed her exit strategy. Terror and a soul-deep sadness she never wanted to feel again.

  Nick McClain was her future, whether he realized it or not. She’d be more than happy to spend the next sixty years or so showing him.

  “We must be charmed,” she agreed, lifting her head. “How about we don’t test that out anymore? I’d just as soon go back to my quiet life for a while.”

  He stiffened, started to pull away from her, and she realized how he’d taken her words. That she wanted a quiet life, without him.

  Oh hell no.

  She wrapped her arms around his back. “A quiet life, with a lot of trips between Oklahoma City and Tulsa,” she amended. “If that’s what you want.” God, she hoped that was what he wanted.

  He tipped her face up and smiled. “That’s the best offer I’ve heard all day.”

  His lips met hers in a kiss that was so soft, so tender, it took her breath, took her words, and Cris knew everything was going to be just fine.

  * * *

  The End

  Book 2 in the Red River Recovery Series

  And now, meet Ethan and Natalie from Broken Wings, available 25 August 2022…

  * * *

  Kissing Ethan Masters was probably one of the worst ideas of her life, but damn it if it didn’t seem like the right thing to do in this second, in this moment.

  His lips were a soft as they’d looked this morning, and the whiskers of his goatee were a cross between a tickle and a caress as he slanted his head, kissed her harder, his lips molding to hers, sending a streak of heat through her body, waking up parts that had been dead for a long five years.

  He grunted as if in surprise, then framed her face in his hands and nibbled on her lips. She sighed in response, opened for him, stroked her tongue over his, learning him, breathing him in as her body softened even as her nipples peaked.

  She’d never been this turned on, this fast. To hell with being sensible, she was ready to grab him by the shirt and drag him into the RV, test out the queen size bed.

  But a snicker to their left pulled her out of her haze and she pulled away slowly, remembering they were making out on a picnic bench in an RV park in Roswell, New Mexico.

  Ethan kept her face in his hands, as if she was something precious. Ghosted one last kiss across her lips, then pulled away. Shot a death glance at the teenagers on the bench two slots over. “Fucking kids.”

  She smiled in response, took a tiny sip of her wine to regain her composure. “Do we need to talk about this?”

  He turned back to her. “Do we need to? I don’t think so. Should we? Probably. And about more than a kiss that burned my world down.”

  * * *

  Pre-Order Broken Wings Here!

  * * *

  Protecting a Ukrainian mail-order bride is Natalie Flynn's last security detail before moving up, into the cushy corner office. Away from the memories of an op that went bad, and where she lost everything.

  If Ethan Masters can pull off this last job, his debts will be paid and he'll be his own man again. But when he realizes the helicopter he's repossessing is Natalie's escape hatch, he can't leave her and her charge behind.

  Within hours he and Natalie are on the run from the cops, the mob, and maybe even the Russians, all the while battling an attraction that could doom them... or just might save them.

  Dear Reader

  Thank you for reading Duck and Run! I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please help other readers find this book:

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  About the Author

  By day, Terri Schaefer is a Public Affairs Officer for the Air Force. By night? That's a whole 'nother story.

  TL Schaefer writes mysteries/police procedurals that also have a romance twined throughout. And likely some stuff that goes bump in the night. And every once in a while, her books are spicy (so look for the heat levels).

  If you like your heroes in uniform (be they cops, firefighters, or military) and your heroines with a bit of quirk, then wing by her website www.tlschaefer.com or visit her Facebook group, Musings From the Blonde Side at https://www.facebook.com/groups/920052411730859 where she talks about books, cats and her very own romance hero.

  Also by T.L. Schaefer…

  visit www.tlschaefer.com/all-books/

  The CASI Series

  Behind Blue Eyes

  Crossfire (Book 1.5)

  Shoot to Thrill

  Lunatic Fringe

  The Mariposa Series

  The Summerland

  The Brotherhood

  The Paladin

  The Fated Fae Series

  Baptism by Fire

  Ends of the Earth

  Sea of Dreams