Danny backed away, grabbed Erin’s hand, and followed Derek out the door.
New town, new name, new career, new story, but her heart would always be here. It hurt too much to utter goodbye. She glanced at Jennie, who stood next to her husband. After offering her friend a quick wave, she sought out Noah. If she were free to love, her heart knew exactly what kind of life she would have had with him. Intense. Mind-blowing. Incredible.
Forget me. Find someone who is free to love you the way you deserve.
The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she didn’t have the strength to say them. As she turned to leave, her name came out in a pain-filled whisper.
“Elizabeth, we are not over.”
Chapter Twenty-One
It took everything Elizabeth had in her to walk out of Noah’s bedroom. Danny and Erin met her at the stairs, each taking a hand. As a family, they were giving each other the courage to face a future that was almost too frightening to bear.
Once outside, Derek held the back door of a dark sedan open for them. Elizabeth stopped Danny with a hand to his shoulder when he paused. “Don’t look back. Get in the car and face forward.”
His gaze met hers and he nodded. Without a word, he did as she asked. Derek slammed the door but didn’t get into the front seat. One of the other marshals took that spot. Elizabeth followed Derek’s movements to the car in front of them. As soon as he was settled, the lead driver led the three-car caravan down the lane. At the intersection of the county road, the driver turned right, following the signs to the interstate.
“What happens now?” Erin asked, her whisper hoarse, raspy. “Are we going home to pack?”
“No. Our belongings will be packed up and sent to us.”
“But where will we live?”
Lightly squeezing her daughter’s hand, Elizabeth answered, “We will be briefed on everything as soon as we get to our destination.”
The marshal’s warm expression met hers in the mirror. If he knew the answer, he would have said something. She was sure the details were still being worked out.
A light drizzle began to fall, and the squeaky sound of the windshield wipers slowly began to scrape her nerves raw. Would it have been too much to ask for a nice, sunny day?
The rain began to come down in sheets. With both kids hugging one of her arms, Elizabeth tried to stay relaxed. She hated storms, the aftershock of having a tornado form over her head.
Maybe it was the dampness brought on by the rain, but a chill snaked down her spine and the hairs on the back of her neck spiked. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.
Their small caravan were the only cars on the road. Glancing out the front window, she spotted one vehicle heading toward them. The closer it got, the harder her heart drummed between her ears. There wasn’t anything menacing about the vehicle. It passed them going the opposite direction. Nothing. It was some guy trying to get home out of the storm.
Danny shifted. “Are you all right, Mom?”
“Yes, sweetie, I’m fine … maybe a little jumpy.”
Stop! Be the parent! If she wanted her children at ease, she had to set the example. Noah thought she was the bravest woman he knew. He wasn’t there, but she could still draw strength from the confidence he brought out in her.
The first car reached a bend in the road and disappeared from sight. As they made the same turn, the lead car’s red taillights lit up the asphalt. An SUV coming from the opposite direction spun into the sedan’s path, causing her driver to slam on its brakes.
“Stop,” she yelled.
An instant later, a loud blast shattered the front window, sending shards of glass over all of them. She held out her hands to protect her children as the driver’s head struck the horn, the blaring noise filling the quiet countryside. The marshal in the passenger seat grabbed the steering wheel and tried to keep the sedan from going into a spin.
From that point on, Elizabeth felt as if the world slowed. With the driver’s foot still on the accelerator, the car sped out of control down the middle of the road—right toward the lead car.
“Danny, Erin, hold on,” she roared as the sedan slammed into the right bumper.
Metal crunched metal. The impact caused Derek’s car to spin. The marshal in the passenger seat frantically tried to remove the driver’s foot from the gas pedal as he worked the steering wheel. He swung the wheel toward him and the sedan’s right bumper missed Derek’s door by inches. It ricocheted off the wheelbase, shot down the embankment, and smashed into a large tree.
Elizabeth jolted forward, jamming her face into the back of the driver’s seat. Opening her eyes, she touched her lip and choked back the coppery taste in her mouth. Scanning her surroundings, she watched as two gunmen circled the SUV, knelt, and blasted the lead car with bullets. Her heart dropped to her stomach, but fear had a way of clearing her foggy brain. They were gunning for her, and she had to protect her kids.
Derek’s vehicle blocked her car and what appeared to be three gunmen. She leaned over Erin, unlocked the right side door, and swung it open. “Erin, Danny, get out. Now!”
“Mom, what’s going on?” Danny asked, but he obeyed.
She would have given anything to keep the violence from her children’s eyes. The steering wheel and what was left of the windshield was covered in the driver’s blood.
Dead.
The other marshal might be alive, but the front of the car had pinned him in place when it struck the tree. He was out cold.
She quickly located the gunmen, then crawled out the back door after her kids, pulling them below the window. She scanned the top of the trees and spotted the landmark she had prayed was in sight.
“Run into the woods and head toward that rock formation. I could see it from the lake. We aren’t far from Adam’s property line.”
Danny scooted around her and began to move toward the lead car. Elizabeth grabbed his arm. “What are you doing?”
“Derek. He’s stuck.”
“I’ll check on Derek. Keep your heads down and go now!”
Erin gripped her hand. “Come with us?”
“Adam said a rabbit couldn’t hop onto his property without him knowing. Noah will come for you. Just stay together. I’ll be maybe a minute behind you.”
Erin took her brother’s hand and raced into the foliage. When they were no longer in sight, Elizabeth edged around the back of the car.
Going down on her knees, she inched up the embankment. The marshals in the third car returned gunfire and kept the men behind the SUV. Someone had to hear the war zone and call for help.
Derek sat in plain view, his head leaning to the side and his eyes closed. God, please let him be okay, she prayed as she reached the sedan. Wiping the rain from her eyes, she opened the door.
A painful moan escaped his lips. “What the hell are you doing? Get out of here.”
“Helping you.”
“The seat belt is jammed. There is a knife attached to my right ankle. Can you reach it?”
A bullet slammed into the driver’s side door, jolting Elizabeth. She lifted her head to glance over the dashboard. The gunmen seem to be concentrating their efforts on returning fire on the sedan behind them. She ran her hand down his leg until she felt the bulge. She stuck her hand under his pant leg and removed the knife from its case. “Found it.” She brought her hand back up and blood covered the side of her palm.
“Damn it, Derek, your leg!”
“Give me the knife and get out of here, Elizabeth.”
“No, I’m not leaving you trapped.”
“Where are the kids?”
“I sent them into the trees.” She sliced through the shoulder section of the seat belt. The instant his arm was free, he yanked out his weapon.
“I can do the rest. I’ll fire off several shots to cover you.”
The men from the SUV opened fire and several rounds hit the side of the car. The blast clogged her ears, making it hard to even hear her own rapidly beating heart.
&nbs
p; An engine roared to life, and the third sedan backed into the other lane, turned around, its rear tires skidding on the wet pavement, and drove back the way they had come.
“Where are they going?”
“I don’t know. Maybe to the McNeils’ for backup.”
Elizabeth’s heart skipped. That left Derek alone. “Can you run on that leg?”
“Yes.” He raised his head and scanned the sky. “I’ll catch up with you. Go!”
Derek fired one shot after another while Elizabeth stumbled down the embankment and went through the trees at the same spot the kids took. There wasn’t a trail, but she could easily follow the footprints in the mud. The path led out of the trees to a ridge that dropped down about fifty yards into a riverbed. One path wrapped around the top of the ridge while the other led down into the ravine.
The branches behind her rustled, and she dropped behind a tree that barely hid her from view. She searched for something to use as a weapon. Shit, nothing.
She could just make out a shoe print on the ridge path. Her only choice was to draw whoever was after her away from her children by taking the path to the river.
A deep, painful groan reached her just as Derek limped onto the trail.
“Please tell me the kids took the ridge path,” Derek asked, his voice coming out in short, raspy breaths.
Elizabeth knelt and lifted his pant leg.
“We don’t have time …”
“Shush, Derek. This is something I know about. We have to slow the bleeding.”
She grabbed the knife handle from his left hand, ripped a couple of inches off the hem of her blouse, and wound the fabric around her hand, creating a thick dressing. She then cut another strip and secured the dressing to the wound. “That will help a little, but we need to find you help and soon.”
“Not today,” a man said from behind them. He wrapped his fist around Elizabeth’s collar and yanked her up. His arm went around her throat and the barrel of his handgun pressed into the side of her neck.
Derek cocked his weapon. “Let her go.”
The man let out a loud laugh. “Marshal, lower your weapon before you hurt yourself. I will kill you if I have to.”
With her heart in her stomach, she asked, “What do you want?”
“Just you. If you come with me, your friend here will live another day. If not, I will kill him and we get you anyway. I hate to turn you over, but at this point, it has come down to your life or mine. Since I’m holding the bigger gun, how about you get your friend’s revolver and toss it over the ridge?”
Hell, now what? There was no way she was taking Derek’s only way to defend himself.
“So does your friend live or not? Your choice.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“Elizabeth!”
“You know what you have to do, Derek.”
He didn’t like it, but there was understanding in his expression. He needed to find Erin and Danny and get them to safety.
Elizabeth was half dragged, half carried backwards through the woods to the road. The rain slammed down on them, but he didn’t slow his pace even when the heel of her shoe stuck in the mud. Fear charged her every nerve, but at least Danny and Erin were either well hidden or long gone.
“Who do you work for?”
Instead of answering, the man dug his weapon into her side. At the SUV, he opened the door and tossed her into the back seat, her elbow hitting the middle console hard. Righting herself, she faced the man in the front passenger seat.
“Hello, Elizabeth. You’re looking well.”
“Spencer?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Noah fought the urge to slam his hand through the side panel windows of the front door. He had been staring out at an empty driveway for ten minutes while his niece sat on the first step of the staircase watching him like a hawk. He shoved down the anger crushing his heart and asked, “Is there something you need, Anna?”
“You should have made her stay, Uncle Noah. It’s not safe for her away from you.”
Fear pierced through him, erasing the anger. He dropped onto the step beside Anna. He couldn’t believe what he was about to ask a six-year-old. “Why do think Elizabeth is not safe?”
“She really likes you. Did you ask her to please stay with you? Sometimes you forget to say please.”
“Yeah, I said please. Again, why do you believe it’s not safe for her to be away from me?”
She lifted her hands and shrugged, her gaze growing serious. “I just know it. There’s a mean man after her like the one who was after my daddy. He’s getting closer.”
Shit. Now what?
Simple, he was going after her. It was a stupid-ass idea allowing Elizabeth and the kids to leave in the first place. Reaching into his pocket, he yanked out his cell phone.
Jason picked up on the first ring. “What’s wrong now? Sarah is packing for Maryland.”
“I need her. Is she close?”
Sarah came on the line. “I’m here, Noah.”
“Elizabeth is still wearing the cross. Is the GPS activated?”
“Yes. I know she’s being relocated. I can deactivate from here—”
“No, don’t. Track her moves and send her location to my phone. I’m going after her.”
“You’re what?” Jared said, storming into the foyer. “Like hell you are. You mess with the Marshals Service, you might as well hand in your badge.”
Noah said a quick goodbye to Sarah and pocketed his phone. “Anna said they are not safe.”
Jared knelt next to their niece. They had a special bond that Noah couldn’t help being a little jealous over.
“This is serious, sweet pea. Are you sure the Merlots are in danger?”
“I know what I know, Uncle Jared. I really like Danny and Erin. They are scared and all alone.”
Noah’s stomach clenched hard. “I don’t care how crazy this seems. I’m going after them.” He gave his niece a quick hug. “I’ll get them back.”
“I know, Uncle Noah.”
Noah lifted his head and eyed his twin. “I’ll take Adam. You and Father Anthony stay here.”
“No, if you’re going after Elizabeth, I’m your backup.”
“Jared, this whole damn thing is fucked up. Nash reached out to Danny”—he lowered his voice to a whisper; Anna was no doubt hanging on every word—“and now we have Adam’s mother warning Anna. We can’t leave Calista and Jennie here with just Father Anthony. I don’t care that he trained Adam. Mendoza—”
“Is finally roasting in hell. He’s dead, Noah.”
“No, he’s not. He’s behind all of this.” Noah paused, trying to erase the roaring heartbeat between his ears. He had to figure out this puzzle because he was running out of time.
“The DNA will be in any time now.”
“And if Mendoza did fake his death, he’s been missing for hours. Plenty of time for him to make his way here.”
“Coming after us would be crazy, Noah. If he went to all the trouble and expense to escape prison, why wouldn’t he go underground? He has resources we have never been able to find. He could come after us next week, next year.”
“He is fueled by vengeance. That bastard’s every thought for the last three years has been getting back at those responsible for taking him down, and Jennie is on the top of that list. You’re number two. Mendoza doesn’t know about Evan Nash. That scary-ass ghost connected with Danny because Elizabeth somehow is in the middle of all this. I can’t figure out the missing puzzle piece until I know who is working with Mendoza, but I think it’s her ex-husband.”
“Who is also dead,” Jared shot back.
“Presumed dead.” He raked a hand over the back of his neck. “I’m crazy about her. I should have told her how I felt … used the words. I just never said them out loud to a woman before.”
The intimate hours they had shared felt like a lifetime ago, except that Elizabeth’s scent and taste were all over him.
Jared stepped in his path
. “I know. I’m not stupid or blind. Can you contact Marshal Ramon?”
“No. Elizabeth didn’t want me going into the program or having any contact once they were settled.”
Noah headed down the hallway toward the kitchen. He checked his Glock and holstered it at his waist. “I don’t know who is after Elizabeth, but Mendoza is coming. I feel it here,” he said, placing a fist over his abdomen. “Adam and I can take care of the Merlots.”
“Listen to him, Jared,” Adam said, coming in from the outside deck. His voice was hard as ice. Father Anthony stood at his side, but there was no sign of the man of the cloth. His posture matched Adam’s. Pure soldier. Noah hated bringing him back into one of their battles, but damn, knowing he was there took a ton of weight off his shoulders.
His phone dinged and he answered it before the second ring. “What do you got, Sarah?”
“Elizabeth’s position came to a complete stop for several minutes. She is now heading in the opposite direction. There are no cameras out there that will do me any good.”
Noah lowered the phone and shot a glare at Adam. “We have to go now!”
Noah didn’t wait for a reply but stormed down the hallway and out the front door. The sky opened up, drenching him to the bone before he reached his truck.
Jared yanked his elbow just as he reached the driver’s door handle. “There are reasons the caravan changed direction, Noah. They could have found a better location or—”
“Or they have a leak and now Elizabeth and the kids are in the hands of the people who placed a large price tag on her head.”
“If she is in danger, she needs your focus, that ability you have to take the most minor detail and fill in the missing pieces. Cut off your emotions.”
“I have to know she is okay.” Noah climbed into the cab.
“And when you do, respect her wishes and back off.”
Jared slammed the driver door as Adam jumped into the passenger seat.
“Keep your guard up,” Noah said to his twin.
“And you use your head. Don’t make this harder on her than it has to be.”
In the Shadow of Vengeance Page 16
