Exposed

by Laura Griffin

  He’s coming, he’s coming, he’s coming!

  She shifted her body and swung her legs around. Gingerly, she touched the wound on her forearm. It burned. She was soaked and muddy, so it was hard to feel for sure, but it had to be bleeding.

  She shifted onto her hip, taking the weight off her arm. Leaves clung to her neck. Some had gotten inside her jacket, and she recalled that it was black, like her pants. Good camouflage. Clinging to that single positive thought, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think of a plan. Could she make it back up to her car? Should she try? But the shooter was still searching for her. He probably had a flashlight. He definitely had a gun.

  Or two. The first sounds had been the distinctive crack of rifle fire. But the weapon she’d seen had been a handgun.

  He wasn’t alone.

  Her breath hitched as reality hit her. At least two armed men against a woman with no weapon.

  She had a weapon. She’d listened to Brian’s warning and tucked her pistol into her purse on the way out the door tonight. It was up in her car at the top of the hill, but that may as well have been the top of Mount Everest for all the good it did her.

  And she was injured. She thought of being hunted down like a wounded animal and felt a fresh spurt of fear. But her fear was quickly displaced by anger. The very real prospect of getting slaughtered out here in the rain and mud filled her with a blinding fury even more intense than the pain in her arm. Who the hell were these people? They had something to do with Jolene Murphy and everything else, but she didn’t understand why they were after her, why they were absolutely intent on killing her. Damned if she was going to let them.

  Clenching her teeth, she sat up. A flash of lightning revealed her surroundings in stark black-and-white, but only for a moment, and then she was in darkness again. She felt around with her good hand. She was at the base of a tree. Beyond that, she didn’t feel any bushes thick enough to conceal her. She grabbed a root and pulled herself away from the tree so she could scoot farther down the hill. Going up was beyond her. She felt battered and woozy. So she scooted down—slowly, on her butt, until her feet encountered a plant. The first one was thorny, but she kept moving along until she felt something thick and sort of soft, maybe some kind of evergreen.

  Light flickered. She glanced up and blinked into the darkness, trying to make out shapes. The yellow glow had disappeared above the tree line. All that was left was an inky sky, barely lighter than the trees.

  A strobe of lightning, and she did a quick glance around. She was in a clump of bushes at the base of a ravine. The walls were even steeper than she’d guessed. Maybe that would work in her favor.

  But it was raining, had been since before she’d left the yoga studio. And this area was prone to flash floods. With a sinking heart, she realized she needed to make her way to higher ground.

  Maddie’s arm burned. Her head throbbed, and the mere thought of working her way back up the slope exhausted her. She felt so tired, so completely drained of energy. She wanted to lie down in a bed of leaves and go to sleep.

  An all-new fear sparked to life inside her. Maybe she was tired because of blood loss. She couldn’t succumb to that. If she went to sleep right now, she was as good as dead.

  She forced herself to move up the hill, a little at a time, digging her thin canvas shoes into the mud and pushing with her thighs until she found a ledge. She waited what felt like an eternity for another flash of lightning and then scooted herself into the cover of a bush. It smelled like a cedar, and she hunched under its branches and peered out at the gloom.

  Another flicker. Not lightning this time but a flashlight beam at the top of the hill. She held her breath as it sliced through the darkness, sweeping methodically over the hillside. It disappeared into the trees, but her fear remained razor-sharp as she waited for it to come back.

  She looked down at her arm, even though she couldn’t see it. She felt the sleeve of her jacket, felt the hole in the fabric where the bullet had ripped through. Another wave of nausea hit, and she leaned against the tree.

  Would Craig come looking for her? Would Brian? But he didn’t know where she was. Maybe neither of them did. Craig had summoned her to this scene, but something seemed wrong about that now, as wrong as the scene itself.

  God, she was so tired. None of her thoughts fit together. She couldn’t get her mind to work.

  A flash of light, closer. Every muscle tensed as she watched it cut through the darkness. She hunched lower. She watched the beam sweeping back and forth. She tried not to move or even breathe. She watched. She waited.

  The light moved closer.

  CHAPTER 18

  Brian swept his flashlight over the rain-soaked landscape, cursing the weather. It had been raining for more than an hour, and with each passing minute, any trail he could have followed was being washed away. He’d seen no footprints, no tire tracks. Only Maddie’s car, and Maddie’s camera bag, and Maddie’s phone abandoned on the side of the road more than half a mile away.

  His foot slipped out from under him, and he caught himself on a tree limb before he took a skid down the hillside. This terrain was damn near impossible, and he couldn’t imagine her trekking around out here in this downpour. Below him, water churned through the ravine. Brian’s gut churned, too, at the prospect that she might have slipped and fallen and possibly drowned in the rushing water. Did she know how to swim? He didn’t know. Brian had grown up on a farm, where the ability to swim was taken for granted. But he’d learned the first week of boot camp that not everyone was raised with a creek or a beach or a swimming pool in the backyard. He’d met full-grown men who could run a mile in less than six minutes but were worthless in six feet of water.

  Brian aimed his flashlight at the torrent. He shifted it to the hillside, looking for any sign of movement or clothing or the slightest thing out of place in the rugged landscape.

  “Maddie!” he bellowed for the hundredth time, knowing it was probably impossible for even Sam to hear him above the drumming rain.

  That’s why she hadn’t answered—the weather. If he told himself that enough times, maybe he’d make it true.

  The crack of that rifle crashed through his head again, and he felt smothered with fear. He hadn’t been able to get the sound out of his brain since the instant he’d heard it over the phone.

  “Maddie!”

  His flashlight landed on a tangle of branches and a downed tree that stretched across the ravine. He searched for footing and then hiked up and around it, scanning the ground carefully as he went. Leaves, vines, and rain-slicked tree trunks shimmered back at him, but no injured woman. Not a trace of her.

  Brian grabbed a sapling and hefted himself to the top of the incline. From the higher vantage point, he shone the flashlight around again. He tried to ignore the growing lump of despair clogging his throat. He’d covered this ground already, twice. But he’d cover it again. And again. He’d cover it a thousand times if he had to, because she was out here, and he was going to find her.

  Unless someone else already had.

  “Goddamn it, Maddie!”

  He swept his light over the trees and caught something white. His heart flip-flopped. Something white and curved that definitely didn’t belong among the mud and leaves. A shoe. He lunged, nearly losing his balance on the steep embankment as he rushed toward it. The shoe was half buried in leaves, but as he drew closer, he realized the pile of leaves wasn’t a pile of leaves at all but a person huddled at the base of a cedar.

  He dropped to his knees and dragged her out from under the branches. A startled yelp was the most welcome sound he’d ever heard.

  “What happened? Are you hurt?”

  He cupped her face in his hand and shone the flashlight in her eyes as they fluttered open. Christ, she was freezing cold. And pale. And glassy-eyed. But she was alive.

  “Maddie, talk to me! Are you injured?”

  She winced, answering his question, and he jerked down the zipper of her jacket. Leav
es were everywhere, sticking to her clothes, her neck, her hair. She looked as if she’d taken a tumble all the way down a mountain.

  “Arm,” she croaked.

  She made an animal-like sound as he shifted her body and caught sight of the blood on her arm.

  “He . . . shot me.”

  Brian’s vision blurred with anger as he saw the wound below her elbow, just inches away from her vital organs. The dark smears of blood contrasted with her pale skin.

  “What happened?” he asked, stripping off his jacket and his shirt. Where was his phone? He tied the shirt around her wound. The bleeding had stopped, but he had no idea how much blood she’d lost. It was everywhere—soaking her shirt, her skin, coating the leaves around her. He choked down his panic as he tied the makeshift bandage.

  “We’ll get you out of here, all right?” Where was his phone? “Just hang on.”

  She mumbled something as he located his cell phone in his pocket and quickly dialed Sam.

  “I found her. Where are you?”

  “North bank, ’bout half a click from the car,” Sam said. “She injured?”

  “Yeah, and I’m going to need your help getting her out of here. We’re on the north side, about a hundred yards up.”

  A flicker of light pulled his attention to the ridge above. He recognized the wide beam of the flashlight cutting through the black.

  “Craig!” he yelled. “Down here!”

  Maddie squeezed his arm in a death grip. “No.”

  Her eyes were wide, frightened. The urgent look on her pale face sent a chill down his spine.

  “Not Craig.”

  He glanced up at the sheriff’s deputy, who’d pulled up to the scene at the same time Brian and Sam had. He’d told them he’d been responding to a 911 report of shots fired at this intersection.

  Brian unholstered his Glock and watched the flashlight beam that marked the deputy’s descent down the hillside. Brian wasn’t sure what was going on, but Maddie was terrified.

  “Craig, go back to the car,” he commanded. “Call an ambulance.”

  “You found her?” he yelled down.

  Maddie’s fingernails bit into his arm as the flashlight beam bobbed toward them.

  “Go call an ambulance,” Brian repeated.

  The light paused briefly and then moved back up the hillside. The grip on his arm relaxed.

  “He’s gone now, okay? Tell me what happened.”

  “Someone shot me.” She clutched his shoulder with her good arm and tried to sit up.

  “Whoa, wait.”

  She pushed herself into a sitting position. “It’s just my arm. I can sit.”

  Beyond the trees, he spotted the narrow beam of Sam’s Maglite. Brian whistled to get his attention.

  Sam hurried over and dropped to a knee beside Maddie.

  “You got a first-aid kit?” Brian asked.

  “Nope.” He handed Maddie a bottle of water and helped her take a sip. “Damn, girl, what’d you do to yourself?”

  His tone was light, but Brian saw the tension in his face.

  “She took a bullet. Lower right arm.”

  “How’d you find me?” Maddie asked, and Brian heard the tremor in her voice. He pulled his jacket around her shoulders for warmth.

  “We pinged your phone after you called Beckman,” Sam said. “Narrowed your location down, then found your car on the side of the road up there.”

  “How’d you get here so fast?”

  Brian looked at Sam. They’d been beating the bushes for more than an hour. If she thought that was fast, then she’d probably been unconscious part of the time.

  “Hey, we’re good like that.” Sam shone the flashlight in her face, probably looking for a head injury. Her cheeks were smudged with dirt, but there wasn’t any blood visible.

  “We got an ambulance coming,” Brian said. “We’ll get you to a hospital.”

  “I hate hospitals. Help me up.”

  She grabbed Brian’s shoulder and tried to push herself up. Sam tried to keep her down, but she was determined, and Brian stood and helped her to her feet.

  “It’s just my arm. I can walk.”

  Brian looped an arm around her waist. She slumped against him, and he felt a tidal wave of relief. She was alive. She was cold, scared, and shaken. She had a freaking gunshot wound. But she was alive, and that was the opposite of what he’d been thinking for the past ninety minutes.

  In the distance, a siren penetrated the drizzle.

  “Hear that?” Brian pulled her against him, careful not to jar her injury. They took a wobbly step up the hillside.

  “I hate hospitals,” she repeated.

  “Yeah, well.” Together, they took another step. “You’ll just have to get over it.”

  Maddie stared out the window, transfixed by the raindrops sliding over the glass. She still felt tired. Dizzy. And strangely famished, although she couldn’t imagine mustering the strength to sit up in a chair, much less cook something to eat.

  “Bet you’re ready for a hot shower.”

  She glanced across the car at Brooke, who had been at her side since they’d started on her stitches. Ten in all. As GSWs went, it was barely a scratch. Hadn’t even nicked the bone.

  And Maddie still couldn’t believe the doctors had used the phrase GSW to describe what had happened to her.

  She felt dizzy again. She looked down at her mud-streaked clothes. Brooke was right. A hot shower was definitely in order.

  “We have a tail,” Brooke said. “Just FYI.”

  “Huh?”

  “The sedan behind us? They friends of yours?”

  Maddie glanced at the mirror to her right and saw a dark sedan with two people in front.

  “They’re from Brian’s office,” Maddie said. “He told me they planned to have someone cover me.”

  He’d told her that in the chaos of the ER, right before he’d rushed off to an urgent meeting with his team to discuss the latest incident that he and Sam seemed certain was related to their case.

  Maddie wasn’t so sure. Her head pounded just thinking about it.

  “What does that mean, exactly, someone ‘covering’ you?” Brooke asked as she turned onto Maddie’s street.

  “I don’t know.” She sighed. “Guess I’m about to find out.”

  Brooke pulled into the driveway as the agents rolled up to the curb. They remained in their car talking on phones as Maddie and Brooke got out. Maddie’s arm was in a sling, so Brooke gathered her photography gear off the backseat.

  “Where are your keys?” Brooke asked.

  “I’ve got them.”

  Luckily, her injury was to her left arm, not her right, which limited her clumsiness as she dragged out her keys and unlocked the door. She entered the pass code to her burglar alarm as the agents came up the sidewalk.

  Both men had thinning hair and slender builds. They looked more like accountants than law-enforcement officers. They certainly didn’t look like bodyguards. The taller one stepped onto the porch and introduced himself as a special agent from the San Antonio field office. Maddie greeted him politely and just as politely asked to see some ID.

  “We’ve got instructions from Special Agent Dulles to check the house.” He tucked his credentials back into his pocket. “It shouldn’t take long.”

  “Check for what, exactly?”

  “It’s a security precaution,” he said, not answering her question.

  Maddie had a loaded pistol in her purse, and that was about the only security precaution she was prepared to trust at the moment, but she stepped back to let them in. As they started poking around, Brooke shot her a look.

  “Think you got the second string.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  “You hungry?”

  Maddie hesitated. “A little.”

  “You go shower. I’ll throw something together.”

  Maddie smiled gratefully and headed for her bedroom, where she dumped her stuff on the bed and toed off her shoes.
Next her yoga pants, which were hard to wrestle out of one-handed. Her shirt was torn, and she decided it was history, so she cut it off her body with a pair of scissors.

  She set her pistol beside the sink and stood before the bathroom mirror, naked except for her sling. Her face and hands and calves were smudged with mud. She had mud in her hair, too, and leaves and even a few twigs. She turned and lifted her ponytail to see the goose egg at the back of her skull from where she’d crashed into the tree. The doctor had said she had a mild concussion, nothing serious. The local anesthetic they’d given her had worn off, so she popped a few Tylenols and washed them down with a gulp of water as the shower heated.

  Maddie eyed her sling, which was going to be a pain in the butt over the next few weeks. The wound was a two-inch gash on the inside of her arm beneath her elbow. She didn’t really need the sling, because the bone wasn’t broken, but the nurse had recommended it as a reminder to be careful about bumping into things.

  Maddie unhooked the sling and got a trash bag from a cabinet. After wrapping the bandaged part of her arm in plastic, she secured it with tape and then stepped into the shower.

  Fifteen minutes later, she emerged from her bathroom feeling cleaner but no less rattled by the night’s events. She pulled on jeans and a fleece sweatshirt. Then she went in search of food and possibly a drink to calm her nerves.

  She walked into her kitchen and saw Brooke—who didn’t have a domestic bone in her body—standing at the stove and stirring a pot of soup. Tears sprang into Maddie’s eyes.

  “I made you a Cape Cod.” Brooke nodded at a short pink drink on the counter.

  “Thank you.” She picked it up and took a sip. “Where did the agents go?”

  “I think they’re camping out in the car. That’s the sense I got. They wanted me to tell you they’ll be doing periodic checks of the perimeter, so don’t be alarmed.”

  The doorbell rang, and Maddie jumped. She crossed the house and peered through her peephole, expecting to see the accountants again, but it was Brian and Sam. She pulled open the door.