With his long lashes and his small arm wrapped around his stuffed toy, the child stirred a memory Lee Ray had thought he’d put behind him, of the kid he’d left behind back in Corpus Christi. A snot-nosed little rug rat Lee Ray had told himself would be better off without a crank-head convict for a father.
After leaving the brat’s mother with nothing but an empty wallet, he had given up the right to call and ask her how his kid was doing. And he sure as hell wasn’t about to risk his own life to ask Evie to spare the son of a woman she had marked for some bat-shit-crazy brand of payback.
Still, he’d somehow found the balls to remind her that prison was a special brand of hell for baby killers.
Evie had laughed in his face. “Only if you’re caught, sweets. But we can worry about that later. For now you can put the kid in our new ride—and don’t forget the car seat. We don’t want to get pulled over for some dumb-ass little thing like that.”
After a time, the miles and the dark road lulled him, and Lee Ray dozed, dreaming of a woman who thought nothing of lighting up the night sky for miles around but worried about being popped over a kiddie car seat, a woman who doled out meth and sex and violent death at her whim.
A series of rough jolts woke him later. It was pitch-black and his high was already fading, leaving him edgy and twitchy and wondering when he could ask for the next tweak. They were pulling off the shoulder, over ruts and behind a screen of scrubby brush.
Killing the headlights, she said, “Wake up and get your gun out, Lee Ray. You’re about to need it.”
His stomach dropped, and he snapped fully awake—and way too close to stone-cold sober. Did she mean to make him shoot the boy? Had she decided it was time already?
“I—I can’t do it,” he stammered, cold sweat pouring from his body. “I won’t.”
She snorted. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll do exactly what I tell you. Now grab that gun and get out of the car. At the top of that hill back there, I spotted headlights behind us. Whoever’s comin’ is closing in too fast to be anything but on our tail—and we can’t afford anybody getting between us and our meeting with El Diablo.”
Lee Ray had no idea who this El Diablo was. Some Mexican drug lord, maybe, that no sane person would get within a hundred miles of, but for all he knew, it could be some story Evie’d dreamed up, a figment of her imagination that was subject to change at any moment. He wasn’t sure, either, that she was right about them being followed, but he knew better than to argue with her paranoia, especially when he saw her pull another weapon from the duffel on the seat beside her.
He blinked and squinted, then finally recognized the silhouette of what could only be an assault rifle, a gun that he had never seen before. A gun that made his .38 look as effective as a flyswatter in comparison.
“Come on, and let’s get set. Your little pet back there’ll be just fine. Probably won’t even wake up when we start shooting.”
His bowels turned to ice water. “We’re—we’re shooting at the cops?”
“We’re shooting at anybody I say, and I’m telling you, whoever’s coming up behind us has to die.”
He glanced down at his weapon. Why hadn’t he used it on her while he could? He could’ve taken all the crank and left the kid someplace where he’d be found safe. All it would have taken was a single bullet—
But Lee Ray didn’t have the guts to complete the thought, much less defy the woman he could not imagine ever leaving. Instead, he followed her directions, the last of his high ruined by the knowledge that, despite his pathetic protests, there was absolutely nothing, no matter how depraved or violent, she could not force him to do.
* * *
THOUGH THE TERRAIN HAD gotten hillier, every so often Cole caught a fleeting flash of distant taillights. Most likely the kidnappers, but he could not be absolutely certain. He might have fallen in behind a driver who’d turned onto this road at one of the small intersections they had passed, just as it was possible that his targets had turned off and he’d lost them.
Still, at this time of night, he didn’t think so, and his gut told him that after hours of hard driving, they were finally getting close. He just had to be certain.
“Any signal on that phone yet?” he asked Lisa, whose head had drooped.
“Wha—” She jerked awake in an instant, then groaned, her hand shooting to her upper arm. “Ow. How long have I been sleeping? Have we caught up yet?”
“Not so long, and maybe. Why don’t you take a couple more pain pills, maybe take the edge off?”
Ignoring the suggestion, she leaned forward. “Where are they?”
“I can’t guarantee it’s them, but I’ve seen taillights up ahead. Whoever’s up there is traveling at a pretty good clip, too.” He prayed that he was right, that they hadn’t been chasing some random back-road traveler in a hurry, maybe some coyote smuggling illegals or a drug runner, either of which could be every bit as dangerous as the people they were after.
“It has to be them. I just know it.”
“Check the phone,” he reminded her. “This would be a really good time to arrange some backup.”
“Right.” She pulled it from the straw bag and peered down at its face. “Two, no, there’s just one bar. I’m trying 9-1-1.” She stared at the phone as if willing it to obey her. “Come on, come on,” she murmured. “Connect already, please... Hello? This is Lisa Meador from Coopersville, and my five-year-old son has been kidnapped. We’re following the SUV they took, and— Do you know where we are, Cole?”
Cole was from California, and he wasn’t familiar with this part of Texas, but he gave the number he’d seen on the road sign, along with the name of a state park they’d passed.
Lisa relayed the information before saying, “It’s not my phone. I don’t know the number— Hello?”
A long pause was followed by “Are you still there? Please? Oh, shoot!”
As if on cue, the moment the word escaped her lips, what could only be automatic gunfire shattered the night’s stillness. At the edge of his vision, Cole caught the muzzle flashes at the same moment his right front tire blew out and more rounds punched along the truck’s flank—including one that slammed straight through the door and into the dashboard just above the dog’s head.
The animal yelped and Lisa screamed, but Cole had no time to wonder whether she’d been hit. He was too busy wrestling the wheel to keep the speeding, swerving truck from overturning.
As fast as he reacted, the truck reacted to the blowout faster, its rear end slewing around, and the tires squealing and bumping off the pavement. He tried to steer into the spin, but it was no use. The pickup bucked and bounced off the road, until the undercarriage crunched hard against something solid and jerked them to a brutal stop.
He killed the lights and ducked, feeling around until he found his pistol. Not that it would do him much good against the kind of weapon capable of the rapid gunfire that had taken them off the road.
“You all right, Lisa?” Heart pounding wildly, he struggled to get a lock on his emotions.
His only answer was her moan and the dog’s whining, though Rowdy sounded far more terrified than hurt.
“Were you hit?” He couldn’t see her in the darkness, but he reached out and felt her shoulder and realized she was lying across the seat.
At his touch, she lurched upright. “I’m not hit. What about you? Are you all right?”
“Yeah, but we won’t be if they come up on us in the dark. Out of the truck right now—and leave the dog. He’ll give away our location with his whining.”
“But Rowdy’s scared to death. I can’t just—”
“If he gets the two of us killed, your son’s got no one.” Cole flipped off the dome light so it wouldn’t silhouette them when the doors opened. “No one except that pair of—”
“I’m so sorry, boy,” she said. “Stay, Rowdy.” After tucking the blanket around the dog, she bailed out of the truck and quietly closed the door behind her.
Cole joined her, worried because he hadn’t seen or heard anyone drive off.
Which meant the two criminals were hunting them in the darkness, with firepower far superior to his.
But he seriously doubted the kidnappers Lisa had described had anything close to his experience stalking human prey in rough terrain. Nor would they share his ability to move with silent stealth.
Lisa didn’t share it, either, he discovered as she stumbled over loose rocks that clattered noisily as she sucked in an audible breath. Taking her by the elbow, he led her toward a rocky outcrop he had noticed in the headlights moments earlier.
Leaning close to her ear, he whispered, “Guess you must’ve slept through night maneuvers training class at dental hygiene school.”
At her exasperated sigh, a grin tugged at the corner his mouth, and he realized that for the first time since Lashkar Gah, he was feeling the old rush that his career once gave him, an exhilaration he’d feared was lost forever.
After months of feeling dead inside, it was one hell of a relief. But he could not forget for a single second his obligation to the terrified woman at his side or the child they were both intent on saving.
He stooped to pick up several fist-size stones. One by one, he chunked them toward a spot between where the truck had come to rest and where he thought the shooter had been. Maybe the noise would at least distract them for a minute.
Unless, of course, they had night-vision goggles to go with their military-style weapon. If that was the case, the kidnappers could gun them down before they knew what hit them.
Overhead, he spotted the white flare of a meteor before it faded against a backdrop filled with more stars than any city dweller could imagine. Though the moon had not yet risen, now that his eyes had adjusted he made out the individual silhouettes of rocks and a few clumps of scrubby trees.
“Over here,” he said, leading her toward one of the latter. “Now duck under those branches and get over there, behind that rock, and keep still.” There, at least, she would have some cover, and he wouldn’t have to worry that she might make noise and draw fire.
“We’re not just hiding, are we?” The worry in her voice was palpable. “Not with Tyler so close.”
“You might not’ve noticed, but they aren’t exactly packing peashooters. So you are waiting here and staying put until I come to get you.”
She hesitated before saying, “What if you don’t come back?”
For just a moment he wondered if at least a little of the worry shading her voice could be on his account. But that was ridiculous. She was only worried about losing her best chance of saving the child whose life meant more to her than her own, not a man she barely knew.
He pulled the keys out of his pocket, his hand gripping them carefully to keep them from jingling. “Here, take these, but promise me you’ll wait until first light before you even think of going back to the truck.” He prayed that the vehicle was still drivable. “Until then, don’t move a muscle, no matter what you hear, no matter what they threaten.”
“What if they...what if they say they’ll kill you?”
So she was worried about him—him, of all people. “I swear to you,” he promised, “they aren’t taking me alive.”
“And Tyler? I can’t just hide if they start threatening to hurt him.”
“If they still have your son—and I have no reason to think otherwise—they don’t want him dead. Otherwise they would never have risked the heat a child abduction’s sure to bring down.” Cole didn’t want to think about what they could want with an innocent five-year-old. “But they’ll kill you in a second if you show yourself. You understand that?”
When she nodded, he pressed the keys into her left hand.
To his surprise, her fingers threaded through his and she squeezed them, the keys digging into both their palms. “Cole,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry. Sorry for dragging you into—”
“Like you said before, I did it to myself the moment I decided to try to stop that robbery. If I’d had any way of knowing... I’m sorry, Lisa—sorrier than you’ll ever know.” And sorrier still for what I haven’t told you.
“Don’t. Please.” She raised herself onto her toes and brushed the fullness of her warm lips across his. The kiss was soft and fleeting—meaningless, really, in the heat of this charged moment—yet somehow it sent a jolt that blazed through his brain and body as if he’d never experienced a woman’s touch before. Desire gripped him, a searing need to turn and claim her mouth in earnest, to find out what it was about her that had somehow stirred that pile of cold ash that was once his beating heart.
Instead, he struggled to regain his composure, then braced himself against the wave of shame that followed. Of all the women in the world... This was Staff Sergeant Devin Meador’s widow, for heaven’s sake. How sick was it that he felt anything for her but remorse?
“I’ll come for you,” Cole managed, his voice rough. “And, Lisa, if there’s any way—any way at all—to make it happen, I’ll be bringing your son with me. Just think of that and nothing else. Think of Tyler back in your arms.”
Before she could answer, or do anything else to throw off his equilibrium, he turned and melted into the shadows, becoming one with the cool darkness of the Texas night.
* * *
“DON’T ANSWER IT,” Jill pleaded as Trace reached for the radio handset.
But with the local emergency services dispatcher telling them he was patching through a call from Sheriff Stewart himself on a designated channel, it wasn’t as if he had a choice.
“If we don’t respond,” she went on, reaching for the off switch, “he’ll just think we’re out of radio range.”
When he grabbed her hand to stop her, the shock of their contact, after so many long months of avoiding even the sight of each other, jolted through him like an electric charge. “If you think that, you don’t know Hank Stewart,” he told her, remembering how much her tendency to play the rogue cop had already cost them. “And if you think I’m irresponsible enough to break my sworn oath, you don’t know your ex-husband, either.”
She let her hand fall to her lap and speared him with a look so openly hostile, he realized he’d been fooling himself with his insane hopes for a reunion. She was never going to forgive him for the ultimatum he had laid down, and he was never going to see his way past the need to give it in the first place.
Hank Stewart’s voice came on the radio, speaking far too clearly to be misunderstood. “Deputies Sutherland and Keller, I have some additional information for you on our suspect and the woman traveling with him—
including the number to a cell phone given to her by the owner of the Texas Two-Step back in Coffee Creek. I have new orders for you, too, and this time, you’d damned well better listen if you mean to keep your jobs.”
Chapter Eight
Cole grinned, realizing that at least one of the kidnappers was even noisier than Lisa, who was stashed safely not sixty yards from the spot where the target was moving. If the criminals were together, this was going to be one easy takedown.
If he’d been on the battlefield, he might have opted to cover a mouth and slit a throat, allowing him to quickly and silently dispatch the first kidnapper and move on to the next. But in this situation he might need intel on the location of the second criminal or even Tyler, if he’d been wrong about the boy being somewhere nearby, still in the stolen Explorer.
Besides, he was no longer sanctioned by the government to kill as he judged necessary in the service of his mission. As a civilian, he knew his every action would be scrutinized, and the loss of his chance to become a U.S. Marshal was nothing compared to the unthinkable threat of losing his own freedom if his conduct was deemed criminal.
But criminal or not, the debt he owed to the family of Staff Sergeant Devin Meador burned like a live coal in his belly, and he knew that whatever it ended up costing him, he was prepared to pay the price.
Staying low and upwind of his quarry, he closed in from
behind. Both training and instinct had him seeking out any shrub or rock that might camouflage his own clearly human silhouette, but he needn’t have bothered. His stumbling, shambling target never turned his head to look.
As he moved to within twenty yards, Cole could easily make out the smoky stench of unwashed flesh—probably the male, judging from the shape and height. It took only another moment to determine that his opponent was substantially shorter and skinnier than he was, and clearly in no condition to prevail in a hand-to-hand confrontation.
Though Cole couldn’t make out whether the man was armed, he appeared to be alone. The question was, was his female partner in the SUV with Tyler, or was she close enough to open fire if she heard a commotion?
With no way to be certain, Cole moved within striking range, his muscles poised for release like hundreds of drawn bowstrings. He focused, mind and body, then drew a steadying breath.
And stiffened, horror jolting through him at the sound of a ringing phone.
* * *
TWENTY MINUTES OF crouching behind the rock, hunched beneath the sharp thorns of the twisted limbs of a low-growing mesquite tree, had left Lisa stiff in every muscle. Still in pain from both the bullet wound to her arm and the blow to her head, she was freezing, too, as the temperature dropped. She wished in vain for the blanket she’d foolishly left with Rowdy in the truck. But mostly she was terrified of what might be happening while she sat there shivering like a coward, so close to her son and so maddeningly dependent on another person to get near him....
Even if that person was a man as brave and capable as Captain Cole Sawyer.
At least, she prayed he was capable as all her instincts screamed that he was. But Devin, too, had seemed so strong, so confident in both his training and his fellow soldiers, when he’d assured her he would return to her and Tyler alive. She’d believed in him wholeheartedly, had trusted in his strength and her faith to shield him from all harm.
Her cold fingers drifted to her lips, the same lips that had kissed her husband goodbye on their last day together. She had kissed Cole Sawyer, too. What on earth had she been thinking?
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