On the Chase

by Katie Ruggle

  “Forget my feet. My whole body might be falling asleep soon,” she admitted.

  “No problem.” He sounded almost gentle, and the way he was stroking her hair was incredibly soothing. “Get some rest. I’ll keep watch.”

  “Okay.” Her eyes were already drifting closed. “Wake me up when it’s time to go. Or if anyone shows up here.”

  “I’ll do that.” Hugh sounded as if he was about to laugh yet again, and she opened her eyes to glare at him…or at least squint blearily at him. Once she focused on his face, her mild irritation dissolved. Just the sight of him made her happier. Although she’d met him only a short time ago, it had been long enough for Hugh to become precious to her. All of her efforts to stay detached and protect herself had failed miserably, and it was too late to turn back. He was now permanently blasted into her heart. Turning her head, she pressed a kiss against his bare throat. His hand stilled on her hair for a moment, and she saw him swallow before he began stroking her head once more.

  Grace’s eyes drifted closed once again. The last few weeks had been rough, and she was comfortable here. Even when multiple people were trying to kill him, Hugh made her feel safe.

  Chapter 16

  Hugh ground his palms into his eyes. It was four in the morning, and he needed sleep desperately. At eleven the night before, he’d reluctantly woken his sleeping beauty and they’d made their careful—much more careful than if he’d been driving—way down the mountain. Although she wasn’t thrilled to be excluded from the action, Grace couldn’t argue about her lack of law enforcement skills, so she’d reluctantly stopped at the police station to join Jules and the kids for the night.

  It had felt wrong to leave her there, to not have her with him for the first time in several days. Hugh hoped she was sleeping, that she wasn’t worrying, but he doubted it. At least she’d managed to doze for a few hours before they’d had to leave their mountain hideout.

  His phone beeped, and he grimaced. Although he assumed it was Lieutenant Blessard, leaving his one-hundredth message, he checked just in case it was Grace or Theo or Otto. It was none of those people. Instead, it was the final death knell of his cell phone battery charge. Sliding the phone back in his pocket, he figured the lack of a charge was for the best. Now when he told LT that his phone was dead, he wouldn’t be lying.

  He shifted his weight, rubbing at his stiffening thigh, and then hopped up and down in place a few times, making sure to keep his weight on his good leg. It didn’t work. He still felt like he was going to fall asleep standing up. By his feet, Lexi was stretched out on the ground, snoring.

  They’d been staking out Main Street for more than four hours. During that time, only thirteen vehicles had passed. Theo and Otto had stopped every one, since they’d all been traveling over the twenty-mile-per-hour speed limit that the city council had pushed through a few years earlier. Hugh had walked Lexi around each car, SUV, and truck, but she hadn’t signaled that there were drugs on any of them. All the drivers had been let off with a warning, except for one who’d been texting as he came through town. The oblivious guy had almost driven right on top of Theo, who seemed grimly pleased to write the citation for that one.

  Hugh swayed with exhaustion. His knees softened, and he had to catch his balance on the tree next to him. He needed to move, to do something, or he’d be on the ground, snoring right along with his dog.

  “C’mon, Lex,” he said, his voice rough with lack of sleep. What he wouldn’t give to be curled up with Grace on a bed somewhere, even if it was a cot at the police station. “Let’s go bug Theo. Or Otto. No, Theo. He’s more fun to aggravate.”

  Yawning, Lexi stood and stretched. Although she seemed to be taking the sleep interruptions well, her tail drooped a little.

  “Sorry, girl.” Hugh rubbed the top of her head and behind her ears. “Just a few more hours to go and then you can sleep for a week.” He did his own stretch-and-yawn combination. “I know I’m going to.” The mental image of Grace sharing his bed made that plan even more appealing. As soon as they took care of Truman, and then dealt with Grace’s problem, things were going to be peaceful in Monroe. Hugh set his jaw. They’d better be. After all this, everyone involved—Hugh, Grace, Theo, Jules, the kids, Otto, Lexi, and even the lieutenant—deserved some rest.

  As Hugh and Lexi approached the driver’s side of Theo’s car, he didn’t look at them. Instead, he stayed focused on his MCT—mobile computer terminal—screen, only reaching with one hand to raise the window.

  “Funny guy,” Hugh muttered, starting to grin. When Theo blocked his efforts, Hugh had to get creative. Crouching down so his face was level with the window, his bad leg extended to the side, Hugh kept his unblinking gaze on Theo’s averted head. It took several minutes of concentrated staring before Theo broke and lowered the window a half inch.

  “What?” he snapped, although he kept his voice low. They were going to have enough complaints about all the overhead light action that had been happening on Main Street during the wee morning hours. Hugh wasn’t sure how they were going to explain their unofficial sting operation to the lieutenant. Hugh saw a lot of menial tasks in his professional future…if he still had a job with MPD, that was.

  Hugh gave Theo his most innocent look. “What?”

  “What’s with the creeper act?”

  With a laugh, Hugh asked, “Who’s acting?”

  Turning to face the window, Theo frowned. “I have reports to finish. Did you need something, or are you just bored?”

  “Bored.”

  “Figures.”

  “I’m tired.” Hugh stood, catching his balance on the top of Theo’s car when his leg wobbled. The muscle weakness was even worse than the pain sometimes. He could deal with the pain, but it usually took him by surprise when his leg gave out on him. “You need to keep me awake.”

  “You’re not going to let me finish my reports, are you?”

  “No.”

  Theo’s answering growl cut off when they saw the gleam of headlights in the distance. Adrenaline flowed through him, and Hugh was suddenly not so sleepy. He moved back to his spot in the shadows of a couple of pine trees. If it was Truman’s shipment, Hugh didn’t want to risk that the driver would recognize him. Having a shoot-out in the middle of Main Street would be a bad thing.

  The vehicle got closer, and Otto’s brake lights flashed. Good, Hugh thought. Otto’s ready.

  As the incoming SUV drew closer and then passed Theo’s squad car, Otto turned on his overhead lights and pulled in front of the SUV, forcing it to stop. Theo immediately blocked it from the back. The two cops got out and approached the SUV from opposite sides, with Theo on the passenger’s side and Otto on the driver’s.

  From Hugh’s vantage point, the driver looked like a woman in her forties. He couldn’t see a passenger. As he and Lexi approached the rear of the SUV, he heard the woman’s nervous prattle. “…don’t think I was speeding, Officer. I take this route every morning, except for my days off, and I know it so well I could drive it in my sleep. Oh! Not that I’d fall asleep while I was driving or anything. Just, you know, I could drive it if I… Where is that darn insurance card?”

  As Hugh walked Lexi around the back of the SUV, he had a sinking feeling that this would be their fourteenth wrong vehicle. The woman could just be a really good actress, but it was more likely she was exactly who she said she was—a nurse with a two-hour mountain commute to the orthopedic clinic in Dresden where she worked. He doubted she ran drugs on the side.

  Lexi agreed. She checked where he indicated, but she didn’t signal that she’d picked up on traces of any narcotics. She didn’t even hesitate anywhere. As they rounded the front of the SUV and finished the search along the driver’s side of the vehicle, the woman sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Why do you have a dog here?” she demanded, her voice going shrill. “Is it going to smell my car? Do you think I have drugs?
Oh my goodness.”

  Hugh dredged up a grin. “Morning, ma’am. Don’t mind us. I have a dog we’re training, and I saw that these officers had you stopped, so I thought Lexi here could get some experience. Don’t worry. We didn’t find a thing.”

  It wasn’t his best work, since a lack of sleep didn’t do much for his charm, but the woman seemed to soften a little. “Oh. Well, you could’ve asked first before you gave me a heart attack.”

  “Sorry about that, ma’am.” With a final, forced smile, he retreated to Theo’s squad car.

  After a few more minutes, the woman was on her way to work again, and Theo and Otto joined him.

  “Is this pointless? Are we wasting time here?” Hugh asked, rolling his sore shoulders. “Bad information, maybe? Or Truman was giving himself a few days of cushion, and the shipment won’t be coming until next week?”

  Otto shrugged. “Could be. Theo and I still have four hours of our shift. Might as well stay on this.”

  “Yep,” Theo agreed.

  Leaning on the roof of Theo’s squad car, Hugh bit back a torrent of frustrated curses. He took a few deep breaths, trying to think rationally. Exhaustion made everything seem impossible, especially when his entire body was aching. “Okay,” he finally said, shoving every jab of pain into a box in his head. Just four more hours. He could do this. “I’ll be by the trees.”

  * * *

  Grace tapped her fingers on the side of her leg and fought the need to pace. Looking around the interview room, she sighed. It’d been only a few weeks since she’d barely escaped from one police station with her life, and now she was back in another one.

  She clenched her hands and then relaxed them, shaking out the tension in her fingers. This wasn’t the same. She had allies with the police now, and even, thanks to those cop friends, with the FBI. This time, she wouldn’t have to run from one of Martin Jovanovic’s henchmen.

  It would’ve been nice to have someone there with her. Her brain screamed Hugh, but she resolutely ignored it. She needed to get used to doing things by herself. After all, if this worked, she’d get to go home to California.

  Grace waited for the usual flare of excitement at the thought of returning to her life, but it fizzled. She’d be thrilled to see Penny, but other than that… To her surprise, she’d miss parts of Monroe. Jules, Hugh, the kids, Hugh, Theo and Otto, Hugh, Lexi, Hugh, even that old mess of a house, and Hugh.

  With a groan, she let her forehead rest on the table. It was time to stop pretending she could just wave goodbye and leave Monroe—and Hugh—without any heartbreak. A part of her wanted to stay, wanted to see what would happen if they did go on a real date, even if that was just to the viner. Hopefully, that date would not include Hugh picking a bathroom lock. Grace couldn’t help but smile at the thought, but then she gave herself a mental smack. She had a life—an incredibly wonderful, hard-won life—in California. Was she seriously considering giving up all she’d worked so hard for? She was probably just caught up in the moment. Once she got back to LA, she’d forget all about a certain gorgeous, clever Colorado cop.

  Lifting her head, she sat back in her chair with a sigh. If she couldn’t have Hugh with her for moral support, she wished at least Jules had been there to talk to. The previous night, after Hugh had dropped Grace off at the station, the kindly desk sergeant had shown her where the women’s locker room was and then led her to a storage room where cots had been set up. Jules and the kids had occupied five of the cots, and there had been an empty one for her.

  Jules and Sam had sat up when she’d entered. Once they saw it was her, Jules had given a sleepy wave, and both had fallen back asleep quickly. After a quick trip to the bathroom, Grace had collapsed in her cot, her entire body aching with the need for sleep. Unfortunately, her brain hadn’t cooperated, spinning with worries and scenarios that blended into her dreams and jerked her out of a light doze several times.

  There hadn’t been any other extra cots, so she wasn’t really expecting Hugh to join them, but a tiny part of her had hoped he would stop in to let them know that the bust had gone well and that he wasn’t hurt. The hours had crawled by, however, and then it was early morning, and still there was no sign of Hugh. Jules and the kids had headed to the viner with a police escort, and Grace, after a quick shower in the locker room, had been shown to the interview room to wait for FBI Special Agent Shankle to arrive.

  The door opened abruptly, and Grace jerked back, making the chair scrape against the floor. The memory of Officer Jovanovic escorting her toward the stairway and her possible death ran through her mind, and she stood, ready to flee. As soon as she got a good look at the man in the doorway, however, she calmed, recognizing him as the cop Theo had been talking to at the Rack and Ruin bust. She could tell just by his rigid posture, wiry form, and thinning gray hair.

  He was frowning at her. In fact, that was an understatement. He was scowling ferociously at her. Grace stared back with wide eyes, not sure what she’d done to deserve the glare.

  “Why is he not answering his goddamned phone?” the man demanded.

  Comprehension dawned, and Grace smiled as she figured out who the angry man in front of her was. “You’re the lieutenant?”

  “Lieutenant Blessard,” he snapped. “Do you know where he is? Will he answer if you call him? You have a phone on you? Call him right now. No, actually, give me your phone.” He held out a hand, palm up.

  She dug her phone out of her pocket and handed it to him even before she realized what she was doing. The man had a commanding presence. “I’m pretty sure his phone is dead.”

  “Yeah, that’s what he always says,” the lieutenant muttered, jabbing at the buttons. His heavy eyebrows drew together as he held the phone up to his ear. Almost immediately, he moved it down and stabbed his finger to end the call.

  He tossed the phone back to her. She fumbled as she caught it but managed to keep it from hitting the floor.

  “When you talk to him, you tell him that he needs to get his ass in here yesterday. Got it?”

  “Got it.” As he turned away, she added, “What’s going on? Is he in danger? I mean, more danger than the Truman stuff, which I know is a pretty big danger, but…”

  His glare made her words dry up, and she fell silent. “Yes. He’s in danger. What do you know about Truman? That’s an open investigation.”

  “What kind of danger?” Her anxiety spiked as she thought of him being out all night, searching cars for the drug shipment. Was he okay? Had something already happened? Theo and Otto were there, though. She reassured herself that they would’ve called for help if anything had happened to Hugh…unless something had happened to them, too. Fear squeezed her stomach. “What’s wrong?”

  The lieutenant’s face softened slightly. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll track him down and drag him in by the scruff of his neck. He’ll be fine.”

  With that perfectly useless platitude, he left, closing the door behind him with a sharp bang. Letting out a frustrated sound, Grace plopped back down in her chair and stared at her phone, wondering if she should call Theo and have him warn Hugh that…what? He already knew that his lieutenant was looking for him, and Hugh was well aware that he was in danger, thanks to the hit Truman had out on him.

  If Blessard knew of something else, however, if there was a new danger that Hugh needed to watch out for, then it was worth a call to warn him. Decided, she found Theo’s number on her sadly short list of contacts. Before she could dial, the door swung open again, less violently that time. Although Grace startled again, she managed to stay in her chair.

  A short, stocky, disheveled man stood in the doorway, holding a paper cup of coffee balanced on a short stack of files and notepads. His receding hairline and ill-fitting suit fit every television cliché, down to the visitor pass clipped to his jacket that had FBI printed in large letters. “Miss Robinson?”

  “Yes?” She lower
ed her cell phone to her lap.

  “Special Agent Josh Barrett from the FBI.” He placed the pile of papers on the table and held out the coffee cup.

  “Thank you.” Grace accepted it eagerly, immediately taking a sip. It was some of the worst coffee she’d ever tasted, but she forced herself to take another drink. After her short, broken sleep the previous night, she needed caffeine desperately. “I thought I’d be talking to Agent Shankle.”

  “He’ll be here shortly,” Barrett said, taking a seat across the table from her. “Lieutenant Blessard requested a word with him first.”

  “Ah.” His answer reminded Grace that she needed to call Theo, but she couldn’t do that with the FBI agent in the room. She avoided glancing at the phone in her lap, taking a sip of coffee instead.

  Barrett pulled a small digital recorder from his pocket. “Do you mind if I record this?”

  “I don’t mind.” Exhaustion flooded Grace at the thought of having to tell the story of that terrible night, and she mentally shook herself. If she lived through it, she could talk about it. This would be the easy part. “I assumed it would be. Aren’t the police videotaping this room?” She glanced around, looking for a camera, but there were just bare walls.

  Barrett chuckled. “Not in Mayberry—I mean, Monroe. This is just an office turned into an interview room. For these tiny towns, surveillance cameras aren’t in the budget.”

  There was a smugness to his tone that made her frown, offended on behalf of Hugh and the other Monroe cops. The town might be small, but they worked hard. She could tell they really cared about their jobs. She started to defend them, but a wave of dizziness flooded her, and she lost her train of thought. Grace blinked hard, trying to bring the room back into focus.

  “Miss Robinson, are you feeling okay?” Barrett’s words had a strange echo to them, and she stared at his blurry form. What was wrong with her? She’d thought it was just lack of sleep, but this was different. Fog rolled over her brain, and she fought to keep her eyes open. “Miss Robinson? Or do you prefer Kaylee?”