Erin Solomon Mysteries, Books 1 - 5

by Jen Blood

  “Suddenly, I’m not that tired,” I whispered.

  Her eyes lit as she wrapped her legs around my hips. We began again.

  If I’d known how long it would be before I would see that light in her eyes, hear her laughter and feel that spark again, I like to think I would have taken more time; reveled in that rare moment of joy. But you never know how quickly the tide can turn until you’re in the midst of it. We made love and we laughed and then we slept, Solomon wrapped around me like a climbing vine…

  Until the tide turned.

  ◊◊◊◊◊

  I was up at four o’clock the next morning with my heart pounding, unsure of what had woken me. Before I could make sense of anything, Solomon pushed my clothes into my arms. She was already dressed. Downstairs, Einstein barked madly.

  “We have to go,” she whispered. Moonlight bled in through a slit in the curtains. I pulled my boxers on and peered out the window. Two pickup trucks were driving up, headlights off.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  Solomon didn’t answer. The night took on an otherworldly, desperate edge. I was still zipping the fly on my jeans as I followed her out the bedroom door and into the hallway. The house was dark. Einstein met us when we were halfway down the stairs, still barking. Sol ran past him to her father’s bedroom door. I searched for our bag and found it on the kitchen table. It was lying open, clearly riffled through. Half the cash Cameron had left for us had spilled out, but I couldn’t tell how much—if any—had been stolen. My stomach churned. Outside, I heard the trucks come to a stop. A door slammed.

  “Dad!” Solomon whispered loudly.

  “He’s gone, Sol,” I said. A second car door slammed outside. I caught Einstein and clamped my hand gently around his muzzle. “Come on, buddy—shh.” Solomon raced into the other rooms, whisper-shouting for her father. I could hear men talking outside now—getting closer with every passing second.

  “You sure it was them?” one of them asked. “The folks from the news?”

  “Positive,” another said. It was a familiar voice that took only a moment for me to place: Trent Willett, the government spook Adam was so terrified of.

  I caught Solomon by the elbow. “Your father’s not here, Erin. We need to go—now.”

  She took one last desperate look around the room before she nodded. I handed Einstein’s leash to her and we raced for the back door. I’d barely closed it behind me before I heard Willett come in the front.

  “Police!” someone shouted. “We have a warrant to search the premises.”

  I pushed Solomon toward the path. She took off running, tearing through the woods with Einstein alongside and me close behind. The forest closed in. Instantly, I was back in Black Falls. Back running for our lives, Will Rainier set to murder us both.

  There was pandemonium behind us: Cops shouting; doors slamming; sirens in the distance. I followed Solomon blindly, branches slapping at my face, tearing at my eyes. We’d gone only a few yards when Solomon hit a fork in the path. She stopped. I hesitated.

  “Left,” I said, after a split second.

  “You’re sure?”

  Einstein danced at her feet, waiting for her to give him the go ahead. I nodded. “Just go.”

  She went.

  Ten yards in, I realized my error. Up ahead, there was a flash of bright light.

  “Dad?” Solomon whispered. There was no answer. Einstein growled. Sol hesitated on the path. I grabbed her arm.

  “Hang on,” I whispered, dread burning through me. “We’re going the wrong way.” There was no question—we’d circled back, now headed straight for the house. Straight for Willett. “Wait, damn it,” I said. She struggled to get away.

  “I think he’s up ahead,” Solomon insisted.

  “We took a wrong turn. We need to go back.”

  She shook her head, about to argue the point, when I pulled her none too gently into the thick brush at the side of the path. Half a second later, a voice ahead stopped us both.

  “Here! We’ve got ‘em,” a man called out. “Come out slowly, hands up,” he said.

  We were still half-hidden by trees, but I had a clear view of the cop who’d spotted us. He was young—no more than twenty-five. Terrified. The cold steel of his pistol shone in the moonlight. Einstein growled. Solomon held tight to his collar.

  “I said, step out of that brush with your hands up,” the cop repeated, his voice rising. He had a baby face. His uniform was freshly pressed despite the late hour. A branch snapped behind him, and he started. Willett appeared on the path. “I’ve got them, sir,” the cop said, pointing just to our left. “They went in that way.”

  We were still concealed by the trees. A barely discernible path behind us led deeper into the forest. I edged toward it, Adam’s words echoing in my mind: Whatever happens, don’t let Willett anywhere near you. The Project may have been bad, but it doesn’t have anything on Willett and his people.

  Going for the path meant giving up our precarious hiding spot. I leaned in to whisper in Solomon’s ear.

  “If he keeps coming this way, forget stealth—just go. Run like hell.”

  She nodded.

  Willett glared into the night, his glasses reflecting in the moonlight. Unlike the cop beside him, he showed no fear. I didn’t like the set of his jaw or the tension in his spine. Whatever else I thought of Adam Solomon, I was sure he was right about this.

  Trent Willett was a dangerous man.

  The agent took a breath, rifle clutched in his hand. We had some distance from him—maybe fifty yards. If he turned the other way, we could get away.

  Solomon held her breath beside me.

  One second hung, suspended, before Willett’s eyes found mine in the darkness. Sweat popped on my forehead.

  We’d been made.

  I grabbed Solomon’s hand. “Run!”

  Willett charged the brush.

  I heard the others coming close on his heels, crashing through the undergrowth. The cover of night and an unfamiliar forest were all that protected us from the agent and his onslaught, the brush thick as we fought our way through.

  “Circle back around, goddamn it!” Willett shouted to the others. “Use whatever force you need, kill him if you need to. I want the girl alive.”

  We continued through the brush, moving fast, my heart pounding. I was damp with sweat. Shaking with fear. Completely lost. Willett and his men were gaining on us. Adam was long gone, I was sure. Solomon ran beside me, her grip tight on Einstein’s leash.

  We had to make it back to the truck.

  “Shit—Diggs,” Solomon whispered, breathless. She stopped short.

  An instant later, I understood why.

  A foot in front of us, the forest just... stopped. In its place was a wall of brambles so thick I couldn’t even see a way in, much less a way out. I could hear Willett now, shouting. Moving fast. He sounded like a madman.

  Seconds before the agent broke through and found us, trapped, Einstein slipped his collar.

  The dog charged through the brush and back toward the agent, barking wildly. I grabbed Solomon’s hand before she could run after him. Mass confusion reigned. Through the trees, I caught sight of Willett leading the pack. Sweat ran down his face. Einstein ran straight for him, hackles raised. I held Sol around her middle, my hand clapped over her mouth when Willett raised his rifle. He took aim.

  The night shifted to a series of freeze frames: The venom in Willett’s eye; the fury of the dog at his feet; the other cops, surrounding them. Willett squeezed off a single shot.

  Einstein yelped, his small body skidding across a patch of earth before he found his feet again. Still crying pitifully, he ran for the woods.

  Solomon was frozen.

  “We have to go,” I whispered urgently, pulling her arm.

  One of the deputies went for Willett, furious.

  With the time Einstein had bought us, we might not be able to get through the brambles, but we could get around them.

&nb
sp; “He shot Stein,” Solomon whispered to me, her voice just this side of blind panic. “We have to find him.”

  “We’ll come back. Right now we have to get out of here.”

  There was still no sign of Adam. I dragged Solomon back into the woods, farther from the fight escalating between Willett and the other cops.

  This time when we hit the fork in the path, we turned to the right. Within two minutes, the SUV was in sight. Solomon hesitated. I pushed her forward. Willett was in pursuit again. The sound of his angry shouts and forest-rattling footsteps drew closer with every breath. Solomon pulled away angrily, halting on the path. She put her finger to her lips before I could speak. I listened.

  Somewhere nearby, I heard a dog whimper.

  Somewhere equally nearby, Willett and his entourage closed in.

  Solomon ducked past me before I could grab her, plunging back into the undergrowth toward the dog’s cry.

  The horizon was just beginning to lighten to a pale gray. I glanced back at the SUV longingly, already seething, and dove into the brush after her.

  Five seconds later, if that, I found them.

  Solomon knelt beside a thicket of brush, gently luring Einstein out of hiding. His side was bloodied, the fur matted. His tail was curled under his body as he limped toward her. Sol tried to pick him up, but the dog isn’t light.

  “Erin—”

  “I’m not leaving him,” she said fiercely.

  “I know,” I agreed. “But let me get him.”

  I scooped the dog into my arms. He whined, panting hard, but made no move to get away.

  Willett and his men were still behind us. I could hear them arguing again, the voice of the young deputy raised above the others.

  “I don’t care if they’re Al-Qaeda itself, this wasn’t part of the plan. You don’t just go out shooting after anything that moves in our woods.”

  Solomon and I kept going, on the right path finally, toward the truck. Behind us, Willett and the others continued to argue. We were almost there—almost safe.

  The SUV was no more than five feet away when the first shot rang out. Solomon was behind me, close on my heels. A second shot pierced the dawn. I heard Solomon stumble. Einstein wriggled in my arms, his blood dampening my shirt.

  “Keep going,” Sol said when I started to turn. “I’m fine—just run.”

  I ran.

  Sixty seconds later, we were at the truck. I unlocked the back door and lay Einstein inside. Solomon scrambled in after him, her shirt stained with his blood. I shut the door behind her and climbed into the front, thanking every god I’d never believed in when the truck roared to life as soon as I turned the key in the ignition. I barreled over rocky terrain, narrowly missing a big old oak tree before I got back on course and found the road again.

  We’d made it.

  Neither of us spoke for a full twenty minutes, until I’d managed to get out of the woods and back on a rural highway headed away from Willett and his posse. When I was satisfied that we were safe, at least for the moment, I called back over my shoulder.

  “How is he?” Einstein whimpered, but a second later I was relieved to find him on his feet, tail wagging, licking my face from the backseat. “Jesus… And they say cats have nine lives. Can you tell where the bullet hit?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Sol?”

  My anxiety ratcheted up again.

  I looked back over my shoulder, and nearly swerved off the road.

  Sol lay in the back seat with her eyes closed, face deathly pale. The stain I had assumed came from Einstein had grown, blossoming at her side and spilling to the seat beneath her.

  “Erin?”

  She didn’t move.

  Part III: Fire and Rain

  Chapter Seventeen - Juarez

  “I don’t care what your orders were—I got a report that there was an incident involving two suspects out that way this morning. I want to talk to someone about that,” Juarez said, his voice rising.

  His head throbbed, thanks to a close encounter with the wrong end of Mitch Cameron’s gun back on Raven’s Ledge. It had been pounding ever since, his blood way past boiling. A call from his assistant about an incident in Tennessee was the first lead he’d had since Erin, Diggs, and Kat had gone missing.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but they was pretty clear on this.” The deputy on the other end of the line spoke in hushed tones, as though afraid he might be overheard. “We’ve gotta keep our mouths shut here. Don’t matter how I feel about what went on... My ass’ll be in a sling if I say anything.”

  “I got word that there was a shooting,” Juarez persisted. “Can you confirm that someone was injured out there this morning?”

  There was a pause on the line before the deputy returned, his voice lowered even further. “Look, this is my job on the line. All I can tell you is this fella from the government comes out here claiming to be a patriot, but there’s something not right with him, you know what I mean? Like he’s gonna get these folks, and it don’t matter who lives or dies ‘til he does. Next thing I know he’s shootin’ at anything that moves in these woods... He hit the dog. I’m pretty sure he might’ve hit the girl, too, but they took off before I could see for sure.”

  Fear ran through him in a slow, liquid burn. Jamie was watching from the sidelines, eyebrows raised. Juarez shook his head and let out a slow, cooling breath.

  “Is Agent Willett still there?”

  “He’s on his way out. Guess he’s got a lead. Says he wants to try and get to ‘em before they get out of the country.”

  “How do you know they’re headed out of the country?” Juarez asked

  “He said folks like this are always headed out of the country.”

  Juarez hung up ready to tear himself inside out, suddenly missing the days when it was possible to actually hang up a phone with some force instead of flipping the stupid thing shut like some child’s toy. He resisted the urge to hurl it across the room, seething.

  “What happened?” Jamie asked.

  “They were spotted in Tennessee. This agent… Willett, apparently opened fire as soon as they were in sight. Shot Einstein; may have wounded Erin.”

  Jamie looked suitably stricken, though Juarez wasn’t sure whether that was on behalf of Erin or the dog. Probably the dog. Before she could comment, he picked up his phone again and punched in Howard Rhodes’ home number. Professionally speaking, he knew it wasn’t the best move to call the Deputy Director of Homeland Security at home. He just wasn’t sure what other options he had at this point.

  “What?” Rhodes answered sharply. Though it was only five a.m., there was no trace of sleep in his voice.

  “There’s been a development in the search for Erin Solomon,” Jack began.

  “I thought I told you: it’s not our concern,” Rhodes said. “The second you figured out where J. Enterprises led, this became CIA territory. You’re supposed to leave this alone.”

  “The agent in charge of this isn’t going at it in the best way,” Jack said. “I’ve gotten a report that he’s recklessly endangering the lives of civilians and other law enforcement… I’m telling you, Director, this is personal for him. I’ve had the same sense from the moment I talked to him: He doesn’t care about the law. All he cares about is taking these people down, and I don’t think he’s taking them down for the right reasons.”

  “Jesus Christ, Juarez: The government doesn’t give a rat’s ass about motivation here. We care about results… and this Agent Willett has a long history of getting results. As for it being personal, that would carry a little more weight if you weren’t pleading the case for your goddamn ex-girlfriend. My answer on this is final: I am not approving funds for you to pursue a case that’s already been deemed off-limits by the United States government. My advice to you? If you talk to Ms. Solomon, advise her to turn herself in. That’s the only way this can possibly end well.”

  And with that, he hung up.

  Loudly.

  Which was the be
nefit of having a real phone.

  Jamie waited Juarez out while he paced, hands dug deep in his pockets, headache pounding. Forget the dark spots.

  “You’re a good soldier, Jackie. You’ll always be our good soldier.” A woman’s face, dark and smiling, her hand soft in his hair. The sun is hot on his shoulders, blinding him. The sand is warm and white and soft under his feet. He is a boy, no more than five or six. “Now… show us how you hold the gun.”

  “Jack?”

  He blinked rapidly, jerking back to the present.

  Jamie looked at him uncertainly. “You still with us?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m here.”

  “I take it you got no help from the powers that be?”

  He shook his head. Jamie hesitated. Back on the mainland for two days now, they’d been staying at her business headquarters: a ranch in central Maine with obstacle courses and dog kennels and a proliferation of heavily-tattooed women who seemed to run the place under Jamie’s watchful eye.

  “What are you going to do?” she asked.

  “Order and discipline, Jackie. Rules are there for a reason.”

  His chest was tight. He massaged the back of his neck, thinking things through. Rhodes wouldn’t help. Willett was in this for blood; he didn’t care if he brought Erin back alive or dead. He didn’t care if he brought anyone back alive or dead.

  “I have… resources,” Jamie said. “A plane, if you need it. A crew—I know Monty and Carl would help out. And I think Cheyenne would like a chance to redeem herself, after what happened.”

  Jamie touched his arm, looking at him intently. “Jack,” she said. He looked at her. Her blue eyes were clear, not a trace of doubt there. “I know it’s hard to think about going against your superiors, but something is wrong here. You know that. We can’t just leave Erin and Diggs out there to fend for themselves. They’re both tough, but I don’t know if they can survive this. Whatever they’ve stumbled into, they’ll never make it out of this alive without some help.”

  He nodded. It was the kind of thing his wife would have said to him, back when she was his world. Before she’d been taken from him, this was the kind of thing Lucia would have insisted on.