Love Inspired Suspense June 2015 - Box Set 2 of 2: Exit StrategyPaybackCovert Justice

by Shirlee McCoy

  The sheriff fired two shots in quick succession, the air vibrating with the force of the reports. Silence followed, the night thick with it.

  “Stay here,” Sheriff Johnson ordered, his boots pounding against the blacktop as he ran into the shrubs, his radio crackling as he called for backup. Had he hit his mark?

  Cyrus shifted, blood dripping from his arm.

  He ignored it. He’d had worse injuries.

  “You okay?” he asked, peering under the car. Lark lay flat under the center of the car, her face turned toward him, her eyes gleaming in the darkness.

  “I’d be better if you were under here with me.” She paused, probably realized how that sounded. “What I mean is, I’d be happier if we had both taken cover.”

  “I knew what you meant.”

  “So, maybe you should scoot under and stay out of sight until the sheriff returns.”

  “The shooter is gone.” Or dead. He didn’t mention that possibility, but it was a real one. The sheriff hadn’t been shooting randomly. He’d aimed in the directions the bullets had come from, and he’d planned to hit his mark.

  “Maybe.”

  “Probably,” he corrected.

  “Probably isn’t for sure. Which means he could still be hanging around waiting to get a clear shot at you,” she hissed, belly crawling toward him and grabbing his hand. “Get under here!”

  “If he’s going to take a shot, I’d rather it be aimed at me.”

  “Don’t sacrifice yourself for me, Cyrus. I could never forgive myself if you did.” She tried to pull him under the car, but she was probably seventy pounds lighter than him, and there was no way he was going to move until he wanted to.

  “And Essex would never forgive me if I let something happen to you.”

  “I’m not Essex’s responsibility, and I’m not yours. If something happens to me, it will be because I’m an idiot and stuck my hand in the viper’s nest,” she responded drily. “You’re welcome to tell Essex that, if I die.”

  “You’re not going to die.” Not if he could help it, and he thought that he could. Once the team arrived, he wanted to get her into a safe house, keep her there until they could figure out exactly what was going on.

  “It’s clear,” Sheriff Johnson called from somewhere beyond the hedges.

  Cyrus stood, blood seeping from the gouge in his upper arm. A flesh wound. Nothing he couldn’t bandage up and treat himself. It could have been a lot worse, would have been a lot worse if he hadn’t moved just as the perp pulled the trigger.

  Lark scrambled out from under the car, got to her feet as the sheriff stepped into view.

  He didn’t look happy.

  Shoulders slumped, gun holstered, he walked toward them. “Everyone okay over here?” he asked.

  “I’ll be better once I know that the perp has been apprehended,” Cyrus replied, his pulse still racing with adrenaline.

  “He’s not going to be bothering you anymore,” Johnson said grimly.

  “He’s dead?” Lark sounded surprised.

  “Yes.” Just one word, but Cyrus heard a boatload of emotion in it.

  “You knew him, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “John McDermott and I went way back,” he responded, opening the passenger door of the cruiser. “I’m not happy that he’s dead, but I did what I had to. Why don’t you have a seat until my deputies arrive, Lark? We’ll go back to the station once they get here. I’ve called an ambulance, too. You look like you could use one, Mitchell.”

  “I’d rather have some information.”

  “About?” Johnson eyed him dispassionately, his expression unreadable. He had to know there were going to be questions. He had to know that his connection to Amos Way was going to come under scrutiny.

  “Your connection to John.”

  “I don’t owe you an explanation, but I’ll give you one. I spent my senior year of high school in Amos Way. John and I were in the same class.”

  “You were friends?” he pressed, and Johnson shook his head.

  “Not even close. The two of us didn’t see eye to eye on things.”

  “What things?”

  “I believe in abiding by the law of the land and in upholding it. He believes that the government needs to be shut down and that individuals should take over.” He ran a hand down his jaw, frowned. “Believed.”

  It sounded good. Sounded like something that could be truth, but Cyrus knew nothing about Sheriff Johnson. It seemed very convenient that John was dead. He’d been the one who’d tied Lark up. He’d been the one who’d kept her prisoner in the trailer. With him dead, there was no one to press charges against and no way to prove that Elijah had condoned what had been done to Lark.

  It was possible that was exactly the way Elijah wanted it. “How about Elijah?” he asked bluntly. “Do you see eye to eye with him?”

  Johnson’s jaw tightened, and he scowled. “No.”

  The answer was quick and just as blunt as the question had been.

  “But you did live in the compound he runs for a year.”

  “Because my parents died. It was that or go into foster care. Not something I was interested in doing. But that’s not something that I need to explain to you, Mitchell. Seems to me, you’re the one who needs to explain. But first, how about you remove the knife from your calf?”

  He did, because he knew he had no choice.

  He set it on the ground, and the sheriff grabbed it, tossed it into the trunk of his cruiser. “Any other weapons?”

  “A gun in the glove compartment,” he responded, waiting impatiently while the sheriff retrieved it.

  “How about you?” the sheriff asked, his attention on Lark. “Any weapons?”

  “No.”

  “And you had a good reason to return to Amos Way?” he asked, and Lark shrugged.

  “I’m not going to lie,” she responded. “My in-laws invited me back to the compound. They wanted some pictures of Joshua, and I was happy to bring them. I’d actually been considering a trip back anyway, because—”

  “You wanted to prove that your husband didn’t accidentally kill himself,” he cut her off. “You should have stayed away. Or called me before you decided to go out there. Things aren’t what they seem in that community. Been trying to take the whole place down for a couple of years now.”

  That was an interesting piece of information.

  Cyrus wanted to ask the sheriff to elaborate, but two cruisers rounded the corner of the building, speeding into the lot, lights flashing, sirens off. They parked a few yards away, an officer exiting each, their faces shadowed by uniform hats. One—a tall thin kid who looked like he’d just graduated high school—had his hand on his gun.

  “You have everything under control, Sheriff?” he called.

  “Yeah,” Johnson responded, his eyes still focused on Lark. “You two stay here,” he barked, then he strode over to meet his deputies.

  *

  John was dead.

  Lark didn’t know how to feel about that.

  He’d been shooting at Cyrus. He’d obviously been trying to kill him, but she didn’t want him dead. She wanted him to have a chance to repent, to tell the truth about what had happened to Joshua. He’d known. She was nearly certain of it. He was probably responsible for Joshua’s death. Whether he’d pulled the trigger or hired someone else to do it, the results had been the same. Joshua had died, and his blood had been on John’s hands.

  “He got what he was asking for, Lark,” Cyrus said as if he were reading her mind and knew exactly where her thoughts had gone.

  “That won’t make his death easier on his family,” she responded. “He has a wife and three children.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry for them. But, John should have thought about what this would do to them before he decided to follow us into town.” He touched her arm, urged her to take a seat in Sheriff Johnson’s car. She sat because her legs were shaky and her head still hurt, and because she didn’t think she could stay on her feet
for another second.

  “They’re going to be devastated.” Grace McDermott had always been shy and quiet, but she’d been kind, too. She’d bent over backward to make Lark feel comfortable in Amos Way.

  Of course, when Lark returned, she’d avoided her like the plague. John’s doing. He had iron-fisted control over his family and that included Grace, but Grace had loved him deeply, defended him staunchly.

  “Don’t carry their burdens, Lark. You have enough of your own to shoulder.”

  “I’m not shouldering anything.”

  He raised a dark brow, his eyes gleaming in the dim light.

  “Okay,” she conceded. “I’m not shouldering anyone else’s burden. But I’ve been where John’s wife is about to stand. I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. My concern for John’s family has nothing to do with carrying their burden and everything to do with knowing how it feels to stand in those shoes.”

  “I know it’s difficult—”

  “Saying it’s difficult is like seeing a breathtakingly beautiful sunset and saying, look, the sun is going down,” she snapped, because she hated that word. Difficult didn’t begin to describe the anguish of losing a loved one. It didn’t begin to express the depth of the heartache, the gaping wound that never quite healed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, the apology simple and sincere. No excuses, no trying to backtrack and say something else. Just…I’m sorry, and she appreciated that more than all the thousands of platitudes she’d received after Joshua’s death.

  She swallowed down something that tasted suspiciously like tears, blinked away the moisture in her eyes. “Thank you.”

  He nodded, his gaze never wavering, his focus so intense, she felt it like a physical touch.

  “The thing about John,” he finally said, and the moment was gone, that feeling that he was connecting with nothing more than a look, disappearing into the cool September air, “is that he knew what he was getting into when he came out here tonight, and he knew what was going to happen when he took those shots at me while the sheriff was nearby. He had to have weighed the risks and rewards very carefully.”

  “What rewards? Your death? Because I can’t see what he’d have to gain from that.”

  “My silence, Lark. I was in the compound long enough to notice some things that he might not have wanted me to talk about.”

  “The deliveries and shipments?”

  “Right. The storage sheds are locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Whatever it is they’re bringing into the compound, it’s valuable.”

  “It’s not worth a human life,” she replied. Or three. John was dead. Joshua was dead. Ethan was probably dead. She shuddered.

  “Cold?” he asked.

  “Tired. Confused. John didn’t have to die. He could have gone back to the compound, packed up and left.”

  “People do desperate things when they’re desperate,” he said, fingering the edges of the wound in his upper arm. It had stopped bleeding, but blood stained a wide swatch of fabric around the area, his white shirt soaked with it. “And maybe John forgot that blindly following orders doesn’t always end well.”

  “Elijah wanted you dead and me alive? Is that what you think?”

  “I don’t think it. I know it. You have something Elijah wants, and I have information he wants to keep secret.”

  “What information?” Had he found out the truth about what Amos Way was hiding? If so, he’d done what she hadn’t been able to.

  “That you were kept against your will. That Elijah knew about it. If I’d died, it would have been your word against theirs. With me still around, it’s going to be a little harder to pretend that you’ve made everything up.” His gaze shifted, his attention focused on Sheriff Johnson and his men. “It’ll be interesting to see what the sheriff does with that.”

  “He said he was trying to bring down Amos Way.”

  “People say all kinds of things, Lark. That doesn’t mean they’re true.”

  She had firsthand knowledge of that.

  She’d been lied to plenty when she was a kid.

  Her mother had made a million promises and never followed through. She’d told hundreds of lies to cover her addictions. Things had been different with Joshua. He’d been honest, shared everything, kept his promises.

  Until the end.

  Then, he’d been secretive. He’d been quiet.

  She frowned, pressing a finger to her brow, trying to ease the pain there. Joshua had been digging around. He’d been convinced that Ethan had disappeared because he’d rocked the boat, asked Elijah for proof that he was using community funds for community expenses. Joshua had told Lark that, and then he hadn’t told her anything. He’d slip out late at night, come back before the sun rose. She’d tried to follow him once, and he’d threatened to bring her back to Baltimore and leave her there.

  It was too dangerous, he’d said.

  But he’d continued to look for evidence, continued to dig around.

  If he’d found anything, he hadn’t told her. As a matter of fact, those last few months were the only time in their marriage when she hadn’t felt connected to him, deeply in love with him, absolutely certain that they were meant to be together forever. His silence had filled the house they’d shared with his family, it had filled their bedroom, their times together.

  She’d asked him, begged him, pleaded with him, but he refused to tell her what was going on. A season, she’d thought. A little blip on the radar of their lives together. It would be over once he found what he was looking for, and they’d go on with their lives, create something wonderful again.

  Only it hadn’t happened that way.

  He’d died before they could reconnect, and she’d been left alone.

  “You okay?” Cyrus asked, touching her shoulder, his palm warm and oddly comforting.

  She wasn’t okay, hadn’t been okay for a long time, but she couldn’t tell him that, barely wanted to admit it to herself. “Fine. Just…”

  “What?” His eyes were black in the dim light, the shadow of a beard darkening his jaw. He had a hard look, a tough one, but his hand was gentle as it kneaded the tense muscles in her shoulder.

  “You need to get that arm looked at.” She jumped up too quickly, and the world shifted, the night going blacker than brighter, silent than loud.

  She’d never passed out before. Ever.

  But she thought she might, and she grabbed the closest thing to her, her hands gripping crisp cotton and firm muscles.

  “I think you’re the one who needs to be looked at,” Cyrus muttered as he scooped her into his arms.

  She wanted to protest, but the words wouldn’t form. Nothing seemed to be working. Not her brain, not her muscles, not her ears.

  People were talking, but the words seemed to bounce in and out, unclear and unintelligible.

  Sirens screamed. Lights flashed.

  She was moving, flying along bumpy pavement strapped to a gurney. Then, she was in an ambulance, a medic leaning over her.

  “You’re going to be fine,” he said.

  But she wasn’t sure she would be, because the world was fading to black, the screaming siren fading to silence, and she was alone. Just exactly the way she had been the day Joshua died.

  NINE

  “You got what you deserved,” Stella said as an ER doctor carefully stitched Cyrus’s arm.

  Too carefully.

  He wanted to take the needle and thread and do it himself. He figured he’d be a lot faster, and fast was what he wanted. That and free access to the triage room where they were treating Lark.

  “I guess you have a reason for saying that,” he growled, and Stella looked up from the text she’d been reading and sighed.

  “Really, Cyrus? You’re going to play that card?”

  “What card?” He wasn’t in the mood for twenty questions. He wasn’t in the mood for lectures. Radley Johnson was interviewing Lark while she was being treated, and he wanted to be there.

  “The clue
less card,” Stella responded. She had dark circles under her eyes, and a purple scar under her chin that ran from one side to the other. Seeing it made him soften. He liked Stella. She was a consummate professional, and a huge asset to the team. She’d taken some hits recently, though, had nearly lost her life on her last mission. She’d been recovering for nearly three months, had just recently returned to work.

  As far as he knew, this was the first job she’d taken since she’d been released from the hospital.

  “You look tired,” he said, and she scowled.

  “Don’t try to change the subject, Cyrus. You should have had someone else go into the compound with you. If we’d done the married-couple-looking-for-religious-nirvana thing like I suggested, you wouldn’t be getting your arm stitched up.”

  “You’re making an assumption that may or may not be true.”

  “It’s true, because if I’d been with you, I would have made sure you didn’t do anything stupid.” She typed something into her phone, her fingers flying, the scar on her right wrist darker and thicker than the one on her chin. They’d been betrayed in Somalia, and she’d taken the brunt of that, the kidnappers who’d been holding a diplomat’s son determined to use her as an example to anyone else who might be tempted to go against them.

  Only Stella was tougher than she looked, more determined to live than they’d imagined. He wanted to ask her if she was okay, but she’d have taken his head off.

  “I didn’t do anything stupid,” he said instead.

  “And yet, you’ve got a ten-inch slice in your upper arm. In a situation like the one you were in, backup would have been invaluable.”

  “Is this your version of I told you so?”

  “It’s my version of me not being happy that you’re in the hospital. Again.”

  “Visiting a hospital to get stitches isn’t the same as being admitted and staying for a week,” he pointed out.

  “And that makes it all better?” She stood, stretching to her full height. Which wasn’t all that tall, but Stella filled space like nobody’s business when she was upset. “I told you this mission wasn’t going to be as easy as you thought it would be. If you’d listened—”

  “You and Chance wouldn’t have had the opportunity to take a three-and-a-half-hour drive together.”