Marissa disconnected and tucked the phone back into her pocket. She’d thought yesterday was long, but today was officially worse. The hanging doll was just another attempt to scare and misdirect them, and frankly, Marissa was tired of Nash’s games. It was time to get moving. Something at Kara’s could be the clue they needed to bring her home.
Outside her window, growing winds bent the treetops and pushed little clouds faster through the sky. A storm was bad news, especially if Kara was still outside somewhere. Autumn rains meant plummeting temperatures, and Kara had probably dressed in a T-shirt and pants when she left home this morning.
She reached for the door handle and froze. A shadow passed over the rearview mirror, and Marissa’s senses went on high alert. She spun on her seat, twisting for a better view of the entire scene outside. She found nothing but a sheriff’s cruiser and the three men still engrossed in a private meeting on her lawn. Wind whipped and pulled the fabric of their pants and jackets. The Garretts took a few lazy steps in her direction before stopping again to look back at her house.
The hairs on Marissa’s neck tingled and stood at attention. A sense of urgency squeezed her heart and propelled her to act. She gripped the handle on her door and shored up her nerve, suddenly preferring to be a lot closer to the guys with guns and badges. Gooseflesh crawled up her spine as she cracked open the door and planted her feet firmly in the gravel.
The air was instantly pressed from her lungs with one powerful blow. A thick hairy arm wound over her rib cage and meaty fingers dug into the flesh of her side. A broad and calloused palm scraped against the cuts and bruises on her jaw and cheek, fingers clenching across her mouth. The stench of cigarettes overcame her.
Tears blurred her burning eyes as the unseen assailant dragged her into the shadows, her body crushed against his. Her feet twisted and flailed, unable to find purchase against her assailant’s feet or shins. Her lungs burned with an increasing lack of oxygen as his palm flattened her nose and lips.
Not today, she screamed internally. Not until I find my sister.
Marissa’s muscles tensed at the thought, and panic bled into purpose. She clutched his wrists in a powerful burst of adrenaline and bent them sharply into her abdomen and jaw until his hands shifted and his fingers loosened their grip. Marissa sucked in a fresh gulp of oxygen and screamed against his palm as he struggled to reposition his hold on her. She dug her toes into the gravel and kicked a cloud of stones at Blake’s truck.
“Freeze!” Blake’s strong voice bellowed through the night.
A trio of armed Garretts appeared in a flash of lightning, guns drawn. The brothers marched forward in a tight V formation. “Back away from her, Nash,” Blake commanded. There was venom in his tone and vengeance in his eyes. “This is between you and me.”
“And Miss Lane,” Nash cooed, digging his fingers deeper into her skin.
The rebuttal from Blake’s mouth was fierce and foul. He widened his stance just twenty feet away and lifted his gun higher. “You aren’t getting away this time.”
Marissa stopped fighting and tried to make herself smaller in case Blake planned to shoot him.
“That’s a good girl,” Nash whispered in her ear. A wave of stinky breath washed over her, souring her stomach and weakening her knees. “Make him fight for you,” he said. “The agent thinks you’re his, but he can’t fight destiny forever.” He pressed his hot mouth against the tender skin along the back of her neck before curling his fingers deep into her hair and sending her headfirst into Blake’s tailgate.
The loud smack of her forehead on metal reverberated through her bones before the world went black.
Chapter Eleven
Blake’s heart stopped.
Marissa’s head snapped back, and her body went limp. She hit the ground in a heap.
Nash was already on the move, fleeing the scene, making his getaway.
“No!” Blake skidded in the gravel to her side. Nash could have broken her neck. She could already be gone. “Marissa!”
Footfalls pounded the earth behind him, arriving in the next heartbeat. “I’ve got her,” Cole announced, falling onto his knees beside Blake. “Go on.” His hands were already on her neck, counting her pulse.
West’s silhouette raced into the woods across the street, gun drawn.
“Go,” Cole insisted. “Cover West. I’ve got this.”
Reality slapped back into focus and Blake was in motion. Cover West. Yeah, right. Nash was all Blake’s and after what he’d done to Marissa, Blake would be damn sure he paid slowly.
He launched off the street and into the woods at a sprint, quickly catching and passing his brother.
Nash fled through the trees and underbrush ahead of them, cutting a wide path and leaving a trail impossible to miss. He was difficult to see in the darkness, dressed in black, a hoodie pulled over his head, but the sound of snapping twigs and kicked stones was a beacon guiding Blake straight to him. His ragged breathing was a bonus.
Nash was getting tired.
Blake, on the other hand, could run another half mile without slowing down, and ten miles after that before his legs grew spongy. He ran every day. Long distance. The time alone helped him think. It gave him a private place to plot Nash’s demise. Now, his dreams were coming true.
Images of Marissa’s bruised face challenged his concentration. The sound of her head against his tailgate. The fear in her eyes as Nash gripped her battered face in one palm and whispered into her ear. What had he said?
The overwhelming need to turn back and stand guard until the ambulance came nearly staunched his momentum. His mind and his gut were torn in two. The emotion. The confusion. These were unlike his drive to protect the public, this was like nothing he’d experienced before. It was ferocity. It was painful. And it was, he realized, a standoff between the need to stop Nash and the instinct to guard what was his.
For a moment, Blake had thought he’d won. He thought it was stupidity and brazen overconfidence that had brought Nash to him, but Blake was wrong. Nash came to show Blake that he could. He could get to Marissa anywhere and beat Blake anytime.
Blake slowed his pace, and his senses sharpened. Only two sets of footfalls remained. His and West’s behind him. No Nash. Based on his earlier panting, Nash must’ve stopped to catch his breath and hide.
Blake raised a hand to alert West, and soon his footfalls ground to a halt beside Blake. He motioned his brother to the east, then Blake turned in the opposite direction. Together, they could silently cover more ground.
The night was dark, despite the harvest moon. Gathering clouds and evergreens blocked the starry sky. Incessant winds and the rushing branch of a nearby river easily masked the huffing of Nash’s breath, but he was winded, and no doubt hiding, waiting for his chance to move.
Blake wouldn’t give him that chance.
A lifetime of hunting and tracking in Cade County had made Blake an apparition in the woods. Nash wouldn’t touch Marissa again. Right or wrong, Blake would kill that sonofabitch the moment he had a chance.
The snapping of a nearby limb reached his ears, and Blake spun to face the sound. A shadow sprinted toward the river, and Blake pounced after it, leaping easily over fallen logs and through piles of leaves. “Freeze!” he hollered.
The panting figure continued a bumbling path toward the rushing water just beyond the cliff’s edge.
Blake gained on him by the second, hope and victory rising in his chest. Maybe he wouldn’t have to kill him. Maybe he could haul Nash’s sorry ass back to Marissa and let her even the score. As soon as she wakes up. He ground his teeth at the thought. No. This time it was Nash who would die. “Stop!” he boomed. “Or I will shoot you.”
Nash skidded to a stop at the cliff’s edge. There was nowhere to go but down, and if Blake remembered correctly, there was a sizeable drop on this side of the water.
Blake’s eyes narrowed, moving in on Nash in small, silent strides, the way he had five years before. His trigger finger begged him to shoot and worry about the repercussions and paperwork later. Until West arrived, there were no witnesses.
Nash raised shadowy arms in surrender. “Please, don’t shoot.”
The plea stalled Blake’s homicidal thoughts, reminding him Nash was the cold-blooded killer. Blake was the lawman. “Get on the ground. Put your hands behind your back,” he barked. On his next step, Blake’s boot caught on something hidden in the leaves and his heart seized. A booby-trap. The taut string pulled against his laces, and Blake launched himself away on instinct, hoping it was far enough to survive whatever came next. A ground-shaking boom blasted through the night air, rattling his teeth and jarring his bones. He crashed against the forest floor, sending shock waves of pain through his head and back. A mass of dirt and fallen limbs thundered down on him.
He wrangled his gun into position in case the attack wasn’t over. The floating dust and debris complicated his newly blurred vision. The stench of tar burnt his nose.
Nash smiled. His lips moved, and he turned for the water.
Blake squeezed the trigger, getting off two shaky, half-blinded shots before the splash from Nash’s plummet reached his ringing ears.
West skidded into view, giving the blast zone a wide berth. His normally tanned face was whiter than the wedding gown on Marissa’s porch. “Blake!” Terror shredded his voice, raising it by octaves. “Are you hurt?” His words were garbled and hollow, but Blake raised his gun overhead and rolled back against the ground.
His brother appeared again, this time at his side peering down. “Don’t move. Medics are on the way.”
“Nah.” He lowered his gun and reached for West’s hand. “Help me up.”
West hesitated before obliging his big brother. “What the hell happened?”
“The bastard set a trap. I tripped over the wire.” He worked his aching joints to assess the damage. “I thought he was hiding, but he was leading me here. Now I can’t decide if the strung-up doll was a setup for abducting Marissa, or if the attempted abduction was a setup to get me out here.”
West dusted dirt and leaves from Blake’s back and shoulders. “Did you hit him?”
“I don’t know.”
They inched toward the place where Nash had last stood and peered over the cliff into the dark waters below.
Sirens cried and wailed in the distance, turning Blake back in the direction he’d come. The cavalry had arrived.
“Go,” West advised. “Get checked out. You’re not bleeding, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t hurt. I’ve got this. My deputies are already on the way.”
Blake hesitated, once again torn between his job and his heart. “There was C4 in that blast. I could smell it.”
“You’re lucky to be alive. Just go.”
Blake swallowed painfully, and stretched his shaking limbs. “Well, watch your step.”
West snorted. “I’ve got this. Take care of yourself and your girl.”
Blake jerked into an uncomfortable jog, heart and mind racing along with his pace. It was Marissa’s face he’d seen when the world blew up around him, and hers was the only one he wanted to see now. West was right. Blake couldn’t be sure when it had happened or what Marissa would think of it, but the deal had been sealed in his mind. She was his girl. His to defend and protect, yes, but so much more if she’d let him.
Fierce determination powered his feet along faster. Toward the incoming sirens, the flashing lights, and Marissa. The thief who’d popped into his life, knocked him sideways and stolen his heart.
* * *
COLE’S FACE BLURRED into Marissa’s view. The warmth of his body was everywhere, and the look on his face was wildly expectant.
“Ow,” she groaned the first thing that came to mind. Her head and neck ached and throbbed as she struggled to recall why she was in Cole’s arms instead of Blake’s. And why they seemed to be sitting on the street outside her home.
He released her with one hand and raised two digits in the air like a peace sign. “How many fingers am I holding up?”
She swatted his hand away. “Why am I on your lap?” Why were they alone on the ground? Her mental wheels spun, getting nowhere.
A bright light beamed into her eyes, sending shards of pain through her skull.
She whacked blindly at the source. “What is wrong with you?”
Cole chuckled, bouncing her gently along with him. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with you.”
“What’s wrong with me?” she asked.
His warm expression dimmed. “You hit your head.”
“Oh.” A groggy sensation crept through her bones. How had she hit her head?
“Stop fighting, and let me evaluate your injuries,” Cole said, flipping the light into view again. “You could have a concussion.”
She dropped her hands to her lap. “Why aren’t you a doctor?” she asked. “I remember hearing you went to medical school. What happened?”
His brows furrowed, and he averted his gaze for a long beat, as if he didn’t want to answer. “That’s expensive,” he said finally, “and a lot more people die. I like being the hero.”
She rolled her eyes and winced. “Ow.”
Cole pocketed the little light. “Any nausea?”
Marissa struggled upright, easing herself away from him. “No, but my ears are ringing.”
“I think that’s the ambulance.”
Her body tensed. The sound of metal on bone echoed through her mind. “Nash.” He’d gotten to her again. She covered her mouth. There was the nausea. “Blake!” She twisted in search of him, rocking onto her knees and forcing her shaky body upright. “Holy.” She pressed a hand to her head and bent forward at the waist, fighting the sickness and pain coursing through her.
“He went after Nash.” Cole rose to place a steadying hand on her back.
“Where?” She lifted her face and squinted into the dark woods.
“I think you’d better sit back down.”
“Where are they?” she demanded.
Cole stepped into her view. He frowned, all pretense of congeniality gone. “You were injured, and Nash ran. My brothers gave chase. You need to stay still until the ambulance gets here.”
An explosion rocked the world. Marissa sucked air and blinked through a painful bout of panic. “What was that?”
Two gunshots echoed through the night before Cole could answer.
Cole went rigid. His expression fell blank.
Marissa’s stomach dropped and a whimper slipped from her lips. Tears streamed over her burning cheeks. She swallowed bile and forced five terrifying words from her mouth. “Did Nash have a gun?” She recalled his fingers mashed against her jaw. His arm around her ribs. But was he armed? Had there been a firearm under his coat? Pressed to her back?
Cole pulled her into his arms. “I don’t know.” The thread of worry in his voice betrayed his cool facade.
The wood line was silent, and the winds were picking up. No sounds of voices or footsteps. What was going on in there? How far had they gotten? Was Blake okay? Did he know about the cliff above the water? A knot of emotion clogged her throat and stung her eyes anew. What if she lost him? She’d only just found him.
Bright red-and-white flashes from an ambulance and several government vehicles arrived seconds later. The caravan stopped behind Blake’s truck. At least two cruisers and as many black SUVs lined the space at the foot of her driveway. Multiple uniformed men and women rushed into the woods. Others paraded along the street, marking the wood line with flares and searching the ground from her driveway to the woods. Little flags were placed at boot prints in the mud. The flash of cameras and sirens mixed with a growing murmur of voices.
Cole peeled he
r off of him, then passed her to a man in an EMT shirt. “She has head and neck trauma. The facial abrasions are two days old. Bruising is a mix of then and now. Let’s load her up. Get her out of sight while you take a look.”
Marissa ran her hands over the marks on her face and neck. A flood of emotion overcame her. Fear, embarrassment, anger, humiliation. Hopefully Nash came across that cliff accidentally. “I’m not going to the hospital.”
Cole snorted.
The EMT offered Marissa a concerned smile. “We don’t need to go anywhere. Would you mind having a seat inside so I can make a proper evaluation?”
She eyeballed the open cargo doors. “Can we stay outside?” Her gaze ran the length of the street near the woods. “I’m fine. I don’t need anything that’s in there.”
The man raised a stethoscope toward her in compliance, but Cole intervened.
He inched closer, nudging her toward the gaping ambulance doors. “You can barely stand up. Stop being a hero and get in so you can be checked out properly or Blake will have my ass.”
She gave Cole a long appraisal. If Blake was okay, and she hoped that he was, she certainly didn’t want to be another source of frustration for him. He had enough worries leading a team of federal agents and chasing a killer. “Fine, but you have to let me out as soon as you’re done with your evaluation.” She shuffled forward on noodle legs and struggled into the back of the ambulance. Her head swam, and she repositioned her feet for balance on the shiny metal step.
“She hasn’t eaten,” Cole tattled, boosting her the rest of the way inside. “The assailant threw her headfirst into Blake’s tailgate. She was out for about two minutes, and woke with confusion, a headache and a few moments of memory loss, but I think that’s all come back to her now. She’s claiming no nausea, but...” He shrugged as if he didn’t believe her. “She’s under severe stress. Possible post-traumatic. Her sister’s missing. She’s attached herself to the agent on the case, who’s currently in pursuit and we just heard two gunshots.”
Federal Agent Under Fire Page 12
