Federal Agent Under Fire

by Julie Anne Lindsey

  “Mom’s making me crazy,” Kara scoffed. “I just showed her my driver’s license to confirm my age is not ten.”

  Marissa turned on her knees for another look at the deputy outside. “Are you watching the news?”

  “It’s all we watch here.”

  Marissa’s knee bobbed and her intuition spiked. “Do you think there’s any way the fire could be related to Nash?”

  “Which one? The Winchesters’ or the Caswells’?”

  “What?” Marissa scooted to the edge of her seat and increased the television volume. “What happened to the Caswells?”

  “Barn fire.”

  Sure enough, the scrolling feed along the bottom of Marissa’s screen covered a barn fire a mile or two from the propane explosion. If they were Nash’s doing, at least the national forest and both fires were across town from the hotel where she was hiding. Blake and West were still close enough to get him.

  “So, they just left,” Kara finished.

  Marissa had missed the rest. “What? Who left?”

  “Weren’t you listening? I said the Garretts left. The dad and the deputy. The Caswells are good friends of theirs and the wife was hurt. Then, the deputy who stayed behind left ten minutes later to go help look for the Winchesters’ toddler.”

  Marissa’s stomach knotted. There was no way this was a coincidence, not when Blake had just taken a team into the national park. “I wish they hadn’t left you alone.” She couldn’t bring herself to be angry with the men who’d left her parents’ house. What else could they do when lives were in immediate danger? They had to go.

  “Maybe you should come here,” Kara said. “Ask your detail to bring you over before he gets called away, too.”

  Marissa nodded. She should talk to the deputy. Make sure he would take her somewhere else if he was needed at the scene of another crime or tragedy. At the very least, he could check in with Blake and West about what to do. She certainly didn’t want someone else to be denied the help they needed because she was monopolizing a deputy.

  She hoisted herself upright and stuffed her feet into sneakers, then tossed a jacket over the crook of one arm. “Let me see what he says, and I’ll call you back.”

  “You’d better,” Kara said. “I love you.”

  “Love you.” Marissa disconnected and steadied her nerves. If Nash had drawn all the lawmen away so he could come for her, would this deputy be able to handle him on his own? Nash had escaped Blake twice. He was smart enough to have possibly created this elaborate web of confusion for authorities. She peeked at the deputy once more. Maybe it would help if the deputy came inside instead of standing guard at the door like a neon sign announcing her whereabouts.

  A worrisome chill filtered through her thoughts once more. Had Nash already come for Blake? Had he lured him into the forest to kill him?

  Slowly, her world began to tilt and spin. Nash could be anywhere. He could be out there, hurting the people she loved, and there was nothing she could do about it. Except, come inside and barricade the door. There was still strength in numbers.

  She unlocked the dead bolt and turned the knob.

  The door snapped against her chest, knocking her into the wall and onto the floor.

  Nash marched over the threshold with a sick, smug-looking smile. “Hello, lovely.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Blake stepped carefully through the fallen leaves of the national park, determined not to lose Nash’s trail or destroy evidence with haste. He and West had parted ways with their teams, fanning out to cover more territory when the blood had seemed to disappear completely. Blake’s agents had entered the forest two miles away, where the river behind Marissa’s house met the national park. If the intel was good, covering the area in every direction was certain to result in Nash’s capture.

  Maybe Nash had stopped to suture himself when he’d gotten deep enough into the trees. Maybe the injury wasn’t as bad as Blake had hoped, and the bleeding had simply stopped with enough continued pressure. Whatever had happened, Blake hadn’t seen a drop of blood in twenty minutes despite his sweeping arch path and trained eye.

  He’d moved on to looking for evidence another human had recently been this way. Footprints. Broken limbs. Dropped items. Thread caught in the brush. Following Nash through the woods to the river had made one thing abundantly clear. Nash was not a woodsman.

  Blake stopped to zip his coat higher and unwrap a stick of chewing gum. The temperature was dropping, and he needed to think. “Where are you?” he whispered.

  A cluster of mismatched branches caught his eye. He squinted through the hazy mist of cold autumn rain. Even in the densest part of the forest, the configuration wouldn’t occur naturally. The leaves were from different trees.

  Hope rose in Blake’s chest, and he scanned the area for West or a deputy, but found neither. He drew his gun and crept toward what appeared to be a hunting blind or makeshift shelter. Hunting was prohibited in the national park, so Blake’s money was on the latter, likely crafted by a shifty fugitive whose face had been plastered over the local news.

  “Nash Barclay,” Blake announced, throwing his voice so that West and his deputies were certain to hear. He secured himself behind the width of an ancient oak, and positioned his weapon against the rough bark, lining up the best shot. “Show yourself.”

  Crunching leaves and heavy footfalls sounded in the distance.

  Blake shored his aim and tried once more to coax the killer out. “This is Federal Agent Blake Garrett. You are under arrest. Come out with your hands where I can see them, then get down on the ground so I’m not tempted to shoot you again.”

  West appeared several moments later, gun drawn and moving stealthily toward the flimsy structure. A sharp whistle cut through the biting autumn air. West waved a hand overhead. “Empty.” West kicked a line of evergreen branches loose, revealing the structure’s interior.

  Blake moved to his side, disgusted at another miss on the monster. He toed through the mess, previously hidden by the branches. A medical kit and food rations were visible among a pile of ratty blankets and gallon jugs of water.

  “Back here,” West called from outside the shanty.

  Blake stepped over the items, certain to be covered in Nash’s fingerprints and DNA.

  A fallen deer lay behind the structure, gutted and carefully covered in leaves.

  Gutted. Blake turned in a circle, debating whether or not to scream until the mountains fell or just lose his mind silently. “This is the trail of blood we’ve been following? A deer?” He cursed silently as the steady trickle of occasional raindrops grew into the steady patter of a budding shower.

  West didn’t bother answering the obvious. Instead, he moved in for a closer look at Nash’s possessions, including a pile of papers under a blanket with foodstuffs. “We’ve got more photos of Marissa and Kara in here.” He swore under his breath. “Newspaper clippings about the missing jogger he killed.”

  Blake fought to stay focused. They needed a new plan. Nash had led them to his little hideout? Why would a fugitive do that? He cast his gaze through the forest around them. None of his team or the other deputies had arrived yet. Were they all too far away to hear his voice like West had, or were they all in trouble? “Where is everyone?”

  West cocked a hip and rubbed his forehead. “I had to send my guys to the Caswells’. Dispatch called in a barn fire. Mrs. Caswell’s hurt. The barn’s a loss. The fire’s giving Shadow Point FD a mess of trouble.”

  “Caswells?” Blake repeated. “Mom and Dad will want to check on them.”

  West grimaced. “They do. Dad already sent the text. He and Cole headed that way about thirty minutes ago. Mom’s meeting them there.”

  Blake stiffened. “Who’s with the Lanes?”

  “No one for now. My other man had to help at the Winchesters’. Their propane tank exploded, and t
heir little girl’s missing. I had to send everyone there who wasn’t at the Caswells.”

  Blake turned on his heels and began the long run back to his truck. “Nash set those fires.”

  West fell into step beside him.

  Blake called his team. “Get back to the hotel,” he instructed. “This was a ploy to get us away from Marissa. What’s your position?”

  He hung up and dialed the deputy stationed outside her hotel room door. “No answer,” he growled. “My men were halfway here, and now they’re backtracking to their vehicles before they can get en route to the hotel. Your damn deputy isn’t answering.”

  “We don’t know this was Nash,” West called.

  Blake slowed to glare at his brother. “How long have you been the sheriff?”

  “Four years.”

  “And when was the last time every one of your men were called out at once?”

  West ran faster. “Never.”

  Blake’s truck sprayed gravel through the parking lot before West reached his cruiser. He redialed Marissa’s loaner phone a half dozen times. “Damn it!” He smacked the wheel. “Call Marissa.”

  Again, the call went to voice mail.

  He crushed the gas pedal underfoot and gripped the steering wheel until his fingers ached from the effort. His heart banged and flopped as wildly as his windshield wipers cutting through frigid rain.

  Ten long minutes later, Blake arrived at the hotel, having broken every traffic law for the past seven miles. He rocked the truck to a stop outside the open hotel room door and jumped from the cab.

  The deputy was down. Blake stayed low as he hustled to the fallen man’s side and pressed two fingertips against the cold skin of his throat in search of a pulse. A rush of relief coursed through him at the feel of a steady beat beneath his fingertips. The deputy would live, but the group was in trouble. His walkie-talkie was missing, and Blake didn’t have to guess where it had gone.

  Blake stretched onto his feet and braced his back against the wall outside the partly open hotel room door, then kicked it wide. “FBI!”

  He stormed the rooms, clearing them one by one. The place was empty but tossed. Someone had thrown all the lamps and broken one. Marissa hadn’t left the room without a fight. Blake could only hope she wasn’t out cold now, like the deputy.

  Blake called the paramedics, then began a more calculated search of the room. “Where did you take her, Nash?” he whispered.

  Her jacket and purse lay on the carpet near the door as if she’d planned to go somewhere. He said a silent prayer that she’d made it out on her own, that maybe she’d taken Nash down with the busted lamp and left him to lick his wounds like she had in the forest.

  He dialed her phone again, a bubble of hope rising in his chest. They could trace her phone. Even if she wasn’t answering, they could find her as long as the phone stayed on.

  A phone rang several feet away. He kicked Marissa’s jacket aside and watched the abandoned device pulse and vibrate on the floor, extinguishing the last of his hope.

  The deputy moaned, drawing Blake’s attention. He dialed West on his way back outside. “Your man’s down, but alive. Looks like head trauma. Nash took his walkie-talkie. He’ll be listening. Paramedics are on the way for this one.”

  “Marissa?” West asked, the engine of his cruiser growling in the background.

  Blake swallowed a brick of emotion and rubbed the deep ache in his chest. “Gone.” Of all the things he wanted to say, that seemed all that mattered. He rolled his eyes skyward, searching a soaring sea of evergreens. Where are you, Marissa?

  A shrill and distant sound echoed through the trees. Blake’s muscles tensed. He turned his head in search of the scream as it came again, louder this time. He moved into the lot and craned his neck for a better look at the towering mountains behind the hotel. Raindrops fell and burst over his forehead and shoulders. “One more time, baby,” he whispered. “Where are you?”

  “Blake?” West asked.

  Blake’s gaze darted over the hills. “I heard her scream.” Come on, he willed her to yell again, to give him some indication of which direction to go. She could be anywhere. He didn’t know how long she’d been gone or how much of a head start she had. He needed another scream.

  “Do you still hear it?” West asked. “Did she yell again?”

  The wail of an ambulance mucked up the silence.

  “Damn it! She’s somewhere in the hills behind the hotel, but the ambulance is coming. Now, I can’t hear anything.” He waved an arm to draw the EMTs in his direction. Maybe when the deputy had his wits back, he could tell Blake which way Marissa went.

  “Behind the hotel?” West made the sound of a falling missile. “That can’t be right. You must be getting the tail end of an echo from somewhere else. Those hills are mostly rock cliffs and—”

  “Caves.” Blake cut him off. “You’re a genius, West.” He shoved the phone into his pocket and ran straight for the trees.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The terrain behind the hotel was unexpectedly steep, slowing Blake within minutes. Thick craggy plants caught on his pant legs and tangled between his feet as he powered through the forest. Tiny mudslides seemed to sprout before his eyes, cutting slick paths between endless rocky snares. There were no trails. No well-trodden paths left by hikers or narrow byways formed by wildlife. There was only one obstacle after another, challenging his ability to stay upright and vigilant in the freezing rain.

  He clipped his toe on the exposed roots of another towering tree and ground his teeth in frustration. This was nothing like the places he’d grown up hunting. Only black bears and bobcats would find this hellacious environment worth the trouble, and he had no interest in running into either.

  Blake’s phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it free. “Garrett.” He spoke in a hushed tone, eyes set to scan for any signs of Nash or Marissa.

  “This is West. What do you have up there?”

  Besides a broken toe and a growing ulcer, Blake didn’t have much. “I think I’m going the wrong way. She hasn’t called out again. Not since the ambulance finally shut up. I’ve got nothing.” He wiped rain from his eyes and peered up the mountain. The clouds had darkened the day, and thanks to the recent time change, they’d be out of daylight in under two hours.

  Where was the path Marissa had taken up here? He scanned the area more closely, begging an overlooked set of footprints to appear. There should be a path. A lump filled his throat as the memory of her scream replayed in his mind. What if the last scream he’d heard was the last she’d ever make? What if he’d been too slow? Struggling up the wrong part of the mountain, wasting time while Nash ended her life? Blake forced the thoughts aside and refocused on two things he knew were fact: Marissa’s scream had come from this general direction, and he needed a better plan. “You know anything about the caves up here?” he asked West. “Marissa said she did some spelunking up here. She said the caves were naturally camouflaged, but I don’t see anything that looks like a cave.”

  “I’ve been around the other side of the mountain, skiing, but I don’t know anything about the caves.”

  Blake marched ahead, boots sliding in the soft earth. “If Nash doesn’t have her, I think she’ll hole up in one of the caves until we get there.”

  “I’ll get a team together.” West’s words were followed by utter silence.

  Blake examined the phone’s screen. “I’m almost out of bars.”

  “...on our way.”

  He sure as hell hoped so. At the pace he was moving, he’d be lucky to find one cave before nightfall, let alone explore multiple ones in search of his girl.

  The sharp peal of a woman’s scream tore through the air. An avalanche of leaves and branches blew into view along the eastern horizon where the sun had already dipped behind the mountain.

  Blake moved doggedly
eastward, toward the place where the leaves had rushed like a scarlet waterfall. Marissa’s scream echoed in his heart and head. Why hadn’t she made another sound? Was she unconscious? Was she dead? Did she fall or was she pushed? Rocks pressed against the soles of his boots, forcing gruesome images of Marissa into his mind. If she’d fallen as far as those leaves had tumbled, only to land on a pile of stones...

  He forced himself to stop when the mound of earth and leaves came into view. Blake watched the perimeter for movement before inching forward to seek the pile’s core.

  Empty.

  The setting sun cast shades of red and gold through the storm clouds giving the world a suddenly sinister appearance. He was thankful not to believe in omens. A small line in the earth caught his eye and he followed it steadily toward a rocky cliff ahead. The mark was consistent and deliberate, like someone dragging a broken limb or foot. He stepped cautiously over the leaf-covered ground, careful not to lose the trail or step headlong into Nash’s trap.

  Several feet farther, the mark stopped abruptly before a large oval stone. A thin sheet of moss drew him closer. Marissa had specifically mentioned the moss. The moss is gorgeous near the caves’ mouths.

  Blake moved stealthily toward the rock, senses peeled and muscles tensed to spring. The cave’s mouth came into view seconds later, darkened by shadow and nearly invisible in the hillside. A mass of fallen rocks guarded the way.

  He turned his back to the hill and eased forward, listening for footfalls, ragged breaths or any other sign that this was a trap. The hairs on the back of his neck stretched to attention as a long willowy shadow moved over the ground.

  A feral grunt erupted, and Blake dropped back on instinct. Clay-scented wind rushed over his face. A thick, gnarled limb cut the air with a whoosh, missing his head by an inch.

  He pressed off the ground in a flash, lunging for the shadow with his arms wide. His shoulder connected with the soft and narrow center of his attacker.