by Sharon Sala
Tate had their GPS linked to the blip on his phone, and when they cleared the city and the cop cars peeled off and they were once again on their own, Wade knew where to go.
“What’s happening?” Wade asked.
Tate’s gaze was fixed on the blip. “It’s moving slower. I think she must be on foot.”
“God, oh, God, don’t do this to me again,” Wade whispered, picturing Inman dragging her into the woods to kill her—unless he already had and was just dragging her body away to hide it. He pressed his foot harder on the gas, and the SUV fishtailed before grabbing traction and speeding ahead.
* * *
Jo had no idea where she was, but she just kept running. Inman was obviously behind her, because she could hear him cursing. Her legs were getting stronger, even though she could feel her muscles jerking from time to time as she continued to run. The trees were thick, the underbrush thicker. She’d long since blocked out the pain on the bottoms of her bare feet. The rain was cold and blinding, frequently forcing her to stagger as she ducked to keep from running headlong into a branch. The rain was in Hershel’s favor, making tracking her footprints easy. She needed to run faster, so that the rain had time to wash them away.
One moment she was running, and then the next her foot hit something slick and she was flat on her back, staring up into the falling rain, unable to breathe because she’d knocked the wind out of her lungs.
Help me, Jesus.
She grabbed at her belly and felt the scar.
I lost my baby, and I almost lost Wade. I’m not losing him again.
She made herself roll from her back to her stomach, then pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. The effort made her cough, and then she took a deep hungry breath as her lungs inflated. It was all the impetus she needed to get up, but she staggered and had to grab on to a limb until the world stopped spinning. A few moments later, with her chest still burning, she took off at a lope, but as soon as she got her strength back she stretched out into a hard, mindless run.
* * *
Hershel was manic. She’d gotten away from him again. It was women, always women, who brought him bad luck. He had to put an end to this once and for all, but that meant catching her first.
He ran with his eye on her tracks, carrying his rifle loosely in his hands. All he needed was one good look at her and she would be down. Twice he caught a glimpse of her bare back and arms, but both times the trees were so thick that she was immediately out of sight.
A tree limb caught in his wig and pulled it off his head. He kept running.
The places where he’d taken out the stitches were stinging.
He tried to duck under the overhanging limbs, but some of them slapped his face, making it burn.
His clothes were so wet now that they actually weighted him down, and his shoes were full of water. The Luckett woman was barefoot and nearly naked; no wonder he couldn’t catch her.
The rain! It was all this damned rain!
When he looked down again to check for her prints, his heart nearly stopped. The rain was washing them away. Since he was moving slower and she was moving faster, her tracks would soon be gone.
He tried to speed up, but he didn’t have the stamina. When he finally realized he couldn’t find a single footprint, he was so enraged he emptied the rifle into the air.
Jo’s heart nearly stopped when she heard the shots. She quickly changed direction and lengthened her stride, ignoring the burning in her muscles and the pain in her side.
Thunder suddenly rolled above her head, and when she heard the loud crack of lightning, she knew it had struck somewhere nearby. She couldn’t keep running forever, and her body, weakened by the Taser hit, was already giving out. She had to get out of the weather. She needed a place to hide.
Within seconds she went down again, this time tripping over a root. She fell forward, hitting knees-first and catching herself with her hands. Every muscle in her body was trembling from exhaustion. The rain was hammering on the back of her head and running down her face, blinding her to everything but what was right before her. She moaned in frustration, then, as she slowly lifted her head, realized she was looking straight into the brush-obscured mouth of a small dark cave.
She crawled forward, shoved aside the bushes in front of the opening and looked in. She couldn’t see how far back it went, and she didn’t hear any warning growls, so she took a chance and went inside.
Almost immediately, the downpour was muffled. It felt good to be out of the rain, but she needed to make sure Inman couldn’t find her.
She pulled at the bushes until there was no sign that anyone had shoved through them and then watched until the rain washed away the last traces of where she’d been. Her heart was pounding, her muscles quivering. She felt like throwing up. Instead, she curled up on her side, laid her head on her arm and closed her eyes. The last thought she had was that Wade would find her. He had to.
* * *
Hershel was done. He’d reached the limit of his endurance, and now he needed to find his way out. He did a one-eighty and began heading back as quickly as he could manage, following his own footprints until they’d all washed away. Then he kept on going, telling himself that he would eventually find the van. All he had to do was keep moving forward.
The rain was beginning to let up a little, which meant the front was passing through. When he was too winded even to jog, he would walk while constantly looking for any sign that would tell him he was on the right path. When he finally came out on a road and saw his van less than a hundred yards up, he was so elated that he ran all the way there. He got inside, and without hesitation started the engine and took off. He had no option but to get as far away from there as possible, and as fast as he could. Once Jolene Luckett was found, they would know what he was driving, and it wouldn’t take them long to find out where he’d bought it, and then they would know about Lee Parsons. He had to call the banks where Taliaferro had transferred his money, consolidate the amounts into the nearest of them, withdraw it all and, as the cowboys always said, “Get the hell out of Dodge” before the feds found it—and him.
He didn’t know where the road he was on would lead if he kept going, but he knew if he headed back the way he’d come, he could get out. He began looking for a place to turn around.
* * *
“How much farther?” Wade asked as he negotiated a particularly sharp curve, then accelerated up a steep hill.
Tate was calculating distance.
“Right now, as the crow flies, she’s at least two miles away. By road, at least eight, maybe… Oh, no!”
“What?” Wade said.
Tate’s voice was shaking. “The blip is stationary.”
“You mean she’s not moving?”
Tate nodded grimly.
“Oh, God, do not do this to me again,” Wade muttered and kept driving, following the directions from the GPS. At one point, when they realized they’d missed a turnoff and had to backtrack, he was ready to hit something. When they left the blacktop for a muddy, unpaved road, he put the SUV into four-wheel drive and kept going. Almost thirty minutes passed and the rain was beginning to let up when all of a sudden Tate yelled, “Stop!”
Wade hit the brakes. The SUV slid sideways in the mud and then came to a halt at the edge of the road. “What the hell?” he yelled.
Tate pointed. “She’s that way. We go on foot from here.”
Wade killed the engine, grabbed his phone and jumped out. “Just because she’s not moving, it doesn’t mean anything,” Wade said as he checked his weapon and pocketed an extra ammo clip.
“You’re right,” Tate said. “She could just be hiding.”
Tate’s phone signaled a text. He left the app to read it.
“Who was that?” Wade asked.
“The state police are on the way.”
“Trees are too dense. They can’t see anything from the air.”
Wade glanced at his phone one last time to make sure he was heading in the right direction and took off into the trees at a dead run, quickly outdistancing his partners and disappearing from sight in the thick forest.
* * *
Hershel had to drive almost a half mile farther before he found a place to turn around, then he began retracing his route. When he came over a small hill and saw the dark SUV parked on the side of the road below, he nearly lost it.
It was the feds! How the fuck had they gotten here? How would they know where she was if—
And then it hit him. They’d tracked her. It must have been something in her clothes. He hit the brakes, crawled into the back of the van and gathered up every stitch of her clothing and her shoes, and threw it all out into the bushes. He didn’t see them anywhere and hoped to God they were somewhere in the woods, looking for her.
He drove down the hill with his heart in his throat, and when he got to their vehicle, he saw their tracks leading off into the trees. He tapped the brakes and stopped, staring for a few moments at their car, then all of a sudden he was out of the van and running. He took out his pocketknife and dropped down, then scooted beneath the SUV, made a small cut in the brake lines and then crawled out so fast he bumped his head.
He jumped back into his van and started to speed away, and then a thought occurred to him. Instead of leaving, he drove a bit farther up the hill, then parked behind a thick stand of bushes and settled down to wait. He knew it was a risk, but it was his choice. It also wasn’t how he’d planned to end the Stormchaser’s quest, but it was as good a time as any. He was about to turn himself into bait.
* * *
Wade had been running for more than twenty minutes, stopping more than once to vector her location and adjust his own, grateful that the CIA bug was powerful enough to be picked up in such a remote location.
After a while all he could hear was the repetitive thud of his feet on the ground and rain dripping from the leaves.
Dozens of memories ran through his mind. He remembered their first Christmas together in that cold apartment in D.C. No matter how high they set the heat, the rooms never got warm. Remembered her first big commendation and how proud he’d been—and that the love they’d made afterward had made Sammy.
He glanced down again at his phone, checking to make sure he was still going in the right direction, and couldn’t see the screen. He wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands. No crying. Not now. Not yet. Not unless he had a reason.
When his chest began to hurt, it took him a moment to identify it as an emotional pain, rather than a physical one. He was so damned scared that by the time he found her she would be laid out like all the Stormchaser’s other victims. If she was, he would die.
He’d been on foot for almost an hour, and when he looked down and saw how close he was to the blip, he realized that if she was alive she would be able to hear him. He stopped to catch his breath and then started calling her name.
“Jo! Jo! Where are you?”
* * *
The first conscious thought Jolene had before she opened her eyes was that she smelled dirt. Then she looked around, and for a brief moment the low ceiling and enclosed walls convinced her she’d been buried alive. Her heart nearly stopped as she struggled to get up, and as she did, her vision cleared enough for her to realize she could see daylight in front of her. That was when she remembered. She was in a cave.
She tried to sit up, but the ceiling was too low, so she stayed on her side, watching the narrow view of the world from her hiding place. It had quit raining. She could hear the faint drip of water falling from the leaves onto the forest floor. Her body ached, and what didn’t ache was stinging instead. She shivered. Her bra and panties were muddy but drying, and she hoped to God Wade found her before dark. What if some animal used this for a lair? She didn’t want to be here when that happened. When she began hearing voices, her first thought was of Inman, still looking for her and still talking to Louise.
Filled with horror at the possibility that she’d run all this way for nothing and was still going to die, she scooted farther away from the front of the cave and held her breath, her heart hammering, listening to the approach. Then she heard Wade calling her name.
Her relief was so great she began to shake. “Here! I’m here!” she shouted, and began to crawl out.
Before she could move, Wade was on his hands and knees coming in, a dark silhouette against the thin gray. But she knew his shape, and she knew his voice, and when he reached toward her, she grabbed his hand, holding on for dear life as he pulled her out into the light.
“You found me!” she said, and collapsed.
Wade caught her in his arms.
Tate raced up then and threw his rain poncho on the ground, and they eased her down on it.
Wade shed his jacket and pulled off his shirt. He began dressing her as if she was a child, helping her with one sleeve, then the other, as her body began to shake.
“Shock,” Tate said, then looked down at her feet in disbelief. “Sweet Lord, Jolene. Your feet are in shreds.”
“I got away,” she said, and began rocking where she sat. “He came up behind me, shot me in the back with that effing Taser again, and threw me in the back of the van. He stripped off my clothes, duct-taped my hands behind my back, duct-taped my ankles and took off like a bat out of hell.”
“You are amazing,” Tate said as he briefly touched the top of her head. “One tough lady for sure.”
She sat silently, watching the play of emotions on Wade’s face as he wiped the dirt from her cheek, and when he stopped they locked gazes. His eyes were filled with tears and her chin was trembling. One wrong word from someone and they would both have been bawling. He touched her face, then her lips, leaned forward and kissed her.
“How the hell did you get free?” Tate asked.
She almost smiled. “Pulled a Houdini on him while he was having an argument with his dead wife, and the rest was pure luck.”
Wade stood up and took off his shoes so he could remove his socks. “Guys, I need your socks, too.”
They didn’t question why as they shed their shoes and handed over their socks.
Wade put the socks on her feet, one pair at a time, until she had three layers of knit fabric between her and the ground.
“It’s the best we can do for now. I’d give you my shoes, but they wouldn’t stay on your feet,” he said.
“I can walk,” she said as she started to stand up.
“No. We’ll carry you piggyback, trading off until we get down to the car. You’re not setting a foot on the ground.”
“I’m too heavy,” she protested.
“We can all bench-press more than you weigh, and we’ll take turns, so that argument won’t hold water. I go first because I don’t want to let go of you.”
Tate touched her shoulder. “Then me.”
“You don’t look so heavy to me,” Cameron said.
Jo was in tears as Wade helped her stand up. He slipped his poncho over her head, then put his jacket back on and squatted just enough for her to climb on his back. She did, wrapping her arms around his neck and then locking her hands just below his collarbone.
“Lead the way, guys,” Wade said. “We’re bringing up the rear.”
“For which you should all be grateful, so I will not moon you as we go,” she muttered.
They laughed, and it was the perfect moment that broke the horror of what she’d gone through and Wade’s fear that they would be too late.
“Are you okay back there, honey?”
“Yes.” When the others were moving away, she leaned forward and whispered in his ear, “I love y
ou, Wade Luckett.”
“I love you, too.”
She kissed the back of his ear, laid her head against his and closed her eyes. She was tired—so tired. All she wanted was to go home.
Eighteen
Going downhill was faster than going up. Even though they were carrying her, they made it back to their car in less than an hour. All three of the men had carried her twice, and she was on Wade’s back for the third time when they came out of the woods.
“There’s the car,” Tate said, pointing up the road.
Jo saw it and held on that much tighter to Wade.
He could feel the tension in her arms. She had to be in pain, both from the injuries on her feet and from the second Taser attack, and yet she hadn’t said a word.
“Just a little bit more, honey, and we’re safe,” he said.
She heard him, but there was no need to comment. She was already safe, and had been since the moment she’d seen his face.
They were almost at the SUV when they heard the sound of tires on gravel. Tate was the first to turn around. When he saw the van coming out of the trees, his reaction was shock. “Is that Inman’s van?”
Wade turned around.
“It is him! Let me down, Wade!” Jo cried, and then slid out of his grasp.
“Wade! Give me the car keys!” Cameron yelled.
Wade hit the button to unlock the doors and then tossed Cameron the keys.
Within moments they were tossing all their gear in the back and getting in.
Wade got into the backseat with Jo. Cameron took the driver’s seat and Tate rode passenger. He was already trying to get through to the state police when Cameron began turning the car around.
* * *
It was about an hour into his wait when Hershel chickened out. He’d planned to lure them into chasing him at high speed and then witnessing the fiery crash when their brakes went out. But with an FBI agent missing, the woods would surely be crawling with cops before long. It was going to be dark soon and he couldn’t wait any longer. He started the van and drove out of hiding onto the main road a couple of hundred yards up from their SUV just as they came walking out of the woods.
