Page 24 of Lone Star Hostage

Staying on her back, she hurried to try to get the vest off her since the now lodged bullet was burning a hole in her. Normally, removing a vest would be an easy task, but there was nothing easy about this with the pain consuming her and with the air still not getting into her lungs.

Somehow, she managed to peel off the vest, and she immediately turned enough so she could try to see Presley. She couldn’t. And she suspected he was behind one of the trees. The shooter was firing nonstop again.

Victoria was no longer flailing around. She was motionless, her face down in the water. That got Billie moving again. Not easily, but she readied herself to move out from cover so she’d be a target again.

Without the vest, she would almost certainly be killed.

But Billie was going for it anyway.

“Angel’s in place to take out the second shooter,” Ruby said through the earbud.

If Billie had had the breath to make a sound, she would have cheered instead, she dropped back onto the ground and waited. She didn’t have to wait long. She heard the two shots. Kill shots.

And the gunfire stopped.

Ruby’s voice cut through the silence that followed. “An ambulance is on the way. Is the hostage alive?”

Billie rolled over so she could see. And what she saw was Presley tearing out from behind a tree and rushing into the creek. He seemed to move at a speed much faster than humanly possible, and the moment he reached Victoria, he yanked her out of the water and into his arms.

“She’s not breathing,” Presley called out.

Billie forced herself to move, and she managed to get to her feet. She staggered her way toward Presley as she watched him put a limp, lifeless Victoria on the bank of the creek. He didn’t waste a second starting cutting the duct tape from her hands so he could get her on her back and start CPR.

Angel seemed to come out of nowhere. Owen, too, and they both raced toward Presley and Victoria. Billie did the same, though she wasn’t moving anywhere as fast as they were. She kept watch around them, just in case there was a third shooter who was waiting to gun them all down now that they were out in the open.

But no shots came.

Just the frantic sounds that came with the CPR. Owen did the chest compression while Presley breathed air into Victoria’s mouth.

The seconds crawled by. An eternity. And the sickening dread went through Billie as she was starting to believe they had failed. That this had all been for nothing. That another woman had died on Presley’s and her watch.

Billie said a whole lot of prayers as she staggered her way through the creek. She had just made it to the others when she heard a sound. Not gunfire this time. But a welcome sound.

Victoria gasped for air and started to cough.

Alive.

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Chapter Nine

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Presley sat in the corner of the waiting room in the Outlaw Ridge Hospital and watched the flurry of activity that went along with a situation like this. Organized chaos.

Familiar ground from his days as a cop.

The local sheriff, Marty Bonetti, and his deputies were scattered around the waiting room, taking statements from Owen, Angel, Hayes, Billie, and even Ruby, who’d arrived shortly after the ambulance had brought Victoria here. Presley had already given his statement and had been happy to follow the sheriff’s order to take a seat and wait. With the spent adrenaline claiming a good portion of his energy, he didn’t mind just chilling for a while.

Too bad he couldn’t get his mind to chill right along with his exhausted body. But nope. The thoughts and images were coming nonstop. Of the gunfire. Of Victoria damn near dying before he could get to her. Of Billie as he’d seen her collapse after being shot in the vest.

Thankfully, Billie was okay even though she was going to have a hell of a bruise on her side for a while. Still, it was better a bruise than a bullet wound, and there’d been plenty of opportunities for the shooters to hit various parts of them that hadn’t been protected. A shot to the hands or feet would have prevented them from fighting back and rescuing the hostage.

Victoria was physically going to be okay as well. Probably. The EMTs hadn’t offered that somewhat iffy prognosis while they’d been loading her into the ambulance, but Victoria had been semi-conscious—and in shock. She had cuts, bruises, and was missing the tip of her right pinkie finger. She was still being examined to find out if she had internal injuries.

According to the brief report he’d gotten from the EMTs after they’d handed Victoria off to the hospital medical staff, Victoria hadn’t said a whole lot in the ambulance, but she had made a couple of things clear. She was grateful for being rescued and she hadn’t seen her kidnappers’ faces. They’d kept her blindfolded the entire time they’d had her.

Ruby finished up with Sheriff Bonetti and started making her way across the room toward him. Owen and she exchanged a long glance. Not exactly a friendly one, which made Presley wonder again what had gone on between them. Maybe it was nothing more than business differences, what with Ruby walking the thin blue line and Owen often crossing it.

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