Page 3 of Shane

Chapter One

Everlee Yeager jacked the steering wheel of her unmarked TEAM SUV hard to her left, squealing tires, and narrowly missing the oncoming delivery truck as her vehicle hit the left shoulder of State Road 522, east of Sperryville, Virginia. Man, that delivery driver’s mouth looked like he’d just said some not very nice words when he’d seen her coming at him in his lane. Oh, well. Surprise, surprise. Emergency vehicle coming through.

“Easy, Ev,” Walker Judge growled over her Bluetooth earpiece. “We want him alive.”

“I’ll sure give it the old college try,” she returned gallantly, careening between two lanes of oncoming traffic, following Webster Finch, the creep who’d killed those two little eight-year-old third graders last week. In a school zone. Everlee hated drug dealers. They thought everyone was expendable but them, the bastards. Well, not today. The dirtbag’s battered yellow sedan was in her sights. Finch wasn’t getting away this time, and if she ‘accidentally’ ran over him in the process of capturing him, well, too bad. One way or the other, his baby-killing, drug-dealing days were over.

“There is no try, Ev,” Walker said extra quietly. Which meant he was getting through to her.

“And now you’re channeling Yoda?” she scoffed.

“Think about what you’re doing. What if you’re the reckless one who kills an innocent today?”

Well, damn. Walker had a way of taking all the fun out of this take-down. But he was right.

Lowering her speed to just above barely legal, Everlee kept to the far-left side of the highway, bouncing along the gravel shoulder while Finch hopped the median and returned to the eastbound lanes. She waited until she had a clear shot, then accelerated and did the same.

By then Finch was ten cars ahead and veering right. That son of a bitch meant to take the last exit into Culpepper. She could intercept him before then. She had to! Drastic times called for drastic measures, right? If she couldn’t take him out before, she’d sure catch him after.

Putting her boot into it, she left the highway in the dust, hopped the irrigation ditch alongside, and sped diagonally across some farmer’s dusty, old field. Thank you, Jesus! No big-eyed cows were in her way. Or fence posts. Just weeds and dirt.

Faster. Faster.Finch was just pulling right at the yield sign, taking it slow, acting like a law-abiding citizen when he was anything but. She set her trajectory to intercept. He hadn’t yet seen her coming through the field at his right. The fool was only watching his rearview mirror. He thought she was behind him. Well, guess again.

“No, no!” she yelled at the semi-trailer that had just lumbered into the slow lane between her and Finch. But wait. That kept her out of Finch’s sight a little while longer. Change of plans. She adapted quickly, hit the gas, cranked her wheel, and aimed for a point of intersection a mile farther south. There he was. Cruising past that eighteen-wheeler on Highway 15 like he owned the whole damned road. Wrong again!

Everlee pushed her SUV for all it could handle. Blinked the sweat out of her eyes. Gritted her teeth. Clenched her jaw and prepared for impact. Contemplated angle. Gawddamnit.

BLAM!Touchdown! Smackdown! Whatever!

She t-boned that yellow POS in the passenger door and caught Finch completely by surprise. Revving her engine, she pushed his ride into the concrete barrier that separated southbound traffic from northbound and ensured both she and he were away from that eighteen-wheeler careening around them.

The trucker’s brakes screamed bloody murder as it passed them. Since Finch hadn’t yet braked or come to a complete stop, they were still moving. Man, that truck driver had skills! Good on him. With a masterful swerve, then another hard brake, he righted his rig without jackknifing or spilling his load. Way to go!

“So there!” she yelled at the baby-killer finally in her sights, even though she knew damned well Finch couldn’t hear her. She had him, dead to rights. He wasn’t going anywhere, and he couldn’t get away. She’d done it! She had this jerk by the short hairs!

Until Finch lifted his arm and pointed a gun at her through his dirty passenger window. Everlee ducked low to her right and sent her SUV into a wicked side drift that once again, slammed the side of her vehicle up against Finch’s sedan. The impact jolted his car. The weapon flew out of his hand. Finch had no choice but to brake. Perfect!

She had a warrant for his arrest, courtesy of The TEAM’s connection with the Virginia Highway Patrol. But if he fired at her, even took one shot, she’d end this son of a bitch and her dashcam would prove it was self-defense.

“Everlee…” Walker said quietly. He had a way of not saying much, but her quietly spoken name over the earpiece inside her head was enough. Damn it.

With that one word, he’d expertly corrected her extraordinary sense of what some would call vigilante justice while, at the same time, he’d punched a hole in her overinflated ego and ended her plan for ending Finch. Instead of shooting him like the animal he was, she slammed her brakes and, within seconds, blasted out of the passenger side door of her still-rolling vehicle and ran straight for the grill of his POS sedan.

“Drop it, Finch!” she bellowed, her Sig Sauer P-210 on target—namely, the middle of his ugly face. “It’s over. Hands where I can see them. Now!” Her heart hammered in her chest as if Thor were in there playing with his lightning and thunderbolts. The punch of adrenaline in her system was off the charts, but this was why she loved her new job. The thrill! The takedown! This, right here!

By then, her VHP companion escort, Trooper Ralph McKay, rolled to a stop in front of Finch’s sedan, further trapping him. Slapping his VHP Smokey Bear hat onto his head, McKay scrambled out of his cruiser and ran to her side.

“You heard Agent Yeager, Finch!” he bellowed, his service revolver aimed at Finch and backing Everlee up like she knew he would. “Drop the weapon and put your hands on the steering wheel. Keep ’em where I can see them.” Dropping his volume, McKay asked out of the side of his mouth, “That is what you told him, right Ev?”

“Yup, sure did.” McKay was a good foot taller than Everlee, so she didn’t mind that he’d said,‘where I can see them,’instead of‘where we can see them’.They’d worked together often enough. She knew he always had her back.

Instead of following orders, Finch tipped forward. No hands were in sight as his forehead hit the top of the steering wheel. His long, straggly hair draped like a curtain over his face, covering his cheeks and muttonchop sideburns. His hands were nowhere in sight. Not good.

Like the aggressor he now was, Officer McKay took a man-sized step forward. Everlee two-stepped with him. She and McKay were two parts of the same force of law. Finch didn’t stand a chance. Not today. Not until an ugly vibe lifted the tiny hairs up on the back of Everlee’s neck, and she knew, she just knew Finch wouldn’t go easy.

“Don’t do it! Finch! No!” she yelled, then screamed, “Gun!” Because sure as hell, Finch did it.

But she was too late. Finch’s arm had already snapped up. He had another pistol aimed at McKay’s bigger body mass. The son of a bitch fired. Once. He got off a shot but he jerked his weapon at the very last moment and missed McKay. Didn’t miss Everlee, though. The impact struck her chest with what felt like the power of a freight train. She jerked backward, every last breath in her lungs squeezed out. She was a limp ragdoll with its strings in that asshole’s fist. She went down on her back, wheezing, “Damn you, Finch!”

---