Page 39 of Outlaw Ridge: Reed
So, Hallie could be gunned down.
She was certain that was still the killer’s endgame.
They stood in the doorway and took a couple of seconds, checking their surroundings for any signs that something was off. Hallie didn’t see anyone out and about, and all the vehicles in the parking lot belonged to the police department or the cops on duty.
Gathering her breath, Hallie bolted out into the rain. The others did as well, and despite her small head start out of the building, Reed still got to the cruiser ahead of her. He threw open the passenger’s side door, rushing her inside before he hurried to get behind the wheel.
“You don’t need to protect me,” she reminded him.
He gave her a short but flat look before he started the engine and drove out of the parking lot. “Yeah, I do. You’re the target, not me.”
Hallie had to sigh, the sound muffled by the hard slaps of the wipers on the windshield. “The killer will make you a target, too, if you get in his way.” Her voice giving away the fear she was trying to mask.
The thought of Reed being in danger caused her stomach to clench. She knew their jobs could come down to life or death, but the stakes felt higher this time, and that was a crushing weight on her shoulders. She didn’t want him hurt.
Or worse.
She didn’t want to lose him.
And that made her silently curse. Having sex with him had broken down barriers that she should have kept in place. At least a little while longer anyway. Now, they were involved. A personal connection that the killer could exploit to make them do something stupid and dangerous.
“You don’t have to take this kind of risk since you’re no longer a deputy. The killer will make you a target, too,” she repeated, figuring it wouldn’t do any good to spell that out.
It didn’t.
Reed’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, and he briefly glanced over at her. “Then I’ll just have to make sure neither of us gives him that chance.”
Hallie met his gaze, and she saw the determination in his eyes. There was no point in arguing further. She nodded, silently acknowledging that she knew he wouldn’t be backing down, no matter what happened. But she wasn’t backing down either.
“Don’t take a bullet for me, Reed,” she insisted.
He made another quick glance at her, and something else went through his eyes. “Tell you what. Let’s neither of us take a bullet. Let’s get this bastard and put an end to the nightmare.”
Hallie was all for that. But things can and did happen. And she had a really bad feeling about this. Everything they’d done up to this point seemed to be leading here. To this showdown. Ifshe was wrong about that though, she had another idea how to bring this to a conclusion.
“If the killer has already fled the scene, I could make myself bait, to draw him out,” she threw out there, knowing that Reed wasn’t going to like it. And she was right.
“Not necessary,” he insisted.
“It could work,” she continued. “Put me out in the open with you, Shaw, and Jesse out of sight but still spotting me. I know all of you have sniper skills. I read your backgrounds. I know you could keep me alive and capture the killer.”
Reed kept his attention on the water-logged road, but she saw the muscles flicker in his jaw. “One thing at a time,” he finally said when he took the turn to Mrs. Robey’s ranch. “Let’s deal with this crime scene, and if and when it’s necessary, we can talk backup plans.”
He stopped the cruiser in front of the house with Jesse and Shaw pulling in directly behind them. Like the road, the yard had several inches of water on it, confirming that they wouldn’t be looking for any usable footprints.
“There are no lights on inside,” Reed remarked as he scanned the house and surroundings.
Hallie was doing the same thing, and just like at the parking lot at the police station, she didn’t see anything or anyone suspicious. She certainly didn’t spot a killer ready to strike.
Reed took a flashlight from the glove compartment, shoved it into one of the pockets of his jacket, and he bolted out of the cruiser and into the thick curtain of rain. Hallie did the same, and together, they barreled up the steps and onto the porch and under the meager cover of the awning.
They both immediately drew their guns.
Shaw and Jesse exited their cruiser as well, and they were carrying some equipment with them that they’d gotten from thesupply closet. “Hold up. Let Jesse and me check for explosives,” Shaw told them.
Hallie certainly hadn’t forgotten what’d happened the last time they’d gone into a victim’s house. The killer had literally brought down the roof on them, nearly killing them, wounding Aaron, and destroying the crime scene. She didn’t want any repeats of that this time.
Shaw ran the detector over the front door and shook his head. “No explosives near here.”
