Page 10 of Mountain Murder

A strong hand settled on top of her thigh. Grounding and warm and solid. Lance threaded his free arm across her shoulders, pulling her into him. Her brain wanted to fight against the intimacy while the rest of her needed it more than she needed her next breath. “I won’t let anything happen to you. Understand?”

“I believe you.” And she did. Every word. Because a former soldier never went back on his promises, but it wasn’t just that. She trusted him. Because he was the kind of man who demanded perfectionism of himself but gave the people he cared about the grace to make their own choices, who thought about the consequences of his actions, and fought to make the right choice. Who, despite his discharge from the military, took on life as a mission. One he’d never let himself fail. “Thank you. For being here with me. For…just being here.”

“I’ll take Hank as payment.” He didn’t get a chance to laugh as she straightened and slapped at his chest. His smile cut through the trepidation and uneasiness that’d taken hold, and Audrey physically felt herself relax for the first time in…ever.

A gunshot exploded from inside the house.

Her nerves shot into overdrive as she tried to see around the bulk of the garage to the other side. “Was that…?”

“Stay here.” Lance slipped his arm from around her and reached for something under the driver’s seat. Streetlights highlighted the pistol in his hand. He hit some button on the side of the weapon and a long metal piece dropped from the bottom of the gun. He shoved it back into place as though he’d done it a thousand times before and shouldered the driver’s side door open.

Frigid air filled the cabin as Audrey launched herself across the bench seat. “What are you doing? You can’t go in there. You have no idea what’s waiting on the other side of that door.”

“I’m not going to leave them to an ambush. Lock the doors behind me. Don’t open them for anyone, and don’t leave the vehicle.” He nodded at her as though he were simply making a run to the grocery store instead of walking into a firefight. “I’ll be right back.”

“Lance!” Her warning cut short as he slammed the truck door behind him. Audrey visually followed him along the sidewalk and up the driveway toward the front door. Up until he vanished. She clutched onto the steering wheel. There’d been no stopping him. Nothing she could’ve said to convince him this wasn’t his fight, and her gut twisted at the idea of losing another friend to a killer.

Movement registered from the side of the garage. The doorframe cut into the home darkened as it was pulled inward. Revealing the silhouette of a man running for the backyard.

No other outlines appeared behind him. No one to stop him from escaping.

Audrey shoved free of the truck and rounded the hood, sprinting along the driveway to catch up. Temperatures dropped as thick trees engulfed her from every angle. She’d lost him. “Jake!”

“I knew you’d come,” a voice said from the dark. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

***

Lance busted through the front door.

Wood ricocheted off the wall behind it. Every sense he owned honed on the shift of shadows, of an ambush waiting to happen. He cleared the front room overrun with ancient looking furniture and heel-toed it along a tiled entryway to the rooms at the end of the hall. No sign of the officers. “Ford!”

“In here!” The call came from back down the hallway. Through a doorway leading into the kitchen.

Gun warm in his hand, Lance used every ounce of training he’d had to take in what looked to be a great room split into three sections. A dining room, a living room, and a separate seating area. Two bodies hunched over a third near of a wall of overstocked bookshelves.

“Shit. I can’t stop the bleeding.” Ford wrangled his button down free and wadded it against the torso of someone on the floor.

“Son of a bitch came at me with a knife. I got a shot off, but I’m not sure I hit him.” The female officer—Officer Dwyer, if Lance recalled right—gasped for air. Her head sank back against the carpet as Lance approached, but the officer was right back up again, trying to get to her feet. “I’m fine. You gotta go after him. He escaped into the garage. You can still catch him.”

“Call for the damn bus!” The other officer—Dwyer’s partner—was losing it. He clamped one hand over the shirt pressed into Campbell’s wound and tried to keep her pinned against the floor with the other.

“You’re wasting time.” Dwyer tried to sit up again. Her gaze locked on the garage door at Lance’s back. “He’s going to get away.”

“Try not to move, Dwyer. The wound is deep.” Ford hauled the radio from his patrol belt and pressed the push-to-talk button. “Dispatch, I need an ambulance sent to my location immediately. Officer down. I repeat, officer down. Single left-sided gut wound. Risk of internal damage to kidney or spleen.” He read off the address. “Suspect is on foot. Caucasian male, thirty-six years old. Presumably heading south through the woods.”

“It’s okay.” Officer Dwyer’s voice had lost its aggression. She was talking to her partner now. Her resistance crumbling right in front of them. Moonlight cut through the windows a few feet away, highlighting her tears. And her fears. Raising one hand, she framed Officer Hudson’s jaw. “You don’t have…to be here…for this.”

“You know better than that.” Hudson released his hold on her, catching her hand as it fell away from his face. Pressing his forehead against his partner’s, the officer closed his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. Not without you and Penny.”

Penny? Oh, hell. Dwyer and Hudson weren’t just partners on the job. They had a daughter. Together.

“Stay with us, Dwyer. The ambulance is on the way. Just hang on.” Ford radioed for a status report. The woman on the other end of the frequency was trying her best to stay positive. Lance could hear it in her voice, in the way her words clipped shorter and shorter. “Not good enough, Dispatch! We’re running out of time here.”

Sirens echoed from the front of the house. Lance backed off a step. Fear was whispering that Officer Dwyer wasn’t going to make it. The stab wound… It wasn’t superficial. And they all knew it. Jake Dugan hadn’t just killed Inez at the ranch. He’d assaulted a police officer. A mother, a wife.

Officer Dwyer wasn’t trying to get off the floor anymore. She’d gone limp in her partner’s arms, and Lance suddenly had the thought that was how he would’ve held Audrey had he found her out there in those woods. As though letting go would’ve destroyed him right then. He didn’t have to see her face to know Dwyer had gone into shock from the blood loss. The carpet was wet with it.

“Campbell, open your eyes. Look at me.” Officer Hudson rocked back on his heels as footsteps pounded through the front entryway. “No. No, no, no, no. Campbell, come on, baby. You’re not leaving me. You can’t leave me again! You can’t leave Penny. We need you!”

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