Читать книгу Colorado Manhunt: Wilderness Chase / Twin Pursuit - Lisa Phillips, Jenna Night - Страница 13

He heard her whimper, but there was no time for comfort. Air rushed in his ears and he could feel wet under one knee. Spilled coffee.

“Come on.” He hauled her up and they moved.

Through the house, toward the back door. The hallway would put them in the line of fire. Noah stopped at the doorway from the kitchen to the hall and peered around the frame. The gunshots had stopped. Would one of the men come around to the back door, to try and cut off their escape?

His brain wanted to run through all those lingering questions… Who were these guys? How had they found the cabin? But dwelling on all that would only get them killed. Right now they needed to move.

Beyond the open front door—and Amy’s “go” bag that she’d dropped—was a blue SUV. The same one that had been behind him on the highway a while ago. It had to be, because in his experience there was no such thing as a coincidence. Not when it came down to protecting witnesses. But he’d lost that vehicle. They hadn’t followed him here.

Amy clutched his arm. He could hear her breath coming fast. She was scared, relying on him to keep her safe and get them both out of there. The weight of that responsibility was heavy, but not unwelcome. It was the career he’d chosen, the path on which he felt the most like himself.

“Stay here.” He tugged her to stand right up against the wall, where he’d been. “When I say, you run out the back door. Okay?”

She nodded, wide eyes full of fear.

Noah moved back the way they’d come. Both men were still outside. One watching the cabin, the other on a phone. Calling in the fact that they had found Amy? He didn’t like the idea of more men showing up.

Noah reached out with his foot and kicked the front door shut, then ducked to the side. Gunshots peppered the wood as he fired two shots through the window, obliterating the glass and screen.

He ran for the back door. They could get out, it was clear. Both men were out front and waiting…for whatever it was they were waiting for. Noah wasn’t going to do that.

He and Amy were getting out of there.

“Go, Amy! Now!” he called out loud enough she could hear, but not so loud it would be audible from out front.

In a flash of the dark material of her jacket, he saw her run.

Noah caught up at the back door just as she pulled it open. Amy stepped back and to the side, and he moved around her. If he’d explained what he wanted her to do, there was no way it would have come out that smoothly. Thank You, God. They moved as though he’d protected her for years. And in a way, he had. He’d just been doing it from afar since the trial.

A whole year.

Now they met like this?

Noah exited first, gun up. Amy tapped his shoulder.

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand and they ran for the trees.

Snow lay a couple of feet deep around the cabin. Amy steered them to a trodden-down path, crunchy rutted snow she’d apparently walked frequently.

The cold air chilled his hands, and the material of her glove over the hand he held. He picked up their pace as they headed along the path. They would be out in the open until they got to the tree line. How far did her path go? And where did it lead?

He was about to ask her when she said, “Careful of—”

Noah’s foot hit a patch of slick snow and he stumbled. His leg gave out, and his knee hit hard-packed snow. He grunted, but held the reaction back.

“You okay?”

He nodded and got his feet under him. He kept running, still holding her hand. He’d probably squeezed it to death for a second there, when his brain had realized his body was falling. Noah kept scanning the area as they ran. Waiting for the second when those gunmen figured out they’d escaped out the back and set off in pursuit.

Thankfully, the ground was so frozen they weren’t making any tracks on the rutted path. Unfortunately, however, that meant his knee throbbed with every step.

He gritted his teeth and pushed on.

“You’re not okay.” Her voice came out breathy.

“Doesn’t matter.” Maybe she was scared, and sympathy gave her something to think about beyond the fear. Whatever the reason, he liked that she cared. What he didn’t like was that they weren’t at the tree line yet.

A shot rang out.

Amy squealed. They both ducked and pressed on, running hunched over. They couldn’t veer from the path or they’d be wading in snow. Noah ran as hard and fast as he could, praying with every step that neither of them slipped.

The second he passed the first tree, he entertained the idea they might make it. Noah sucked in a breath. Tried to calm his exhale. Otherwise he was going to end up passing out.

The pathway angled to the east, and they ran along it.

He slowed, turned as he ran. Checked behind them. Those men were coming. “Where does this go?”

“Into town.”

Would they make it that far?

Amy wanted to whimper. What would giving in to the fear accomplish? That hadn’t helped during the trial. It wouldn’t help now, when her brother was coming after her. Whether that meant he would show up here in person, or send men to abduct her, she didn’t know. Could be he’d only escaped in order to force the marshals to show up at her house. All part of his plan to get revenge on her.

Use the marshals to flush her out, and then kill her.

Without her bag, which she’d dropped before they ran out, Amy had exactly one thing that might keep her alive. But revealing her secret to her brother meant putting an innocent person in danger. It was the last thing she wanted to do, despite the fact it could save her life.

Could she die to protect her nephew’s life?

Absolutely.

In a way, she already had. The person she used to be had perished. Now she was…someone entirely different, living an entirely different life hundreds of miles from who she was. Hundreds of miles from wherever Anthony was.

They ran at least another two miles until she saw the tree. Gnarled and crusty, it had been hit by lightning. Split in two. She liked to sit on it and rest, on her way into or coming home from town.

A couple of times a month, Amy walked to church. Or for a slice of pie from the diner. In summer she did it a lot more. This time of year it was harder to get around. She’d been thinking about an ATV. Too late now. Would have come in handy today, though.

“You okay?”

She glanced over. “You’re the one limping.”

“Don’t worry about me.”

“Going to play the stoic hero, protecting the damsel in distress?”

He shot her a look. “Not a cliché if it’s actually what’s happening.” He shrugged. “This is where we are. We can either complain, or we can figure out how to get to a vehicle.”

“I was thinking more like go to the sheriff’s office.”

“Does he know who you really are?”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course not. That’s why you’re here, right?” He didn’t say anything then, just scanned the area around them. She didn’t believe they’d lost those guys. Only that they’d gotten far enough ahead running flat out that they had a second to catch their breath.

Then she saw them out the corner of her eye.

“We should—”

He didn’t need to finish. Amy said, “Hide.”

“I was going to say ‘go.’ But ‘hide’ works.” He followed her around to the back of the tree. It was big enough that it should conceal them until these guys moved on. Then maybe they could go back to the cabin, and Noah’s car.

Amy watched as the two gunmen came into view. They both looked around, and then the other gunman pulled out a phone. No, not a phone. That one had a radio.

“Probably checking in,” Noah whispered, crouched beside her. He tugged his cell from his pocket, and she saw him send a text message. Or try to. “I have no signal.”

The gunman on the phone looked to be having problems, too. He looked at the screen of his phone, clearly frustrated.

Amy leaned closer to him. “Should we make a run for it?”

Noah shook his head. “We’re safer out of sight. For now. Hiding was a good idea.” He turned to watch the two men, and she got the chance to look at his face in profile.

Strong features. He probably thought his ears were too big, but she’d always thought they fit his face. She wondered what he’d looked like as a kid. If he’d gone through that awkward phase everyone seemed to have around middle school, and into high school. Then again, maybe he’d always been like this.

Steady. Protective. He’d probably had a best friend he’d helped keep safe from bullies. Or a neighborhood kid. Like that boy with Down syndrome on her street when she’d been growing up. She’d loved handing out candy on Halloween, just because he would come and she’d get to see him smile like it was Christmas.

“Amy.”

She blinked away the memories. “What?”

He pointed over her shoulder. She turned, facing the fact she couldn’t live in her memories. The good times were long gone. Nothing in her life right now was even close to that, even though she’d been working hard to be happy. Or at least trying to find some piece of “happy.”

On the opposite side of where they crouched, huddled behind the tree, two more men approached. Gunmen, or hunters? It could hardly be a coincidence that more gunmen happened to find them here.

Had her brother sent a whole army to find her? And how was it that they seemed to be closing in on their hiding spot? These gunmen had to know where she and Noah were somehow, which meant they couldn’t stay here.

She turned back to him, ready to tell him that.

“Time to run.” He didn’t look happy about it, but if he thought they should do it, then she was going to. Noah would go with what he thought would keep her alive. She was trusting him to keep them both alive.

Amy shifted around, ready to sprint, and saw that look in his eyes. One she’d seen a few times, all of them a year ago during the trial. A look that said he cared more than he was going to say about her.

She looked away from it now, because it wasn’t going to help. During the trial she’d let those thoughts distract her. They’d been a nice distraction, taking a few seconds in the middle of the insanity to think about what might have been. Right now it wasn’t going to help. Not when the reality was that their lives were incompatible. He was a marshal. She was a witness living in seclusion.

Who knew if they would even survive today?