Her Christmas Guardian. Shirlee McCoy
before you leave. I think we’re going to—”
The sound of screeching tires split the quiet, and he shoved the phone back into his pocket, racing toward the sound. He’d covered a hundred yards when light burst to life in the distance.
Fire!
His heart jumped, the new surge of adrenaline giving wings to his feet. He sprinted toward the soft glow and the velvety black of the eastern sky, the sound of sirens splitting the night.
Get out! Get out, get out!
The words raced through Scout’s mind as she crawled over the bucket seat and unbuckled Lucy’s car seat. Black smoke filled the car, filled her lungs. She grabbed the seat, relieved that Lucy was babbling away, more excited, it seemed, than frightened by the crash, the smoke, the crackling fire.
Get out!
She reached for the door handle, coughing, gagging on blood that rolled from a cut on her forehead to the corner of her mouth.
The door flew open, and hands reached in, dragged her out, Lucy in the car seat, singing in that baby language that only a mother ever really understood.
Scout jerked away, the car seat slamming against her legs as she ran. Straight toward the black car that had been following her. She veered to the left, saw him. Just standing there. Sport coat and slacks, hands in his pockets. He could have been anyone, but she knew he was death coming to call.
“Who are you?” she rasped, backing toward the tree her car had run into when the tire was shot out.
“It really doesn’t matter,” he responded, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it. The cold calculation in his eyes made her blood freeze in her veins. She wanted to scream and scream and scream, but there was no one around to hear. Nothing that she could do but try to find a way out, pray that the police came quickly. Keep Lucy safe.
Please, God. Help me keep her safe.
“I called the police,” she said, her heart pounding in her throat, her eyes burning from smoke and fear. Every nightmare she’d ever had was coming true. All the fear she’d lived with since she’d left San Jose congealed in the pit of her stomach, filled her with stark hard-edged terror.
She needed to think, to run, to do something to save her daughter.
That was all she knew. All she cared about.
She lifted the car seat higher, pulling it to her chest, the heavy ungainly plastic filled with the only thing she cared about. “They’ll be here any minute,” she continued, because he was staring at her, the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He must think he had all the time in the world, must believe that there was no way help could come in time.
God, please! She begged silently, easing toward the line of trees that had stopped the wagon from careening down an embankment.
She just had to make it into the trees, find someplace to hide.
The faint sound of sirens drifted on the cold November air. Her heart jumped; hope surged. She could do this. Had to do this. She ran into the trees, blood still sliding down her face, Lucy giggling as the car seat bounced. She had no idea. None.
Scout’s feet slipped on slick leaves, and she went down hard, her hip knocking an overturned tree. She bounced back up, the car seat locked in her arms, Lucy now crying in fear, sirens growing louder.
“Sorry, but this just isn’t your night.” The words whispered from behind her, the cold chill of them shooting up her spine.
And suddenly, she wasn’t alone with the man and his cigarette. Two dark shadows moved in, and she was fighting off hands that were trying to rip Lucy away from her.
She screamed as something slammed into her cheek. Heard Lucy’s desperate cries and the sirens endlessly blaring. Heard her own frantic breathing and hoarse shouts.
A car door slammed and someone called a warning. To her? To the men who were attacking her? The car seat was ripped from her arms and something smashed into her temple. Darkness edged in, sprinkled with a million glittering stars.
She fought it, fought the hands that were suddenly on her throat. Lucy! She tried to cry, but she had no air for the words, no air at all.
She twisted, kneeing her attacker in the thigh.
Something flashed in the air near her head.
A gun?
She had only a moment to realize it, and then the world exploded, all the stars fading until there was nothing but endless night and the sound of her daughter’s cries.
* * *
“Go after the car!” Boone shouted as he jumped from Jackson’s car. “I’ll check to see if there are any injuries.”
Too late.
Those were the words that were running through his head over and over again.
Too late. Just as he’d been the day he’d arrived home from Iraq, ready to confront Lana about her prescription-drug problem, willing to work on their marriage so that they could make a good life for their child.
Too late.
He heard Jackson’s tires screech, knew he’d taken off, following the car they’d seen speeding away. Dark-colored. A Honda, maybe. Jackson knew more about cars than he did, and he’d know the model and make.
Good information for the police, but none of it would matter if the woman and her daughter were hurt. Or worse.
He ran to the station wagon, ignoring the flames that were lapping out from beneath the hood. The back door was open, and he glanced in. No car seat. No child. No woman.
He checked the third-row bucket seat, then peered into the front. A purse lay on the passenger seat, and he snagged it, backing away from the burning vehicle. He doubted it would explode, but getting himself blown up wasn’t going to help the woman, her kid or him.
He broke every rule his boss, Chance Miller, had written in the fifty-page HEART team handbook and opened the purse, pulling out the ID and calling Jackson with information on the woman. Scout Cramer. Twenty-seven. Five foot two inches. One hundred pounds. Organ donor. Blond hair. Blue eyes.
Victim.
He hated that word.
In a perfect world, there would be no victims. No losses. No hurting people praying desperately that their loved ones would return home.
Too bad it wasn’t a perfect world.
He stepped away from the station wagon as a police cruiser pulled off the road. An officer ran to the back of the cruiser and dragged a fire extinguisher from the trunk.
Seconds later, the fire was out, the cold air filled with the harsh scent of chemicals and burning wires. Smoke and steam wafted from the hood of the car, but the night had gone quiet, the rustling leaves of nearby trees the only sound.
The officer approached, offering a hand and a quick nod. “Officer Jet Lamar. River Valley Police Department. Did you see what happened here?”
“I got here after the crash. I did see the woman and child who were in the car. They left the Walmart about fifteen minutes ago.” And he didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time discussing it. Scout and her daughter had disappeared. The more time that passed before they were found, the less likely it was that they ever would be.
Something else he had learned the hard way.
Every second counted when it came to tracking someone down.
“So, we’ve got two people missing?”
“Yes,” Boone ground out. “And if we don’t start looking,