Love Inspired Suspense June 2015 - Box Set 2 of 2: Exit Strategy\Payback\Covert Justice (8 page)

“I'm going to get you home,” he said, breaking every rule he'd made for himself after Megan's death. He'd promised her mother that he'd bring her home, he'd vowed that Amber Wallace would have her only daughter back. He'd been high on himself, too arrogant to realize that he had limited control, too foolish to understand that the days of a person's life were numbered before she was born, and that there wasn't one thing he could do to add or subtract from anyone's allotted time.

No more promises.

That's what he'd decided after he'd called Amber with the news about Megan's death. No deep emotional involvement. That was what he'd vowed as he'd stood at Megan's grave, watched her coffin lowered into the ground and listened to her family sob.

“
We're
going to get me home,” Lark responded, her voice faint, her body still stiff in his arms.

“To start, let's get you back in the car.” He kept his hand on her waist, steered her to the Mustang.

She didn't say a word as she lowered herself into the seat, wiped her palms on her skirt. Blood smeared across the fabric, and he lifted her hand, turned her palm so he could see the damage. Bits of gravel and dirt had gauged deep scratches in her palm.

“I'm a mess,” she said, pulling her hand away, wiping it on her skirt again. “But there's nothing I can do about it until your friends get—”

The sound of a car engine interrupted her words.

Not Boone and Stella. It was way too soon for them to arrive.

Lights flashed across Lark's pale face, and her eyes widened. “It's the sheriff,” she whispered, all the horror, all the fear of seeing that car reflected in her eyes and in her voice.

“Let's see what he has to say,” he responded, turning to face the police cruiser as it pulled up beside them.

EIGHT

T
he sheriff looked nothing like Elijah's half brother.

That was Cyrus's first thought as the guy got out of his cruiser.

His second was that he looked tough. No softness in his face. No excess weight on his belly. He looked fit and ready for a fight.

“Cyrus Mitchell, right?” the sheriff said without preamble.

“Depends on who's asking,” he responded as he got out of the Mustang.

“Sheriff Radley Johnson. I got a call from a friend of yours. Said he wanted to make sure you stayed out of trouble.”

“What friend?”

“Chance Miller. He says you work for him.”

“That's right.” He didn't offer anything else. It would be just like Chance to check in with local PD. It's what he did when the team was going into areas where they might accidently step on toes. This situation was different, but if Chance had done some digging and found the sheriff to be on the up-and-up, he might have called and asked Johnson to step in.

Until Cyrus heard from Chance, he wasn't going to trust the guy. Even after he heard from Chance, he probably wouldn't trust Johnson.

“You've had some trouble out at Elijah's place.” A statement of fact rather than a question, the sheriff's gaze moving from Cyrus to Lark and back again.

“Also right,” Cyrus admitted. There was no sense lying about it. The sheriff hadn't just happened upon them. Either Chance really had called him and told him where they were, or John had sent him out hunting for them. Either way, the guy knew what was going on.

“We'll go to the station and discuss things there.” Again. Not a question. Not a suggestion either.

“If I refuse?”

“I could arrest you,” Johnson responded. “But that'd be a lot of paperwork I'm not in the mood for doing. So, how about I just make your options really clear. You and your friend come with me, we sit down in my office, have some coffee and some of the cookies Agnes Renee brought in and figure out what's going on. Or, I can leave you two sitting here waiting for whoever shot out the back window of this car to show up. Eventually, I'll end up back here, and you'll either end up in jail until we prove self-defense or you'll end up in a body bag.”

Cyrus wasn't keen on either option, but he'd spent a lot of years trusting his instincts. Right now, they were saying that heading to the station with the sheriff was a better option than sitting in a parking lot waiting for John to show. Besides, he was getting that skin-crawling feeling again, the hair on his arms standing on end.

“I can tell you exactly who shot out that window,” he offered, and the sheriff nodded.

“I figured you could. You can file a report when we get to my office.”

“You want me to follow you over?”

“I heard you were out of gas, so how about we all go together?” He leaned past Cyrus, offered a hand to Lark. “Ms. Porter, good to see you again.”

“I'm surprised you remember me,” she responded, opening her door and climbing out of the car.

“I'm surprised you're back in this neck of the woods. Last time I saw you, you seemed bent on getting as far away from Amos Way as you could,” he said. “You have any weapons on you, Mitchell?”

“A handgun.”

“Permit to carry?”

“My boss has a copy.”

“You're supposed to have that on you.”

“It got confiscated. Maybe you could call your half brother and ask him to bring it to town.”

Johnson scowled but didn't take the bait. “Remove the firearm, set it on the ground.”

Cyrus did what he was asked. No way was he giving the guy an excuse to pull his service weapon.

He stepped back so Sheriff Johnson could take the Glock.

“This it?” Johnson asked, unloading the gun and shoving it in his pocket.

“I have a bowie knife strapped to my calf.” He reached to unstrap it, heard the soft pop of a silenced gun, felt a bullet rip through his upper arm.

There was no pain, just the urgent need to protect Lark.

He dragged her to the ground, covering her body with his. He didn't know who had fired the shot, had no idea where it had come from, but he was certain the guy was gunning for him.

“Under the Mustang,” he urged, shifting his weight so that Lark could roll out from under him.

“Stay down,” Sheriff Johnson shouted, his service weapon in hand. Another pop, and the pavement beside Cyrus's head exploded, bits of shrapnel hitting his back and neck.

The sheriff fired two shots in quick succession, the air vibrating with the force of the reports. Silence followed, the night thick with it.

“Stay here,” Sheriff Johnson ordered, his boots pounding against the blacktop as he ran into the shrubs, his radio crackling as he called for backup. Had he hit his mark?

Cyrus shifted, blood dripping from his arm.

He ignored it. He'd had worse injuries.

“You okay?” he asked, peering under the car. Lark lay flat under the center of the car, her face turned toward him, her eyes gleaming in the darkness.

“I'd be better if you were under here with me.” She paused, probably realized how that sounded. “What I mean is, I'd be happier if we had both taken cover.”

“I knew what you meant.”

“So, maybe you should scoot under and stay out of sight until the sheriff returns.”

“The shooter is gone.” Or dead. He didn't mention that possibility, but it was a real one. The sheriff hadn't been shooting randomly. He'd aimed in the directions the bullets had come from, and he'd planned to hit his mark.

“Maybe.”

“Probably,” he corrected.

“Probably isn't for sure. Which means he could still be hanging around waiting to get a clear shot at you,” she hissed, belly crawling toward him and grabbing his hand. “Get under here!”

“If he's going to take a shot, I'd rather it be aimed at me.”

“Don't sacrifice yourself for me, Cyrus. I could never forgive myself if you did.” She tried to pull him under the car, but she was probably seventy pounds lighter than him, and there was no way he was going to move until he wanted to.

“And Essex would never forgive me if I let something happen to you.”

“I'm not Essex's responsibility, and I'm not yours. If something happens to me, it will be because I'm an idiot and stuck my hand in the viper's nest,” she responded drily. “You're welcome to tell Essex that, if I die.”

“You're not going to die.” Not if he could help it, and he thought that he could. Once the team arrived, he wanted to get her into a safe house, keep her there until they could figure out exactly what was going on.

“It's clear,” Sheriff Johnson called from somewhere beyond the hedges.

Cyrus stood, blood seeping from the gouge in his upper arm. A flesh wound. Nothing he couldn't bandage up and treat himself. It could have been a lot worse,
would
have been a lot worse if he hadn't moved just as the perp pulled the trigger.

Lark scrambled out from under the car, got to her feet as the sheriff stepped into view.

He didn't look happy.

Shoulders slumped, gun holstered, he walked toward them. “Everyone okay over here?” he asked.

“I'll be better once I know that the perp has been apprehended,” Cyrus replied, his pulse still racing with adrenaline.

“He's not going to be bothering you anymore,” Johnson said grimly.

“He's dead?” Lark sounded surprised.

“Yes.” Just one word, but Cyrus heard a boatload of emotion in it.

“You knew him, didn't you?” he asked.

“John McDermott and I went way back,” he responded, opening the passenger door of the cruiser. “I'm not happy that he's dead, but I did what I had to. Why don't you have a seat until my deputies arrive, Lark? We'll go back to the station once they get here. I've called an ambulance, too. You look like you could use one, Mitchell.”

“I'd rather have some information.”

“About?” Johnson eyed him dispassionately, his expression unreadable. He had to know there were going to be questions. He had to know that his connection to Amos Way was going to come under scrutiny.

“Your connection to John.”

“I don't owe you an explanation, but I'll give you one. I spent my senior year of high school in Amos Way. John and I were in the same class.”

“You were friends?” he pressed, and Johnson shook his head.

“Not even close. The two of us didn't see eye to eye on things.”

“What things?”

“I believe in abiding by the law of the land and in upholding it. He believes that the government needs to be shut down and that individuals should take over.” He ran a hand down his jaw, frowned. “Believ
ed
.”

It sounded good. Sounded like something that could be truth, but Cyrus knew nothing about Sheriff Johnson. It seemed very convenient that John was dead. He'd been the one who'd tied Lark up. He'd been the one who'd kept her prisoner in the trailer. With him dead, there was no one to press charges against and no way to prove that Elijah had condoned what had been done to Lark.

It was possible that was exactly the way Elijah wanted it. “How about Elijah?” he asked bluntly. “Do you see eye to eye with him?”

Johnson's jaw tightened, and he scowled. “No.”

The answer was quick and just as blunt as the question had been.

“But you did live in the compound he runs for a year.”

“Because my parents died. It was that or go into foster care. Not something I was interested in doing. But that's not something that I need to explain to you, Mitchell. Seems to me, you're the one who needs to explain. But first, how about you remove the knife from your calf?”

He did, because he knew he had no choice.

He set it on the ground, and the sheriff grabbed it, tossed it into the trunk of his cruiser. “Any other weapons?”

“A gun in the glove compartment,” he responded, waiting impatiently while the sheriff retrieved it.

“How about you?” the sheriff asked, his attention on Lark. “Any weapons?”

“No.”

“And you had a good reason to return to Amos Way?” he asked, and Lark shrugged.

“I'm not going to lie,” she responded. “My in-laws invited me back to the compound. They wanted some pictures of Joshua, and I was happy to bring them. I'd actually been considering a trip back anyway, because—”

“You wanted to prove that your husband didn't accidentally kill himself,” he cut her off. “You should have stayed away. Or called me before you decided to go out there. Things aren't what they seem in that community. Been trying to take the whole place down for a couple of years now.”

That was an interesting piece of information.

Cyrus wanted to ask the sheriff to elaborate, but two cruisers rounded the corner of the building, speeding into the lot, lights flashing, sirens off. They parked a few yards away, an officer exiting each, their faces shadowed by uniform hats. One—a tall thin kid who looked like he'd just graduated high school—had his hand on his gun.

“You have everything under control, Sheriff?” he called.

“Yeah,” Johnson responded, his eyes still focused on Lark. “You two stay here,” he barked, then he strode over to meet his deputies.

* * *

John was dead.

Lark didn't know how to feel about that.

He'd been shooting at Cyrus. He'd obviously been trying to kill him, but she didn't want him dead. She wanted him to have a chance to repent, to tell the truth about what had happened to Joshua. He'd known. She was nearly certain of it. He was probably responsible for Joshua's death. Whether he'd pulled the trigger or hired someone else to do it, the results had been the same. Joshua had died, and his blood had been on John's hands.

“He got what he was asking for, Lark,” Cyrus said as if he were reading her mind and knew exactly where her thoughts had gone.

“That won't make his death easier on his family,” she responded. “He has a wife and three children.”

“I know, and I'm sorry for them. But, John should have thought about what this would do to them before he decided to follow us into town.” He touched her arm, urged her to take a seat in Sheriff Johnson's car. She sat because her legs were shaky and her head still hurt, and because she didn't think she could stay on her feet for another second.

“They're going to be devastated.” Grace McDermott had always been shy and quiet, but she'd been kind, too. She'd bent over backward to make Lark feel comfortable in Amos Way.

Of course, when Lark returned, she'd avoided her like the plague. John's doing. He had iron-fisted control over his family and that included Grace, but Grace had loved him deeply, defended him staunchly.

“Don't carry their burdens, Lark. You have enough of your own to shoulder.”

“I'm not shouldering anything.”

He raised a dark brow, his eyes gleaming in the dim light.

“Okay,” she conceded. “I'm not shouldering anyone else's burden. But I've been where John's wife is about to stand. I know what it's like to lose someone you love. My concern for John's family has nothing to do with carrying their burden and everything to do with knowing how it feels to stand in those shoes.”

“I know it's difficult—”

“Saying it's difficult is like seeing a breathtakingly beautiful sunset and saying,
look,
the sun is going down
,” she snapped, because she hated that word.
Difficult
didn't begin to describe the anguish of losing a loved one. It didn't begin to express the depth of the heartache, the gaping wound that never quite healed.

“I'm sorry,” he said, the apology simple and sincere. No excuses, no trying to backtrack and say something else. Just...
I'm sorry
, and she appreciated that more than all the thousands of platitudes she'd received after Joshua's death.