Chase joined them.
Don't blow,
he prayed, thinking of the truckload of ANFO set to explode at any minute. Sweat drenched him beneath his fatigues and heavy vest, but his training kicked in, as he focused on sweeping the child on the front steps out of harm's way while the entry team stormed past, into the building.
With the young girl in his arms, Chase turned tail, sprinting from the building. His respect for the entry guys soared to phenomenal heights. He could hear them shouting at the civilians to evacuate. The more reluctant members had to be wrestled outside, where the dead couple still lay in a mangled heap on the steps.
Chase glanced down at the fragile life in his arms. The little girl couldn't have been more than five or six. She'd been shot in the shoulder and was losing blood fast.
"Keep going," he urged the civilians scurrying in panicked confusion around him. "Other side of the parking lot."
He laid the girl in the grass. As he hunted through the pockets of his ballistic vest for medical gauze—anything to stop the blood from pouring out of her—he realized he was shaking. Badly.
Maybe it was this unlikely location—the heart of America, where shit like this wasn't supposed to happen. It could have been the tender age of the girl herself. Whatever the reason, this situation was upsetting the hell out of him.
The couple he'd left for dead on the steps were probably her parents. Pressing a square of gauze to the welling bullet wound, he was struck by the cruelty of her circumstances.
He was feeling the girl's weak but steady pulse when Hannah dropped onto her knees beside him.
"Oh, no." She looked behind her at the couple still lying on the steps. "Oh, God."
"She'll live," Chase said in a rough voice, though he doubted she would even want to live when she realized that her parents were gone forever.
Hannah put a comforting arm around him. "I need to see how Flint and Sievers are coming along with the bomb."
No one would breathe deeply until word came that the detonation cord had been severed.
Chase, who'd been listening to the wail of ambulances for what seemed an eternity, waved down the first ambulance to scream up the country club's long lane.
Two others bounced onto the golf course, toward the victims who'd been shot on the green.
"All clear," Chase heard in his mike. "The bomb is rendered safe. The building secured."
A halfhearted cheer went up among the SOT members and bystanders.
With relief, Chase relinquished the girl to paramedics, who packed her shoulder in ice and lifted her onto a gurney. He was still standing there with his heart in his throat when her eyes flickered open and she looked straight at him.
Something in her pretty eyes reminded him of Sara.
Disconcerted, Chase turned away to help round up the skinheads, who were promptly read their rights.
Willard Smith, on the other hand, was being zipped into a body bag.
Trying to shake off his jitters, Chase watched Hannah weave in and out of the milling crowd, making notes into a handheld tape recorder. The sudden vibrating of his cell phone had him reaching into his thigh pocket, heart rate leaping with the adrenaline that hadn't fully receded. Who could be calling him?
He frowned at the familiar number, trying to place it. "This is Chase," he said, needing a clue.
Heavy breathing sounded on the other end.
"Who's this?" he demanded, unsettled by the sound.
"Tell Sara..."
The whispered words brought every hair on his head standing at attention, especially when it came to him that the number was Rachel Jensen's.
He covered his other ear in order to hear over the noise around him. "Tell her what? Are you okay?"
"He's coming ..."
"Who's coming?"
A muffled thud on the other end told him that Rachel had dropped the receiver. "Shit!" Chase hissed, severing the call. He immediately returned it, but the line was busy. Next he dialed the number to the ranch.
"Come on,"
he urged, as the phone rang and rang, "answer the phone, Sara!"
But no one answered.
"Problem?" asked a familiar voice. It was Dean Cannard, standing directly behind him. He'd just overheard Chase call Sara by her real name.
Ignoring the man, Chase hurried toward Hannah, who was helping an officer identify one of the dead civilians. "I have to get back to the ranch," he said, trying to keep his words from coming out with gunfire urgency. "Can I borrow your car?"
But there was Dean, right behind him. "What's going on?" he demanded.
Chase glanced at him impatiently. "Back away, Cannard. This has nothing to do with you."
The detective wisely took a step back.
"Chase," Hannah admonished. Grabbing his arm, she steered him to one side. "What's the matter with you?"
"Sara's in trouble. I think Garret's found her. Can I borrow your car?"
"Oh, shit," she breathed. "I'm coming with you." She whipped her car keys off the ring on her web belt. She glanced at where Cannard was standing, glowering at them. "He might as well come, too," she said to Chase. "We may need police support."
"I know who Sara is," Cannard added, looking agreeable to Hannah's suggestion. "If she's in trouble, I'd like to help."
I
bet you would,
Chase thought with a spurt of jealousy. "Let's go," he said.
With Captain Lewis taking puzzled note of their retreat, the threesome raced for Hannah's red Mustang, parked at the country club entrance.
Sara carried the gardenia plant under one arm, as she and Linda Mae walked the perimeter of the yard, looking for just the right combination of sun and shade. It had been Chase's suggestion that their neighbor be invited over while he volunteered his services with the BAPD.
His concern for her and Kendal was touching, Sara had thought. But considering that he was leaving the next day, she didn't see what difference it made.
"It's so nice that you like to garden," Linda Mae commented. "So did Chase's mother."
Sara eyed the graveyard beneath the pecan tree. "Why don't we put the bush by Marileigh's grave?" she suggested.
"That's a lovely idea!"
Sara set the pot between Marileigh's and Blessing's headstones. Filtered by the leaves of the mammoth tree, the sun's rays would be constant, but never too harsh.
"Perfect," exclaimed the older woman.
Sara dug a hole eight inches deep. "Did you hear a phone ring?" she asked, looking up.
"No." Linda Mae cocked her silver head to listen. "But then my hearing's not the best."
Sara went back to work. She turned the plant out of its pot and centered the root ball in the hole. As she patted the earth down, she imagined that she heard the phone again. "Kendal?" she called, thinking that her son could answer it. Eric's mother had brought him home about an hour ago.
"Boo!" he said, jumping out from behind the tree trunk.
"Oh, my goodness!" Sara put a dirty hand to her chest. "Where did you come from?"
He grinned at her, obviously proud of his stalking capabilities. "You didn't even hear me," he boasted.
"No, I didn't. I guess you're getting good at walking like Chase."
The sound of a vehicle coming up the driveway had her glancing over her shoulder with pleasure that she couldn't squelch. It had to be Chase, who'd been gone for hours. But the maroon sedan that eased out of the tree line was unfamiliar. A trickle of foreboding had Sara coming to her feet. "Let's go inside," she said. "Someone's been trying to call, I think."
Grasping Kendal's hand, she hurried for the front door, aware that Linda Mae was following them with a puzzled expression. On the steps to the front porch, Sara looked back, telling herself she was overreacting. The skinheads were being dealt with today, and Garret would never find her here. She and Chase were both certain of that.
But then the glare that sat on the car's windshield lifted as the sedan passed beneath the pecan tree, and suddenly Sara could see the driver clearly. His height made him instantly recognizable. So did the pinched, angry look on his face as he bore down on them.
Oh, merciful God, it's Garret. He's found us!
While one part of her insisted that she only had to stand her ground and reason with him, another part of her whispered the need to flee and flee quickly. They were well beyond the point of reasonable conversation.
"Quick, honey," she said to Kendal. "Out the back door and into the truck."
As they raced through the kitchen, she could hear Garret addressing Linda Mae, who'd parked herself on the front steps, hindering his entrance.
The truck was in the barn today, but the barn doors stood open. "Run," Sara urged, and they sprinted across the backyard, out of Garret's sight. She indicated for Kendal to clamber through the driver's side door. He did, grabbing his seat belt and locking it into place, his face ghostly pale. Sara spared a glance for the buck rifle, which was mounted to the gun rack behind her. God forbid that she might actually have to use it!
With fingers that shook, she turned the key.
The engine rumbled to life.
Flooring the accelerator, she shot out of the barn and around the house, where Garret stood menacing Linda Mae, his gaunt cheeks mottled with rage. They both looked up, astonished to see Sara roar by, flinging up dust and gravel.
Watching in her rearview mirror, Sara saw Garret run for his car. She accelerated, gripping the steering wheel until her knuckles ached.
She tried to wake herself from what was surely a nightmare. This couldn't be happening. Just when she was certain that her life had started anew and the past would never find her.
With an ice pick of fear stabbing him in the chest, Chase noticed the dust hanging over the driveway as Hannah braked beside Linda Mae Goodner. The woman stood before the house, wringing her hands, eyes wide with fright. She stepped over to Chase as he lowered his window.
"Where's Sara?" he barked.
"She took off in the truck with Kendal—"
"How long ago?"
"Five minutes, maybe. Hurry! That man is chasing them!"
With a nod, Chase signaled to Hannah to turn around.
Linda Mae stepped back, and Hannah flew into reverse, flinging the Mustang 180 degrees to point it in the right direction. Cannard, who sat in the backseat with his knees to his ears, gave a hoarse screech.
"Hold on there, cowboy," Hannah warned him. "Where are we going, Chase?"
"I don't know."
Would Sara have had the sense to drive into town, headed straight for the police station? Or would she automatically take the route she'd traveled several times now, away from Broken Arrow, toward the Muskogee Turnpike?
"Left or right?" Hannah asked him when they came to the head of the driveway.
Chase surveyed the asphalt in either direction. He lowered his window and sniffed the air. "Right," he said, detecting a trace of exhaust fumes left by an oil-burning vehicle.
Hannah accelerated to sixty in mere seconds, flinging the occupants of the car against their seats.
Chase forced himself to consider the worst-case scenario: The truck was slow and easy to overtake. Garret could pass her, force her to stop, walk straight up to her, and shoot her dead.
If he had a gun. If he was that unbalanced.
On the other hand, the truck was built like a tank. If Sara had the nerve to do it, she could slam into Garret's car and just keep on driving.
Come on, baby.
He knew she had more gumption than she gave herself credit for.
"Let's get a chopper in the air," Cannard suggested, his voice slightly higher than usual. "Once the truck's spotted, we'll get troopers on the road and pull this bastard over." He pulled a cell phone from his pocket.
Chase nodded, grateful now that they'd brought the detective with them. "Thanks," he said over his shoulder. "Take the highway east," he added to Hannah.
He had to brace himself as she took the ramp on two wheels.
Almost immediately, he had reason to doubt his decision. The traffic ahead of them was sparse, and the land stretch flat for miles, but he couldn't see the back of the Silverado.
He must have made a sound of suffering or pain because Hannah put her hand on his arm. "We're going to get her back, Westy," she said, as steady as a rock.
He thought about the young girl who'd lost her parents this morning. Life was unbelievably indifferent when it came to who should live, who should die.
That thought reminded him that Sara's mother had barely sounded alive when she called Chase to warn him of Garret's approach. Snatching up his cell phone, he dialed her number, only to find the line still busy.
Which meant that Rachel was either dead or unconscious.
He busied himself in the next few minutes making calls to ensure that emergency vehicles were bearing down on her home in Dallas to check on her.
In the backseat, Cannard was also on the phone, choreographing a roadblock with the Wagoner police, into whose jurisdiction they were headed. "Chopper's in the air," he relayed to Chase and Hannah.
Chase felt the tension in him building, a nauseating mix of fear and rage. Emotion never factored into his missions. But this wasn't a mission. This was personal.
Snatching the SIG from the holster on his thigh, he extracted a fresh magazine from his ballistic vest and exchanged it for the one that was no longer full.
Hannah glanced at him sidelong. "You can't shoot him, Chase. Not unless he's threatening Sara's life," she warned.
He slid the new magazine into place and secured it with a satisfying
click.
His promise to Sara hadn't been an idle one. Garret was a terrorist, no different from the hostiles Chase targeted for a living. He might not have orders to take him out, but that wouldn't stop him from killing him, not if he dared to harm a hair on Sara's head.
Sweat slid down Sara's spine as she edged her speed even higher. Her stomach roiled. Every muscle in her body was clenched in fear.
Garret has found me. He's right behind us. Oh, God.
"Where're we going, Mom?" Kendal asked.