Love Inspired Suspense April 2015 #1 (29 page)

Was this what war felt like? Feeling the futility of the situation, knowing the enemy was stronger than you? Waiting to be shot, wondering if each breath was the last before a bullet sliced through you?

When I'm shot, what will it feel like?

Rick had shoved her forward, shouting instructions at her, but her confused mind had jumbled them.
Run. To the cabin. Don't look back. Don't stop.

“Go! Go! Go!”

The running felt surreal, as though she were moving through the landscape of a vaguely familiar nightmare. Stephanie didn't think, only ran. She remembered the foam earplugs were still in place. She popped them out and dropped them to the ground. She heard Rick's gun firing behind her, she heard him screaming something, but she did not stop.

Each step and heartbeat brought a question. Step.
Am I alive?
Beat.
Is Rick behind me?
Step.
How much farther?
Step.
Where is Axle?
She reached the tree line and the path toward the cabin. She stopped.
Wait, where
is
Axle?

Stephanie spun around, searching before she even knew what she was looking to find. Her eyes locked on Rick crouched behind the log for cover. Why wasn't he following her? He promised he would be right behind her.

The desperation in the commands Rick screamed paralyzed her. A flash of brown drew her eye farther down the river's bank. Axle sprinted toward Rick, the dog's athleticism and heroic heart on display leaving her breathless. His determination to ignore Rick's commands and to protect his master sent her to her knees. She heard the shots firing again, hating how helpless she was to stop what was about to happen. Axle flew at Rick, knocking him to the ground. She covered her ears, unable to accept that Axle had been shot, unable to stand the raw agony she heard in the dog's wails of pain.

THIRTEEN

T
he bullets were silent again, leaving only Axle's cries to compete with the river's roar. Each of the dog's painful yelps entered Rick's heart like a knife.

“Oh, buddy. I'm so sorry.” Rick's hands shook as they hovered over Axle's writhing body. He was afraid to touch, but he needed to search for the wound. He gently worked through the fur, looking for where the bullet entered. He found a small hole in the back of his upper right shoulder and a larger exit wound on his front shoulder. He must have taken the bullet as he dived through the air for Rick.

“Hang in there, partner. You're going to be okay.” Rick continued to croon words of comfort as he worked, trying to keep Axle still.

“You have to be okay.” Tears welled, threatening to fall. Not much could make Rick cry. When he was a kid, if his dad or his grandfathers ever caught him crying, they would insist he knock it off and act like a man. Grandpa Powell would smack Rick on the arm and tell him to cowboy up. The last time he had cried was during his parents' divorce, in private, sitting inside his bedroom closet where no one could witness it. He hadn't even allowed himself to cry over Allie's leaving him.

With Axle quivering in pain before him, he was finding it difficult to cowboy up this time, but Axle needed him to be strong and to think clearly without letting the emotion take over. Rick willed away the tears. He would not lose Axle. He wouldn't even allow himself to think it. They hadn't battled this hard to survive these past months to have it end like this.

“You coward!” Rick screamed across the river in the direction he thought Hale was hiding, but his accusation echoed back to his own ears. Hale probably couldn't hear him. Was he even still up there? The gutless cur had probably already run away.

Hale's rifle remained silent, tempting Rick to make a run for it himself. He needed to get Axle to the truck and go for help, but what if moving Axle hurt him more? It was a risk he was going to have to take. But before Rick could scoop the dog into his arms, Stephanie stepped out from the tree line and started running toward him.

She was supposed to be in the cabin and safe by now. “What are you doing? Go back,” he hollered at her.

Ignoring him, she kept running, using a large flat piece of scrap metal as a shield.

He tried to wave her off, his voice hoarse from all of the yelling he had done. “Get back in the cabin. Are you insane?”

She slid to the ground next to them, spitting up pebbles as she landed. Fury at the ridiculous stunt she had just pulled pumped through his veins. “What were you thinking? Now I've got two of you to get out of here safely.”

“No, Rick, you don't understand. It's okay. I've figured something out.” She dropped the scrap metal on to the ground. “I found this by the cabin. We can use it to carry Axle, to keep him still in case he has any broken bones.”

He shook his head. “I told you no matter what was happening behind you, you were to get inside that cabin.”

“I know what you said,” she shouted. “But Axle needs help, and he wouldn't be hurt at all if it weren't for me. Besides, I've figured something out. When I was watching from the trail it occurred to me.” She looked at him as though her words should make perfect sense. Well, they didn't make any sense at all to him.

“What are you talking about?”

“Don't you see?” She reached for him and gripped his upper arms. “I am Axle's best shield.”

Rick's jaw dropped at her absurd claim. Shield? Rick pulled from her grip and pointed to the other side of the river. “That man up there with the gun? Remember him, Stephanie? He is shooting at us in order to kill you. Have you forgotten that?”

“You don't understand.” She crawled away from Rick across the gravel toward the blanket. Dragging it back, she covered the metal with it and made a bed for Axle.

There was no question. She had lost it, snapped somehow under the stress, but he didn't have time to figure her out. He scooped Axle gently onto the makeshift gurney and wrapped the blanket tightly around the dog. He hoped its warmth would prevent Axle from going into shock. He didn't like that Stephanie had put herself in so much danger to get it down here, but he had to admit he was thankful for the way to transport the sixty-five-pound dog without causing further injury.

“I'll pick up the rear, you lead,” he told her.

“Rick, you aren't listening to me.” She flung her hands in the air in frustration. “Keep me between you and Julian at all times.”

“I am not letting you turn suicidal on me, Stephanie.”

She grabbed his arm, looking desperate to make him understand her. “Trust me, Rick. Shooting me from a distance is not what Julian has in mind for me. I'm figuring out the way he operates. He won't hesitate to shoot you or Axle to prove his power or to get to me, but he won't shoot me.”

She bit her lip, and then she added in a voice so quiet he almost couldn't hear it above the river, “I think he has other plans for me.”

Her crazy theory had some merit. Sniper fire was not Hale's style. He strangled his victims, preferring a more up close and brutal method. Rick had seen files that Stephanie hadn't. The photographs of the women Hale had murdered played like a slideshow across his mind.

Rick remembered how long it had taken for the bomb to detonate at the hotel. Hale had protected Stephanie then, preserving her for his future plans. The FBI profile had said he was motivated by a need for power and dominance. Stephanie might be right. This could be another display of strength so she wouldn't forget who was in control. Even if he was willing to shoot Axle and Rick, Hale probably wouldn't be satisfied with killing Stephanie from afar.

Finally he conceded, “All right. But move quickly and stay low.”

* * *

Rick's foot pressed on the accelerator, his truck tires squealing around the corners on the steep mountain highway. With every curve, inertia pressed him hard against the driver's side door. He was pushing the speed as far as he dared. He didn't want to hurt Axle further with all of the bumps and sharp turns. Any faster and the next bend might send them soaring off a cliff.

Stephanie attempted to hold Axle still in the backseat with one hand and search Rick's cell phone for the nearest vet office with her other hand. She read out loud the directions to the closest one she could find.

“It's in Sedro-Woolley. Can we make it in time?”

“We have to make it in time,” he told her, or was he telling God how it was going to be?

Rick heard tears in Stephanie's songlike words as she comforted Axle. “Shhh. It's okay. It's okay. Hang in there, Axle. Not long now and we will get you all fixed up, boy.”

“Axle's a fighter,” Rick told Stephanie. The reassurance was for his own benefit as much as it was for hers. “He'll make it.”

When Rick was still in the hospital after the stabbing, the city bigwigs had decided they couldn't justify the huge vet bills for the surgeries Axle required. They concluded Axle was too badly injured to ever recover and that the most humane thing was to put him down. Rick had protested, begging from his hospital bed that they do all that was necessary to save Axle's life and he would personally cover the bills. No matter what they all thought, he was Rick's partner, and even if Axle never walked or ran or even worked again, he was Rick's friend, and Rick had never regretted that decision. Axle had fought so hard and come back stronger than ever, proving everybody wrong.

Rick glanced over his shoulder to the backseat again. Axle was still, calmed by Stephanie's soothing voice, breathing deeply through the pain. “You're a fighter, buddy. Don't forget that,” he commanded Axle. Rick knew in his gut that Axle would make it. He had to make it.

Rick thought back to the fancy ceremony he and Axle had attended after they'd recovered. They were both awarded the Medal of Valor. When the mayor handed Rick the box at the ceremony, he had felt like a hack accepting it. The intent of the award was to celebrate officers who go above and beyond the call of duty, showing great bravery or heroism without thought to their own safety in the face of extreme danger. Rick hadn't done anything exceptionally brave that night. He walked into a trap and almost got himself killed is what he had done. He had expected a reprimand or an internal affairs investigation, not a medal. He had felt ridiculous accepting the praise, and as soon as he got home that night he hid the box in his underwear drawer.

Not Axle. Rick had never seen Axle prouder. When the mayor slipped that medal over the dog's head, Axle's chest puffed out and he sat up as tall as he could possibly stretch himself. Later that evening when Rick tried to lift the ribbon off Axle's neck, Axle had growled at him and bared his teeth. It took two days before Rick could coax him into letting the medal go, and it was only after Rick showed him where the medal would be displayed.

You are a fighter, Axle. You're a hero, too.
Axle had just saved Rick's life. The dog he loved had just taken a bullet to protect him. Rick's heart ached. He pushed the accelerator a smidge farther. He would risk flying off the highway. He had to get to that vet in time.

* * *

Stephanie flipped through a copy of
Horse&Rider
magazine she had picked up off the end table in the waiting room, but she wasn't reading or even seeing, only occupying her hands. Rick paced. He sat down. He jumped back up. He paced some more. It was an excruciating wait, and she wished she knew how to comfort him. Every time she opened her mouth to say something, the words she planned seemed so cliché that she clamped her mouth shut again.

The staff behind the reception counter looked a little shell-shocked by the sheer number of law enforcement officers coming in and out the door of their tiny clinic. Stephanie wanted to say,
Welcome to my life.

Shelton and another detective had made an appearance, and the Skagit County sheriff had stopped by to interview them, leaving behind deputies to guard the clinic while others searched for Julian. They were the second local agency to show up. Stephanie appreciated their presence. If Julian could find them in the middle of a national forest, he could find them anywhere. She had learned her lesson. Never again would she let down her guard.

The rest of the cops who squeezed into the room were off-duty SPD officers, coworkers of Rick's who had driven north to support him when they heard about what had happened to Axle. Stephanie was beginning to understand what people meant when they talked about the law enforcement brotherhood. It was an amazing community.

She tossed the magazine down and replaced it with
Vets Life
instead. An adorable black-and-white pig smiled at her from the cover. She flipped, flipped, flipped the pages, not even reading a sentence, until she gave up and tossed the magazine on top of the other one.

Resting her head back against the wall, she closed her eyes. It was making her crazy that she couldn't
do
anything to help Rick or Axle other than sit here.

Stephanie knew nothing about dogs or gunshot wounds, but Axle had been in so much pain when she and Rick carried him in through these doors. She opened one eye and looked at Rick. The relationship he had with Axle was more than a typical pet and owner. As heartbreaking as it would be to lose a pet, for Rick, losing Axle was losing a comrade, a partner, someone who had faced death alongside him.

She stood up and stretched. For a moment she couldn't remember what day it was. Only Wednesday? How was that even possible?

She walked over to Rick, still unsure of what to say. He stopped pacing when she stood in front of him. She took one of his hands and squeezed it. “Rick. It's going to be okay.”

His expression iced over, and he jerked his hand away from her. Then pacing started again. “There are no guarantees, Stephanie. Outside of your civilian fairy-tale world, life usually isn't okay.”

She didn't want to feel the anger burning in her. She wanted to be understanding, but all she could think of was
don't take this out on me
.
Her nostrils flared as she breathed for composure. “You don't think I've seen my fair share of life? I'll skip the sob story about my dad abandoning us when I was only three years old, and the one about my mom checking out, counting on me to be the parent. I've been to
Africa
,
Rick. I've seen life.”

He looked at her with bloodshot eyes and a forlorn expression that melted away her anger. She stepped forward and embraced his stiff body. She held on.
Come on, Rick. Let me help. Let me share it.

“All I'm saying is that we got Axle in here. Surely the vet will be able to help him.”

Rick patted her back as if he were hugging a great-aunt. “Thanks, Stephanie.” He stepped away from her and rubbed his hands down his thighs a few times.

Stephanie tried not to let his dismissal hurt, tried to explain it away as his way of dealing with the anxiety. He was too tough a guy to want to lose it in front of these strangers and his coworkers, but the wall she sensed he had now constructed seemed insurmountable.

He's shutting me out.

The assistant spoke to Rick. “Dr. Bailey will be right out to talk with you as soon as he's finished up in there.”

Rick's jaw clenched. “Thanks.”

Stephanie wished Rick would look at her, not over her or around her, but actually at her. If she could make eye contact maybe she could read what he needed from her, but he stared ahead, watching the assistant plod away.

As they sat next to each other in silence, Stephanie had too much time to think about Julian Hale. Righteous anger burned inside her, but its companion was a slow vacuum of fear sucking her in. When it came to Julian, she was done asking “what” and “how”; now the most natural next question had to be “who.”
Who is next?

“Mr. Powell?”