Sawyer (12 page)

Cassidy cringed at that thought.

She shouldn’t be leaning on him like this. Shouldn’t be taking comfort in his arms. Because that could only lead to a broken heart.

Sawyer led her to the back door and the parking lot where he’d left the truck. But the moment he opened the door, he immediately stepped in front of her and drew his gun.

That put her heart in her throat, and Cassidy peered over his shoulder to see what had caused Sawyer to react that way.

It was Willy.

He was still talking on the phone and was pacing across the small parking lot. Willy stopped both the pacing and talking when he saw Sawyer’s gun.

“I might have a lead on Diane,” Willy said, putting his hand over the phone.

“Call me with it,” Sawyer snapped. Without taking his attention off Willy, he reached inside the door and took one of the keys off a peg on the wall. “Grayson, I need to use your SUV. My truck might have been compromised.”

Oh, mercy. She hadn’t even considered that, but she was glad Sawyer had. Willy could have put some kind of tracking device on the truck so the kidnappers could find the location of the safe house.

“I’ll check it after you’re gone,” Grayson assured him, and he joined them in the doorway.

“No need to draw your guns,” Willy snarled. “I’m just trying to help you.”

“Thanks,” Sawyer snarled back. “But right now, you can help us by leaving. You’re making my trigger finger itch.”

Willy didn’t seem particularly concerned about that. But he was angry. Maybe because of the gun. However, he kept glancing down at the phone, and he continued to do that even as he was leaving.

Sawyer waited several minutes before he stepped out. “Cassidy, stay here with Grayson,” he insisted.

With his gun still drawn, he fired glances all around before he used the keypad to unlock Grayson’s black SUV that was parked on the side of the building. If Willy or someone had indeed managed to plant a tracking device onto the truck, maybe they hadn’t done that to the other vehicle, as well.

When Sawyer reached the SUV, he stooped down and looked beneath it. Not just in one place but all around the vehicle. He unlocked it and opened the passenger’s-side door before he motioned for her to come out of the building.

Cassidy did, and she didn’t dawdle. She hurried to the SUV, and the moment she reached Sawyer, he helped her onto the seat.

There was some movement from the corner of her eye. Sawyer saw it, too, because he whipped in that direction. But it was Willy, still talking on the phone, this time while he paced on the sidewalk in front of the sheriff’s office.

Even though Willy didn’t appear to be paying any attention to them, Sawyer kept his gaze fastened to the man while he reached to shut her door.

However, reaching was as far as he got.

A shot exploded through the air.

Chapter Fourteen

Sawyer didn’t wait to see who’d fired the shot. He shoved Cassidy across the seat and plowed in after her. It wasn’t a second too soon because another shot tore through the door where he’d just been standing.

“Is it Willy shooting at us?” Cassidy asked.

Her voice was shaking. The rest of her, too. And he hated that she had to go through something like this again. He’d been a damn fool to take her out of the safe house, and that mistake could end up being a fatal one.

Sawyer cursed himself and lifted his head just slightly so he could look over the dash. He didn’t see Willy, but Grayson was in the back of the sheriff’s office, where Cassidy had just exited. His gun was drawn, and he was ready to return fire. But like Sawyer, Grayson probably couldn’t see the shooter, either.

That, however, didn’t stop them from hearing another shot.

“Who’s doing this?” Cassidy asked, putting her hands over her ears.

“I’m not sure.” But he intended to find out. He stayed in place with his body positioned in front of hers, and he looked around for any signs of the shooter.

Nothing.

To free up his hands, Sawyer shoved the keys in the ignition, but he didn’t turn on the truck’s engine. He wanted to be able to hear so he could pinpoint the location of the gunman. Plus, he didn’t want to drive away. Not until he knew it was safe. At least here he had backup and not just from Grayson. Mason was inside, too, and with one call, his other cousins could be on the way to help. But if he drove off, trying to get away from the shooter, he might make the situation even more deadly than it already was.

Sawyer’s phone buzzed, and he saw Mason’s name on the screen. “You see who’s doing this?” Sawyer immediately asked him.

“No, but I think the guy’s perched on the roof of the building across the street. I thought I saw the sunlight glint on the barrel of a rifle.”

“Any chance you can get someone over there to check it out?”

“I’m headed over there now. Gotta clear the streets first though.” With that, Mason hung up.

Good thing his cousin had thought of clearing the streets. Sawyer certainly didn’t want anyone walking by to be hit with a stray bullet. But just as important he had to keep Cassidy out of the path of any other shots.

Sawyer pinned his gaze to the roof of the building. Took aim.

And waited.

The seconds crawled by. With his heartbeat crashing in his ears. Cassidy’s heart was drumming out of control, too, because he could feel her pulse against his back.

Finally, Sawyer saw some movement. Not on the roof where Mason thought the shooter was, but rather on the back corner of the building across the street. It was just a blur of motion, and when Sawyer saw nothing else, he thought maybe it was the sunlight making everything difficult to see.

But no such luck.

The next thing he saw wasn’t a blur but someone reaching out from the building. That someone was holding a gun, and he fired a shot right at the truck. The bullet blasted through the window on the passenger’s side and sent the safety glass pelting Cassidy and him.

Praying that Mason had indeed gotten the sidewalks cleared, Sawyer levered himself up a little, and using the now-gaping hole in the glass, he returned fire. The gunman ducked out of sight, and before Sawyer could pull the trigger again, another shot came right at them.

This time from the roof.

Hell, there were two of them. At least. And if this was another kidnapping attempt, then the men were taking some huge risks because any one of those bullets could hit Cassidy and kill her.

Another shot came through the glass. The windshield this time. Sawyer shifted his position so he could push Cassidy onto the floor. It wouldn’t stop a bullet from reaching her, but it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

Grayson came out the back door and took aim at the roof. Since he had that particular area covered, Sawyer concentrated on the side of the building. He hoped by now that Mason was closing in on these morons.

Sawyer’s phone buzzed again, and because he didn’t want to look away, he handed it to Cassidy. She hit the answer button, put it on Speaker and almost immediately the sound of a woman’s voice poured through the truck.

“Don’t shoot,” she said.

Even though he had only heard her voice a few times, Sawyer had no trouble recognizing it.

It was Diane.

“Where are you?” Sawyer demanded.

“On the side of a building in Silver Creek. I’m with the man who just fired a shot. But please, don’t shoot back because he’s using me as a human shield.”

Sawyer cursed. That was not what he wanted to hear.

“Listen to her,” a man snarled, “or she’s right—she’ll die.”

“Who are you?” Sawyer snapped.

“Somebody who’s gonna kill the doc unless you do exactly as I say. We’ll trade the doc for Cassidy.”

It took Sawyer a moment to get his teeth unclenched. “Not a chance. Why do you want her anyway?”

“This ain’t personal,” the man said as if that would make everything better. “It’s just about the money. We want the other half of that ransom she was supposed to pay for her brother. I figure if we have her, then her brother can pay.”

Yeah, but the last time these idiots held a woman captive, she ended up dead. That wasn’t going to happen to Cassidy.

“Let Dr. Blackwell go,” Sawyer ordered them, though he knew there was no way he could enforce that order. “And then we’ll talk.”

“I must sound pretty stupid if you think we’d do that,” the man snapped. “The doc’s not going anywhere until I see Cassidy out of that truck and making her way toward us. Youʼve got three minutes to make up your mind, or we start shootin’ again.”

“You’re not getting Cassidy,” Sawyer practically yelled into the phone, but he was talking to the air because the kidnapper had already hung up.

“They won’t shoot me,” Cassidy said. “I—”

“No.” Sawyer had no intention of letting her finish, because it wasn’t even an option on the table. “You’re not going out there.”

“But they could kill Diane.”

“They could kill both of you,” Sawyer pointed out. “All of this could be a trick to get you out in the open, and as soon as they get the ransom money, you could end up like April.”

Yeah, it was harsh, but she needed to know that he wouldn’t budge on this.

“Call Grayson for me,” Sawyer instructed.

She did, but Cassidy still didn’t stop mumbling about going out there.

“They have Diane,” Sawyer said the moment Grayson answered. “She said she’s on the side of the building.”

Sawyer heard Grayson relay that to his brother. “One of them called Mason,” Grayson added to Sawyer a moment later. He paused. “The man told him that they had Bennie, too.”

“No!” Cassidy would have bolted from the seat if Sawyer hadn’t caught on to her.

“They’re probably lying,” Sawyer reminded her. “If they had Bennie, don’t you think they would have used him instead of Diane?”

That stopped her from struggling, and after a few seconds she gave a shaky nod. “Old habits,” Cassidy said under her ragged breath. “It’s instinct to try to rescue him.”

Sawyer understood that, and he was betting that Bennie’s irresponsibility had led Cassidy to rescue him plenty of times. But it wouldn’t happen today—even if by some miracle Bennie was indeed out there.

More movement caught his eye, and Sawyer saw Grayson dart out from the back of the sheriff’s office, and he hurried across the small parking lot to a building to the right of the vehicles. He had his phone in his left hand and his gun in the other.

“Mason’s about a block up from the sheriff’s office. He’s going to cross the street so he can try to sneak up on the one who’s holding Diane,” Grayson explained. “We need to distract the shooter on the roof. If he’s still there.”

And that was a big
if
. It had been minutes since Sawyer had caught a glimpse of the guy, and he could have already come down a fire-escape ladder to join his partner.

“Distract them?” Cassidy asked. “How?”

“With bullets,” Sawyer supplied. “It’s the only thing that’ll get their attention.”

Sawyer waited until Grayson took aim and fired. Not at the back of the building, where they had last spotted Diane. Instead, Grayson shot at the front, and Sawyer did the same. The shots were far enough away so they wouldn’t ricochet and hit Diane.

He hoped.

“Mason got across,” Grayson said a few moments and shots later. “I’m heading over there now.” And he took off running up the block so he could approach from the left.

However, Grayson had barely gotten out of sight when Sawyer got more than another glimpse of Diane. Without warning, her captor thrust her out into the open, and this time, he saw that she had her hands cuffed in front of her. She yelled something. A plea that tugged at every lawman’s instincts in his body.

Help me
.

Sawyer wanted to do just that, but he wouldn’t play by the kidnapper’s rules.

His phone buzzed again, and Cassidy answered it on speaker.

“How long you want this to go on?” Not one of his cousins. But the kidnapper.

Sawyer opened his mouth to answer “as long as it takes,” but he got that prickly feeling going up his spine. The one that told him something other than the obvious wasn’t right. Why would the kidnappers want to drag this out when they knew there were lawmen within shooting distance?

They wouldn’t draw it out.

They would attack, and if that didn’t work, then they’d escape, regroup and make another attempt. Well, this clearly hadn’t worked. It was a standoff.

Or was it?

Sawyer whipped around and looked out the back window of the SUV. It wasn’t a second too soon. Because he instantly saw an armed man wearing a ski mask. The guy was skulking toward them and was only a few yards from the driver’s side of the vehicle. Another second or two and the kidnapper would have been right on them.

“What’s wrong?” Cassidy asked.

But Sawyer didn’t have time to answer her. He aimed at the man and fired. The bullet hit him squarely in the chest, and despite the fact he was falling to the ground, he pulled the trigger. The shot tore through the SUV. Not just the glass this time. It came through the metal just below the window and slammed into the dash.

Only inches from Cassidy.

And it wasn’t the only shot. Others started to pelt the SUV. And they weren’t coming from the kidnapper on the ground. Sawyer was pretty sure the guy was dead. These shots came from across the street in front of the sheriff’s office. A frantic flurry of gunfire. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought the shots weren’t just coming from the kidnappers but someone else.

Mason probably.

Sawyer heard a scream, causing his adrenaline to spike. It hadn’t come from Cassidy but from Diane. With her hands still cuffed, he spotted her running away from the building and in the direction Sawyer had last seen Grayson.

Hopefully, Grayson would be able to get the woman out of harm’s way. While he was hoping, Sawyer added that Mason would have a clean shot at these morons.

Because Sawyer sure didn’t.

He could only sit there, sheltering Cassidy, while the shots continued. He wasn’t sure how many seconds passed. It seemed like a million, and with each of those seconds, he realized he could lose Cassidy.

That thought caused him to curse.

Because that shouldn’t be on his mind. His entire focus should be on the attack, and that was a clear reminder that his feelings for her had put her in a dangerous situation.

From the corner of his eye, Sawyer spotted Grayson. Alone. And he was taking cover behind one of the vehicles. Obviously, he hadn’t been able to get to Diane. He hoped that didn’t mean the woman was dead, but it had be a miracle if she managed to get through all of this.

Grayson leaned out of the vehicle, fired a shot at the gunman. From up the street, he could hear Mason do the same. What Sawyer couldn’t hear was the gunmen returning fire.

“They’re getting away,” Sawyer shouted to Grayson.

Sawyer wasn’t sure Grayson would be able to hear him over the gunfire, but judging from Grayson’s body language, he had. Grayson said something into his phone still clutched in his left hand, and he darted out from cover.

“They can’t get away,” Cassidy whispered, her voice trembling.

She was right. They needed these criminals behind bars or the attacks would continue. The next time they might succeed in kidnapping Cassidy. Or killing her.

“Wait with Cassidy,” Sawyer shouted to Grayson. “Make sure there aren’t others trying to sneak up on us.”

Grayson nodded, hurried to the SUV and threw open what was left of the driver’s door.

“No. You can’t go out there,” Cassidy said when Sawyer got out. She tried to hold him by his arm, but he shook off her grip.

“I have to do this.” He didn’t look down at the fear he knew would be in her eyes.

Sawyer readied his gun and ran toward the kidnappers.