Well, she saw a silhouette anyway. His shoulders hunched, and his rifle was braced.
Laney lifted her weapon, sighted in, and waited for Harlan’s distraction. She had no doubts it’d be coming very soon now that she was in place. And she was right.
“Over here,” Harlan shouted, levering himself up just enough to become a tempting easy target.
When Harlan’s shout rang out, the silhouetted figure jerked toward him, and that’s when Laney took the shot.
And she missed, damn it.
The shot she’d fired made the shooter duck, but it didn’t drop him. He bolted for deeper brush, vanishing in a tangle ofcedar and mesquite. Laney’s pulse spiked. If he got far enough ahead, they would lose him. No way did she want that to happen.
Harlan caught her eye and pointed left, toward a narrow animal trail that cut around the thicket. She understood immediately. If she moved fast, she could get ahead of their attacker and block his escape. Harlan would be close by, moving at the SOB from a different angle.
She pushed through the brush, boots sinking into sandy soil. The trail curved, hemmed in by thorny scrub, but she kept her head low and her steps quick. Every snap of a twig under her boot sounded too loud, but she couldn’t slow down now.
Through the lattice of branches, she caught glimpses of movement—a shoulder here, the flash of a rifle barrel there. He was heading right where she thought he would. She tightened her grip on her weapon, ready to step out and cut him off.
The rustle of brush to her right told her Harlan was keeping pace on the other side. If they timed it right, the shooter wouldn’t see them coming until it was too late.
Movement flickered in the brush ahead. Laney swung her gun toward it, pulse pounding in her ears. A figure broke from cover, dressed in dark clothes and a black ski mask.
Her breath caught. That mask. It looked like the same person she had spotted the day before with a camera trained on her and Harlan after they’d discovered the bomb near the culvert.
The shooter didn’t slow. He pivoted toward them, rifle up. She squeezed off a shot, the crack splitting the air. The masked figure twisted at the last second, her bullet chewing bark from a tree trunk.
“Laney, down!” Harlan’s voice came sharp from her left.
Another shot rang out, his this time, and the figure darted back into the tangle of mesquite and scrub.
Laney kept her weapon up, scanning for movement, every muscle tight and ready. Whoever it was could have been any of them. Sherry. Billy. Brannigan.
The brush swallowed the shooter whole, leaving only the echo of her own breathing and the dry rasp of wind through the trees.
The brush went still, the silence heavier than the gunpowder in the air.
Laney’s gaze darted along the tree line, searching for the smallest flicker of movement, but there was nothing. Just shadows and the slow sway of branches in the breeze.
She took a step toward the cover where the masked figure had disappeared, her finger tight on the trigger.
“No,” Harlan said sharply from behind her. “Don’t. Could be a trap. Could be more than one shooter. Could be explosives.”
She froze, jaw clenched. He was right, but every part of her screamed to push forward, to chase, to drag whoever it was out of the trees and make them talk.
Laney lowered her gun, the frustration burning hot in her chest. She cursed under her breath.
Whoever it was had just made their move, had just tried to kill her and Harlan. And she still had no damn idea who they were or why they wanted them dead.
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Chapter Eight
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Harlan pulled the new truck into the drive, the scent of fresh leather still strong enough to mask the faint tang of gunpowder that lingered in his memory. His boss, Noah Riggs, hadn’t wasted time getting a new truck to him, and it was fully equipped, every inch of it meant for protection and pursuit.
Laney sat quietly beside him, her fingers curled in her lap. The pale set of her mouth told him she was still rattled. Truth was, so was he. They had come close to dying today. Hard not to be rattled to the core by that.
He cut the engine and just sat there, letting the silence stretch for a beat. There was so much at stake. Not just their lives but Evie’s and Carol’s, too. Because this son of a bitch had already been here, at the house, in Evie’s room, and that kind of gall, or desperation, meant this person wouldn’t stop until they stopped him.
