“Shhh.” He pressed a finger to his lips, then aimed it across the street where a silver SUV slowly cruised by then disappeared from view as it continued down the street, beyond a stand of trees.
Her heart was already thumping wildly from anger, then alarm, when he’d yanked her behind the car. Now, she exhaled heavily and sat down hard on the pavement, her legs gone weak. “That was the drug dealer’s car, wasn’t it? The one we saw him talking to a few days ago?”
“Yeah. Pretty sure.” He didn’t rise from their hiding spot but pivoted on his toes to face her. “Sorry I jerked you down like that, but I don’t want anyone in the local drug market to have any reason to remember you or associate you with anything suspicious.”
She raked her sweat-dampened hair back from her face and nodded. “It’s okay. You just…startled me.”
“You okay then? I didn’t hurt you?”
She gave him a wry look. “It takes more than a tug on the arm to injure me. I’ve survived a lot worse and lived to tell the tale.”
He frowned. “That’s a story I’d like to hear someday if you’re willing.”
Jules snorted a laugh and cocked her head. “You have a thing for tales of woe, Colton? Isn’t that kinda macabre?”
“What I have a thing for is you,” he said gently, his hand moving to her cheek. “And I want to know more about you—the good, the bad and the history of whatever and whomever hurt you in the past.”
A shiver raced through her despite the July heat.
“Come on,” he said, releasing Pilot’s collar and offering her a hand up. “Coast is clear. Let’s get this evidence back to the office before Hamilton or that SUV sees us.”
Jules dusted grit from her knees, hating that despite what she considered proof of Hamilton’s menace to society, they were walking away without putting the man in handcuffs. “I still want to look Chase in the eye and confront him with what we know about him stalking Zoey. I want him to know that what he did to Abby hasn’t been forgotten and—”
She stopped abruptly, noticing a familiar figure leaving the distributor building and approaching his white truck. And something inside her snapped.
Her body taut with loathing and frustration, she started marching back across the street toward Chase Hamilton.
“Jules!” Cal hissed in a stage whisper. “Stop!”
But adrenaline and indignation raged in her blood. She trembled with it, thinking of Abby’s breakdown, the fear in Zoey’s eyes…
“Hey!” she called, her tone dark and angry.
Chase looked up at her, but only for a second. Instead, his gaze shifted to the silver SUV that, with a screech of tires, wheeled around the corner and raced toward them.
Chapter 22
The SUV’s tinted window came down. A muzzle appeared. Shots were fired.
Chase dove into his truck.
Jules gasped her shock and ran for the cover of the nearest car, two down from Chase’s pickup. Something smacked into her, knocking her down as if pushed. She banged her head on the car fender as she tumbled down.
With another squeal of tires, the SUV roared away.
Kneeling on the hot pavement, Jules struggled for a breath, her brain trying to assess what had just happened. Her thoughts and the world around her seemed to move in slow motion.
She heard someone calling her name. Chase revved the engine of his truck and sped away. A grating ache bit her elbow and hip. A sharper throb pounded at her temple. And her side hurt, burned with a ferocious stinging.
Then Cal was at her side, all traces of his usual happy-go-lucky teasing and mild manner gone. His face was flushed with…what? Anger? Heat? Or was it…fear?
“Jules!” His eyes raked over her even as his hands gently rolled her over on the hot asphalt. “Oh, God! You’re bleeding.”
His voice sounded winded in a way she’d never heard before.
She tried to sit back up, stunned, her thoughts muddled. She had to do something…didn’t she? What had she been doing before she fell?
“Lie still. I’m calling help,” Cal said, even as she saw his shaking hand raise his phone to his ear. “Yeah, I need anambulance at the Red Grove Food Distributors parking lot. GSW and other injuries.”
