Another scream shook the night. The cop spun from her and reached into his patrol car. She heard the click from his radio, the crackle of static. “This is Officer McHenry. I’m on LeRoy, and we need—”
A twig snapped. The single sound shouldn’t have been so loud, but it was.
It had come from behind her. From the narrow line of woods behind the patrol car.
Her heart raced even faster. The cop hadn’t heard the twig snap. He was still talking on the radio. The snap, it could have been nothing. Could have been from an animal. A squirrel. A possum. She sucked in a deep breath. Then one more. She couldn’t let the fear push through her.
The threat was inside the house. That was where the screams were coming from. Inside, not out here.
The cop spun back toward her. “We’ve got more help on the way, ma’am. You should get in the car until—”
His words broke off in a desperate gurgle as the point of a knife came through the front of his shirt. It had gone into his back and come out of his chest.
His mouth hung open and under the moonlight, his whole body trembled as he staggered—then fell to the ground.
Lauren whirled away from him. Safety was in the house. She opened her mouth and screamed as loudly as she could. “Anthony!”
She was tackled from behind. Lauren hit the ground with an impact that bruised her whole body.
Anthony kicked in another door, and in the cavernous darkness, his flashlight fell on the man cowering in the corner.
“Steve Lynch?” he demanded as Paul rushed into the room behind him. It looked like the guy from the grainy photo he’d seen at the station.
The man nodded and lifted his hands before his eyes, as if trying to shield from that bright light.
Anthony kept his flashlight trained on Steve as Paul’s light swept around the room. There was no one else in that place. No damn body else, and as far as Anthony could see, there wasn’t so much as a scratch on Lynch.
“What the hell is going on?” Anthony asked as he took another step toward Lynch. The more he studied him, Anthony realized how different Lynch appeared from his driver’s license photo. Thinner, haggard. Terrified.
“I had to do what he…wanted…” Lynch whispered. “He has…Helen.”
Anthony’s gut clenched. Then he heard the thunder of footsteps coming down the hallway.
He spun away from Lynch, just in time to see two uniformed cops rush into the room.
Anger pulsed through him. “You’re supposed to be outside with the DA!”
The cops froze. “We were securing the back exit, sir!” one shouted.
There was no need to secure the back exit. Walker wasn’t here. He wasn’t…
Anthony turned back around, frowning. From Lynch’s position, he would have been able to look out the side window—a window just inches away from him—and see the cops. “You screamed to get us inside.” Shit, shit.
“I’m sorry! He made me! He said I had to scream—” Lynch’s cry followed Anthony as he raced from the room, but he didn’t stop. He was running as fast as he could toward the front door. Paul was behind him, shouting for him to stop. Did the fool not realize what was happening?
Lynch hadn’t been Walker’s target. The guy had been the f**king bait.
The target was the same one Walker had been focused on all along.
Lauren.
He burst out of the house, shouting her name. One look at the patrol car, with its door swinging open, and he knew something had happened. Something bad.
No!
He jumped off the porch. Leaped for the car. He saw the downed cop. The man had fallen face-first into the earth, a knife shoved deep into his back. “Lauren!” he yelled.
Paul’s footsteps thundered after him.
Anthony bent and put his fingers to the downed cop’s throat. A pulse still beat there, barely. Damn barely. He whirled to face Paul. “Get an ambulance!”
“Lauren?” Paul said, fear cracking her name.
He didn’t know where she was.
Not in the house.
He spun back around and faced the woods. His flashlight cut through the darkness. Near the left, it looked like two branches were bent back. As if someone had rushed through that spot.
He ran into the woods. Twigs slapped at him, but he ignored them. He had to get through the woods. He wasn’t losing Lauren.
His foot smashed down onto something. Something that cracked beneath his weight. Fuck, a phone. He froze, then bent, grabbing it quickly. The screen was broken, but the phone still worked, and he recognized the image saved there—he’d seen it on Lauren’s phone when she’d used it before.
The SOB had taken her this way. Anthony started running again. Faster, faster. The woods stretched and twisted before he hit a path that split in two directions. Which damn path? Which one? “Lauren!”
She wasn’t answering his shouts. He wouldn’t let himself imagine why she wasn’t answering. He couldn’t think about that and stay sane.
The squeal of brakes shattered the night. To the left. He clenched his gun tight and rushed to the left, moving as fast as he could go. More twigs and branches cut into him, but Anthony didn’t care. There was only one thing that mattered to him then. Just one.
He would get her back.
Anthony burst from the woods just as a pair of taillights raced down an old, two-lane highway. The car was fishtailing and shooting up gravel in its rush to get away.
You won’t get away. Anthony lifted his weapon, preparing to fire.
“No!” Paul’s voice. The detective burst out of the woods behind him. “Are you f**king crazy?” Paul demanded. “Lauren could be in that car!”
Could be? She was—and Walker was taking her away. If Walker took her to a second location—
Anthony’s eyes narrowed as he took aim at the back tire.
Then Paul jumped in front of him. “You aren’t shooting! I don’t know how the hell you marshals normally handle things, but you aren’t shooting at her!”
The car vanished around the bend.
Fuck, f**k. Anthony shoved his gun into its holster, dropped his flashlight, and yanked out his cell phone. Two seconds later, he had Matt on the phone. “Get a roadblock up at the end of—of—” Where the hell were they? He tried to picture the map he’d studied earlier, one that showed Lynch’s property. The images flew through his head. “Lincoln Road.” That was the road he was on—it was also a road that was surrounded by woods on the north and west. “Walker’s out there. He has Lauren—”