All stared at her with expectant and skeptical gazes. These men and women had watched her grow up from a wee babe to the woman she was today. She held affection for each one, and their lack of confidence in her hurt.
Pressing her lips together, she covered Clem’s hand with hers. He felt like a Popsicle. “Clem, I can handle this,” she assured him and the others.
Her breath came out in little puffs. The ground beneath their feet crunched with a top layer of ice. “You all need to get inside somewhere warm. I can’t deal with more than one crisis at a time, and I sure don’t want to be having to give you mouth to mouth out here in the cold.”
Clem clucked. “Don’t get lippy with me, young lady.”
She smiled and patted his hand. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Now I’ve got to do my job.”
“Seems someone is already taking care of it,” Lucy said, pointing.
About ten yards down the beach, a man dressed from head to toe in black and wearing a mask that obscured his face struggled to drag something toward the water’s edge.
Audrey narrowed her gaze. Her pulse raced. Amid a tangle of seaweed and debris, she could make out the dark outline of a large body. She shivered with dread. That certainly wasn’t a fish, whale or shark. Definitely human. And from the size, she judged the body to be male.
And someone was intent on returning the man to the ocean.
Heart thrumming and adrenaline flooding her body, she took off at a fast clip, but the thirty-two pounds of gear she carried on her person, plus her bulky boots, made maneuvering in the sand difficult. Careful to keep from tripping over clumps of kelp and driftwood that had settled on the beach from the wind and ocean tide, she narrowed the gap.
“Hey!” she shouted. “Stop where you are! Sheriff’s department.”
The suspect froze, then dropped the prone man’s feet in the surf. The perpetrator whipped toward her with a large-caliber gun aimed in her direction.
Her breath caught. She faced her worst fear as an officer.
He fired. And missed.
The sound of the gun blast echoed through the morning air, scattering a flock of seagulls from the water’s edge. Fragments of sand pelted her uniform.
Stunned, Audrey dropped to her belly, knocking the wind momentarily out of her. Sand clung to her, getting in her mouth, her nose, as she drew in a breath. She fought through the panic and called on her training. She drew her sidearm. “Halt!”
He ignored her and ran across the sand, heading for the berm separating the road from the beach. She shot at him, the sound exploding in her brain and muffling the world.
He hunkered inward, protecting his head, but kept running. With her ears ringing, she jumped to her feet, torn between giving chase and checking on the man in the sand and making sure Clem and the others weren’t hit by the assault.
But the man with the gun posed a threat she needed to neutralize. Now, before he hurt anyone else.
She sprinted after him, kicking up sand with each step while radioing for help. “Shots fired! Officer needs backup.”
“Sheriff’s on his way!” came Ophelia’s barely audible reply through the fuzzy haze inside Audrey’s ears.
“Suspect heading toward Prescott Road,” Audrey relayed to the dispatcher, praying Ophelia could hear her, since she couldn’t be sure how loud or soft she was yelling because her hearing was muffled from the gunfire.
The deep drifts of sand hindered her progress but also the perpetrator’s.
Audrey gained on him while trying to aim her weapon. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”
Before she could pull the trigger, the suspect reached the berm and disappeared over the top. Tall sea grass obscured him from view. Deep grooves in the sand from his boots were the only sign he’d even been there.
Breathing heavily, Audrey reached the berm and crawled up the sandy embankment in a crouch. She crested the top in time to see a black Suburban peel away from the edge of the road and speed down the street. Before she could get off a shot, the vehicle careened around the corner and disappeared from view.
Frustrated, Audrey pounded the hard-packed sand with a fist. She thumbed her mic while sliding down the sandy berm. “I lost the suspect on Prescott. Black Suburban with missing plates and tinted windows.”
She didn’t wait to hear Ophelia’s answer as she scrambled to the sandy shore and hurried back toward the seawall. “Clem! Mary!”
The four popped up from behind the concrete barrier. “Here!”
Relief nearly made Audrey’s knees buckle. “Anyone hit?”
“No, Audrey,” Pat yelled back. “You?”
“You okay, Deputy Martin?” Lucy called out.
“I’m good.” She did an about-face and ran back to the man lying motionless on the shore. The water lapped at his feet. If she’d arrived any later, the man would be fish bait once again. How had the masked man known where he’d washed ashore?
Keeping her gaze alert, in case the assailant returned, she knelt down next to the supine body, noting with a frown that he was dressed in what could only be categorized as tactical attire, minus the hardware.
Definitely not a fisherman.
And definitely not from around here.
She pressed her fingers against the side of the man’s neck, fully expecting to find no pulse, as no one could survive for long in the frigid Atlantic Ocean, not to mention being exposed to the elements onshore. The skin on his neck was like ice, but beneath her cold fingers a pulse beat. Slow, but there!
With a renewed spike of adrenaline, she grabbed the mic on her shoulder. “Send the ambulance to the beach. We have a live one here. Hurry, though!”
“Copy that.” Ophelia’s surprise matched Audrey’s.
Audrey slipped her arms under the man’s torso and dragged him to the dry sand. Then she unzipped her jacket, thankful she’d worn her thick, cable-knit sweater over her thermals today, and shrugged out of the outerwear. She laid it over the man on the beach.
Turning to the group of town elders still gawking like she were the main act at the circus, she called out, “Clem, is that your truck parked out there?”
“Sure is,” he yelled back.
“Do you have any blankets or jackets? I need them!”
Clem and Pat hustled away, leaving the two older ladies huddled together, staring in her direction. Audrey turned her attention back to the man lying on the sand. Dark hair hung in chunks covering his face. Dried blood matted some of the hair near his temple. He had on black jackboots, similar to the ones she wore, black cargo pants, a black turtleneck and gloves.
She made a quick check for identification. None. She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Lord, I don’t know why this man has washed ashore here or what purpose You have, but I pray that he lives. Have mercy and grace on this man. And let us find the masked man without any lives lost. Amen.”
The man stirred and moaned as he thrashed on the sand, giving Audrey her first real glimpse of his face as his hair dropped away. Dark lashes splayed over high cheekbones. A well-formed mouth with lips nearly blue from the cold. He had handsome features. Curiosity bubbled inside her. Who was he and what was his story? Why was someone trying to kill him?
“Sir.” Audrey gave his shoulder a gentle shake.
A word slipped out of his mouth.
“What?” Audrey bent closer, turning her ear toward his mouth.
“Betrayed...” He stilled and slipped back into unconsciousness.
A sense of urgency trembled through