up the ground at a speed Ella could barely match. Her lungs burned, her chest heaved, but she didn’t dare ask him to slow down.
She felt the danger like she felt the cold air and the hard thump of her heart. It was there. Right behind them. Every nightmare she’d ever had and all the ones she hadn’t.
“This way,” Sam said, yanking her toward the edge of the road.
She was certain she heard feet pounding on the pavement behind them. She didn’t look. She was afraid of what she’d see.
A shot rang out, the sound reverberating through the stillness. A bullet slammed into a tree near her head, bits of bark flying into her face and hair.
She didn’t have time to react. Sam dragged her into the foliage, pushing through brambles like they were air.
Another shot rang out, whizzing past somewhere to her left.
“Get down,” Sam said, his voice clipped and hard as he swung around and pulled a gun from a belt holster. Smooth. Practiced. Effortless. As if he’d done it hundreds of times before.
She dropped to the ground as he fired three shots in rapid succession.
He dragged her up and into an all-out run before the sound faded away. He veered right, and she finally saw what they’d been running toward—an old Chevy truck tucked behind trees and bushes and hidden from the road.
“Let’s go!” Sam opened the passenger door, and she slid in, every nerve in her body alive with fear and adrenaline.
Seconds later, Sam climbed behind the wheel and turned on the engine, his gun hidden again. He drove through undergrowth and sapling trees and pulled onto the road. Three people were standing in the center of the road. No flashlights. Just dark figures against the gray-blue landscape.
“Get down!” Sam commanded as he forced the truck into a one-eighty and accelerated. The back window shattered, and she ducked, pebbles of glass falling onto the bench seat beside her.
* * *
His truck had been seen. That meant his cover had been blown. Sam wasn’t going to regret it. His priority was to help civilians—innocent women, men and children who’d done nothing to deserve the trouble they found themselves in. Catching the people who preyed on them was always secondary to ensuring their safety.
Of course, he was assuming that Ella was an innocent civilian. He knew nothing about her other than what she’d shared. For all he knew, she was a member of The Organization and had become a liability the higher-ups couldn’t afford to keep. Even if she was that, he’d have helped her. No matter her story, he couldn’t let her die.
Justice should only ever be served by the court system or by God. Individuals playing judge and jury were prone to quick and regrettable action. That had been drilled into Sam’s head when he was a rookie cop in Houston. His partner and mentor, Mitch Daley, hadn’t appreciated some of Sam’s rougher edges. He’d helped smooth them out. Mitch was one of the good guys. Currently retired, he and his wife were spending their golden years cruising and camping and visiting their four kids and fifteen grandchildren.
“Are they gone?” Ella asked, lifting her head and glancing out the shattered back window.
“Yes.” For now. Hopefully, for a while.
“That should probably make me feel better, but it doesn’t.” Bits of glass shimmered on her arm and shoulder, and he was glad she’d had his coat for extra protection. As it was, the bullets had come way too close to finding their mark. A second later arriving at the truck, a minute later escaping, and he and Ella might not have been so fortunate.
“The Organization isn’t filled with people who want to make others feel better,” he replied, accelerating around a curve in the road, putting more distance between them and the danger behind them.
“You keep mentioning The Organization. Why?”
“Because the man who transported you here was a member.”
“I don’t remember being transported, so I have no idea who he is.”
“His name is Mack Dawson. He works as an orderly at the clinic—helping nurses, transporting patients from place to place.”
“Okay.”
“The name doesn’t mean anything to you?”
“Nothing about anything you’ve said means anything to me. I’d never heard of The Organization until tonight. I don’t remember meeting Mack Dawson.”
“Do you remember why you were at the clinic?”
“I was planning to clean out my cousin’s office. The door was locked, and I asked for a key. I was waiting for it. That’s the last thing I remember.”
“Your cousin worked at the clinic?” That seemed to be the center of syndicate activity. He knew of at least half a dozen people who worked for the clinic and The Organization.
“She had an office there. She was employed by the county.”
“To do what?” he asked, pushing for more information despite her apparent reluctance to offer it.
He needed to know everything if he was going to help her.
“She was a social worker. She ran drug rehab groups and helped recovering addicts get back on their feet. She arranged haircuts and job interviews. She even drove people to appointments. Anything to get them away from their addictions.”
“She sounds like a great lady.” She probably had been, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t also been part of The Organization.
“She was,” Ella responded softly, her words barely carrying over the whistle of wind through the shattered back window.
She was still looking in that direction, her left hand resting on glass that littered the bench seat. She had no visible tattoos. No rings. No jewelry of any kind. Not the normal Organization operative he’d met. He wasn’t sure about the others. He assumed they were polished. Sophisticated. Well-educated. Well-dressed. Well-spoken. The kind of people who could easily convince others to do what they wanted. They had to be. They entered places like Newcastle and set up legitimate businesses that eventually served as covers for their illegal operations. They hired people living on the fringe of society to do their dirty work, destroying families, homes, lives without a second thought. They were the people Sam wanted to bring in. Low-level thugs like the ones who’d kidnapped Ella didn’t know enough about the inner workings of The Organization to help shut it down, but he’d be just as happy to toss them in jail, too. First, though, he needed to understand how Ella had gotten where she was—in the crosshairs of a crime syndicate that seemed to want her dead.
“Is it possible, Ruby was—”
“No,” she cut him off.
“You didn’t let me finish the question.”
“You were going to ask if she could have been part of The Organization.”
True. He had been. “Lots of good people get caught up in not-so-good things.”
“Based on the fact that I was kidnapped, and we were both shot at, I’d say The Organization is a lot worse than not-so-good.”
“What I’m trying to say—” Badly, apparently. Which was why he generally didn’t conduct interviews with victims. It was why he preferred working undercover in very dangerous situations to interacting with people like Ella—people who’d been hurt, who were afraid, who needed sympathy and understanding. “Is that your cousin might have gotten involved in something that was much more dangerous—”
“And illegal and wrong than she thought? Not Ruby. She played by the book. Always.”
“Okay.” He’d broached the subject. Now, he’d let it drop.
“What does that mean?”
“It