her hair was going to be a giant red fuzz ball.
Out here in the middle of the night Hailey wasn’t an individual, but part of a team made of four marshals guarding one fugitive. They had to get the man onto the airplane, and nothing else mattered beyond that, their most important objective. Any help they could call in was half an hour away.
* * *
“Go!” On Parker’s command they speed-walked the prisoner to the runway. There was no hanging around. This wasn’t about any of them. Except in the case of a debilitating injury, each marshal just had to do his or her job. It was a far cry from WITSEC, but getting his cover blown as an inspector for witness protection—by a reporter, no less...well, that hadn’t been in the plan either.
Two months now. Two months of his life being upside down. Two months of fugitive apprehension and prisoner transfers. Two months on a team with Hailey Shelder.
He’d denounced romantic relationships altogether after his fiancée had been paralyzed. Because while Eric would have stayed with Sarah forever, she’d pushed him away and refused to believe he still loved her. He’d tried to get her to listen, but eventually he’d been forced to face the fact she didn’t want him anymore.
Eric risked a glance across the huddle as they strode to the plane. Hailey was all business, just one of the guys, dressed in the same bulky outfit they all wore. Her gun wasn’t even trembling, not like the tiny shift of his. Wasn’t she scared? His whole body was shaking, but if asked he’d have claimed it was the rain and the cold. Oregon seasons were killer to a guy who’d lived in Phoenix almost his whole adult life.
Parker yelled, “Let’s go! Pick it up!”
They had to get Farrell on that plane.
Eric’s earpiece crackled. A voice came on, male. The man instructed the pilot there was a problem and he shouldn’t land. The wording was precise, using a code they only employed when there was an imminent threat.
The team shifted. The only one who didn’t falter was Parker. “Hold.”
The pilot radioed back. “Confirmed.” The plane banked left and circled around, flying away from them.
“Huddle up.” On Parker’s order, they closed in and turned outward. Anyone who approached would have to face one of them, no matter what direction they were coming from.
Ames said, “What’s going on? Who was that?”
Parker, the former SEAL, shouted over the pounding rain. “We’re going back to the vehicle. On my—”
Something bright cut through the darkness, barreling through the air from the tree line.
Their SUV exploded.
Eric choked on his gasp. He could see Hailey was itching to run. The fugitive, Farrell, began to laugh.
They were cut off until someone could get there to assist them.
Eric scanned the darkness, but he saw nothing. Even with the light of the SUV engulfed in flames, there was no sign of the threat in the deluge of rain.
The fugitive bobbed from one foot to the other. His orange jumpsuit was drenched and his bulletproof vest was dripping, but he was still a beacon in the night. Someone out there had their eyes on the target. Whoever it was didn’t want Farrell on that plane. But were they here to kill him, or help him escape?
A canister hit Eric’s foot, and gas began to pour out in a cloud of smoke. “Gas!” Eric called out the warning, but they couldn’t get to masks they didn’t have. They couldn’t even move from their positions.
Two more canisters were tossed at the edges of their huddle and more smoke chugged out of them. The cloud cut off what visibility they’d had and Eric’s lungs protested the noxious smell of tear gas. How long could he hold his breath? Hailey coughed, and then Ames did, too. Parker looked like he was still breathing normally. What did they do to SEALs in their training?
Then there was nothing but smoke.
Parker yelled, “Hold!”
Deputy Marshal Ames hit the floor.
Something slammed into Eric’s neck. It felt like a tiny rock. He tried to suck in a breath, but the floor swept up and hit him. Gunshots. Parker and Hailey both fell, too.
Eric touched the side of his neck and pulled his gloved hand back, but there was no blood. He could barely breathe. It felt like the time he’d been winded playing paintball. The bruise had been on his sternum for weeks.
Beanbag rounds?
Booted feet crowded around them. He tried to move. The team was all down and the fugitive was laughing full out now, a sickening sound.
Steve Farrell stepped on Eric’s stomach on the way over his body. Still laughing, he walked away. Their assailants looked like a swarm of cockroaches to Eric’s blurred vision. He wiped away the tears streaming down his face—a product of the gas—and tried to focus.
The assault team was going to disappear into the darkness with an escaped fugitive.
Eric grasped about for his weapon, grabbed it and managed to aim at the man in orange.
One of his teammates fired.
Eric fired, too.
Just after nine on Friday morning, almost a week after Steve Farrell’s escape, Hailey slumped into the back row of the briefing room beside Eric and handed him his coffee. The whiteboard at the front of the room was covered with pictures of Farrell, showcasing his life of crime over the last few years, along with his known associates. Beside it was a map marked with sightings of Farrell that had been called in to the tip line.
No one knew who had helped Farrell escape.
Jonah Rivers, their supervisor and the fugitive apprehension task force team lead, stood at the front of the room. They had another boss, Marshal Wilson Turner, an old-school marshal who oversaw the whole office, but Jonah was the hands-on man.
Jonah stood with his feet hip-width apart and his arms folded. “The blood found on the runway was sent off for testing. We still don’t know who hit who, given both Marshal Shelder and Marshal Hanning fired their weapons.”
Hailey’s cheeks heated. Lying on the ground, thinking she’d been shot in the helmet, she’d realized she was unhurt and tried to do something to help the situation.
Beanbag rounds. Like suddenly it was important for them not to hurt anyone.
And apparently Eric had managed the same thing, because they’d both fired.
Too bad all she’d done was wing someone as they ran away. If she’d even hit the person at all. It could just as easily have been Eric.
Eric shifted beside her. She glanced over at his notebook, where he dutifully recorded everything Jonah was saying. He scratched above his ear with the lid of his pen. Maybe he wouldn’t turn out like the rest of them. He did seem more studious than the rough-edged marshals in the room. That could be a good thing.
Eric shifted and pulled out his phone. The display said Aaron. He stopped the vibrating and slid the phone back in his pocket.
“Who was that?”
Eric looked up. “Huh?”
“The phone. Who’s Aaron?”
“Oh, he’s my brother.”
Hailey studied Eric. There was no way that was all it had been. She knew for a fact her partner was keeping secrets, but for now, she’d let him be evasive. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to give up everything you had built, and move to a completely new city and start over. Still, WITSEC? That had to have been cool.
Her life