Colorado Wildfire

If he showed his face, she’d be in danger.

What the hell was she doing on this road? Why did she have to be the one who discovered the body? His fingers curled into a fist, and he hammered the ground beneath his boots. Life was not fair!

For more than a year, he’d fantasized about what it would be like when he came home to his sweet wife. She’d come running toward him with her long brown hair streaming behind her in a silky banner. Her clothing—always flimsy in his imagination—would outline her slender legs and supple torso. Her laughter would ring out, and their perfect daughter would join in with hugs and kisses. Jenny and Sam would treat him to a hero’s welcome.

He peeked around the edge of the boulder. Samantha stalked around the vehicle. He couldn’t actually see her scowl from this distance, but he could tell that she was frustrated and annoyed. More than annoyed—anger radiated from her in waves that were even hotter than the wildfire.

He had a real bad feeling that this hostile version of Samantha was the woman who would greet him when he stepped out of hiding. He could hope for her forgiveness but didn’t expect it.

His life—which used to be so very fine—had become one snafu after another. The murder of Drew Morrissey was the latest blunder. Somebody should have been watching the bum, keeping him from getting shot. Not that Wade intended to waste any tears on Morrissey. The man was a traitor to his uniform. Protecting him would have been a smart strategy. Morrissey was cowardly and weak. He might have turned on his partners in crime. Most likely, that ratlike tendency to squeal was probably why the scumbag was dead.

Wade had found the body behind the steering wheel of his car about a half hour ago and had staked out the area, hoping that the killer or killers might come back. And if they did, what would he do? He wanted to take these guys into custody, to lock them up and throw away the keys. It wasn’t that easy. He’d spent the past year in protective custody, waiting to testify and make things right.

Three days ago the legal case had collapsed for the umpteenth time, and Wade decided he wasn’t willing to wait, especially not after he’d caught a glimpse of a man in the federal courthouse whom he vaguely remembered. The name hadn’t come to him. But he’d seen this guy before. And that was enough of a threat to get him moving. If the bad guys had seen him and knew he was alive and waiting to testify, Samantha and Jenny would be in danger.

He’d escaped from his handlers in Texas and made his way back here. Last night, he’d slept in the FBI safe house, thankful they hadn’t changed the security code from the time he was sheriff. From the house, he’d picked up some important supplies: two semiautomatic pistols and a hunting rifle. In the attached garage, he’d found a lightweight Honda motorcycle with heavy-tread tires that made it suitable for off-road or on-road driving.

He had intended to find Samantha and Jenny this morning, to take them away with him. A lot of people, including his supposed friend Ty, would tell him that he shouldn’t return to Colorado. The whole reason they faked his death was so nobody would come after Samantha or Jenny to hurt him. But Wade couldn’t stay away.

He’d find a way to keep his family safe. It might not be comfortable or pretty, but at least they’d be together. That was what he should have done in the first place. The time apart had been gut-wrenching.

He peeked out from behind the rock again. Damn, she was pretty. He wanted to caress every inch of Samantha’s beautiful body, to smell the clean fragrance of her shampoo, to taste her mouth and stare into her cool blue eyes. Not even the boxy sheriff uniform could disguise her long legs and well-toned arms.

Not to brag, but he’d done some bodybuilding of his own. One of the ways he’d distracted himself for all these months was by working out. He’d tightened his six-pack, and the biceps and triceps in his arms were sharply defined. Would Samantha notice? He couldn’t wait until she ran her long, slender fingers down his chest and commented on his new physical conditioning.

From the road, he heard her bark an order at Ty. “Just do what I say. Do it now.”

Wade chuckled under his breath. “That’s my sweet, delicate angel.”

He craned his neck so he could see the road more clearly. She had the door of the sedan open and was messing around with the dead body. What the hell was she doing?

Chapter Three (#ulink_0cd0269d-1e49-5e94-88d3-d58cf4dbb46f)

She might not be an expert on how to process a crime scene, but Sam was in charge here. Ty needed to remember that little fact. Swain County was her jurisdiction. And she wanted to move the body of Colorado state patrolman Drew Morrissey into the rear of her SUV before this scene was engulfed in flames and all the evidence destroyed.

“Come on, Ty, let’s do it.”

He groaned. “Didn’t your friend the fire marshal tell you that the burn wouldn’t get this far?”

“Marshal Hobbs said the town would be safe. This location is miles and miles away from there.” She slapped her hands together to start the action. “You take his head, and I’ll take his legs.”

Ty slipped into his black FBI windbreaker to protect his white shirt, but he still complained. “Why do I get the messy end of the body?”

“Don’t be such a wuss. You’re stronger than me and the top half of the body is heavier.”

Also, she intended to use the few minutes when she was alone by Morrissey’s car to shove Wade’s copper-handled revolver under the seat. Removing evidence would be wrong. She was certain about that. Hiding the evidence might be kind of, maybe, a little bit acceptable. It’s not. I know better.

But she needed a couple more minutes to figure out what to do about a gun that should have been locked in a case at her house. It could be the murder weapon. Maybe she’d tell Ty about it before Morrissey’s supervisor got here. She definitely didn’t want Lieutenant Natchez to use her husband’s fancy revolver to tie her to a murder scene.

When Ty pulled Morrissey away from the seat, the man’s head flopped forward against the steering wheel. Seeing him was different than touching. The stench of death cut through the smoke as she helped Ty manipulate the dead weight. Morrissey’s arms dangled. His legs were as floppy as a rag doll. There wasn’t anything she could do about the revolver until Ty had the body halfway out of the seat.

In a quick move, she ducked inside the car, shoved the weapon under the passenger’s seat, emerged and slammed the driver’s-side door. She faced Ty. “Okay, let’s roll.”

He held Morrissey under the armpits with his legs sprawled. “What the hell was that dance about?”

Instead of replying, she grabbed the dead man under the knees. “I won’t be carrying my share of the weight like this. Let me get him around the middle.”

Morrissey’s blood smeared her khaki uniform. She should have put on her windbreaker; Ty was smart to do that. They stumbled a few steps toward her vehicle.

A burst of gunfire echoed against the canyon walls. She looked over her shoulder toward the road in front of them. Through the smoke, she saw the shapes of two men diving across from the right side to the left where the green sedan had run into the cottonwood trunk.

Ty’s reaction was immediate. He dropped Morrissey, ducked behind her car and yanked his Beretta from the holster. “Take cover, Sam.”

Her brain wasn’t so agile. It took a few beats to register the obvious. Somebody was shooting at them. She needed to return fire, needed to find cover, needed to move. Move! But she stood there like a statue, holding the lower half of Morrissey’s legs. She looked down. His sneakers were untied.

Ty’s voice wakened her. “Sam, move! Damn it, move!”

She dropped Morrissey and bolted like a jackrabbit, dashing to her SUV, where she whipped open the driver’s-side door to use as a shield. A bullet pinged against the door. If she’d been standing in the open, she would have been hit in the center of her bulletproof vest. Thank God she was wearing it today.

In the academy and during other training exercises, she’d been in dozens of simulations. But this was her first real-life firefight. As she drew her Glock, her focus tightened. Time seemed to slow. She remembered what was supposed to be done. I can do this. Her confidence returned and with it came courage.

When she spotted a backpack in the middle of the road where the two men had been, she yelled to Ty, “The hikers, these guys have got to be the hikers. The marshal said there were three.”

From the opposite side of her SUV, he shouted, “I saw only two.”

The hikers continued to lay down a steady barrage of gunfire. That was a lot of ammo. She regretted using her storage for a second ammo magazine as a carryall for latex gloves. Ty was aiming at a big, chunky boulder that was about ten yards down the road. She guessed the hikers would try to move toward the wrecked sedan, where they’d have a better angle.

Bracing her gun hand against the window frame of her vehicle, she popped a bullet into the space between the rock and the sedan. The action of her Glock felt good in her hands. She was a fairly good shot, the best in the Swain County Sheriff’s Department...which wasn’t saying much, given that Caleb was second best.

“Cover me,” Ty yelled.

Peering through the space between her car door and the windshield, she fired in the direction he’d been shooting. Every bullet counted. She squeezed the trigger seven times, rapid-fire. Her ears rang with the percussive noise.

In a low crouch, Ty darted to the right side of the road, concealed himself in a ditch and took aim. He fired several times in quick succession.

A man staggered out from behind the boulder into the road. With one hand, he clutched his gut. Blood spilled through his fingers. With the other, he tried to steady his weapon. Ty fired again. The man crumpled to the dirt.

One down, two to go. She saw the second man run from the cover of the boulder toward the cottonwood tree where he could hide in the shrubs behind the car. He was closer to her than to Ty. Keeping her head down, she maneuvered toward the sedan.

The heavy smoke hanging over the trees made her think of a battlefield. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. She was on high alert, shivering and sweating at the same time. She dodged around the body of Morrissey on the ground. Her gloved hand touched the trunk of the sedan. She saw the hiker beside the tall cottonwood.

Ty ran toward the sedan, blasting as he came. She raised her weapon, took aim. She had the best angle—a head shot that was perfectly aligned. Before she could squeeze the trigger, the hiker was hit. He threw both arms in the air as he fell. Two down, one to go.

She could have sworn that shot came from behind her, uphill to her left. But when she looked, she didn’t see anything but a couple of ragged-edged boulders and a dark wall of pine trees. Squinting, she tried to catch the glint of sunlight off a rifle barrel. If there was a mysterious marksman, he’d have to be using a high-powered rifle. A handgun wouldn’t be accurate from those trees.

“Are you okay?” Ty called out.

“I’m fine. You?”