Her Christmas Guardian Page 2

He waited, watching as the woman drove to the edge of the parking lot. That should have been it—her driving out, Boone walking back into the store and retrieving the cart full of stuff that he’d left in aisle one.

  Lights flashed near the edge of the parking lot. A hundred yards away, another set of headlights went on. A third followed, this one even closer to the exit the woman had used.

  His heart jumped, adrenaline pumping through him, thoughts flooding in so quickly, he barely had time to process them before he was sprinting across the parking lot. Jumping into his SUV. All three cars were already exiting, and he had to wait for an elderly woman to make her way across the parking lot in front of him.

  He made it to the exit as the last car turned east, its taillights disappearing from view. He followed, turning onto a narrow two-lane road that meandered through hilly farmland. A quiet road, nearly empty. Which wasn’t good. His car would be easy enough to spot. Whether or not the guy in front of him realized he was being tailed depended on who was in the car.

  They were making quite a line. His car, the one in front and two more just ahead of it. Taillights about a quarter mile ahead that he was sure belonged to the woman’s station wagon. He wasn’t sure where they were heading, but he pulled out his cell phone. One thing he’d learned a long time ago—only a fool headed into trouble without backup.

  He never had a chance to call for it. One minute, he was keeping his distance, watching the procession of cars. The next, the car in front of him braked hard. He had a split second to realize what was happening before his windshield exploded, bits of glass flying into his face and dropping onto the dashboard.

  He accelerated, adrenaline surging, every cell, every nerve alert.

  The next shot took out a front tire. The SUV swerved, sideswiping a tree and nearly taking out a stop sign. He fought for control, yanking the vehicle back onto the road, the ruined tired thumping, the procession of cars pulling farther ahead.

  “Not good!” he muttered, the SUV protesting as he tried to pick up speed again.

  Not going to happen. The bumpy road and the flat tire weren’t a good combination. He jumped out of the SUV, glad he was carrying. He’d been known to leave his Glock at home. Carrying it around made him feel safe, but it also reminded him of loss and heartache. Of a hundred things that he was better off forgetting.

  He snagged his cell phone, dialing Jackson’s number, hoping that his friend would pick up. In all the years he’d known the guy, there’d been only a handful of times when he hadn’t been available.

  But then, that was the way the entire team was. There wasn’t a member of HEART who wouldn’t be willing to drop anything, travel any distance, risk whatever was necessary to help a comrade.

  Jackson answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

  “It’s Boone.”

  “Yeah. I saw the number,” Jackson said drily. “What’s up?”

  “I need your help.”

  “With?”

  “I’ve got a situation.”

  “What kind of situation?” Jackson’s tone changed, his words hard-edged and sharp.

  “The kind that involves guns and bullets. A woman. A kid. Three cars that are following her,” he responded.

  “You call the police yet?”

  “Probably would have been a good idea, but I’m not used to having police to rely on.” He was used to being deep in a foreign country, working in places where the only people he could count on were his team members.

  “Where are you?”

  “I didn’t see the name of the road. It’s the first right north of the Walmart you brought me to a few days ago.”

  “I’ll be there in ten.”

  “Call the police before you leave. I think we’re going to—”

  The sound of screeching tires split the quiet, and he shoved the phone back into his pocket, racing toward the sound. He’d covered a hundred yards when light burst to life in the distance.

  Fire!

  His heart jumped, the new surge of adrenaline giving wings to his feet. He sprinted toward the soft glow and the velvety black of the eastern sky, the sound of sirens splitting the night.

  TWO

  Get out! Get out, get out!

  The words raced through Scout’s mind as she crawled over the bucket seat and unbuckled Lucy’s car seat. Black smoke filled the car, filled her lungs. She grabbed the seat, relieved that Lucy was babbling away, more excited, it seemed, than frightened by the crash, the smoke, the crackling fire.

  Get out!

  She reached for the door handle, coughing, gagging on blood that rolled from a cut on her forehead to the corner of her mouth.

  The door flew open, and hands reached in, dragged her out, Lucy in the car seat, singing in that baby language that only a mother ever really understood.

  Scout jerked away, the car seat slamming against her legs as she ran. Straight toward the black car that had been following her. She veered to the left, saw him. Just standing there. Sport coat and slacks, hands in his pockets. He could have been anyone, but she knew he was death coming to call.

  “Who are you?” she rasped, backing toward the tree her car had run into when the tire was shot out.

  “It really doesn’t matter,” he responded, pulling a cigarette from his pocket and lighting it. The cold calculation in his eyes made her blood freeze in her veins. She wanted to scream and scream and scream, but there was no one around to hear. Nothing that she could do but try to find a way out, pray that the police came quickly. Keep Lucy safe.

  Please, God. Help me keep her safe.

  “I called the police,” she said, her heart pounding in her throat, her eyes burning from smoke and fear. Every nightmare she’d ever had was coming true. All the fear she’d lived with since she’d left San Jose congealed in the pit of her stomach, filled her with stark hard-edged terror.

  She needed to think, to run, to do something to save her daughter.

  That was all she knew. All she cared about.

  She lifted the car seat higher, pulling it to her chest, the heavy ungainly plastic filled with the only thing she cared about. “They’ll be here any minute,” she continued, because he was staring at her, the cigarette dangling from his mouth. He must think he had all the time in the world, must believe that there was no way help could come in time.

  God, please! She begged silently, easing toward the line of trees that had stopped the wagon from careening down an embankment.

  She just had to make it into the trees, find someplace to hide.

  The faint sound of sirens drifted on the cold November air. Her heart jumped; hope surged. She could do this. Had to do this. She ran into the trees, blood still sliding down her face, Lucy giggling as the car seat bounced. She had no idea. None.

  Scout’s feet slipped on slick leaves, and she went down hard, her hip knocking an overturned tree. She bounced back up, the car seat locked in her arms, Lucy now crying in fear, sirens growing louder.

  “Sorry, but this just isn’t your night.” The words whispered from behind her, the cold chill of them shooting up her spine.

  And suddenly, she wasn’t alone with the man and his cigarette. Two dark shadows moved in, and she was fighting off hands that were trying to rip Lucy away from her.

  She screamed as something slammed into her cheek. Heard Lucy’s desperate cries and the sirens endlessly blaring. Heard her own frantic breathing and hoarse shouts.

  A car door slammed and someone called a warning. To her? To the men who were attacking her? The car seat was ripped from her arms and something smashed into her temple. Darkness edged in, sprinkled with a million glittering stars.

  She fought it, fought the hands that were suddenly on her throat. Lucy! She tried to cry, but she had no air for the words, no air at all.

  Sh
e twisted, kneeing her attacker in the thigh.

  Something flashed in the air near her head.

  A gun?

  She had only a moment to realize it, and then the world exploded, all the stars fading until there was nothing but endless night and the sound of her daughter’s cries.

  * * *

  “Go after the car!” Boone shouted as he jumped from Jackson’s car. “I’ll check to see if there are any injuries.”

  Too late.

  Those were the words that were running through his head over and over again.

  Too late. Just as he’d been the day he’d arrived home from Iraq, ready to confront Lana about her prescription-drug problem, willing to work on their marriage so that they could make a good life for their child.

  Too late.

  He heard Jackson’s tires screech, knew he’d taken off, following the car they’d seen speeding away. Dark-colored. A Honda, maybe. Jackson knew more about cars than he did, and he’d know the model and make.

  Good information for the police, but none of it would matter if the woman and her daughter were hurt. Or worse.

  He ran to the station wagon, ignoring the flames that were lapping out from beneath the hood. The back door was open, and he glanced in. No car seat. No child. No woman.

  He checked the third-row bucket seat, then peered into the front. A purse lay on the passenger seat, and he snagged it, backing away from the burning vehicle. He doubted it would explode, but getting himself blown up wasn’t going to help the woman, her kid or him.

  He broke every rule his boss, Chance Miller, had written in the fifty-page HEART team handbook and opened the purse, pulling out the ID and calling Jackson with information on the woman. Scout Cramer. Twenty-seven. Five foot two inches. One hundred pounds. Organ donor. Blond hair. Blue eyes.

  Victim.

  He hated that word.

  In a perfect world, there would be no victims. No losses. No hurting people praying desperately that their loved ones would return home.

  Too bad it wasn’t a perfect world.

  He stepped away from the station wagon as a police cruiser pulled off the road. An officer ran to the back of the cruiser and dragged a fire extinguisher from the trunk.

  Seconds later, the fire was out, the cold air filled with the harsh scent of chemicals and burning wires. Smoke and steam wafted from the hood of the car, but the night had gone quiet, the rustling leaves of nearby trees the only sound.

  The officer approached, offering a hand and a quick nod. “Officer Jet Lamar. River Valley Police Department. Did you see what happened here?”

  “I got here after the crash. I did see the woman and child who were in the car. They left the Walmart about fifteen minutes ago.” And he didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time discussing it. Scout and her daughter had disappeared. The more time that passed before they were found, the less likely it was that they ever would be.

  Something else he had learned the hard way.

  Every second counted when it came to tracking someone down.

  “So, we’ve got two people missing?”

  “Yes,” Boone ground out. “And if we don’t start looking, they may be missing for good.”

  “Other cars are responding. We have patrol cars heading in from the east. I just need to confirm that we’re looking for a new-model Honda Accord. Dark blue.”

  Jackson must have provided that information, and Boone wasn’t going to argue with it. He knew his friend well enough to know that he’d have to have been 100 percent sure before offering information. “That’s right. It was pulling away as my friend and I arrived.”

  “I don’t suppose you want to explain what you and your friend were doing on this road?” Officer Lamar looked up from a notepad he was scribbling in. The guy looked to be a few years older than Boone. Maybe closing in on forty. Haggard face. Dark eyes. Obviously suspicious.

  “I followed the woman from Walmart. She looked like she might be in trouble.”

  “So, you just stepped in and ran to the rescue? Didn’t think about calling the police?”

  “I didn’t want to call in the police over an assumption.”

  “Assumptions are just as often on target as they are off it. Next time,” he said calmly, “call.”

  Boone didn’t bother responding, just waited while Officer Lamar jotted a few notes, his gaze settling on the purse Boone still held.

  “That belong to the victim?”

  “Yes.” Boone handed it over, shifting impatiently. “They could be across state lines by now.”

  “Not likely. We’re about a hundred miles from the Penn state border. I’m going to take a look around. How about you wait in the cruiser?”

  It wasn’t a suggestion, but Boone didn’t take orders from anyone but his boss or the team leader. He followed Lamar to the still-smoking station wagon, paced around the vehicle while Lamar looked in the front seat, turned on a flashlight and searched the ground near the car.

  He didn’t speak, but Boone could clearly see footprints in the moist earth near the car. Two sets. A woman’s sneaker and a man’s boot. “Looks like she survived the initial impact,” Lamar murmured. He called something in on his radio, but Boone was focused on the prints—the deep imprint of the man’s feet. The more shallow print of the woman’s. There had to be more, and he was anxious to find them. For evidence, and for certainty that Scout and her child really were in the car that had driven away.

  If not, they were somewhere else.

  Somewhere closer.

  He scanned the edge of the copse of trees that butted against the road. If he’d been scared for his life, he’d have run there, looked for a place to hide.

  Protocol dictated that Boone back off, let the local P.D. do their job. It was what Chance would want him to do. It was what Boone probably would have done if he’d witnessed only the accident or even the kidnapping.

  But Boone had spoken to Scout Cramer. He’d seen the fear in her eyes. He’d looked into her daughter’s face and been reminded of what he’d lost. What he could only pray that he would one day get back.

  He couldn’t back off. Not yet.

  A sound drifted through the quiet night. Soft. Like the mew of a kitten. Boone cocked his head to the side.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked Lamar.

  He knew the officer had. He’d stopped talking and was staring into the woods. “Could have been an animal,” he said, but Boone doubted he believed it.

  “Or a baby,” Boone replied, heading for the trees.

  “You think it’s the missing child? How old did you say she was?”

  “Two? Maybe three.” Cute as a button. That was what his mother would have said. Probably what his dad would have said. They loved kids. Would have loved to know their first granddaughter.

  Boone would have loved to know his only child.

  In God’s time...

  He’d heard the words so many times, from so many well-meaning people, that he almost never talked about his marriage, about his daughter, about anything that had to do with his life before HEART.

  “It’s possible she was thrown from the car. I didn’t see a car seat.”

  “She was in one.”

  Lamar raised a dark brow and scowled. “I’m not going to ask why you know so much about this lady and her child. You’re sure the kid was in the car seat?”

  “Positive.”

  “If the car seat was installed wrong, it still could have been thrown from the car. Wouldn’t have gone far, but a child that age could undo the harness and get out. She’s young to be out on a night like tonight, but I’d rather her be out in the woods than in a car with a monster.” Lamar sighed. “Wait here. I’ll go take a look around.”

  Wasn’t going to happen.

  Boo
ne followed him into the thick copse of trees, his gaze on the beam of light that illuminated the leaf-strewn ground.

  “Anyone out here?” Officer Lamar called.

  No response. Just the quiet rustle of leaves and the muted sound of distant sirens.

  “We should split up,” Boone suggested. “The more area we cover, the better.”

  “I’ll call in our K-9 team. That will help. In the meantime, you need to go back to the car. There’s a ravine a couple of hundred feet from here. You fall into that and—”

  “I’m a former army ranger, Officer Lamar. I think I can handle dark woods and a deep ravine.” He said it casually and walked away. They were wasting time arguing. Time he’d rather spend searching.

  If the little girl had been thrown from the car on impact, the sooner they got her to the hospital, the better. But he didn’t think she’d been thrown. He’d seen Scout buckle her in. She’d been secure. Someone had taken her from the station wagon. That same person could have tossed her into the trees, thrown her down the embankment, disposed of her like so much trash.

  He’d seen it before, in places where no child should ever be. He’d carried nearly dead little girls from hovels that had become their prisons.

  Rage filled him, clawing at his gut and threatening to steal every bit of reason he had. He didn’t give in to it. He’d learned a lot from his father. Watching him deal with the foster kids his parents had taken in had taught Boone everything he needed to know about keeping cool, working with clear vision, not allowing his emotions to rule.

  “Baby?!” he called, because he didn’t know the child’s name, and because a scared little girl might respond to a stranger’s voice.

  Then again, she might not.

  She might stay silent, waiting and hoping for her mother’s return.

  Was that how it had been for Kendal? Had she been dropped off and left somewhere with strangers? Had she cried for her mother?

  He shuddered.

  That was another place he wouldn’t allow his mind to go. Ever.

  “Hello?” he tried again, and this time he heard a faint response. Not a child’s cry. More like an adult’s groan.