Hard Target

“No, I’m sure.” He shook his head as if for emphasis. “We’re heading northbound on I-45. Why?”

Emily’s chest squeezed, and she knew something was wrong. Agent Campbell gave the person on the phone the wrong location. Why would he do that?

“Will do.” Agent Campbell ended his call.

“Who was that?”

He sat looking dumbfounded for a second. “That was odd. Agent Stephen Taylor volunteered to meet me and take you off my hands. Said he was headed in and it wouldn’t be any trouble to take you along with him.”

“I don’t know this area at all, but we’re sitting in a parking lot, and you told him we were on the highway. Why?”

Using the paper wrap, he wadded up the few bites of hamburger he had left and tossed it in the bag. “That call doesn’t sit right. Something’s off.”

Emily gasped. “That can’t be normal.”

“Nope. Never happened to me before in six years of service.” He checked his rearview mirror.

The last thing Emily wanted to do was tell the agent more about what had happened to her. In fact, she’d like to be able to forget it altogether. But both of their lives were in danger now, and he deserved to know the risk he was taking. “There was a man back in Mexico. They called him Dueño. He promised to...”

Saying the words out loud proved harder than she expected. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes.

Gray clouds rolled in from the coast as the winds picked up speed.

The agent sat quietly, hands resting on the steering wheel, giving her the space she needed to find the courage to tell him the rest.

“To find me no matter what. I know he has law enforcement on his payroll. I overheard them talking about it.”

Agent Campbell started the ignition, and eased the Jeep into traffic. “They give any names?”

His rich timbre was laced with anger. She could imagine how an honest man like him would take it personally if one of his own was on the take. “No. All I knew was that once I got away from him, I had to disappear. I couldn’t trust law enforcement or anyone else. That’s why I can’t let you take me in. I’m begging you to let me go.”

Thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Hate to believe agents are on the take.” He looked to be searching his memory as he narrowed his gaze onto the stretch of road in front of them. He muttered a string of curse words. “There have been a few articles in the paper hinting at the possibility. The department issued a warning. We’d picked up a few bad eggs during a hiring surge, but we’ve been assured they were weeded out.”

“You take me in and he’ll get to me. He has people on the inside. I can identify him and testify. They’ll kill me.”

“Slow down. I’m not going to let that happen. We can figure this out.”

“They won’t stop until they find me.”

“Which is why it’s a bad idea for me to let you go. At least while you’re with me, I can protect you.”

“Can’t you tell your department you let me go?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you have to. I know what they wanted when they targeted me. There’s a fortune on the line.”

“Hold on a sec. You led me to believe this was random,” he said. His eyes flashed anger.

“I’m sorry. I lied. I wasn’t sure if I could trust you before.” She had to now.

His grip on the steering wheel tightened. His gaze intensified. “What else?”

“They wanted my passwords. I work at a computer company. We keep account information secure for big banking institutions. I’m sure they planned on moving money.”

“Cybercrime can be harder to track if they know what they’re doing. Why didn’t you just give them the passwords and save yourself?”

She deadpanned him. “I figured they’d kill me either way. Even so, I couldn’t give them passwords if I’d wanted to. I always change them before I leave for vacation. I didn’t have my new ones memorized.”

“He beat you because he didn’t believe you.”

“Not for a second.”

“I’m assuming you have your codes written down somewhere?”

She nodded. A thought struck her. “What if they get to my place and find them? I’m sure they knew where I lived.”

Agent Campbell’s cell buzzed again. He put on his turn signal, moved into the left turn lane and then shot a glance at her before answering. He turned on his hazard lights, even though there were no cars coming.

Thunder rumbled louder. A storm was coming.

“Yes, sir, I heard from the agent.”

There was a long pause.

“No, I didn’t turn over the witness. I can run her in to make a statement.”

Emily slipped her hand as close to the seat belt release button as she could without drawing attention. Her pulse kicked up a notch.

A light rain started, nothing more than a spring shower. The glorious liquid spotted the windshield.

She had enough sustenance in her to manage a good sprint. Would it be enough to get away? Her feet still ached and her head pounded. A good night of sleep, some medicine, and she’d recover. But would her body give her what she needed to get away now?

Possibilities clicked through her mind.

If she made a run for it, could she disappear in the neighboring subdivision? Maybe hide in a parked car?

The capable agent in the seat next to her would catch her. His muscled thighs said he could outrun her if he needed to. One look at the ripple of muscles underneath his shirtsleeve said he was much stronger than she.

Might be a risk she’d have to take.

Stay there and she’d be dead in an hour if he followed through with his plans to take her to Homeland Security. One of the men in Dueño’s pocket would alert him to her whereabouts, and they’d be ready for her when she walked outside.

The best chance she had would be to make a move right now while Agent Campbell was distracted by his phone call. If she were smart, she’d unbuckle and run like hell.

“I didn’t say she was a suspect, sir.”

Her heart jackhammered in her chest. Should she bolt?

* * *

REED GLANCED OVER at Emily. Her back was stiff, her breathing rapid and shallow. He covered her hand with his, and she relaxed a little. A smile quirked the corner of his lip.

“I can take this one, sir. Not a problem.”

Confident he’d convinced his boss, Reed ended the call. A rogue agent was a dangerous thing. Reed could personally attest to that.

This one had involved his boss, who was being played. The agent who’d tried to get his hands on Emily wouldn’t be allowed to have his way.

“Your boss wanted you to hand me over to someone else, didn’t he?”

Reed nodded.

“Could going against your boss cost your job?”

He wasn’t sure why he chuckled. “Yeah.”

“You’re willing to take that risk to help me?”

“It’s my duty.” “Honor First” was more than words on a page to Reed.

Emily leaned against the seat and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Then, what do we do next?”

“Good question.”

Reed checked the rearview and saw a truck screaming toward them.

He banked a U-turn in time to see a metal shotgun barrel aimed at them.

Emily must’ve seen it, too, because she yelped.

“Get down on the floorboard. Now.”

A boom split the air.

Reed gunned the gas pedal, made a U-turn and then hooked a right, blazing through the empty parking lot. For a split second, time warped and the memory of being shot and left for dead blitzed him.

A walk down Memory Lane would have to wait. He battled against the heavy thoughts, blocking them out. If he lived, correction, when he got them out of this mess, he’d deal with those. Yeah, right, like that’s going to happen.

The reality was that he’d had plenty of time since returning to work to rationalize his feelings. Doing that ranked about as high on his list as shoveling cow manure out of the barn at Gran’s place. He took that back. Shoveling cow manure was far more appealing.

Reed glanced at Emily, who was not more than a ball in the floorboard. Her face scrunched in pain from being forced to move. The thought of doubling her agony lanced his chest. “Hang tight. I’ll get us to safety soon.”

She glanced at him through fearful hazel eyes. “Maybe we should break up. I can hide on my own. Might be better now that they know we’re together.”

Was she still worried he’d run her in? Handing her over to his agency would only put her in more jeopardy. “Not a chance.”

Anxiety and fear played across her features.

A need to protect Emily surged, catching Reed off guard, because it ran deeper than his professional oath. He knew exactly what it was like to be in her position—to be the target of someone who had a dirty agent in their pocket. Reed had a bullet hole in his back to prove it.

“I’m your best option right now. And I’m not ready to let you out of my sight.”

Chapter Four

Pain rippled through Emily’s bruised and battered body as she crouched low and hugged her knees into her chest, making herself as small as possible in the floorboard. One of her ribs had to be cracked. The sharp pain in her chest sliced through her thoughts. Being run through a cheese grater would hurt less than the bruises on her face and body.

The agent, Reed, had said she could trust him. He’d said the magic words—he wasn’t hauling her butt in to Homeland Security. And yet, her internal alarm system was still set to red alert. Why? What was it about him that had her wanting to run? Was it the alarming comfort his presence brought?

Sporadic turns and the sound of another shotgun blast said they still had company. Emily didn’t dare try to peek even though her tightly coiled nerves might break at any moment if she didn’t know what was happening. Even so, she doubted her body would be able to respond to her brain’s command to get up.

Reed swerved the car left and then made a hard right. “Wish I’d been alone when I found you. That would make things less complicated.”

“Would you have believed me?”

His compressed frown said it all. No, he wouldn’t have. “I owe you an apology for that.”

“I don’t blame you. I’m sure you deal with all kinds of crazy people in your work.”

“Most have nothing to lose when they run into me. And I’ve learned logic is a better resource than instinct.”

He was used to being shot at? That revelation shouldn’t reassure her. Oddly enough, that’s exactly what it did. Maybe because she had no clues how to escape armed men or dodge bullets and there was no way she’d still be alive without his expertise. Her world had been catapulted into a whole new stratosphere of danger. Having a man around who knew how to use a gun and was on her side didn’t seem like the worst thing that could happen.

Yet, depending on anyone was foreign to her. Thoughts of too many hours of her childhood spent crouched low in the corner behind her bed while her mother experienced “free love” in the next room assaulted Emily. She’d been old enough to remember what it was like to live in a suburb with a normal family and a father whom she believed loved her. Her fairy-tale world had ended the day he left. Emily squeezed her eyes tighter, trying to block out the memory.

Emily slowly counted to a hundred to keep her mind busy, refusing to let fear seize her when more bullets came at them. They pinged by her head tat-tat-tat style, and she knew by the sound difference that whoever was chasing them had changed weapons.

“I can lose them around this bend or when I get on this highway. This turn is going to get hairy, so hang on.”

Chancing a glance at Reed, seeing someone who wasn’t afraid, held her nerves a notch below panic. However, the contents of her stomach retaliated at the high rate of speed combined with sharp turns. She’d probably eaten too fast because the burger and milkshake churned. “Are they still back there?”

“Get back in the seat belt. The threat has tripled, and we’re going to sustain a hit.” The authority in his voice sent a trill of worry through her.

“Okay.” She struggled to move, wincing as she planted one hand on the glove compartment and the other on the seat, praying she could gain enough leverage to push herself up from her awkward position on the floorboard. Her arms gave out and she landed hard, racking up another bruise on her hip.

A glance at Reed said they were almost out of time.

“Brace yourself for impact.” He tapped the brake and swerved.

Emily lurched forward, her head caught by Reed’s right hand moments before it hit the dash. Pushing through the pain, she pressed up to the seat and quickly fastened the belt over her shoulder.

Large SUVs pulled on each side of them as the truck she recognized from earlier roared up from behind.

The quick look Reed shot her next said whatever was about to happen wasn’t going to be good. He floored the gas pedal, shooting out front. Temporarily.

On the right, the SUV hit the brakes. The one on the left barreled beside them, keeping pace.

The window of opportunity to hop onto the freeway and lose these guys was closing with the SUV on the left blocking the on-ramp.

A bumper crunched against the back of the Jeep. Emily’s head whipped forward.

Dueño’s reach had long arms. Just as he had promised. Could Emily envision a life on the run? No. She’d fought too hard to put down roots. She’d found a new city, bought a town house and worked her butt off to be next in line for her boss’s job. Dueño was forcing her into a different direction. Anger burned through her.

Another hard jerk of the steering wheel and Emily felt herself tumbling, spinning.

Reed’s rich timbre penetrated the out-of-control Ferris wheel. “Relax as much as you can.”

Time temporarily suspended. Emily drifted out of her own body as the spinning slowed, and then stopped.

Everything went black, but she still could hear shouting. Someone was yelling at her. A deeply masculine voice called. She coughed and blinked her eyes open.

Smoke was everywhere.

Everything burned. Her nose. Her eyes. Her throat.

Her body might’ve stopped spinning, but her head hadn’t.

“Emily. Stay with me.” The voice came from a tunnel filled with light.

Or did it?

There was something comforting about the large physical presence near her.

“Emily. I need you to try to move.” A sense of urgency tinged the apologetic tone.

Her response came out as a croak. She tried harder to open her eyes and gain her bearings.

Sirens sounded in the distance a few moments after she heard another pop of gunfire. The men. Oh, no. All at once she remembered being on the run. Their car had been forced off the road, while speeding, and thrown into a dangerous spin. The Jeep had rolled. And that voice calling her belonged to Border Patrol Agent Reed Campbell.

Her eyes shot open.

Heat from a fire blazed toward her. Flames licked at her skin. Thick smoke filled her lungs.

She was trapped in a burning car while men shot at her. It took another few precious seconds for her to realize she was upside down. At least the inferno kept the men at bay, except for Reed. He was right by her side. An unfamiliar feeling stuck in her chest at the thought someone actually had her back for a change. Emily wanted to gravitate toward the pleasant emotion, except she couldn’t move. She wiggled her hips, hoping to break free. No luck.

The seat belt must be stuck.

There was no feeling in her legs. She tamped down panic, knowing full well that couldn’t be good. Even if she could work the belt free, which she was trying with both hands, how would she run?

She’d have to solve that puzzle when she came to it.

“Take this.” A shiny metal object was being thrust at her through the thick wall of smoke separating her from the agent.

Reed’s face was covered in ashes and worry lines. Blood dripped down his cheek from a cut on his forehead. There was compassion in his clear brown eyes and what appeared to be fear.

She took the offering, a knife.

“Cut yourself free.” His arms cradled her shoulders.

“Okay.” She shot him a scared look.

“I’ll catch you. I won’t let you get hurt.”

Her gaze widened at the figure moving toward them. “Behind you.”

The agent turned and fired his weapon.

She worked the knife against the fabric, wanting to be ready, knowing they were out of time.

Sirens split the air.

Reed turned his attention back to her as soon as the man disappeared. “I’m ready. Go.”

The last patch of thread cut easily. Emily didn’t want to think about how good his hands felt on her as he pulled her from the burning Jeep across the hard, unforgiving earth. Or how nice it was to have someone in her corner.

The head of the House believed placing labels on people degraded them, so he simply called her girl. Her mom soon followed his lead.

Growing up in a house full of free love and short on anything meaningful, like her mother’s laughter, had made Emily wary and distrustful of people. Watching her mom adopt the long hair and threadbare clothes everyone in the House wore made Emily feel even more distanced from everything familiar.

In the twelve years Emily had lived there, her mom had six children by various housemates. It had been like living in a time warp. Apparently, the label “Father” was also degrading because no one stepped up to help care for the little ones, save for Emily. She’d taken care of the children until one of the men had decided that at seventeen she was old enough to learn about free love. She’d fought back, escaped and then ran.

Emily had learned quickly the outside world could be harsh, too.

With no friends on the streets, she’d had to fight off men who confused her homelessness for prostitution. Her first stroke of luck had come when she found a flier for a shelter that handed out free breakfast. A worker there had told her about the nearby shelter for teens. For the first time since leaving Texas as a child, Emily had her own room.

All her life savings, money she’d made from her job at the local movie theater, was hidden in the House. Emily had saved every penny. Needing a fresh start, she’d slipped into the House, took her life savings and then bought a bus ticket to Dallas, where she could return home and put down roots.

By the time she’d finished a few college courses and gotten a decent job, her half siblings had scattered across the country, and she heard from her mother mostly when she needed something.

No matter how honest and pure the agent looked, Emily knew not to get too comfortable.

Feeling vulnerable out in the open, she searched for the men. Where were they?

She glanced around, half expecting more gunfire. Instead, EMTs ran toward them and all she could hear was the glorious thunder of their footsteps.

But, where was Reed?

Then she saw him. He lay flat on his back and her chest squeezed when she saw how much blood soaked his shirt. One set of EMTs rushed to him, blocking her view. Another went to work on her as firemen put out the blaze.

The cavalry had arrived.

But how long before Dueño’s men returned to finish the job?

Emily needed a plan.

Heaven knew she could never rely on her mother. The woman had shattered when Emily’s father left. Even then, Emily knew she needed to help her mother. The woman couldn’t do much for herself in the broken state she was in. When she’d finally forced herself out of bed, a neighbor introduced her to “a new way of thinking.”

It wasn’t long before Emily’s mom packed the pair of them up and moved to California to live in the House. Emily had been excited about the promise of perpetual sunshine, but her enthusiasm was short-lived when she figured out no one ever left the grounds except in groups to shop for food.

Which was why she couldn’t afford to rely on the agent much longer. Especially not the way he stirred confusing feelings inside her that had no business surfacing. She knew where that would end up.

* * *

REED STRIPPED OFF the oxygen mask covering his face. “I’m fine.”

“Can you tell me what day it is?” the young EMT asked.

“Monday. And I know I’ve been in an accident. I was forced off the road by another vehicle. I have to call local police to file a report.” He reached for his phone, needing an excuse to step away and make eye contact with Emily. He wanted to know she’d be okay. Men were huddled around her, working on her. Reed tamped down the unexpected jolt of anxiety tensing his shoulders. “What’s going on with my witness? She’ll be okay, right?”

“We’ll know in a few minutes.”

Not good enough. Reed had to know now. He pushed off the back of the truck.

The EMT stepped in front of Reed. “Sir, that’s not a good idea.”

“Why not? Is she hurt badly?” The young guy was big, worked out, but Reed had no doubts he could take the guy down if necessary. Reed’s hands fisted. His jaw muscle twitched.

“The others are working on her. I’m talking about you. I’d like to finish my exam, if that’s okay.”

The guy seemed to know Reed could take him down in a heartbeat. He reminded himself to stay cool. The EMT was only doing his job. No point in making it any harder for him.

Reed fished his wallet out of his pocket and produced his identification. “Name’s Reed Campbell. I’m a Border Patrol agent. I have two brothers and two sisters. It’s Monday at...” He checked his watch. “Four o’clock.”

“Good. I think it’s safe to say you didn’t suffer a concussion. Will you let me patch up your forehead before you go, and let me take a look at what’s causing all that blood on your shirt?” the young guy asked, resigned.

“Can’t hurt.” He sat still long enough for his gashes to be cleaned and bandaged.

“I still think it’s a good idea for you to go to the hospital.”

“I plan to.” His gaze fixed on the team working on Emily.

“As a patient.”

“I promise to get checked out if I take a turn for the worse.”

“No changing your mind?”

“I appreciate all you’re doing for me, but I’m more worried about her.”

Reluctantly, the EMT produced papers. “Then I need your autograph on these. They say you received basic treatment at the scene and refused to be taken in for further medical evaluation.”

Reed took them and signed off, uneasy that Emily was still surrounded by a busy team of workers. If someone on the inside of his agency was helping Dueño, Reed couldn’t chance his phone being hacked. His best bet was to play it cool with the EMT and pretend his had taken a hit. “Any chance I can borrow your phone? Mine’s a casualty of the wreck, and I need to check in with my boss.”

The worker nodded, handing over his cell.

They needed transportation, and Reed trusted a handful of people right now—most of whom shared his last name. His brothers were in North Texas, too far to catch a ride. His boss was his best bet. After being shot in the line of duty, Reed knew he could trust Gil. And with any luck, no one would be listening in on his boss’s phone, either. Reed would play it cool just in case.

Gil picked up on the second ring.

“It’s Reed. I had to borrow a phone. I don’t have time to explain, but I need a car.” There’d be a mountain of paperwork to deal with when this was settled.

“Where are you?”

“My Jeep’s been totaled. I was chased off the road. This is big, Gil. Fingers are reaching out from over the border.” Reed kept the name to himself to be on the safe side.

Gil muttered a curse.

“We need to be careful here,” Reed warned. “We might have another Cal situation on our hands.”

Gil grunted. “I’ll have transportation waiting for you... Wait, let me think.”

“How about the little place you like to visit on special Thursdays?” The Pelican restaurant in Galveston was Gil’s wife’s favorite seafood spot. He took her there every anniversary and occasionally on Thursday nights for their catfish special. Gil didn’t go out on Fridays. Said it was too crowded. Few people knew Gil’s habits the way Reed did. He’d learned a lot about his boss during the man’s visits to the hospital after Reed was shot.