Sophie Oak: Chasing Bliss

He heard a knocking and a shout and then Patrick was on his feet again, gun in hand.

“Catch me if you can, asshole. Let’s see if you can catch me before I get to the sheriff.” Gemma’s voice trailed off.

Patrick took off after her.

It was only a second later that Henry Flanders’s face came into view. “How many?”

His voice was a flat monotone, not the light and sympathetic tone Henry almost always used.

“I think I got hit twice.” His gut was on fire. “You have to help Gemma. Call the sheriff. Call Cade.”

Cade would come. Jesse knew it.

“How many guns?” Henry corrected.

“Just one.”

“Excellent.” Henry looked over Jesse. “Nell’s coming. She’ll take care of you. Do not allow her to come after me. I don’t want her to see this.”

Henry was gone in a flash, but Nell’s soft hands were suddenly smoothing back his hair. “I called 911. They’ll be here soon. I am so sorry, but I have to cover this.” A wave of nausea hit as she pressed a hand towel to his wound. “It’s organic cotton. And it’s clean. Oh, Jesse, please hold on. Where did my husband go?”

Jesse reached for her hand. Whatever Henry was going to do would be rough. He’d seen it in Henry’s eyes. And he was also pretty sure Henry wouldn’t do it if his wife was around. He had to keep Nell with him. “Please. Don’t leave.”

Her eyes turned round and sympathetic. “Of course not.”

And then it didn’t matter because the world began to narrow. He looked to the sky. The stars were endless.

Cade practically tackled the sheriff in the parking lot.

“We can talk about this debacle back at the station house, Sinclair. Go and get Gemma and Jesse and we can all talk about how fucked up this whole situation is.” Wright stared back at the neon-lit bar, an angry look on his face.

Cade would love to know just what had happened to make those two men hate each other, but he had other problems. “I want the story now. I really want to know why no one bothered to mention this little operation of yours. How long have you known where Patrick is?”

Nate sighed. “He talked to Mike last night. We thought this would be the best way to gather the evidence we need against him. I was very certain he wouldn’t make a move on Gemma. Rafe trailed her all day until she left with Jesse. She’s safe in the valley. Everyone’s watching out for her.”

McMahon tugged at his shirt, pulling out a small microphone that had been taped to his body. “Won’t need this now.”

“He might call back, try to arrange another meeting,” Cam said.

“Doubt it. Even if he didn’t see the law here, he got spooked really easily. And he said he had a deadline. She had to be dead by tomorrow morning, or he would be the one in a casket. He was very specific. She had to be dead by dawn or I wouldn’t get my money.” McMahon ran a hand through his longish hair. “I’m done with this shit. I’m not coming off my mountain again.”

Fuck, he had to get to Gemma. He would tell Jesse what was going on, and then they wouldn’t take no for an answer. They would just get the hell out of here and hide out until this whole thing was sorted out. His fear didn’t matter now. He was way more afraid of a world without Gemma in it than he was of anything else.

Cam cursed as he pulled out his cell phone. “Rafe says Jesse and Gemma left a half an hour ago on Jesse’s bike. He stopped them as they were leaving. They were headed to Nell and Henry’s. Do you want him to go up there with them?”

Nate scrubbed a hand across his head. “Damn it. No. I’ll go do it. Maybe someone will off this little shit and then we won’t have to worry about him.” He sighed. “Then we can worry about whoever killed him.”

It was bigger than just Patrick. Cade’s mind spun with the implications. Gemma was involved in something big, and she didn’t even know it. “Where do Nell and Henry live?”

Jesse had been out to their place to help Henry fix their biodiesel car, but Cade hadn’t been.

“Just come with me.” Nate started for the parking lot. He’d left the county Bronco behind. Cade recognized Zane’s black truck.

Cade went along because he didn’t really have a place to stash thirty grand on his bike, and the sooner he got to Gemma, the better.

He slipped into the backseat just as the radio squawked.

“Sheriff? We have a 911 call from Nell Flanders. She says someone’s shooting outside her cabin, and we already have one down. I’ve dispatched the Creede boys out, but if you’re still at Hell on Wheels, you can get there faster.” Laura’s voice came over the radio. “Rafe’s on his way, too. I’ve called for Caleb and Ty, so expect a bunch of sirens coming your way.”

Nate already had the truck in gear and the gravel was flying.

“Who’s down?” Cade asked from the backseat. Don’t be Gemma. Don’t be Gemma.

Nate handed the handset to Cam as he flew down the mountain.

“Laura, do we have an ID on the vic?” Cam’s voice was perfectly steady.

Laura paused, sending Cade’s stomach into knots. “Jesse McCann. No word on his status. The situation is fluid and dangerous. Use all caution. I’ll update you if I can.”

Status. No word on Jesse’s status. They didn’t know if he was dead or alive. The situation was ongoing. Patrick had made his move, and Jesse had paid the price.

Guilt swamped him. He’d caused this. Like he’d caused everything else. Patrick would have been arrested if he hadn’t bumbled like an idiot into everything.

“I should have told you,” Nate said, his words tight. “If I’d been in your same position, I would have gone after the bastard, too.”

Cam talked as he checked the clip on his gun. “We got the message from Mike this morning. He didn’t give us a lot of time to make reasonable decisions. He basically walked into the station house and invited us along.”

Nate’s hands tightened on the wheel. “As fucked up as Mike is, we should be glad he didn’t just kill the guy himself.”

“Can you go faster?” Cade asked, keeping his voice even when all he wanted to do was scream.

“Not if I don’t want us to die,” Nate replied. “When we get there, you stay in the car, Cade. You let us do our jobs.”

Cade kept his mouth shut because he couldn’t promise that. If he could save Gemma, he would. If he could save Jesse, he would. His love. His brother. And if he couldn’t save them, then nothing mattered anyway.

Gemma clutched her purse as she ran, praying the crazed knocking she’d done would bring the Flanderses out to help Jesse. If they hadn’t gone back to their kink fest. The one thing she couldn’t do was let Patrick walk into their small cottage and slaughter everyone there because he wanted to move up in the firm.

Jesse. She couldn’t even think of him lying there. She couldn’t contemplate the fact that Patrick might have spared a second or two to finish him off. If that second bullet hadn’t done the trick.

She ran, her sandals thunking against the ground. She could hear the river. The Rio Grande was deep here. It also cut her off. The road was to her right, but Patrick would be able to see her there. She was safer in the cluster of white-trunked aspens and thick pines.

“Gemma? Gemma, we can work something out.”

Yeah, she wasn’t falling for that one. She caught her breath behind the trunk of a tree. As quietly as she could, she unzipped her purse, silently cursing Nate for keeping her gun after he’d found out she’d never actually taken a gun safety class. She had a place in Alexei Markov’s next workshop. Apparently being a mob hit man had also made him an expert in gun safety. And Gemma wasn’t allowed to carry concealed until Alexei signed off on it. Nate had offered her a shotgun, and she’d flipped him off.