Delores Fossen - The Marshal's Justice

His gaze whipped in the direction of the second shooter. The person was still hidden behind a tree, but Chase had the sickening feeling that he knew who’d fired those two shots at the gunman.

Was April really out there?

Just the thought of it twisted and tightened that knot even more. There was plenty of bad blood between April and him. But a different kind of connection, too. One that would last a lifetime.

Because April was pregnant with Chase’s baby.

However, April shouldn’t be here. Couldn’t be here. She was in WITSEC, tucked away somewhere safe with a new name and a location that even Chase didn’t know. A necessary precaution so that no one could trace her by following him.

April was also nine months pregnant, ready to deliver any day now.

He waited until the original shooter fired another shot, and he used that to help him pinpoint the guy’s position. Chase fired. He also got moving right away, heading toward those trees where the second shooter had been. Maybe he wouldn’t find April there after all.

But if she was, then that meant something had gone wrong.

He tried to recall every word of the short phone conversation he’d had earlier with Deanne. She’d been frantic, said she was in her car, somewhere near the Appaloosa Creek Bridge, and that she was being tailed by a gunman wearing a ski mask.

Had Deanne said anything else?

No.

Definitely nothing about April being with her.

So, maybe he was wrong about April, and Deanne’s words were merely the mumblings of a dying woman. And maybe that was one of his brothers out there helping him with the shots.

Chase scrambled his way through the trees and the underbrush, cursing the wet spring weather that’d clogged this part of the woods with mud and briars. It slowed him down.

He ducked behind a tree, fired off another shot and then had to reload. It was his last magazine so he’d have to be careful with the shots now and make every one count.

Whoever was returning fire at Deanne’s killer didn’t seem to have the problem of not enough ammunition. The person continued to shoot, spacing out the shots several seconds apart.

“Jericho?” Chase whispered, hoping his brother, the sheriff, was the one returning fire behind the sprawling oak that was now just a few yards away.

No answer.

And if it’d been Jericho, or his other brothers, Levi or Jax, they would have responded somehow to let him know not to fire in their direction.

Chase kept moving, working his way through the muck, and he finally got in position to spot someone. It was late afternoon and some sunlight still hung in the sky, but the woods created deep shadows. There was nowhere near enough light for him to see the person’s face, but whoever it was wore all black.

He risked lifting his head just a little, to see how this shadowy figure would respond, but he or she didn’t even seem to acknowledge Chase.

“I’m coming closer,” Chase warned the person, hoping this didn’t turn out to be a big mistake, and he scurried toward the tree.

Thank God the person didn’t shoot him, but this definitely wasn’t one of his brothers.

Not April, either.

Because while he still couldn’t make out much of the person’s face, he could see the silhouette of the body. Whoever this was darn sure wasn’t nine months pregnant.

Chase scrambled the last few feet to the tree and landed on the ground right next to the person who was kneeling. His heart skipped a beat or two though when he saw the ski mask. Identical to the one worn by the other shooter.

Hell.

He brought up his gun. Took aim. Just as the person shoved up the ski mask to reveal her face.

April.

Yes, it was her, all right. There was no mistaking her now. The black hair, the wide blue eyes. But she didn’t have her attention fixed on him. It was on the other shooter.

“Is Deanne okay?” she asked on a rise of breath.

“No. She’s dead.”

April had no reaction to that. Well, none that he could pick out in the dusky light anyway. A surprise. Deanne and she weren’t friends. Far from it after everything that’d happened, but still April had to be shocked by a woman’s murder.

However, reactions and that ski mask weren’t his only concern about this situation. Chase couldn’t stop himself from looking in the direction of her stomach again. Definitely flat.

“The baby?” he managed to say.

His baby. The one April should have been giving birth to any day now. But she certainly didn’t have a newborn with her, and she didn’t look as if she’d just delivered, either.

“Play along,” she whispered, a split second before she hooked her left arm around his neck, dragged him in front of her and put her gun to his head.

“I have Marshal Crockett,” April called out to someone.

“What the devil’s going on here?” Chase snarled, and he shoved her away from him.

“You have to play along,” April repeated. Definitely not the tone of a terrified woman on the run. Nor was that a weak grip she put on him when she yanked him back against her.

Damn. Was April up to her old tricks again?

“Put down your gun,” she added in a whisper. “And whatever you do, don’t shoot him.”

Chase didn’t get a chance to ask her anything else because he heard the footsteps. Heavy, hurried ones. And he soon spotted the guy who’d been firing shots at him.

The very snake who’d killed Deanne.

Chase didn’t put down his gun as April had demanded, but she shoved his hand by his side. Maybe so that his weapon would be out of sight. Or perhaps because this was some kind of sick game she was playing.

The killer came right toward them, and the moment he spotted April—and the gun she had to Chase’s head—he lifted his ski mask.

And he smiled.

Chase didn’t recognize him. The guy was a stranger, but judging from his sheer size and the hardened look on his scarred face, this was a hired thug. He certainly didn’t look like a man ready to negotiate surrender, not with that Kevlar vest and multiple guns holstered on his bulky body.

“Good job,” the guy told April. “Well, sorta good. That wasn’t you shooting at me, now, was it?”

“I aimed over your head. I wanted Marshal Crockett to think I was trying to kill you so he’d come to me. It worked.”

Oh, man. Was this really a trap? Possibly. But Chase kept going back to April’s play along comment.

What kind of sick plan was this?

The man stared at her. A long time. As if he might challenge what she’d just told him. Then, he shrugged. “Guess it did work. Now take a hike so I can finish this. Unless you’d rather watch while I have a word with your ex-lover. It might involve a bullet or two.”

Shaking her head, April stood. Slowly. “No, I’d rather skip that part. Just give me what you promised, and I’ll leave.”

Chase stood, too, hoping it wasn’t a mistake that he hadn’t already put an end to this hulking clown. Or that he’d semi-trusted April when she’d rattled off those whispered instructions about not shooting the guy.

“Give me what you promised,” April demanded to the man.

Now Chase heard some emotion in her voice. She was scared. Which meant whatever the heck was going on here was possibly about to take an even worse turn than it already had.

“You’ll have to wait a little longer,” the man said. He motioned for her to leave. “I’ll meet you at your car, and you’ll get it then.”

Chase still didn’t have a clue what this conversation was about, but he had no doubts that this bozo was about to try to kill him.

“You promised.” April’s voice was trembling now.

The man smiled again. There was no friendliness or humor in it. “And it’s a promise I’ll keep, okay? Just not right now at this second. I need to have that little chat with this cowboy cop first while you hurry along.”