Delores Fossen - The Marshal's Justice

Another hired gun.

She instantly felt fear, and hope. This man could try to kill them, but he also might know something about Bailey.

Chase handed her his phone. “Text Jericho and give him the guy’s position,” he whispered. “Also tell Jericho we need him alive.”

April couldn’t do that fast enough. She certainly didn’t want the sheriff eliminating this hired gun before they got a chance to talk to him.

Jericho didn’t respond to the text, but April soon realized why. She saw him, and he wasn’t that far behind the guy in the ski mask.

Her heart went to her knees.

April nearly shouted out for Jericho not to shoot the man, something that would have almost certainly put Jericho in danger because it would have alerted the gunman. But Chase glanced down at her, shook his head.

“If Jericho had wanted this guy dead, he already would be,” Chase mouthed.

It took her a moment to fight through the panic going on in her head, and April realized he was right. The man obviously didn’t know that Jericho was tracking him, and she was well aware that the sheriff had a deadly aim.

Chase eased her even farther behind the tree so that her face and body were pressed right against the rough bark. Chase pressed, too. His chest against her back. Touching her. Of course, he hadn’t meant for this to be an intimate situation, but it always seemed to be just that when she was within a hundred feet of Chase.

Her mind tried to shut out the memories. But her body remembered every second she’d spent in Chase’s arms.

In his bed, too.

She could no longer see the gunman or Jericho, but April could still hear the footsteps. The guy wasn’t moving that fast, but he was definitely headed right for them.

Did he know Chase and she were there?

Or like them was he simply trying to make his way to the car?

April hadn’t seen a second gunman in the car that’d been left by the bridge, but it was possible he came in another vehicle. Not exactly a comforting thought.

Because Chase was pressed against her, April felt his muscles tense even more than they already were. He was getting ready for something.

But what exactly?

She soon got an answer to that, too. Chase lunged out from cover, tackling the gunman, and he slammed the guy to the ground.

The gunman cursed, and he tried to bring up his weapon, no doubt to shoot Chase. But Chase didn’t give him a chance to do that. He knocked the gun from the thug’s hand.

That wasn’t the end of the fight, though.

The guy punched Chase. Hard enough to have knocked the breath out of him, but Chase managed to deliver a punch of his own.

And just like that, the guy stopped fighting.

It took her a couple of seconds to spot Jericho. He was moving in and had a Glock aimed right at the gunman’s head. April prayed the man wouldn’t give Jericho a reason to pull the trigger.

“Where’s the baby?” Chase demanded, pointing his gun at the man, too.

Jericho didn’t make a sound, but April knew he had to be confused about his brother’s question. Then, Jericho’s gaze dropped to her stomach for a split second, and that seemed to tell him all he needed to know. The baby had been born.

And had been taken.

Later, Jericho would have as many questions as Chase and the rest of the Crocketts would. For now, though, this ski-masked man might tell her what she needed to know.

“Where is she?” April repeated.

He didn’t answer. Chase yanked off the guy’s mask, and like their other attacker, he wasn’t someone she recognized.

Chase got right in his face with the gun. “I won’t kill you, but I’ll make you wish you were dead if you don’t tell me where the baby is.”

When the man still stayed silent, Chase bashed his gun against the side of the guy’s head. “Tell me!” Chase demanded.

The man didn’t open his mouth, not until Chase drew back the gun again to hit him. “I don’t know where she is. Somewhere with the nanny.”

So her baby wasn’t alone in these woods. That was something at least. Well, it was if this snake was telling the truth.

“A nanny you hired?” Chase asked her.

“No.” Which meant it was someone working for the same person as these hired thugs.

“And where’s the nanny?” April pressed, moving even closer to the gunman.

“Don’t know. I don’t!” he shouted when Chase made a move to hit him again. “She was in a separate car with the kid. A black four-door, and she was supposed to follow us here.”

Chase glanced at his brother. That was all it took, just a glance. “I’ll tell Jax to look for the car,” Jericho volunteered.

With that search started, Chase turned back to the man. “Who’s us? Who else is here?”

The man tipped his head to the dead guy. “Just Hank and me.”

April wished she had a lie detector to know if he was telling the truth about there being no other gunmen, but even if he wasn’t, that wouldn’t stop her. “I’m going to look for the nanny’s car,” she said to no one in particular.

But Chase clearly thought she’d been talking to him because he stopped her. “Hold on a second and I’ll go with you.”

Chase turned his attention back to the man and he put his gun in the guy’s face. “One more question, and trust me, a wrong answer will cause you a lot of pain. Who hired you to do this?”

The guy’s eyes widened, filling with fear. “I don’t know. I swear, that’s the truth. I just had orders to find anything that would lead to Quentin Landis. And to get that info by any means necessary. That includes killing you.”

“Tony Crossman hired him,” Jericho spat out. “Unless somebody else is gunning for you and your idiot brother.” He slid a glare at April.

“I can’t speak for Quentin, but I think only Crossman and you hate me,” she settled for saying.

However, she wasn’t sure at all that it was the truth.

Chase glanced at her, too, but his attention quickly shifted back to the gunman on the ground. He stared at him, his gun still poised to do some damage, but after several long moments, Chase stepped back.

“Arrest him,” Chase said to his brother. “Maybe he’ll remember some things in interrogation.”

Jericho didn’t waste any time hauling the man to his feet, and he took out some plastic cuffs from his pocket to restrain him.

“Go ahead,” Jericho said as he checked the guy for other weapons. “Look for the nanny. I’ll take care of this piece of dirt and get someone out here for the woman’s body and the dead guy.”

The word body gave April another slam of grief. And guilt. But there wasn’t anything she could do for Deanne right now. Though she could do something to find her baby.

April turned and started in the direction of the Appaloosa Creek Bridge. She’d made it only a few steps when Chase’s phone rang. He caught up with her, glancing down at the phone screen before he answered it.

“It’s Jax,” Chase relayed to her, and he put the call on speaker while they kept running.

“I found a black four-door car,” Jax said. “It’s on the east side of the road, less than a quarter mile from the bridge.”

Good. The gunman had said the nanny was driving a vehicle like that. “Is the baby there?” April and Chase asked in unison.

Her stomach sank, though, when Jax hesitated.

“Chase,” Jax finally said, “you need to get over here right now.” And with that, Jax hung up.

Chapter Three

Chase batted aside some low-hanging tree branches and ran as fast as he could.

His thoughts and heart were racing, too. He wasn’t sure what had put the alarm in Jax’s voice or why his brother had hung up without an explanation, but with everything else that’d gone on the past hour, Chase figured it could be bad.