Shirlee McCoy - Deadly Christmas Secrets

“One of us is planning to,” Logan said, pulling a Maglite from his coat pocket. He hadn’t used it before, but now that the perp was on the run, he’d take every advantage he could to hunt the guy down before he made it to the highway.

“Are you going to try to track him?” Stella asked. She’d let him take the lead on this. That was the way Stella was. No fuss. No muss. If it wasn’t her assignment, she took a backseat, followed orders, made herself as much of an asset to the team as she could.

“He’s heading for his escape vehicle. I want to get to him before he reaches it.”

“The police could do the job as easily,” she remarked. No judgment in the words. Just a statement of fact. “And you know how Chance is—he likes to let the local PD handle their problems.”

“This isn’t their problem. This is my problem. I was hired to—”

“Find Harper. Which you’ve done.”

True, but finding Harper had put her in danger. He felt responsible for that, which made him responsible for her. Whether Chance thought so or not. And whether Harper did or not.

And he didn’t think she did.

She hadn’t wanted twenty-four-hour protection, had seemed determined to go on the way she had before he’d showed up with a gunman on his tail. She’d finally conceded when Stella had mentioned her niece.

Amelia seemed to be the key to all of this, and she seemed to be the key to getting Harper to accept protection and help.

“I’m right here,” Harper muttered. “I’ve been found.” She sounded tired, and he wondered what it must feel like to go from a peaceful and quiet existence to chaos and trouble.

“And now you’re in danger.”

“Not because of you,” she responded. “So let’s all go back to my place and wait for the police. They can do what they need to, and we can decide the best way to proceed.”

That wasn’t going to happen.

He wanted this guy, and if he waited for the police to show up, he wasn’t going to get him.

He glanced at Stella. “I’ll meet you back at the cabin. Can you call the sheriff? Ask him to have someone on the road, searching for the perp? He might want to notify the local hospital, too.”

“But—”

“No sense arguing,” Stella said, cutting off Harper’s protest. “He’s stubborn as a mule.” She grabbed Harper’s arm and dragged her back the way they’d come.

Picasso followed, silent for once. The dog probably sensed the tension in the air, the danger that seemed to lurk just out of sight.

Logan flashed his light on the ground, studying the leaves and foliage for signs that someone had passed that way. Minutes went by, the forest coming to life—small animals scurrying through underbrush, an owl calling from a nearby tree. Thick flakes of snow tumbled through the tree canopy, dancing in the beam of his light. If he didn’t hurry, the trail would be lost, the guy gone.

In the distance, sirens were screaming, the police racing in. Hopefully with their K-9 team. The dogs had come up empty earlier, but the scent would be easier to find this time, the area they’d be searching a lot smaller.

His light bounced across the ground, glowing on dead leaves, moist earth and a slick wet splotch halfway hidden by pine needles.

He moved closer and studied the spot.

Blood for sure. A drop that was just beginning to dry. The guy wasn’t that far ahead. Maybe the injury was slowing him down, keeping him from escaping to the road.

Or maybe he wasn’t running.

Maybe he was waiting in the underbrush, hoping for another chance to strike.

FOUR

Forty-five minutes. A long time to walk through swirling snow and gusting wind. Logan had done worse—hiking desolate regions of Afghanistan in the middle of the night, scaling rock faces and climbing mountains in search of enemy strongholds. He’d been a scout sniper, trained in night operations. He’d probably still be that if his parents hadn’t died. He’d loved the work, the adrenaline rush, the high-stakes play.

He’d traded it all for a two-thousand-acre soy farm in North Carolina, which three generations of his family had owned and operated. He hadn’t done it because he’d wanted to farm. He’d done it because his father was dead, his mother was missing and his brothers needed him. Five years in the military hadn’t prepared him for finishing up the job of raising three teenage boys. They’d had a couple of rocky years, but he’d managed to get them through college and into life without much of a problem. Colton ran the farm now and had turned it into an organic venture that was making way more money than their father had probably ever thought was possible. Trent was the town sheriff. Gavin was pastor of the church they’d attended when they were kids. They were all productive citizens doing what they thought God was calling them to. Their parents would have been proud. Logan was proud. And he was going back for Christmas.

His brothers had begged him. When that hadn’t worked, they’d had Andrea call. Colton’s wife had a way of convincing anyone of anything, and when she’d mentioned how long it had been since Logan’s nieces had seen him, he’d agreed to spend his ten-day Christmas vacation in Rushers, North Carolina.

Those plans weren’t going to work out if he died, so he ignored the snow and the wind, the cold that seemed to burrow deep into his bones. He focused on the trail, on the stillness of the forest around him, the dogs coming up behind him.

The perp had to know the police were on his trail, and he had to be panicked. Panicked people made dangerous decisions. Anything was possible. The guy could be just up ahead, waiting to ambush his pursuers. He could be running for the highway. He could be hunkering down, hoping that the snow would wash his scent away.

Logan was prepared for any of those things as he crested a hill and caught sight of the highway—just lights flashing through trees. He moved toward them, the dense foliage thinning as he drew closer to the interstate. The trees were sparser here, snow layering the ground, providing a thick cushion to Logan’s footsteps. He searched the ground and found what looked like footprints pressed into fresh snow. The perp had veered off course, heading south rather than east. If Logan were going to venture a guess, he’d say there was a structure of some sort nearby, a place where hiding a vehicle would be easy. A gas station, maybe. Or a rest stop.

He moved cautiously, the sound of interstate traffic mixing with the rustling of leaves and the swish of the wind.

The trees opened into a field of rotting cornstalks. Beyond that, a house jutted up toward the cloud-laden sky. An old farmhouse of some sort. No lights. No sign that the place was occupied. The footprints disappeared into the field, the old husks and tangled plants making it impossible for Logan to find them again.

He followed his gut, heading across the field and straight to the house. An old porch sagged along the front and sides of it, the boarded-up windows and doors speaking of neglect and abandonment. Someone had loved the house once. Now it was simply a place that had once been a home.

Snow blanketed the porch. No footprints there. Logan bypassed the building, moving around to the back of the structure and into an overgrown yard. Still no sign of a vehicle. No footprints. Nothing that would indicate the perp had been there, but Logan could sense something out of place.

He ducked back into the cornfield, crouching low as he moved toward a group of outbuildings clustered near the back of the property. Looked like a couple of sheds and a barn, but it was hard to see through the falling snow. There’d been a driveway once—he could see that—the crumbled asphalt just a few feet from the edge of the field.