Lisa Phillips - Manhunt

Their SUV exploded.

Eric choked on his gasp. He could see Hailey was itching to run. The fugitive, Farrell, began to laugh.

They were cut off until someone could get there to assist them.

Eric scanned the darkness, but he saw nothing. Even with the light of the SUV engulfed in flames, there was no sign of the threat in the deluge of rain.

The fugitive bobbed from one foot to the other. His orange jumpsuit was drenched and his bulletproof vest was dripping, but he was still a beacon in the night. Someone out there had their eyes on the target. Whoever it was didn’t want Farrell on that plane. But were they here to kill him, or help him escape?

A canister hit Eric’s foot, and gas began to pour out in a cloud of smoke. “Gas!” Eric called out the warning, but they couldn’t get to masks they didn’t have. They couldn’t even move from their positions.

Two more canisters were tossed at the edges of their huddle and more smoke chugged out of them. The cloud cut off what visibility they’d had and Eric’s lungs protested the noxious smell of tear gas. How long could he hold his breath? Hailey coughed, and then Ames did, too. Parker looked like he was still breathing normally. What did they do to SEALs in their training?

Then there was nothing but smoke.

Parker yelled, “Hold!”

Deputy Marshal Ames hit the floor.

Something slammed into Eric’s neck. It felt like a tiny rock. He tried to suck in a breath, but the floor swept up and hit him. Gunshots. Parker and Hailey both fell, too.

Eric touched the side of his neck and pulled his gloved hand back, but there was no blood. He could barely breathe. It felt like the time he’d been winded playing paintball. The bruise had been on his sternum for weeks.

Beanbag rounds?

Booted feet crowded around them. He tried to move. The team was all down and the fugitive was laughing full out now, a sickening sound.

Steve Farrell stepped on Eric’s stomach on the way over his body. Still laughing, he walked away. Their assailants looked like a swarm of cockroaches to Eric’s blurred vision. He wiped away the tears streaming down his face—a product of the gas—and tried to focus.

The assault team was going to disappear into the darkness with an escaped fugitive.

Eric grasped about for his weapon, grabbed it and managed to aim at the man in orange.

One of his teammates fired.

Eric fired, too.

TWO

Just after nine on Friday morning, almost a week after Steve Farrell’s escape, Hailey slumped into the back row of the briefing room beside Eric and handed him his coffee. The whiteboard at the front of the room was covered with pictures of Farrell, showcasing his life of crime over the last few years, along with his known associates. Beside it was a map marked with sightings of Farrell that had been called in to the tip line.

No one knew who had helped Farrell escape.

Jonah Rivers, their supervisor and the fugitive apprehension task force team lead, stood at the front of the room. They had another boss, Marshal Wilson Turner, an old-school marshal who oversaw the whole office, but Jonah was the hands-on man.

Jonah stood with his feet hip-width apart and his arms folded. “The blood found on the runway was sent off for testing. We still don’t know who hit who, given both Marshal Shelder and Marshal Hanning fired their weapons.”

Hailey’s cheeks heated. Lying on the ground, thinking she’d been shot in the helmet, she’d realized she was unhurt and tried to do something to help the situation.

Beanbag rounds. Like suddenly it was important for them not to hurt anyone.

And apparently Eric had managed the same thing, because they’d both fired.

Too bad all she’d done was wing someone as they ran away. If she’d even hit the person at all. It could just as easily have been Eric.

Eric shifted beside her. She glanced over at his notebook, where he dutifully recorded everything Jonah was saying. He scratched above his ear with the lid of his pen. Maybe he wouldn’t turn out like the rest of them. He did seem more studious than the rough-edged marshals in the room. That could be a good thing.

Eric shifted and pulled out his phone. The display said Aaron . He stopped the vibrating and slid the phone back in his pocket.

“Who was that?”

Eric looked up. “Huh?”

“The phone. Who’s Aaron?”

“Oh, he’s my brother.”

Hailey studied Eric. There was no way that was all it had been. She knew for a fact her partner was keeping secrets, but for now, she’d let him be evasive. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to give up everything you had built, and move to a completely new city and start over. Still, WITSEC? That had to have been cool.

Her life had fallen apart in a different way when her marriage ended. She’d been tempted to get herself a new life, but around that time Kerry had been starting school and her dad’s construction business was slowing down. Now he only took the odd handyman job to stay busy. It was just how things had worked out, but it meant Hailey had spent her whole life in this one county.

The marshal in front of Hailey raised his hand and said, “What about the rain?”

Jonah nodded. “They’re expecting localized flooding around the river, so the sheriff and the police chief are coordinating efforts to minimize the damage. The radar doesn’t look good, though, and I honestly think the mayor’s downplaying it. We’ll see how it plays out and adjust accordingly. Rain or not, Farrell is still our target.”

She tried not to flinch at Jonah’s mention of the mayor, but it didn’t help when two of the guys turned to smirk at her. So what? She and Charles had been divorced for seven years—whatever he was or wasn’t doing in his mayoral duties had nothing to do with her.

She felt Eric’s attention on her. “Something I should know?”

Hailey’s cheeks warmed even more—a definite downside of having red hair and freckles. She turned to her partner. “Why would there be?”

His face said he didn’t buy it, but she wasn’t going to tell him all the details of her personal life if he wasn’t going to do the same. They just weren’t that type of partners, regardless of what most people thought of law enforcement. Hailey didn’t bring her life to work. Not that the guys respected her need to keep her private life private. But that was a whole other set of problems, and she had enough to deal with.

Jonah said, “The clock is ticking. Let’s get to work.”

Eric’s eyes were focused on her. She started to figure out how to explain, but her phone vibrated. She read the email and motioned from Eric to the door with a flick of her fingers. “Let’s go.”

He glanced up. “Where?”

“Jonah!” She was already walking away. “Hanning and I are out!”

Ten minutes later Hailey was driving through town with Eric beside her in her rusty nineties car. He frowned. “You missed the turn.”

“No, I didn’t. This isn’t a latte run.” His unrelenting insistence on following procedure was starting to affect her mood, like the rain clouds overhead that made everything dreary. “As for what this is, you’ll have to trust me.”

The country song on the radio was cut off by a loud buzz. An electronic voice said, “A severe weather alert is still in effect for all counties, including Franklin—”

Eric shut the radio off. “I might be new to the task force, but I’m pretty sure going off on a hunch is frowned upon.”

Hailey pressed her lips together while the windshield wipers fought to quell the rainfall. “It’s probably nothing.”

“But it might be something?”

“You don’t have to come.” She shrugged. “You could get out at the next light and walk back to the office.”