Lisa Childs - Agent to the Rescue

“Yeah, I’m still working it.” He had recently put out a bulletin to state police departments and sheriffs’ offices to keep an eye out for any suspicious vehicles.

“I just passed a strange Mercedes heading down a dirt road,” Littlefield shared, his voice full of suspicion. “It looked vintage.”

A vintage Mercedes on a dirt road? It was unlikely that the car owner would have risked the paint or the suspension of the luxury vehicle.

“Where are you?” Reyes asked. “And how do I get there?”

“Aren’t you at a wedding?”

Ash would understand. Maybe.

Dalton had been chasing these car thieves for a while. But he hadn’t caught them—probably because their chop shop was off some dirt road in some obscure wooded area.

Like here...

He tugged his bow tie loose as he headed for his SUV. With its power-charged engine, he should be able to catch up to that Mercedes in no time.

* * *

THE BRONZE-COLORED MERCEDES fishtailed along the gravel road, kicking up a cloud of dust, as Dalton pursued it. He had caught up to it in less time than he’d anticipated. Now his anticipation grew. If he could follow it back to the chop shop...

But the driver must have spotted Littlefield’s patrol car following at a discreet distance. And the Mercedes had sped up to lose the trooper. The Bureau SUV was more powerful, though, and had easily passed the patrol car. Dalton had caught sight of the Mercedes, but had the driver caught sight of him yet?

Could he see the black SUV through the cloud of dust flying up behind his spinning tires?

Even if he hadn’t seen him, the driver wasn’t likely to go back to the chop shop now. He was more likely to try to dump the car since a trooper had seen it. Littlefield hadn’t gotten close enough to read the plate, though.

Dalton was getting close enough, but too much dirt obscured the numbers and letters. Actually, he couldn’t even tell if there was a plate on the car at all. Then the Mercedes accelerated again. The driver must have seen him.

Dalton pressed on his gas pedal, revving the engine. But his tires slid on the loose gravel. The road wasn’t driven that often, so it wasn’t well maintained. There were deep ruts, and the shoulders of the road had washed out into water-filled gullies on either side. If he lost control, he might wind up in one of those gullies. So he eased off the gas slightly and regained control.

A city kid born and raised, Dalton wasn’t used to driving on dirt roads. The driver of the Mercedes had no such problem. Maybe he had grown up around this area, because the car disappeared around a sharp curve in the road.

Dalton cursed. He had been so close. He couldn’t lose him now. He sped up and fishtailed around the curve, nearly losing control. The SUV took the corner on two wheels. Worried that he was going to roll the vehicle, he cursed some more. Then the tires dropped back down and the SUV skidded across the road—toward one of those gullies.

He braked hard and gritted his teeth to hold in more curses as the SUV continued its skid. He grasped the wheel hard and steered away from the ditch. Finally he regained control only to fight for it again, around the next curve. He skidded and nearly collided with the rear bumper of the Mercedes; it was the only part of the luxury vehicle that wasn’t in the ditch.

Maybe its driver hadn’t been as familiar with the roads as Dalton had thought—since he’d gone off in the gully himself. The tires of the SUV squealed as he braked hard again. He shoved the gearshift into Park and hopped out of the driver’s side. His weapon drawn from beneath his tuxedo jacket, he slowly approached the vintage Mercedes.

Its engine was still running, smoke trailing up from beneath its crumpled hood. The water in the gully sizzled from the heat of it. The Mercedes wasn’t going anywhere now. But the driver was gone—probably out the open passenger’s window.

Dalton lifted his gun toward the woods on that side of the road. The driver had disappeared into them. But he could be close, just hiding behind a tree. Or he could be following a trail through those woods to that chop shop Dalton was determined to find. Since he was a city kid, he would probably get lost. But he started down toward the ditch, anyway, to follow the driver into those woods.

Then the smooth soles of his once-shiny black dress shoes slipped on the loose gravel and the muddy bank. He started sliding toward the water—which he wouldn’t have minded falling into if the damn tux wasn’t an expensive rental. To steady himself, he grabbed at the Mercedes and braced his hand on the trunk. But then his hand slid the way his shoes had. He glanced down and figured out why when he saw the blood on his palm. It was also smeared beneath the dust across the trunk lid.

Dread tightened his stomach into a tight knot. Growing up where he had and working in the division he worked, he had already found more than his share of bodies in car trunks. But he suspected he was about to find another.

He had nothing on him to pry open the lid or to break the lock. So he took the easy way and kicked in the driver’s window, which started an alarm blaring. Then he reached inside for the trunk-lid release button. Fortunately the car wasn’t so vintage that it hadn’t come equipped with some more up-to-date features. The button clicked, and the trunk lid flew up, waving like a flag in the woods.

It wasn’t a surrender flag, though, because the driver had fled into the woods and apparently for a damn good reason, too. Even if the car wasn’t stolen, he would have had some trouble explaining the body in the trunk.

Sun shone through the trees of the thick woods and glinted off that trunk lid. It was such a beautiful day for a wedding. Dalton should have stayed at the stuffy little church and celebrated with his deservedly happy friends. Instead, he had nearly wiped out on some back roads and probably stumbled upon a murder victim.

He drew in a deep breath of fresh air to brace himself for what he would find in the trunk. Then he walked around to the rear of the Mercedes.

White lace, stained with blood, spilled over the bumper. He forced himself to look inside the trunk. The woman’s face was so pale but for the blood smeared on it. And her long hair, tangled around her head, was nearly as red as her blood.

He recognized the dress, since he had just seen a gown eerily similar to it. But that bride had been alive and happy. This bride was dead. He reached into the trunk to confirm it, his fingers sliding over her throat where her pulse would have been—had she had one any longer.

Something moved beneath his fingertips—in a faint and weak rhythm. He looked down again just as her eyelids fluttered open. Her eyes were a pale, almost silvery, gray, and they were wide with confusion and then fear.

She screamed and struck out, hitting and kicking at him, as she fought him for her life.

* * *

THE SCREAM STOPPED him cold, abruptly halting his headlong escape through the forest. He had heard that scream before—seconds before he’d thought he had killed the woman. Hell, he’d been certain he’d killed her.

How could she be alive?

It wasn’t possible...

More important, it wasn’t acceptable.

He had let the state trooper distract him. With his heart pounding in his chest with fear and nerves, he hadn’t known how to react to that police car behind him. At first he’d driven normally, hoping that the trooper wouldn’t notice the missing plate—hoping that he would give up following him for some more interesting radio call.

But the trooper must have called in someone else—some other agency—because then he’d noticed the black SUV. And his every instinct had screamed at him to drive as fast as he could—to outrun that vehicle.