Lisa Childs - Agent to the Rescue

But he was a stranger to her. Maybe that was why she stopped struggling. Or maybe she was just too weak from all that blood loss.

So he released her wrists, then holstered his weapon and pulled out his cell. But the phone screen blinked out a warning: no signal.

He cursed. He couldn’t leave her here while he drove around until his phone had a signal again. She might not survive until he returned. Either her injury might claim her life or the man who’d put her in the trunk might return for her.

Dare Dalton try to move her? To carry her to his SUV and drive her to a hospital? Hell, he didn’t even know where a hospital was in this area.

Maybe she wasn’t as weak as he’d thought, though, because she drew in an unsteady breath and then tried again to climb out of the trunk. He put a hand on her shoulder to hold her still, though he probably hadn’t had to bother. The weight of the blood-soaked dress was already holding down her body.

“You have to take it easy,” he warned her. “You have a head injury.” At least that looked to be where her blood was coming from. Had she been shot?

In his experience, most of the people he had found in trunks had been shot, execution-style, in the base of the skull. But all of those people had died. If she had a bullet in her head, and he moved her...

She would probably die, too. But if he didn’t move her, she still might die. There was too much blood.

She lifted one of her hands and touched her head. Her beautiful face contorted with pain and she jerked her hand back. Staring down at her fingers, which were stained with her own blood, she gasped.

“Do you know what happened?” he asked. Maybe she could tell him if she’d been shot.

But from the dazed and glassy look in her pale gray eyes, she appeared to be in shock. Or maybe it was the injury that had her so groggy and weak.

“Noooo...” she murmured.

Wouldn’t she remember being shot? He remembered every time that he had been shot.

“Maybe you were struck over the head,” he suggested.

She could have a concussion—some blunt-force trauma that was making her bleed so much. Dalton had seen that kind of injury a lot, too, over the years.

Or she could have been shot from behind, so that she hadn’t realized what was happening to her—until it was too late. Until the bullet had been fired into her head.

Gravel scattered across the road, small stones skittering past him and into the water in the gully. Then metal clicked as a gun cocked. And Dalton realized that the same thing had just happened to him. Someone had sneaked up behind him to take him by surprise.

The damn driver must have circled back around—returning to reclaim his victim. To make sure that she was dead and couldn’t identify him.

Her eyes widened with shock and fear. Either she could see the man over his shoulder, or she must have heard the gun cocking, too.

Dalton shifted his body slightly, so that he stood between her and the danger. If the man wanted to kill her, he would have to kill Dalton first.

He reached for his holster again—for his gun. But he wouldn’t be able to draw it fast enough to save himself from getting shot. But maybe he could get off a shot himself and save her.

Chapter Three

The man had drawn his gun again. But she wasn’t afraid of him this time. She was afraid for him. A shadow had fallen across the road behind him. And that soft click of metal must have been another gun, already cocking...

The bullet would hit the man first—before it hit her. He had positioned himself so that it would. He had positioned himself to protect her.

Maybe he wasn’t who or what she’d thought he was. Maybe he wasn’t the person who had hurt her. Maybe he wasn’t a monster. But how had he found her?

“Who are you?” she whispered. But she wasn’t asking for just his name.

“FBI,” he identified himself—not to her but to whoever had come up behind him. “Put down your weapon...”

A man uttered a ragged sigh of relief. “Agent Reyes, I couldn’t tell if that was you or not...from behind...and in a tux...but of course you were at the wedding...” The man’s sigh became a gasp as he peered around the FBI agent and saw her in the trunk. “Is that the bride?”

“No,” the agent replied. “Not the bride from the wedding I was at anyway. I don’t know who she is. I found her in the car we were pursuing.”

Unlike the agent who wore a tuxedo, this man was wearing a vaguely familiar-looking uniform. It was tan and drab like the dust coating the car, but he had a badge pinned to his chest. He was also a law enforcement officer.

She breathed a slight sigh of relief. Maybe she had been rescued—if only she remembered from what...

“Where’s the driver?” the state trooper asked. He was shorter and heavier than the agent—with no hair discernible beneath the cap of his hat.

The FBI agent gestured toward the woods. “He ran off before I could even get a look at him. And then I found her in the trunk. She needs medical help.”

She heard the urgency in his voice and knew her situation was as critical as she feared it was.

“Does your phone or radio work?” the agent asked the officer. “I can’t get a signal.”

The other man grabbed at the collar of his shirt and pressed a button on the device attached to it. “We need an ambulance.”

They didn’t need the ambulance. She did. She had been badly injured. All the blood was hers. No wonder she felt so weak—too weak to even pull herself out of the trunk. Too weak to fight anymore.

“Help’s coming,” the man called Agent Reyes assured her.

He had already helped her—when he had stopped whoever had been driving the car and opened the trunk for her. She wanted to thank him, but she struggled for the words—for the strength to even move her lips.

“Shh,” he said, as if he sensed her struggle. “You’re going to get medical attention soon. The ambulance is on its way.”

But she was afraid that it would be too late.

“Hang in there,” he urged her.

She shook her head and dizziness overwhelmed her, making her stomach pitch and pain reverberate in her head like a chime clanging against the insides of a bell.

“You’re strong,” he said. Instead of clasping her wrists, he took her hand and squeezed it reassuringly. “You must be strong, or you wouldn’t still be alive. You’re a fighter. You can hang in there.”

She had suspected he was lying to her earlier—when he’d told her she would be okay and especially when he had urged her to trust him. Now she was certain that he was lying. She had never felt weaker than she did right now. At least she didn’t think she had...

Memories still eluded her.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She blinked, trying to focus on his face again. He really was quite handsome—with that tanned skin, those dark eyes so heavily lashed and his thick, black hair. It was a little long—longer than she would have thought a government agent would be able to wear his hair.

“What’s your name?” he asked again. Moments ago he’d shushed her when she’d tried to talk. Now he was getting insistent, as if he needed her name in case she didn’t survive until the ambulance arrived.

She gathered the last of her strength and admitted in a raspy whisper, “I don’t know...”

Her memories weren’t just eluding her. They were completely gone, as if they had seeped out with her blood—leaving her mind entirely blank.

“I don’t know...” she murmured again...just as oblivion returned to claim her.

* * *

“WHERE’S THAT DAMN AMBULANCE?” Dalton demanded to know. Maybe the trooper had called only minutes ago for help, but it felt like hours—with the young woman lying unconscious in the trunk of the car.