Linda Jones - Hot On His Trail

He wasn’t a hundred percent, mentally or physically, right now—not even close—so two hands on the wheel would have been better…but he didn’t dare set the pistol down again.

The adrenaline pumped through his veins, adrenaline and fear and rage. The rage kept him going, kept him from pulling the car over and collapsing. He’d been so sure the verdict would be not guilty. He was innocent, and if the system worked, if there was any justice…

But there wasn’t any justice. If a man could be convicted of a murder he didn’t commit, if everyone was so damn quick to convict an innocent man, then there wasn’t any justice at all.

His leg throbbed. It had been blessedly numb until the girl had kicked it, and before too much longer it would hurt like hell. It continued to bleed, but the flow had slowed some. He’d have to bandage it…soon.

Nick again glanced sideways at the girl he’d grabbed from the courthouse steps. She’d fought for a while, but now she was quiet and she no longer gripped the door handle as if she was thinking of jumping. He half expected to see tears, fear, anger, anxiety—but she remained relatively calm. Her hazel-green eyes were fixed on him, clear and unafraid, and at that moment she looked very familiar, like an old friend whose face you recall but whose name escapes you. She was a reporter, he knew. Hell, he’d grabbed the microphone from her hand and tossed it down. But still he couldn’t place her. He just couldn’t quite remember…

“How’d you get away?” she asked softly, just a hint of the South in her voice.

“What difference does it make?” He returned his attention to the empty, tree-lined road that headed up Monte Sano Mountain.

“I want to know, that’s all.”

He hadn’t planned it. Up until the moment the jury foreman said “guilty,” Nick had been so sure he’d be walking out of that courtroom a free man. “A deputy was taking me upstairs to the jail, but before he could put the cuffs back on I grabbed his pistol right out of the holster and clipped him under the chin. He went down like a stone. Another one came at me.” Out of nowhere, with a shout and a hand on his weapon. “I brought him down with a swift kick and headed for the stairs.”

“You make it sound easy.”

Easy. “It is, if you’re fast enough and strong enough.” And desperate enough. God knows he was desperate enough, and since he’d been such a model prisoner for the past ten months he’d had the element of surprise on his side, as well.

A thick overhang of trees shaded the road they traveled, allowing no more than a few small dapples of sunlight here and there on the road. If he was lucky the patrol cars and helicopters that were searching for him right now would be focused on the major roads out of town. After all, he’d be a fool to stay in an area where everyone knew his face and his name, and believed him to be a killer.

Of course, thanks to the press, everyone in the country knew his face and his name. He hated the reporters. They’d grabbed on to every detail of his life, had hounded everyone he’d ever known in the months since his arrest. They’d made his life hell and done their best to convict him long before the trial. He glanced at the girl again. Reporters like her, though in truth he couldn’t remember ever seeing her cover the story of Winkler’s murder or the trial. Until today. That didn’t mean anything. Lately he’d tried not to watch.

He pulled off the mountain road and onto the dirt trail he’d been heading for, a winding, narrow path barely wide enough for her car. A sharp turn took the car into a copse of thick trees and low-lying bushes. No one would see them here, unless they knew exactly where to look.

“Who shot you?” the girl asked in a soft, controlled voice.

“The deputy I knocked down.” He braked to slow the car as the trail got rougher. “Son of a bitch,” he mumbled. If he’d been thinking he would have taken that weapon, too, or at least taken the time to knock the second deputy out…but no. His only objective had been to get out, and he’d forgotten his training. It had cost him.

The path grew narrower, and green-leafed branches brushed against the sides of the car. The girl flinched with every grinding scrape, but she said nothing. When the winding trail came to an end he put the car in park and shut off the engine.

He needed time to think, time to plan, and time was one of the many things he didn’t have. He had no time, no money, no ally…no chance.

“How did I end up here?” he muttered, laying his head against the steering wheel and closing his eyes. Less than a year ago he’d had a successful contracting firm, a woman in his life he’d foolishly thought had potential for a longterm relationship, and a nice house he’d built himself. Ten months later the business was history. Lauren had not turned out to be the woman he’d thought she was, and even if she had been, twice-monthly conversations through scratched Plexiglass was no way to keep a relationship alive. The house was empty, up for sale so he could pay his legal fees.

Once again, he literally had nothing.

He should’ve known the reporter he’d snatched would try to take off once the car was stopped, but she startled him when she threw open her door and scrambled out. He tried to reach out to snag her before she got away, but she was too fast…or he was too slow.

Nick opened his own door, scraping it against the branches of the bush he’d parked alongside. Even here in the shade the warmth was oppressive, thick with strength-sapping summer heat. It threatened to drag him down, to finish him, once and for all. He shook it off.

The pistol fit comfortably in his right hand, and as he fought his way through the bushes his eyes found the hostage and stayed on her as she made her way slowly through the same dense growth he fought. Her dark hair danced with every step she took. The red she wore made her an easy target.

When he rounded the front of the car, his leg gave out from under him, buckling so that he fell to his knees. He righted himself quickly, but found he could not stand. All of a sudden he had nothing left to give. Well, almost nothing.

“Stop!” he shouted once with surprising strength, and then, almost without conscious thought, he raised the pistol and fired.

The blast took Shea by surprise, and she waited for the impact of a bullet in her back. Oh God, I’m going to die. She stopped running, and still she fought for every breath she took, her heart pumping so hard she could feel it pounding in her chest.

But she wasn’t dead. He’d missed!

“Stop!” he shouted again. “Hold it right there or the next one goes in your leg, not a tree.”

Shea cut her eyes to the right and saw where a bullet had exploded, embedding itself in a tree not two feet away. The shot had been a warning; he hadn’t missed at all. She looked at the splintered bullet hole in the center of the tree trunk and knew Taggert had hit exactly what he’d been aiming for.

She slowly turned around. Taggert was on his knees in front of the car, the weapon he held pointed steadily at her.

“You said you wouldn’t hurt me,” she said.

“I said I didn’t want to hurt you.” Taggert had gone deathly pale, and a strand of thick black hair fell over his forehead. His suit was rumpled, the tie loosened slightly, and it seemed to Shea that he swayed ever so slightly, there on his knees in front of her car. Through all that, she saw his unwavering tenacity. He was inflexible. In spite of his wound and his weakness, he was damned and determined to have his way.

Part of her job was to read people when she had to. She had to be able to smile and nod through an interview, all the while knowing in her heart who was lying and who was telling the truth. It was an instinct some people had and others didn’t.