Get down!” Heath shoved her to the ground, threw his body over her, and relayed the emergency on his radio, grateful that he’d donned full deputy gear, which included body armor.
Harper wore body armor and carried a weapon too. Heath had insisted, and she hadn’t argued.
But none of it mattered. The body armor worked against pistol rounds but not high-velocity rifles—like what had probably taken out Arty.
He needed to shield Harper, but what about Arty? “Arty! You okay?”
He waited, covering Harper, contemplating how to get her out of there. This wasn’t supposed to happen!
“Heath, can you let me up now?”
No. How was he going to keep her safe?
Oh, God, help me.
If Harper had been the intended target, the shooter had missed. The guy had missed her with his long-distance rifle, so maybe he wasn’t a military-trained sniper.
“Stay down. I’m covering you,” he whispered in Harper’s ear. “But let’s very slowly crawl over between those boulders.”
“What about Arty?”
He feared the worst. “I’m going to check on him after I get you to cover.”
“Heath, no. The shooter will kill you. I’ve seen what he can do!”
“Please do as I ask. We don’t know where he is. The report sounded after the bullet hit Arty, so he’s not close, but he could be moving toward us.”
Heath stared at her until he saw in her eyes that she would comply. She nodded her agreement. She was his responsibility, and more than that, she was his friend and someone he cared deeply about. But he cared about Arty too, and the deputy needed his help.
He protected Harper as they inched over to hide between two boulders. Heart pounding, he pressed his back against the rock to catch his breath. “He could make his way around and catch you from a different angle. Please, stay down and hidden.”
Heath hunkered to make his way over to Arty. Harper grabbed him, fear in her eyes. “Please be careful.”
The sniper hadn’t fired another shot. That was good, right? Or was he merely waiting for the right moment or making his way closer? Sweat beaded along Heath’s brow. He sucked in a few breaths, then crawled from tree to tree until he slid behind the trunk closest to the fallen deputy. Heath crouched down and peered around the tree.
Arty lay facedown. A bullet hole in his back.
Oh, God . . . Why?
Had he stepped in front of Harper at the wrong moment? Or exactly the right moment?
“Arty, please, say something.”
Crimson blood spread out beneath him.
Heath flattened himself and crawled closer. He touched the man’s carotid. Nothing. Fury boiled in Heath’s gut. He didn’t want to leave the man there, but he had to get Harper to safety.
He radioed again for help. “Deputy down. Shots fired.” He relayed their location the best he could.
“Response team is on their way.” Laura’s familiar voice came through.
“I don’t know if we can wait.”
“Then get her out of there, Heath.”
He’d completed thirteen weeks of basic officer training at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy, but it was his military training that he would fall back on now. Training and experience. He found Harper crouched behind the boulder, palming her weapon. Good. She hadn’t fallen apart, though he hadn’t expected she would.
“Arty?”
He shook his head.
“We can’t leave him.”
“He’d want me to get you to safety.”
“We don’t know where the shooter is, Heath. How are we going to get out of here?”
Heath eyed the woods ahead of them. Hoping. Praying that the shooter wasn’t making his way around to shoot them from a new position. “Let’s stay low and close to the trees.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait here for help?”
Sometimes the only choices weren’t choices at all. “Yes. I’m sure.” The doubt in his voice belied his confident words.
Heath fired several rounds into the ground to see if he could get a reaction.
Nothing.
“Let’s go.” Together, Heath and Harper held their weapons at the ready as they traversed the woods heading back in the direction from which they’d come and away from Deputy Custer. Arty. Heath couldn’t let the pain of his death strangle him now.
He had to get Harper to safety. Anger at Taggart nearly blinded him. She shouldn’t have been allowed to come to these woods. At least they knew the guy was still lurking in the national forest. He hadn’t run.
Whop, whop, whop . . .
A helicopter. Search and rescue? Or law enforcement? Relief whooshed through Heath. He wouldn’t have to get her out of here alone.
“How do we signal them without exposing ourselves?”
Heath shouted into his radio, letting dispatch know the helicopter was right on top of them above the trees. Despite their efforts, Heath and Harper hadn’t made it that far from where Arty was shot.
Two heavily armed men in tactical gear—SWAT—repelled from the helicopter to the ground.
How determined was the shooter? Had he left the area like Heath hoped? Heath stepped from the cover of a tree and jogged over. The helicopter hovered. “Loosely judging by the trajectory of the shot, I’d say the bullet that took Arty out came from the northwest. Of course, he could have moved by now.”
“We’ll stick with you until the rangers get here.” The officer nodded down the trail. “They’ll get you to safety.”
“I’d prefer if Harper got out of here in the bird.”
“She could be more exposed just getting up there.”
“I see your point.”
Ranger Dan Hinckley hiked toward them from the south, another ranger by his side. “Thanks for coming, Dan,” Heath said.
The two SWAT team members handed Heath and Harper off, then headed into the woods.
“Come on,” Dan said, “let’s get you out of here. Law enforcement is scouring those woods. If that shooter has any sense, he’s long gone by now.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Heath said. The shooter was still there after killing two hikers. Sheriff Taggart had requested Harper’s help, believing that the shooter wasn’t still in the woods. He’d made a bad call that had cost a life. The shooter had stayed behind to target Harper, even with law enforcement searching. That high-powered scope let him keep his distance in the hunt. He was cunning. He had a purpose. A mission.
Heath had a feeling that, unless caught, the killer would leave when he was ready and not before.