“Why are we out here?” Tate demanded, zipping his coat up to his chin.
Alanna looked around the circle of people she’d hustled out of the station and into the snow. Kensie and Colter had Rebel between them, and the dog looked as curious as her owners in the darkened parking lot. Peter stood beside her, absently petting Chance and waiting for her to speak, his narrowed eyes telling her he already suspected what was coming.
When she’d told them all she needed to go outside for some fresh air, she’d hoped Tate would stay inside. Some part of her had hoped Peter would, too. Because if either of them refused to go along with her plan, her niece could be in more danger.
“Maybe you should go in and warm up,” Alanna suggested, trying to sound sincere.
“You figured out where they are, didn’t you?” Tate demanded.
“What?” Kensie gasped, clutching her hand. “Really?”
Alanna stared back at the big sister who looked so much like her and nodded. “I think so. But...” Her gaze darted to Peter and Tate. “Johnny understands the Alaskan wilderness the way Darcy does. We grew up learning to shoot in case of trespassers or a rogue bear. Despite my carelessness a few days ago, we were taught how to spot signs of a potential avalanche. We learned how to use the wilderness to our advantage.”
“Like firing at an overhang of snow and burying a team of police officers who thought they were well hidden?” Tate stared, assessing her like he was still trying to determine if the people who’d raised her were that in tune with their surroundings or she’d somehow given away their presence.
“Johnny was better than any of us,” Alanna continued, ignoring the unspoken question—Tate was either going to have to trust her or she wasn’t letting him in on her plan. “I can’t have officers trying to surround him. Not with Elysia in the way.”
Peter took her hand. “We’ll be more careful about—”
“No.” She turned toward him, Kensie’s desperate face in her peripheral vision. “What I said before, about Johnny looking for revenge? I’m the one he thinks did him wrong.”
“We’re not going to let him hurt you,” Colter hissed.
His loyalty brought tears to her eyes and she nodded a quick thanks to the brother-in-law who’d risked his life for her before he’d even known her to help Kensie bring her home. “I don’t think he will. He’s not trying to just lure me close enough to shoot me. He spent the past five years ignoring me. This is his way of reaching out.”
Kensie let out a huffed breath, then leaned into her husband over Rebel.
Alanna kept her eyes locked on Peter, willing him to believe her, praying he’d have enough trust left with Tate to keep his partner quiet, too. “He wants to talk.”
“Talk?” Peter asked, eyebrows raised. “And then what?”
“I know Johnny,” she said instead of answering. “If we give him the opportunity to take me instead of Elysia, he’ll jump at that deal.”
“There’s a better way than trying to make a trade,” Peter insisted.
“Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves?” Tate asked. “Where is he keeping Elysia? Let’s do some surveillance. We can—”
“You’ll never get close to him,” Alanna insisted. “But I can. I can go there and convince him to leave her behind. I just have to go with him.”
“What?” Kensie stepped forward and Rebel did, too, giving a sharp bark in response to Kensie’s distress. Kensie grabbed Alanna’s arm, turning her so they were face-to-face. “I don’t want to lose you again.”
“You won’t,” Alanna said, forcing herself not to blink or shift her gaze. “He hates me right now, but I’m still his family. As long as I don’t betray him by bringing the police, he’ll go with me. He’ll leave Elysia. I know he will.”
“Alanna.” Her name sounded like a sigh as Peter moved so he was in her line of sight, too. “You can’t know how anyone from the Altier ‘family’ is going to respond anymore. Things have changed.”
“You saw what happened in that cabin,” she told Peter. “Darcy turned her weapon on you, but she ran instead of risking that she’d hit me. After everything that happened, Johnny is still her son. He’ll do the same.”
Kensie and Colter shared a worried glance and Peter’s gaze lifted to Tate’s, his forehead crinkled with doubt. Tate gave a short, hard nod and Alanna felt her whole body relax.
They believed her. They’d follow her plan. She let herself smile, because she knew it could work. Johnny had only grabbed Elysia to get back at her. He’d never hurt a baby. But no way did he want to raise one all alone.
“You can still go inside,” Peter told Tate softly. “You don’t know anything. You don’t have to be a part of this.”
Tate shook his head, the expression on his face a mix of anger and determination. “We’ve come this far because Alanna could predict what Darcy would do. If Johnny knows this place half as well as she does, he could disappear way too easily.” His gaze darted to Kensie and Colter and then back to his partner. “Our department is good, but situations like this need one of two things—a good hostage negotiator or a full-time tactical team.” He looked at Alanna. “I’ll bet on our hostage negotiator.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. Then she took a deep breath and looked at her big sister. “He’s at the cabin where we used to live. He must be. It’s the only place he can be sure I’d know to look. I’ll go up there and get in the car with him. We’ll drive away and leave Elysia there. That way, he can be sure anyone coming after us will go into the cabin first. He’s good at watching for tails. He’ll see if anyone follows us.”
“What happens if it doesn’t work?” Peter demanded. “What happens if he tries to run with both of you?”
“I won’t do it.” Understanding that Johnny would probably be armed and there might be a situation where she had no choice, Alanna added, “If I have to get in the car with both of them, I’ll signal you. Then you stop the car. Otherwise, you go in the cabin and get Elysia.”
“What about you?” Kensie asked.
“Once we’re far enough away, Johnny and I will talk things through. I doubt I’ll be able to get him to turn himself in. But he’ll know I won’t stay with him forever, just like I didn’t stay with the Altiers forever. He’ll have to let me go.”
They all stared back at her with worried expressions and she insisted, “I told you, he won’t hurt me. He might take a while to let me go, true. Then he’ll be a fugitive, because I can’t bring him in if he doesn’t want to go. But I’ll be okay. I promise.”
Chance whined, shoved his big head against her arm a few times, like he was begging her to be honest.
She stroked his fur and kept her expression even. Darcy would have been able to see through it, but the woman had raised her. Kensie had only known her for ten years, five of them as a little child and five as a woman torn between two worlds. But no longer. Today she was going to prove where she belonged.
If she didn’t live through it, then at least she’d die looking after her niece the way Kensie had looked after her.
THIS WAS THEIR best shot.
Peter believed it, but he didn’t like it. If this were any other case, he’d bring in his team. He’d trust them to do their jobs better than a group of civilians. Proceeding by the book would have meant officers surrounding the cabin, bringing in a state SWAT team if they had time. It meant keeping higher-ups abreast of every single movement of the operation. It meant Alanna would stay safely outside, far away from danger.
As much as he wanted that last part, Alanna was right. They wouldn’t have captured Darcy without her. Darcy and her husband had taught Johnny how to shoot, how to hide, how to fight. Right now, sending Alanna into danger was their best shot at getting Elysia back to her parents safely.
Since Kensie and Colter hadn’t immediately nixed Alanna’s plan, they knew it was true, too. From the way they were staring at each other—fear, hope and helplessness all over their faces—they didn’t like it any better than he did.
Of course, they didn’t have to do it completely Alanna’s way.
Her plan was probably going to save Elysia’s life. But it was probably also going to destroy what was left of Peter’s career. It would take down Tate with him.
Thinking about either of those things put a pain in Peter’s chest, but Tate knew what he’d agreed to, understood what was at stake. If it meant giving Alanna the life she deserved with the people who loved her, the way it should have been all along, Peter could accept giving up what he’d only recently discovered was his life’s calling.
What he wasn’t willing to do was risk Alanna’s life.
She could be right. She knew Johnny best, knew what he was capable of and, hopefully, where he’d draw the line. Whatever their sins, the Altier “family” had loved each other. But love that had turned into hate was dangerous. It was unpredictable.
They could trade Alanna for Elysia, make sure the infant was safe. But they needed a backup plan, needed something to trade Alanna for, too. Peter wasn’t willing to risk Johnny driving off with her and having her disappear again from everyone who loved her.
Peter’s family could really annoy him sometimes. His parents still treated him like a teenager. Their encounter with Alanna at the coffee shop hadn’t been the first time they’d seen him around town with someone, assumed he was on a date and told the woman how badly he needed to settle down. His siblings weren’t much better. They were all older than him, all happily married with kids and certain that what they had was all that was missing from Peter’s life. That if he would only hurry up and find the right woman, settle down and make a couple of babies, he’d forget all about the reporter job he’d left behind, forget how hard he’d fought over the past year to be accepted at the Desparre PD as an equal, rather than a possible liability.
No matter how little he sometimes felt they understood him, they loved him. They supported him. And he’d gotten their support his entire life.
Alanna deserved the same thing. She deserved to watch her niece grow up safe and happy and surrounded by her real family.
If he was being honest with himself, she made him see what his family was always insisting he needed. If she lived in Alaska, he could imagine dating her, could imagine one day marrying her and making babies, little miniature versions of her, maybe with his eyes.
It wasn’t meant to be. But he wasn’t going to let Johnny decide her future. Even if it couldn’t be with him, Alanna deserved to have her own babies and watch them grow up safe and happy, too, surrounded by the family that had waited and searched for her for fourteen long years.
“I have a plan, too,” he announced, making everyone’s head swivel his way. Even Rebel and Chance looked up at him expectantly.
“Colter and Kensie, you should drive Alanna back to my place. Drop the dogs off there and wait for my call. Then Alanna should take her rental and you two should follow at a distance.”
Chance and Rebel looked from him to Colter and Alanna, as if waiting for their reply. When there wasn’t an immediate rebuttal, Chance barked and Rebel followed suit, like they didn’t approve of the plan.
“Sorry,” Peter told the dogs, as a smile broke free, the first one he’d felt since they’d gotten the call from Kensie. “But you two need to stay home this time.” He looked at Tate. “I’m going to tell the chief that Alanna has good reason to suspect the baby is at the first cabin we went to, the one where Darcy started the avalanche. I want you to go there with them, keep them looking. Keep them out of the way.”
Tate shook his head. “I know what you’re doing. You want to keep me out of trouble, hopefully save my career. But it doesn’t matter. If you pursue this on your own and I looked the other way, it’s the same thing as going with you. Face it. I’m in this. I’m with you.”
“I want you to make sure the police go. I want you to make sure they’re out of the way long enough for us to pull this off.”
Tate crossed his arms over his chest. “Where exactly am I supposed to say you went?”
“Tell them I’m going to make sure Alanna and her sister don’t try to get to Johnny first.”
Tate shook his head. “You’re trying to make things better for me and I appreciate it. But do you really think the chief will believe that I didn’t know what was really happening? It would be better if I came with you. What if you need backup?”
“We’ll be okay.” He wasn’t sure it was true, but this was about more than just doing whatever he could to salvage Tate’s career. It was also about getting his partner out of the way. Because trying to take down a criminal without backup or following procedure was one thing. But what the rest of his plan entailed? Not even the closest partner would agree to it.
“I really don’t think—”
“It’s the best way,” Peter insisted, knowing he needed to put this in motion fast before he thought better of it, too. He headed for the door, then pivoted back toward Alanna, Kensie and Colter, who were all standing immobile, like they hadn’t absorbed his plan yet.
“Get moving,” he told them. “Then wait at my place until you get my call that the rest of the department has cleared out. I want them far enough away that if anyone calls them to a situation at the old Altier place, they won’t be able to respond quickly. But I also want to do this now, while it’s still dark. Hopefully give us some element of surprise and keep Johnny off-balance.”
His gut knotted at how badly this could all backfire and he tried to ignore all his training, all his common sense screaming this was a mistake. “Go,” he insisted again, and finally Colter and Kensie nodded, heading for their trucks.
Rebel followed, but Alanna stayed where she was. She shook her head mutely at him, studying him too closely like she knew he wasn’t telling her everything.
He wasn’t going to give her time to figure it out. Moving in close, he looped an arm around her waist, pulled her to him and kissed her.
Her arms slid around his neck and she half leaned, half fell into him as Chance gave a sharp bark. Then she was kissing him back, the desperation in those kisses telling him that what he’d planned was necessary.
She pulled back first, stared at him a long minute, then spun and hurried to the truck where Kensie and Colter waited. Chance barked at him once more, then bolted after her.
“Let’s do this,” Peter told Tate, passing his partner and reaching for the door to the station.
Tate put a hand on his arm. “What are you really planning?”
“Trust me, it’s better if you don’t know.” He yanked open the door and went inside before Tate could argue.
Then he was running toward the chief, pasting a frantic look on his face that wasn’t completely feigned.
She was on her feet and met him before he made it halfway there. They met in the middle of the bullpen, all eyes on them. Chief Hernandez looked from him to Tate. “What’s happening?”
“Alanna and her sister and brother-in-law just took off,” Tate said.
“I told them they could leave their dogs at my place and get some rest, then come back to the station. I said we’d call if we had any updates,” Peter jumped in, not wanting Tate too involved in the lie. “I think they are going to drop the dogs off, but I don’t think they plan to stay there.”
The chief’s eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
“I overheard Alanna telling Kensie and Colter that she thinks Johnny took Elysia to the cabin over in Luna, where Darcy started the avalanche.”
“Why does she think that?” Chief Hernandez asked. “I saw the conversation between Darcy and Alanna. Darcy never said anything about that cabin.”
“Alanna spent fourteen years with that woman,” Peter said. “She can read between the lines better than we can. Look, she might be wrong. But do we want to risk it? We need to go out there. Actually...”
The chief’s narrowed eyes shifted into a scowl. “Actually, what?”
“I should go to my place, see if I can keep them there, keep them out of the way. I might be able to get Alanna to listen.”
“I’ll go with the team,” Tate said. “I don’t know what Darcy said to Alanna, but she seemed convinced they’d be at that cabin. We need to go now.”
Peter swore inwardly at Tate’s addition, because it made him part of the lie, rather than someone who’d trusted the wrong partner. But Tate’s word seemed to be enough, because suddenly Chief Hernandez was nodding and waving her arms for the rest of the officers to gear up.
As they raced to the equipment room to gather the heavier weapons and protective gear, Peter ran out to his SUV and whipped out of the lot in the direction of his house. Around the corner, he turned off his lights and parked. He slipped out of the vehicle and pressed himself against the corner of the grocery store, waiting until the last police vehicle raced out of the parking lot.
Then he made one quick phone call, before he ran back to the station. He used his key card to get in the rear entrance, knowing there’d be an officer who’d stayed behind. They couldn’t leave the station totally empty, not with a prisoner in a cell at the back.
Hopefully, that officer wouldn’t check on Darcy for a while.
Peter ignored the voice in his head screaming at him. Yes, he was about to break the law. Yes, it was against everything he believed in. But he couldn’t think of any other way to ensure the woman he loved wasn’t heading willingly toward her own death.
The woman he loved. The words rang in his head, ridiculous after such a short time knowing her, yet they felt all too real.
He’d worry about it later.
Slipping the cell keys from their drawer, Peter unlocked the only occupied cell inside the Desparre station.
Darcy stared at him, unmoving even as he yanked open the door.
“Let’s go,” Peter said, striding inside and pulling her to her feet.
She resisted, staring up at him suspiciously.
“You want both your son and daughter to still be alive by morning?” he demanded.
She stopped digging her feet in and allowed him to lead her as he whispered, “You’re my backup plan.”