The subtle clack clack clack of metal against metal echoed through the woods and Peter froze, his arms tense as they supported his pistol. The noise was coming from his right, in the direction of where he’d parked.
In an instant, he realized what it was. The sound of someone trying to open the door to his police SUV. He didn’t pause to wonder why Darcy would be trying to get into his vehicle instead of racing for her own. He just started running.
The deeper he went into the woods, the icier the top layer of snow got, crunching as he set each foot down, trying to suck his boots off as he lifted them back up. His breath puffed out in front of him in frigid blasts of air, his lungs feeling every degree that had dropped in the past few hours, every moment he’d spent earlier today digging his friends out of the snow.
As he got closer to the SUV, he slowed, knowing his heavy footsteps in the snow were telegraphing his approach. He couldn’t hear Darcy anymore. But was it because she’d gone silent, listening to his approach and trying to line him up in her sights in the darkness? Or just because his hearing wasn’t good enough to make out the soft noise of her slinking away over his own footsteps?
He ducked against the shelter of a big tree trunk just before the boom of a gun rang out. The muzzle flash told him she was standing behind his vehicle, using it as cover.
His heart thumped at the near miss, then with a realization. Darcy had run the wrong way out of the cabin. Unless he’d totally missed it, there was no other vehicle out this way. She must have left her car in the other direction. To get to it, she’d have to slip past him. Instead of taking the risk, she’d tried to take his vehicle.
He didn’t need to rush her now, try to get close through the threat of more bullets. He just needed to pin her there, prevent her from flanking him and returning to her own vehicle. Then he could wait her out, because the rest of his team was on their way. With sirens and lights, they should arrive in less than ten minutes.
Sliding farther behind the tree trunk, Peter squeezed his eyes shut and focused on his hearing. He angled his good ear toward the vehicle, straining to hear any sound that would indicate Darcy was on the move. But he heard nothing.
The muzzle flash had left a temporary mark on his retinas and he waited, listening, until it went away. Then he opened his eyes again and shapes that had been indistinct before became identifiable. A stray branch, broken and dangling from the tree in front of him. Holes in the snow, distinctly paw-shaped, where Chance had stalked alongside him on the way to the cabin. Bigger holes where his boots had broken through in his frantic rush to get to Alanna.
Peter leaned slightly around the edge of the tree, leading with his gun, because if his eyes had started to adjust to the darkness, surely Darcy’s had, too.
There was nothing. No top of her head peeking over the vehicle, no outstretched hand clutching a pistol, shifting to take aim. No crying little girl, cold and afraid.
A curse formed on his lips as he turned his head, angling his right side the other way to listen for Darcy. Had she given up on her vehicle to head deeper into the woods? Or maybe she had just kept going past his car and to the road, hoping to hitch a ride from someone who didn’t recognize her? Was she able to move through the snow more quietly than he could, his hearing loss too great to detect her?
He didn’t hear her. But suddenly, he heard sirens, approaching fast.
Then Darcy was racing away from his vehicle, desperation in the extended length of her strides, in the way the child was clutched in her arms.
She held the girl tight with both hands, Peter realized. It meant she didn’t have a hand free to aim and fire.
He moved away from the protection of the tree to pursue her. He was taller than her, with longer strides, and he was quickly closing the gap between them. But he couldn’t fire without risking the girl, so he holstered his gun.
Darcy glanced back, saw him gaining and put on a new burst of speed.
It wasn’t going to be enough, though, and she must have known it, because she halted suddenly, spinning toward him, her arms shifting to juggle the girl and pull her gun.
He leaped toward her, going for her gun hand. He grabbed it before her finger could slip under the trigger guard and then he was tossing the weapon aside, twisting her arm up and back.
She yelped and the girl, still caught in her other arm, started to cry.
“Hand her over,” Peter demanded. Then the sirens were suddenly on top of them, the flashing blue and red lights sweeping over Darcy’s face and illuminating the tears there, too.
Chief Hernandez and Tate were running through the woods to meet them, weapons out. Peter felt a wash of relief to see his partner had been discharged from the hospital.
“She’s unarmed,” he yelled, even though as he said it, he realized he couldn’t be sure she didn’t have another weapon on her.
Still, he had a hard grip on her arm, had it twisted at such an angle that there was no way for her to move it without causing a break. If she wanted to go for a weapon, she’d have to drop the child. Staring at her now, at her tear-filled eyes, wide and panicked, he knew she wouldn’t do it. Because even as she shook her head at the approaching cops, she made soothing shh noises under her breath to the child, slightly rocking her. Trying to comfort her.
“Hand her over,” Peter repeated, softer this time, as the chief stepped forward, holstering her weapon and holding out her arms. “It will be okay. We’ll take care of her. I promise.”
Then he heard the crunching of ice behind him, the sound of someone dashing toward them.
Tate shifted his weapon up and over, then returned his aim to Darcy.
Peter glanced over his shoulder and cursed as he saw that it was Alanna. Chance and the boy weren’t with her, which meant she’d left them in the cabin. She’d probably heard the sirens, heard him yell to his teammates that Darcy wasn’t armed anymore.
Darcy’s gaze locked on Alanna and guilt flashed across her face before she dipped her head. Then her shoulders slumped. She stretched her arm with the girl in it toward Chief Hernandez.
The girl clung to Darcy’s neck and Chief Hernandez peeled her arms free, tried to soothe her as she cried. The chief stepped backward, unzipping her coat and tucking the child into it as she nodded at Peter.
He grabbed Darcy’s other hand and handcuffed her. Then he pushed her against a tree trunk and moved her legs slightly apart with his foot so he could pat her down for additional weapons. “I tossed a pistol that way,” he told Tate, gesturing with the jerk of his head the area where he’d knocked it away from Darcy.
Alanna reached them just as he’d confirmed Darcy didn’t have any other weapons on her. Alanna was panting from exertion, her gaze darting to Tate, to the pistol he still held as he swept the discarded one out of the snow, and tucked it into his belt.
Peter’s partner didn’t train his weapon at Alanna, but as he straightened, he locked eyes with her, ready to take action if she rushed to help Darcy.
“She’s no threat,” Peter told Tate, hoping it was true. “The boy is in the cabin with Chance.”
His partner gave him a tense nod.
Peter had definitely destroyed some trust tonight.
“Why did you run?” Alanna demanded, her focus entirely on Darcy. She stepped forward, getting too close, and Peter forced Darcy backward, toward the police car.
Tate holstered his gun and stepped in front of her, preventing Alanna from getting any closer to Darcy.
Chief Hernandez told Peter, “Put Darcy in my vehicle. You’ll bring the kids back to the station. Take Tate with you.” Her words were clipped and angry, telling Peter there was a reckoning to come.
Peter nodded and pushed Darcy toward the open door of the police vehicle at the edge of the road.
Alanna’s voice trailed after them, gaining volume as she demanded over and over, “Why? Why? Why?”
Darcy didn’t respond, didn’t look back once as Peter put her in the SUV and slammed the door shut.
Then he turned back to the scene behind him. He took in Chief Hernandez smoothing her hand over the girl’s hair, whispering quiet words as the girl stared up at her, her tears slowly drying. His gaze skipped to his partner next. Tate stood in front of Alanna, feet braced hip-width apart as if he expected he’d need to forcibly stop her from chasing after them. And then there was Alanna herself, frozen in place, her lips still parted from her last screamed question. The pain on her face was hard to see, but at least their chase was over.
Her methods might not have been ideal, but she’d helped them find Darcy. Ultimately, she was the reason they’d been able to rescue these kids. Without her knowledge of Darcy and how to decode symbols that had looked like nonsense to whoever had gone through the Altiers’ home years ago, they never would have found this place.
The kids would be reunited with their families now. Alanna could go home to the family who’d waited so long for her return.
It was where she belonged. Back in Chicago, a town he’d never visited, never wanted to.
He belonged in Desparre, fighting for a job that had given him back his passion. For a team he’d grown to respect, a partnership that had become a friendship. A calling that spoke to him even more than being a reporter. A job that now might be beyond saving.
He hadn’t even known Alanna for a full week and they’d spent most of that time at odds. He’d broken her trust by calling in his team at the cabin in Luna. She’d broken his by going after Darcy alone after the woman had caused an avalanche. But he had the sense that Alanna understood his actions, as he did hers. After everything they’d been through, he felt a connection to her that was undeniable.
It had been fast, and yet, he couldn’t imagine her leaving. Couldn’t imagine losing something he’d only just begun to realize he wanted in his life.