The edge of the hard plastic chair bit into the back of Heather’s thighs as she waited impatiently for U.S. Marshal Zachary Walker to return. That was how she had to think of him, as U.S. Marshal Zachary Walker, professional law enforcement officer, because if she made it personal, it made her worry too much. She couldn’t imagine the bravery it took to charge after Brian Fox, her ex-husband-slash-convict.
She’d never be able to live with herself if he got hurt—or worse—because of her.
No, not because of you, a more rational voice whispered to her. But it was hard to separate the two. Brian Fox was in Quail Hollow because of her.
Leaning forward, she focused all her nervous energy on plucking out the shards of glass that had rained down on her as she hunkered down in the backseat of the patrol car. If Zach hadn’t hollered out his warning, would her ex-husband finally have made good on his promise to kill her?
Groaning, she stood and dumped the shards she had collected in the palm of her hand into the garbage. She paced the small office area. She promised Deputy Conner Gates she wouldn’t wander away because anywhere beyond the protection of law enforcement she was liable to become target practice once again for her ex-husband. Given another chance, he wouldn’t miss.
The deputy had been called away ten minutes ago and she sent up a silent prayer that U.S. Marshal Zachary Walker had apprehended Brian and he was headed back to Peters Correctional Facility. But no one seemed to want to tell her what was going on.
A bustling at the door drew her attention. Deputy Gates entered followed by the U.S. Marshal.
Thank God. Zachary is safe.
She tamped down her initial reaction to gush all over him, to express her relief that he was safe.
Their relationship was strictly professional.
So why did she care so much about his safe return? Probably because she couldn’t handle knowing her ex-husband had hurt another person. He had to be stopped.
Zach made his way to her. She had already given up the pretense of his official title. She lowered her gaze. Mud caked the bottom and sides of his shoes. A deep scratch lined the back of his left hand.
“You okay?” he asked, his mood somber.
“Yeah. Did you get him?” Her pulse whooshed in her ears and she feared she wouldn’t hear the answer.
“No.” The apology in his eyes said far more than the single word.
Her stomach plummeted. “He got away.” She dragged a hand through her hair and her fingers got tangled in the snarled mess. She spun around and glanced up, refusing to cry.
“We exchanged gunfire. Then he climbed into a boat on the creek,” Zach explained. “I got off another shot before he disappeared around a bend. I’m confident I hit him, but I couldn’t stop him.” His monotone voice suggested even he was having trouble accepting the turn of events.
“You shot him? But he got away?” she repeated in disbelief.
“They’re searching the creek. There’s no way he’ll get far.”
She slowly lowered herself onto the familiar plastic chair. “So...what? We wait here until they bring him in?”
Zach sat down next to her and tipped his head to meet her gaze. “The deputy and I think we should move forward with our plan to take you to Ruthie’s house. And with an abundance of caution, we’ll take a circuitous route to make sure no one follows.”
“But if he’s...” She couldn’t say the word dead. Did she really wish him dead? God forgive her. She didn’t want him dead—she just wanted him safely behind bars.
Zach gently rubbed his knuckles across the back of her hand. She expected the urge to flee would overwhelm her, make her feel trapped—like it always had when someone got too close—but instead, an unexpected warmth spread up her arm. “Until we’ve located Fox, we can’t take any chances,” he said, his voice hoarse.
“You hit him?”
“Yes, I’m sure I did. But he only cranked the motor to full throttle. I was at a disadvantage on the shore.”
“Your shoes.”
He lifted his boot. “Good thing I had my hiking boots at my cabin.”
“Your cabin?”
Zach crossed his arms and tucked his hands under his armpits and he seemed to stifle a shudder. He was probably freezing after running through the cornfields. “Yeah, I have a cabin in Quail Hollow. I had just arrived last night when my supervisor called to alert me of the situation.”
Realization twisted her stomach. “If you hadn’t come to my property, Brian might have gotten to me first.” The image of the graffiti on the wall in her newly constructed eating area was etched in her brain. “Why didn’t he attack me when he had the chance? He was in my house.” Her lips grew numb with fear and she had trouble forming the words.
“I think he wanted to toy with you, but law enforcement descended too quickly.”
The thought of her being terrorized—again—by her ex-husband made her realize she might never be free from this man.
Unless he’s dead.
Zach reached out and gently touched her knee as if he recognized the turmoil she was in. “Will you let me take you to Ruthie’s? We’ll wait until dark. I promise I’ll keep you safe.”
Heather nodded. She didn’t put much stock in promises, but with Brian most likely mortally wounded, she figured Zach’s promise to keep her safe might be reasonable.
* * *
When Heather arrived at Ruthie’s home under the cloak of darkness in a delivery van from the local hardware store, she suspected this was how kidnap victims felt. By the time Zach opened the back doors, her backside ached from each and every bump they’d hit between Quail Hollow’s town center and Ruthie’s family farm. Sitting on the hard metal surface of the back of the delivery fan wasn’t exactly the lap of luxury. And the smell of fresh wood and some sort of fertilizer mingled in her nose and coated her mouth.
Zach held out his hand to her. She accepted it and climbed out, grateful to stretch her legs. She couldn’t help but smile at Ruthie as she directed Zach and the driver to stack the fertilizer and wood in the barn. “You actually needed this stuff?” he asked.
“Why waste a trip? My mem needs supplies for the greenhouse.” Maryann Hershberger and her youngest daughter, Emma, as well as her older daughter Ruthie, ran a greenhouse on the property. Heather had befriended the family after she moved to Quail Hollow, drawn to them by a letter Maryann had written to her father years ago. After getting to know them, Heather had hired Ruthie to work at the bed-and-breakfast. Heather suspected the small family needed the extra income working at the bed-and-breakfast would provide.
If they were able to get back to the required work necessary before opening day.
“How did you arrange all this?” Heather asked as she brushed the loose soil from the back of her pants.
Her question was directed to Zach, but Ruthie stepped forward, rolling up on the balls of her black boots. “The deputy reached me on the phone and he asked me if I ever take deliveries from any businesses in town.”
Heather held up her hand. “Wait. You have a phone?” Her father had grown up Amish and had taken his young family away from Quail Hollow when Heather was only six. Her sisters had been three and two. He’d told them so many stories about the Amish that’d made the young girls long for a home they were too young to remember.
Ruthie jabbed her thumb in the direction of a pole deeper in the barn. A generator hummed and a soft bulb illuminated a phone mounted on the pole. “The Ordnung allows us to have a phone for business purposes as long as it’s not in the house. The phone serves a purpose but shouldn’t interrupt our daily lives.” She smiled, a hint of apology lurking in her eyes. “I have an answering machine here, too. So I can return all the calls I miss. In this case, I was happy the sheriff’s department reached out. Now you’ll be safe because no one knows you’re here.”
Zach reached into his pocket and pulled out a business card. “Tack this up near the phone in case you need to reach me.”
Ruthie took the card and turned it over in her hand. “I will.”
Heather cut a sideways glance at Zach, wondering how much Ruthie really knew. Did she know that Brian had shot at the patrol car? That Zach had chased him through the fields until he escaped by boat, but likely not before he was shot?
“The sheriff’s department has been a big help. Thank you,” Heather said. She knew they had hoped to limit the number of people who knew her location for security purposes, but she also realized it wasn’t feasible.
“Not being from Quail Hollow, I couldn’t do this on my own.” Zach held out his hand to the young man leaning against the truck. “This gentleman is a deputy.” The man tipped his head in acknowledgment.
“Another officer is going to arrange to drop off a truck on one of the nearby back roads for our use in an emergency, since mine is out of commission.”
“Looks like you’ve covered everything,” Heather said, dragging a hand through her hair, the exhaustion catching up with her. She hadn’t slept well last night and today had been nothing but one stress-inducing event after another.
“My job is to keep you safe,” Zach said.
“Well,” she said, trying to sound more encouraged than she really felt, “hopefully this mess will be behind us soon and we can all go back to our regularly scheduled lives.”
Ruthie grabbed a paper sack and opened it up. “I brought you some clothes.”
“Thank you.” Heather took the bag and set it in the back of the van. The fabric of the long dress felt heavy as she pulled it out.
“Do you really think this is necessary?” She ran her fingers down the ties of the bonnet.
“It’s another layer of protection. I don’t think Fox will be looking for an Amish woman.”
Heather smoothed her hand down the pale blue fabric and a distant memory fluttered around the periphery of her mind. “I suppose not.” She glanced around the open space of the barn. “Am I to get dressed in here?”
“We’ll give you privacy.” Zach tipped his head to the driver and they both stepped out of the barn.
“Would you like some help?” Ruthie asked. “There are pins to hold it closed.”
“Pins?” Heather noticed the metal sparkle in the dull light.
“No buttons allowed.”
Heather blinked slowly, unable to wrap her fuzzy brain around all the arbitrary rules. Rules her mother and father both had grown up following.
“Yes, I’d appreciate that.”
Ruthie turned her back and Heather slipped off what her friend would call Englisch clothes and quickly slipped on the dress. “Okay, ready.”
Ruthie spun around and her eyes widened. “Wow, you look... Wait...” She stepped closer and reached for Heather’s hair, twisting it back into a low bun. With careful concentration, Ruthie reached into her apron and pulled out some bobby pins and secured her hair. “Almost ready.” She stooped and reached into the bag and produced a bonnet. Ruthie secured it on Heather’s head and stepped back. “There. You look right nice. Like regular Amish.”
Heather touched the bonnet and was eager to see herself in the mirror. She hadn’t had time to put makeup on this morning, so she imagined she did look like most other Amish women, even if she didn’t feel like one.
Heather pulled up the hem of her dress and examined her purple sneakers. Ruthie laughed—the young woman had such an easygoing nature—and said, “You can always go barefoot. Or I’m sure I can find an old pair of boots.”
Before Heather had a chance to comment, Zach hollered from outside the door. “You decent in there?”
Without saying anything, Heather walked to the opening where the truck was still parked, her heart racing in her chest. She felt a little bit like she was going to prom and about to show off her gown to her date, albeit the dress she was wearing was a lot plainer than the pink sparkly one she had worn another lifetime ago.
What Zach didn’t say was telegraphed in his eyes. “I guess you’re ready.”
“Wait a minute,” Heather said with feigned annoyance. “What about you? Aren’t you supposed to be undercover?”
Zach made a sound she couldn’t quite decipher.
Ruthie held up a finger and ran into the barn, then came back with a broad-brimmed felt hat. She handed it to Zach, who stuffed it on his head. “All right, then.”
“We can find some of my dat’s clothes for you once we get inside.”
“Ready?” he asked.
Heather couldn’t read the expression in his shadowed eyes. A part of her felt like she was playing dress up, but nothing about this dangerous situation was pretend.
* * *
The truck that had provided Heather safe passage had pulled away and Zach escorted her across the farm, past the greenhouse and up the front steps of Ruthie’s home. He continuously scanned the surroundings. Far too many places for someone to hide. But they had decided the less police presence here, the better. If Fox had somehow gotten off the creek, they didn’t want to send out any red flares as to Heather’s location.
Zach blinked slowly as flashes of memory assaulted him. The sound of the shots, the smell of the residue, his own jagged breathing in his ears...
There was no way he’d missed. No way. The first few shots he took were defensive shots from behind the safety of the tree. But the last shot, he had Fox in his sights.
As they climbed the front steps, Heather reached up and slipped her hand around the crook of his arm. “Are you sure this is a good idea? I don’t want to put anyone else in danger,” she whispered as Ruthie opened the door.
“This will all be over soon. I promise.”
Heather dropped her hand and smoothed it over her dress.
“You look rather fetching,” he said, keeping his voice low while trying to lighten the mood.
“Nice hat,” she tossed back at him.
“I might see if we can add it to the U.S. Marshals uniform.”
She turned to him and raised her eyebrows. She looked like she was about to say something else when his cell phone rang. Zach glanced at the screen and noticed it was a local call, probably the sheriff’s department.
“I better take this. I’ll be in shortly.” He waited until Ruthie and Heather closed the door behind them. He stepped off the porch and hung in the shadows. “Marshal Walker.”
“Hey, it’s Gates. I have an update.”
Zach held his breath waiting for the words like body, dead, recovery, it’s over. Instead the local sheriff’s deputy said, “We found a boat on the creek with some blood in it. But there’s still no sign of Fox.”
Zach swallowed hard. “What do you mean?” A thumping started behind his eyes and any hope that this situation was going to be resolved today ebbed out of him.
“The boat was found on the west side of Quail Hollow Creek. It wasn’t anchored or tied down. We could speculate a lot from that.”
Zach closed his eyes and pushed his hat up on his head and rubbed his forehead. “He might have fallen out of the boat.”
“If that’s the case, might take a few more days to find his body.”
Zach turned around and glanced at the well-maintained house. A soft light glowed in the front window. He had to reassure himself that Heather was safe, regardless of the bad news.
Just a few more days.
But a niggling in the back of his head made him wonder if it really would be over in a few days. Fox was one tough egg.
“What are the chances Fox got out of the boat and is on the run? How much blood was in the boat?”
“The amount of blood itself didn’t indicate a fatal injury, but a wounded prisoner won’t make it long in the woods. We’ll find him.”
“And if he went into the creek?”
“Search teams are scheduled to drag a section of the creek in the morning. Hold tight.”
“Will do.” Zach ended the call and stood for a few more minutes outside. He drew in a deep breath, trying to calm his rioting emotions. The stillness on the farm was almost eerie.
Brian Fox was not going to get away. Law enforcement would either find him or his body tomorrow, in the light of day. Zach’s job was to keep Heather safe in the meantime.