Alex hadn’t meant to cause her more pain. He was sure she was missing Rick with renewed intensity, and she wasn’t the only one. He used to sort through his problems with Rick. Not that Rick was one to beat around the bush. If Alex stuck his foot in his mouth, Rick had always been quick to say, “Fix it.”
He smiled at the memory. Ironic since this mistake had to do with Rick, and there was no easy fix. His go bag was almost ready, he just needed to repack a few things so that he’d be ready to leave soon. Thumping above, followed by grunts resounded through the floorboards.
Alex glanced at the ceiling, but he wasn’t going to fall for that again. She was working off some frustration and anger with her martial arts. Not a bad idea. He felt like punching a few boards himself. Maybe he should’ve never told her. He certainly didn’t feel any relief or newfound peace after having done so, but he’d felt the need to let her know for two years.
She wouldn’t want to see him again for quite some time, maybe ever. His fingers shook as he tried to fold his last shirt. Once he got her to a secure location, he was going to hand her security off to another FBI agent. He just needed to convince his boss that she needed protection. The harder job would be persuading Violet that she and Teddy couldn’t respond to any search-and-rescue calls for a while. A tall order.
No casualties from the bombing at the lodge were reported, but it had been a close enough call to send the Federal Reserve chair nominee out of town. The welfare of the nominee was out of his hands now, but the FBI would be searching the records of all the Federal Reserve Police to see if they could track the mole there. Given the Firecracker’s old-school method of handing over flash drives, Alex doubted they’d find anything.
Teddy barked incessantly, followed by more thumping. Maybe the dog was taking it personally that Violet had closed her door for some privacy. Alex came back to Rick’s words before his death. Something about this is starting to seem familiar. If it was familiar to Rick, maybe it was something personal. Alex stared through the window at the thick blanket of fresh snow covering the mountains.
Bridget Preston had died, but what if she had made it abundantly clear what the Firecracker should do to never get caught? What if one of the students in the criminal justice study group had taken up the cause? But it couldn’t be a copycat case because of the DNA they’d found.
Teddy burst through the door at the top of the stairs, his weight flinging it open. It hadn’t been locked, but the movement stunned Alex. The unusual behavior combined with the sound of breaking glass shot adrenaline straight to Alex’s heart. He bolted up the steps. Teddy turned and ran ahead of him, jumping and launching his front paws at the bedroom door. “Violet?”
More breaking glass could be heard. “Help!” Her call was hoarse and followed by a grunt.
“Teddy!” Alex swung his arm behind him. The dog understood and shuffled backward. Alex kicked his foot directly below the knob, and the door splintered, swinging open.
Violet face was bright red. An arm wrapped around her neck. She elbowed the man behind her and tucked her chin underneath his hold, slipping out of his grasp. A gun lay on the ground behind the man she’d just struck, but another gun was on the floor in front of the second man, who was currently doubled over in pain. Despite the man’s groans he bent over farther, and his fingers were mere inches from the gun.
Alex rushed forward to stop him, but Violet slammed a sidekick into the bending man’s back. She spun and issued another kick into the stomach of the man she’d just managed to free herself from. Teddy’s deep growl set Alex’s teeth on edge as he managed to grab the gun on the floor. He heard rapid footsteps and another bark.
He looked up just as Teddy launched himself at the other man who had just drawn his weapon. The dog grabbed the collar of the man’s jacket in his jaws and brought the man down with him as he landed back on his paws. The gun hit the ground and slid underneath the bed.
Alex raised the weapon he’d retrieved and aimed it in the direction of both men. “Enough!”
Movement out the window in his peripheral vision briefly distracted him. A woman in the trees, pointing a—
The window exploded.
“Violet!” Teddy let go of the man’s jacket and moved in front of Violet. She crouched to the ground, and Teddy flopped down, his paws sliding underneath the bed, but his head was clearly too big to fit underneath the frame. Bullets pinged the wall as Alex ran over to cover Violet. He only half registered that he didn’t see where either of the men had gone before he crouched over her. The moment the shooting stopped, he prepared to return fire. He lifted his head to find the men were no longer in the room, and there was no one visible outside the window.
“I think they ran out the same way they got in,” Violet said, breathless. “Through my bathroom, past the walk-in closet.”
“Stay down until we’re sure the shooter outside is gone.” Alex still had one of the men’s guns in his hand and his own Bureau-issued one at the back of his waist. He peeked over the edge of the mattress. The woman in the tree was no longer there, but she could be waiting at another location. He ran through the closet, checking to be sure they weren’t hiding behind the clothing, and into the bathroom. The window above the tub was wide open. He raced to it, gun raised. There were two hooks over the windowsill, attached to ropes dangling all the way down to the ground. They swayed in the breeze.
A house situated next to the woods provided privacy, but the downside was neighbors couldn’t see anyone approaching, even in the light of day. The rev of engines sounded, and from behind a grouping of trees, three snowmobiles took off. Two men and one woman, all with helmets on, darted through the trees and headed toward the foothills of the mountains behind the house.
“Whoever shot up the bedroom is gone.” Violet stood in the closet, a gun in her hand and Teddy at her side.
“They took off on snowmobiles.” He took note of the scratch on the side of her face, the hair that had escaped her ponytail and the sweat gathered on her neck. “Are you okay?”
She leaned over, her hands on her knees, still catching her breath. “What took you so long?”
“Let’s just say ‘message finally received.’ You can take care of yourself.”
She coughed a laugh, and her eyes grew misty as she straightened.
“I actually thought you were practicing martial arts before Teddy came and got me.”
“You came just in time. I practice for a group attack, but I was starting to make mistakes. My gun was in my nightstand, but they caught me off guard.” She patted Teddy’s head. “Thanks for the assist.”
She lifted a piece of fabric from the dog’s mouth and waved it in Alex’s direction. “Teddy made sure they won’t be getting away this time. Let’s go.”
Violet led him to the snowmobiles she had parked in the side garage. They were both outfitted especially for Teddy. Usually, she kept one at work and one at home, but on the last late-night mountain mission, she’d snowmobiled straight home for a good night’s sleep. She threw a set of keys at Alex and pointed at the helmet. “You’ve ridden before?”
“Yes, but I think we need backup.”
She flipped on the communication in his headset and set it to her shared signal. “Agreed.”
Violet picked up her radio and requested backup from dispatch. They’d send one of her law enforcement rangers first, as the forest was on federal land. The snowmobiles were equipped with GPS tracking. “Have him follow my location.” She signed off, checked Teddy’s harness, and slipped on her own helmet. “At this rate, it’ll be hard to catch them. Every second matters. Let’s go.”
She cranked the ignition and started following the path through the trees. This part wouldn’t require Teddy, but if they lost the trail or came to a highly trafficked path, that’s where Teddy would take over. The clouds were gathering in the sky and casting a gray pallor over the valley that made it harder to see.
“Can you hear me on this thing?” Alex’s voice came through the speaker in her helmet.
She focused on steering around a snow pile that could be covering a small tree. “Yes.”
“Now might be the time to let you know I’ve only ever ridden on marked trails.”
“You need to stop telling me things when it’s too late to do anything about it.” The tension in her shoulders continued to build.
He exhaled through the speakers, and it sounded like he was blowing air into her ears.
“Sorry,” she added, knowing he was thinking about Rick’s death again, as was she. “This just seems like our best chance to catch whoever is doing this. I’m tired of people I care about becoming targets.”
“Noted,” he said. “Any snowmobiling tips I should know about?”
She stood up on the running boards as she took a sharp right. “If we’re cutting across hills, use the throttle control and your body position to keep the tracks pointed where you want to go. Never ever stop halfway when you’re going up a hill.” She hesitated. “Unless it’s on a sharp cliff where there could be a snow bridge ready to tumble.”
“Should I stand up?”
“Only if you feel it helps. I have to do it to compensate for Teddy’s weight.” She leaned her entire body to the right while keeping her left foot on the running board to make another sharp turn and then settled back on the seat. Her little side mirror revealed the dog happily in his harness.
She had to focus now on the tracks in front of her. So far, the three sets from the other snowmobiles were easy to follow. They were nearing the crest of a hill she knew would be safe, but the snowpack was deeper now, making it more dangerous. “Too much throttle, and you’ll drive too deep into the snow, Alex. Too little makes it harder to balance.”
“So, no pressure is what you’re saying?”
She rounded the top and slid slightly to the left. “Pop the throttle and countersteer.”
Alex huffed in her helmet. “At some point, no amount of maneuvering is going to win over a five-hundred-pound heap of metal and the forces of gravity, but I’ll do my best.”
Fair enough, but she had to think positive while driving with Teddy behind her. The trees cleared out on the next stretch they ascended. A gust of wind blew a light dusting of snow over the tracks. The lines were still visible, but if there was any more snow, she’d need to stop and ask Teddy for help. On a clear day, the expanse of white, much like an empty canvas, would’ve taken her breath away. Racing across the snow was the closest she’d get to flying, with the occasional bouncing on clouds.
The trees disappeared, and in the distance, boulders and spires poked out from underneath the thick snow like icebergs. If they made a wrong move through the snow here, it could be fatal.
Only one track remained in front of her. Odd. Either the three people had merged and followed the exact same grooves—unlikely—or a pair of them had peeled off. A gust of wind indicated that snow had covered up the trail of the other two.
“Is it just me, or has it gone eerily quiet?”
The engines of the snowmobiles were anything but quiet, but she knew what Alex meant. The sky held no birds, and without trees or other signs of life, she and Alex were exposed. She pressed forward, and boulders rose up on either side of them, offering protection. It felt like being in an alley, except with rocks instead of buildings. The air grew still, no longer blowing gusts of wind.
Was this what being hunted felt like? As if someone was holding their breath, waiting for her to enter into their shot. The space between the rocks narrowed. The carpet of snow resembled a runway leading straight up to the top of the hill.
“Something doesn’t feel right,” Alex said softly.
She agreed. Even if she was wrong, she didn’t want them to crest that hill and find themselves on a sharp decline without protection. “There are some spaces between the boulders up ahead. Let’s split up. You go right. I’ll go left. Keep heading due north without topping the hill. I’ll find a way to round it at an angle from the other side. Maybe we’ll cut them off.”
“Affirmative.”
She stood and placed all her weight on one of the running boards. The sweat from the afternoon’s events dripped down her back. Even if she hadn’t spent ten minutes fighting off two men with weapons, this type of snowmobiling tested her abilities. Thankfully, they’d practiced it enough. Teddy had learned how to counterbalance with his head, as well.
They made the turn smoothly. She could see the crest of the hill now. With precise movements, she maneuvered to take it at a diagonal. As they reached the top, she saw someone wearing a white snowsuit standing on one of the spire tops, red hair spilling out the back of her helmet. The woman lifted a rifle, pointed at them and pulled the trigger.
Violet swung the handles, making a hard left to avoid getting shot. The snow gave way several inches, and the snowmobile choked, throwing her off. She flipped head over heels and landed on her back. Snow kicked up from every side. She flung her arms and legs out to slow down, but hitting a mound of hard snow took her breath away.
She was sliding down the hillside headfirst at high speed with nothing to stop her but boulders that could take her life. Teddy was skidding mere feet from her, on his back. She fought to spin around so she could see what dangers lay below them, but before she could, something far worse entered her vision. The snowmobile was rolling, bouncing, and heading straight for them.
“I’ve spotted the men. I’m going after them! Violet?” She heard Alex calling her name through the helmet, but she couldn’t answer. She twisted, straining her neck and every muscle in her back until she caught her gloved fingers on Teddy’s harness. She kicked a foot out and yanked him toward her, narrowly avoiding the tip of a rock jutting out. Each bump they hit slammed the breath out of her lungs. The snowmobile caught air, lifting up and over them. If it fell on them—game over.
The ground disappeared from her back, and they dropped into thin air. She lost her grip on Teddy’s harness, and her hands and legs flailed until she slammed into what felt like a cement slab. Her feet started to sink, and an icy, wet abyss rose up around her. Water poured into her helmet. She felt Teddy’s paws against her chest. She blinked rapidly, and the bubbles in the helmet moved enough to see his eyes staring into hers.
A current forcefully thrust them to the side and abruptly changed direction. She was being dragged under by her foot. The snowmobile had dropped in the lake with them, and her foot was caught on the machine.
The frigid waters numbed her body. Teddy was free and floating to the surface. She closed her eyes, and the moment hit her with clarity. If she had told Alex to go left instead of right when they split up, he’d be the one at the bottom of the lake. She understood now the burden he carried. Too bad she’d never have a chance to tell him.
Sleep offered relief to her burning lungs. If only something would stop pulling so hard on her arm.