High Intensity (High Mountain Trackers HMT 2G #2)

Chapter 26

Twenty-Six

Wolff

My adrenaline has been pumping hard since Jillian’s radio call.

I quickly raised James and Jackson on a different frequency to get them up to speed, before JD and I urged our horses ahead. The guys were going to continue on the other side of the creek to make sure we didn’t miss anything, while we tried to catch up with Jillian.

We covered that half mile to her place in record time, even though it felt way too long. When I recognized how close to her house we were getting, I slowed down Judge and eventually dismounted. I’d prefer not to announce our arrival. I can much better control the situation when I keep the element of surprise.

We leave the horses tied to a tree and proceed on foot, JD falling into step behind me as I try to keep as low a profile as possible, using the cover of the trees. We’re just able to catch sight of Jillian’s green jacket disappearing through the trees. It looks like she may be heading for her own backyard, but my focus is behind her, where I hope to see a glimpse of whoever she thought might be following her.

“What are we doing?” JD whispers behind me when I stop and settle in behind cover of a wide trunk.

“Waiting to see who’s on her tail.”

But when nothing moves after a few moments, I start wondering if it’s possible Jillian may have mistaken the movement of some wildlife for a person. I guess it’s always possible—she never said she actually saw a person following her—but I’d rather be sure.

“Let’s move closer,” I suggest, but when we get to where I saw Jillian cut toward the houses, there is still no sign of any pursuer.

Part of me wants to go after her and make sure she’s okay, but I can’t simply assume she misinterpreted the situation. From experience, I know that rarely ends well.

“I can retrace her steps and see if I can find any secondary tracks,” JD suggests, offering a solution to my dilemma. “Why don’t you stick close to her?”

Giving him a thumbs-up, I don’t waste any time and turn toward her yard.

I hear dogs barking when I’m about to step out from the cover of the trees. I can see the back of the house from here and notice Emo and Peanut, their front legs up against the sliding door as they bark furiously at something on the side of the backyard.

I see her before I see him, her hands up defensively, and when I realize why, my blood runs cold.

The gunshot is loud, and when I watch Jillian sink to her knees, my heart stops.

Jillian

“Where’s the girl?”

The bodyguard?

“Obviously not here,” is my prompt response, trying to throw him off.

I’m sure she is hiding nearby or Hunter would not have almost pulled my arm from my socket trying to get here, but I’m not about to draw this man’s attention to that.

“Bullshit. Your dog led you here,” he counters, waving his gun at Hunter, who is sniffing furiously at the chain-link fence around the dog run.

“Yes, she did, she followed her own scent and that of her pack to her own house. The search was too close to her own territory, too many familiar scents. She did what dogs do naturally, she found her way home, that’s all.” I gesture around me. “Look for yourself, Hayley isn’t here. The house is still locked up tight, you’re more than welcome to check,” I bluff, eager to get him away from the kennel.

The next instant, he lowers the gun and for a moment I think the threat is over, but then, without any provocation, he fires at Hunter who is inches from my legs. At her yelp, I sink down to my knees.

“Useless fucking dog,” I hear him mutter, but I only have eyes for my sweet girl, who is lying in the snow, a bloodstain spreading from underneath her head.

When a second shot sounds, I throw myself on top of her, using my body to shield hers. I vaguely register the barking from inside the house has gone frantic, as I wait for the next shot to hit me.

But there’s no next shot, only what sounds like a physical struggle. When I dare a glance over my shoulder, I recognize Wolff and someone else, struggling with the man on the ground. Trusting Lucas to take control of that situation, I push myself off Hunter and press my gloves against the wound on her poor head.

“Are you okay?” I hear Wolff call out.

“Yes, but Hunter was shot,” I yell back, hearing the panic in my own voice.

I already almost lost her and Nugget when they were drugged, and now this.

I’m almost in tears when a hand lands on my shoulder.

“Help is on the way,” JD’s quiet voice sounds beside me as he gently nudges me out of the way. “Let me take a look.”

I reluctantly let go of her, and as JD calmly takes charge of the situation, I start noticing things I didn’t see before. Like the fact Hunter’s chest seems to rise and fall with deep steady breaths, and she’s trying to lift her head.

“It looks worse than it is,” JD reports, as he allows Hunter to sit up. “Part of her ear is gone, and she has a nasty gash from her ear to just above her eye, but the bleeding has stopped, and I don’t think the bullet penetrated anything essential.”

Suddenly I’m pulled up to my feet and enveloped in a familiar embrace.

“Christ, Jilly. That was another few years off my life,” Wolff rumbles, his face shoved in my neck.

When he lifts me up in his arms and swings me around, my eyes catch on a pair of copper-colored ones, staring at me from the cracked door of the dog kennel.

Hayley.

Wolff

Her body goes rigid in my arms.

“Hayley,” she whispers in my ear. “Don’t turn around, but she’s hiding in my dog kennel.”

Poor kid. After everything that happened to her already, we can add a shooting to her trauma. Both the dog’s, and my shooting of Vallard’s fucking bodyguard.

I’m pretty sure he’ll survive that first shot, but it makes me want to haul out my gun and shoot the bastard again.

He fought me for a bit when I tried to get his gun away from him, but I managed to struggle him to the ground. Since I’m not in the habit of carrying handcuffs on me, I had to improvise and ended up using my belt to secure his arms behind him, which can’t be that comfortable, given that my bullet ended up in his shoulder.

When I glance over to where I left him on the ground, I see he’s trying to get his feet under him. Behind him, I catch sight of Jackson and James walking into the backyard from the direction of the creek. Jackson takes one look at the bodyguard, who is just struggling to his feet and in one swift kick with his bum leg, knocks the guy right back on his ass.

“I see you’ve been busy,” James comments lightheartedly, but his eyes are serious as he seems to take in the situation. “Need me to make calls?”

“Already done,” JD—who is tending to Jillian’s dog—responds. “Jonas should be here shortly and he was calling emergency services, so those should be right behind him.”

I glance down at Jillian, who is looking up at me with a plea in those sea-green eyes. I know what she’s worried about, she doesn’t have to say anything.

“Guys, maybe it’s easier if we move everyone to the front of the house,” I suggest. “Any more people back here, and Jillian’s dogs are going to come through that sliding door.” Those dogs have not stopped barking. “JD, can you carry Hunter?”

“Sure.”

James, who is more perceptive than any one of us, looks from me to Jillian and appears to catch her furtive glance at the dog kennel. Then he gives me the slightest of nods and walks over to help Jackson haul the bodyguard to his feet.

“How do you want to handle this?” I ask Jillian when the others start moving around the side of the house.

“Well, I can’t leave her out here, but I’m not about to hand her back to the FBI. She needs my help; she came looking for me for a reason, and I intend to find out what that is before I do anything.”

There is a note of challenge in her tone, daring me to disagree with her.

I don’t. Hayley came here looking for a safe haven and that little girl deserves to find one. Even if it may end up being short-lived.

“Can you get in the back door?” I ask her.

“Yes.”

“Good. I’m going to go out front and make sure no one comes back here, while you get her inside the house. As far as anyone needs to know, you’re trying to calm down your dogs.”

She nods, mouthing, “Thank you,” at me.

“Go.” I give her a little nudge in the direction of the dog run.

Jillian

I rush over to the kennel.

“Hayley?” I whisper when I can’t see her fac e in the crack between the door and the frame anymore.

From inside the kennel, I hear a slight rustle of the straw I leave in there for my dogs. When I ease the door open, it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the deep shadows inside. The first thing I notice is the colorful comforter from Hayley’s bed at the safe house. Then I see her, her back against the far wall.

“The man you saw me hug? That’s Wolff, he’s my boyfriend. Maybe you remember he carried you all the way from that cave where we found you to the ambulance? Right now, he is making sure no one comes into the backyard so I can get you safely inside my house, but we don’t have much time.”

I reach out my hand to her. For a brief moment I’m worried I may have no choice but to call in help to get her out of here, but then she grabs on to it.

“My dogs are barking like crazy and three of them aren’t tiny like Nugget, but I promise they’re all bark and no bite. You’ll love them.”

I babble on as I grab her comforter and wrap it around her shoulders, tucking her to my side as I hurry her through the yard to the back porch. There I have to let go of her to dig through my pockets for my damn house keys, hoping to God I didn’t lose them somewhere. I find them in the zippered inside breast pocket of my coat, and I fumble to grab hold of the right key with my gloved fingers.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I finally manage to locate the right one and am about to slip the key in the door lock. The creak of one of the steps up to the deck has me holding up short and when I look up, I catch the reflection of a man wearing a balaclava coming up behind us. He is carrying some kind of pipe in his hand.

“Hayley, duck!” I scream, whipping around when I see him hauling back to take a swing.

She drops down instantly, the pipe missing her by a hair, but catching me full on the left shoulder. My teeth slam together at the explosion of pain, rendering my entire arm useless, as the pipe clatters to the deck. But that doesn’t stop me when I see him reaching for Hayley, and I launch myself at him, wielding my keys in my right hand as my only weapon.

He’s bent over and not expecting my attack, so even though he’s larger than I am, I’m able to knock him off-balance and land on top of him. All I hear is the roaring of blood in my ears as I jab blindly at his head and face with my keys, and scream at the top of my lungs.

The only thought in my head is to keep him away from Hayley, so I fight with everything I have in me.

I’m still fighting when a pair of strong arms lift me off him.

“Easy…”

It takes me a moment to recognize the deep rumble in my ear as Jonas’s voice. Jackson and a sheriff’s deputy I don’t recognize are making quick work of putting our attacker in handcuffs. When I turn my head to see if Hayley is okay, I see her cradled in Wolff’s arms, her face pressed to his chest. His eyes are fixed on me as his mouth mumbles soothing words to her.

Only then do I feel the fight drain out of me, and I hang like a sack of potatoes against Jonas.

“You got him good, Jillian,” Jackson comments.

I look to see what he’s referring to when I notice blood covering what little I can see of the man’s face. When Jackson pulls the balaclava off, my stomach roils and I can feel the contents surging up my esophagus, but I’m not sure if it’s because it looks like I took out one of his eyes, or because the mask was hiding Grant Vallard’s face.

“Breathe through your nose, slugger,” Jonas rumbles behind me.

I promptly drop the keys I was still clutching to the deck.