Page 21 of Deadly Force

They stop, and I freeze, body rigid, steadying my breathing.

“Did you hear something?”

The girl. She starts to turn, and Brooke speaks. “It’s probably a coyote.”

I swallow, pulse thrumming, and take a step back, blending into the shadows.

“I—I don’t know,” the girl says.

Brooke’s voice is cool and calm. “Why don’t you give me the files you copied? You might feel better not walking around with them in your pack.”

The low hum of my goggles fills the silence. Brooke offers one last incentive. “I’m not going to force you to do anything. You came to me because you said you couldn’t stay silent any longer.”

With a heavy sigh, the girl slides the backpack off her shoulders and unzips it. “If he finds out I gave this to you…”

“He won’t. When I write the story, I’ll make sure it reads like it was his own stupidity that lost him the information.”

My lips twitch. Woe to the man who gets on Brooke’s bad side.

“He’ll hate that. He thinks he’s a genius.”

Brooke’s voice tightens. “He may well be. But no one is above the law.”

So this is about criminal activity? Terrific. Brooke’s really in deep. No wonder she has a reputation with the cops.

Footsteps crunch on the trail behind me, and I stop breathing. Not fast. Not erratic.

Deliberate.

Too smooth for wildlife.

I angle my body slightly, hand drifting toward myside. One step. Then another. Still measured. Still coming.

I thumb the safety off, every muscle tightening as adrenaline surges through me.Please let this be a dog walker. A park ranger. Someone out for air—a nurse, a med student, anyone who won’t make me draw.

But the footsteps don’t pause. Don’t falter. They’re coming straight for us.

Brooke

Eliza Moreno. I finally have a name to go with the breathless voice I’ve been conversing with. With a jolt of excitement, I tuck the three-ring binder under my arm and squeeze it, holding it tight.

As Eliza looks at the flicker of city lights below us, I raise my voice slightly so Caleb can hear me. “Shall we head back?”

Her face is cast only in shadows, but she nods. “Yeah. I’ve got a—he might call.”

I turn, flashlight on the trail so we can see where we’re stepping. “Your boss calls this late at night?”

“It’s… he’s… complicated,” she says.

Oh.Oh.“You’re sleeping with him?” I ask.

She doesn’t answer, just drops her head to stare at the dirt.

I squeeze the folder tighter. I should’ve brought a pack. No matter; we’re only a fewminutes from the trail entrance. To resist the urge to look around and try to guess where Caleb is hiding, I glue my eyes to the track and keep Eliza talking. “You’re studying engineering at U of A?”

“Yeah. Environmental Engineering with a focus on water resource management. I’m minoring in GIS.”

I kick a fallen rock out of our way. “Is that Geographic Information Systems?”