Page 159 of Hush

And, what in the hell was that black SUV doing in Brewer’s drive?

He watched and waited as Lucciano and Brewer came strolling up the bend, hand in hand, with Brewer’s dog. Damn it, Mike. He knew, he already knew about him and Brewer, but damn it. It would be easier if he didn’t.

At least Brewer’s dog was cute.

Brewer went inside with the dog, after giving Lucciano a kiss. Villegas rolled his eyes.

And then Lucciano went to the black SUV, and Barnes stepped out.

Barnes and Mike strolled out of sight, beyond his obscured view, thanks to the giant boulder. Damn it. He couldn’t see a thing.

Cursing again, he shuffled up and debated sliding down the hillside, just a bit. He’d be exposed, and if they saw him, it’d be game over.

Damn it. He had to see.

He slid on his side, landing behind a tree trunk at the same time a wild animal shrieked. Every hair on his neck stood straight up. He whipped around, staring down at the cabin where the shriek had come from. It had been crazy, fear-filled, desperate-sounding.

All he saw was Barnes, striding up the drive to Brewer’s front door and walking inside.

Moments later, another man got out of the SUV and headed for the cabin.

When Etta Mae started howling like her world was ending, Villegas pulled out his gun. And when he heard two gunshots behind the cabin, his decision was made.

He jumped up and slid down the mountainside in a tumble of dried leaves and twigs. Crouching low, he ran for the cabin’s front door.

Chapter 39

“Willy!” Mike clawed his way through Willy’s front yard, a scrap heap of car debris and overgrown weeds. He’d staggered from the gulch to the yard, weaving from tree to tree as his vision faded in and out. He spat blood as it filled his mouth. Finally, he’d fallen, right after two gunshots split the forest, coming from the cabin. He’d screamed, and tried to crawl faster. “Willy!”

Willy’s shadow appeared on his porch, shotgun in hand. “Jesus H, marshal. What in thehellis going on? What happened to you?” Shouldering his rifle, Willy ran to him and helped him up, guiding him up the porch and into his ramshackle house.

“Was attacked.” Mike coughed, collapsing onto a couch, more blood filling his mouth. Internal bleeding, from the venom. Or the triple stab wounds. Somewhere, deep in his body, he was bleeding. “Kicked into your snake pit.”

Willy paled beneath his beard, and Mike saw the yellowed whites around his eyes. “How many times you get bit?”

Mike shook his head, and a wave of dizziness rolled over him. He put his head between his knees, lost his balance, slumped off the edge of the couch and onto the rough wooden floor.

“Shit, marshal. You need a hospital.Now.”

“No! I need to get Tom!”

“What’s happenin’ with the Brewer boy? And who attacked you?” Willy stomped across his den to a toolbox he had on his brick fireplace mantel. Inside, he rifled through antique glass bottles and pulled out a syringe, filling it from one of the bottles.

“Barnes. FBI agent on the case that Tom is overseeing. Tom… He’s a judge.”

“Afederaljudge?” Willy turned and stared.

Mike nodded. Federal judges, like federal agents, were enemy number one to the sovereign rights groups that Willy was suspected of being friendly to. Or at least, he knew members of the groups. He’d been a contact for Mike during the Whitmore hunt, passing on gossip from the grapevine of sovereign rights terrorists and rabble-rousers. “Barnes must be dirty. He stabbed me, and then kicked me into the gulch.” His breath rasped, and he coughed, trying to drag in deeper breaths.

Willy grabbed his shirt and lifted it, scouring Mike’s back, his sides, and then rolling him roughly over. He cursed. “You been bit at least eight times on your trunk alone, marshal.”

“Got my arms and legs, too.”

“And your ugly face.” Willy stabbed Mike’s arm with his syringe and emptied the liquid into Mike’s vein. “This is antivenom. I just gave you a double dose, but you need at least another four. If you don’t get to the hospital soon, you’ll die.”

“I can’t leave Tom.” Was he already dead? Were those shots Tom being executed? He couldn’t think that, damn it. It couldn’t have happened.

“Some fed is trying to kill a fed judge, huh? That why there all that shooting and running going on?”