Page 12 of I’ll Be There (Montana Fire #4)

His pocket vibrated for the third time, but Conner couldn’t move to answer his cell. Not with his hands cuffed behind his back, with Big Man seated next to him on the golf cart he’d used to transport Conner through the back gate and around the property.

They sat, away from the crowds on the far east side of the parking lot. Away from the prying eyes. “You gonna work me over or something?”

Big Man glanced at him, frowned. “What? No. I didn’t want to bring you into the information center covered in blood—we’ve got kids there. Besides, we need to make room for the ambulance. The police are on their way—I’ll hand you off to them.”

“Listen—” Conner glanced at the man’s name badge. “Seth. I’m not the criminal here. I was talking to my friend—the one who was shot— and I saw who did it. I was chasing him—”

“Armed with a conceal and carry pistol?” Seth indicated the weapon now shoved into his belt. “Right. Those are illegal here in the park, by the way.”

“It’s not mine!” And that’s where he stopped. Because with her hanging onto her life by who knew how many threads, the last thing he wanted to do was jeopardize Blue’s long-term freedom. “I found it.”

Seth raised an eyebrow.

Conner watched families hustling their children out to their Caravans and SUVs. The group of blue-hairs got into a bus parked at the edge of the lot. Traffic piled up as cars jammed the only exit.

“Okay, Seth, I’ll tell you the truth. I’m actually with the FBI. We’re tracking a suspect involved in the murder of one of our agents—”

“At a national monument? And by the way, you’re a little out of your jurisdiction. This is Canada.”

Right.

“It’s mostly truth.”

A siren whined in the air—the ambulance parked near the front of the lot screamed past him, on its way to the hospital.

Blue.

Conner had lost the guys in the chaos and now hoped they’d been able to slip out without also being flex-cuffed.

His pocket vibrated again. “Do you mind? I gotta get this. I’m sure it’s my fiancée—she’s expecting me back this afternoon, and I gotta call her.”

“Your fiancée? Right.”

“I’ll prove it to you. If the caller’s name says Liza Beaumont, then I get to answer. If not...then, you keep the phone.” Please, let it not be Pete, or Reuben, or even Micah. But only Liza would be this persistent. Probably.

“Did you say Liza Beaumont ?”

Seth had blond hair, a reddish-blond array of whiskers, and bore the look of a true-boned Swede born with a lumberjack ax in his hand, and not a little out of his element in his gray historical park security uniform.

“Yeah...”

“I think I’m going to your wedding.”

Conner stared at him.

“Yeah, I do some carpentry work on the side—I made some shelves for Liza’s pottery studio. I saw her in the grocery store a few days ago, and she invited me. Are you lying to me?”

“No. I met her during the forest fire that threatened Deep Haven a few years ago.”

“Right. I remember that—the fire, not you.” He shook his head. “I’m not digging around in your pocket, dude.”

“Uncuff me.”

Seth narrowed his eyes.

“You already let the shooter get away. If you let me have my phone, I’ll also show you some ID. I’ve got friends in the fort waiting for me—they’ll confirm my story.”

Seth considered him for a moment. “No can do, bud.” He got up. “Listen, I’ll go see if I can find your friends. Sit tight.”

“Where am I going to go?”

Seth frowned, then headed off toward the entrance.

And that’s what happened when you hired a carpenter to do security work.

Conner slipped his tied hands under him and pulled them around front. Then he untied one of his boots, pulling the lace free just a few grommets down.

Weaving the lace through one of the cuffs, he held it in his mouth and began to saw, fast and hard. The lace cut through the nylon, and in a second he snapped free.

Retying his shoe, he glanced over his shoulder—no sign of Seth. Conner jumped off the cart and pulled out his phone. Strange. Not Liza, and the number didn’t list a name. So instead he called Micah.

“Where are you?”

“East side of the main parking lot.”

Conner hung up and jogged out to the lot.

And that’s when he spotted him. One arm hanging out the open window of a late model black Honda pickup, jammed like a log behind a tourist bus, in the lineup to leave the lot like he might be any other tourist just seeing the sights.

Mr. Gray Shirt and Gimme Cap wore sunglasses, hidden in plain view.

Conner took off in a sprint across the grass. He cut through a couple sedans, dodged a Ford Escape that nearly took him out, zagged through the grassy median, and leaped at the truck.

He wrenched open the door, grabbed the man by the shirt, and threw him out into the lot.

Shooter rolled and found his feet, fast enough for Conner to do the math. He had training, probably the professional kind.

When Shooter rebounded with a couple quick jabs that had Conner sucking wind, Conner realized he’d have to reach back to a life he’d left behind.

Okay. He blocked a punch, jabbed hard, landed it in the ribs, then charged for a tackle.

Shooter sidestepped him, and Conner face-planted into the pavement. He fought to find his feet—a punch to his jaw hit him so hard that gray splotched his vision.

A kick to his gut. He collapsed, his knees buckling on the pavement.

He sucked wind.

Shooter scrambled back into his truck. He wasn’t waiting for the blue-hairs to move. Conner just barely rolled out of the way as the truck pulled out, cut through spaces to hit the grassy median, chewed up turf, and exited at the far end, squealing out onto the blacktop.

He scrambled to his feet and tried to pursue, but his insides churned, and he had to stop, grab his knees.

A truck screeched up next to him. “What was that, old man? Sheesh—get in!” Jim Micah at the wheel.

Romeo jumped out of the bed, hooked a hand under Conner’s arm. “Get up—he’s getting away!”

Conner circled the truck, his own grunts betraying him. But he threw himself into the front seat. Managed not to lose it.

Micah sent the pedal to the floor, taking Shooter’s route.

“Why exactly are we after this guy in the Honda?” he said as they ramrodded through the median grass, then out onto the drive.

“He’s the shooter!” Conner clutched the upper strap, his foot braced into the floorboards.

Romeo had made it into the back seat, squeezing Pete up next to Reuben into the passenger side door.

“Please tell me Blue is still alive.”

“I’d forgotten a lot of my battlefield medicine, but the EMTs came before I had to do CPR.”

Conner could just barely make out the black Honda, now driving in the ditch. “Don’t let him get away.”

“Really?” Micah pulled onto the side, gunning it. “Seatbelts!”

Okay, he had turned into a soccer dad.

Cars honked, a couple vehicles tried to pull out as if to slow him, but Micah also laid on the horn.

They hit the cross street, and for a long, agonizing second, it looked like they’d lost the shooter.

“Right, go right!” Romeo yelled, and Conner spotted the Honda. Micah jammed up fast behind a truck and again pulled off onto the side, flooring it.

“He’s going to get somebody killed,” Pete said, and Conner just looked at him.

“Sorry,” Pete said. “I just...nothing.”

Micah gunned it up the shoulder. “He’s headed for Highway 61.”

A train yard edged them on one side, a neighborhood on the other. “Let’s hope he doesn’t turn off,” Conner said.

Shooter blew past the traffic, finally broke free, and angled back onto the main road.

Conner glanced once at Micah—the man wore the grim expression he’d seen a thousand times behind enemy lines in Iraq. Or even when they’d had to track down the body of a child or the elderly on a callout when they’d worked with Team Hope.

Determination.

Thank you, God, for Jim Micah .

They cleared traffic, and Micah veered them back onto the road, pedal to the floor. “Pray we don’t pass any cops.”

“We’re not stopping until we get him,” Conner said.

The Honda hit the lights at Highway 61, barely stopped, and took a sharp right.

South.

Toward the border.

Micah glanced at Conner and smiled. “God Bless America.”

Because in America, they had connections. Friends, like the husband of Dani, their K-9 SAR handler—Will Masterson, who worked with the NSA. And maybe Conner could get hold of P.T. Blankenship, tell him that his brother’s case had busted wide open.

They barely braked at the highway and took off south.

Conner registered the alarming—or perhaps providential—lack of patrolmen as they screamed down the highway, over the Kaministiquia River Bridge. They passed fields, a few subdivisions, the correctional facility, then the terrain turned rural.

Farmland. Wide ditches. “Run him down, Micah.”

“I’m trying,” he said, and the truck edged closer, thirty feet, twenty.

Fifteen miles out of town, even the farmland had thinned, the forest climbing around them.

“They won’t let him past the border,” Micah said. “They’ll stop him there, and we can get him.”

Conner nodded. He might have taken a harder hit than he realized. He still wanted to hurl.

They settled in behind the truck, too close to lose Shooter, far enough so that he couldn’t stop suddenly, send them careering into his tailgate.

Around him, the guys had gone quiet. Pensive.

That’s when Conner thought to ask, “Did anyone get Blue’s thumb drive?”

Silence, and he blew out a breath, wanting for the first time in years to swear. “She had a thumb drive my brother gave her—said it had information on it about who killed him.”

“My guess is that if we get our hands on Honda, we’ll get some answers,” Pete said. “I promise.”

Tough guy Pete. Conner glanced at Micah, who was also hiding a grin.

“Brakes!” Conner slammed his hand on the dash as the truck’s taillights lit up.

Two miles from the border.

“Hold on!” Micah said, and also hit the brakes. The Honda barely slowed as it cut off the highway onto 593, the Canadian border road.