Page 28 of I’ll Be There (Montana Fire #4)

“I just don’t get it,” Conner said. He stood next to Kyle’s truck a half block from the still-smoking Pierre’s Pizza, watching as the Deep Haven firefighters arched water into the black, charred remains.

Others wet the roofs of the nearby buildings, and a third team brought to heel the fire now chewing through the café/bookstore they’d escaped only an hour earlier.

The air wept, moisture layering his grimy hair, his skin, casting a kaleidoscope arc around the streetlights, puddling luminescence onto the dark pavement and the activity of the firefighters. Overhead, the stars watched, a slight wind pressing waves to shore, crashing against the darkness.

All of Deep Haven’s finest showed up, some cordoning off the entire downtown while more searched the buildings for tampering, evidence of where the shooter might have perched.

Others bagged and carried the second shooter from his nest on top of the liquor store.

“Let’s get that fixed up.” The voice turned him, and he spotted Dan’s pretty, blonde wife, former fire chief, Ellie, approaching him with saline and tape in her gloved hands.

Conner glanced at his arm. “It’s nothing.”

She set the supplies on the hood of the truck. “Humor me. Take your shirt off.”

He reached up and ripped off the sleeve.

“Ho- kay . That’ll work.”

He lifted his arm, got a good look. More of a burn, the skin blackened around a pinky-width scubbed line, maybe two inches long. “Just give me some superglue and a piece of tape.”

She stared at him, and he raised an eyebrow in quiet confrontation. “Fine,” she said and went to an ambulance, its doors opened to the scene. He ripped off the other sleeve, wiped the blood from his arm.

She returned moments later with a clotting sponge. “Trust me,” she said, and applied it over the wound. Held it there. “It’ll stop the bleeding.” She then held up the requested silicon tape.

He stood still, watching as she pressed the tape over the wound. “You probably need a couple stitches.”

“Later.” He glanced at Micah. “Okay, I get that maybe he feared I had information, but...why take out the entire wedding party, burn down a city block? That’s a little overkill.”

“Maybe to make a point,” Micah said. “Keep you quiet.”

“No. He wanted to hurt us. To watch us burn. Or kill us, one by one...”

“You’re scared, right?”

The question rocked him back. He swallowed, his chest raw.

More than he wanted to admit.

“Then it worked. You’re either going to shut up or...”

“Or find him.” Conner nodded. “Right. He counted on me either dying or hunting him down.”

“He could hardly shoot you in the Deep Haven interrogation room,” Kyle said, coming up to them. “Maybe I should have let you go, but I couldn’t have you two running around the county in a shoot-out.”

Micah’s jaw tightened.

“Then you’d better walk away from us, Kyle. Right now,” Conner said.

“Sorry. No can do, pal. I’m in this just as much as you are, now. He attacked my town. My people.” Kyle’s voice fell, turned to a growl. “My wife.”

Conner got that, but...

Micah cleared his throat. “So, here’s what we do. We check back with Conner’s GPS program, track down Blankenship—”

“He’s probably still watching us,” Conner said. “Figuring out his next move.” The sense of it raised the hairs on the back of his neck.

That, and the idea that Blankenship might walk right into the hospital, grab Liza, or someone else he loved, and then— “We gotta find him, right now.”

“We will,” Micah said.

Conner had spent the past thirty minutes, while watching the firefighters douse the town, categorizing the various sniper nests. “I think he might have been shooting, based on the angle of sight, from the café on the corner. Maybe he left something behind.”

The Blue Moose Café. Two stories, with stairs on the outside to an upstairs art gallery.

“I’ll go check it out,” Kyle said, and took off in a jog.

Micah turned to him, dark eyes sparking. “What are you doing?”

“Get in Kyle’s truck. Drive around the block and pick me up at the end of the street.”

Micah slid into the driver’s seat, and Conner quick-walked down the sidewalk toward his truck.

He’d parked across the street from the pizza joint, left the rig unlocked in the unassuming streets of Deep Haven.

Now he opened the passenger door, clicked open his glove compartment, and grabbed out his Glock.

Shoved it into his belt, shut the door, and kept walking.

Micah pulled up in a lot at the end of the street, and Conner picked up his speed into a jog.

He slid into the passenger seat. “Go.”

Micah pulled away, not fast enough to alert attention, but with a wary glance in the rearview mirror to see if Kyle might be catching on.

Conner dropped the clip to check his ammo, then racked it back in, chambered a round.

“Next?”

Conner pulled out his cell phone, still miraculously tucked into his pocket. “Now, we call him.”

Micah turned out onto the main road, driving west. “We’re—”

“We can track him down...or we can just end this. Now.” He pulled up Blankenship’s number, and with a punch to his gut, realized...Liza had probably texted him, too.

No wonder he knew where to show up, and when.

Conner felt a little sick as he put the phone on speaker.

And, while he hoped it, he didn’t expect the voice over the line to answer on the first ring.

“Everybody okay?”

“I’m going to find you,” Conner said, “and you’re going to find out what it feels like to run for your life.”

Micah glanced at him.

“Oh, Conner, you’re just what I remembered. Impulsive. Angry.”

“And ready. Where are you?”

“Fine. Come alone. I’ll know if you don’t.”

Conner winced. Third man.

Micah was shaking his head, but Conner held up his hand. “Where?”

“There’s a rest area about five miles out of town. I’m waiting for you. I hope you said goodbye to that pretty girl.”

Conner hung up.

“No,” Micah said. “Not going alone.”

Conner drew in a breath. “He’s got backup.”

“So will you.”

“How—”

“It doesn’t have to be hard.” Micah pulled over. Got out. “Get me close, slow down enough.” He closed the door and climbed into the bed.

Conner had gotten out, rounding the back to climb into the driver’s seat. “You don’t have a—where did you get that?”

Micah held up a sniper rifle. “We needed a weapon, and I saw it bagged at the scene.”

“I’ll drop you just outside the lights.”

He got in and set the Glock on the seat beside him, one hand on it as he drove, his heart punching through his chest all five silent miles to the rest area.

Please, God, let this work. He hadn’t realized how dry his mouth was until he tried to speak it aloud, a small prayer. But really, he shouldn’t be praying for the opportunity to tear a man limb from limb, so maybe, “Justice, Lord. We need justice here.”

He slowed down to fifteen, crossed the highway, and slid along the shoulder a full ten seconds, then gunned it after watching Micah vanish off the back. He meshed into the forest as if he belonged there.

Conner rode the wrong shoulder until he came to the rest area, on the lake side of the road. Cut his lights as he rolled in, searching.

Empty lot.

He pulled into a space and sat in the cab blankly, not sure what to do.

After a minute, he tucked his gun into his belt. Reached for the door handle.

A shot cracked the air.

Conner jerked, slammed open the door, and spilled out, staying low.

The noise startled a few gulls, who pierced the air with their cries. The wind blew in, hued thickly with the scent of the fire down the shore, the lightest tinge of pine and birch. Silence wove into the dark lot, save the buzzing of the overhead lights that puddled luminescence at his feet.

He crawled around to the front of the truck, into the darkness. “Blankenship!”

His voice pinged against the two outbuildings that served as the facilities, came back to him.

His gut coiled. What if Blankenship sent him here so he could track down Liza...

Conner got up, rounded to the driver’s door and had it open when lights creased the entrance, turned down into the lot.

He shut the door, pulled out his gun, stepped back and waited.

The lights careened across the pavement, a glare that made him put up his arm in protection. The car stopped—a sedan, probably a rental.

The driver door opened, and Conner fixed his barrel on Blankenship as he climbed out.

Blankenship held up his hand. “Not so fast there, cowboy.”

Conner fought the burr in his throat, the punch of his heartbeat as he watched Blankenship open the passenger door.

Please, not Liza—

Blankenship grabbed something, pulled someone out onto the pavement, writhing, groaning. Dragged him into the light.

Micah. Shot in his leg, bleeding through the tourniquet high and tight on his thigh.

“Kill him, Conner.”

“Or...” Blankenship pulled out the rifle and set the barrel against Micah’s head. “You could put down the gun.”

Conner clenched his jaw so tight he could break molars. But he crouched and set his gun on the pavement, raised his hands. “Let him go. He has nothing to do with this—”

“I’m so tired of you Young men lying to me,” Blankenship said.

“You did it, didn’t you? Killed Justin?”

Blankenship just stared at him, as if trying to sort through his answer.

Micah’s eyes closed, his face contorted and whitening under the raw light.

“C’mon! Just tell me the truth! He caught onto your connection with the SOF and was going to rat you out. You set up a meet and killed him. He trusted—”

And right there, he stopped. Because Justin would have never set up a meet with someone he didn’t trust, or let him get the drop on him.

Not like, apparently, Conner did.

Blankenship was shaking his head even as the gears clicked into place. Blankenship wasn’t here for—

A shot popped the air, and the rifle in Blankenship’s grip spun out, skittered across the pavement. Blankenship hit the ground, stunned, maybe even hurt.

It took just that long for Micah to roll away from Blankenship’s grip, for Conner to pick up his gun. “Stop!”