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She knew, too, that her boss would have something to say about her slipping around the back of the house to rescue Sherry alone, but she couldn’t have waited.

The man got out of the truck. She swore he towered over everyone there, downright intimidating.

“Put your hands up in the air!” “He’s got a gun!” “He’s armed!”

“Drop the weapon. Do it now!”

He raised the revolver and began firing. The police officers scrambled for cover. One yelled, “I’ve been hit!”

The other officers fired back at the kidnapper, and he crumpled to the snowy ground on the other side of his truck.

Once he was down, the police officers raced across the snow to get his weapon while another officer took care of the wounded one until an ambulance arrived.

Unless the kidnapper got up to fight again, this was done. She called for an ambulance and hugged Sherry.

“It’s done. The officers are taking him into custody,” she said to Sherry.

“He told me to tell anyone who saw us together that he was my uncle, but he isn’t.” Sherry was still sniffling.

“We know.” Then Monica called her boss back. “The kidnapper is in custody. I’m heading back to Anchorage after this is done.”

News vans pulled up, and reporters hurried to get the story. Despite not wanting to talk to them, they were in her face, and she said a few words. “Everyone in law enforcement has helped to end this case in the best way possible.”

“But you’ve successfully rescued four kidnapped victims in the last year,” a strawberry-blond-headed guy said.

“With the help of others.” Actually, no.

Her polar bear senses helped her locate the victims and rescue them more safely, but she always wanted to ensure that everyone who had helped received credit for the good deed.

The year before that, she hadn’t been successful, and that weighed heavily on her mind every time she tried to rescue a hostage or kidnapped victim.

The ambulance pulled up, and the EMS pronounced the kidnapper dead.

Okay, so he wasn’t going to be taken into custody.

Fine by her. She wondered if he thought he could fight it out with the officers and get away or if he wanted to do a suicide-by-cop routine.

The wounded police officer had only been grazed, for which she was glad.

The EMS checked Sherry over, but she hadn’t been harmed. Not physically, anyway. She held her hand out to Monica. “Will you stay with me?”

Monica nodded. “Sure thing.”

One of the officers brought over a stuffed teddy bear. “Here you go, Sherry.”

Sherry smiled and hugged the polar bear.

Monica stayed with Sherry until her parents arrived to take their daughter to the hospital.

Her parents hugged their daughter, and when Sherry told them Monica had rescued her, they hugged her, too. She was so glad that the outcome had been exactly what everyone needed.

Once they left, one of the officers asked Monica, “How did you manage to get her out of the house without being shot?”

“I was just lucky, I guess.” Her polar bear instincts helped her to smell, hear, and detect movement better. And she’d had a bit of luck. “Thanks for coming to back me up.”

“You bet.”

The adrenaline still coursing through her blood, she climbed into her Ford Expedition, waved goodbye, and drove from Sea Lion Cove to a mini-mart service station in White Bear.

She planned to head home to Anchorage when she got a call from Pierre Johnson, a guy she’d dated several times back home. That was a shocker.

“Monica, I heard you were in Sea Lion Cove and helped rescue a girl from a kidnapper.”

“News travels fast.” She guessed he must have been watching the news.

“Yes. It has been all over the news. If you didn’t know, I live in White Bear, close to where you probably are now if you’re traveling through the town.”

She filled up her gas tank at the mini-mart.

She had broken things off with Pierre when he lived in Anchorage because he was human and not a bear shifter like her.

So she was surprised to hear from him. Did he want to get together?

He’d been annoyed when she broke it off with him, so no, she didn’t want to see him.

And then—it was like it was too much for him and he moved!

“My girlfriend has just been kidnapped.”

“What?” That changed everything.

“Yes. Her name is Helen Wright. Some guy knocked on the door, and she went to answer it. He barged into the house and slammed the door shut. He said he wanted five hundred thousand dollars. Somehow, he knew I was good for it.”

Pierre was a braggart about his wealth, so anyone could have known about it.

“Before he knocked me out and took off with her, he said he would kill her if I reported it to the police. I don’t know how long I’d been unconscious. You can’t tell anyone. ”

“Oh, no, Pierre. Did you call 9-1-1? Do you need an ambulance?”

“No. I told you. You can’t tell anyone. He said he would kill her if I told anyone.”

“So why call me?” None of it made sense if he wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.

“Because you’re known to extract kidnapped victims from their kidnappers without the kidnapper being able to react. You’ve done it three times before that I know of, and now, today, you did it again. And you’re close by, right?”

“Yes. I’m in White Bear now.”

“Okay, listen. Helen called him Denny in surprise when he came to the door. I’ve never met the guy, but she often told me about her ex-boyfriend, Denny Wilson, and how his grandparents own a cabin northwest of here.

She said he would always take her there.

I looked it up on Google Maps. Here are the coordinates. ”

“All right. But you don’t know for sure that they’re going there.”

“No, but it’s a good bet.”

“Are you sure you don’t need medical attention?” After saving the coordinates, Monica entered the station to use the restroom.

“No. She had a restraining order against him. That’s why she left him. He was abusive and stalked her. Can you rescue her?”

“I’m at the mini-mart on Main Street. I’ll be on my way in a few minutes. ” But so was the big snowstorm that was coming.

“Thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me. I’ll let you go then.”

They ended the call, and she hurried into the restroom, not knowing when she might get another chance. Afterward, she grabbed some bottles of water, jerky, and protein bars just in case she needed them. She paid for the items and took them to her car.

Monica called her boss to let him know she had a lead to a possible kidnapped victim and explained the situation.

“Our agents are tied up everywhere.” Remington sounded worried about her.

“Yes, I know.” That was why she didn’t have a partner in this last kidnapping case; no one had been available.

“Be careful. Let me know when you learn if she’s there, and I’ll send the cavalry.”

“Yes, sir.”

With a desperate sense of urgency, Monica checked the aerial photography concerning the cabin's location. Then she got into her car and raced down the country road, determined to save Helen, who, if what Pierre had said was true, was being held captive in a cabin in White Bear County.

The wind-driven snow made seeing more than fifteen feet ahead difficult, but Monica pushed on, knowing time was of the essence. The snow swirled in a circle, and she felt like she was driving through the funnel of an ice-driven time machine.

Her heart raced from the worry that she would drive off the road and into the ditch when she could barely see the road and not reach the woman in time. She prayed she would reach the cabin before the ex-boyfriend holding the woman captive hurt her or worse.

Forty miles from White Bear, Monica felt her tires slide on a crusting of ice on the snow-covered road, making her whole body prickle with unease. Suddenly, the wind shifted, and the snow parted for an instant.

Her heart nearly quit when a trooper waved his arms as he stood in the middle of the road ahead, trying to get her to stop. She slammed on her brakes, thinking his car was off in the ditch, buried in snow, and he needed a ride. But he was standing on the road in her direct path, which was suicidal.

Her car slid on the slick, icy snow, and her brakes felt squishy, not responding. What the hell?

Ohmigod, the trooper wasn’t moving, waving his arms and shouting at her to stop!

Her skin prickled with unease as she honked her horn. “Get out of the way! I can’t stop!”

Not that he could hear her through her closed window. Then she saw her next nightmare: he stood in front of his patrol car as if protecting it from her. It wasn’t in the ditch.

At the very last moment, the trooper leaped out of the way and vanished into the snow on the side of the road down the embankment.

She frantically slammed on the brakes again, but there was still no response.

With quick thinking, she turned the steering wheel to avoid a head-on crash, though she knew it could potentially lead to an equally disastrous outcome.

Her SUV collided with his vehicle with a loud crash.

The jarring impact caused the airbag to burst out of her vehicle's steering wheel and dashboard. For a moment, everything was obscured by a vast whiteness. The airbags deflated, and she could see the shattered windshield and the snow-filled landscape, but the trooper’s car was no longer there.

Shards of glass covered the dashboard, and snow blew in through the broken windshield, engulfing her vision in even more white.

Snowflakes gathered on her eyelashes, and glass shimmered on her jacket as she realized in horror that her SUV had knocked the trooper's vehicle off the road and into the vicinity where he’d landed in the snow.

She hoped he’d gotten away before her SUV impacted his. As soon as she tried to open her door, she couldn’t budge it. Her back hurt something fierce, and her right hand did, too. She recalled throwing her hand up to protect herself from the airbag's release and injuring it somehow.

But she had to leave the car and check on the trooper straightaway.

She swore under her breath as she tried to release her seatbelt, and her back hurt even more.

She hoped she hadn’t broken something. She was going to grab her cell phone sitting on its stand, but now it was on the passenger’s floor.

She released the seatbelt and tried again to open her car door, but the impact had crumpled the frame, making the door inoperable.

She had to climb over the console and hoped the passenger door would open.

Her body strained as she pushed herself up and over the console, her arms and legs shaking with effort.

Her phone lay just inches from her fingertips.

Her body strained as she pushed herself up and over the console, her arms and legs shaking with the effort. Her breath was ragged and heavy. The excruciating pain in her back reminded her that she was injured!

The cold, smooth screen of her phone brushed against her fingertips and she grasped it with relief and triumph.

She tried calling 9-1-1, but she had no reception.

Great. She slipped her phone into her jacket pocket.

She pulled on her hat and goggles and put on her ski mask to protect her face from the cold.

Thankfully, she managed to open the passenger door and climb out of the car. “Hey, are you all right?”

She didn’t see any sign of the trooper. Her heart was already racing from the adrenaline in her blood from the accident, and from trying to reach the kidnapped victim. Still, she swore her adrenaline was on overload while she worried that the trooper was pinned under the wreckage.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” She struggled down the slope through the deep snow to reach his vehicle, fearing the worst when he didn’t respond to her.