Bree’s phone went off. The ER doc. She answered, and he didn’t bother with niceties. “That’s a Mojave rattler. Very toxic venom. Get him here ASAP. Don’t wait for the ambulance. We’ll have the antivenin ready when he gets here.”
“We’ll be there in twenty.” Bree went to Matt. The redness and swelling were spreading up his leg. She swallowed the panic rising in her throat. “We’re going to the ER.”
Sirens approached.
She levered her shoulder under his. “Adam. Little help.”
Adam took Matt’s other side. Together they heaved him to his feet.
“I can walk,” Matt protested, but he was limping as they helped him out the front door.
“You must move as little as possible. Every beat of your heart pumps that venom through your body. This isn’t something you can power through.” The ER doctor’s tone rang in Bree’s ears. Very toxic venom. “Please,” she begged, desperate. She could not lose him. “Be still.”
Two patrol cruisers sped up the driveway. Juarez and Todd leaped out of their vehicles.
Bree wanted to stay with Matt, but her duty was to prevent more people from dying and to protect her family from potential retaliation. There was only one way to do that: find Rhys Blake.
“I will. I’ll be fine.” But Matt was shaking. Actually shaking. Seeing his huge, muscular body visibly weakened shocked her. She felt the stirrings of panic behind her breastbone. Her lungs and throat constricted.
She swallowed a lump of cold terror the size of a baseball. Then she made one of the hardest decisions of her life. She had to do her job and trust the ER staff to do theirs. She put one hand on Matt’s chest, rose onto her toes, and kissed him on the mouth. “I have to go. Please cooperate. I need you to be OK. I love you.”
Matt kissed her back. “I love you back. I know you want to catch him, but don’t risk your own life. Promise you won’t take any unnecessary risks. I need you to be OK too.”
“Deal.” She dropped her hand and pointed to Juarez. “Get him to the ER. Fast.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Juarez opened the rear door of the vehicle. Once Matt was inside, Juarez jumped behind the wheel and sped off, lights and sirens wailing.
Bree turned to Adam.
Her brother waved her away. “I’ll wait for the ambulance with Farah. Go get that bastard. This is what you do.”
Bree turned to Todd. “You’re with me.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Todd opened the trunk of his cruiser and retrieved his own rifle. He grabbed a hat and gloves. “Let’s go.”
Forcing her worry for Matt into the background, she led Todd around to the studio window. While he examined the weedy grass with his flashlight, Bree called dispatch and requested assistance from other agencies. Then she joined Todd with the search of the ground. A spot of blood shone in the light. She moved the beam and found another, then another. She followed the bloodspots around the barn to the Jeep.
In front of the vehicle, Bree found four droplets in one place. She imagined Rhys standing still, absorbing the fact that his Jeep was useless and deciding which way to run.
“Do you know how badly he’s wounded?” Todd asked.
“I think I shot him, but I don’t know where he took the bullet. He’s definitely bleeding, but nothing’s gushing.” Bree could have winged him, or he could be bleeding internally. “He was wearing a hat, coat, and boots. He won’t immediately succumb to hypothermia.”
Light pointed toward the ground, Todd stopped. “Here’s a few footprints. Well spaced and even. He’s moving OK.”
Bree moved along a parallel track to the prints. “Adrenaline could keep him going for a while.”
The wind kicked up again. Tall weeds in the meadow bowed as it swept across the open land. Todd began scanning the ground with his light. Bree did the same.
“I found more drops of blood. He’s definitely headed this way.” Todd pointed across the meadow, away from the main road. All she could see in that direction was fields and darkness. They had no choice but to use their flashlights, even though the lights made them targets. Bree updated dispatch. “Pursuing on foot in an easterly direction. Fugitive is wounded and armed.” She gave a basic description of Rhys’s clothing and hoped state police or other local police departments could cut off his escape.
They moved at a brisk pace, stopping every few minutes to examine the ground. Both Bree and Todd found the occasional footprint or spot of blood. The cold air stung her cheeks, but her muscles stayed warm as they jogged across the rutted, uneven field. Bree tripped over a lump of dead vegetation. Landing on her knee, she felt the zing of her kneecap as it struck a rock. They crossed a ditch with a thin stream of ice in the bottom.
She guessed they’d traveled about a mile and a half when Todd stopped and pointed to the ground. Five footprints led toward a patch of woods about fifty yards away.
“The footprints are uneven and closer together,” Todd said. “He’s struggling now.”
“Running out of adrenaline.” Bree spotted a small puddle of blood. “And he’s bleeding more heavily.”
Todd walked farther, crouched. “It looks like he stumbled, went down on one knee, bled some more.” He straightened and nodded toward the trees in the distance. “He’s headed for those trees.”
Bree followed the projected trajectory with her gaze. “I don’t know how many bullets he has left, but if I were him, that’s where I’d hide and set up an ambush.”
She and Todd fanned out about a dozen feet apart so they would be two separate targets and walked toward the woods.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The darkness closes over me as I stumble into a small patch of trees. My foot catches on a root, and I fall to my knees. I’m already in so much pain, I barely feel the impact of my knees on the ground. Winded and lightheaded, I crawl behind a fallen tree. Pressing my back to the rotting bark, I breathe. They won’t be able to see me here.
I can’t believe she fucking shot me. Twice.
Agony radiates through the whole left side of my body from two bullet wounds. I can’t see them under my jacket, and I’m not taking it off to get a better look. Not in this cold. The one in my upper arm isn’t bleeding much, but my arm is useless. My fingers won’t work at all. My whole arm is on fire. But it’s the wound in my side that worries me the most. It’s bleeding enough to have soaked through my shirt, sweater, and jacket. I can feel blood running down my side. I need to find a place to bandage it before I bleed to death, but I’m in the middle of the fucking countryside. There’s nowhere to wash and dress a wound. I search my pockets for something to bind it, but there’s nothing.
My heart races, but the beats feel ineffective, as if I just don’t have enough blood left to keep my body going. I can’t believe I lost that much blood so quickly, though running didn’t help. My lungs ache, starved for oxygen. In the darkness, the trees seem to blur. The air heaves in and out of my chest. It’s so cold out; it feels like I’m inhaling needles.
The farther I run, the more heavily I bleed. But I have to keep moving. If I stop here, I’ll die here.