“Where to, ma’am?” Juarez asked.
“What’s close by?” Bree looked up. Dylan needed a hospital.
“There’s a park ahead with a beach and dock.” He gestured forward, in roughly the same direction Stephanie had gone.
“Go.” Bree gave Dylan two more puffs of air. She could hear her deputy on the marine radio, giving their location and calling for an ambulance. Then Juarez gunned the engine, and the boat shot off.
Matt and Bree continued to work in a rhythm. Between breaths, Bree ran her hands over Dylan’s body and found a bullet wound high on his shoulder. After a few minutes of CPR, Dylan coughed. His body jerked to life. Bree rolled him onto his side while he expelled water from his lungs and stomach. When he’d finished, she rolled him back and found his pulse. It throbbed weakly against her fingertips. Blood welled from his shoulder wound. Now that they’d brought him back, they needed to stop the bleeding, or they’d lose him again.
Matt opened the first aid kit once more. Ripping open gauze, he stacked it on the shoulder wound and applied pressure. Todd relinquished one of his Mylar blankets. That he would try to save the man who’d almost killed him spoke volumes about her chief deputy.
At Matt’s raised eyebrows, Todd shrugged. “Prison will be way worse than death.”
Dylan’s eyes fluttered open for a few seconds. Fear, shock, and pain widened his pupils before he passed out again. Bree checked his pulse. Still alive.
“Too bad Stephanie got away.” Matt sat back on his heels.
“No worries,” Juarez yelled from behind the wheel. He pointed.
Bree stood and squinted at Stephanie’s boat. Stephanie had been ahead of them, and she’d had a decent lead. How had they caught up to her?
They overtook Stephanie. Her engine sputtered and coughed.
Juarez glanced over his shoulder and grinned. “One of your shots must have hit the engine and damaged it. She’s barely doing five or ten miles per hour.”
The thump thump thump of a helicopter approached. Bree squinted at the night sky. A minute later, the state police chopper passed overhead, spotlights searching the lake. She waved as the light passed over her. The chopper doubled back and hovered above Stephanie’s boat for a few seconds. A booming voice from a loudspeaker instructed her to drop her weapon, drive to the beach ahead, and raise her hands.
Even if she got her engine running at full speed, Stephanie couldn’t outrun a chopper.
Flashing lights to the right caught Bree’s attention. She spotted emergency vehicles. Juarez cut their speed. Collins and Brody were on the beach waiting for them, along with two state police cruisers, two ambulances, and an EMT unit. Bree turned back to Stephanie’s boat.
With a glance at Matt applying a pressure bandage to Dylan’s shoulder, Bree hefted her rifle and returned to the bow. At the wheel of her own boat, Stephanie still held a handgun.
Juarez turned. “Permission to escort her in?”
Bree pointed the rifle at Stephanie and aimed. A red dot appeared in the center of her chest. Stephanie dropped her handgun and put both hands on the wheel.
Bree kept the sight on her anyway. “Granted.”
Ahead, Stephanie pulled up to the public dock. State troopers boarded her boat and took her into custody. Bree lowered her rifle and sat on the side of the boat, her adrenaline suddenly gone. She barely noticed EMTs treating Dylan and Todd.
They were all alive, even Todd. She’d been almost sure they were going to find him dead. Relief made her legs weak.
She could have lost Matt tonight. While he’d been in the water, she hadn’t allowed herself to think about the potential for disaster. Even as Stephanie had tried to run Matt and Todd over, Bree had blocked her fear and concentrated on responding. But now that Matt was safe, delayed panic washed over her like cold rain.
He perched next to her. “You OK?”
She glanced at him. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You were the one who went into the water.”
He lifted a damp shoulder. “I’m durable.”
She snorted but had no response. They sat side by side, watching the EMTs off-load Dylan by gurney. Todd insisted on walking from the boat under his own steam.
She looked over the side at the water, black and bottomless in the dark. “I can picture a dozen ways tonight could have gone horribly wrong.”
“Yep.” Matt shifted sideways an inch, until their shoulders pressed together. “But it didn’t.”
Bree leaned into him.
“Everyone is OK, Bree,” Matt said.