Wilderness Hunt
Author
Lisa Phillips
Reads
15.7K
Chapters
25
ONE
Smoke from a plane crash no one had been able to locate—yet—hung in the air. K-9 officer Kelly Wayne let out a short whistle. Her dog and partner, Nico, stopped and sank with her belly to the mountain path.
Kelly took up the slack in the long line and crouched beside her. The German shepherd was bred for police work, with the papers to prove it. Too bad she was stuck with a partner who had a spotty disciplinary record and the inability to cook.
The dog sniffed Kelly’s hand, unaware what Kelly had sensed. If Nico could do something to earn playtime, she would. In whatever form that came. Nico meant victory, and in Kelly’s experience the name held true. The dog wanted to win at everything.
She’d never had a better, or more reliable, partner.
Kelly had that same drive to prove to everyone she and Nico could be an effective search and rescue team out here. She’d been a cop for six years, but a K-9 officer for just over a year now. Don’t think about the past. Finding that plane crash would go a long way to Kelly and Nico solidifying their place with the department.
When Nico laid her head on her front paws, Kelly scratched her head. Then she made a click sound with her throat. Nico was on four paws a second later, alert and ready to work. Sorry, dog. No time to rest. Not that the dog would ever complain. She could outpace, outwork and outlast Kelly any day of the week, and that was no exaggeration.
But her human inadequacies were hardly the point here.
They were miles from any road with a few hours left until dark. Temps held steady, just above forty. Her backpack contained plenty of supplies, and they’d spent the night out in the wilderness before, during training.
Kelly needed to know what caused her instincts to flare a moment ago. Nico had alerted to something. Focusing on work didn’t involve thinking about her career before the K-9 unit and Nico. Or the undercover work she’d been so good at until she’d taken too many risks and been kicked off the case. Then a fellow cop had died.
Tears burned her eyes. What a mess.
Kelly sniffed them back. “Smoke from the crash.”
She needed to find that plane. All the cops in the local area knew now that the US Marshals had chartered the plane to take a protected witness to the local federal courthouse. There was a team inbound to deal with the crash, but it was the defendant of the case she was interested in.
Michael O’Callaghan needed to be taken down for ruining so many lives selling poison. The fact that the case connected to her being undercover and the loss of her partner during that operation had no bearing now. She’d said that to everyone she worked with so many times she could recite it.
Believing what she said was something different entirely.
Nico’s head turned, and her nostrils flared. The dog’s body tightened, and she stared to the left. Alert. Focused.
Kelly shortened the distance between them, coiling the long line in a big loop. They took the next few steps together. Kelly headed toward a downed tree in a group of berry bushes. She took cover, Nico right beside her, and waited to find out why the dog had alerted like that.
Seconds later two men crashed through the underbrush, talking.
“...nowhere near here.”
“You’re the one who said it was this way.”
“I thought I saw something. That’s what I said.”
Both had jeans and jackets on. No gloves. One wore a ball cap. She’d met enough people since she moved here to know they weren’t locals. One of the guys had tattoos on the backs of his fingers—and a gun in his hand. The other had scratches on his face like he’d rushed headlong into the brush.
Tattoo guy rubbed his jaw with his free hand. “Whatever you saw, it’s not here.”
“Then where’d it go?” the guy with the scratched face asked.
“Probably a deer or something.”
Scratches said, “We could shoot it.”
Kelly clenched her teeth. Two against one? Not good, even with Nico. The dog could take down both these guys, but the last thing she wanted to do was waste time when a federal witness was out here in need of help. Lost. Hurt probably, a result of the plane crash. She wouldn’t get justice for Brett’s death if the witness didn’t show up to testify.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was past time to check in with her chief.
Kelly kept watch on the two men.
“Come on. Let’s keep moving,” Tattoo guy said. “If we don’t find that plane, we can’t kill the witness.”
“After we torture him for where he stashed the money,” Scratch said. “That’s my favorite part.”
Tattoo guy huffed. “Then see something good next time. Or we don’t get to have fun or get paid.”
Kelly shuddered. Nico let out a high whine, sympathetic to what Kelly was going through. But she didn’t need her partner to pity her for her inadequacies. They just needed to get the job done and find that plane before these guys did.
Tattoo guy spun around. “What was that?”
Kelly stilled.
“Bunch of nothin’.”
Nico yawned.
They were close enough they’d see her if she didn’t act first.
Kelly reached over and unclipped Nico’s lead. She gave the hand signal to stay, then shoved up, her weapon drawn. “Police. Hands up.”
Tattoo guy’s lips curled up.
“Weapons down.” Kelly shifted her feet to a steady stance. “Hands. Up.”
“You’re gonna arrest us?”
“Conspiracy is a crime.”
“Your word against mine.”
“Irrelevant,” she said. “You’re done out here.”
He strode toward her. There was no chance she’d have Nico take him down. She’d leave her partner to deal with Scratches, who looked like he had no intention of dropping his gun.
Still, Tattoo guy was the lethal one out here.
“Stop!” Kelly squared her aim on his chest. “Drop that weapon and any others you’re carrying.”
He didn’t lower the gun. He also didn’t have it pointed at her.
But it would be up and aimed at the vest under her jacket in a split second.
Kelly gave the command for Nico to release from her stay and take down the assailant farther from her rather than closer. It had taken extensive training but came in handy even in search and rescue situations.
The dog burst from the brush and launched at Scratches, whose weapon flew through the air as seventy pounds slammed into him at high speed.
Tattoo guy pulled his trigger.
Kelly did the same.
She felt the bullet slam into her torso. Her body jerked and she fell backward, with no idea if her shot hit the target.
A new guy burst through the trees with a roar, swinging a tree branch above his head. He swayed as he came at Tattoo guy, blood trailing down his face. Glassy eyes. He slammed the branch into Tattoo guy’s head and wood splintered.
Tattoo guy rallied fast. He tackled the guy, and they both went down. The guy who’d run up to them hit the ground and went still. Scratches grabbed his gun, spun around and leveled it at Nico.
“Don’t!” Kelly scrambled around for her weapon. Where was it? Her chest felt like she’d been punched hard in the sternum.
“Let’s go!” Tattoo guy hauled the unconscious man onto his shoulder. “We got him. Let’s go.” In his other hand he held the pistol he’d shot her with.
Kelly raised her hands. “Don’t shoot my dog.”
Scratches didn’t pay her any attention.
“I said, ‘Let’s go,’” Tattoo guy ordered.
Scratches shifted. For a heartbeat Kelly was sure she was about to watch her partner die. Instead, Scratches turned and kicked Nico. The dog yelped and tumbled down the hill as the two men left with their prize—and the backpack she’d dropped.
Kelly ignored them and scrambled to see where Nico had landed. Her chest burned, but she wouldn’t stop until she knew her partner was all right.
She glanced over her shoulder. They might have taken off, but they had to know she’d pursue them to the ends of the earth for hurting Nico.
The dog shook off the blow, but Kelly still checked where she’d been kicked and found the area tender. “You good?”
Nico barked.
“Ready?”
The dog turned around. Kelly clipped the leash on and found a glove on the ground that had to have fallen out of someone’s pocket. Thanking God there was still a signal out here, she sent a text to her chief explaining everything while Nico moved tight to her side.
Kelly gave her the command to catch a scent from the glove, then said, “Nico, find.”
Pain. It split his skull—or felt like it. He was... Nope, too much thinking. He gritted his teeth and breathed through the swell of pain.
Bile rose in his throat.
“He’s awake.”
His body shifted, bent over a man’s shoulder. A second later he hit the ground. A low groan puffed out his lips.
“Well, Harrigan.” The man’s face swam into view. This was not a guy he’d want to meet in a dark alley. Or in the middle of trees while a cold breeze pushed through the branches.
Harrigan. That sounded right. “What...” He didn’t know what to say, and the need to swallow back sickness beckoned. He sucked in a few breaths and tried to figure out what was happening.
A flash of white teeth.
Green, like a military uniform.
But on a wild animal? That made no sense.
“She’s got a bunch of stuff in here.”
He found the man who spoke to his right. Light from between the clouds had him wincing against the pain. Head hurts.
The man had blood on his cheek and knuckles. Face flush, dark hair sticking up. He rummaged through a backpack, pulling out bottles of water and protein bars.
His stomach rumbled. The sky above him darkened, and he could hear running water.
A man stood over him.
He stared at the guy. “Who are you?” His brain definitely wasn’t working, even if he had never met these guys before. He didn’t know what had happened, or how he’d gotten all the way out in what looked like the middle of nowhere.
“Where am I? Why am I here?”
The guy over him shifted, set his boot on his chest and leaned down.
He wanted to breathe, but the man’s weight constricted his chest. “Hey. Don’t.”
“Should’ve thought of that before you sold us out, Harrigan. Now you’re testifying?”
Then the guy spat on him.
“Found a phone.”
The guy pulled his weight off his chest and headed for the friend, who sat on a boulder beside a rushing river. “That a sat phone?”
“Looks like it.” Backpack guy, with the scratches on his face, bit into a bar and tossed a phone into the river. “Want one of these?”
“Later.” The guy lifted his chin.
“You think we have to worry about the lady cop?”
“We’d be idiots if we don’t.” He had tattoos on his hand and a gun in the back of his belt when he shifted. “We keep moving. Meet up with the others.”
These two would kill him. But he didn’t think it would happen straightaway. When it did, though, he wasn’t going to be rescued. His body would be found later.
He wouldn’t get to...
He needed to find...
Testify.
Pain rolled through his head. It was all he could do to lift his arm and wipe his sleeve across his face.
He needed to get away, figure out help and a car. Something. Police, maybe the one they were talking about—a female cop.
Had he seen a woman?
Harrigan didn’t know...if that was even his name. It felt right. It sounded right. What is wrong with me? His brain wouldn’t make the connections. When he tried, it just made his head hurt more.
“What did you do to me?” He croaked the words out. He wanted to sit up, so he didn’t look so helpless to these guys. He rolled and spotted a river. Trees flanked both sides.
He started to push off the ground.
Tattoo guy rushed over and kicked his shoulder.
He blinked up at the sky. His mind flashed again with the image of that dark animal and its white teeth. It lunged at him. Then a military uniform—but it was on the dog? That didn’t make sense.
None of this did.
“Stay down,” Tattoo guy said.
He breathed. While they weren’t looking, he would try and rally his strength. Get up. Run from these guys, somehow.
Why did they want him? They knew who he was, and they didn’t like him. They would kill him.
All he had was that mental picture of the dog.
Not a wild animal. It had been a dog. He still had the scar on his forearm from a long time ago.
He lifted his hand and pulled his sleeve back. The scar was there. But even his name seemed...wrong somehow. There was only that skull-splitting pain when he tried to think past the dog’s teeth and the green vest. An airplane flew overhead, high up in the sky like a passenger jet. They’d never be able to see him.
But a plane? That seemed connected somehow.
“You gonna call the boss?” one of the guys said.
Tattoo guy stilled. “Not yet.”
“Are you serious? He’ll kill us if we don’t call right now and tell him everything.” The guy shoved the backpack down and stood. He pulled a gun.
Tattoo guy shot him between the eyes.
The scratched guy landed in the dirt. Dead.
He had to get out of here. He scrambled to sit and gathered his legs under him. His shoes didn’t look right. Something wet damped his shoulder. He reached up and touched his temple. The pain nearly sent him sprawling.
He fought back the sickness rising in his throat. He scrambled to stand and nearly swayed back onto the ground. He braced a hand on a rock.
He pushed off, taking the stone with him.
Tattoo guy held his gun. “I can’t kill you yet. Not till you tell me everything.”
Harrigan adjusted his grip on the rock. He pitched it at Tattoo guy and sprinted away. Toward the river. No. He wasn’t thinking straight. He should’ve gone the other way.
Too late.
He splashed into the water and began wading across.
A gunshot spliced the air and sang past his ear. He yelped and started to run against the flowing water. He had to get across to the other side.
Tattoo guy tackled him.
His knees gave out and he face-planted into the water. The ice cold shocked his mind into clarity.
The guy rolled off. He went the other way and scrambled out of reach.
“Hey!” A woman called out from a distance.
Tattoo guy grabbed him, and he went under again. Thick fingers banded around his throat. He gasped for air but got only frozen water.
The man holding him jerked. The fingers slipped away, and the man was gone.
He tried to find the strength to get up.
He had none.
Someone grabbed his shirt and lifted his face above water. She was blonde and beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Or was he in worse condition than he’d thought?
“You’re really alive?” She shook her head. “Don’t worry, Brett. I’ll get you to that courtroom.”
He frowned. Brett.
Was that his name?
