Duty to Protect
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Lisa Phillips
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16,5K
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23
ONE
“Come on.” Jennie Wilson held tight to her son’s hand as they crept down the back steps of the house.
A house where they had been held for hours. Nearly a whole day, if she’d correctly tracked the rise and subsequent fall of the sun.
“Run, Nate. Stay right by me.”
His smaller hand gripped hers, fingers tight. Nate was nine years old. It had been just the two of them since she’d found out she was pregnant and the father had split town like he didn’t care at all. Since her father had died of a heart attack when Nate was two.
Nate and Jennie.
They didn’t need anyone else. Or, at least, they hadn’t until yesterday, when gunmen took them from their home after dinner and escorted them here. Left in an empty room, not tied up. The door unlocked. They’d sat there all night and then all day while those two men yelled threats and waved guns around.
She was done waiting for rescue that might not even come. She’d seen those two men out the window, standing in front of the house, talking. Jennie had tugged Nate down the stairs to the back door so they could make a run for it.
Nate stumbled. He inhaled sharply, and she stopped to catch him. But he hadn’t gone down, just planted one knee in the ground at the bottom of the stairs and launched back up like he hadn’t stumbled. She could’ve hugged him. The kid wanted to get out of here as badly as she did.
Over his shoulder Jennie spotted a man at the back door, looking out. He was a huge, dark figure, silhouetted by the light inside. But she could see the gun in his hand.
“Come on.” Her words were a harsh whisper in the dead of the New Mexico desert night.
The house was set into the side of the mountain, hidden from the town’s view. Terrain around them was dust and sagebrush. Shrubs. The occasional growth of sand shinnery oak, which was nothing more than a bush.
There was nowhere to go.
God, keep us hidden. She didn’t want their escape to be in vain. Only God could hide them from these men.
“Hey!” The gunman’s growl rang out.
Jennie tugged on her son’s hand, but in his tennis shoes he was faster than her. They raced together down an incline, what amounted to the yard of this abandoned house. Would she rather be dead than a hostage? Now was too late to ask herself that. The damage was done.
She’d taken the only chance they’d had for escape and made a run for it. Banked on the fact that they hadn’t tied her up and that it might mean they weren’t willing to hurt her and Nate.
Did I make a horrible mistake?
“Mom.”
She saw a white fence rail. “Climb over.”
Her son hopped over it. He’d always been independent and never seemed to mind being alone. She hoped tonight didn’t change that.
She launched herself at it but the sole of her boot slipped and she felt her shin slide over the wood. Jennie hissed out a breath. She forced the pain away and climbed regardless, the same way she took care of her son even when she had a migraine. Or got up and went to work in the barn, where she fired her pottery, when she was beyond exhausted. The way she saved one twenty-dollar bill every month for Christmas those times things were tight.
Because she was a mom, and that was what moms did.
He waited for her on the other side. She dropped down.
Behind her, she heard the man roar as he raced down the yard. Another man exited the house, his face shadowed against the yellow light from inside.
“Go.” Jennie grabbed his hand.
Nate’s was already there, fingers curling around hers. So much trust.
They disappeared together into the dark of night. Above them an ocean of stars she’d always loved. This land. The places her mother had walked, and the things she’d showed Jennie before she’d died.
The God she had introduced Jennie to.
Help us.
Those men would catch up. She and Nate needed a hiding place, but there was nothing out here. Mountains stretched up to the right, as though they could touch the night sky above through sheer force of will. To the left, her town sat at the bottom of the valley. Between, there was only desert.
No houses. Not even a tree.
Cold air seeped into her jeans and the thin sweater she wore over her T-shirt. Nate was in his pajamas, as he’d been just out of the bath when the men had burst in. She’d made them wait so he could get shoes and she could tug her boots on.
A gunshot rang out, over to her left.
Too far aside to have been someone intending to shoot them. Were they trying to force her to stop by frightening her? She couldn’t let that happen.
“Come on.” She was babbling and repeating herself.
“I’m going as fast as I can.” His words were breathy.
“I know.” Jennie tried to tamp down the fear.
Her shin cried out with every step, shooting fire up her leg, and she thought she might be bleeding. She wanted to tell him she was sorry. So sorry.
She’d worked so hard to keep Nate from the life she had lived as a child. Surrounded by the worst of humanity, people who bought illegal substances and sold those drugs to whomever would buy them.
Now the past had finally caught up to her.
Her leg nearly gave out. She had to stop soon, or she would simply collapse. They needed a place to hide.
Jennie pulled in a long breath and tried to think.
Another shot rang out, far to her right.
She flinched and let out a squeak. Her son whimpered, and she thought he might be crying. Her heart broke, hearing that sound.
Jennie stumbled. She caught herself before she landed on her injured shin and saw the shinnery oak beside her. Nate.
She grasped him in a hug and rolled, ducked behind the bush. God, hide us.
“Where’d they go?”
Nate sucked in a breath. She tugged him closer, wrapping her arms snugly around his little body. He tucked himself against her. Knees pulled up, hands grasping the sleeves of her sweater. She would thank God every day for the rest of their lives that she had him sleep in fleece-lined sweats and a long-sleeved shirt in winter even though he complained he got sweaty at night.
If they even survived this.
A male voice said, “I don’t see them.”
Jennie hugged her son and just breathed.
“Go back to the house. Get two flashlights and call it in.”
“You wanna tell the boss we lost them? He’ll kill us.”
“Then don’t call in. Fetch the lights and get back out here. I’ll need help bringing them to the house after we knock ’em out and hog-tie ’em.”
Nate sniffed, tight against her chest.
Jennie touched her lips to the side of his cheek. He was cold. Hungry.
“Fine.”
She heard the one leave. That left the other—the one who wanted to tie them up—close by. Jennie figured they’d reached this far by just going for it. They could do that again.
Move and risk him hearing her, or stay and risk him finding them?
Nate squeezed her arm. She figured that meant she should loosen her grip on him. He shifted a fraction but didn’t go anywhere. Best kidnapping buddy ever. She’d loved him fiercely since the day she’d learned she was pregnant. Now she thought she loved him even more.
A twig snapped.
They both gasped, tiny noises that sounded like a hundred twenty decibels in the night.
The man moved off, circling around.
When she thought he was far enough away, Jennie tapped her son’s back. He shifted off her lap so she could get her feet under her and crouch. Ready to spring into action and defend him to the death.
And she would die.
This man had a gun. Whether he intended to kill her or recapture her didn’t matter. She would come out of this only one way if she challenged him.
The moonlight illuminated enough that she could see. A night like this, she knew if they stayed out it would be as bright as daylight with only natural radiance once their eyes adjusted. The minute the other guy showed up with flashlights, all that would be gone.
The man was moving away.
They could head in the other direction, crest the side of this mountain and get to the road. Head back toward town. Flag down a motorist, praying it wouldn’t be one of these guys.
Nate squeezed her hand.
She tugged on his.
They moved together, racing up the hill at an angle. Around a bush. She prayed they wouldn’t twist an ankle in some creature’s hole as they ran and ran, every step farther from that man and his gun.
On the far side of the mountain, the terrain fell away. Jennie gasped. They angled left, taking some animal’s worn path.
And then Jennie’s foot slipped. The sand slid out from under her, and she fell. Out of instinct, she let go of Nate’s hand before she dragged him down, too.
Jennie tumbled end-over-end down the mountain to the tune of her son’s heart-shattering cry.
“Mom!”
That had been a child’s cry. State police officer Patrick Sanders glanced across the open desert at the base of a mountain.
Had he found what he was looking for?
Tucker sniffed, nose turned to the breeze.
Patrick’s K-9 partner, an Airedale terrier he’d gotten from a shelter as a puppy and trained, scented the wind. His body stiffened and he leaned forward. As an air-scent dog, Tucker didn’t need a trail to follow. He could catch the scent he was looking for on the wind, or in this case, the winter breeze rolling over the mountain, and search a general area.
Patrick’s mountains, the place he’d grown up. Until right before his high school graduation when his mom had packed them up and fled town. They’d lost their home and everything they’d had there.
Including the girl Patrick had loved.
He didn’t want to think about her, or what her father had said to him. Patrick shook his head. Too bad. He wouldn’t get what he wanted. There was no way to not think about her, because Jennie Wilson was the woman he was out here looking for.
He heard another cry. Stifled by something; it was hard to hear as it drifted across so much open terrain.
He and his K-9 had been dispatched to find Jennie and her son Nathan. A friend had reported them missing yesterday, and the sheriff wasted no time at all calling for a search and rescue team from state police.
It figured a girl like her had grown up and gotten married—even if she’d kept her maiden name—and she’d had a child. She had been beautiful in high school, both a good and bad thing. He’d been too young to deal with feelings of that magnitude. Turned out, she was the only woman he’d ever loved.
Was it the son who had called out? It had sounded like a child.
The danger was now. He didn’t need to get mired in a past that was nothing but a bittersweet memory to keep him warm on this chilly night. It was January and a cold wind blew through the desert, making thirty-eight degrees feel like twenty-eight. He shivered beneath the collar of his jacket while Tucker trotted ahead on a mission.
The dog had caught a scent and was closing in. The curly fluff on his body shifted as he moved.
Patrick let the Airedale’s coat grow out a little in the winter. Not that Tucker worried much about extreme temperatures. He loved ninety degrees as much as he loved snow. Patrick had also never met a dog so happy to be given a task.
As a terrier, it was about the challenge. Tucker had proved to be both prey driven—like fetching a ball—or food driven—like a nice piece of chicken, or even a raw carrot sometimes—when he felt like it. Life was to be lived on his terms, which kept Patrick on his toes, needing to be as in sync with the dog as possible. Sometimes all Tucker wanted as a reward was a second of praise for a job well done and he was good.
Life with Tucker was like a constant conversation.
Right now the dog had to find Jennie and the boy so Patrick could transport them to safety. Then he intended to get out of town again. Back to his life in Albuquerque and studying for the sergeant’s exam.
Tucker tugged harder on the leash, a signal the scent was stronger. He was closing in. Patrick’s night of searching for the missing woman and her child would soon be over.
Tucker rounded a sagebrush and sat.
“Good boy. Yes, you are.” Patrick let the leash slacken a little. He circled his dog and found her, lying on the ground.
“Jennie.”
She stirred. Her eyes flashed open and she cried out.
“No, no.” Right now he was just a dark figure leaning over her. “State police. I’m a K-9 officer.” Most people softened when confronted with a police dog in a search and rescue situation. “I’m Officer Sanders.”
He would get into the rest of it later. After she recognized him.
“Sanders?”
He helped her sit up. “Easy.” He crouched, and Tucker leaned over to sniff without breaking his sit.
“This is Tucker. He’s a search and rescue dog, here to find you and your son, Nathan.”
She gasped. “Nate. I let go of him when I fell. Those men...” She scrambled to her feet, nearly knocking him over. “They’re probably still up there. How far did I fall?”
She spun around.
Patrick said, “Sheriff Johns called us here to help find you both. It’s our job.” He motioned to his dog and figured he’d be reassuring. “Finding people is Tucker’s favorite thing to do. He loves kids.”
“Patrick.”
“Yes, Jennie. It’s me.” Did she have a concussion? Maybe he should call for a helicopter to fly her to the hospital, but she wasn’t swaying or slurring her words.
“You’re really here.”
He nodded.
“We need to find Nate.”
“I have a T-shirt from your house. Tucker can get the scent and find your son.”
She blinked. “He’s—”
Patrick finished for her. “Nine years old and up there with armed men, right? In danger.” He grasped her elbow. “So let’s go.”
The quicker he got them both to safety, the quicker he’d be able to leave town again.
For good this time.
She stood, seemingly steady enough on her feet. Determined to get to her child. He grabbed the evidence bag from the side pocket of his cargo pants and let his dog smell the contents.
“Tucker, find.”
