All I Need (Hearts of the South) (33 page)

What could he do to make her fall the rest of the way?

And if she fell the rest of the way, could she handle that? Maybe things needed to rock on like they were.

He almost wished she hadn’t said anything because “I think” was sort of like “we might go to Disney World” and then one was stuck in a state of suspended anticipation, equal parts excitement and fear.

She made him crazy.

“Beck.” Walker’s terse voice brought him back. “Now you’re tapping the door. Really, man?”

“I’m sorry.” He pulled his hands into his lap.

“What the fuck is with you?”

“Savannah
thinks
she loves me. I don’t know what to do with that.” He scraped a hand through his hair. “And dear God, I’m so over the edge, I’m talking to you.”

“Thanks.” Ironic humor twisted Walker’s tone. “Trust me, kid, her thinking she loves you is a sight better than ‘You’re never home, we can’t rely on you, and I’m tired of worrying about you, so I found some guy with an eight-to-five.’”

“Yeah.” He definitely couldn’t argue with that.

“So what’s the problem?”

He frowned out the window. The long-empty convenience store at Hatcher’s Crossing flashed by. “What if she decides she doesn’t?”

Walker cast him a skeptical glance, brows lowered. “You’re really stupid sometimes, you know that?”

“What?”

“The woman’s telling you she thinks she loves you. She’s not going to decide she doesn’t.”

“How do you know?”

“She’s trusting you enough to say that out loud. She’s pretty sure of you, then. She trusts you that much, you’re good to go.”

The logic made a twisted kind of sense. The bitch of it was he didn’t trust her not to let her emotions send her right out the door.

“How does she look at you?”

“Huh?” Lost in deconstructing Walker’s theory, his brain took a second to register the question.

“How does she look at you?” Walker slowed his words as though speaking to a four-year-old. Emmett glowered at him, then frowned in concentration.

“It depends.” When she wanted him, like she could eat him alive. Some of the shuttered self-protection seemed to be gone from her eyes the past few days, and every so often, he saw in her gaze something soft that gave him hope and scared the hell out of him all at the same time.

“You even know how a woman looks at you when she loves you?”

“No.”

“You’ve seen it on other women, though, right? You hang out with Farr, and it’s plain how his wife feels about him, just from how she looks at him.”

“Yeah.” He’d seen it on Savannah’s sister too, the way she practically glowed whenever Bennett was around. Her mom obviously loved their dad, also, although there was sometimes a hint of indulgent exasperation in her expression. He’d seen that same look flash across Savannah’s face a couple of time when they were shopping.

He relaxed into the seat. At least he had a point of reference.

But she didn’t want to love him. He knew that as surely as he knew he did love her. She was unpredictable as well when it came to her emotions. All the unknowns swirled into one big sensation—fear of loss.

He hated it.

The radio blipped, their dispatcher calling for available units to respond to an automobile accident a few miles from their location. Walker accelerated before Emmett even reached for the radio.

Troy Lee responded right after Emmett. “C-13, C-2-A en route also, Chandler.”

The centralized 911 channel flared with traffic, Clark and Jim confirming they were in transit from the northern end of the county.

Walker swooped through the curves and hills that made up the rural highway. Within minutes, he turned onto County Line Road, Troy Lee’s Charger close behind him. As they topped the first hill, the accident scene came into view. Black smoke poured skyward, and flames leaped high from the car angled into the ditch.

“Son of a bitch,” Walker whispered. He maneuvered the car to block one lane, Troy Lee doing the same with the other lane, leaving room for the volunteer-fire-department trucks as the firefighters called in estimated arrival times. “Hope no one’s still in that.”

Emmett exited the car, his attention zeroed in on the details of the scene. The blaze licked at the branches above the car, the fire roaring and wood popping and spitting. The acrid smell of burning rubber and charring metal assaulted his nostrils. The cadence of the running feet behind him belonged to Troy Lee, and Bennett’s voice came from the rear of Troy Lee’s car. The rumble of an ambulance engine competed with the growl of the fire.

He stopped short, mere yards from the ditch.

No debris littered the grass—no glass, no plastic, no metal.

His gaze jerked to the trees in front of the car. No impact mark on the bark.

Troy Lee hissed in a breath right behind him. “No skid marks.”

Instincts fired to life, and Emmett spun, stabbing a hand toward their units and the emergency vehicles. “Get back. Get down.”

The round hit between his shoulder blades with the force of a ball-peen hammer and pitched him forward. The rifle report cracked, audible over the fire and Troy Lee’s shouts to take cover.

Instinct screamed that if he fell, he was dead. Somehow he stayed on his feet. He zigzagged, trying to close the distance to Troy Lee’s Charger, nearer than his and Walker’s unit.

The same hammer-like blow nailed him right below the ribs. Another report. His own breathing loud in his ears, he scrambled behind the Charger’s hood. He put his back to the wheel. His chest heaved. Pain pulsed in his back. He didn’t feel anything wet trickling down his spine, so maybe the vest had held.

A third snap. The temporary safety provided by the wheel gave him an opportunity to assess the scene. Bennett rested against the rear wheel in a similar posture. Emmett couldn’t see behind the ambulance, but he assumed Troy Lee and the others also employed vehicle wheels as shields. At the highway turnoff, fire trucks stopped, red lights sparking in the bright fall sunlight. They didn’t approach but remained at a standstill.

His auditory processing finally returned, although his heartbeat seemed too loud and he could feel it thudding in his throat. The fire roared and his pulse pounded in his ears, but he could hear Troy Lee, not shouting but voice raised, rattling off information. He fumbled his handheld to the department’s encrypted tactical channel. A fourth gunshot, followed closely by a fifth, rang out.

“He’s above us.” Bennett gestured toward the top of the car.

“Yeah.” It made sense—the highest point in the county lay in the hills up the road. The bastard could see them as well as any backup responding from Highway 112. Sure enough, the radio exploded with Troy Lee’s rapid voice.

“Shooter appears to be west of us, within a quarter of a mile.”

Emmett pulled in a deep breath and regretted it as pain seized his lungs and surrounding muscles.
Fuck
. He wasn’t going to sit with his back to the threat. He and Bennett had the best vantage point, with the ambulance blocking Walker’s view. In the tightest movement he could manage, Emmett rolled to a forward-facing crouch, still covered by the wheel well. His shoes scraping on asphalt seemed preternaturally loud. From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed Bennett making the same move.

The gunshots had come from the west. He peered over the trunk. Damn, he wished he had a mirror. He swept a quick glance across rolling hills, cows gathered by a stream bisecting a field, the cell tower rising over the pasture, and the road undulating beyond them. Maybe there—a distant tree line between the pastures and a small residential area. He squinted, watching the trees. Binoculars would be a dream right now.

A flash glimmered for a second among the darkness of the trees. The light bar exploded above them, showering down shards of glass and plastic. Emmett ducked and met Bennett’s tense gaze, then lifted his radio mike. “He’s in the tree line along Rodney Hatcher’s land, about a hundred yards west of the cell tower. I don’t know how anybody’s going to get to him without him knowing.”

Now, all they could do was wait.

* * * * *

“How am I supposed to word this?” Heavy brows drawn together into a frown, Investigator Cook settled onto the spare rolling stool behind the counter and frowned at his phone. “Complainant alleges physical attack by demonic entity. Physical exam reveals no injuries. Possible untreated mental illness. No arrest.”

Scratching notes on the chart, Savannah half-listened to him. Tick Calvert was in exam two with Layla, taking the statement from a home-invasion victim. Savannah figured Cook had the easy one.

She finished annotating the chart with directions and set it aside. “We’ll put her on a seventy-two-hour hold, but transfer her to Phoebe once they confirm they have room on their psych floor. They’re better equipped than we are for this type of case.”

Maybe sooner or later, an ambulance would free up for that too. The day had been insane. She was sure neither ambulance team had quit running all day. They were still waiting for word on possible injuries from a reported vehicle accident in the north end of the county.

Exam two’s door opened and closed harder than it should, the thud reverberating through the common area. Savannah opened her mouth to correct Calvert, but the words died at the tense urgency on his face.

“Cookie, go to tactical.”

Cook fiddled with the radio, and Emmett’s voice cleared the static. “We can’t return fire without an exact location or visual. There are houses on the other side of the wood line.”

Savannah froze. Return fire? That could only mean one thing—an active shooting situation.

With Emmett involved.

She forced herself to breathe and think. His voice was steady and calm, and apparently, he was thinking too. For the moment, he was all right.

Calvert lifted the radio to his mouth. “GSP and Haynes County are coming in north and west. DNR is already in the area, working fields. They’re probably our best bet. Cookie and I are on our way. Sit tight and don’t do anything stupid.”

He tagged Cook’s arm. “Let’s go.”

They passed Mackey returning from lunch. He gestured after them. “Where are they headed in such a hurry?”

Savannah ignored the question, refusing to panic. “Do we have access to their tactical channel?”

“No.” Mackey frowned. “What is going on?”

“It sounds like an active shooting.” She swallowed hard. “And Emmett’s on scene.”

He nodded, his expression tightening. “They’ll call in or have EMS do it if anyone’s coming in.”

She bit her lower lip. This was worse than that night with Gates—that had come from nowhere. Today she was in a state of limbo, aware of the unfolding of a threat to Emmett’s safety.

Thank You for him. Please, put a hedge around him. Give me the strength to handle what might happen
.

The simple prayer sank into her consciousness, along with the accompanying sense of peace. The concern over Emmett left no room for anger any longer. As she’d known He would be, He was waiting.

Now the waiting belonged to her.

* * * * *

Waiting was hard. Emmett rested his forehead against the quarter panel for a moment. Urgency pulsed under his skin—a wild desire to do something, but that would be the essence of stupidity. Impatience got cops killed. He wasn’t going to be one of them.

A pair of shots nailed the car, one rattling through the trunk, the other taking out the front driver’s side tire. He tensed, back and shoulders aching.
Jesus, please. Don’t let him hit the gas tank.

A diesel engine rumbled from the west. He darted a glance over the trunk to find the GSP SWAT unit idling at the top of the hill. Gratefulness flooded him. Damn, he was glad to see them. As black-uniformed personnel scrambled from the vehicle, he cast a quick glance at the wood line. They had to be aware there were houses on the other side. He knew a couple of the guys on team, had trained with them. They were good and wouldn’t fire without location.

A rapid volley of shots came from the woods, aimed at the SWAT van. Whoever the shooter was, he was either arrogant or not as smart as he thought he was. That burst accomplished nothing except to reveal his location to the SWAT team.

A flash of movement behind them caught his attention. He glanced over his shoulder to find the large white mobile news van jockeying into position near the waiting fire trucks. For a moment, he let his forehead rest against the quarter panel. Damn, his whole torso ached. Breathing hurt, but the discomfort radiated from muscle pain. At least he hoped nothing deeper than that was damaged. If so, with SWAT on hand, maybe they’d be out of here soon. He could hang on that long.

“SWAT team’s advancing on the woods.” Bennett’s low voice refocused his attention. Emmett nodded and wiped beads of sweat from his upper lip.

“C-2 and C-3 on scene.” Their handhelds blipped to life with Calvert’s voice. “We’re headed into the woods from Christopher Cove.”

“GSP 29 to Chandler C-2, we’ve got a visual. He’s on the move, due south, still in the cover, two hundred yards from the cell tower.”