Love Inspired Suspense September 2015 #2 (39 page)

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Easy Prey

by Lisa Phillips

ONE

F
irst day on the job, first day back in her hometown—and Elise Tanner had no idea what to expect. The evening cast shadows in the corners between the portable buildings that housed the zoo's offices. The treatment and feed centers were now broken-down shells of buildings across the expanse of intersecting concrete pathways from the empty enclosures. The fifty-acre zoo looked menacing even in its disrepair.

Beside her, Elise's seventeen-year-old son, Nathan, switched the flashlight app on his phone and held it up, shining it around the zoo's entrance.

“Nice place.” He flicked the hair out of his eyes and looked at her, his gaze wide at the state of the zoo. “I'm gonna go look around.”

She smiled, sharing his impression of a facility that might have been impressive before it was completely flooded out. At least, impressive for a tiny zoo in a small town. “Be careful.”

He would be, she knew that. Nathan had lived his whole life in a wild animal sanctuary surrounded by tigers, bears and even a manatee. He got along better with creatures than people most of the time, but she couldn't help worrying. Who knew what state the zoo was in beyond the entrance area? Most of the buildings had been condemned.

They probably should have waited until tomorrow to look around, but curiosity had gotten the better of her and it wasn't totally dark. What was the point in sitting around their hotel rooms when they could check the place out? After all, fixing it up was the reason they were here.

Elise climbed the wooden steps to the office. It was late, and they'd been driving most of the day. She felt every one of her forty years tonight.

The stairs swayed, the rickety wood threatening to collapse under her extra fifteen pounds—the ones her best friend said were all in her head. Everything here had been drowned under dirty water that had risen higher than anyone expected. It was no wonder the stairs were almost rotted out.

The infrastructure of the zoo had been woefully outdated even before the water, but the destruction that occurred was beyond imagining. Trees downed, and fences washed away. Enclosures had been completely ruined. The water quality in the lake didn't bear thinking about, and the zoo's old, blind tiger had gone missing weeks before and had not been seen since. Fortunately the animals had been transported out of town in the initial evacuation.

She was going to have to rebuild this whole place from scratch.

Elise had read all about the flood online, far away from her Oregon hometown in a wild-animal sanctuary she'd been working at in Idaho. It was where she'd gone to escape the pain and grief of losing her husband just weeks into his first deployment. She'd spent years pouring into Nathan and her animals in that safe haven. Now she was home. For as long as this took, at least.

Elise had no illusions. She'd been headhunted by the mayor because she'd grown up here, and because she was also the only person he knew who was qualified to manage his zoo.

It had taken a lot for Elise to leave her safe haven, but Nathan would be headed to college soon. She had to pay his tuition somehow.

As long as she could manage to not run into anything that reminded her of those long-ago days. At least not before she handed the running of the zoo off to someone else, then she just might survive this with her heart intact.

Maybe.

Inside the office was dark, but she could hear someone moving around. Elise flipped the light switch. Nothing. Not that she'd expected the power to be on, but wishful thinking had to count for something.

Elise pulled the flashlight from the belt of her “animal worker” outfit of dark green cargo pants and a dark green buttoned shirt. There was no sense in getting her regular clothes torn or dirty from the devastation, so she'd worn her work uniform from the Idaho sanctuary.

She flipped the flashlight on and shone the light at the figure. A man. “Who are you?”

The drab-clothed guy turned around. The dead eyes of a stranger stared back at her, making the pale skin of his face even starker. Probably not much older than her, he didn't remove his hands from the filing cabinet drawer where he'd been riffling through papers. They were
her
papers now, in
her
office.

His eyebrow rose. “I think the question is, who are
you
?”

Elise had dealt with trespassers before. But never an overly curious one. They usually only wanted to take a souvenir, or to leave their mark—with vandalism.

Elise set her hands on her hips and tried to look authoritative even though she was barely five-three. She studied his face, trying to remember if she'd met him when she lived here before. She didn't think he was anyone she used to know, and he evidently didn't care she'd seen his face. “I'm in charge of this zoo now. You need to leave the premises before I call the cops.”

Tree limbs brushed the window of the portable building. There were two desks and a row of file cabinets, most of which had open drawers. Papers were all over the place, like a gust of wind had blown them into disarray—or this guy had been searching awhile.

His eyes narrowed and he ran at her.

Elise tried to dodge him, but he slammed into her like a football player single-handedly tackling the opposing team's defensive line. Breath whooshed from her lungs as her back hit the wall. The flashlight slipped from her hand to light a strip of carpet on the floor.

Dazed, she realized the man was reaching for her belt. She heard the jangle of keys and felt the pull that meant he was trying to take them from her. The retractable string holding the key ring on her belt was pulled all the way out as the man backed up. With a vicious yank he tore the string from its clasp, taking the zoo keys with it.

Elise reached for her cell phone, but it wasn't in the holder on her belt. It must have fallen out. She looked around, but the floor was in shadows except for the beam of her flashlight.

The man moved. Elise tried to track his steps in the dim light, but couldn't get a fix on him. Dark overcoat. He was taller than her, maybe five-seven. The heavy material gave the illusion of bulk, but he'd had plenty of strength to slam her against the wall.

She moved toward the back door, just a step, praying the route was clear. The man swung at her, something hard colliding with her back. The impact sent her to her knees. Elise scrabbled around on the floor, praying her cell was close by. Nathan didn't need to come here and get hurt, but he could get help. Another hit sent her to the floor so she lay prone, stunned. Pain held her lungs frozen so she couldn't get air.

All she could do was watch as the man went to the same file cabinet he'd been looking in only minutes ago and pulled out a handful of papers. His dirty loafer nearly stomped her hand as he ran past where she lay, out the door.

Elise lay there helpless, waiting for someone to find her. She glanced around, trying to spot her phone. Her eyes caught on something taped to the underside of the desk. Wires. Blocks of gray stuff that looked like molding clay.

A bomb?

* * *

Jonah Rivers keyed the mic on his collar as he ran. “The fugitive is headed into the zoo. I'm in pursuit.”

The man he chased had lived on chips and cigarettes for years, while Jonah ate as healthy as any other single deputy US marshal. He also worked out every day but Monday—because Mondays were bad enough without adding having to work out. Jonah headed up the Northwest fugitive apprehension task force, US marshals who hunted the lowest of the low—those who had escaped custody, or hadn't shown up for their court appearances. Fugitives. The most wanted.

Eventually Fix Tanner would slow, and Jonah was going to catch him.

It was what he did.

Too bad Fix Tanner and his little sister had been a steady part of Jonah's youth. Although Fix had always held himself separate from Jonah and his brother—the rich kids. Fix and his sister had grown up in a double-wide with their alcoholic mom.

Now it was just another day, just another fugitive.

A car with out-of-state plates and a sticker in the back window—a rental—was parked outside the entrance. Jonah ran, legs pumping, hands gripping his Glock in front of him. Sweat chilled on his forehead as he jumped over strewn two-by-fours, branches and other debris. The floodwaters had reached roof height, and this place was a mess.

He'd been chasing this guy for two miles already. Had Fix found a place to hunker down?

Jonah didn't know of any connection the man had to the zoo, now or back when it'd been open. The previous manager had been killed in the flood, his body never found. Jonah had heard they were bringing in someone new to reopen it, some kind of wild-animal expert. But he had bigger things to worry about than an attraction he was never going to visit.

“We're coming in the east entrance but there's a lot of debris.” Hanning's voice was breathy.

Deputy Marshal Eric Hanning was a member of Jonah's team. He was also engaged to another teammate, Deputy Marshal Hailey Shelder. The two had fallen in love after they were forced to rely on each other during the recent flood, when the team had been hunting an escaped convict.

Jonah had been shot in the stomach, and promoted, all during that same manhunt. Now he was in charge of not just the team but the whole office.

Of course Jonah had wanted the job one day, but not like that—not because their former boss had turned bad. The team hadn't seemed to mind, even though it took a few weeks recovering from his wounds for Jonah to settle in. Boss or not, Jonah would always be a boots-on-the-ground kind of marshal.

The man he was chasing now was low-level. Fix Tanner hadn't shown up for his court appearance, but Jonah wanted him for more than just the fact that he should be in jail. Fix had a boss. Fix's boss had a boss. That made for a lot of fingers in a lot of pies, all of which were here in his town. Jonah wanted charges brought against all of them.

The door was open on the first building, so Jonah stepped silently up the stairs, slowing his pace. Blood rushed in his head, and the beat of his heart pounded in his ears in the silence. If one of his team radioed in now, the sound would be deafening.

While Hanning and Shelder took the east entrance, his other two team members, Jackson Parker and Wyatt Ames—a former SEAL and a former police detective, respectively—were on the west side. The zoo wasn't all that big. Fifty acres. It should take minutes for them to meet in the center where the lake was.

Jonah flipped on his flashlight and scanned the room.

The beam moved over a body—a woman. Jonah crouched and touched her shoulder. She shifted, moaning as though the soft touch hurt, but it was her warmth that sent a rush of relief through him. He couldn't help her if she was dead, and murder investigations weren't his jurisdiction.

Jonah pulled out his cell phone and called emergency dispatch, then informed his teammates of what he'd found. “Anyone got a location on Tanner?”

“Negative.”

“Not yet.” Parker's determination was only in part due to his having been a SEAL. The man was also incredibly stubborn.

“Keep searching,” Jonah said. “I'll wait with her.”

“Her?” The interest in Ames's voice was unmistakable.

“She's hurt, Ames. But it's not Tanner, it's a woman.”

Jonah turned his attention to her. Had Fix Tanner done this? He wouldn't put it past the man, but Jonah had been chasing him only minutes ago. Now Fix was who knew where, and this woman had been hurt because Jonah wasn't fast enough.

Was his wound slowing him down? It was down to a dull ache most days, and he didn't want to keep to his desk, but he didn't want to put the team—or anyone else—in jeopardy, either.

He shouldn't turn the woman if she was injured, but he brushed the hair back from her face enough to see who it was.

His voice was a whisper. “Elise.”

Flashes of the past ran through his brain like a movie reel. Cookouts, the lake and little Elise Tanner. They'd been friends all the time he was in high school, right up until he joined the marines. And then come home from deployment to find she'd married his brother.

Crumpled in a heap on the floor wasn't just any woman. This happened to be
the
one woman in the world he'd never imagined he would ever see again, and now she was here. Jonah sank to his knees beside her and checked his watch. Emergency services wouldn't be long.

“Elise?” He patted her cheek. It couldn't be a coincidence she was here on the exact day Jonah was chasing her brother.

The years had changed both of them—that much was obvious. Still, in his heart she was the same smiling, teenage girl. Years lay between today and the day Jonah had returned from yet another deployment to discover she'd left town, consumed with her grief over his brother being killed in action.

For months his heart had warred between acknowledging she was simply grieving and the fact she hadn't wanted him to help her through it. They'd had a close relationship once, but that apparently didn't matter. She hadn't trusted Jonah enough to be there for her when she needed it. She'd just banked the death benefits and left his mom's pool house without so much as a note.

Chasing her down and demanding an explanation—or just making sure she was okay—wouldn't have brought him any kind of satisfaction. She'd probably hated him for talking his brother into a military career. He'd hated himself well enough that Jonah hadn't figured he could handle her anger on top of his guilt.

What was she doing back in town after all these years? He didn't want to believe it had something to do with her brother, Fix, but if it did, then Jonah would have to face the consequences.

“Elise.” Jonah didn't want to admit how much it hurt just saying her name. He refused to admit he'd missed her, even to himself.

She sucked in a breath and coughed it out. Her eyes flew open and she gasped, but she wasn't looking at him.