The Protector (12 page)

Cole
heard his phone buzzing on the nightstand. He picked it up and read the text
message from Brad. “David and Travis found a scent trail for Stacy. We are
tracking the abducted girl again. Michael said to call you in, and he will be
contacting you soon. The
cholan
will watch Blair.”
Cole slowly got up, making Blair murmur sleepily.

“Where
are you going?”

“I
have to go to work. There is a missing little girl, and we have a trail.
Michael needs me to come and help. There are two
cholan
watching the house,” he whispered to her.

Blair
turned to look up at him. “Go and find her.”

Cole
pulled the cover down and covered her up. “I will do my best. Go back to sleep.
I will be home as soon as I can.”

“Mm
k,” she mumbled. “I will make us a nice breakfast in the morning.”

Cole’s
heart felt lighter just hearing those words he worried he would never hear
again. “I will look forward to it.”

Chapter
Six

Cole
drove his car to where the FBI van and Travis’s sheriff patrol car were parked.
Michael had called asking him to come and help, despite his earlier order to
stay out of the investigation. Cole jumped at the chance without arguing. He
felt a sense of urgency, knowing the little girl was in the woods. Her parents
told him she had just turned ten. They didn’t know if the same man attacked
both Mandy and Stacy or if they had one perp. If it was one man, where did he
leave Stacy while he was attacking Mandy?

Did
he tie her up? Why? The kidnapper who abducted and killed in Colorado Springs
had only taken one victim at a time. There was a missing piece of information,
and Cole just needed to find it.
 

Cole
got out of his car and spoke into his radio. “I am going to track. Someone
bring my uniform so I have something to wear when we find this girl.”

The
radio lit up, and Brad’s voice came over chuckling, “I will take care of it.”

Cole
stripped his clothes off, put the harness on for his radio that could be worn
in his wolf form and shifted. As a wolf all of his senses were far more
sensitive. He quickly picked up the trail of Travis and found the scent of the
human girl, Stacy. The same scent that was at the family’s campsite was here,
too. He had the girl with him. Tonight, he hoped they solved two cases at once,
and he could go home to Blair.

He
could hear the
cholan
that had chosen to stay in
human form talking over the radio. He picked up speed, so he could catch up to
them.

“Shots
fired. I’m being shot at,” Harley Sawyers, one of his newer
cholan
,
yelled over the radio.

Cole
picked up speed. He was close and could hear the gunfire.
Son of a bitch, I should have crammed a gun in my harness
. Usually
he didn’t need one, and they were heavy, which altered how flexible the harness
was. This was the one fucking night he needed it though. All his senses and
strengths were no match for a bullet.

Cole
ran into a clearing to see a pickup truck, with a camper top, speeding out of
the campsite, and Harley was on the hard packed ground gasping for air and
holding his chest.
 
No, fucking no.
Cole shifted and ran to Harley while keying up his
radio.

“A
dark blue, late nineties model Ford pickup truck just left. The suspect shot
Harley, he still has the victim. He’s heading west down Campfire Road.” Cole
heard the chatter from the others who had taken up the chase, but Cole
concentrated on Harley.

“Hang
in there, Harley.” Cole looked around the campsite for anything he could use.
All around was rock and hard packed dirt. The rock lined fire-pit had some
cold, charred wood in the center, and the picnic table was empty.

There
were some flat, paper drink cups and red Solo cups lying around, but nothing he
could use for first aid.

Harley
looked at him with frightened eyes as he struggled to breathe. He coughed, and
blood filled his mouth. Cole knew from his medic training that Harley was hit
in the lung. He keyed up his radio. “Let the clinic know Harley has a chest
wound and collapsed lung.”

Harley
was gasping for air now, but turning blue. Cole felt completely helpless. Brad
ran up to him with his clothes.

“Son
of a bitch,” Brad hissed when he saw Harley on the ground gasping for air and
bleeding.

“Give
me a knife and pen. His lung has collapsed,” Cole demanded urgently.

Brad
dug into Cole’s uniform pants for his pocket knife and got a pen out of his
shirt pocket. “Here you go.”

“Find
out what the fuck is taking the damn medics so long,” Cole told Brad. He opened
his knife and ripped open Harley’s shirt. He was wearing his body armor, but
the bullet had gotten around it under his arm. How the fuck Harley managed to
get a bullet there was unknown, but right now all that mattered was relieving
the pressure in Harley’s chest before he suffocated. Cole got his bulletproof
vest off of him and cut off his now blood red saturated white t-shirt.

Cole
looked up when Brad knelt beside Harley. “Hold him still for me. This is going
to fucking hurt.”

Brad
placed his hands on Harley, ready to keep him from moving. “I’ve got him.”

Harley’s
struggle to breathe was already weakening, and Cole knew he was running out of
time. If he didn’t do it now, then Harley would die right here. He felt
Harley’s ribs to make sure he got the blade in between the ribs and shoved it
in.

Harley
let out a short scream, and struggled to move away. Brad was struggling to keep
a hold of Harley and cursed. One of the shifter FBI agents helped to hold him
still, his muscles bulging with the effort. Harley’s eyes watered, and his
attempts to breathe sawed in and out of him.

“Easy,
buddy,” the agent said in a soothing voice. “Cole is a trained medic. He is
fixing you up. I know it hurts, but it has to be done. Your lungs are being
crushed. As soon as Cole is done, you will be able to breathe again.”

Cole
looked up surprised and saw the agent was Thomas Grady, an old friend from high
school. Later when this was over he would be sure to thank him.

Harley
was squirming and arching his back while his short breaths panted in and out of
him. His lips were starting to turn blue from lack of oxygen and his eyes were
glassy.

Cole
got the
hole
made and shoved his finger in so he could
place the pen properly. Harley was moaning in pain and writhing on the ground.
Thomas did his best to hold him still, but a grown man was hard to fight when
he was in this kind of pain. Harley was the youngest
cholan
at only nineteen years old, still a fucking pup, but he was a gifted tracker
and a good deputy.

“Pen,”
Cole said, holding his hand up without looking. Sweat was beading on his
forehead. He had not done this on a patient since he rode with paramedics last
year as a part of his training.

Thomas
handed the pen to him, and Cole bit down on the nib to pull the ink tubing from
the external plastic casing and discarded it. He then bit down on the cap end,
spitting that out.

He
pushed it through the hole he’d made, using his finger as a guide to make sure
it went where he meant it to. Harley shuddered, and made strained noises of
agony, making Cole wince. He knew this procedure was very painful, and to have
a gunshot wound on top of getting his chest cut into must be excruciating.

Harley
made gasping noises while desperately trying to fight for a breath while Cole maneuvered
the pen. Cole knew he was out of time, and if he missed, then Harley would die.
The air building up in his chest was crushing his lungs.

Once
he got it into place, Cole felt air coming out of the hollow tube of the pen
casing. Harley took a deep breath, and then another. His body relaxed, and his
fists unclenched.

 
“Great fucking work,” Thomas cheered. “You’re
going to be ok now, pup. I told you wolf man here would take care of you.”

Harley
nodded, and his eyes fluttered as if he could hardly hold them open, and weakly
said, “Thank you.”

Cole
glared at Thomas. He had called him that ever since that stupid fucking movie
they watched.

Thomas
just laughed at him and clapped him on the back hard. “You are the fucking
bomb, wolf man.”

Sirens
finally sounded, and the ambulance from the clinic in town was coming closer.
Cole rubbed the back of his neck that was tight and aching.
 
The ambulance and two other sheriff vehicles
pulled into the campground, and the paramedics got out.

“About fucking time.
I nearly lost Harley,” he snapped
at the ambulance driver.

“It
takes ten minutes to drive here, Cole,” the driver responded defensively.

 
Cole took a deep breath. His muscles still had
not unclenched from the fear raging through him that he was about to watch his
youngest
cholan
die right in front of him. His heart
was racing from the adrenaline. “I know. Sorry, it was just fucking intense.”

Two
of the paramedics and a nurse from the clinic were working on Harley, and more
cholan
were arriving.

“What
happened to the fucking perp?” Cole asked when he saw Travis coming back.

“Motherfucker
left me. I can only run so fast. He has the girl with him, though. I heard her
screaming,” Travis said while he tried to catch his breath. Another
cholan
handed Travis some clothes. “Thanks, man,” Travis
said while wiping his brow.

Cole
looked over to see them lifting Harley to a stretcher. “He will be fine, thanks
to you,” Carry, the nurse on the ambulance, told Cole.

 
“Thanks,” he said, trying not to encourage
her. Carry had always had a crush on him, and had thought once he broke up with
Blair, that she could have a chance with him. No matter how many times he made
it clear he wasn’t interested, she kept on trying.

“Things
are under control here. I need to go and speak to Stacy’s family,” Cole said
glancing once more at Harley. He was hooked up with IVs and monitors. His
medical knowledge told him Harley was in great hands now and he was free to get
on with his job. Then he could get home to Blair, he hoped, before she woke up.

****

“Where
is my daughter?” Stacy’s mother glared at David and two of his agents with
anger showing in her eyes and features. “You had the man that took her in your
sights and let him get away.” Tears filled her eyes, and she started to cry.

“Ma’am,
I know you are worried, but I was on foot, and one of the officers was shot in
the chest. I chased him, but I lost him. This is my fault, not the local police
department’s fault.”

She
looked back up at him. Even though tears fell, she still had the spark of anger
in her eyes. “This is a shitty small fucking town department. I am calling in a
private eye from Denver to take over the case,” she said with tears falling
down her cheeks.

Cole
watched David closely. He was used to handling distraught family members since
his expertise was child crimes. “I assure you every measure from the FBI is
being used to find your daughter. There are agents out there combing the area
looking for your daughter. The sheriff’s department is offering support to us
as this point. Your private investigator is not needed.”

The
mother gasped and stared at him with wide eyes. “
Which only
proves you have no interest in finding my daughter.
If you did, you would
welcome the help.”

Cole
felt badly for David as he continued to talk to the mother. He understood the
woman was in fear for her child, which made people say and do things they
normally wouldn’t. He reminded himself once again, she was just worried about
her child.
 

David
kept his expression professional. “We are working around the clock to find your
daughter, ma’am, but if the media finds out about it and broadcasts anything,
it could scare our kidnapper away, and ruin any chance we may have to find them
and he could take her out of the county. Then it will only be harder to get
your daughter back.”

Tears
filled the woman’s eyes. “My Stacy must be so scared. Who knows what that evil
man has done to her? I won’t call the media, but I want more done.”

Cole’s
walked over to the woman to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We are
trying our hardest to find this man. Every one of my finest trackers is out
looking for your daughter. I promise you, we will not stop until we find her.”
Cole knew from stories David told that parents always felt the police were not
doing enough.

The
mother started to cry. “What if he has hurt her? What if he's
…
” She trailed off, too emotional to even say the words.

Cole
knew exactly what she was trying to say. They were all concerned about Stacy’s
welfare, but he looked straight into her mother’s eyes, willing her to believe
him. “I am going to do everything in my power to return your daughter to you,
safe and whole.”

“Right,
I think I can send you some help, just to be sure. I will have my brother send
the PI he uses for his insurance fraud cases.”

Cole
managed not to roll his eyes. They didn’t need a human PI here anymore than the
press. He looked out the window and saw the sun had come up. Blair would be up
by now. He wondered if she would still be there when he got home, or if she would
run again. Only now he saw how immature it had been of him to run out on Blair.
He now felt so ashamed of himself for ever leaving her like that. He couldn’t
change the past though. He could only push forward and prove to Blair that he
could be her mate and protector.