Twice A Target (Task Force Eagle) (24 page)

He swatted at her shapely bottom as she danced away to
take up a good viewing position.

He shook off the grin their banter had inspired.
Shadows slanted across the spectators and crept toward the meadow. The sun
would be to one side of the team shooters, but in his eyes when he turned to
scrutinize the crowd. Salazar sat in the back row. Other agents were scattered
through the crowd and lounging on the fringes, but he didn’t see the sheriff or
Luke or Chris.

He started to leave, to search for them. Will’s
booming voice stopped him.

“Gunfighters, duelists, renegades, and buckaroos, I
congratulate you on a successful day of single-action shooting.”

His words met with hoorahs, whistles, and applause.
“Hey, Will, let’s get to the barbecue,” shouted a gray-bearded man in a
silver-studded white suit.

“You can fill your belly soon, Hiram,” Will said. “If
you folks can be patient a few moments longer, the officials will have the
points tallied. In the meantime, two teams of our finest marksmen and women
have agreed to show off—I mean demonstrate—their prowess.” He introduced the
two groups, who spread out twenty-five feet from their respective targets. Some
wore a double-holster set of pistols. Others carried either a shotgun or a
rifle. The massive mustachioed cavalryman wielded all three.

Bonnyman was the last to line up and don her hearing
protectors. The agent’s ginger braids and pink, fringed skirt and vest had
transformed her into the Annie Oakley she’d promised—in glorious Technicolor.
She positioned herself with her team on the end near where Maddy waited with
her camera.

Good strategy. If anything happened, Bonnyman could
rush Maddy out of harm’s way.

Maddy eased down on one knee a little in front and in
alignment with the shooters, so that her camera had a perfect shot of the
action and the weapons.

Her open position made her a perfect target.

Shit. His gut clenched, but a scan around noted
nothing out of the ordinary. Only a hundred or so folks bristling with guns.

“No limit on bullets,” Will announced. “No fanning or
fast-draw with pistols is permitted. Aim only at your designated target. On my
signal, commence shooting.”

He blew a whistle. Team members slipped their weapons
free and blasted away at their targets. Cracks from the assorted weaponry
boomed like cannon fire. Gunsmoke blued the air, and wood chips sprayed as
bullets rammed the posts.

Maddy clicked away.

Holt scanned the cheering crowd and the outbuildings.
In the front row of seats, a trio of teenaged girls covered their ears and
giggled. The bearded man tossed his ten-gallon hat into the air. No signs of
danger. Only folks having a good time.

He slid his gaze back to Maddy. The haze of blue smoke
drifted to cloud around her. Coughing at the stench, she batted at it and
covered her camera lens.

Out on the field, one target post sagged from the
onslaught. The earsplitting barrage like a roaring avalanche blocked all other
sound.

Maddy pushed to her feet, then jerked like a
marionette whose puppet master yanked her strings with vicious force. As if
released, she crumpled to the ground.

Chapter 24

Holt stared, frozen.

Oh, God, please no!
The prayer stuck in his
throat. She wasn’t moving. Adrenaline pumped through his system like a geyser.

He pivoted, drew his sidearm—his SIG-Sauer 9mm—from
beneath his vest, searched for the shooter. Saw only the crowd staring at the
field, the team shooters aiming at their targets, the cloud of smoke like a
pall over the festivities.

He yanked out his cell phone. An ambulance was on
site, a safety requirement of Cowboy Action Shooting. Neither the DEA nor the
sheriff’s department had seen fit to equip him with the communication devices
they all wore. He’d fumed but met only shrugs and excuses he wasn’t law
enforcement anymore.

Hell, fuck, damn, he’d been watching Maddy instead of the
crowd. He raced across the field. “Woman down, shot on the grandstand field.
Get here stat!”

The team shoot continued as if nothing had happened.
Alert to Maddy’s plight, Special Agent Bonnyman stood over her. She’d dropped
her competition pistol and held her 9mm as she scanned the crowd.

Will’s whistle shrieked to stop the din of gunfire. A
woman in the stand screamed. Apparently now aware a disaster had happened, the
crowd surged to their feet with a collective gasp. Slowly the pop and crack of
pistols and rifles ceased. The acrid smell hung in the air as the smoke from
the team shoot spread across the field and the grandstand.

“See anything?” Holt yelled to Bonnyman as he reached
Maddy.

“Too much smoke.” The agent turned away and spoke into
the small mic hidden on her collar.

“Maddy! Sweetheart, talk to me.” He sank to his knees
and cradled her head.

The only response was a soft moan. Her chest rose and
fell with shallow breaths.
Thank God she’s alive.
But how bad was she
hurt?

Blood covered her left side beneath her arm, pooling
on the dirt and grass beneath her. He tore off his shirt and wadded it up.
Pressed it against the wound to staunch the flow of blood.
So much blood.

“EMTs are here,” Bonnyman said, her hand on his
shoulder. “Let them do their work.”

He forced himself up but his legs felt like old
rubber. He moved aside as the two emergency technicians bent to care for Maddy.
He stayed with her until the EMTs trundled her onto a gurney and moved her into
the waiting ambulance.

“She’s lost some blood,” one tech said as he closed
the doors. “She’s in shock. That’s all I can tell you. You can call County
later for more.”

Holt followed the ambulance across the field as far as
the dirt track leading through the pseudo Old West town. As soon as the vehicle
bore the unconscious Maddy away to the hospital, he bent over, hands propped on
his knees and dragged in air. He hadn’t drawn a good breath since he saw her
fall. His heart was pounding out of his chest.

“Go to her.” Bonnyman spoke behind him. “We’ve got
things covered here.”

He ached to go, to see she would be all right, to—
Shit, he didn’t know what other than pace and drive himself crazier than he
already was. But he’d be more use to her here. Maybe he’d have good news when
she woke up. She had to wake up. She had to be all right.

“No. I’ll stay. Help find the fucking shooter.” He
turned toward the red-haired agent. “What’s the plan?”

“Sheriff assigned deputies to keep the viewers in the
stands until they can be interviewed. My agents are questioning the team
shooters now. Next is a search of the grounds.”

He pondered places other than the grandstand for the
shooter to set up. “I’ll start searching the outbuildings near the grandstand.”

“I’ll go with you.” Luke Rafferty jogged from the
grandstand gate to join him.

*****

“See if you can sit up now, hon,” said the nurse, a
maddeningly cheerful woman with brown hair in a frizzy halo. “It’ll take the
pressure off those ribs.”

“I’ll try.” Maddy rolled over on the padded table to
her uninjured right side. How could she possibly move at all with ten of
Lucifer’s demons jabbing pitchforks into her ribs? Anything but a shallow
breath scraped her side like a scythe, despite the painkillers that fuzzed her
brain so she could barely think. She closed her eyes and concentrated.

Metallic clangs of gurneys and the squeak of rubber
soles filtered into the small treatment room along with medicinal and
disinfectant odors.

“You’re all wrapped up, and the stitches are
protected,” the nurse babbled in her irritating, jolly manner as she rearranged
bandages on a tray. “The bullet nicked two ribs, so the surgeon had to remove
bone chips. In no time you’ll be dancin’ the two-step.”

Sweat broke out on Maddy’s brow. Pain was a gorilla
squeezing her chest, but she made it to an upright position by levering on an
elbow.

She didn’t want good cheer. She didn’t want consoling.
She wanted answers. “Do I have to stay here? How late is it?”

“Oh, no, hon, you can go as soon as the chair arrives.
A volunteer will wheel you right to the door.” The nurse helped her into her
shirt and jacket. “It’s seven o’clock. You can go home for supper.”

The movements required to slide her arms into sleeves
irritated the demons into a frenzy of pitchfork jabs. She mentally thanked Holt
for bringing a button-up shirt not a pullover. No telling what mischief the
demons would have caused. By the time she was dressed, perspiration rolled down
her spine and her breathing came in shallow gasps.

The nurse bent closer and winked. “There’s one large,
anxious cowboy pacing out in the hall. If I had that gorgeous guy to go home
to, I’d be ready to leave too.”

“Holt?” He was still here? Oh, my. She pressed a hand
to her lips. When the bullet from nowhere had slammed into her side, her last
thought before she blacked out was that she’d never get to tell him she loved
him.

Opening her heart to him again would have to wait. He
wasn’t ready. He’d made that painfully clear. In any case, inroads in his
stubborn pride would also have to wait until the danger was eliminated.

The nurse bustled out to the hall and ushered in Holt
before she left.

He took one slow step and then another toward the
gurney. A fierce scowl drew his sandy brows together, and he gripped his hat
tightly with both hands. He looked enraged and wretched.

“You didn’t...get him.” Every breath stabbed a new
sliver in her side.

Shaking his head, he worked his way around the hat
brim like a kid molding a clay ashtray. “Dammit, Maddy. I didn’t protect you
like I promised.”

Her heart swelled with love for him. That was her
Holt, taking responsibility for everything. Never mind all the deputies and DEA
agents surrounding the place. “Dicey situation. You couldn’t...be everywhere.
Tell...me about it.”

“When you were shot, all hell broke loose. Bonnyman
was right there beside you. She drew her sidearm, but we saw no one to shoot
at.” He slapped his hat against his pants leg as if to punish it. “If you
hadn’t stood up at that moment, the shot might have—” His voice broke, and he
kneaded the hat even harder.

“You’re going to...ruin your favorite hat.” She tried
a smile. No pain there. But no laughing allowed.

He jammed the tortured headgear on his head and his
hands in his jean pockets. Used to competence and control, the poor man felt so
furious at being powerless.

“The sheriff and Special Agent Salazar found a spent
shell from a rifle in one of the outbuildings. That shed was supposed to be
locked. The shooter fired through a crack in the wall.”

“What about the gun? Did they find it?”

“Hell, no. A near impossible job. One of the gun racks
stood next to the shed. If the shooter brought his own load, he could’ve picked
any rifle off the rack, shot at you, and replaced it with none the wiser. They
all appeared to have been fired recently. Probably used for the team shoot. Do
you have any idea how damned long it’ll take to test the dozen or so firearms
in that rack? And all the others. And forget fingerprints.”

“If that’s what he did.” Talking didn’t rile the
demons as much. Painkillers were doing their job.

He nodded morosely. “Many folks—vendors mostly—were
still around, but the deputies and the DEA cleared the people in the stands.”

“Including Will, I assume.” When Holt nodded, she
asked, “How did he react?”

“Shook his horns like one of those steers he used to
tackle, but after we explained, he understood. What riled him was somebody
ruining the safety record of the shooting clubs.”

The wheelchair arrived, guided by a sweet-faced
grandmother in a pink smock.

With one last look that told her he doubted granny
could protect her, Holt trudged out to fetch the pickup.

Maddy edged off the table to a standing position. Pain
radiated through her torso and dizziness rocked her head, but she made it into
the chair.

At the patient exit, the pickup was waiting, door
open, but she didn’t see Holt at first. Night surrounded the hospital except
for pools of safety lighting. One of those spotlighted Holt talking with Luke
Rafferty beside a Circle-S truck. Maddy stood and dismissed the volunteer.

“I’m awful relieved you’re going to be okay.” Luke
strode to meet her. “I apologize for lying down on the job instead of keeping
an eye out for the bastard who shot you.”

What might be humor tilted Holt’s mouth. “He’s not
kidding about the lying down part.”

He offered her his arm, and she held on. Through the
canvas jacket, she felt his solid muscular presence, a mountain of stability.
Luke was one of Holt’s prime suspects, so what was going on? “What do you mean,
lying down?”

“You might have noticed some tension between Hawke and
me.” He thumbed back his black Stetson.

“A bit.” She leaned against the side of the truck. The
dizziness abated, and she was only a little winded from the walk. “Only thick
enough to slice with a machete. Something about Faith, wasn’t it?” For the
first time, she noticed Luke’s lower lip was swollen and red as a tomato.

“How the hell did you figure that out?” Holt blurted.
He stood beside her, arms loose, as if to catch her if she fell.

“I thought it was obvious. Will and Luke are very protective
of their sister. She used to date Chris.” She shrugged, then winced at the
careless movement.

Luke kicked his boot heel on the pavement. “Instead of
doing my job this afternoon, I had it out with Hawke. We pounded on each other
for a few minutes before Faith broke us up. Then what he’s been trying to tell
me for months finally got through my cement skull.”

“And what was that?”

“See, all this time, I counted him lower than the
underside of a rock for ending it with her because she was crippled. He didn’t
dump her. She ended it with him. Something about not wanting to burden him with
a gimpy woman. But that’s another whole set of problems.”

“And you never asked Faith about it?”

Luke shook his head, a rueful twist to his puffy
mouth. “So Hawke pummeled some sense into me.” He quirked a crooked grin. “But
I gave him a shiner that’ll rival the full moon.”

His phone beeped, and he walked aside to take the
call.

“Then he’s out of the running as shooter?” she asked.

“Reckon so. While you were being shot, those two were
pounding each other. Our trap failed all around.”

The deputy returned, his expression as grim as Holt’s.
“I hate to be the one to tell you bad news. Bobby’s missing.”

“Missing?” she said. “Oh no, he’s okay. He’s staying
with the Pattersons for a few days.” A chill slid down her spine at the hollow
optimism in her voice.

Regret darkened Luke’s gaze. “Edgar Patterson just
phoned the sheriff’s office. Sometime between five-thirty and six-thirty,
someone pried open the bedroom window and snatched the baby from his crib.”

Maddy’s throat seized up. The pool of light she stood
in shrank to a shimmering, formless whirl. She squeezed her eyes closed.
“No! Oh, no, dear God...Bobby!”

Beside her, Holt stiffened. His features hardened, and
he gripped Luke’s arm. “Is there more?” His voice chilled her.

“There was a note.” Luke’s gaze shifted back to her.
“Block print on ordinary white stock. It wasn’t signed, but they want to make
an exchange. The baby for—”

“Me.” She fought back the clawed at her chest. No, no,
no. That innocent child. Fear was a living thing that threatened to consume
her, to paralyze her if she let it. “Me. He wants me. To get at you. I—”

Holt sidled away from her, his eyes narrowed to hard
chips of ice, the crystalline blue of the coldest snow. “So here’s your big
chance to run. To escape.”

Tears stung her eyes, and she clutched the passenger
door handle for support. How could he not trust her still? Pain suffocated her.
She couldn’t draw enough breath to respond.

His countenance as hard as iron, he turned away from
her and to Luke. “Take her back to the Valley-D, will you? I’m headed to the
sheriff’s office.”

“Holt?” she said weakly.

“You keep the hell out of it.” He paused, his jaw
working. “You’ve done nothing but cause problems ever since you arrived. If
you’re well enough to leave the hospital, you’re well enough to leave, period.
Isn’t running what you do best? You can pack up and fly to that European gig
anytime.”