Page 93 of Ultimate Justice

Yeah, right. Cannabis, mostly. Lots of it, judging by how many tarp-covered fields loomed in the distance. There had to be thousands of plants.

“Here we are,” the man said.

They stopped in front of a small wood building, this one looking more like a storage shack with no windows. The woman inserted a key into a padlock and opened the door.

Marlie started backing away. If Noah was in there, he was being held against his will. A strong hand gripped her upper arm.

“You wanted to see Noah. He’s inside.” Having given up all pretense, he pushed her to the door and shoved her inside.

She fell to her knees.

“Marlie!” Noah raced from the shadows, dropping beside her.

Ignoring the twinge in her knees, she ran her hands up and down his arms. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. Except that I got caught.”

“Well, well, well.” A second man now stood in the doorway, grinning in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck not only prickle but sway back and forth in a loud warning. “If it isn’t the pretty little thing that got away.”

Marlie’s heart leaped into her throat. Fear took over, paralyzing every muscle in her body. Not that she’d truly doubted this was a trap…now she knew it was true for a fact.

Backlit by dim gray light was Frank Manello, aiming a rifle at her chest.

Chapter Thirty

Paramedics loaded Chip into the ambulance. The pilot was still groggy but more pissed off than anything else. Join the club. With Chip attended to, now Evan could focus on hauling ass to the camp and tracking down whoever had shot them down.

Speaking of tracking, he needed Blue.

“Brett,” he said into his phone, hustling to meet Sgt. Browning from the Cheyenne PD at his patrol car, “where are you guys?”

“Coming up on Cheyenne Airport.”

“Take the airport exit. I need you to swing by and get Blue. I’m parked in the small lot up against the main terminal. I left a window partly open, probably enough for you to reach in. If not, break the window.”

“You got it.”

He’d already briefed Browning, and the second the back doors of the ambulance closed, he got into the sergeant’s patrol car. Two state police cars and another Cheyenne PD car had also rolled on scene and would remain with the wreckage.

Browning hitched his chin to the smoking chopper. “You were lucky.”

“Tell me about it.” The chopper was a lost cause. He’d ordered an FBI evidence team from Denver to scour the debris for slugs he could match to the rifle that shot them down. Now he just had to get the rifle. “Punch it, will ya?” He wished he had a long gun. Bringing a handgun to a rifle fight was never a good idea.

Browning swung the car in a one-eighty and shot down the road. “When I heard over the radio what location the shots came from, I figured you might be involved. I sent more units to that address and mobilized a SWAT unit. They should be there by the time we arrive.” He gunned the car onto the highway and hit the lights and siren. “There’s something else you should know. A woman called the Cheyenne PD about a missing boy. She spoke with one of our officers but couldn’t give him an exact location.”

“What was the name of the boy?” Please not—

“Noah.”

Shit. With everything happening, he still hadn’t gotten around to listening to Marlie’s voicemail. He pulled up the message. More than two hours had passed since she’d first called, and she’d called again twenty minutes ago but hadn’t left another message.

Her voice was deceptively calm but with an underlying note of urgency and fear. “Evan, Noah took a bus to Cheyenne. He’s going after Caleb.”

He slammed his fist against the window.

“Something I should know?” Browning hit the air horn to clear the left lane.

“That boy, Noah…” He shook his head, both proud of the kid’s guts and infuriated by it. “He’s at that farm.”