Finding Forever (Heartbreak Falls #2)

CHAPTER ONE

Luke

After this fugitive is apprehended, something has to change.

There’s got to be meaning to my life past the job.

Always chasing monsters, staying in cheap motels, eating out of paper bags.

No family to speak of. No home. How will I find that?

No clue. But something’s got to give because lately the work feels like the snow I’m driving through—frigid and endless—and slowly burying me.

I pass through the monochromatic landscape, black trees, gray clouds, and acres of white snow. The wipers are losing the battle with the fat flakes pelting from the sky.

I’d studied the map at the briefing. There are cabins and an inn out here in danger.

My quarry? Robert Briggs. He’d kidnapped a casino waitress in Reno, bound her and thrown her in his trunk before driving her to the California side of Lake Tahoe. Briggs is violent and sadistic, and he insisted the women he targeted call him “Daddy.”

The FBI had captured the bastard and rescued the woman. Where it had gone to shit? The US Marshals transporting him to federal lockup—a routine job—had a blown tire on the interstate allowing Briggs to get the drop on them.

One marshal is dead, another clinging to life. Now a fugitive is on the loose, armed, desperate, and with nothing to lose.

Every marshal on the manhunt takes this one personally.

We tracked him as far as the town of Heartbreak Falls, my college roommate Beck Donovan’s territory. He’s the police chief, and we met up at the briefing.

I pass a half-buried sign that reads “Falls View Inn ~ You’re almost home!”

Almost home.

A nice sentiment but I haven’t had a real home in too long.

An arrow points between trees and I assume there’s a driveway under the drifts.

All I think about is finding Briggs. What does he need? Food, shelter, and heat, and he’ll break in somewhere like this inn to get it.

I round a bend. A dark shape bolts across the road. I hit the brakes and the SUV slides sideways, tires slipping on the ice. The blurry form darts into the trees, quickly swallowed by swirling snow. Dark coat, orange prison pants. Shit. Briggs.

The SUV won’t make it through those drifts. I grab my shoulder mic.

“Dispatch, Deputy Marshal Luke Elliott. Unit Three-One. I’ve got visual on Briggs headed toward Falls View Inn. I’m exiting the vehicle to maintain visual. Conditions are worsening. Request backup.”

“Copy, three-one. Be advised, whiteout conditions in twenty. Local units delayed. Maintain radio contact and check in every five.”

“Copy that.”

With a last swig of travel mug coffee, I yank up my parka zipper, tug my beanie low, and step out. I’m immediately buried boot high in the snow, and icy air stings my lungs. Leaving my hood down for visibility, I set off after Briggs.

I scan the terrain as I track deep footprints snaking through the trees. Briggs knows he’s being pursued, and I have no intention of walking into an ambush.

I trail him up a slope, icy rivulets trickling under my collar. His footprints are filling fast. Woodsmoke drifts on the wind and stirs an old memory—my teenage years at my grandparents’ house. A time when there’d been warmth, laughter, and people who cared.

It feels like another lifetime.

Pushing back the memory, I crest the hill. Through the trees there’s a glow. A rustic log inn, a porch wrapping around it under sloping eaves. Barely visible, smoke curls from the chimney, and warm, golden light glows from downstairs windows. A refuge in the storm.

Prints veer along the ridge. He’s scouting. Whoever’s inside are easy marks for a predator like Briggs.

I push ahead, needing to narrow his lead, then stop, listening, trying to pinpoint his location.

There’s movement through the trees.

A gunshot. The crack shatters the quiet and a bullet splinters bark inches from my head. Heart pounding, I dart behind a dense cluster of trees.

Getting to the inn, protecting whoever’s inside, becomes the mission.

I push downhill, tree to tree. Then I see him, a spot of orange against white. I take my shot, grimly satisfied by a yelp of pain. Not a kill shot, but I winged him. I plow down the slope, wading through thigh-high drifts. My pants are soaked and it’s fucking freezing.

I’m at the tree line with about twenty yards of open space between me and the porch. A dog’s barking inside.

I search for another option. Circling the inn would bring me to where I figure the front door is located. But that would give Briggs the opportunity to get to the side door and gain access to the inn. Fuck.

He’s somewhere to my right, so I skirt left, using a shed for cover. I’ve cut the distance, but now I’ve got to make a run for it. Even with the blizzard, I can’t count on him not seeing me.

I take a deep breath. Odds are maybe sixty/forty, and not in my favor. The realization hits that beyond the people I work with, and a few friends, no one would mourn my death. I make a deal with myself: if I survive, I’ll make some serious life changes.

I radio in. If Briggs nails me, they’ll know where to look for my body.

Then I run. Vaulting through the snow, lungs burning. I fire toward Briggs to keep him pinned.

Halfway across, pain detonates in my shoulder. The world spins. I slam into an icy drift, breath gone, stars exploding behind my eyes.

Shit, shit, shit.

Get up. Move.

Don’t give him the chance to double tap.

I blink snow from my eyes.

A figure stands above me. Not Briggs. A woman. Snowflakes catch in her hair, a long gun braced to her shoulder. Calm. Steady.

A deafening blast rends the air.