Chapter Seventeen
Sarah lifted the decaf coffee to her lips and took a sip, enjoying the last of the late afternoon sunshine as the day began to shift into evening.
She had been back to the lodge, dropped off the groceries, checked in with Hannah and Xavier, and returned a few emails before she made the hour-long drive back into town to pick up Lawson from the police station.
She sent him a text when she arrived, telling him to meet her at the corner café across the street when he was done.
He hadn’t responded so she had no idea how long he would be, but that was just fine by her.
She was happy to relax, sip on her coffee and nibble at the carrot cake she had ordered.
It wasn’t often she got a chance to come to town and people-watch like this, but there was something really fun about observing the townsfolk going about their business.
Her interest in people, after all, had been what had gotten her into her line of work in the first place. She was always curious about what was going on in people’s lives and in their minds, and how she could help them deal with their problems and emotions. She found the human brain so fascinating.
As she watched couples chatting and kids running around, she smiled. It was hard to believe that a town like this could have a possible sex-trafficking problem, though she doubted anyone she was currently observing here would know a thing about it.
And she hoped it stayed that way. Now that Lawson had gotten those two guys into custody, it was surely only a matter of time before they got the information they needed to take down Granger and shut down his operation.
Finally, as she finished up her coffee, she spotted Lawson coming out of the police station across the street.
Even from here, she could tell he had a grim expression on his handsome face.
He must not have gotten the information he needed, she thought.
She tossed her trash and walked out to meet him.
“How did it go?” she asked him softly, reaching for his hand and giving him his keys back.
He frowned. “Not as well as I’d hoped,” he admitted. He switched the keys to his other hand, then entwined his fingers with hers.
“You didn’t get much out of them?”
“We didn’t get anything out of them,” he replied, shaking his head. “But I expected that. It was… They seemed like they were enjoying themselves and weren’t worried at all about giving anything away.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, frowning.
That didn’t make any sense to her. Why would they have enjoyed being interrogated?
They had to know that the business they were involved with was seriously dangerous, and they would be facing years, maybe even decades, in prison if the truth of everything they had done came out.
“Instead of answering questions they were taunting the officers, making them uncomfortable, and spewing threats. Just trying to get a rise out of everyone,” he admitted, as they walked hand in hand toward the truck, which was parked in the town square.
“One thing they both kept saying was that Granger was going to come after us. Going to…”
He trailed off, shaking his head as he reached the truck and unlocked the door, like he had all at once decided that she didn’t need to hear the rest. A shiver ran down her spine.
She didn’t want him keeping things from her, but judging by the look on his face, she had to trust that she was better off not knowing.
“It’s okay,” she told him softly. “You did your best, right? And what matters is that you have them locked up. They aren’t out there trying to take more young women. That has to count for something.”
“You’re right,” he acknowledged, but the furrow between his eyebrows told a different story. She knew that he wanted to get to the bottom of it all. She wished she could help in some way. But she had learned the hard way that nothing came that easy—
All at once, the quiet of the town square was shattered by a noise. A popping sound. Then another.
At first, Sarah thought it was a car backfiring. But, as Lawson spun around to step in front of her, she realized what it actually was.
Gunshots. Someone was shooting.
“Get in the truck and get your head down!” Lawson ordered her as he yanked open the driver’s-side door and grabbed something from underneath the seat. She stood there for a moment, frozen, unable to move.
“Sarah, now!” he yelled at her, and it snapped her out of her fugue state.
She dived into the truck, ducking down on the floorboard, and wrapped her arms around her knees as her heart pounded in her chest. Her mind was racing.
What the hell was going on out there? Why was someone shooting?
It had been so peaceful, so safe, and now…
it was shattered by the sound of gunfire.
She jolted as a bullet hit the side of the truck, a dent appearing in the door just a few inches from her. Her eyes widened, panic flooding her system.
Another bullet hit the metal, and another, the dents pushing inward, like the side of the truck was about to buckle in on itself. Was Lawson okay? If the bullets were hitting the truck, then they weren’t hitting him, right?
She heard another gunshot, this time sounding closer, and wrapped her arms around her head, trying to block out the noise.
She was shaking and started to whimper, but could hardly pay attention.
Loud. It was all so loud and terrifying.
She wanted to see what was going on but was scared to move.
She couldn’t believe this was happening right now. And Lawson… Where was he?
Suddenly there was silence. It was almost deafening—it had gotten so quiet so fast. Sarah’s heart thudded in her chest and she held her breath, praying that Lawson was going to call her name. She needed to know he was okay. If something had happened to him, she didn’t know what she would do…
And then, all at once, the door next to her opened. She jerked back and screamed. But instead of some would-be attacker, Lawson stood there, staring down at her with fury in his eyes.
“You okay?” he asked urgently.
She pulled her arms away from her head and looked up at him slowly, and then nodded.
“I think so,” she breathed. Her mouth was dry and her body felt numb.
She’d been crumpled up on the floorboard and she wasn’t sure she could get her limbs to cooperate.
She didn’t think she’d been hit, though there had been a lot of bullets pinging off the truck’s frame.
She couldn’t be sure until her body was completely functioning again.
And the same couldn’t be said for Lawson.
Her eyes widened when she saw a red stain on his right side. She reached out to grab his shirt and pulled it up, revealing a bloody gash on his skin.
“What happened?” she exclaimed, terror flashing in her eyes. She tried to squirm her way off the floorboard.
“It’s fine, just a graze,” he assured her, gently brushing her hand away. As he shifted, she noticed that he had a gun in his other hand. So the shots she’d heard from nearby had been from him.
“Just a graze?” she exclaimed. “You’re bleeding!”
“I’ll be fine,” he promised her. “Can you step out of the truck? I want to get a look at you.”
With Lawson’s hand under her arm, and Sarah pushing up on the seat, she managed to get herself up and stepped out of the truck.
First thing she noticed was that the square was empty—everyone who had been here before must have scattered when the gunfire started. She knew this incident would change the fabric of the town entirely.
She craned her head around as Lawson looked her over and her heart dropped when she saw someone sprawled, not moving, on the ground next to the police station.
Lawson saw her staring, and shifted so that he was blocking her view.
“Hey, you don’t need to see that,” he told her gently.
“Who is that?” she demanded, voice trembling. “The sheriff?”
“No, the sheriff’s okay.”
“Well, who is that? What happened?” she asked again.
“I don’t know exactly yet,” he admitted with a sigh. “But Donner and Adams were both rushing out of the station firing, so I’d guess somehow they managed to get weapons off a couple officers inside and made a run for it. The sheriff and his guys are not used to dealing with men like these.”
“They both had guns?” she gasped. “And they—they were shooting at you?”
“Yeah, trying to make good on their threats, I suppose,” he replied as he gazed down at her. She could feel the tension radiating off him, and she knew he must be unnerved by what happened, though he was doing everything he could not to let her see it.
“So the dead guy is one of them?”
He gestured behind him, toward the unmoving body on the sidewalk. “Jim Adams.”
“Oh,” she replied. A bad guy was dead. And Lawson, if she was guessing right, had been the one to kill him. The thought made her stomach twist into knots. He’d done what he’d had to do, of course, but she had never imagined she would see something like that, and definitely not here in Blue Ridge.
“And what about the other one?” she asked.
“Donner made a break for it,” he admitted.
Her eyes widened. They hadn’t recaptured him. The other man was gone. Sarah wrapped her arms around her middle. The thought of that man running back to Granger and then him setting his sights on this town… The danger around them had just multiplied tenfold.
A few officers emerged from the station to deal with the mess that had been left outside their building and to take care of Jim Adams’s body. The sun was fading now, bringing a dark night. A cold chill ran through Sarah’s body, though she knew it was nothing to do with the weather.
“They said they were going to come after you,” she muttered.
Lawson nodded. “They did,” he replied.
She could tell by his posture that he wished he hadn’t told her that. But that didn’t matter now. She already knew they’d all be in danger when the guys first set out to find the men kidnapping women on the mountain road.
“So, what now?” she asked as they continued to glance around the damaged town square.
“I’ve got to go back over and give a statement and check in with the sheriff,” Lawson told Sarah. “Do you want to come with me, or go back and wait inside the café?”
Sarah shivered again and shook her head. No way was she staying here by herself, not after what just happened. “I’ll come with you,” she said quickly and latched on to his hand.
Lawson nodded and wrapped his arm around her as they made their way across the square and back into the police station, meeting Sheriff Willis at the door. He left Sarah in the waiting area and followed the angry sheriff back to the interrogation room.
After what felt like forever, Lawson reemerged looking more haggard and holding his side like he was in pain.
He walked right up to Sarah and drew her into his arms, then kissed her forehead.
“Come on, we need to get you back to the lodge,” he told her.
She didn’t speak as he steered her gently back toward the truck.
Gun smoke still lingered in the air, the scent of it cloying in her nostrils.
She wanted to forget this had ever happened, but she knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Especially with Lawson being hurt.
“You should have had someone look at your wound while you were in there,” she gently chided.
He shook his head, opened the passenger door, and helped her inside. After sliding into the driver’s seat, he palmed the wheel and glanced over at her. He must have noticed her expression and knew how much the situation was getting to her.
“It’s going to be okay, Sarah,” Lawson told her, putting a hand on hers and giving it a tight squeeze.
And, as much as she wanted to believe him, she had no idea if she actually could. Not with one of those men on the loose, and not when he was likely running back to his boss to tell him all about them.