Chapter Eleven #2
“Yep. This afternoon,” Eden verified. “And Grace is already done with Trevor, and he’s left the ranch.
Grace is doing a report, but the gist is that Trevor didn’t admit to any wrongdoing.
He put it all on Yvette, and he swears up and down that he doesn’t know where she is or why she took the twins. ”
Convenient, since the woman wasn’t around to give her side of the story. But Judson was glad of one thing—that Trevor was no longer near the twins. It didn’t matter that the man hadn’t been armed, he was still a suspect, and Judson wanted him far away from Lily and Rose.
“Hold on a second,” Eden muttered.
In the background, Judson heard Rory say something he didn’t catch, but Eden relayed it a second later. “Rory wanted me to tell you that Shane didn’t answer when he tried to call him. Rory left him a message.”
Judson didn’t care much for all their suspects being in the wind, again, but that only made him want to work harder to get to the bottom of what was going on.
He took the turn off the interstate, and since he’d made this trip so many times over the years, he knew they only had about ten miles before they made it to the ranch.
If Grace was still there, he’d catch her up and then start diving into the reports of the interviews to see if there was some kernel of info he could use.
When he heard Addie draw in a quick breath, Judson glanced at her and saw that she was looking at the spot where they’d found the twins. Nan Fredrick wasn’t at the end of the road today. No one was. But Addie must have gotten a jolt from the memory of what had gone on here.
Once they were past the farm road, Addie tore her gaze from it and looked at him. For only a couple of seconds, anyway. They seemed to spot the movement together as Judson rounded a curve.
A woman.
Hell. What was this? Some kind of trap or diversion so the killer could attack them? Maybe. But the woman was real. And there was blood on her face. Judson had no trouble seeing that or the fact she was running up the road straight toward them. In the distance he could see a black car in the ditch.
He hit the brakes, thankful that Livvy reacted quickly, too. If she hadn’t, the cruiser would have slammed into them, and Judson might have hit the woman.
“Help me,” she shouted just as a text lit up his dash.
I’m calling this in, Livvy messaged. Any idea who she is?
It was hard to tell with all the blood, but the car in the ditch was damn familiar. “I think it’s Yvette,” Judson said.
Addie made a sharp sound of surprise and moved to the edge of her seat, no doubt to get a better look. That look was made considerably easier as the woman continued to come closer.
Yeah, it was Yvette, all right.
And judging from the blood streaming down her face, she had some kind of head injury. Either that or she had staged this to make it look as if she was hurt.
Judson didn’t open the door to her, not even when Yvette shouted, “Help me.” But he’d soon have to do that if for no other reason than to take her into custody.
The woman was firing glances over her shoulder as if looking for anyone who might be following her. Judson couldn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean an attacker wasn’t in that ditch, waiting and ready to strike.
In case another vehicle came barreling toward them, Judson turned on his lights and siren.
Behind him, Livvy did the same. That didn’t slow Yvette.
Not a first, anyway. But after another glance over her shoulder, she stopped and turned, her attention zooming toward a cluster of trees just off the road.
Judson thought he saw the start of a trail there, too.
“Does she see someone?” Addie asked. “Or is this some kind of ploy?”
Judson didn’t know, and he didn’t have time to figure it out because there was a loud blast that he had no trouble recognizing.
A gunshot.
And it’d come from those trees.
Yvette screamed, a bloodcurdling sound that ripped through the air, and she dropped to her knees. Judson couldn’t tell if she’d actually been shot, but he knew he had to do something. If Yvette truly was in a danger, she could be killed right in front of him.
“Get down in the seat and stay in the cruiser,” Judson told Addie while he threw the car into Drive and moved up closer to Yvette.
It wasn’t easy, since the road was so narrow, but he turned the cruiser sideways to make it easier to reach Yvette through the driver’s side door.
That wasn’t a huge precaution, considering that someone had already tried to kill Addie and him, but it was better than him just bolting out where he could be gunned down.
Judson threw the cruiser into Park and opened his door. He drew his gun and automatically braced himself for the sound of another bullet.
But none came.
However, even over the sirens, he could hear Yvette moaning, and she was now clutching her chest.
Livvy moved her cruiser, too, parking so that she was right next to the passenger’s side where Addie sat. Hopefully, Livvy would be able to protect her if things went to hell in a handbasket.
And they did.
Damn it, they did.
The gunfire blasted out from the trees. A spray of shots that slammed into the cruisers and the pavement. They would have likely slammed into Judson, too, had he not dropped down, using the front end of the cruiser for cover.
Judson considered leaning out, trying to pinpoint the shooter, but the bullets were coming too close to him. Pinning him down.
“Stay low,” Livvy shouted a split second before Judson heard more gunfire.
From Livvy this time. And he cursed when he glanced behind him and saw that Livvy was behind her cruiser door and was returning fire. She only managed a couple of rounds before the shooter shifted his aim and sent some shots her way.
Cursing, Judson levered himself up and fired where he thought their attacker was, and he did some praying.
Praying that Livvy and Addie weren’t getting hit, since bullets could eventually get through both the window and the body of the cruisers.
He also added a prayer that he could get Yvette out of this alive.
Even if she was working with the gunman, she could give them answers as long as she wasn’t dead.
But she wasn’t screaming.
And she was moving.
Judson could see the blood spreading out from her, sliding across the pavement. There was way too much of it, and if he didn’t do something soon, Yvette would bleed out.
“I’m driving closer to her,” Judson let Livvy know.
He jumped back in the cruiser, giving Addie just a glance. He wanted to make sure she was all right, wanted to give her some kind of reassurance, but there wasn’t time for that.
“Call for an ambulance,” he told her. Not just to give her something to do, either. If he could get Yvette into the cruiser, they’d need EMTs out here right away.
Addie’s hands were trembling when she took out her phone, but she made the call while Judson pulled up closer to Yvette. As close as he could get without hitting her. He aligned the back door with the woman and glanced at Addie again.
“Stay down,” he repeated.
Just as a shot slammed into the window right above her head.
The glass cracked and webbed but held. Still, it could break at any second, and that’s why Judson knew he had to move fast.
“All the way down in the seat,” he told Addie, but she was already heading in that direction.
“You, too,” she managed to say. She must have known, though, that wasn’t something he could do. Not yet, anyway.
Behind him, he heard Livvy returning gunfire. Bullet for bullet. And he hoped Livvy would keep this SOB occupied while he got to Yvette.
Judson bolted from the cruiser again, staying low while he scurried toward Yvette. She still wasn’t moving or speaking, but when he latched onto her arm, he saw her eyes open just a slit.
Alive.
For now, anyway. She wouldn’t stay that way for long, though, with all that bleeding.
Even though it appeared the woman was seriously injured from a gunshot wound to the chest, Judson still took the time to make sure she wasn’t armed.
No signs of a weapon. Her hands were empty, and she didn’t have a purse.
However, she did have pockets in her jeans, and he patted them down while he dragged her to the cruiser and out of the line of fire.
The gunfire shifted, no longer being aimed at Livvy but rather coming at Judson. He didn’t take the time to return fire. He just kept moving until he got Yvette to the side of the cruiser.
It was possible that just moving her had made her injuries worse. But he hadn’t had a choice about that. Their attacker had fired at least two dozen shots, and many of them could have hit Yvette.
Hoisting Yvette up, he laid her on the back seat, and, staying low, Judson did another weapons check. But nothing. The keys were in the ignition, but the woman didn’t even have a phone on her.
“The ambulance is on the way,” Addie relayed to him.
Good. But whether it would make it there in time was anyone’s guess. Added to that, the EMTs wouldn’t be able to approach the scene until the threat from the gunman had been contained.
Judson decided to contain it.
He pulled out his backup gun from a slide holster and handed it to Addie. “If Yvette tries to hurt you, shoot to kill. Understand?”
Addie gave a shaky nod.
Since he could be leaving Addie with a killer, he hated dumping all of this on her, but he didn’t have a lot of options. Livvy couldn’t get to their cruiser unless she took a major risk of being gunned down. Judson couldn’t let that happen.
Readying his gun, he got out of the cruiser again, and in the same motion, he took aim over the roof. And straight toward those trees. Judson fired and fired and fired.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Livvy rejoin the attack after she reloaded, and she sent her own rounds in the direction of the shooter.
Finally, their attacker stopped firing.
And Judson had no doubts, none, that he or she was getting away. Unlike the attack at the ranch, though, he didn’t go running in pursuit this time. He couldn’t take that risk.
Not when it would be Addie’s life he was putting in yet more danger.
He shoved aside the notion of catching the gunman and instead focused on getting the identity of the SOB from Yvette.
“Who shot you?” Judson demanded, getting right in the woman’s face. “Who were you running from?”
Yvette stared up at him with eyes full of shock and pain. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out for what seemed to be an eternity.
“You have to stop him,” the woman finally said. “He’ll kill her.” Yvette’s words were all breath and had barely any sound.
Still, Judson heard her loud and clear. “Stop who?” he demanded.
She opened her mouth again, but this time, nothing came.
“Stop who?” he repeated, shouting the question at her.
But Judson was talking to a woman who couldn’t answer. Her breath rasped in her throat, and her eyelids drifted down.
Yvette was dead.