7. Mara
MARA
Doc pulls me behind him.
Again.
I’m beginning to think the man has a death wish.
The second-floor walkway runs along three sides of the abandoned hardware store. Our flashlights illuminate the railing, but the man standing beyond it remains hidden in shadow.
Doc raises his weapon.
“Show me your hands, Hampton.”
A low laugh drifts down to us.
“You still recognize my voice.”
“I remember the voice of every man responsible for Grant’s death.”
The words are quiet.
Deadly.
I move away from Doc before he can stop me and position myself behind one of the empty shelves. From here, I have a clearer view of the walkway and the narrow staircase leading to it.
A shape shifts above us.
Elias Hampton steps into the beam of my flashlight.
He appears older than the man in Grant’s photographs. His hair is almost completely gray, and deep lines cut into his face. Blood darkens the side of his black jacket.
Parker hit him.
Hampton holds a pistol in his right hand.
The suppressor attached to it matches Parker’s description.
“Drop the weapon,” I order.
His gaze moves to me.
“Grant’s little sister.”
“I’m Deputy Ellis. Put the gun on the floor.”
“You look like him.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“You have his eyes.”
“And his aim. Drop the weapon.”
A smile touches his mouth.
I don’t like it.
“You were sixteen the last time I saw you.”
My finger tightens against the frame of my pistol.
“You were at the funeral.”
“Outside the church.”
I remember a dark sedan parked across the street. A man sat behind the wheel throughout the service. I assumed he was a reporter or one of the military officials who didn’t know the family.
“Why didn’t you go inside?”
“I wasn’t welcome.”
“You’re still not.”
Hampton looks toward Doc.
“She has Grant’s temper.”
“She also has a loaded weapon pointed at your chest.”
“He was proud of her.”
Doc moves toward the staircase.
“Stay where you are,” Hampton warns.
“You broke into the tavern, shot a deputy, and stole evidence. This conversation ends with you in handcuffs or on the floor.”
“You always did believe you could save everyone.”
Hampton’s smile disappears.
“How did that work out for Grant?”
Doc takes another step.
His face reveals nothing, but I see his hand tighten around his weapon.
Hampton sees it too.
He wants Doc angry.
“Doc.”
He doesn’t look at me.
“Don’t.”
“Listen to the deputy,” Hampton says. “Grant never did know when to stop digging. Look where it got him.”
Doc reaches the bottom of the stairs.
I move out of cover and catch his arm.
“What are you doing?”
“Ending this.”
“That’s what he wants.”
“He knows where the coordinates lead.”
“He also has a gun aimed at the stairs.”
“I noticed.”
“Then stop walking toward it.”
Doc looks at my hand on his arm.
“You should get behind cover.”
“And you should develop a better argument.”
Hampton laughs again.
“She’s going to be a problem for you.”
“She already is,” Doc says.
Under different circumstances, I might be offended.
Right now, I’m relieved he answered.
The cold emptiness that entered his eyes when Hampton mentioned Grant recedes slightly.
Sirens wail in the distance. Sheriff Tate’s deputies will surround the building within minutes.
Hampton knows he’s running out of time.
“Where are the coordinates?” Doc asks.
“Gone.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“I took the paper because you were getting too close.”
“To what?”
Hampton’s gaze slides toward me.
“To what Grant left behind.”
Fear moves through me.
“You know about the key.”
“I know Grant gave you one.”
“How?”
“He wrote about it.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere you haven’t found yet.”
My pulse quickens.
He knows something.
But not everything.
“If you know about the key, why haven’t you found the box?”
For the first time, Hampton’s expression changes.
Only slightly.
But I see it.
“You don’t know where it is,” I say.
His silence answers me.
Mom moved it.
And Hampton has been looking for it too.
“You searched my mother’s house.”
“I did.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“You were inside while I was upstairs.”
“You nearly caught me.”
The floorboard.
I remember standing in the hallway, listening to the silence.
Hampton had been close enough to reach out and touch me.
My skin crawls.
“Why didn’t you take the journal?”
“I couldn’t find it.”
“Because Mom hid it.”
“Your mother was very good at hiding things.”
The way he says it makes something cold settle in my stomach.
“You knew my mother?”
“I spoke to her once.”
“When?”
“After Grant died.”
My weapon remains trained on his chest.
“What did you say to her?”
“That her son had gotten involved in something he didn’t understand.”
“And what did she say?”
Hampton almost smiles.
“She told me to get off her property before she shot me.”
Despite everything, pride warms my chest.
That sounds like Mom.
“Did you fire through her window today?” I ask.
“No.”
“Someone did.”
“Yes.”
“The same numbers were painted on the SUV.”
“Someone wanted you to follow them.”
“Who?”
Hampton looks toward Doc.
Doc’s expression hardens.
“Miller.”
“Fred always did prefer letting other people do his dirty work.”
“Captain Miller gave the order that sent us into the valley.”
“He transmitted it.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Hampton glances toward the broken windows at the front of the building.
He’s searching for a way out.
“Who gave Miller the order?” I ask.
Hampton looks at me.
For the first time, there’s no amusement in his face.
“That’s the question that got your brother killed.”
Doc takes another step toward the stairs.
“Give me a name.”
“You still think there’s only one?”
The words stop him.
My pulse jumps.
“How many?” I ask.
Hampton doesn’t answer.
Sheriff Tate and Wolf enter through the rear door. Trigger remains outside with the deputies despite insisting the blow to his head didn’t hurt.
Tate raises his weapon toward the walkway.
“Elias Hampton, put the gun down.”
Hampton backs toward the far end of the railing.
“Too late, Sheriff.”
“The building is surrounded.”
“Then you should tell the men outside to watch the roof.”
He reaches beneath his jacket.
“Hands!” I shout.
Hampton throws something toward the floor.
Doc shoves me down.
A bright flash fills the building.
The explosion is more sound than force, but it blinds me. My ears ring. Dust and debris rain from the walkway.
A gunshot cuts through the noise.
Then another.
I blink through the white spots clouding my vision.
Doc is on one knee in front of me.
Hampton stands at the railing with his weapon pointed at Doc’s chest.
I don’t think.
I launch myself forward and hit Doc’s side as Hampton fires.
The bullet tears through Doc’s shirt.
We crash against the floor.
I roll, bring up my weapon, and fire twice.
Hampton jerks backward.
One hand clamps over his shoulder.
I hit him.
He disappears beyond the railing.
“Doc!”
“I’m fine.”
“You were shot.”
“Grazed.”
Blood spreads along his ribs.
“That is not fine.”
“It didn’t enter.”
He tries to rise.
I put my hand against his chest and shove him down.
“Stay.”
His eyebrows lift.
“You’re giving me orders now?”
“I’m a deputy.”
“And I’m a medic.”
“You can be both after I make sure you aren’t dying.”
Wolf races toward the stairs while Sheriff Tate covers the walkway. Deputies shout from outside that someone is crossing the roof.
Hampton.
I want to go after him, but blood runs between my fingers where my hand is pressed to Doc’s side.
He was shot because Hampton knew exactly how to get to him.
Grant.
Use Grant, and Doc stops thinking about himself.
“Mara.”
“What?”
“You can stop trying to push me through the floor.”
“I’m applying pressure.”
“To a graze.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I felt the bullet.”
“Unless you caught it and examined it, your opinion doesn’t count.”
His mouth twitches.
“Was that almost a smile?”
“No.”
“It looked like one.”
“You’re hallucinating. You may have a head injury.”
“I’m going to give you a head injury.”
“There’s the Grant I remember.”
The words should anger me.
Instead, relief rushes through me so strongly my eyes burn.
He’s alive.
Doc studies my face.
“I’m okay.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then look.”
I lift the torn edge of his shirt.
The bullet cut a bloody path across his side, but he’s right.
It only grazed him.
I sit back.
He catches my wrist before I can move away.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“You hit the floor hard.”
“So did you.”
“I landed on you.”
“You need to stop doing that.”
“You shoved me out of the path of a bullet.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Mara.”
Something in his voice stills me.
He sits up and runs his hands along my arms, checking for blood. His touch is efficient at first.
Then his palms settle against my shoulders.
“You could have been killed.”
“So could you.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because Grant asked me to protect you.”
I pull away.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The promise.”
His expression closes.
“You think my life matters more than yours because Grant asked you to keep me safe.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I rise before he can stop me.
Doc gets to his feet beside me, one hand pressed to the wound along his ribs.
“You shouldn’t have stepped in front of me,” I say.
“I was already there.”
“You were walking straight into Hampton’s trap.”
“He knew how to get to me.”
“I noticed.”
“I won’t let it happen again.”
“No, you won’t, because I’m not going to stand behind you while you decide which bullets belong to you.”
“Mara—”
“This works both ways, Doc.”
His gaze locks on mine.
“What does?”
“You protect me. I protect you.”
For several seconds, neither of us moves.
The noise around us fades. Deputies shout from the roof. Sheriff Tate speaks into his radio.
All I hear is Doc breathing.
“You don’t owe me that,” he says.
“I’m not doing it because I owe you.”
Something changes in his eyes.
Before either of us can speak again, Wolf shouts from the walkway.
“He’s gone!”
Sheriff Tate curses. “How?”
“Jumped from the roof onto the church awning. A motorcycle was waiting in the alley.”
“The motorcycle you found behind the feed store?” I ask.
“No,” a deputy answers from the front entrance. “A second one.”
Hampton planned every escape before he entered the building.
I check the magazine in my weapon.
Sheriff Tate crosses toward us. His gaze drops to the blood on Doc’s side.
“Do we need another ambulance?”
“No,” Doc and I answer together.
Tate looks between us.
“I’ll ask someone who isn’t stubborn.”
“You’ll have to leave Eagle River,” Wolf calls from above.
Despite the pain and adrenaline, I laugh.
Doc turns his head toward me.
This time, he smiles.
It changes his entire face.
The hard lines soften. The distance disappears. For one brief moment, he looks like a man who remembers how to be alive.
Then Wolf comes down the stairs carrying the unit photograph stolen from the Last Stand.
“It was on the walkway,” he says. “Hampton dropped it when Mara shot him.”
The glass is broken, and blood smears one corner.
Captain Fred Miller’s face has been cut from the photograph.
Sheriff Tate puts on gloves and accepts it.
“Anything on the back?”
Wolf turns it over.
Three lines are written across the faded cardboard backing in black ink.
Eight entered the valley.
Seventeen were waiting.
Twenty-three never existed.
Doc moves closer.
“That isn’t Grant’s handwriting.”
“Hampton?” I ask.
“Has to be.”
Sheriff Tate studies the words. “Then he wanted you to see this.”
“Maybe,” Doc says.
“Or he wrote it before he knew he was going to lose the photograph,” Wolf points out.
I look at the missing piece where Captain Miller’s face used to be.
“Why cut Miller out?”
No one answers.
Doc takes the photograph and studies the eight men standing in front of the bullet-scarred wall.
“Eight entered the valley,” he says quietly.
Wolf’s expression changes.
“There were eight of us in the convoy.”
“Seventeen were waiting,” Trigger says from behind us.
We turn.
He stands in the doorway with an ice pack pressed against the side of his head.
“You're supposed to be sitting down,” Sheriff Tate tells him.
“I was. I got bored.”
Wolf points at the ice pack. “You were unconscious ten minutes ago.”
“I got better.”
Despite everything, I almost laugh.
Doc doesn't.
His attention remains on the photograph.
“Were there seventeen enemy fighters in the valley?” I ask.
“No.”
“How many?”
“We never knew.”
“Then what does seventeen mean?”
Doc shakes his head.
“I don't know.”
I look at the final line.
Twenty-three never existed.
“What about twenty-three?”
Something changes in Doc's face.
Wolf sees it too.
“What?”
Doc looks at him.
“Mission Twenty-Three.”
Trigger lowers the ice pack.
“There was no Mission Twenty-Three.”
“Exactly.”
I look between them. “What are you talking about?”
Doc hands the photograph back to Sheriff Tate.
“Our missions were numbered. The operation that sent us into the valley was listed in the official report as Mission Twenty-Four.”
“And?”
“There should have been a Twenty-Three before it.”
Wolf understands first.
“There wasn't.”
Trigger's expression hardens.
“No briefing. No deployment. No mission.”
A chill moves down my spine.
“Twenty-three never existed.”
Doc looks at the message again.
“Not officially.”
Sheriff Tate folds his arms. “Which means?”
“Someone may have created a false operation in the records before ours.”
“To do what?”
Doc looks at Captain Miller’s missing face.
“That's what Hampton wants us to figure out.”
“Or what he wants us to believe,” I say.
Doc's gaze meets mine.
“Exactly.”
Hampton has already lied.
Someone else fired at me.
Miller transmitted the order that sent Grant's team into the valley, but Hampton refused to say who actually gave it.
Now he has left us another clue.
Eight.
Seventeen.
Twenty-three.
I don't know whether Hampton is helping us or leading us exactly where he wants us to go.
And I have a feeling finding out could get another one of us killed.