CHAPTER NINE
The sound woke him.
Jake snapped to a sitting position, and in the same motion he drew his gun. Maggie moved, too, no doubt to get up and see what the heck was wrong, but he made a shh sound, and he turned his head, listening for whatever had made the sound.
Maggie and he waited, huddled on the bunk bed. However, the only thing Jake could hear was the wind battering the trees and the cabin.
It was morning, barely, and the sun was just starting to come up, which meant he didn’t need to be sleeping anyway. He needed to call Royce to find out how Sunny was doing and if there’d been any progress with the test results.
He reached to pull back the cover but stopped when he heard the sound again. Definitely not the wind.
“I think it’s a car engine,” Maggie whispered.
Maybe, but if so it wouldn’t be near the cabin, because there was no direct road to get there, just a ranch trail, and because of the ice it wasn’t passable. Jake had parked his truck on the side of the ridge, and they’d walked the last eighth of a mile to the cabin.
He got up from the bunk bed, turned off the heater to silence the humming noise it was making, and he went to the window. With everything else going on, it was probably too much to hope that a hunter had just stumbled upon them by accident.
Maggie picked up the Colt that Jake had brought with them and went to the window over the sink to look out at that side of the cabin. Jake did the same at the front.
It was still dusky, with just a sliver of sunlight, making it hard for him to see anyone or anything. The same would be true for anyone out there. Plus, with the heater off, there were no lights on inside. Of course, if someone—Tanner’s hired gun, for instance—had seen Jake’s truck on the isolated trail, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out that Maggie and he were in the cabin.
“See anything?” she whispered.
“No.” But something wasn’t right. “Stay here,” Jake insisted.
She frantically shook her head. “You’re not going out there.”
“I just want to look around.” And before Maggie could make another objection, Jake did just that.
He eased open the door. With the wind knifing through the room, the temperature started to plunge, and the cold gunmetal in his hand didn’t help. If he didn’t see anything in a second or two, he would shut the door. However, the thought had no sooner crossed his mind than he did see something.
Movement near one of the winter-bare cottonwood trees.
Maggie must have seen it, too, from the window. “There’s someone out there.”
Jake didn’t have time to react to her warning. Because someone fired a shot.
He slammed the cabin door and scrambled toward Maggie. He hooked his arm around her and pulled her into the tiny recessed area between the living area and the bathroom.
It didn’t get them away from the windows completely. There was still one on the far side of the bathroom, the one in the kitchen and the other at the front of the house. Still, with Maggie and him in the shadows, they would be harder to see. He hoped.
Of course, the shooter would be harder to see, too. But to get to Maggie and him, that shooter would have to come closer to the cabin. When that happened, Jake would have a shot of his own.
“Did you get a look at the guy?” Jake asked Maggie.
“No. I just saw the movement by the cottonwood tree.” Her breath was gusting, and he figured she was primed and ready for a fight. He certainly was, and the adrenaline continued to pump right through him.
Who was out there?
And why had the person fired the shot?
As far as Jake could tell, the bullet hadn’t gone into any part of the cabin, and while the place wasn’t big, someone just yards away by the cottonwoods should have been able to hit it.
Jake braced himself for another shot, but one didn’t come. The seconds ticked off in his head, turning to minutes, and he stepped forward just a little so he could get a look out the kitchen side window.
There.
He saw someone by the trees.
From the person’s build, it appeared to be a man, but Jake couldn’t tell if it was one of their suspects. Of course, it could be a hired assassin sent by Tanner.
Jake fastened his attention to the man. Waited more snail-crawling minutes. And he finally saw more movement. The guy dropped something on the ground and, much to Jake’s surprise, he turned and started to run back down the ridge.
Hell.
What was going on?
“Wait here,” he said to Maggie.
Jake hurried back to the door, opened it and looked around the area in front of the cabin. Nothing. Just the sound of running footsteps, and the person was headed right to the area where Jake had left his truck.
“I’m going with you,” Maggie said when he went onto the porch.
Jake figured he could waste time arguing with her or just let her follow him. So he went with the second option. In the back of his mind, he reasoned that Maggie would be a good backup, but he didn’t want her outside in direct danger. That’s why he’d have to make this quick, with a look over the ridge, and then get her back inside. Of course, then they would need to grab their things and leave right away since their location had been compromised.
Maggie stayed right behind him as they trekked their way through the ice and snow. It wasn’t deep, but it was enough for him to see the tracks the person had left behind. They did indeed lead to the ridge.
Jake slowed as they got to the rim, and he peered down at the trail below. Yeah. There was another vehicle and he didn’t recognize it. He couldn’t tell if the driver was already inside.
He heard the swishing sound to his right and, with his gun ready and aimed, he pivoted in that direction. The man was there. In a cluster of trees. And he must have spotted Jake and Maggie, too, because he turned to run.
Cursing, Jake ran after him.
Cursing, too, Maggie ran after Jake.
The guy wasn’t very fast, and it didn’t take Jake long to catch up with him. He launched himself at the man and tackled him, and the impact sent them both crashing to the frozen ground. Jake saw a star or two when his shoulder collided with a rock, but he managed to hang on to the guy, and he dragged both himself and the man to their feet.
“Don’t shoot!” the man shouted.
It was hard to see his face in the dim light and with the snow and ice on it, but Jake had no trouble recognizing that voice.
It was Wade Garfield, the man Jake had hired to break into the Justice Department files.
“Don’t shoot,” Wade repeated, and he lifted his hands in the air.
“You shot at us,” Maggie snarled. She held the Colt on Wade while Jake gave him a quick pat down. It didn’t take him long to find the small gun inside Wade’s pocket.
“I didn’t shoot at you,” Wade argued. “It went off by accident. I’m not used to handling weapons.”
Jake wasn’t sure he believed that, but he had so many other questions that he pushed that one aside and started with the obvious.
“Why are you here, Wade?”
The young man huffed. “Because I was looking for you. I told you Tanner was trying to kill me, but you ignored me. Well, I won’t let you do that now. You’ll tell me what the heck is happening.”
Since that was going to be one of Jake’s questions to Wade, he mimicked the huff. “If you wanted police protection, why didn’t you just go to the sheriff’s office? The night deputy’s there.”
“So are those marshals. Two of them, and they’re not saying what they want, but I figure it’s me and you. They’re here to arrest us, aren’t they?”
“They’re not after you,” Jake assured him. “In fact, there’s nothing that can connect you to the hacking unless you tell them. That’s why I used my own computer, not yours, and that’s also why I won’t say a word about you to the marshals or anyone else.”
That didn’t seem to calm Wade down any. He was shaking, but that could be from the cold, because Maggie was shaking, too. Jake didn’t want to take Wade into the cabin, but by God he wanted some answers, and he didn’t want Maggie to freeze to death while that happened.
“Follow me,” Jake ordered the man, and he put Wade’s gun in his pocket. If and when things settled down, Billy Kilpatrick, the night deputy, could check and see if Wade had a permit for the darn thing. Highly doubtful since Wade had claimed he didn’t know how to use it.
Jake didn’t reholster his gun. Neither did Maggie, and they ushered Wade into the cabin. She turned the heater back on while Jake put their guest into the chair so he could continue his unofficial interrogation. When he was done, he was either going to have to let Wade go or else call Billy and figure out a way to take the man into custody. Jake didn’t relish the idea of arresting the man who’d helped him with that hacking, but he couldn’t have people go around shooting, either.
“I want the truth.” Jake took the other chair, whirled it around so the back was to Wade, and he sat, facing the man. “Did Tanner send you?”
“No! I’ve already said I’ve got nothing to do with him. Hell’s bells, Sheriff, the man is on death row. Yeah, I hacked those files for you, and maybe I’ve done some things I wouldn’t brag about to a lawman, but I’m not stupid. And I don’t want any dealings with a man who’d gun down an innocent woman.”
There was enough fire and maybe fear in his voice to make it sound like the truth, but Jake wasn’t ready to cross Wade off his suspect list just yet.
Since Maggie was glaring at Wade and still had her gun pointed at him, Jake figured she felt pretty much the same.
“How did you find us?” Jake asked.
Wade didn’t jump to answer that question as he had the other. In fact, he leaned away from Jake and glanced at everything in the cabin but Maggie and him. It was enough of a reaction for Jake to curse.
“How?” Jake pressed.
“I’ll tell you,” Wade snapped. He tipped his head to Maggie. “But I want her to put away that gun first. I don’t want to be shot for taking a precaution or two.”
“A precaution?” Jake repeated. He didn’t like the sound of that.
“The gun stays where it is,” Maggie insisted. “Now start explaining.” Even though she was still shivering, she managed to sound like a cop.
Wade drew in several very short breaths before his attention settled on Jake. “Night before last when you were at my place and we were hacking into the files, I put a GPS tracking device on your truck.”
It took Jake a moment to process that, and he didn’t process it well. “When the hell did you do that? And why? I especially want to know the why.”
“I told you I had to use the bathroom, remember? Well, I sneaked outside and put the tracking device on the undercarriage of your truck.”
Maggie moved closer, leaned in. “You keep spare tracking devices at your house?”
“I do,” Wade said defensively. “Hey, I never said I was a Boy Scout. Sometimes, people come to me when they want to spy on their spouses. Or their exes. Hell, even their kids. For a fee, I help them out. I sell them the GPS and sometimes even hide it on the vehicles for them.”
Jake jumped right on that. “Who paid you a fee to put that device on my truck?”
“No one.” Wade got to his feet, but Jake put him right back in the chair. “I did it for my own protection.”
Jake wasn’t sure who huffed louder, Maggie or him. “Explain that,” Jake insisted.
Wade gave a crisp nod. “I’d never done business with you before, and I didn’t know if you were running some kind of sting operation. So, I recorded our conversation, in case I had to prove entrapment, and I put the tracker on your truck in case you ran off and left me holding the bag.”
It’d been a first for Jake, too, to do business with a hacker, and if he hadn’t been so desperate to find Maggie, he might have realized he couldn’t trust Wade. He might have looked for things like recording and tracking devices. But he hadn’t. And now, he had to consider what Wade had done—and would do—with that information.
Jake waited for Wade to say he wanted extra money, that he was blackmailing Jake, but he simply shook his head. “Will you give me police protection?” he asked.
Jake ignored him. “Where’s the recording of our meeting?”
“In a safe place.”
Maggie poked Wade’s arm with her gun. “Where?” she demanded.
Wade winced and rubbed his arm even though Maggie had barely touched him. “At my house, okay? Jeez, I thought you’d still be all torn up about your sister’s death. I didn’t think you’d turn renegade cop.”
“If I turn renegade, you’ll be the first to know.” Jake wasn’t getting any positive vibes from Wade, and he figured that recording would come back to haunt him. He only hoped it didn’t interfere in some way with Sunny getting the medical treatment she needed.
“Come on.” Jake stood and yanked Wade to his feet. “Show me where you put the tracking device on my truck and then give me the laptop or whatever device you used to monitor the tracker.”
“A laptop,” Wade answered, his voice suddenly shaky again. “And it’s in my car. If you take it, though, I’ll expect some kind of payment. That laptop wasn’t cheap.”
Jake didn’t want the laptop or the tracking device, but he wanted the latter off his vehicle. Once he had Wade on his way, Maggie and he would need to leave fast since Wade couldn’t be trusted to keep something like that secret.
Jake took a small flashlight from their supply bag. “Why don’t you wait here?” Jake suggested to Maggie.
She didn’t. She turned off the heater again and followed him, of course, and the three of them went back into the cold.
“When you leave here,” Jake said to Wade, “go to the sheriff’s office and stay there. As soon as I can, I’ll arrange protection.”
Of course, just Wade showing up at the office and requesting protection would create a ton of questions, but Jake figured a resourceful guy like Wade could deal with that himself.
Jake stopped when he got to the cottonwood tree where he’d first seen Wade skulking around. With the shot being fired, the chase and interrogation, Jake had forgotten something that might turn out to be important.
He’d seen Wade drop or throw something on the ground.
Knowing Wade, it could be bad news.
“Wait,” Jake insisted, and he snagged Wade by the coat while he had a look around. He finally spotted the small black object. It hadn’t sunk down into the snow but was instead just sitting on top of it.
“Care to tell me what that is?” Jake asked.
Wade didn’t even look at it. Definitely a bad sign.
Maggie inched closer for a better look. She studied it a moment and then whirled back around to face Wade. “That better not be what I think it is.”
Jake took a harder look. “That’s a GPS tracking device.” And he was about to ask if it was the one from his truck and why it was there.
But Jake soon had his answer.
With the sun peeking up higher now, he saw the vehicle making its way up the trail to where Wade and he were both parked. Not just any ordinary vehicle, either. Black, nondescript.
The kind federal law enforcement officers used.
“I’m sorry,” Wade said. “I had no choice. I took it off your truck and brought it up here so you’d be easier to find.”
The car stopped, both doors swung open and the two men stepped out. Armed. And they immediately pointed their weapons at Jake.
“Drop your gun, Sheriff McCall,” one of them shouted. “You’re under arrest.”