The sound of a siren winding down followed by shouts pulled Asher from the blackness surrounding his mind. What the hell was happening? Memories came flooding back, and his heart sank, his stomach churned. He was back in the desert and his Humvee had struck an IED. He remembered the crunch of metal, screeching tires, burning rubber. An insurgent attack? He moved his head, tried to open his eyes, but the barrage of pain throbbing in his skull prompted a moan. The sounds around him triggered flashes of memory: the hot desert winds, the smell of diesel, screams . . .

“Hey mister . . . . you with me, mister? Try not to move, we’ll get you out of here in just a second.”

Mister? Asher tried to think, to assess his situation, but even that effort hurt. He tried to speak, but his mouth felt like it had been stuffed full of cotton. Everything hurt. He forced his eyes open but immediately squinted them shut as undulating blue and red lights pierced his vision, sending new waves of pain shooting into his skull. A hissing sound nearby and then fingers touched his throat. Looking for a pulse? What the hell had happened?

He tried to remember. The trap, crashing into the car, gunfire—

Ellie!

Anxiety roiled through him, accompanying the pounding of his head. He tried again to move, but he was stuck fast. Something pressed down on his shoulder. Somewhere off to the side, a lawnmower started. No . . . what? A lawnmower? No, something else. A heavier, rumbling sound, the thud of metal against metal, grinding, followed by a higher pitched whine.

“Hold still, mister, we’ve got the jaws here to get you out.”

Sounds faded and then returned, from one extreme to the other, from silence to noise that reverberated through every muscle and nerve cell in his body. He felt movement, pressure, almost cried out in pain as someone held his head as something was fastened around his neck.

“Ellie . . .” he whispered.

“He’s trying to say something!”

“Ellie . . .”

“Take it easy, man, we’ll have you out of here in a jiffy.” Hands explored his arms, his chest, his pelvis . . . then something wrapped around his left arm. A squeezing. A blood pressure cuff.

“Oxygen stats are okay, blood pressure high, pulse fast but understandable,” the voice said.

He felt a hand grasp his, warm and strong, followed by an order.

“Squeeze my fingers. Can you squeeze my fingers?”

Could he? It all made better sense now. Asher closed his fingers around those of a first responder.

“Good job. Now your feet. Can you move your feet? Not a lot, just a little wiggle, okay?”

Asher tried for several seconds, still confused, his thoughts still racing, trying to force themselves up out of this semi-darkness that had him feeling so hopeless, so weak . . . 

“That’s good . . .”

A loud, protesting screech of metal sounded, and then the door ripped open, prompting a rush of movement as hands grabbed him from seemingly everywhere at once.

“We’re getting you out of the car now, and we’re putting you on a backboard. Then a gurney. Relax. Let us do the work, okay?”

Asher wanted to acknowledge the man, but no sound emerged from his throat. His body moved as he felt himself lifted, hands grabbing his head, his shoulders, his waist, and his knees. He was placed on something hard, then lifted even higher onto what must be an ambulance gurney. Another rush of movement, everyone talking at once, information about his stats, the paramedics strapping him onto the gurney, the belts snugging against his shoulders, his hips, and his knees. Voices talking to him and others. Fading in and out. Through his closed eyelids, the red and blue lights. Then a different voice, close by.

“They’re transporting you to the hospital. Can you tell me what happened?”

Asher finally forced his eyes open, grimacing in pain at the bright lights, the rush of movement, the sounds. He identified the state patrol officer in the brown uniform leaning over him. “Ellie . . .”

The officer frowned, bent closer, turned his head so his ear was closer to Asher’s mouth.

“Where’s Ellie?” Asher managed, heart thudding anew. Had she been thrown out of the car? Was she dead? God no, don’t let her be dead.

The officer looked down at him, his face mere inches from his own.

“There was someone else in the car with you?”

Asher tried to nod, changed his mind, and mumbled a yes.

The officer frowned. “No sign of a passenger, but both airbags deployed.” He lifted his head, shouting to someone beyond Asher’s range of vision. The sound was like an ice pick stabbing through his brain.

“Search the side of the road and into the woods! Female passenger!”

“What happened?”

Asher couldn’t speak, let alone try to explain what happened. It all came back to him in a flash. The sedan rushing up from behind and passing. The truck . . . a big truck, speeding up, the sedan now sideways in his lane, blocking the road. A trap. Fuck, he’d driven right into a trap. Ice swept through his veins. He knew what had happened. Ellie wasn’t in the car. Had they gotten her? Or had she been flung from the vehicle, lying broken and bloody in the woods somewhere along the side of the road?

“Gotta to find Ellie . . .” He struggled against the straps holding him down, but it was pointless. Despite his best efforts, the blackness closed in around him. Blessed silence encompassed him and once again, he drifted, enveloped in blackness, like floating on the ocean waves, allowing them to take him where they would.

* * *

Asher fought the sluggishness that weighed his body down, struggling toward consciousness, forcing his brain to focus on his environment. Quiet . . . rubber-soled shoes walking quickly on tile a short distance away. A steady beeping sound, soft but obnoxious. No aroma of pine, dirt, or asphalt.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring up at white ceiling. Daylight. The accident had happened at night. God, how long had he been here? His gaze swept across buttercup-yellow painted walls, a framed print of a rustic covered bridge . . . then down, to the hospital bed. The bed in which he lay, groggy, thirsty, and confused. He was in a hospital, lying in a hospital bed. How badly had he been injured? And what—Ellie!

The steady beeping sound from nearby accelerated, and he turned his head to find a vitals monitoring machine mounted to a stand beside the bed, its yellow, green, and red lines assessing his heart rate, his blood pressure, and oxygen levels.

Ellie! It all came back to him with painful clarity. The accident. No, the trap. The ambush. He tried to sit up, wincing at the pain busting in his skull and ricocheting into his left shoulder as he struggled. The machine went bonkers. Seconds later, a nurse appeared in the doorway.

“Mr. Marshall!” she gasped, rushing to the bedside. “You mustn’t move around like that. You just got out of surgery!”

Asher froze, sitting up now, sort of, slumped forward. He stared at his knees under the sheet and thin blue blanket. “Surgery?”

“You were shot. In your shoulder. No vital organs hit, but there was bleeding due to a nicked vein. You’re going to be fine, but you can’t be moving around like that. You could start bleeding again—”

“Where’s Ellie?”

The nurse frowned. “Who’s Ellie?”

Asher shook his head, instantly regretting it as pain stabbed through his skull like someone had run a hot poker through it. After several slow breaths, the sharpness settled to a steady throb. He lifted his hand to gently touch his bandaged skull, wincing.

“Another bullet grazed your skull,” she informed him, placing a gentle hand on his right shoulder. “Please lie back down. I’ll help you.”

He wanted to protest, to get out of bed, but he didn’t have the strength. Not just yet. She gently pressed his good shoulder, prompting him to lie back. He did, breathing hard with the slight effort. Shit.

“That’s good. You lie still, and I’ll have the doctor come in and talk to you.” She hesitated. “The police are here, too.”

“Send them in,” Asher croaked, his voice thick and gravelly. “Send them all in.”

He lay in the bed, forcing his breathing to slow, to assess the levels of pain wracking his body. Bad, but not impossible to endure. Then again, he didn’t know if he was under the influence of pain killers. He had to get out of here. Had to find Ellie. He needed to know what was going on. He had to help Ellie, find her. He needed to call Jackson. He should have—

A middle-aged man wearing a white coat and with a stethoscope draped around his neck strode into the room. “Mr. Marshall—”

“Where’s Ellie?”

Despite orders, Asher flung the sheet and thin blanket off his legs and sat up again. God, it hurt like a bitch, but it felt easier this time. He tried to swing them over the side of the bed, but every muscle in his body protested any further action on his part. A groan rumbled deep in his chest, and he sagged back on the bed. His body was drenched in sweat, thrumming with pain, his chest heaving with exhaustion that just triggered more intense throbs of pain deep in his left shoulder.

Another man entered the room, older than the physician, wearing the uniform of the sheriff’s department, followed by a man in a suit. Asher immediately nailed him as a feeb. Which meant what? Confirmation that Ellie had been kidnapped? Multistate crimes? What?

“Where’s Ellie?” he ground out.

“Mr. Marshall, I’m Sheriff Bryan Vickers, sheriff of Cheshire County. We need to ask you a few questions about your accident—”

“Wasn’t an accident,” Asher said, his gaze shifting between the sheriff and the feeb. “You with the FBI?”

The tall, lanky, dark-haired man nodded. “SSA Jared Hemmings,” he said, gesturing toward the sheriff. “We found signs of another passenger in your vehicle. The sedan you crashed into had been pulled or pushed, or maybe even driven off the road . . . tucked into a cutout in the woods. Mind telling me what happened out there?”

Asher told them. Not how he was connected to Ellie, not why someone was following them. Not yet. He wasn’t sure whom he could trust. He needed to call Jackson. He tamped down his fears, forced his heartbeat to slow, the machine at the side of the bed mechanically broadcasting his emotions. Finally, the beeping slowed.

He had failed her. He had failed his mission to watch over and protect Ellie. While it all started as an effort to protect their own group, Asher wasn’t sure just how much—

The FBI agent exchanged a glance with the sheriff and turned toward the doctor. “Can we have a few moments alone with your patient, Doc?”

The doctor frowned, looked at the three of them, and then offered a hesitant nod before turning back to Asher. “You stay put. You just got out of surgery. You lost quite a bit of blood, you’re weak, and if you move around too much, you’ll pull those damn stitches out or cause internal bleeding, and then I’ll have to go back in and fix it again.”

Asher said nothing, waiting impatiently for the doctor and nurse to leave the room. They did, albeit reluctantly, closing the door softly behind them. The sheriff and the FBI agent stepped closer to the bed.

The agent spoke first. “I got an interesting call this morning—”

“How long have I been here? What time is it?” Asher interrupted, dreading the answer.

The sheriff gestured toward the clock high on the wall opposite the bed. “The ambulance brought you in last night about seven-thirty p.m. It’s now, as you can see, three o’clock in the afternoon. You’ve been here less than twenty-four hours.”

“I need to go, need to find—”

“Ellie Jespersen, yes,” the FBI agent said. “Like I said, I got an interesting phone call this morning from a Jackson . . .”

“You know Jackson?” Asher frowned. What the hell had happened while he’d been unconscious, in surgery, lying on his ass while Ellie—

“Look, Mr. Marshall—”

“Asher.”

“Asher,” the FBI agent sighed. “Please, let me finish.”

Asher kept his mouth shut.

“I got a call this morning. I don’t know Jackson personally. He contacted the county sheriff when you failed to check in with him. Apparently, he was able to track your vehicle, found sitting out on the road for a few hours after the accident. While the state deputies and first responders took care of you, the sheriff here contacted me about a possible abducted victim. Not long after that, I also got a call from Jackson, and he filled me in on what you’ve been up to. While the state patrol conducted their investigation of the accident and took measurements . . .” he sighed. “Well, I’m sure you’re aware of what your own team can do.”

The sheriff continued. “We found indications that whoever attacked you had set up a fake detour . . . they took down one of the road signs and tossed it into the woods. Unfortunately for you, that road is rarely traveled by locals at night this time of year due to wildlife versus car accidents, plus it’s pretty ragged and in need of repairs.”

Asher nodded. He was glad Jackson had gotten the ball rolling with the locals while he’d been apparently unconscious, but he’d still failed Ellie. His Jeep had been sitting out there for hours. Tansy or one of the others had probably been monitoring it through GPS, or whatever. “And?”

“Jackson . . . he refused to give me his full name, though I’ll find out eventually . . . told us that he runs a security firm and that you were acting as a bodyguard for Miss Jespersen.” He glanced at the sheriff, who pulled a small notepad from his breast pocket, flipped a few pages, and showed it to the agent. “Ellie Jespersen, originally from Boston.” He raised his eyebrows at Asher. “You’re a long way from home. So was she.”

Was . . . no, he refused to believe that Ellie was dead until he had a body to confirm it. He had no idea what Jackson had communicated to the FBI agent or the county sheriff, and Asher didn’t want to sink his feet deeper into the shit than they already were. “That’s right,” he nodded, again winced, and then sighed. “Somebody’s been trying to kill her.”

“Who?”

“That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? Look, did you find any signs? Is she . . .”

“She isn’t dead,” the sheriff said. “At least, we didn’t find a body. We searched a hundred yards north and south of the accident and fifty yards into the woods on either side.”

“Blood?”

The FBI agent offered a small shrug. “A little. Not enough to be life threatening.”

His stomach roiled, and Asher forced himself not to throw up. He’d fucked up. Big time, and now Ellie was paying for it. The beeping of the monitor at the side of his bed accelerated again. He forced himself to breathe evenly until it returned to normal.

“We believe, as you, that she’s been kidnapped,” the agent said. “Want to fill us in on some details? There are a lot of missing blanks here.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much more than you do. I need to call my boss. That okay with you?”

The FBI agent shrugged. Both he and the sheriff continued to stare at him. They didn’t like this one bit. Neither did he.

Ellie. He had to find Ellie. The sooner the better.