Dakota Marshal Read online

“Not even if I was twelve years old and you looked like Captain Jack.”

  Which he kind of almost did, but that was absolutely not the point.

  She looked again, did a double take. Were those headlights bouncing far in the distance? She turned around as the tires slammed through a series of ruts. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  McBride narrowly avoided a low tree branch. “At this moment, no. Overall, yes. Rory’s heading south. That means we are, too.” The apologetic tone returned. “I didn’t plan for you to be involved in this, Alessandra, but you can identify Eddie, so you are. I’d love to call in, get information, request backup, but I can’t. The last time I did—right before I got shot—I let my boss and only my boss know where I was heading. And yet Eddie, who’d been chasing me until that time, suddenly wound up ahead of me.”

  “You think someone in your home office leaked the information to him?”

  “To him or Casey.”

  “Unless Rory called Casey or Eddie himself and told one or both of them where he’d be.”

  “That’d be the logical explanation,” McBride agreed. When he hitched his injured shoulder, she noticed the bloodstain was spreading. “Problem is, I have a strong feeling Rory’s not following Casey’s orders. Which could be another reason Eddie’s been dispatched—to take little brother to a place where he and Casey can have a nice long chat.”

  “And you know all this because?”

  He flashed her a quick smile. “That’s classified information.”

  “Meaning, you have a source within Casey’s organization.”

  “And you thought being a cop’s wife had no benefits.” His smile widened slightly. “My X source is a guy I’ve known since I was a rookie and he was a street dealer. Casey’s screwed him over a few times, so he came to me with a deal. I’ve held up my end, now he’s holding up his. X overheard part of Casey’s conversation with Eddie. He knew the assignment to track Rory was mine. He called me.”

  “Honest to God, McBride, I feel almost ridiculously cloak and dagger right now. Okay, you’re convinced there’s a leak in your office, but every police department in every state doesn’t report to the Chicago division of the U.S. marshals.” Hesitating, she slid him a sideways look. “Do they?”

  “They do if one of the deputy marshals goes down. Gunshot wounds have to be reported, Alessandra, by hospitals and police. That puts information on the computer, makes it accessible to anyone who cares to find it.”

  “Specifically, a turncoat marshal.”

  “For one. My gut tells me there’s somebody on the take in the Chicago P.D., as well, probably in Homicide.”

  She kept a close eye on the spreading bloodstain. “You’ve got names in mind, haven’t you?”

  Although the smile that had been hovering on his lips grew a little, there was no humor in it. “Yeah, I’ve got names in mind. Doesn’t do me any good here and now, but it will when Rory’s back in prison and I’m back in Chicago.”

  She searched the heavily treed road behind them for anything resembling a tail. “This uncharacteristic optimism is a treat, McBride. If I hadn’t just dodged flying bullets, I’d actually applaud it.” Something glimmered, and she looked more closely out the rear window. “Those are definitely headlights.”

  McBride’s gaze slid to the rearview mirror. “They definitely are.” He gave her unfastened seat belt a flick. “Buckle up and hold tight, darlin’.” His eyes glittered with anticipation as he geared down. “This ride’s gonna get wild.”

  Chapter Three

  Surreal was the best description Alessandra could come up with for the next sixty minutes of her life. Somewhere between where they’d been and where they wound up, the rain stopped, the clouds broke apart and shafts of light began to filter through the trees.

  By the time her mind slowed enough for her to register her surroundings, they were well into the mountains near what had probably once been a logging camp.

  The moment McBride halted, she slid from the truck. Thick stands of pine and spruce towered over them. The fallen trees, now moss covered and decayed, were more likely the remnants of a windstorm than a timber man’s ax. She let her head fall back and, finally, some of her tension ebbed.

  “Please tell me we lost that creep, because five more minutes of those ruts and my brain will be permanently scrambled.” He didn’t answer. Rubbing her backside, Alessandra turned. McBride was still in his seat with his head resting on the back. His eyes were closed. She climbed back into the cab to shake him. “McBride. Are you conscious?”

  “Enough to tell you there’s only a fifty-fifty chance we lost him.” He spoke but didn’t open his eyes or move.

  “That’s better than your odds of surviving if you don’t let me restitch that gunshot wound.”

  “Nag, nag, nag.”

  Alessandra refused to be alarmed by his pallor. Leaning over, she opened his shirt. The bandage covering the gunshot wound was soaked through. “Out of the truck, McBride.”

  A half smile grazed his lips. “Forest floor works better for you, huh?”

  Straddling him, she caught his hair and pulled until his eyes finally cracked open. “I see a lot of clouds in there, pal.”

  “Yeah, but what are you feeling?”

  Part of her wanted to laugh. Only McBride would be thinking about sex under these conditions.

  “Apparently your sick mind hasn’t changed since the last time I saw you.” She pushed the door open. “How can you be hard when you’re bleeding to death?”

  His eyes closed, but the vague smile remained. “From where I’m sitting, best answer I can give you is, ‘Duh.’”

  “Great. I’m on the run with a crazy man.” He was going to black out, she just knew it. She hopped off. “Time to get down and dirty.”

  She supported him by his good arm as he tumbled from the cab. An old gray blanket from the back served as a cot. Once he’d dropped onto it, Alessandra rolled up her sleeves and reached for the medi-pack.

  “No sign of Eddie?” he asked in a slur.

  “No sign, no sound, no need.” Partly because he deserved it, but mostly in an effort to startle him awake, she gave the rubber tubing in her hand a snap, smiled, then bent down until her lips grazed his ear. “Let the bloodbath begin.”

  MCBRIDE SURFACED to shadows that were thick and air that was heavy with the prospect of yet another rainstorm. His limbs weighed fifty pounds apiece, and he swore someone was using a blunt ax on the back of his skull. Still, he managed to get his eyes open and make the connection between his brain and his vocal cords.

  “Where am I?”

  Alessandra didn’t seem the least bit surprised by the sudden question. “You’re propped up against a fallen tree in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and, by some miracle, still alive.” Sitting cross-legged in front of him, she folded a bunch of strange-looking leaves into a cloth and tied a string around it.

  “Why don’t I trust that serene expression on your face?”

  “Relax. If I wanted you dead, you’d have passed on before sunset.” She gave the string a hard tug.

  Alarm bells began to clang in his head. “What’s that?”

  “A medicinal poultice. We use them on horses after they’ve been gelded.” The glitter deepened. “I say ‘we,’ but I really mean I use them. Dr. Lang believes in the more traditional forms of pain management, his favorites being those that are introduced rectally.”

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Only for the past thirty seconds. Until then, I was calling you a bastard in every colorful way I could think of.”

  He used his good hand to push himself away from the trunk. “You’re father’d be pissed.”

  “No, he’d just straighten his shoulders, look stoically upward and blame my mother for influencing me. Then he’d sag and blame himself for giving in to temptation once and marrying her. I’m a sort of by-product of his lust. I don’t think he’s ever quite figured out where I fit into his straightforward
, methodical world.”

  It was a tragedy, to McBride’s mind, that Alessandra’s mother had died of an aortic aneurysm mere days after her only child’s eleventh birthday. Sadder still was the fact that she’d apparently really loved Alessandra’s father. Why else would any sane woman endure twelve years of marriage to a man who lived, worked and would ultimately die by an archaic set of rules that were more of his own making than those of the religious order to which he belonged?

  Alessandra’s grandmother, her father’s own mother, called him a tight-ass. Not in those particular words, but that was the gist. She’d liked her son’s beautiful Bahamian-born wife and had, McBride knew, run interference for her granddaughter up to and including his and Alessandra’s wedding day—which was an entirely different memory.

  As if she’d been following his thoughts, Alessandra’s lips curved. “You can puzzle it out for the rest of your life but you’ll never understand him.” She threw McBride the poultice and stood in a single graceful motion. “Sun’s set, you need rest and I want a shower. I’m also hungry. All I found in your truck were nacho chips, candy bars and some energy drinks.”

  “Never know when you’ll need a quick buzz.”

  “Mmm, I found the whiskey bottle, too.”

  “Buzzes come in many forms, Alessandra. You’re right, though, we need to get out of here.” The pain had less of a rapier-sharp edge after he worked his way into a crouch. He tucked the poultice in his shirt pocket. “Can you drive a loaded 4x4?”

  He knew she was watching him for signs of disorientation. He must have passed the test, because she began folding the blanket. “On good roads, yes. On a wilderness obstacle course, we’ll find out.”

  He could go with that. “Do you know where we are?”

  “More or less.” She caught his arm when he stood and the rapier took a nasty swipe at him. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance you’d consider returning to Rapid City.”

  He slanted her a dark look that brought a fleeting smile to her lips.

  “Figured as much. In that case… Can you walk?”

  Like a man who’d taken several pulls from that whiskey bottle. And her touching him didn’t make him any steadier. Her father’s thoughts for her mother were Puritanical compared to the ones currently flying through McBride’s head. He knew and vividly remembered every inch of her butt, her legs, her breasts and, God help him, her hands. She’d learned lightning fast how to drive him straight to the edge and over.

  When the pain sheared through him again, he welcomed it. “Keys are in the ignition, Alessandra. If you’re sure you’ve got your bearings, we need to head southwest.”

  “That’s the direction Rory’s taking, huh?”

  Fat drops of rain began to fall from the bruised clouds above. “Rory’s heading for a border.” Although climbing into his truck was roughly equivalent to scaling Mount Rushmore during an ice storm, McBride persevered. “He’s zigzagging, wants me to believe he’s going to Canada, but my money’s on Mexico.”

  She stopped pushing to peer around his arm. “Are you serious? You expect me to go to Mexico?”

  “Did I mention I was sorry?”

  “Did I mention I put some of Dr. Lang’s suppositories in that medi-pack?”

  He managed to chuckle rather than wince. “Give me a viable short-term destination, Alessandra.”

  She sent him a last biting stare, then swung on her heel to point. “Bodene’s about fifty miles southwest of here. Spruce Creek’s thirty, but in a slightly different direction. Joan’s rustic Dead Lake cabin’s our best bet. It’s a twisty twenty-mile drive from this old camp.”

  “Sounds good,” he said. “Secluded.” Ghoulish, too, but hopefully not portentous.

  Rain began to pelt the roof and windshield. In the driver’s seat, Alessandra tied back her hair in a long ponytail. Now how in hell could something so simple strike him as so damn sexy?

  Once again, she seemed to know what he was thinking. Her lips twitched when she shoved the truck in gear. “Eyes forward, McBride. We’re off to Dead Lake, and Eddie’s nowhere to be seen.”

  Which was, McBride reflected as he scanned the eerily silent clearing, the thing that concerned him most right now.

  JOAN’S CABIN HAD a bathroom, a galley kitchen, a huge stone fireplace and a pull-out sofa that faced the hearth.

  “Home sweet home.” Alessandra dropped her gear on a small window table. “It’s compact, but not all that different from my father’s house. There’s even a loft.” Humor invaded her tone. “No ladder.”

  Overhead lights flared at the touch of a switch, as did the propane water heater.

  “Quick trip into town for supplies, and I can have my long-awaited shower.”

  McBride, who’d recovered even more rapidly than she’d anticipated, made a more purposeful circle of the room.

  “There’s a lot of glass,” he noted. “And trees for cover.”

  “There’s also a good chance we left Eddie in one of those potholes we slammed through last night.” She halted him by setting her palm on his chest. “The rain’s stopped, there’s a general store just over a mile from here and, honestly, given a choice at this moment, I’d rather die from a bullet than from starvation. We’ve seen, you’ve scoped, let’s go.”

  “You’d make a lousy marshal, Alessandra.”

  “I’ll take that as a compliment.” But she waited while he checked out the porch and small yard before returning to his truck.

  “I’ll drive,” McBride told her. “Put on my leather jacket and hat, and try not to let anyone in town see your face. We go in and out, no hesitation. Basics only.”

  Alessandra tipped back the brim of the hat he’d dropped on her head and frowned. “Have you been spending time with my father?”

  “Better yours than mine. Which way?”

  She indicated a narrow mud and gravel road. At his raised brow, she smiled. “I came here with Joan in June.”

  “Did you go into the store?”

  “Several times. The owner can’t see anything clearly that’s more than a foot in front of him.” She gauged his mood, then went for it. “How’s your father doing these days?”

  He shrugged. “In jail, out of jail. Last I heard, he was being held in Panama. Something about flying an illegal substance across the border inside a shipment of Colombian coffee beans.”

  Alessandra thought back. McBride’s dad had brought his fourth wife to their wedding. After the ceremony, he’d made a pass at her Bahamian aunt. As with most things, it hadn’t worked out for him. Angelica had given him a resounding slap while wife number four poured a drink over his head. And all of that before the photographs had been taken.

  “Maybe time in a Panamanian jail will straighten him out,” she mused aloud.

  “If you think that, you’ve been living in the animal world too long.” McBride indicated a weather-worn structure. “Is that the store?”

  “That’s it. Dead Lake Feed, Seed and General Wares.”

  “There’s only one vehicle out front.”

  “The year-round population here is about fifteen. The in-out thing should be relatively simple.”

  There was no one behind the counter when the cowbell jangled to announce their entry. Flies buzzed against torn window screens, and the refrigeration units, relics from the 1960s, made a loud humming noise.

  Tugging McBride’s hat lower to cover her face, Alessandra picked up two large baskets and headed for the grocery section. She filled up, then picked out some personal stuff.

  Her arms were already straining when she turned a corner and spied the clothes and underwear. Although her choices were limited, pretty much everything she needed was available. Except that she had to climb up to the top shelf to dig out the right sizes. She even snagged a pair of suede hiking boots and a sleeping bag.

  On her way to the cash counter she found McBride with his hip perched on a dusty windowsill as he scanned the deserted road outside.

  He turned his head, saw t
he overflowing baskets and grinned. “That’s your idea of in and out?”

  “Why, yes, thank you, I’d love some help.” She handed him the heavier basket and shook her arm to get the circulation back. “Is there a cashier?”

  “Not that I’ve seen. I could have loaded a pickup with stolen merchandise by now.”

  “Mr. Singer?” She tapped the service bell. “You have customers.”

  When no one approached, Alessandra peered over the counter to her left. And spotted a pair of feet.

  “Damn. McBride!” Without waiting, she flipped up the pass-through.

  The elderly storeowner lay facedown on the floor. She was searching for a pulse when the stockroom door burst open.

  Alessandra glimpsed torn jeans and heard a snarling curse. Then her eyes snapped up, and she saw the gun.

  ACTUALLY, IT WAS a rifle, and the thief nearly dropped it in his rush to escape.

  Packs of cigarettes spilled from the inside of his zipped jacket. He hurdled Alessandra and the store owner, scrambled under the pass-through and took a swing at McBride.

  She would have jumped up, but the owner’s bony fingers snared her wrist and held fast.

  “Boy got hold of some funny mushrooms,” he whispered hoarsely. “His ma called me right before he barged in. She reckons he’s seeing pink elephants about now.”

  Hearing a thwack, Alessandra raised her head. No surprise, the thief hadn’t gotten past McBride. “Don’t think so. Stars, maybe.” She returned her attention to the fallen man. “Are you hurt?”

  “Winded.” With her help, he got slowly to his feet. “Thought it best to take a dive when the boy barreled in and knocked me aside… Oh, there we go, neat as you please.” He beamed at McBride, who was crouched next to the dazed youth. “Now, you put those smokes back where they belong, young man. I’ll take the rifle,” he said to McBride, who was currently holding it. “It’s just a BB, but that’s plenty dangerous when your bones are as brittle as mine.” Repositioning his glasses, he hobbled over to the counter. “These your baskets?”