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“I didn’t ask you to.”
“I’m not giving you an option. You’re mad at me. More than mad. But you’re coming with me. Now. Got that?”
After devoting a few precious seconds to thinking it over, she let herself be pulled along behind him as he set out at a jog, running in a northerly direction, the opposite of where he’d told Compton they were.
“Why not take the deputies’ car?” she asked.
“I didn’t have time to search for the key. Besides, how far do you think we’d get in that? We’d probably meet first responders on the road to the highway. Or the shooter, expecting that’s what we’d do. Either way, we’re better off in the woods on foot.”
He realized that was easy for him to say. Elle’s stride, being much shorter than his, required her to take more steps, but she kept pace. Barely. Because they were weaving their way through the pine forest, where the trees grew straight and so close together their trunks resembled a stockade. The forest floor was inherently hazardous because of undergrowth, woodsy debris, and uneven terrain.
It would have been rough going in broad daylight. But it was dark. And, as if the gods weren’t heckling them already, it had begun to drizzle.
Elle had become short of breath, but she said, “I feel like we’re deserting Dawn. What do you think happened to her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You think she’s dead, don’t you?”
“Maybe she ran like we did, got across the clearing, and into the woods to hide. Maybe she was wounded and unconscious. Or maybe she was unable to answer when I called to her because she knew if she did, she’d be giving away her position to the shooter. There is an endless number of possibilities.”
Behind him Elle stopped so suddenly he lost his grip on her hand. He turned quickly. She was standing upright. Rigid, actually, her hands balled into fists at her sides. “Dawn is dead, isn’t she? That’s what you really think.”
He placed his hands on her shoulders and squeezed them firmly. “Yes. I think the odds are good.” He dipped his knees to bring himself eye level with her. “I don’t want the same to happen to you, to us. Which is why we had to leave and why we have to keep going.”
“Oh, I’ll keep going. I swore to myself, to Charlie, that I would do everything within my power to get justice for him, even if I die in the process.” She raised her fists and beat them against Calder’s chest. “Why can’t they catch him?”
He hoped no one was on their trail because her shout, bouncing off every solid tree trunk, would have echoed its way back to the house. Not that he blamed her for her rage.
“He’ll be caught, but I don’t want you to die in the process.” He pulled her to him and hugged her tightly but released her immediately and reached for her hand again. “We’ve got to keep moving.”
He’d hated leaving without knowing Dawn Whitley’s fate just as badly as Elle did, but he had no guarantee that the gunman had fled. He might only have been trying to make it look like he had in order to draw them out.
But whether he was behind them or not, Calder knew for certain that lawmen were, those who’d promised them sanctuary, failed to provide it, and yet pledged it again. Screw that.
As earnest as the efforts of Compton and Perkins, Weeks and Sims, and the behind-the-scenes personnel had been, they’d been outclassed, outsmarted, and outgunned by the Fairground shooter.
Shauna’s report had been as tempting as Eve’s apple. He’d gone for it, swiftly and with a vengeance. The boldness of the attack on the safe house was an indication of his resolve. Calder was as resolved—damn the consequences—that he and Elle get away and regroup someplace safe. Or at least safer.
But first he had to get them out of this freaking forest. He wasn’t even certain they were still going in the right direction, and he didn’t want to risk turning on his phone to check. He didn’t share that worry with Elle, though. Her breathing had become increasingly labored.
He wasn’t overexerted yet, but with every step, he repeated the name that Compton had tossed out to him. Apparently she thought it would mean something to him, but it didn’t. In his mind, it was like a roulette ball that spun and bounced around the wheel but never found a pocket in which to land.
He had a disturbing intuition that he was running from that, too.
The cool front that had ushered in the precipitation had also caused the temperature to drop. The drizzle had become a steady rain, which made their footing riskier and obstacles in their path more difficult to see and avoid.
One of those obstacles caused Elle to stumble. She caught herself before she fell, but when he stopped and turned to check on her, she panted, “How much farther?”
“Not much. We only had a mile and a half to cover. You good?”
With determination, she nodded and fell into step behind him again. “Do we have a destination?”
“The abandoned filling station Weeks mentioned.”
“It’s probably not even there anymore.”
“The station doesn’t have to be there. Only the road it was on. If we can find the road, do you think your friend would come pick us up?”
