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The rear vehicle surged again. The hood aimed for one corner of her SUV. And made contact. The back tires of the SUV fishtailed off to one side. Jocelyn jerked in her seat as she lost control of the steering wheel. Maverick’s howl registered a split second before the tires caught on something off the side of the road.
Momentum flipped the SUV.
Her stomach shot into her throat as gravity took hold. The seat belt cut into her injured shoulder just before the crash slammed her head forward. Dirt, glass and metal protested, cutting off Maverick’s pain-filled cry.
The SUV rolled again. Then settled upside down.
“Maverick.” His name mixed with blood in her mouth. He didn’t answer. Jocelyn pressed one hand into the ceiling of the vehicle. Glass cut into her palm, and the seat belt had her pinned. The rearview mirror was gone. She couldn’t see him in the cargo area. Visceral helplessness cascaded through her as she clawed for the release. No. No. Maverick wasn’t dead. Flashes of that phone call, of the moment when she’d learned she hadn’t been there for Miles before his death, were superimposed onto the present. All her husband had wanted in his last moments had been to be with her. And she hadn’t been there. But she would be there for Maverick. She couldn’t lose him. She couldn’t lose the last piece of her husband. “I’m coming, baby.”
Her shoulder screamed against the pressure of the seat belt. She jabbed her thumb into the release.
Jocelyn hit the roof of the SUV harder than she expected. The bullet wound took the brunt of her weight as she tried to dig her legs out from under the steering wheel. Pure agony rippled pins and needles down into her hand. If she hadn’t lost function of her arm before, she had now. Swallowing the scream working up her throat, Jocelyn rolled onto her back. “Come on, Mav.”
A car door slammed, distorting the hard pound of her heart at the back of her head. Followed by footsteps.
Not Baker.
Alpine Valley’s chief of police would never put someone’s life in danger. Jocelyn reached for her sidearm but came up empty. The impact must’ve ripped it free of her holster. She reached overhead and patted her hand over the bottom of the driver’s seat. It wasn’t there. Her training kicked in. Tucking her arm into her chest, she wormed her way between the front two seats. She had an entire arsenal at her disposal in the back with Maverick. She just had to—
The back passenger side door ripped open. Sunlight blinded her a split second before rough hands wrapped around her ankles and pulled her from the SUV.
Her attacker threw her from the vehicle.
Head snapping back, Jocelyn tried to roll with the force. She landed face down, her arm pinned beneath her. Trying to suck in a full breath, she caught sight of a shadow casting above her.
“And here I thought you’d be happy to see me.” The voice played at the edges of her mind—the same voice she’d heard right before she’d taken a bullet in Marc De Leon’s compound. “I understand. I mean, it’s not like we’re friends, but I am doing you and that chief of yours a favor.”
She blinked against the spider webs clinging to the sides of her vision. Dirt worked into her mouth, down her throat with every inhale, but all she had attention for was the SUV. And the pool of gasoline leaking down the side. Jocelyn stretched one hand out to pull herself forward. One spark. That was all it would take for her to lose everything. “Maverick.”
A heavy boot crushed her fingers into the dry earth. “Come on now, Carville. You and I both know this has been a long time coming.”
The pool of gasoline was growing bigger beneath the vehicle, and there was no sign of Maverick. She had to go. Now. Jocelyn jerked her body to one side, dislodging his pin on her hand. She grabbed for a rock protruding out of the ground and swung at his shin as hard as she could.
The impact knocked the son of a bitch off his feet.
She ran for the SUV.
A bullet ripped past her ear and lodged into the hood of the vehicle ahead. Then another. The third shot missed her by mere centimeters as she skidded behind the hood. Pressing her back to the front tires, she tried to get her bearings.
“You have nowhere to go, Carville, and you’re wasting my time.” His footsteps registered again. This time slower. More careful. As though he was trying to hide his approach.
Jocelyn inched to the back of the vehicle, trying to get a line on the bastard’s location through the bulletproof windows. Unfortunately, the coating only made things worse. She couldn’t see through them from the outside. Her body demanded rest as she pulled as the back driver’s side door.
“There you are.” A gun barrel cut into her scalp from behind. “On your feet. Slow. You reach for anything, and the next bullet goes in your head.”
How had he moved without her noticing? Jocelyn raised her hands in surrender. She cut her attention to the Alpine Valley patrol vehicle parked twenty feet away. A police officer? “Who are you?”
“Let’s just say your chief isn’t the only one who wants the cartel to pay for what they’ve done,” he said. “What better way than to frame Sangre por Sangre for your murder?”
“Chief Halsey is smarter than that.” Movement registered from the inside the SUV, and her heart shot into her throat. Maverick.
“He may be, but what do you think will happen once Socorro discovers you’re dead?” the bomber asked. “Do you think your team will listen to him, or will they pull in every available resource at the government’s disposal to put Sangre por Sangre down for good?”
Doubt crept through her.
“That’s what this has been all about? Dismantling the cartel?” Baker had been right. This entire investigation had been a cloaked frame job from the beginning. Jocelyn followed the motion of the attacker’s weapon, taking that initial step toward the patrol vehicle. All this time, they’d been working for the same end goal. “That’s what Alpine Valley PD and Socorro have been trying to accomplish. We’re on the same side.”
“Yet the cartel somehow still operates without consequences. They raid and kill and take what they want without answering for what they’ve done.” A hardness that sent a chill down her spine added pressure to the gun at her skull. “But with you, I can do what nobody else has been able to.”
