Justice Delayed (Memphis Cold Case #1)(97)

“Think we’ll need that?” Maggie asked as they climbed out.

“I’d rather be prepared than not.”

Maggie held her phone up in the air. “And maybe I can get a signal outside of the car. I’d like to call David and let him know where we are.”

They both walked to the front of the car. A few yards away, a piece of brush blocked their path. As Andi bent over to move it, something whizzed over her head, then she heard the crack of a rifle.

“Get down, Maggie!” Andi dropped to the ground and crawled to where Maggie was hunkered beside the wheel.

“Who’s shooting?” she whispered.

“I don’t know.” Blood pounded in Andi’s head. If she hadn’t bent to pick up the brush, she’d be dead. They crawled to the side of the car. It wouldn’t offer much protection. “I don’t have a good feeling about it. Any chance it might have been a hunter?”

“In April?” Maggie’s voice was shaky.

For the first time in her life, Andi was really scared. They were trapped on a mountain with someone firing at them. Brush snapped. “We need to make a run for it in the car. Can you get in the backseat?”

“Yeah! Let’s go for it.”

Maggie scrambled to open the back passenger door as Andi hopped in the driver’s seat and started the car. She threw the car in reverse as a bullet shattered the side window.

The car shot backward and rammed a tree. She yanked it into drive. The wheels spun, burying the back tires in the soft dirt. They were stuck.

“Just get out with your hands where I can see them!”

“What do you want?” Andi yelled. Tremors gripped her stomach. “We’re not trespassing.”

In her peripheral vision, she saw a man dressed in camos and a ski mask lumbering toward them.

“Let’s run for it!” Andi jerked her door open. “You go one way, and I’ll go the other. He can’t chase us both.”

She jumped from the car, and Maggie followed her. The man raised his gun, and Andi ducked behind a huge oak. The bullet thudded into the tree.

“Give up,” he yelled. “You can’t get away.”

She searched for Maggie. She’d dropped to the ground and had almost made it to a thick growth of underbrush. She might have a chance to get away if Andi went in a different direction.

She darted to another tree. The rifle cracked again.

“You want to die in these woods?”

“What do you want?” she yelled.

“Information.”

“You have a funny way of asking for it.” She ran toward another tree and felt the sting in her leg before she heard the gunshot. She stumbled and pitched toward the tree, crashing into it headfirst.

No! She fought the blackness, but it did no good.

When she came to, she blinked, unable to process two men in camouflage with guns. One of them held Maggie prisoner and threw her down beside Andi.

“Told you not to run.”

“You’ve shot her!” Maggie’s tone was indignant as she knelt beside Andi. “Her leg is bleeding.”

“It’s only a flesh wound,” one of the men said. “She’ll live.”

If Andi weren’t in so much pain, she’d kick him with her good leg.

“For now,” the other one said. “Let’s go.”

“I think my leg is broken,” Andi said. It certainly hurt bad enough. The last man’s voice was familiar, but she couldn’t place it. If only they’d take off the ski masks.

One of the men prodded Maggie. “Get her on her feet.”

“Who are you and what do you want?” Maggie asked as she probed Andi’s leg.

Andi bit her lip to keep from crying out when Maggie’s fingers touched the back of her leg.

“Good. It went all the way through and doesn’t seem to have hit an artery.” Maggie gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

“Just shut up and get her up.”

“She shouldn’t walk on it.”

“Well, la-di-da, too bad. We can’t stay here, and our car is over the ridge.”

“Why don’t we take our car?” Andi said. She honestly didn’t think she could walk twenty steps much less back to civilization.

“I think I can get it out,” the taller of the two men said. He handed the rifle to the other man.

She sneaked a better look at him. Tall. Couldn’t tell if he was muscular under the camos, but he had piercing black eyes.

The other guy was a little shorter and broad shouldered. “Well, hurry up,” he said. “I want to get done with this and get out of here before dark.”

The taller man got into the car and rocked it back and forth until it finally pulled forward. He rolled down the window. “There’s a clearing ahead by the river. I’ll turn around there.”

While they waited, their captor took out a roll of tape. “Secure her hands,” he said and reached toward Maggie to hand her the tape.

In a lightning move, Maggie grabbed his shirtsleeve and collar and yanked him forward. Before he could react, she turned and squatted, throwing him over her hip onto the ground. He hit with a thud, and air whooshed out of his lungs.

Andi scrambled for the rifle that he’d dropped. “Good job. Remind me to sign up for one of your classes,” she said. “But you better take this. My leg is killing me, and I might shoot him.”