Cover Me (Elite Force #1)(31)
Author: Catherine Mann

She braced herself for the first blast of morning air as she stepped outside. Chewie whimpered beside her.

Her gloved hand fell to her dog’s head. “I know, buddy. It’ll be okay.”

Waiting by the garage as Wade rolled up the door and headed in to warm the engine, she looked up at the morning sky to blink away surprising tears. Blues and purples blurred together as the morning fought the night for dominance. The world was waking slowly around her with the echo of engines running, other dogs barking in the distance. The scent of coffee carried from the mom-and-pop diner across the street. A snowplow chugged and she stepped out of the way to avoid the slosh of sludge.

The world was so damn normal. Busier than her kind of normal, but still… Things felt safe here. Nice.

Chewie whined again, tugging on her jacket, pulling toward the house again.

“I know it’s cold. We’ll be in the truck in a minute. See”—she pointed—“here comes Wade now.”

The midnight blue Chevy backed from the garage, stopping, idling. Wade launched out of his side and walked to hers. The quaint, gentlemanly gesture stabbed at her already tender heart. She started toward the vehicle.

Chewie growled lowly, a feral, fierce sound she’d only heard once before when she’d come across a baby bear by a melting pond. Muscles bunched under his thick fur with only a second’s warning that he was about to—

Bolt.

Her dog raced across the icy road in a blur of black-and-white. Straight toward a man across the street, an anonymous blob of parka with a huge hood shading his face as he stood in front of the diner. He looked like countless other people bundled up, but the full facial covering seemed suddenly sinister.

If Chewie attacked—her sweet gentle pet that had never hurt a soul—he might well sign his own death warrant.

“No!” she screamed for her dog, to the man, desperate to stop the horror unfolding inexplicably before her. “Chewie, come!”

A car turned the corner by the diner, fishtailing, sliding straight toward her dog. Without thinking, she shot forward, her boots slipping, but she wasn’t going down. She waved her arms, trying to snag the driver’s attention, warn her dog, do something to stop this nightmare from unfolding.

Two big hands—Wade’s—stopped her short and she toppled backward into the slush, helpless to do anything but watch as he sprinted forward, toward her dog. In front of the car. The world merged into sounds and shapes.

Squealing brakes.

Chewie’s cry.

Wade’s big body diving through the air toward the dog.

He knocked Chewie out of the way just as the bulk of the rusted red sedan blocked all else from sight as it slid sideways. Out of control. Careening straight for the man in the oversized parka. The scream froze in Sunny’s throat as she stared across the street at the terror-filled eyes of a man realizing he was about to die.

The eyes of a man she knew.

Chaotic noise echoed, crunching metal and the horrible sound of flesh meeting death as the sedan flung the man’s body into the air before crashing through the facade of the breakfast shop. Then silence. Across the street, Wade unwrapped himself from around her dog. Thank God, thank God, both still alive.

Her eyes darted to the middle of the road where the other man lay, his legs twisted at an unnatural angle, his hood back. His face was clear. She sunk onto her haunches, stunned, horrified. It hadn’t been her imagination. She stared in shock at the familiar face, the last one she expected to see ever again. Only a hand’s reach away from her lay…

The dead body of Deputy Rand Smith.

Chapter 9

Rolling to rest against an icy stop sign, Wade shook his head clear. Adrenaline stinging his veins, he scoured the growing crowd for Sunny. Her dog’s heart pounded steadily under his hand as the mutt sat up carefully. No blood. Just chunks of snow in Chewie’s fur. Not surprising, since Wade’s cheek stung from contact

with the ice.

He worked his own shoulder gingerly and all seemed intact as he shoved to his feet, still searching the swelling throng. And there she was, holding onto a telephone pole, pale but in one piece. He reeled with relief.

Thank God. He hadn’t realized until that moment that his heart was lodged somewhere in his throat. He never, never lost his edge in a crisis. His job demanded cool and calm. He forced his pulse to steady.

The wrecked car jutted from the mom-and-pop diner, steam from the hood encompassing the scene. Bricks and glass littered the sidewalk. People poured through the door, pulling on coats, some crying.

Professional instincts kicked in. He needed to check for injured bystanders. Onlookers had circled in the middle of the street, usually a sign of something bad. He shouldered through the gawking throng, parting the crush one determined step at a time.

“Coming through. I’m a medic. Step aside, please.”

The wall of people parted to reveal… a man in massive snow gear lying on the iced road. The individual appeared to be in his thirties, and not likely to get any older. His neck and left leg were twisted at an unnatural angle.

And the corpse’s blue eyes stared sightlessly at the morning sky. Damn. Wade dropped to his knees to check for a pulse, already knowing he wouldn’t find one. No matter how many times he faced death, it still resonated in his gut.

Even CPR couldn’t bring this one back.

Shooting to his feet, he shifted his attention to the vehicle in the diner. Two people were closing in on the teenaged driver already stepping out of the car, one of the individuals wearing a firefighter’s uniform. The firefighter must have been having breakfast before or after her shift. Either way, the gangly teenage driver—who ironically didn’t appear to have a scratch on him—was being taken care of.

Now that the pressing need for action had passed, he wondered. Why had Chewie run toward this guy? Wade stared closer at the face and while something tugged at him, he couldn’t place where he’d seen the guy before.

Sunny’s hand fell to rest on his shoulder, jolting him. He clasped her hand before turning.

He stared up, into her horrified eyes. “Sunny?”

“The deputy who shot at us”—she pointed toward the lifeless body on the road—“on the mountain. It’s him.”

The deputy? What the hell? They were hundreds of miles away—and an airplane ride to boot—from where they’d seen him last on the mountain. Why would he be here, across the street from where Sunny just happened to be staying, unless he was tracking her?

Wade’s gaze zipped to the lifeless man who shouldn’t even be in this region at all, much less hanging out a few yards away from Sunny. “We need to get to base and talk to the OSI, now. Remember the thing I said you needed to know?”