“If there’s anything my daddy taught me, it’s shooting a rifle. He was three hundred yards at least. I could tell by the sound and the strength of the impact of the bullet. We need to lose him. Follow me.”
Carter followed without question. Reagan was well versed in keeping out of sight, and he’d trust her with his life to do that now.
22
Robyn had her nose in the air when suddenly her ears went back and she growled. “Did you hear that, girl?” Ahmed asked.
“Hear what?” Cy asked as they came to a stop.
“Rifle shot,” Ahmed said simply.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Will said. They’d just started moving when Ahmed had stopped them.
“It’s too hard to judge where it came from. It could be miles away. But we heard it, didn’t we, Spawn?”
Robyn growled in response and looked off somewhere in the woods before putting her nose in the air and sniffing again. Her short tail went rigid as she found what she was looking for.
“Search,” Ahmed ordered and the rust-colored dog took off down the bank of the stream.
* * *
“Give me a gun,” Gemma ordered. “I left mine in the helicopter.”
“Ma’am, I can’t give you a police-issued weapon,” Deputy Tanner said again with his hands on his hips.
“I may have some locked in the ladies’ club across the street. Let me check,” Agnes called out cheerfully before hurrying out the door. Gemma rolled her eyes. It was six-thirty and Gemma wanted to get to the woods before daylight. She looked out the window of the police station into the twilight and saw Agnes using a key to unlock a door across the street. A second later she straightened with a rifle in her hands.
Right now she didn’t care that a granny had a gun. In Keeneston, it was commonplace and apparently it was in Moonshine as well. The Rose sisters looked hung over but surprisingly spry for so early in the morning.
“Here you go, dear,” Agnes called out as she entered the police station with the rifle.
“Thank you,” Gemma said with a sign of relief. The weapon looked brand-new.
“Here you go, ma’am,” Dale said, handing her a box of ammo. “Do you know how to use this?”
Gemma leveled a glare at him, and Dale quickly stepped back. Members of the Mountaineers club were on hand along with some older men and women of town. The men were going to help in the search while the women were providing food, water, and communications.
“We will break into three groups. Each group will be headed up by either FBI Agent Ryan Parker, Kentucky State Trooper DeAndre Drews, or me. This is the man, and he’s armed and dangerous,” Luke called out as he held up a picture of Mick. “Stay away from him and let law enforcement engage him if it comes to that. Our main objective is to find Reagan Davies and Carter Ashton.” Luke held up their pictures next and passed all three pictures around.
“Agnes and Vilma have the map, and you’ll report back to them with your locations every ten minutes,” Luke stated as he pointed to the path Carter and Reagan had taken. “There’s a group following with a dog here. And we believe Mick was last tracked here. As you see, they’re all coming toward us. Let’s give them a warm welcome. Let’s go,” Luke called out.
Gemma was out the door and hopping into the back of Dale’s pickup before Luke called out. “Gemma!’
“We’ll meet you there,” Gemma called out as she leaned over and offered her hand to Kenna. “Let’s go, Dale!”
The truck roared to life, filled with people from Dale’s club, and took off down the road. Soon. She’d have her baby in her arms soon.
* * *
Reagan’s chest burned. Her ankle felt as if it were on fire. But she didn’t stop running. She couldn’t stop running. Behind her, Carter followed and Miss Mambo trotted along. She didn’t know how long they’d been running, but she couldn’t take it anymore. Her ankle buckled, and she went down hard. Her knees hit first and then her palms scraped against the dirt path.
“Rea!” Carter called out as he and Miss Mambo slid to a stop behind her. “Are you okay?”
Reagan rolled onto her back and breathed in deeply. She couldn’t let her ankle stop her. She had to keep going. “I’m fine. Just tripped is all.”
Carter stooped down to the ground and felt her ankle. “Does this hurt?” he asked as he pressed on it. It hurt like hell, but Reagan shook her head.
“No, it’s fine. We need to go downstream some. Then we’ll cross back and forth weaving in and out of the deeper forest. But first, see that kudzu over there? We need to get as much of it as possible.”
Reagan followed Carter over to the tree covered in the leafy vine and began pulling. As large strips of vines fell, Reagan gathered them up and brought them over to Miss Mambo. Slowly she worked the vines down the mare’s neck and around her belly. By the time she was through, the horse looked like a walking bush.
Carter followed her to the stream next. Reagan bent down and scooped up mud from the shallow water’s edge and smeared it on her face, arms, and shirt. “You do it too. We need to blend in as much as possible. It’ll make us a harder target.”
Carter nodded, grabbed the mud and covered himself as Reagan attempted to cross the stream. The water seemed calm. Reagan could hear the waterfall they had passed and hoped the worse of the quick-flowing water was past them. Making her way slowly across, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Come on, it’s clear.”
Carter and Miss Mambo made their way across until it was time to run again. Reagan quickly took in the landscape, noting the best positions for hiding, the best locations for sniper fire, and the best paths to take down the mountain. There was no hiding it now. Mick would know they were headed to the valley. If he wasn’t right behind them, he would be trying to get ahead of them. It was up to Reagan to make sure she didn’t lead them into an ambush.
“Rea . . . Reagan!” Carter hissed after another long spell of jogging. “What if Mick is waiting for us?”
She’d been thinking the same thing, but she didn’t think Carter would figure out what she was doing as she constantly looked for ambushes. “I’ve thought about that.”
“I’ve been thinking about that too. He knows we’re following the stream, so why don’t we use that against him. He may know where we are going, but he doesn’t know how we are going to get there.”
“Unless he’s tracking us from behind,” Reagan pointed out. Which brought her back to the problem at hand. They didn’t know where Mick was.
“Let’s go into the woods, get a weapon or two, and head downhill through the deeper woods. We’d blend in more, and hopefully if he’s moved ahead of us, we won’t meet him downstream.”
“Unless he’s tracking us from behind. Which he has been doing the whole time. But the weapons are a good idea,” Reagan told him as they continued down the deer path at a slower pace.
“We can’t take the time to stop. We need to keep moving. I’ll go into the woods and see what I can find. You and Miss Mambo keep walking. I’ll arc around and meet you down the path in fifteen minutes. Okay?” Carter began looking around.
Reagan hated to admit it, but she didn’t like the idea of being separated from Carter. She liked being unarmed even less. “Sounds good. Whistle like a bird before you come out so I know it’s you.”
Carter handed her the vine attached to Miss Mambo and leaned forward to press a quick kiss to Reagan’s lips. “I love you. I will be back. And I will marry you before the day is out.”
Reagan’s lips tilted up into a smile as Carter took off into the woods. “Come on, girl,” she said to Miss Mambo. “We have a wedding to plan.”