Nightfall (5 page)

“
I know, I know. We’ve got
to move fast. So, what’s this about Ice Man? You said you have an
ID?”

“
Slater.”

“
Who?”

“
Tom Slater. I think he’s
our guy.”

“
You think
Sheriff
Slater is the Ice
Man?”

“
He matches the witness
description to a T,” Colin said. “And besides, it makes sense. We
know Ice Man’s connected. We know he knows Hooks. And we know he
somehow manages to get word to Lopez’s crew every time a major drug
seizure is about to go down.”

“
But they had a big bust
there just last week.”

“
Yeah,
Slater
had a big bust. He’s the only
cop in three counties who’s managed to make a seizure in the last
two years. Lopez probably handed it to him on a silver platter in
exchange for looking the other way on everything else—like the
weapons trafficking going on right under his nose.”

“
This is the sheriff we’re
talking about,” Bruce said, still sounding unconvinced.

“
Think about it,” Colin
said. “It makes everything fit.” And it also put Holly smack dab in
the middle of a sensitive investigation.

“
Who’s this witness again?
You said she’s from Bozeman?”

“
She’s a florist up here
doing a wedding,” Colin said, growing increasingly worried as he
considered the problem. Holly had reported the shooting last night,
which meant the sheriff’s office knew exactly who she was, right
down to her home address.

She wasn’t safe in
Bozeman—not if Ice Man and the sheriff were one and the
same.

Colin scanned the area,
looking for a pretty brunette in an oversized leather jacket. Where
the hell was she? His gaze landed on the glassed-in reception room
with a view of the waterfall that gave the town its name. He
spotted the wedding coordinator just outside the door.
Tuxedo-wearing staffers were rushing in and out, setting things
up.

Well, they were going to
have to do the rest without Holly. She wasn’t going to like it, but
that was too bad.

“
I need to go,” Colin said.
“I need to get Holly out of here.”

“
Who?”

“
The witness.”

Brakes squealed and Colin
turned around. A gray Tahoe peeled away from the building and went
roaring down the drive.

Chapter Four

Holly bit down on the gag,
fighting the urge to retch at the sour taste of it. Her cheek was
pressed against the cold floor of the vehicle and a heavy weight on
her legs prevented her from moving.

“
I’ll be at the juncture in
ten minutes,” the man said to someone over the phone. Holly
strained to listen over the pounding of her heart. “What the hell
do you think? I couldn’t just pop her there in the
driveway.”

They hit a bump and Holly’s
head knocked against metal. She stifled a reaction. She didn’t want
this man—the same guy who’d approached her in the parking lot
yesterday—knowing she was awake. If he thought she was still out
cold, she’d have a better chance of doing… something. She didn’t
know what yet, but she was desperately trying to put together a
plan.

Why hadn’t she had her guard
up? When she’d stepped out of the reception room to get the last
load of flowers, she’d heard someone behind her. She’d turned to
look, never expecting to see the man from the parking lot lunging
for her. He’d touched her with something—probably a Taser—and it
was like stepping on a live wire. Next thing she knew, she was
being loaded into a cargo space like a sack of potatoes.

Holly squeezed her eyes shut
and tried to envision her surroundings. The floor was metal. There
were no seats back here, and she was surrounded by bags of animal
feed. But her nose told her there was something else back here,
too. The distinctive scent of gun oil—a smell she’d always
associated with her dad when he’d come back from the firing
range—floated around her, and she knew she was being transported
with a cache of weapons.

Holly’s heart raced. A sour
lump rose up in her throat and she struggled to swallow it down so
it wouldn’t choke her. Obviously, this man was armed. She wasn’t.
And her hands were zip-cuffed behind her back, making it impossible
for her to defend herself. What was she going to do when he got
wherever he was going and opened those doors?

Colin.

She thought of the
determined look on his face when he’d left the cabin last night.
She thought of the easy way he’d handled his gun. Colin could help
her, but she wasn’t even sure he’d realized she was missing
yet.

And her minutes were
numbered. She couldn’t rely on him—she had to come up with
something else.

Another hairpin turn and
Holly slid against something solid. She tried not to fight the
movement. She wanted to look limp and helpless so that maybe—just
maybe—she could take him by surprise.

“
What the—”

The van pitched sideways.
Metal shrieked. Holly’s eyes flew open as they slammed into
something and her body careened against a hard surface.

Curses erupted from the
front. A door squeaked open and she heard shouting
outside.

Holly struggled to sit up
and immediately felt dizzy. Bags of animal feed had fallen on top
of her and she bucked them off.

Rat-tat-tat-tat.

The staccato of automatic
gunfire made her freeze. Who was shooting? Holly crawled to the
cargo door and sat up on her knees so she could reach the latch
with her cuffed hands.

Rat-tat-tat.

Her heart thundered in her
chest as she struggled to pull the latch.

A single shot rang out,
followed by a hail of machine-gun fire.

Colin!
she thought frantically. Did he not realize what he was up
against?

She pressed her weight on
the latch. Suddenly, the door swung open and she tumbled backward
onto the snow-covered ground. She blinked up at the blue sky and
realized she was on an incline and gravity had aided her fall. She
rolled to her knees and looked around.

Rat-tat-tat-tat.

Bang.

The shots were somewhere to
her right—much too close for comfort. Maybe she should have stayed
inside. But if—heaven forbid—her captor managed to kill whoever had
run him off the road, she needed to be far away from here when he
tried to flee.

A flash of metal caught
Holly’s eye. Several guns had slid out when the cargo doors opened.
She spotted something big and black and mean-looking. A
nickel-plated pistol. And a pair of handguns that looked just like
her dad’s.

Rat-tat-tat.

Holly leaned sideways
awkwardly and picked up one of the handguns. She had no idea if it
was even loaded, but at least it was something. She looked at her
surroundings. The empty road offered no cover. There were some
woods to her right, but that was where the shots were coming
from.

Holly glanced at the road
again and decided to risk it. She struggled to her feet and darted
across the highway.

***

The flutter of movement
caught Colin’s eye as Holly sprinted across the road.

Rat-tat-tat.

He heard a high-pitched yelp
as she dove into the ditch.

Christ, what was she
thinking?

“
Holly,
stay down!
”

Colin steadied his arms on
the hood of his truck and took aim at the shooter’s hide. He nailed
the tree, but the bullet didn’t penetrate.

A flash of muzzle fire to
the left. Shit, he’d moved. Colin lined up another shot and hoped
to hell Holly would stay low.

Bang.

Another hail of gunfire, and
Colin knew his truck was quickly turning to Swiss cheese. This guy
was using heavy artillery. He was making his way to the Suburban,
too, because his Tahoe was clearly out of commission. Colin knew
the shooter’s plan, because it was the same plan he would use if he
were stranded out here with a fleet of feds on the way—he was going
to make a dash for Colin’s vehicle, kill anyone who got in his way,
and hightail it out of here. It was a good plan—and backed up by
machine guns, it was a great one. Colin was down to two bullets—not
even a spare magazine because he was in one of the ranch vehicles
instead of his truck.

Rat-tat-tat-tat.

This storm of bullets was
directed at Holly, and Colin felt a swell of anger.

“
Holly,
keep low!
”

The gunfire shifted toward
him. Glass shattered on the side of the Suburban.

“
Turn yourself in, Slater!
Every fed in the state is converging on this location!”

It was an outright lie.
Colin’s team was fifteen minutes away, and it consisted of two
people. Unless they got their hands on a helicopter—highly
unlikely—they wouldn’t get here in time. Meanwhile, the real
cavalry was in Missoula, plotting another sting operation that was
never going to happen.

Two rounds. Colin considered
his options. He could slink away from the Suburban, and Slater
would probably be deep into Canada by nightfall. Or Colin could try
to stall him and hope for backup.

He glanced at the ditch
where Holly was hiding. A hush fell over the woods. The only sound
was his own heartbeat.

Had she been shot? Was she
dead right now or bleeding out in the ditch while he stood here
less than fifty feet away?

A flash of green.
Score!
Slater had given
away his location—which was much closer than Colin
expected.

But now, Colin had the
advantage. He had two shots left, and he intended to use
them.

***

Holly lay on her side in the
snow, contorting herself into a pretzel. She had to get her hands
in front of her. Without her hands, she was defenseless. She
squirmed and strained, doing her best to keep her head down as she
frantically attempted to squeeze her legs through the loop of her
arms.

Another burst of gunfire had
her heart leaping into her throat.
Colin.
The fact that he didn’t return
fire couldn’t be good. He was either out of ammunition or
wounded.

Bang.

Rat-tat-tat.

Bang.

And then nothing. Only
silence.

Holly held her breath,
waiting for something—anything—that would indicate which man was
still standing.

A car door squeaked and then
slammed. She heard a noisy growl as someone gunned the engine.
Tires squealed as the Suburban sped away.

“
Holly!
”

And then he was there, in
the ditch with her. He tugged loose the gag.

“
God, you’re bleeding. Are
you okay?” He had a pocketknife in his hand and reached to cut her
bindings.

“
What happened? Is he gone?”
Holly jerked her hands free and scampered to the top of the ditch.
She peered down the road, where the white Suburban was shrinking
from view.

She grabbed the pistol from
the ground and scrambled to her feet. “Quick! He’s getting
away!”

“
Holly, look at me! Are you
hit?”

She squinted down the barrel
and fired. The truck veered left sharply. It careened off the road
and flipped into the ditch.

“
Holy shit! You hit him.”
Colin looked at her with disbelief. Then he glanced at her gun
“Where did you get that thing?”

Holly’s answer was drowned
out by a noisy
whump-whump
overhead. They both looked up as a helicopter
suddenly appeared above the treeline.

“
Who’s that?” she yelled
above the noise.

Colin turned and smiled at
her. “Reinforcements.”

Chapter Five

Holly added the last
snapdragon to the vase and stepped back to study her work. Not bad,
considering. At least the customer hadn’t wanted roses. They were
the ultimate Valentine’s cliché, and Holly liked it when men asked
for something with a little more flair.

The cowbell on the door
rattled and Holly shivered at the icy blast of air.

“
I’ll be right with
you.”

“
Take your time.”

She whirled around at the
familiar voice. A wave of excitement washed over her as Colin
stepped up to the counter.

“
What are you doing here?”
she asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

He looked her up and down
with that glint in his eyes she’d been thinking about for months.
“I was in town.” He glanced around the tiny shop, which was
wall-to-wall bouquets. “Just thought I’d drop in, see if you were
busy.”

He stepped closer, and
Holly’s pulse picked up. He was wearing the leather jacket she
remembered. His hair was a bit longer, but he’d shaved recently.
For her? The possibility made her nerves flutter.