Page 43 of Lone Star Showdown

No, but the camera wouldn’t pick up something like a tractor left on a side trail that could be used to block the road. This new van was probably bullet-resistant, but she had seen the shots get through the window of Jericho’s other one.

Rafe’s phone buzzed, and he immediately got a concerned look. “That’ll be Bree,” he muttered.

Rachel could tell from his expression and tone that this wasn’t an expected call. Mercy. Something could have gone wrong.

He answered it, and even though it wasn’t on speaker, Rachel saw his concerned expression deepen. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Rachel held her breath, waiting until Rafe ended the call.

“Someone set a fire in the parking lot at the police station,” Rafe finally said. “A big one, fueled by a barrel of spilled gasoline. Bree and the deputies can’t get to the cruisers.”

So, they wouldn’t have response vehicles. “The killer must have done that. Or Arnez,” she added.

The words had hardly left her mouth when she saw something burst on the screen. Not fire. But a gray ashy smoke that blasted into the windshield of the van.

“Jericho,” she shouted, watching as the van flew up into the air.

Not for long. It landed, silently, on the screen. But hard. Tossing the van from side to side. Then, the feed stopped.

Just stopped.

And the screen turned black.

Chapter Fifteen

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Jericho cursed the shovel of dirt that hit him in the face. He cursed the tangle of thoughts in his head, too, because that tangle was stopping him from thinking straight.

Yeah, he was about to die. He got that part.

But where the hell were Marco and Rayna?

And Rachel?

Was she all right?

Jericho hoped she was still safe back at his place, but again, he didn’t know for sure. The last thing he remembered was…what? An explosion.

Yes, that.

He thought it’d been from someone launching a grenade at them because it’d damn sure felt like a combat situation. The van had gone airborne and crashed back onto the asphalt.

Hard.

The airbags had deployed, but that hadn’t stopped the jarring impact of being slammed on the ground. The bags also hadn’t stopped the huge chunk of debris tearing through the reinforced glass. Something metal, likely from the hood. It’d flown right across the top of Jericho’s shoulder, cutting him in nearly the same spot as the bullet graze had the night of the Stronghold attack.

Despite the injury, Jericho had bolted out of the van, ready to shoot the person who’d caused this shitstorm. Ready to neutralize him before he could go after Rayna and Marco as well.

But Jericho had gotten off no shot.

That’s when someone had hit him with the stun gun, the kind with the barbed electrodes that had come at him from at least fifteen feet away. He’d reacted the only way his body could react. Within three seconds, by the time it’d taken him to fall, he’d lost control of his muscles and hadn’t been able to do squat to defend himself.

His attacker had taken advantage of that, too, and had punched him in the kidney. Kicked him, too, in the head. Then, the world had gone dark, and Jericho had woken up with some asshole digging his grave.

As the tangle of thoughts and images started to clear some, he looked up at the person who was about to dump another shovel full of dirt into the grave. The man wearing combat gear and a balaclava. He was pretty sure he knew who this was, but at the moment, the identity didn’t matter nearly as much as Jericho getting free.

The asshole had made a mistake by tying Jericho’s hands in front of him, but that was about the only mistake he’d made. The rest had gone very much to the asshole’s advantage, especially if he’d managed to neutralize Rayna and Marco. Maybe he’d stunned them, too, and tied them up.

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