Page 19 of Outlaw Ridge: Jesse
Good because the ditch on his side was half that depth.
“Open your door and get out now and into the ditch,” Jesse ordered. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Lauren didn’t hesitate. She threw open her door, and with the bullets still coming, she scrambled out of the cruiser and into the ditch. As promised, Jesse was right behind her.
It hadn’t rained in days so there was no water in the ditch, only rocks and dirt. Lauren and he landed hard, and Jesse knew they’d have bruises, but it was going to be a hell of a lot worse if they didn’t move away from the cruiser.
Lauren clearly understood the danger because she started a commando crawl back toward Reardon’s house, the only direction they could go and keep cover in the ditch. Jesse was right behind her. They had to move fast and keep watch in case someone came out of those woods and shot them. After all, the shooter might not be working solo. Reardon and Belinda could be doing this.
But why?
There was only one answer that made sense. If Reardon and Belinda were behind this attack, it also meant they were likely behind Abilene’s and Nicky’s abductions.
Hell, maybe Lauren’s, too.
He couldn’t think about that now though. He could only focus on getting them out of there alive.
Lauren and he kept crawling, the rocks and debris digging into their hands and knees. His heart was pounding in his ears. His breath coming out in ragged, fast juts. He tried to tamp both down so he could listen for anyone coming at them.
Jesse and Lauren froze when the shots stopped. Just stopped. They went from the thick noise of the blasts to nothing.
Silence.
And it wasn’t a comforting kind of silence either. It was the kind that sent an icy warning down his spine and tightened his gut into a hard knot.
Maybe, just maybe, their attacker had given up on killing them, but Jesse doubted that. There wasn’t the howl of sirens yet. Nothing to indicate that backup was only a few seconds out.
Nothing to get their attacker running.
Not yet. But Jesse decided to do something about that. He couldn’t fire into those woods because he could end up hitting someone who just happened to be driving by on the main road. But he lifted his gun toward the sky.
“Cover your ears,” he warned Lauren.
Once she’d done that, he fired. The shot roared through the air, and he lowered his gun. Waiting. Listening.
And Jesse soon heard something.
A rustle came from the tree line directly across from them. Footsteps. Jesse raised his weapon, taking aim, finger steady on the trigger. He heard another sound but couldn’t pinpoint the location. Not at first anyway.
Then, there was more movement. But not closer. Damn it. The person was running away.
Cursing, Lauren levered herself up, no doubt to try to figure out how to stop this asshole who’d just tried to murder them. But there were no more footsteps.
However, there was another sound.
A gunshot.
Followed by a deafening blast as the cruiser exploded into a fireball.
Chapter Eight
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Lauren looked at her house when Jesse pulled to a stop in her driveway. As usual, she’d left the porch light on when she’d gone to work that morning so the place wasn’t totally dark. But it didn’t look especially inviting either. It felt like another place of shadows where an attacker could hide.
Snap out of it, she warned herself.
She was a cop, not an eighteen year old girl coming out of a salon and about to be kidnapped. She could protect herself despite her shaky nerves disagreeing with that.
