Chapter 5 - Three Seconds to Save His DaughterGavin moved before Harlan could fire.
He tore open the driver's door, pulled Lily through the gap between the seats, and rolled with her behind the frozen bank just as a gunshot shattered the rear window.
Glass sprayed across the seat.
Lily clung to him, sobbing into his jacket.
"Daddy! Daddy!"
"I'm here, baby. I'm here."
He pressed her against the earth, covering her with his body.
A second shot struck the metal frame of the vehicle.
Belle ducked low in the passenger seat, her heart hammering so violently she could barely draw breath.
Harlan walked down the slope.
"Mercer!" he shouted. "This doesn't have to end badly!"
Gavin drew his revolver.
"Then put the gun down!"
Harlan laughed.
"You always were a difficult man."
"You killed my wife."
The deputy stopped.
Snow swirled between them.
For the first time, Harlan's expression changed. Not fear, exactly. Something closer to irritation, as if Gavin had brought up an inconvenient subject in the middle of a business meeting.
"Clara's death was a tragedy."
"You testified that her vehicle lost control on black ice."
"That was the conclusion of the investigation."
"You knew she had stopped at the county records building that night."
Harlan said nothing.
"You knew she was carrying documents from the Whitmore accounts."
Belle looked up sharply.
Gavin had never told her that.
Harlan's gaze moved toward her.
"She was an accountant," he said. "She had no idea what she was looking at."
"She found payments to your private security company," Gavin replied. "She found them three weeks before she died."
Harlan's mouth twisted.
"Your wife should have stayed out of things that didn't concern her."
Something inside Gavin went cold.
He raised the revolver.
Harlan raised his pistol.
Then Lily made a tiny, frightened sound.
"Daddy, please don't."
Gavin's aim faltered.
That fraction of hesitation saved Harlan from being shot.
It also allowed the deputy to move behind a tree.
Belle used the distraction.
She grabbed the small emergency flare kit from the wrecked vehicle, pulled the ignition cord, and threw the burning flare onto the exposed snowbank.
Red light flooded the creek.
Harlan turned instinctively toward it.
Gavin fired once, hitting the pistol from his hand.
The deputy cursed and stumbled backward.
Gavin seized Lily, sprinted toward the utility vehicle, and shouted, "Belle, move!"
She scrambled from the passenger seat and followed him.
They reached the opposite bank just as the black SUV's driver began descending the slope.
Gavin opened the utility vehicle's rear hatch, pulled out a heavy recovery chain, and hooked it around the frame of an old tree.
"Get Lily behind that boulder!" he shouted.
Belle limped toward the rocks with the child in her arms.
Gavin returned to the vehicle and attached the other end of the chain to the SUV's front axle as it approached.
The driver saw what he was doing too late.
Gavin accelerated.
The chain snapped taut.
The old utility vehicle lurched forward, while the black SUV was yanked sideways into a snowbank. Its wheels spun uselessly.
Gavin abandoned the vehicle and ran.
A man emerged from the SUV carrying a rifle.
Belle froze.
The man aimed toward the boulder.
Toward Lily.
Belle did not think.
She grabbed a fist-sized rock and threw it at his head.
It struck his cheek.
He swore, staggered, and turned toward her.
Gavin hit him from the side.
They crashed into the snow. The rifle flew out of reach. The attacker struck Gavin twice before Gavin drove a shoulder into his chest and forced him onto his back.
Years of rescue work had taught Gavin how to restrain panicked climbers without breaking their bones. Years of grief had taught him how to keep moving when exhaustion begged him to stop.
He twisted the man's arm behind him and pinned him against the frozen ground.
"Who sent you?"
The man spat blood into the snow.
"You think this is about the woman?"
Gavin pressed harder.
"Who sent you?"
The man's eyes shifted toward Lily.
"Ask your daughter what the nice man told her."
Gavin looked up.
Belle stood beside the boulder, holding Lily tightly. The little girl was crying, but she appeared unharmed.
"What did he tell you?" Gavin demanded.
The man smiled.
"That she had a father who couldn't protect her."
Gavin struck him once, hard enough to end the smile.
Then he heard an engine.
The pickup that had blocked the road was descending the slope toward them.
Harlan had reached it.
The deputy was driving straight toward Belle and Lily.
Gavin released the attacker, raced across the creek bank, and grabbed the utility vehicle's door handle. He wrenched it open and reached for the steering wheel.
The vehicle slid sideways.
For a moment, Gavin thought they were all going to die beneath its tires.
Then the pickup slammed into the stranded black SUV instead.
Metal shrieked.
The pickup spun, struck a tree, and stopped with its front end buried in snow.
Gavin ran toward it.
The driver's door opened.
Harlan staggered out, clutching his ribs.
He looked at Gavin with an expression of absolute hatred.
"You have no idea what you've stepped into."
Gavin grabbed him by the collar.
"Then explain it."
Harlan laughed, breathless and bitter.
"You think saving her makes you a hero? That woman is the reason people like your wife die."
Belle had reached them.
She stopped so abruptly that her injured ankle nearly gave way.
"What did you say?"
Harlan looked at her.
"Ask Marcus why your father kept paying the Mercer account after Clara's death."
Gavin's grip loosened.
The words made no sense.
His wife had never worked for Whitmore Dynamics. She had never met Belle, according to everything Gavin knew.
Yet Harlan was staring at them both as if he had finally uncovered the missing piece of a puzzle.
Before Gavin could question him further, Harlan reached inside his coat.
Gavin slammed him against the pickup.
A small black device clattered onto the snow.
It was a remote detonator.
Belle saw it.
Her face went white.
The black SUV began to beep.
Once.
Twice.
Then a third time.
Gavin grabbed Lily and ran toward the creek bank.
Belle followed, stumbling through the snow.
The explosion threw a wall of heat and shattered glass across the clearing.
They hit the ground behind the boulder.
For several seconds, there was nothing but ringing in Gavin's ears and the sound of Lily crying.
He lifted his head.
The black SUV had become a burning shell.
Harlan was gone.
So was the man Gavin had tackled.
The deputy's pickup remained wedged against the tree, its driver's door hanging open.
On the snow beside it lay something small and silver.
Gavin picked it up.
A watch.
He recognized the engraved initials immediately.
C.M.
Clara Mercer.
It had disappeared from his wife's body after the accident.
He had searched the hospital, the wreckage, and every box of her belongings.
Now, three years later, it lay at his feet.
Belle stared at it.
"How could Harlan have that?"
Gavin closed his fist around the watch.
His grief had once been a house he refused to leave.
Now it was a weapon someone had placed in his hands.
He looked toward the forest, where Harlan's footprints disappeared into the storm.
"Because," Gavin said, "my wife's death was never an accident."
His phone vibrated.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph of a dark underground room.
Lily's pink backpack sat on a metal table.
Beneath it, the message read:
YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT TO HAND OVER BELLE WHITMORE.
AFTER THAT, WE TAKE WHAT YOU LOVE MOST.
Gavin looked at his daughter.
Then he looked at Belle.
She was watching him with the dawning horror of someone who had finally understood the true scale of the danger.
The men hunting her had not merely discovered Gavin's family.
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They had been watching it for years.
And somewhere beneath the Colorado mountains, someone had built a plan that connected her company, his wife's death, and a little girl who had done nothing except trust her father.
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