It was definitely Miranda Duncan, though half of her face was obscured by a sticky sheen of blood that seemed to be coming from the vicinity of her hairline. Gusts of wind carried snow flurries into the cruiser’s cab to settle on the deputy’s bloody face and melt into the crimson flow.
John tried the door. It resisted his attempt to open it, so he let it go and leaned into the cruiser through the window. Swallowing a lump of dread, he touched his fingers to her throat, feeling for a pulse. It was there, fast but even. He started to draw back his hand, reaching for his phone.
With shocking speed, Miranda’s left hand whipped up and clamped around his wrist, while her right hand snapped up, wrapped around a Smith & Wesson M&P 40, the barrel pointed between his eyes.
“Don’t move an inch,” she growled.
As John sucked in a deep breath, he heard the crack of gunfire. His pulse misfired, and he grabbed the side of the window frame, pebbled glass crunching against his palm.
“Get down!” Miranda shouted as a second shot thumped against the cruiser’s back door.
John Blake disappeared suddenly, leaving Miranda with an unobstructed view out the cruiser window. But she could still see nothing but falling snow—the storm had reached white-out proportions.
Pain throbbed in her head as she squinted in hopes of seeing her hidden assailant, but she couldn’t even see the road now. She could hear an engine, however, growling somewhere out there in the white void.
Behind her, the car door opened, and she swung around to find John Blake gazing back at her, his expression urgent. “You’re a sitting duck,” he warned, stretching his hand toward her.
Gunfire rang outside, the bullet hitting the front panel of the cruiser with a loud thwack, ending her brief hesitation. She unlatched her seat belt and scrambled toward John, taking his outstretched hand.
He pulled her out of the cruiser and pushed her gently toward the front wheel, giving her an extra layer of protection against the shooter. The movement made her feel light-headed and nauseated, and she ended up on her backside, leaning her back against the wheel as she sucked in deep draughts of icy air.
“I can try returning fire,” John suggested. “I’ll need your weapon—”
“Wait,” she said, forcing herself to focus. Was it her imagination or was the sound of the car motor moving away?
“I think whoever’s out there is leaving.” John had edged closer, near enough that she could feel the heat of his body blocking the icy wind. She leaned toward him, unable to stop herself.
“I think you’re right.” Her chattering teeth made it difficult to speak. “I called for backup but I think the radio got smashed in the wreck.”
“You could be hurt worse than you think,” he warned, crouching until his gaze leveled with hers. Up close, his hazel eyes were soft with concern.
“I d-don’t think I have any broken limbs,” she stuttered. “B-but I’m freezing.”
“My house is about forty yards in that direction.” He nodded toward his right. “Want to chance a run for it?”
She nodded, realizing she was too warmly dressed to be as cold as she felt, which meant she was probably going into some level of shock. She needed to get warm and dry. “Let’s do it.”
He stood first. Trying to draw fire, she realized, so they’d know if the shooter was still out there. She grabbed his hand, trying to draw him back down behind the cruiser, but he shook his head. “I think the shooter’s gone.”
He pulled her up, wrapping one arm around her waist to help her wobbling legs hold her upright.
She drew deep on her inner resources. Forty yards. She could run forty yards on a sprained ankle if she had to, and as far as she could tell, her only injury was the pain in her head. “Let’s do it.”
The first few steps felt as if she was running through mud, but with John’s help, she picked up speed and strength. By the time the small farmhouse loomed up out of the white fog of snow, she was feeling steadier.
John half dragged her up to the porch and inside the door. Instantly, blessed heat washed over her, and she felt her legs wobble dangerously beneath her.
“Whoa, deputy. No face-planting on my nice clean floor.” John wrapped his arms around her and eased her over to the sofa that was positioned in front of a crackling fire. He sat beside her, sliding her gloves from her half-numb fingers. “Sit right here. I’ll get my first-aid kit.”
She held her trembling hands out in front of the fire, soaking up the warmth. She heard a cabinet opening and closing, then footsteps as John returned to the front room holding a soft-sided first-aid kit.
“You holding up?” He sat beside her and unzipped the kit.
“No face-planting yet,” she answered with a lopsided grin that made her face hurt. “I need to call the station. I guess my phone’s probably somewhere on the cruiser’s floorboard.”
“Of course.” He pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “What’s the number?”
She gave it to him, and he dialed the number while she looked through the first-aid kit for antiseptic wipes. She found a sealed packet and ripped it open.
“Who should I talk to?” John asked.
“Just talk to the desk sergeant,” she replied, touching the antiseptic pad to the sore spot just above her hairline. It stung, making her wince. “I’m not sure who’s on the desk.”
While John gave his address to whoever answered the phone, Miranda went through a handful of antiseptic wipes trying to mop up the blood from her head. It seemed to be bleeding still, though not as heavily as before. Blood stained the front of her jacket and the uniform pants she wore, enough that she no longer wondered why she felt so light-headed.
“The sergeant said backup is already headed this way, but the snow’s making it slow going.” John leaned forward, examining her first-aid work. “How’s your head feeling?”
“Like it just rammed into a brick wall.”
John’s lips curved slightly. “Noted.”
“I don’t remember exactly what happened,” she admitted, trying not to let the blank spaces in her memory freak her out. She’d probably sustained a concussion in the accident. The memories might never return. Or, conversely, they’d come seeping back bits at a time.
She wasn’t sure it mattered. It clearly hadn’t been a simple accident.
Not if someone had started taking potshots at her immediately afterward.
“Do you know why you were out there in a snowstorm?” John asked.
That much she could remember. “We’d gotten a call from someone who said he’d seen a woman on our missing person’s list out here on Route 7, hitchhiking. I came out to check on the report, but it didn’t pan out. I stopped by to talk to another constituent about a possible theft, then I headed back toward town. That’s the last thing I remember before I came to in the car just before you showed up.”
“The sergeant said you’d called for backup a few minutes ago. You reported a vehicle following you too closely for comfort. You seemed to think the other driver was up to something.”
“Did I give a description of the vehicle?” Surely she had.
“He didn’t say.”
She could remember nothing about another vehicle, but something had sent her rolling off the highway and