Laying Down the Law Read Free Page B

she got to ask the question she needed her attacker to answer.
    “Why do you want me dead?” Karina shouted to the man.
    That earned her a glare from Cord, and he motioned for her to get back down. She didn’t.
    “Tell me why!” Karina said in an even louder voice when the man didn’t answer.
    “You’re not gonna like the answer, sweetheart,” the man finally said.
    The sweetheart turned her stomach. He’d used that same syrupy tone when he’d been attacking her.
    Except he had used a different tone when he’d mumbled those handful of words that she hadn’t understood.
    “Besides,” the man went on, “talking time is over now. I figure Sheriff Jericho Crockett or his lawmen brothers are trying to sneak up on me right about now. Hope they don’t step on anything that’ll make ’em go ka-boom.” He laughed. “Oh, wait. I do hope that happens. Crockett blood spilled all over these woods. What a nice way to end the night.”
    Oh, mercy. “You have to warn Jericho,” she told Cord.
    Cord motioned for the ambulance driver to make another call. The man did, and he told whoever answered that there might be explosives not just in the ditches, but also in the woods. Hopefully, the lawmen would get the word in time.
    “Time’s up,” the man yelled. “Hate to sound all dramatic, but hand her over or else.”
    “She’s hurt,” Cord answered. “And I’m sure you know why since you’re the one who hurt her. She can’t walk.”
    “Liar. I didn’t do a damn thing to her legs.”
    “It’s her head,” Cord explained. “You hit her hard enough that you might have fractured her skull. That’s why she’s in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.”
    Silence.
    For a long time.
    So long that Karina got a really bad feeling. A feeling that went all the way to her bones. If she didn’t do something fast, he was either going to kill them all or get away.
    “Cord can carry me to you,” she told the man.
    As expected, that really didn’t go over very well with Cord. “Have you lost your mind?” he snarled.
    Possibly. She didn’t have a fractured skull, as Cord had told her attacker, but she was dizzy and in pain. Still, this might be their only shot at catching the man. After all, he’d have to come out of his hiding place to get to her.
    “He doesn’t want to shoot me,” she whispered to Cord. “If he did, he would have done that in the barn.”
    Cord’s eyes narrowed. “A bullet isn’t the only way to kill you.”
    She was well aware of it and touched her fingers to her neck to let him know that. “If you’re carrying me, he won’t shoot. And once you’re close enough to him, you can drop me and grab him.”
    Cord cursed. “There are about a dozen things that could go wrong with a stupid plan like that—including he could kill us both and then come after the paramedics to kill them, too. Is that what you want?”
    Karina didn’t get a chance to answer that because her attacker ducked out of sight behind the tree.
    “Too late,” the man shouted.
    “Get down!” Cord warned them, and he moved back to the gurney to cover her body with his.
    Not a second too soon.
    The blast tore through the ambulance, tossing it and shaking the ground beneath them.
    It was deafening.
    And then everything happened much too fast for Karina to process a lot of it. They were moving, tumbling. Crashing into things.
    Debris, flying everywhere.
    Somehow, Cord managed to keep hold of her, and since the gurney was anchored to the floor, he was toppled around with her. No way to brace herself, no way to do anything but wait for this nightmare to end and pray they stayed alive.
    There was the sound of metal screeching against the pavement, and the ambulance finally stopped with a jolting thud.
    What had happened now?
    And was everyone okay?
    The ambulance was a jumbled mess, and it took her a moment to realize it was on its side. That was likely where the impact had landed him.
    “He set off the explosives,” she