Shielding the tiny targe.., p.1
Shielding the Tiny Target, page 1
“I won’t pry.”
Oh, man... Why did Jack have to be so understanding? He was making it so hard for Ava to just walk away.
“Mama, look!” Missy waved from the top of the platform. Why did they make these playgrounds so high? “I can do it like the big kids.”
She leaned out through the gap, and Ava read the intent in her daughter’s eyes an instant before she let go and jumped off. “No—Missy!”
The sound of an engine revving reached her just as a dark SUV plowed through the row of bushes, heading straight for them.
Time slowed down. She screamed as she ran for Missy, but there was no way she’d make it.
Jack dove in front of her, grabbing Missy by the arm a split second before she hit the sand. As the truck hit the rock wall she’d been standing on, Jack rolled out of the way with her.
Ava dove to the side to avoid being hit seconds before the truck got caught up in the slide and finally came to a stop.
Deena Alexander grew up in a small town on eastern Long Island where she lived up until a few years ago and then relocated to Clermont, Florida, with her husband, three children, son-in-law and four dogs. Now she enjoys long walks in nature all year long, despite the occasional alligator or snake she sometimes encounters. Her love for writing developed after the birth of her youngest son, who had trouble sleeping through the night.
Books by Deena Alexander
Love Inspired Suspense
Crime Scene Connection
Shielding the Tiny Target
Visit the Author Profile page at LoveInspired.com.
Shielding the Tiny Target
Deena Alexander
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
—Proverbs 3:5–6
To Greg, Elaina, Nicholas and Logan—you are my world.
Thank you for always being there for me.
With all my love, forever and always.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Dear Reader
Excerpt from Hidden Ranch Peril by Michelle Aleckson
ONE
Exhaustion beat at Ava Colburn, and once again her eyes drifted closed.
“Mama.” Her three-year-old daughter, Missy, shook her arm. “Play with me.”
Ava pulled her reading glasses off and rubbed her eyes. Two hours. She’d spent the last two hours trying to place the flower order for Cara Worthington’s sweet sixteen party. “All right, honey. I’m sorry. I just have to finish working, then we’ll play something.”
“You not working,” Missy whined.
Missy’s far-too-grown-up pout brought Ava an unexpected smile. She sometimes still couldn’t believe how blessed she was. Now if she could just keep her baby safe.
Ava propped the pillows higher against the headboard, slid up farther and shifted the laptop. She inputted her credit card information, then started to read over the order one last time. Finding all of the exotic flowers Cara wanted hadn’t been easy. “Of course I’m working, but I’m almost done.”
“Then how come your eyes were closed?”
Ava laughed and smoothed the unruly mop of blond curls. For three, Missy was way too observant. The little girl missed nothing.
Tears shimmered in Missy’s bright blue eyes.
With a sigh, Ava closed the computer and set it aside. She’d have to review and submit the order after Missy fell asleep. It was almost ten, and Missy was cranky. She pulled her little girl closer, snuggling under the blanket with her.
Ava loved sharing quiet time with Missy, no matter if it was late at night and Ava hadn’t slept well in days. Missy had more energy than she knew what to do with all day long, but nights were different. They could curl up in bed, and Missy would actually stay still long enough to cuddle. With her child’s weight against her and the soft scent of baby shampoo enveloping her, Ava closed her eyes.
“Mama.” Exasperation filled her child’s voice.
Ava’s eyes shot open. Missy was not a child you could fall asleep on. “Aww...honey. Why don’t we watch a movie?”
Missy shrugged, her lower lip trembling as she tried not to cry. “Princess?”
Ava opened the laptop and pulled it closer, then shuffled through the stack of DVDs on the nightstand.
A soft ding followed by the you have mail message made her pause. She dropped a movie into the tray and checked her inbox.
Dear Ms. Colburn,
Due to extenuating circumstances, we’ve had to cancel Cara’s party. I will contact you when or if I wish to reschedule.
Mrs. Worthington
That’s it? She scrolled past the signature line. Yup. That was it. No apology, no thank you, no nothing.
“Princess, princess, princess.” Missy punctuated each word of the chant with a bounce on the bed.
Nausea threatened. Ava had just wasted all night getting that order together. The first order Marcy, the owner of the flower shop she worked in, had trusted her to do solo. It was supposed to be, Ava knew, her first step toward buying the shop from Marcy, something Marcy was determined to see happen. And, unfortunately, something that could never be, at least not while Ava was living a lie.
She sighed. It could have been worse. At least she hadn’t submitted the order. It would have taken the last of the available credit Marcy had allowed her to order all the expensive flowers Cara had insisted on having for her tropical luau. The deposit Mrs. Worthington had left wouldn’t have covered even half of them, even if she did keep the money, which she probably wouldn’t. It’s not like she’d actually ordered the flowers, so all that had been wasted was Ava’s time, valuable, but still.
Giving up on getting Ava’s attention, Missy stood on the bed and started jumping.
Ava pushed her thoughts aside. She’d call Mrs. Worthington in the morning and make sure she didn’t want to reschedule. No sense having to do the order over if she changed her mind...again. And no sense worrying about something she couldn’t resolve tonight. Ava hit Play. She massaged her temples, tears tracking down her cheeks. Tears not for the stupid party being canceled, but for the life Missy should have had, the life they’d both been deprived of. Searching for patience, she reached for Missy’s hand. “Lay down, baby. Your movie’s on.”
“Yay. Princess.” Missy clapped her hands and bounced up and down then settled against Ava.
Ava’s eyelids grew heavy, and she let them close again, only for a moment, as she thought about the past and her husband, Liam. Images of him smiling down at Missy, lifting her in the air for an airplane ride, rocking her in his arms, played through her mind, though none of those things had ever actually happened.
She jerked awake. Something crunched beneath her. What in the world? She rolled over. A rattling noise, just before what felt like shards of glass jabbed into her back. Throwing the covers back, she jumped up. Dozens of little black squares bounced into the space she’d just vacated. She leaned closer, confusion battling the lingering sleepiness. Then her gaze fell on her open laptop. Every key was missing.
Oh, Missy! Apparently, she’d been lost in thoughts of what could have been for more than just a moment. Now she’d spend however long trying to organize the keys and pop them back on, if they’d even stay. She shook out the blanket over the bed as best she could without disturbing Missy, who must have exhausted herself destroying the keyboard and now slept soundly, but she needed something to put the keys in.
With a sigh, and the reluctant acceptance she was doomed to another sleepless night, Ava tiptoed across the room and quietly opened the door. No sense waking Missy when she’d only just—
A noise stopped her in the doorway. She froze, straining to hear past Missy’s movie still playing in the background. Something was wrong. The sound of traffic from the nearby highway reached her, not nearly as muffled as it should be if the windows at the back of the house were closed.
Ava backed slowly into the bedroom. How did they find her? She’d been so careful, had eluded them for four years.
Soft footsteps echoed up the stairway. Coming from the kitchen?
She whirled and shut the door quietly. No lock, thanks to Missy locking herself in the room one too many times. Run or call 911? Could she flee out the second story window with Missy before whoever was in the house reached her? She grabbed the phone and dialed. Surely the police in Seaport, New York, would have no way to connect her to a firefighter who was killed in Florida four years ago. If she didn’t bring it up, her past should stay buried. Question was, had whoever was in the house made the connection? Or was it just a random break-in? She had to hide Missy.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”
“Please, I need help,” Ava whispered. She started to crawl onto the bed, intent on scooping Missy up. Several laptop keys pierced her hand, and she yanked it back. “Ouch.”
The bedroom door creaked open, and she froze. A man’s arm came around her neck from behind. He pulle d her back against him as he ripped the phone from her hand and disconnected. “Hello, Angelina.”
Ava’s blood ran cold at the mention of that name, the name she’d left behind four years ago. She braced herself.
“Do not resist me if you want the child to live.”
Her gaze fell on Missy still sleeping soundly, and in that instant, all of the fight drained out of her. She’d never put Missy in danger. And she’d have to stay quiet if she was going to keep her from waking. “Please, can we go into another room? Just leave my daughter sleeping.”
Without a word, the man backed toward the doorway, the pressure from his arm threatening to cut off her airway if she didn’t move with him. As soon as they reached the hallway, he shoved her to the floor.
Her wrist bent beneath her with a crack. A jolt of pain shot up to her shoulder, robbing her of breath.
“Give me everything you have, and I’ll walk away.”
She scrambled back a few feet, needing to put some space between them, and beat back the pain. Just because she didn’t see a gun, didn’t mean he wasn’t armed. And he was strong, very strong. Better to just cooperate, bide her time.
If he was demanding what she suspected he was, she didn’t have it. And if she did, there was no way he’d let her walk away. “There’s a little bit of cash in my purse, but I don’t have—”
He grabbed her by the throat and yanked her off the floor. The black ski mask he wore hid all of his features except for his eyes—cold, nearly black eyes that held not an ounce of emotion. “Don’t play games with me.”
Sirens wailed in the distance.
“I—”
He squeezed tighter, cutting her off, then loosened his grip. “Your husband left something behind when he died. I’ve already searched his locker at the station, and there’s nothing there.”
“Please, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She squeezed her eyes closed and prayed for forgiveness, prayed the last words she uttered wouldn’t be a lie. Not that they weren’t partially true. When Liam had been killed in the line of duty four years earlier, not from the fire he was fighting but from a gunshot wound he received while fighting the fire, he’d left something behind. At least, she was pretty sure he did based on one of their final conversations, but she didn’t know what, and whatever it was, she didn’t have it.
“No? Then why did you run? Why have I had to spend the past four years trying to hunt you down?” He jerked her forward, then slammed her head against the wall. “If you had died when we set your house on fire, we could have assumed any evidence died with you, but as it is, well... Not so much.”
Spots of light invaded her vision. Only the pain from her wrist dragged her back toward consciousness.
The killer had claimed Liam’s life during a fire that wasn’t the first in a long series of local arsons in the Florida community where they’d lived. Her husband believed the fires were being deliberately set by a firefighter and covered up. He’d said he had proof, though he didn’t say what, but he didn’t know who to take it to, who to trust, since he wasn’t sure who else was involved.
On the very night Liam had been killed, she’d fled her burning home with a sniper taking shots at her as she ran. “I didn’t run. I had to move after my house burned down.”
“Yeah, and you just happened to change your name too, right?” The man laughed, but his eyes remained bottomless wells of darkness. “Well, I might have believed that, might even have believed you only fled because I was shooting at you at the time, except that your husband was foolish enough to confide in someone he thought trustworthy on the day he died. I already know he left behind the information—he said so himself, said it was in a safe place with someone he trusted. Since he didn’t give it to the police when he contacted them, didn’t leave it in his locker, and didn’t leave it with his direct supervisor, that leaves you.”
Red and blue lights flashed through the front bedroom window and spilled into the hallway.
“Or maybe not. Maybe he left it with a friend, or maybe it did burn to ashes when the house burned down, but the only thing keeping you alive right now is the fact that you probably have what I want, and I need to tie up loose ends so nothing comes out of left field to interfere with our plans. It took four years of searching before the facial recognition program we were using finally paid off when your picture appeared on a blog touting the volunteer work you and that group do at the local hospital.”
She should have known better than to try to get involved in the community where she’d settled with Missy, should have known she couldn’t give Missy a normal home, a normal life.
“I will not take the chance of losing you again.”
A car door slammed.
“Mama?” Missy called from the bedroom. “Mama, I scared. Mama?”
Since Missy tended to have nightmares, she was often scared if she woke alone. Ava prayed Missy would stay where she was and someone would make it in time to save her.
“You have twenty-four hours. If you don’t hand over the flash drive, I’ll take something precious enough to you to provide sufficient motivation. I’ll be watching your every move, and if you try to run or tell the cops what this is about, I’ll snatch the child and kill her instead of holding her for ransom.”
“Mama? Where are you?” Missy started to cry.
Oh, God, please let her stay put. Please watch over her. Please help us.
Something hard slammed against Ava’s head, and she dropped like a stone. An eddy of darkness flooded her peripheral vision. She clung desperately to consciousness.
“To prove I’m serious, and in case the four years since I killed your husband have dulled your memory, I’ll leave another firefighter on your doorstep and your conscience as incentive, and remember, it’s just as easy to get to someone you love as it is to kill a random stranger who comes to your aid.”
No! The wave of black overtook her. Her eyes fluttered closed as she succumbed.
* * *
Jack Moretta checked the house number posted on the small ranch’s mailbox to be sure it matched that of the woman who’d called nine-one-one, though the gesture was probably unnecessary considering the police cruiser blocking the driveway, then jogged up the walkway and the three steps to the front porch.
Though his living in Seaport was only temporary, at least he could help out while he was there. As a trained firefighter and EMT, volunteering for the local fire and rescue had seemed a logical choice. Plus, he’d be ready to return to his job in New York City when the time came in six months.
A child’s screams intruded on his thoughts before his foot hit the top step. He pounded on the front door, unsure how anyone would hear him over the incessant screaming. “Fire department.”
The empty police car sat crookedly in the driveway, its lights still flashing, bathing the quiet block with a blue-and-red strobe effect. Sirens screamed in the distance. Backup wouldn’t be far behind, but there was no way he was waiting when dispatch had said the caller was injured and the call had been cut off. Even though police officers had arrived, someone might be in desperate need of medical attention. He hammered his fist against the door. “Fire department.”
No answer.
He turned the knob, offering a small prayer of thanks it was unlocked, and pushed the door open, then turned, following the child’s screams through the small foyer toward an archway on his right.
“Freeze!” someone said from behind him.
Jack stopped short, put his hands out to the sides and turned to face a police officer who’d come from the other direction and stood on the opposite side of the foyer with his gun trained on Jack. “It’s just me, Gabe. I was only a few blocks away at my mom’s when the call came in for a woman with a possible injury, and it was quicker to come straight here rather than going to the station first.”
“Sorry, Jack, just being careful. We haven’t been here long, and we’re still searching for the suspect.” Gabe holstered his weapon and gestured toward a small living room. “Go ahead in. Ava Colburn and her daughter are on the couch.”
As if the screams wouldn’t lead him where he needed to be. He thanked Gabe and poked his head into the living room. “Ava?”
