Shiloh fought the urge to close her eyes and instead fixated on steering the car straight into the creek.
The car slammed into the water, arresting their speed to something approaching slow motion. Water sloshed and caught the vehicle, bringing them to a stop in the middle of the creek.
She released her breath as she looked out the window. Would have uttered a prayer of thanks if she had thought God was paying attention.
Shiloh pushed at the door, but it wouldn’t budge. With about three feet of standing water, the pressure was too great.
Water trickled in through the cracks in the doors. Shiloh’s chest tightened, and she fought to breathe even though there was still plenty of fresh air in the car.
No. She couldn’t let fear overtake her and she refused to sit here while the cruiser filled with water. She had to use her head, use her training and stay focused on the situation. She looked around for something to use to break the window, eyes catching immediately on her black baton on the passenger-side floorboard. She reached for it, tensing as she remembered the snake that had been there not two hours before.
Shiloh tightened her grip on the stick and smashed it through the window.
She pulled her body through the opening, careful not to catch herself on any of the remaining jagged glass, and stood in the midthigh water as movement in the back of the car caught her eye.
Adam.
For a minute, in her panic, she’d forgotten he was there.
Shiloh glanced down at the door handle but knew trying to pull it open would be futile. She couldn’t break the glass for him with her baton without shattering it all over him and risking an injury. She might not like him, but she’d never hurt him on purpose.
“Move!” he yelled through the window and motioned with his hand for her to back away.
She stepped aside and watched as he brought his arm back and smashed something—a pocketknife, maybe—through the window. It took a few more seconds for him to clear enough glass to get through, then he climbed out as she had and joined her in the murky water.
Nothing could have kept the relief she felt from showing on her face. Adam must have seen it, because he grinned.
“See, I knew you still cared. At least a little,” he teased.
He was lucky she didn’t want the hassle of an internal-affairs investigation—because she wanted nothing more than to slap that grin off his face.
“You don’t get how serious this is, do you?” Shiloh muttered between clenched teeth. She scanned the marshy area around the creek again, unable to suppress a shiver as she did so. Next her gaze landed at the creek’s banks, which would make ideal cover for a sniper. Nothing—that she saw.
But her gut instinct, which had served her well before, said someone was out here. Watching.
“I get it.” Adam’s voice had sobered. “I mean, I don’t. It makes no sense. But, yeah, I know that someone tried...” His voice trailed off.
“Tried to kill us,” she finished for him, then swallowed hard and focused her attention on the bridge. No cars. Her pursuer and his accomplice were long gone, and she had no leads—not a license-plate number and no worthwhile description, since almost every car involved in a crime was a “dark midsize sedan.”
Frustration and fear fought for dominance. Shiloh tried to stay calm but finally could hold back no longer. She kicked the side of the car, doing nothing more than splashing muddy salt water all over herself. When she considered the incident with the snake that morning, she knew the two events had to be connected. And that could mean only one thing.
They’d found her.
She’d known it wouldn’t be hard for them. She had moved only an hour away, to this small town, which seemed like the perfect haven. Though she’d left Savannah five years ago—determined to do her best to solve the case and be ready for the criminals once they came after her—she hadn’t expected the past to find her today.
Maybe she wasn’t as prepared as she’d thought.
But until now it had been quiet. Probably too quiet. She’d almost started to hope that they had realized she didn’t have whatever they were looking for, and that she could wrap this up and bring them to justice without becoming a target again. Shiloh studied the too-quiet landscape, finally settling on the question that weighed heavily on her mind.
Why now?
Shiloh shook her head, scanned their surroundings again and concluded that finding the answer would have to wait until she wasn’t standing out in the open—not to mention nearly up to her waist—in dirty, smelly water. She radioed the station, gave their location and a short description of what had happened, as she slogged through the water to the shore.
“Shiloh?”
She jumped at his voice and relaxed as her mind registered that it was only Adam, who’d joined her on the creek’s bank.
Only Adam... She turned toward him and narrowed her eyes. “How is it that you show up in town and suddenly someone wants me dead?”
He jerked back as if she had slapped him. “What?”
“I’ve been attacked twice today—the same day I see you for the first time in five years. This seems entirely too coincidental to me.”
“Let’s back up. You think someone’s trying to kill you because I came to town?”
Everything about the expression on his face said it wasn’t true. Her heart simultaneously sank and danced. It sank because if he didn’t know why his arrival would have put her in danger, then she was back to square one. Shiloh didn’t want to think about why it danced. Other than to admit that, heartbreaker or not, Adam had always been someone she had trusted. One of the only people alive. She wanted to believe he was still worthy of that trust.
“I’d never let anyone hurt you. You know that.”
He touched her arm lightly and even pressing thoughts, like the danger she was in, left her for a split second.
She had to resist this chemistry. Trust was one thing. Falling for him again was another. She and Adam were wrong for each other in every way that mattered. She’d learned that lesson the hard way once already; there was no need to relearn it.
“Are you okay?” He was trying to be civil. Could she try? Civil. Nothing further. She nodded.
“And now you know why I thought this job was too dangerous for a woman,” he muttered.
Any thoughts of civility faded. He was still a caveman. Worse yet, he was a pastor caveman, a profession that would give legitimacy to his “a woman has her place” way of thinking.
Somehow she managed to withhold her response. He meant nothing to her now, so his opinions couldn’t hurt her. Theoretically.
Relief
