TWENTY
The shackled man in the orange jumpsuit sat between US Marshal Hailey Shelder and her new partner. The SUV rumbled down the dark highway at two in the morning while rain pounded on the windshield. It had been raining for days, a torrent that left ranches and farms waterlogged and roadways covered with a sheet of water.
Hailey tapped her foot. The excess adrenaline of a prisoner transfer coursed white-hot in her veins, leaving her wide awake. But all she was doing was sitting in the backseat waiting for...nothing would be great. No activity at all. Just the routine movement of prisoner to airplane, and then they could go home.
Hailey should have been dead asleep in a food coma after her evening watching back-to-back cartoon movies with Kerry that they’d both seen a million times already—not to mention all that popcorn. But she wasn’t going to skip her Friday night movie date with her twelve-year-old daughter, not even for a middle-of-the-night fugitive transfer. And definitely not when her ex-husband had Kerry every other weekend.
Half an hour out of town, the SUV pulled into the tiny airfield they used for covert, nighttime prisoner transfers. It was an out-of-the-way airport usually used for scenic tours of central Oregon—tours that strategically circled around the valley where the federal penitentiary was located. The airport was only two buildings and the runway, which was enough for them to make use of. The Marshals Service didn’t need the audience a bigger airport would give them.
“I can’t believe it’s still pouring.” Hailey’s new partner, Eric Hanning, leaned forward to look around the fugitive. “What is with this state? Is it ever going to stop raining?”
Hailey couldn’t stop the little flip of her heart every time he turned those blue eyes in her direction. Even though it was dark in the car, she could still picture them. She shrugged, as if his presence was all the same to her. Maybe if she pretended for long enough it would become true. Besides, it wasn’t like they got along.
“Maybe in a week or two.” Hailey didn’t want him getting his hopes up that the weather would clear. The rainfall had exceeded record amounts days ago, but the Arizona transplant didn’t know that.
She and Eric had butted heads at every available opportunity since he’d joined the team. His insistence on learning and then implementing every nuance of procedure was exhausting. At least the difference in their personalities served to defuse whatever attraction was there.
Office lore said Eric Hanning had been transferred from WITSEC. It must have been hard for him to go from something that cushy to a fugitive apprehension task force. But she wasn’t going to cut him any slack—that wasn’t how their world worked.
Hailey was the only woman on the eight-man team, and she was finally not the rookie anymore. Eric Hanning might shape up to be useless as a field marshal, but he was at least good for getting her out of the lowest spot.
Truthfully, Eric was so good-looking she could barely form sentences when his attention was on her—but she was trying to beat that, because those feelings had gotten her in trouble before. It didn’t mean he was anything special, just that God had chosen to give him a face that could’ve been in movies.
And while Eric was probably a perfectly nice guy, Hailey was done with romantic relationships. Her ex-husband had soured her on even the idea of getting back into all that.
Deputy Marshal Jackson Parker, her coworker and tonight’s driver, wound the vehicle between the office and the hangar. Yellow floodlights illuminated the corrugated walls of the building on her side. The prisoner shifted, and Hailey whipped her head back around to look at him. The last thing she wanted was any funny business. This needed to go smooth and easy, because she had every intention of getting home in time for Saturday-morning waffles.
Deputy Marshal Wyatt Ames sat in the front passenger seat. Both he and Parker were big guys, and it was squished enough in the backseat with the fugitive in the middle of Hailey and Eric.
The fugitive didn’t move again. The shackles on his wrists and ankles didn’t afford him much reach, but he’d still be able to do some damage in such close quarters. And Steve Farrell was notorious for the damage he could do.
His rap sheet was a lengthy list that included assault and murder, and he’d been found in possession of drugs and a stash of deadly weapons big enough to start a coup. He didn’t discriminate either. Men, women and children had been left in his wake. In her estimation, he was about a millimeter south of pure scum, but soon he would be off to his permanent stay in the California federal prison system.
Visibility outside was six feet, barely. But a jet on the runway would have been unmistakable. Hailey craned her neck and looked out each of the windows. “It’s not here.”
Eric lifted his watch so she could see the display. Who even wore a watch these days? Not that she could have gotten to her phone right now with all the gear she had on and the rifle she was holding. The illuminated screen on Eric’s watch read 2:07 a.m., so they had another eight minutes until the plane was due.
Eric said, “I’m ready to get this done and get home.”
Ames turned back to them from the front passenger seat. “Prisoner transfer cutting into your beauty sleep?”
Parker and Ames both laughed, though their humor had an edge to it, which wasn’t surprising. None of them would totally relax until the prisoner was safely on the plane and out of their custody. Hailey didn’t react. She knew what it felt like to be on the receiving end of their razzing.
Parker left the engine running and they waited. Five minutes later the radio on the dash crackled to life and the plane’s pilot radioed
