shut, praying. The paramedics would come from the Bayfield volunteer fire association, which meant guys with beepers ditching whatever they were doing, calling in, and driving to the fire house for equipment before driving out to them. All those things took time. The roads were more or less passable after the latest snowfall, but still, she wondered if they’d be too late. She couldn’t stand the idea that she’d lose two partners in less than six weeks.
“Do you need a tourniquet?” Her voice was barely audible.
Heath’s head twitched slightly to one side. A quarter shake. Did he mean no, or was he fading already from the loss of blood? From the pattern of gunfire she’d heard, Tracie figured the gunman had been using some sort of assault rifle. Their standard-issue Coast Guard body armor wouldn’t stop a bullet like that. It would barely even slow it down. And Heath had to have been hit several times.
An engine revved behind the house, and Heath eased up from above her. “He’s getting away,” he muttered, though his movements were still cautious, his voice quiet.
“Do you want me to try to go after him?” Tracie offered as the sound of the vehicle began to fade.
“No,” Heath shifted his body and looked down at her. His face was so close she could see the tips of dark hairs starting to sprout into a five-o’clock shadow. “Your body armor won’t stop what he’s shooting.”
About to ask how he knew, Tracie realized Heath’s arm was wrapped around her torso, his hand beneath her, cradling her from the cold of the snow. “And what are you wearing?” she asked, shifting her body away from the close contact, more aware of him than she wanted to be. “Obviously not our standard-issue bulletproof vest.”
“No, obviously not,” Heath conceded, “or I’d be dead right now, and so would you.” He turned at the distant sound of sirens.
Tracie took advantage of his distraction to assess what she could of his wounds. The red puddle seemed to be coming from his sleeve—he’d apparently been hit on his upper arm. The back of his Coast Guard parka was riddled with holes rimmed by tufts of synthetic down that was blackened by the searing force of the bullets. She swallowed hard, wondering how many had made it through. The severity of his wounds would depend on the angle and point of entry, and most importantly, what kind of vest he was wearing.
She sat up higher and reached for his arm. If he’d been hit in a major vein, he could still bleed to death before the paramedics could save him. She said a silent prayer that they’d hurry.
Heath leaned back against her, pushing her down. “Don’t move until backup arrives.”
“But the gunman already left,” she protested.
“You don’t know that.”
Heath sat in the open back bay of the ambulance and tried not to wince as a medic wrapped the wound on his arm.
“I really think you should get an X-ray. You could easily have broken a rib.” Another paramedic held up the severely dented steel plate they’d pulled from the back of his body armor. Six mushroomed bullets had been hiding inside—one for each of the blunt force trauma wounds he’d sustained on his back.
“And if I did, what are you going to do about it? Put me in a body cast?” Heath’s eyes narrowed as he watched Tracie talking to the local sheriff across the yard. She’d stayed at his side long enough for the medics to survey his injuries and determine none of them were life-threatening. Now Heath wished he could hear what she was saying. His boss at the FBI was already bugging him for answers, but in the three days he’d been undercover as a Coast Guardsman, Heath had yet to get Tracie to talk much about Trevor Price’s death. “How much longer is this going to take?”
“I’m done,” the first medic said. “But I’m not letting you go until you sign these release forms. It’s not my fault you won’t go to the hospital.”
Heath quickly scrawled his name wherever the man pointed, then slipped back into his bullet-hole-riddled parka before heading back across the crime scene.
Sheriff’s deputies and his fellow Coast Guardsmen were crawling all over the house looking for clues. If there was anything to find, they’d find it. Still, he wanted to take a look around for himself. Though Trevor’s house was several miles back in the woods and therefore not traditional Coast Guard territory, the Lake Superior officer’s death, as well as the shady practices that had led to his death, made his house part of the Coast Guard’s ongoing investigation.
Heath caught Tracie’s eye and nodded to her, and she broke off her conversation with the sheriff and hurried over.
“They’re letting you walk around?” She pinched her mouth into a slight smile, but her eyes still looked worried.
“Don’t worry about me. I’m invincible,” he assured her, with a grin to tell her he knew he wasn’t quite.
Tracie’s smile inched a little closer to her eyes. Heath wondered what she’d look like if she really smiled. Beautiful? No, she was that already. She’d be simply stunning. For a moment, he found himself wanting to make her smile, to laugh even, but he quickly chided himself. He was here to investigate her in conjunction with her previous partner’s murder. That didn’t require making her smile.
He adopted a more serious expression. “What have they found?”
“Footprints. Size fourteen, or pretty close to it. Not too common, but not nearly rare enough. And snowmobile tracks.”
“That was the engine we heard?”
She nodded. “We followed them as far as Petersons’, but there are hundreds of tracks over there. He could have gone any direction—there’s no way to tell.”
“Right.” From what Heath understood, snowmobiles were as common as cars in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, and far easier to navigate during the long winter months when traveling by road was often risky. Their gunman could be anywhere. “No other leads?”
“No sign of forced entry to the house, which seems a little strange. John and Mack had locked it up tight after their last investigation—Jim had issued them new locks. Ben and Clint are dusting for fingerprints, but in this weather, everyone wears gloves.” She looked down at Heath’s bare hands.
He flexed his fingers against the cold. If she was trying to nag him, she’d find she wouldn’t get far. “So what’s our next move?”
“It’s a pretty dead end.” She shrugged. “I’ll see Trevor’s brother, Tim, at church tomorrow and ask him if he knows of anyone who’d be at his brother’s place.”
“What time’s the service?”
Tracie raised an eyebrow at him.
“I’ll meet you there,” Heath explained.
“You’re on medical leave. You have a hole in your arm and blunt force trauma wounds all across your back. You’re not getting out of bed tomorrow.”
“Medical leave is voluntary.”
Tracie huffed impatiently. “Fine, you do whatever you want, but I’m not going to be part of it.” She turned and crunched away across the snow.
Heath watched her go. Interesting woman. She
