I said, you can explain it all to the judge. I’m sure he’ll be really interested in your version. He’ll also be interested in what your friend has to say. If he survives.”
“I didn’t come with a friend. Never seen either of those men before in my life.”
Ian didn’t respond.
Esme could hear the men walking toward her, their feet slapping against wet grass and soggy leaves. They reached her seconds later, Ian taller and broader than the man he’d apprehended. He looked fit and strong. The perfect bodyguard. If she were looking for one. She wasn’t. What she was looking for was some peace. She wouldn’t get that until her uncle was apprehended and he and her brother were convicted of their crimes.
“What now?” she asked, trying to think ahead, to figure out the best way to separate herself from the situation. Once she knew his plans, it would be easier to make hers.
“We’re heading back to the camp. I’ve got one man down and cuffed there. The other ran off.”
“He could return,” she pointed out.
“Local law enforcement is close. Hopefully, one of them will pick him up.”
“I stopped hoping for safety right around the time my uncle tried to murder me,” she muttered.
He eyed her through the evening gloom, his expression unreadable. For a moment, she thought he wouldn’t respond. When he did, his tone was gruff. “I hope you’re not living in the delusion that your uncle is the one responsible for all of this.”
“Who else would it be?”
“Your uncle might have tracked you to Florida, but your brother is calling the shots from prison.”
“Maybe.” Probably.
She didn’t want to admit that.
Not even to herself.
She and her uncle had never been close. She could almost pretend they weren’t family.
She and Reginald, though...
They were siblings. Sure, he was much older, but they’d been raised by the same parents with the same values.
Somehow they’d taken completely different paths, found value in completely different things.
She’d watched him kill a man.
She would never forget that. She would testify against him.
But this was by far the most difficult thing she’d ever done.
It was the right thing, but that didn’t make her feel good about it. It sure didn’t make her safe. Her family would do anything to keep her from testifying. She still couldn’t wrap her mind around that.
The proof was here, though—the cuffed man walking beside a federal agent who had come to track her down. Both of them wanted Esme for different purposes. One wanted her dead. The other wanted her to stay alive. At least until her brother’s trial.
The sirens had grown louder, and she could see flashing lights through the mangroves. Help had arrived. It didn’t seem like Ian needed it. He motioned for his prisoner to sit on the raised sleeping platform.
“Guard,” he commanded, and King snapped to attention, his eyes trained on the cuffed man.
“He’s guarding you, too,” Ian said, meeting Esme’s eyes.
“It’s not like I have anywhere to go,” she responded. She could see the canoe, a dozen yards out, listing heavily to the right. Enough bullets had been fired to cause it to sink. If she’d been in it, she’d be dead. She shivered, suddenly chilled despite the warmth and humidity.
“There are plenty of places to go. You’ve proved that several times.” He turned and walked away, moving across the clearing and crouching next to a man who lay near the water.
She thought he was checking the guy’s pulse and rendering first aid, but it was hard to see through the deepening gloom. This would have been her third night out in the Glades. She should be used to how quickly darkness descended After so many months running from people who wanted her dead, she should also be used to skin-crawling, heart-stopping fear.
The cuffed gunman shifted position, and King growled, flashing teeth that looked as deadly as any gun or knife Esme had ever seen. He was focused on the prisoner. If she were going to try to escape, now would be the time to do it. She could see the emergency vehicles, hear people moving through the mangroves. She scanned the clearing and spotted her backpack abandoned near the edge of the campsite.
It would take seconds to grab it and just a little bit longer than that to disappear. She’d done it before. She could do it again.
But she was exhausted from endless running, tired from months of being on guard. She didn’t trust the police or the FBI to keep her safe, but she wasn’t sure she had the stamina to keep trying to do the job herself. Not that she had any choice.
The trial was just a month away. That seemed like forever, but it was nothing in comparison to the amount of time that had already passed. Once she testified, she’d disappear again. This time, she had no intention of being found. New name. New job. New beginning. Not the life she’d planned, but she knew she could make it a good one.
All she had to do was survive long enough to get there.
Just do it. Grab the bag and run! her mind shouted, and she was just tired enough and just scared enough to listen.
She darted forward, snagging the straps and lifting the bag in one quick motion. The rest was easy. Or should have been. The mangroves provided perfect cover, and she ducked behind one of the scrub-like trees, water lapping at her ankles as she moved.
She would have kept running, but something grabbed onto the bag, yanking her backward. She released the pack, but she was already falling, her ankle twisting as she tried to pivot and run.
She went down hard, splashing into a puddle of muck, the dog suddenly in her face, teeth bared, dark eyes staring straight into hers.
“I told you,” Ian said calmly, his voice carrying through the mangroves, “he was guarding you.”
She couldn’t see him, and that made her almost as nervous as looking in the dog’s snarling face did.
“He’d have been better off guarding the guy who tried to kill me,” she responded, not even trying to get to her feet. Not with the beast of a dog staring her down, his teeth still bared. In any other circumstance, she’d have admired him for what he was—a handsome, fit working dog. Right now, she just wanted him gone.
“The perpetrator is in police custody. I guess you were too busy planning your escape to notice them moving in.”
“I noticed.”
“And did you think I wouldn’t notice you leaving?” Branches rustled, and he stepped into view, his head and shoulders bowed as he walked through the trees.
“What I thought was that I wanted to live, and
