Split Second (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 1)

MICHELLE HAD CHASED many people down in her life. As part of a coxswain-plus-four team she had helped make up five lengths during a late charge to claim a medal at the Olympics. As a cop in Tennessee she had run down her share of felons fleeing the scenes of their crimes. As a Secret Service agent she had been fleet of foot next to limos carrying important leaders.

Tonight, though, she was competing against a long-legged teenager with the boundless energy and fresh knees of youth who had a substantial head start and was running like the devil was on his heels. And her feet kept slipping with every stride. It was like running in three feet of water, only on land.

“Wait,” she called out as she caught a glimpse of him before he changed direction and disappeared down a path through some trees.

He didn’t wait. He simply sped up.

Michelle, despite her protestations to Sean, was not one hundred percent. Her back hurt. Her leg hurt. Her lungs were burning.

And it didn’t help that the wind and rain were blinding her.

She raced down the path and—just in case—drew her gun. She always felt better with her Sig in hand.

She redoubled her efforts, fought through the pain and fatigue that was coursing through her, and markedly closed the gap between them. A lightning strike followed by a crack of thunder so loud it was like a bomb detonating momentarily distracted her. A tree on the side of the path, punished by stiff winds, started to topple. She found an extra burst of speed and flashed past it. The shallow-rooted pine slammed into the dirt about five feet behind her, but its thick branches missed her by only a few inches. Any one of them could have crushed her skull.

That had been close. Michelle understood exactly how close.

The teen had fallen when the tree had crashed, yet now he was up and running once more. But the gap was now closing.

Calling on reserves she wasn’t sure she possessed anymore, she propelled forward like she had been shot out of a mortar. She leapt and hit him in the back of the legs. He sprawled forward into the dirt while Michelle pitched sideways and then rose, her lungs searing, her breath coming in gulps. She bent over, but kept her gaze on him, her gun ready, because she could see he still had his, although she wasn’t worried about him firing it.

He turned over, his butt in the dirt, his knees bent to his chest.

“Who the hell are you? Why are you chasing me?”

“Why are you running around with a gun in the middle of a storm?” she countered.

He looked very young, maybe fifteen. The way his auburn hair was plastered to his freckled face it looked blood red.

“Just leave me alone,” he cried out.

He rose and Michelle straightened. They were barely three feet apart. At five-foot-ten Michelle was at least three inches taller than he was, although his long legs and size twelve feet promised that he would probably zip right through the six-foot mark before he was done growing.

She glanced at his gun and confirmed what she had seen earlier in the headlights.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Are you going to shoot me?” he responded fearfully.

“No. Are you going to shoot me?” She already knew the answer to that. He couldn’t shoot her even if he’d wanted to.

He started to back up. “Just please leave me alone.”

“I’m trying to help you. My partner and I almost hit you back there.”

“Your partner?”

Michelle decided a lie was better than the truth right now. “I’m a cop.”

“A cop?” He looked at her suspiciously. “Let me see some ID.”

She put her hand inside her jacket and withdrew her PI license. In the dark she hoped it would look legit enough. She flashed it.

“Now will you tell me what this is about? Maybe I can help you.”

He looked down, his thin chest rising and falling quickly with each of his uneven breaths.

“Nobody can help me.”