Cooper.
Someone had tried to kill Cooper in prison—and they were still trying to kill Cooper. This was all about him. Their plan hadn’t worked inside prison, so now they were trying it on the outside, and considering the length of the drive, they had a nice, long time to make it work.
She shifted into drive and slammed on the gas. The car fishtailed as it lurched forward, the smell of burning rubber filling the air as the tires screeched against the road.
“They’re getting back in their car too,” Cooper reported, craning his neck to look out the back window.
“Let them. I have the best pursuit record in the whole office.”
“We’re going fast,” Keith observed. By the look of him, he’d tried and failed to get his gun out of its holster. The head injury had been even worse than she’d thought: his face was covered with blood, and he sounded like he was dreaming.
To her surprise, Cooper was the one to answer him, and he sounded gentle, as if he were talking to a little kid. “Yeah, we’re breaking all kinds of speed limits.”
Keith nodded as if that satisfied him. “Good. We can outrun the snakes.”
“Sure, buddy,” Gretchen said.
She liked him a lot more with the concussion, actually. He was kind of adorable.
But not necessarily helpful...
“Keith, did you call for backup?”
Keith nodded again and then winced. “Chief Powell and 911.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Shooting,” Keith explained. “Bang.” He paused. “I forgot to mention the snakes.”
“That’s okay.” She patted him on the shoulder. She guessed that for him, the visual distortion must have looked like squirmy bits of light and color, things his concussed brain could only process as snakes.
Gretchen hated snakes. Give her guys with guns any day.
“They’ll triangulate the cell phone location anyway,” Cooper said, and to Gretchen’s surprise, he had an appealingly roguish grin on his face. He must have been enjoying the adrenaline high. “He didn’t have to say much more than ‘bang’ to get people interested.”
“I’m definitely interested,” Gretchen said. She still had the gas pedal pressed all the way into the floor, but she could no longer see the car in her rearview mirror. All she could see were snowflakes. It almost looked peaceful.
Cooper followed her gaze. “I think they took the exit. The roads are so deserted right now that maybe someone will catch them, but—”
But they had a magical color-changing car, so Gretchen didn’t think it was too likely.
Whatever they’d encountered today, they’d never be able to explain to local law enforcement. She could bring in her team, who would believe her, but that was it.
They were on their own.
8
Gretchen couldn’t stop shaking.
“I’m freezing,” she said.
“It’s the aftermath of all the adrenaline,” Cooper said quietly. He stretched out his hands, showing her the way his own fingers were trembling. “I’ve got it too.”
His hands were still cuffed together. More and more, that fact appalled her.
The hospital had cleared out a break room for them to sit in while they waited for the update on Keith. The ER was overcrowded at the moment, and the most they’d been able to spare for him was a bed in an open hallway, which hadn’t left Gretchen and Cooper with much room to stand around.
The administration’s biggest concern had apparently then become getting Cooper out of sight: a tall, strong-looking federal prisoner in chains didn’t have a good effect on the patients’ blood pressure numbers. It was nice to have the privacy, but the lack of distractions left Gretchen with nothing to think about but the stressful, frightening carousel of worries currently turning around and around inside her head.