The Christmas Clue. Delores Fossen

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      “What’s wrong?” Cass demanded. “What does Level Red mean?” And she held her breath because she knew she wasn’t going to like the answer.

      Matt Christensen latched on to her arm and got her moving toward the kitchen door. “It means we leave now. Someone sent assassins to kill us.”

      Chapter Four

      “I hate to say I told you so…” Cass grumbled under her breath.

      Yeah. Matt hated it, too, but hindsight wasn’t going to get them out of this situation.

      “Help is on the way, but I doubt they’ll arrive in time. And I’d rather not get involved in a shootout,” he said more to himself than her.

      “Then you’d better have a plan to avoid one.”

      She added something else equally obvious in that on-the-verge-of-panicking tone, but he shut out whatever she was saying. He had to concentrate if he was going to get them out of this alive.

      Matt grabbed the black leather jacket that he kept next to the back kitchen door. He shoved his cell phone, a small supply kit, her tranquilizer gun and some extra magazines of ammo into his pockets. The supply kit had money, matches and just in case, tools for picking locks. While he was at it, he crammed some ammo into Cass’s front jeans pocket, as well. Not the best idea he’d ever had.

      His fingers went places they never should have gone. Cass let him know that with a huff.

      Matt mumbled an apology and eased the back door open an inch, but he didn’t step outside. He paused and lifted his head a fraction. Listening.

      “Won’t the assassins use the street out front?” Cass asked. She slid her smaller gun back into her holster.

      “Maybe. But they might come at us from several directions.”

      She sucked in her breath. Yeah. The severity of their situation had obviously sunk in.

      Matt opened the door farther and did a situation assessment. He heard the vicious winter wind. But there was no indication that there were assassins about. But then, a hired gun probably wouldn’t give many indications before he aimed and pulled the trigger.

      Still, they’d have to risk it.

      “Let’s go,” Matt ordered her.

      “Let’s go?” She didn’t move, even when he clamped on to her arm. “How could it possibly be safer out there than it would be in here?”

      “Those assassins are going to riddle this house with bullets. There’s no place we can hide in here where we can’t be shot.”

      Obviously not convinced, she frantically shook her head. “But—”

      “They probably have explosives or some other heavy artillery they can use to turn this place and our vehicles into fireballs,” he interrupted. “We’re leaving now.”

      Matt didn’t wait for an argument. He pulled her out the door and headed for the first cluster of oaks at the back of the house. It wasn’t far, less than twenty feet away. But every step felt like a mile.

      By the time he hauled her behind the largest of the trees, his body was already in full adrenaline mode. His gaze whipped from one side of the woods to the other, and he braced his weapon in case he had to fire. But Matt saw no indication that anyone had trespassed—yet.

      “Keep your gun ready,” he instructed. He pointed toward another cluster of trees just to the east of where they were. “Let’s go.”

      Cass cooperated. Without hesitation or questions she ran, hurdling over a fallen cedar before she ducked into the next barrier of trees.

      “Where are we going?” she asked, her breath heavy with every word. Like him, she kept a vigilant watch around them.

      He knew the answer, but he didn’t think she’d like it. “To a bunker of sorts. We’ll wait there until it’s safe for us to leave.”

      “And what will keep the gunmen from finding us there?”

      “Nothing.”

      Her breath got even heavier. “This doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”

      And at the moment it didn’t sound like much of a plan to Matt, either. He had an old truck stashed back beyond the bunker, but it’d be a bear to get to it and then get out without drawing attention from the assassins.

      Which meant he might have to kill them.

      Of course, Matt had known that from the moment he’d first heard about the Level Red threat. Those men had almost certainly come to murder them, and since Matt wasn’t ready to die, he was prepared to take them out first.

      Matt surveyed the area, then pointed toward a pair of cedar elms with an ankle-deep stream ribboning around them. Just like before, they raced toward cover.

      It was winter all right, not that that was news to Matt, but he became brutally aware of just how cold it was when he felt the slushy, partly-frozen water seep right through the leather in his boots.

      Matt heard something. The back door to his house. No doubt opened by one of the assassins. The men had probably come in through the front and already searched the place—and now they were ready to look outside. Cass’s and his tracks wouldn’t be that hard to follow.

      Cass must have heard the door, as well, because she dropped to the ground, using the mound of frozen dirt and rocks as cover.

      She aimed her gun in the direction of the house. “We don’t have time for this,” she whispered. “We need to get out of here so we can get that equipment and leave for Dominic’s.”

      So, she did appear to have that mountain of resolve even in the face of assassins. Matt admired that. But that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. Because he had a really bad feeling that camaraderie and admiration were not going to be assets where Cass Harrison was concerned. The less he felt about her, good or bad, the better.

      He was about to repeat to himself when a flash of movement captured his complete attention.

      One of the men, dressed head to toe in black, darted behind an oak. Matt automatically took aim. So did Cass.

      It was too little too late.

      A bullet came right at them.

      FROM THE MOMENT she’d seen those gunmen, Cass had braced herself for the possibility that she’d have to dodge gunfire. What she couldn’t have planned for was the deafening blast that sent that bullet their way. The sound ripped through her, spiking her adrenaline and sending her heartbeat racing out of control.

      “Stay down,” Matt barked.

      Just as another bullet slapped into the dirt mere inches from her head.

      Cass flattened her body right against the frozen ground, and she tried to find out where the shots were coming from. The angle was all wrong for the bullets to have come from the gunman behind the big tree.

      “He’s on the roof,” Matt informed her, as if reading her mind. He levered himself up and fired.

      Cass hadn’t braced herself for that, either, and if she’d thought the shooter’s rifle was loud, it was a whisper compared to the sonic boom that came from Matt’s gun a couple of feet from her ear.

      “Did you get him?” she asked, unable to spot the guy who was obviously trying to kill them.

      “Not a chance. He’s out of range, and he knows it. That’s why he’s up there.”

      Oh, mercy. So, they had one shooter out of range and another likely creeping his way through the woods toward them.

      “Turn around,” Matt ordered her. “And watch our backs.”

      Cass hadn’t thought it could get any worse until he said that. Her heart was no longer just racing, it was banging