The Littlest Witness. Jane M. Choate
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as a snake, she brought the edge of her hand down on the wrist of his gun hand, sending the gun flying. She moved in fast, hooked her right leg beneath his, toppling him to the floor. With scarcely a pause, he rolled backward and jumped to his feet.
He wasn’t even breathing hard and looked as though he were enjoying himself. “That the best you got?” His mouth twisted in an ugly sneer.
She didn’t bother with an answer.
He’d obviously had top-notch military training, and deflected her flying fists and feet with little effort. She feinted to the left, spun on one foot, then struck out with her right fist. It connected with a bone-jarring crunch to his jaw. Pain sang up her arm.
She spun, hitting his throat with the toe of her boot.
He groaned but didn’t go down and withdrew his knife from its scabbard, the honed edge gleaming menacingly. She had to stay out of its reach, and, at the same time, take him down.
Knives were a man’s weapon, requiring skill, strength and, above all, reach. Though she was skilled enough with a blade, she lacked the necessary power to be really effective. Instead, she relied on moves that Jake had taught her.
When the man reached for her throat, she drove the ball of her hand upward under his nose. His agonized cry told her she’d broken it.
Good.
But self-congratulations were premature. He was still standing, still a threat. He swiped his hand across his nose, scowling when it came away bloody.
“You’ll pay for that.”
He shifted position, and she saw her opening.
“No. But you will.”
She kicked out with her leg, striking his knee, causing it to bend in a way nature never intended. The knee, a particularly sensitive spot in the body, was crucial to standing, to movement, to balance.
Injuries to the knee could reduce the toughest of men to howling babies. Her assailant was no different. He screamed in rage and pain as he crumpled to the floor, clutching his injured leg.
“This ain’t worth it,” he muttered, spittle flecking his face. “Nobody said she was some kind of ninja.”
“Better than ninja,” she said and delivered the final blow to the back of his neck.
Shelley and Caleb made short work of tying up the assailants with zip ties she carried in her backpack. But she didn’t delude herself into believing that this would put an end to the threat to Caleb and Tommy, if anything, she was more worried than ever. The enemy had upped the stakes, making it clear that Caleb was expendable. Even more chilling, what did they have in store for Tommy?
“When do you leap over tall buildings in a single bound?” Caleb drawled as they sped down the highway after Shelley had hustled them out of the cabin.
The Georgia countryside was a blur as Shelley coaxed the minivan to maximum speed. If he weren’t mistaken, they were heading back to Atlanta. After settling Tommy in the backseat, asleep with his stuffed bear in his arms, Caleb had climbed in the passenger side. He didn’t like not driving, didn’t like turning over that control. But clearly Shelley believed she should drive, so he held his tongue. Barely.
A dark cloud smeared the sky gray. The humidity was thick enough to slice and serve up on a platter. Much as Caleb had detested the sand that blew with unrelenting persistence in Afghanistan day and night, he preferred that to the clamminess that crawled over his skin now like a million wet ants.
She flashed a grin his way. “Haven’t perfected that skill yet. I’ll let you know when I do.”
“Seriously, is there anything you can’t do?” He ticked items off his fingers. “You drive like a NASCAR champ. You take down a man who’s twice your size. I was beginning to feel as useless as a snowball in Alaska.”
Her smile died. “I told you to grab Tommy and get out.”
“You really think I’d leave you to take out two armed men by yourself?”
“Your first responsibility is to your nephew.”
“Don’t preach to me about my responsibilities,” he said, voice cold as the desert night in Afghanistan he had only moments ago been feeling nostalgia for. “I’m well aware of my duties.” Duty had defined him for as long as he could remember. Now it lay with Tommy. And it terrified him.
“Then why didn’t you go? I can handle myself.”
“So I saw. But Deltas don’t leave anyone behind. Ever.” The lash in his voice was unlike him. He chalked it up to a combination of fear, exhaustion and worry, but it was guilt that nagged at him unmercifully.
Ignoring his tone, Shelley retorted, “I’m not just anyone.”
“Duly noted.” He turned slightly so that he could see her profile. The softness of her features was belied by the firmness of her jaw. “You handled yourself like a pro back there.”
“I am a pro, Judd. Get used to it.”
Caleb didn’t argue. He had met Shelley less than twenty-four hours ago, and in that space of time, she’d spirited him and Tommy out of a motel, engaged two SUVs in a deadly game of chicken, then taken down an armed assailant who was bent on killing her and Caleb.
She had done all this with such dispatch that he could only marvel at the woman’s skill and courage. She was the real deal.
She hadn’t drawn her weapon. He had a pretty good idea why, but he asked anyway. “Why didn’t you use your gun? You had an opening.”
“I would have if I’d needed to, but I figured the police will have plenty of questions for those yahoos. There’s a chance they may even answer,” she said, confirming his guess. “Plus, taking a life, even when it’s justified, changes you. I didn’t need that. Not again.”
Caleb didn’t mind using his gun. But, like any soldier who understood what that meant, he liked not using his weapon better. Then the last part of her comment registered. He shot her a questioning look, but she only shook her head.
After securing the gunmen with plastic flex-cuffs she’d pulled from her backpack, she’d called Sal and directed him to call the local police and have the men picked up. She’d fished in the men’s pockets and had come away with nothing. “It figures.”
“What?”
“No ID. Not even a burner phone to tell who they called last.”
Caleb understood what she meant. There was no way to know who was giving the orders.
At that moment, a deer leaped from the woods, bounded over the guard rail and onto the road. Shelley braked sharply, avoiding the animal by mere inches. “Do you know that Bambi kills more people every year than Smokey the Bear?”
“I’ve heard stories.”
The clouds of earlier spilled forth in a drizzle, which quickly turned into a heavy rain. With the beat of the rain a counterpoint to his thoughts, Caleb tried to digest the events of the past day and a half. Questions swirled in his mind, questions that led only to a quagmire of more questions. Nothing about this made sense. If the killers thought Tommy could identify his parents’ murderers, why hadn’t they disposed of him when they’d killed Michael and Grace? Why try to kidnap him now?
They rode in silence for thirty minutes until Shelley broke it. “I was afraid of this,” she said, gesturing to what appeared to be an accident scene just ahead.
He got it immediately. An accident on this isolated stretch of road was too much of a coincidence to ignore. The punch of fear was not for himself, but for Tommy. “We’re not stopping.” He made a statement of the words.
“You