Twin Threat Christmas by Rachelle McCalla

Eric felt sweat beading cold on the back of his neck. What was Vanessa thinking? He knew she was desperate to protect her kids—the fact that she’d driven through the back wall of a garage told him that. And he knew it would take something drastic to pull Arthur Sherman out into the open. That was what worried him.
    “He already doesn’t trust Virgil—he was upset that Virgil hadn’t checked out the cabin already.”
    Her words sent Eric’s pulse racing. He’d known her too well long ago not to see what she was getting at, and he didn’t like it.
    She turned to address Deputy Abbott, who’d been listening to their conversation while they waited for Deputy Perez’s report. Vanessa continued, “He’ll want to make sure he gets the evidence, the CPU, my vow of silence. Unless he’s changed his plans, he’s on his way to the cabin right now, in person, tonight. He’ll show up if it means making sure the job is done right. I’ve heard his voice in my ductwork before. He won’t risk a breach.”
    Eric wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but he got a terrible feeling she was proposing a risk he didn’t want her to take. “Vanessa, I don’t—”
    “We need to hide the patrol car. And can we get more officers out here and hide them?” she asked Deputy Abbott.
    “What are you proposing?” Deputy Abbott looked far more open to Vanessa’s idea than Eric felt.
    “If Arthur Sherman shows up here, we need to be ready for him.”
    Eric placed a hand on her shoulder. “
We?
I think you mean
they.
The sheriff’s deputies, the FBI. Not us. He could be here any moment.”
    “And then what? We hide from him? We’re here already. This is our chance. You said yourself we’ve got to do something. It could be hours before the FBI shows up, if they even agree to come. Arthur could be on a plane to Tahiti by then, or wherever criminals hide out. Who knows? He’ll be gone to somewhere we can’t reach him, but he could still put a hit out on me. This may be our only chance to catch him.”
    “Not our chance,” Eric corrected her again. “The FBI’s chance.”
    Deputy Abbott had nodded along with everything Vanessa said. “I’ll hide the patrol car right now, in case they get here early. Then we’ll find out what Perez has learned.” She grabbed her keys and headed outside.
    Eric took advantage of the relative privacy to grill Vanessa on what she was thinking. “You’re going to let the police handle this, aren’t you? We don’t have to be here. Arthur shows up, the officers jump out and nab him. You don’t have to be here.”
    “I don’t want to be here, but—”
    “But nothing. Your girls need you.” He pulled out his keys. “We can leave now, go find your girls, wait in safety.”
    “Okay,” Vanessa agreed, but qualified, “just as soon as the backup officers get here, we can go.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean Perez and Abbott are two people. How many are in Arthur’s car? At least two. They need us.”
    “They don’t need you. Your kids need you.”
    “This may be our only chance to catch Arthur. He could be here any moment. All I’m saying is, we wait until more officers arrive before we leave.”
    “No.” Eric tugged her back into his arms. She leaned against him without resisting. “We leave it to the professionals.”
    “There are only two of them. If Arthur gets away...” Vanessa’s voice faltered slightly.
    Eric pulled back just far enough to see her face. “He wants to kill you.”
    The fear that glistened in Vanessa’s eyes told him she’d already considered that. “How else are we going to catch him? And if we don’t, he’ll always be out there, wanting to kill me.” She sucked in a breath and looked up at him. “I tried, Eric. Don’t you think I tried? I tried to run away three different times. Each time, I thought I covered my bases, thought I’d found a way out. I tasted freedom, but this monster has too many arms. He pulled me back each time, found me