Free Unlawful Contact by Pamela Clare

reward for breaking the law.
    He had everything to gain and nothing but a life of misery to lose.
    Terror settled like a block of ice in her stomach, the full extent of her peril suddenly horrifyingly clear.
    A chill that had nothing to do with the weather skittered down her spine.
    Ignoring the bitter cold and the pain in his shoulder, Marc glanced into the rearview mirror and was almost blinded by the chopper’s searchlights. They were pacing him, watching him, waiting for him to spin out of control, run out of gas, or give up. But it wasn’t going to happen. Too much was at stake for him to fuck up.
    “Y-you might not m-mind if you d-die tonight, b-but I do!”
    He heard the barely suppressed panic in Sophie’s voice and realized she was trembling. Was she that afraid of him? He thrust aside his sense of guilt. “I had no idea you cared.”
    “I-I meant I don’t w-want to die tonight! Y-you can g-go to hell f-for all I c-care!”
    And then it hit him. She wasn’t trembling out of fear. She was shivering.
    He glanced over at her, saw that she was shaking almost uncontrollably. He’d thought that, seated on the passenger side with the heater on, she’d be spared the worst of the cold and wet, but he could see droplets of icy moisture on her face and realized her clothes were almost as saturated as his. But she had a much smaller body mass than he did. She wouldn’t be able to withstand the cold as long as he would.
    “Do you have a blanket?”
    “A s-space blanket. In the t-trunk.”
    “That won’t do you any damned good. Don’t go fucking hypothermic on me.”
    Behind him, the cops slowed their pace and began to fall back.
    What the fuck? Were they giving up?
    “Y-you don’t c-care what h-happens t-to me! Y-you threatened to k-kill me!” She glared at him. Then her eyes flew open wide. “Y-you…y-you’re b-bleeding! You’ve b-been shot!”
    He glanced down, saw that he’d bled through his shirt and down his arm. “I know this will come as a disappointment, but I’ll live.”
    “N-not if y-you pass out behind the whe—”
    “It’s not as much blood as it seems. It’s just a deep graze.” That’s what he hoped, anyway. He hadn’t had time to check it.
    “I h-have a first-aid k-kit in the b-back, too.”
    But he didn’t hear her, his gaze fixed on the road ahead. “Shit!”
    At least a dozen squad cars blocked the highway, creating a barricade of steel where the road forked off into Clear Creek Canyon. They were trying to keep him from doing exactly what he’d planned to do—use the narrow canyon walls and lack of visibility to lose the chopper before eluding the squad cars in the mountains.
    So that’s why the cops had slowed down.
    If he was going to avoid crashing into them, he needed to downshift now and start braking. But he’d be damned if he’d give up yet. He weighed his options—or, rather, his lack of options—and made up his mind. “Okay, Sophie, it’s time to start praying.”
    Eyes wide, she had already braced her hands against the dashboard. “Oh, God, no! Pl-please don’t do this!”
    Marc pressed on the accelerator, hurtling them toward the flashing lights.
    Beside him, Sophie whimpered. “N-no!”
    A hundred yards. Sixty. Thirty.
    He jerked the wheel to the left, fighting to keep control of the little vehicle as it swerved off the road and hurtled toward the vacant tourist parking lot that marked the entrance to the canyon. The car fishtailed, jumped the curb, caught air.
    He heard Sophie scream, her cry cut short when the car came down with a bone-jarring crunch. Breath knocked from his lungs, Marc fought to get the car out of a spin.
    Shouts. The drone of the chopper. A blinding spray of snow.
    “Hang on!” He gunned it, straightened the wheel, made for the dark slit of the canyon.
    The car skidded, studded tires chewing ice, fighting for traction.
    And they were away.

     

    S OPHIE HUDDLED IN the emergency blanket Hunter had retrieved from her trunk,