Page 95 of Backtrack

She turned, nearly fainting with relief.

“Arliss?”

CHAPTER 43

No-Neck bolted, shoving Joellen backward and knocking a Japanese family out of his way with a barked curse. Joellen hung half over the rail, dangerously close to falling to the rocks below.

“Get him!” Cutter said to Lola. “I’ve got her.”

He took Joellen by her shoulders and steadied her. “Are you okay?” He looked her up and down.

“You actually came …” she whispered, blinking in disbelief. “I didn’t think …”

Cutter took a white handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed at her wounded lip. “Jo,” he said, more firmly now. “Are you okay?”

She nodded.

“Was this guy alone?”

“I … I didn’t see anyone else—”

“Stay here,” Cutter said. “I need to check on my partner.”

He turned to go but spun around again. “I mean what I say, Jo. Stay put here in the open. Just because you don’t see anyone doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

“Aye, aye, Marshal!” Joellen said, snapping a sloppy salute.

Cutter left her in the care of a couple of elderly women in red hats.

He ducked and dodged through the crowd, worry rising in his gut. It pissed her off, but he couldn’t help but think of Lola like a kid sister. She was plenty capable, but No-Neck looked like a guy who could hold his own in a fight.

The solid scrum of tourists crammed onto the boardwalk made anything more than a fast shuffle impossible. “US Marshals!” Cutter barked, shouldering his way through a stubborn knot of bodies clogging the narrow pathway over the falls.

An angry snarl blew his direction on the breeze. Lola. Her commands were terrifying when she was amped. The crowd thinned just enough for him to push through.

No-Neck hadn’t made it far.

Lola stood over his prone body. Sunlight glinted off the gossamer wires leading from the outlaw’s back and buttocks to the yellow Taser in her hand.

Lola glanced up, grinning at Cutter. “Can I borrow your cuffs?”

Cutter snatched the handcuffs from his belt. He scanned the area for other threats and then double-checked with Lola to make sure she was acting as cover while he stepped forward to make contact.

“Got him?”

She nodded. “Got him.”

“That bitch shot me,” No-Neck said as Cutter secured his wrists with two pairs of linked cuffs.

“I’m sure she had a reason.” Cutter rolled the man to a seated position. “Any weapons on you?”

“I just came off the cruise ship, genius,” the man said. “They search you coming and going.” He glared at Lola. “Hear that? You just shot an unarmed man.”

“Tasers are just the ticket for unarmed men,” she said. “If you’d had so much as a sharpened pencil, I would have shot you for reals.”

Cutter gave their arrestee a quick pat down, pulling the wallet out of his back pocket and passing it to Lola.

She read from the driver’s license. “Bartholomew Preston of Conroe, Texas.”