The Marshal's Justice (Appaloosa Pass Ranch 4) by Delores Fossen Page A

her head. “Why would he come here without a plan to get out? A plan that didn’t involve taking a random hostage? It’s too risky. He could have just waited outside and gunned us down.”
    Chase agreed so quickly that it made her realize he’d already come to that same conclusion. And that meant maybe the gunman wasn’t there to kill them but to create a diversion.
    “Quentin,” she said.
    “Stay down,” Chase warned her.
    April had no intentions of running out there since she’d only be shot, but she prayed the security guard would be able to protect her brother if this attack was indeed aimed at him.
    “Help me,” the nurse begged again, and judging from the sound of her voice, her captor was moving her deeper into the hall. Where he would no doubt try to escape with her.
    Unfortunately, there were too many ways for him to do just that.
    There were clinics on one side of the hall, and most of them had exits to the parking lot. If the thug made it that far, he could get away. That wouldn’t be good for the nurse. Or for them. Because he wouldn’t be able to give them answers as to why this was happening, and he might kill the nurse instead of letting her go.
    “You have a clean shot?” Chase asked Jax.
    Jax shook his head and checked his phone when it dinged. “Jericho’s just now pulling into the parking lot. He spotted Renée, and she’s armed.”
    No. That meant it might not be safe for Jericho to get out of his cruiser. Of course, that probably wouldn’t stop him, but Renée could certainly slow him down if she started shooting.
    The nurse screamed, and when April glanced at her, she saw something she definitely didn’t want to see. The nurse was fighting to get loose, and her captor was fighting back. He bashed her against the head with his gun and then took aim at her. Ready to kill her.
    Chase reacted fast. So fast that it was over before April even saw it coming. He leaned out from the chair and fired two shots, the sounds blasting through the hospital.
    April held her breath, adding another prayer for the nurse. But it wasn’t the nurse who’d been shot. It was the gunman. He crumpled into a heap on the floor.
    “I need to get April away from this door,” Chase told Jax. Probably because of Renée. The woman could come running in at any moment. “Stay behind me,” Chase added to her.
    April got to her feet, trailing along behind him as Chase made his way to the guy he’d just shot. The nurse was still screaming, but several of her coworkers rushed forward to pull her away.
    When Chase made it to the man, he leaned down, retrieved his gun and stripped off the ski mask. April got just a glimpse of his face.
    A stranger.
    She supposed that was better than it being someone she knew, but this was the third armed thug who’d attacked them, and it made her wonder just how many assassins had been hired to come after them.
    Or to come after her brother.
    “Watch our backs,” Chase called out to Jax.
    Chase was watching all around them, too, as he made his way down the hall. No sign of the guard outside her brother’s room, but then the man had gone with Quentin and the nurse to have the MRI done.
    There were two nurses who were still cowering behind their station, and it probably didn’t help their panic when they saw Chase’s gun.
    “Where’s the patient who was in this room?” Chase asked them.
    “Still in radiology,” one of them answered and reached for the phone. “I’ll call over there.”
    It seemed to take an eternity for her to do that. And while April waited, she tried to tamp down her fear. Hard to do that, though, with the adrenaline still pumping through her.
    She couldn’t hear the nurse’s whispered conversation with whomever the woman had called, but April had no trouble figuring out that something was wrong. The nurse was trembling even harder when she finished the call.
    “I called the receptionist at the check-in desk in radiology and she said no one’s