Alright, meant to post this before "The Ear," but my beta was taking her time… Thanks to everyone who reviews (and to those of ya'll that read, sure)
Lidet was arraigned in a black v-neck, jeans, motorcycle jacket and boots. Less than distinctive in Lexington but a bit of a giveaway in the woods. Plus her watch phone and just about everything else useful she'd had in her pockets when she was arrested was still at the lockup.
Tim lost the trail after a few hundred yards, where there was a large oak. A large oak with branches low enough to climb and a perch he knew he could sleep in, if it might be a little cramped. But Lidet was only 5'3". There weren't tracks coming down but if she'd jumped down after climbing out...
He had next to no idea where to look.
Clare Lidet was having a bad week. First, her bike, her dead father's Ducati, went in for a quick tune-up and then needed a replacement. Then, she was arrested for crimes she was not only innocent of, but didn't know were being committed. Then she was arraigned, and then her uncles' told her that bail would take a few days, and there could still be tax penalties for the family trust. So, she was going back to the federal detention center. And her arresting officers' had kindly informed her that there was a price on her head. But, not to worry, all she had to do was sell out the other conspirators that she didn't know, and they'd protect her.
Like a lowly resident would have been involved in some elaborate conspiracy about bribery and misinformation in the transplants' lists.
Then the accident. And Marie pulling her out of the SUV to try and stab her with a shard of windshield. Instead she just sliced her neck and across her chest, with windshield. Who does that?!
So, now she was a motorcycle-less fugitive. Because she knew jail was gonna be worse. And she couldn't pull an unconscious Marshal's gun and pistol-whip anyone there either. Nope, she made a choice and she was sticking with it. It was a stupid choice, but it was hers.
Someone was probably tracking her by now. She'd dozed in a tree for most of the night, but between the cold, the hunger, the gash on her chest she'd had to put fricking leeches on to help control the bleeding, and being in a fucking tree, she was exhausted and moving slow. And she had only the vaguest idea of where she was going. East? Fuck.
She hoped whoever was following her was better prepared. She maybe above bribery and corruption but a little honest theft seemed reasonable. She was a fugitive now, after all.
By the afternoon, Tim, having made the decision to keep heading east, found evidence that she'd been picking plants. Obvious signs. He looked up. No wiggling branches, no fugitive doctors. He kept on at a jog until he found a tree of his own to climb. He caught sight of something a few hundred yards away through his scope. It was her, but he couldn't line up a shot to wing her between the brush and the way she was moving. He reported in and started after her.
He was at a quicker jog than before, still not running yet. But she was walking and he wasn't. He hoped to have her by the end of the day.
The hair on her neck was standing up. When she'd been six she'd had this feeling, it wasn't quite as strong this time, but it was there. That churning of her gut, the sense that the scalp was too small for her skull. It had meant her dad was going to be shot that time. But it had allowed her to sob enough of a warning to him that he'd worn his vest and only had a cracked rib. She had no vest, also no food, water or supplies to MacGyver into anything helpful, but that was secondary to needing to know where the threat would be coming from: a federal or private individual.
By twilight, Tim made it to another oak and climbed. She was slower now, and he was making good time. He sighted her and watched as she looked around her, wary like an injured animal.
She was staying close to the thickest growth, finding protection from his rifle. She jogged between the trees, crossing close to them slowly. Pale and sporting a bloody gash across her chest, she confirmed Tim's theory at the crash site at the end of the day.
She was about half a mile ahead of him when it was dark; he contemplated his flashlight, but didn't turn it on. There was too much distance for night vision goggles to work so he traveled as far as he could in her direction until it was pitch black and he found his own tree to rest in.
Clare's churning gut only got worse as she stumbled over roots and fallen branches. Her own excellent night vision, a genetic gift from her father, served her only so well while she was staying under the trees.
Not knowing how equipped or close her pursuer was wreaking havoc on her mind with every owl hoot and scurrying creature. She didn't dare to leave the cover of whatever foliage she could find, even in the dark.
She kept within hearing distance of the river, trying to place herself on the only map she'd seen of the area, about 5 years ago while camping with a boyfriend as an undergrad. She doubted anyone out there even knew she'd been here before, but it was enough of an edge to keep her trying.
She didn't sleep that night, her progress was slow but she was so focused on where the threat was and what she was confident was a growing stress-related ulcer, she scarcely noticed how hungry she was. By dawn the feeling had faded for her to gnaw on some dandelion leaves and sip from the creek while cleaning her cut.
Tim made his way to the river shortly after dawn. He recognized where he was from the distinctive bend, rocks, and widening that occurred there. Marking the place on his map, he tried for reception as he ate breakfast.
He reported directly to Art, who said Rachel'd be in later to oversee everything after she got her nephew off to school, and report what she'd learned talking to Lidet's family. Not expecting much on that front, Tim agreed to call in again around 9 rather than noon, and signed off.
According to her file, her two oldest brothers were Seals. Jack, Jr., a married SERE instructor, Daniel, still on combat duty. The two closest to her age were twins, Cameron, a marine biologist, and Chris, a priest, and former Navy chaplain. She'd done beauty pageants until her homemaker mother's death. Her parents had died 6 years apart. Her mom, when she'd been 13 in a car accident and her dad, a bounty hunter and former NOPD detective0, had been murdered the year she turned 19. She'd been the one to find each of them. The impetus (impeti) for med school?
She'd tried to help the Marshals in the accident; she had the gun but hadn't used it. Either against the Marshals or Lisbon, and hopefully not against himself later. Tim was rather inclined to believe her innocent and running was a response to the stress of it all, rather than to avoid punishment. Given her background, but all in all, he was grateful that wasn't his job.
By the time he'd talked to Rachel, he walked a little over 10 miles, by the time he finished thinking about what she'd told him Lidet's brothers and uncles had said, he'd found fresh foot prints by the creek and realized she'd walked all night. While he'd slept.
Swampgirl would be a bit more formidable an opponent than he'd guessed. What would Art say now?
Art was too busy gritting his teeth to say much of anything. The New Orleans Marshal's office had called back. They were completely familiar with not only Dr. Lidet, but her family had been bounty hunters and bondsmen for several generations. Dr. Lidet's father had been the black sheep going into the NOPD. Most of the Lidet kids, Clare included, had either caught jumpers or assisted in catching, by the time they finished high school.
The guy on the phone seemed particularly sympathetic, when her name was mentioned, and assured Art of her innocence. Stating, "She's had a rough time, but if she were gonna go for a life of crime, she'd pick somethin' closer to her own skillset. Like contract killing," he'd left Art less than confident of recovering her without incident.
He knew Tim had been an excellent Ranger, an amazing sniper, and a good soldier. There was a sardonic gleam in his eye too often for Art to think Tim followed as blindly his Army masters would have preferred. He was equally confident in thinking Tim could make a damn fine Marshal. The only other person Art knew who noticed things as well had been Raylan, back at Glynco.
Tim's gut had been right on this as well, and Art spared a prayer that Tim wouldn't be as smug in invoking that as Raylan would've been later.
But Tim was a very new Marshal, and he was now working in Ranger mode. If Lidet did something and Tim had to put her down it would not only be a major shit-storm b/c she hadn't been tried, much less convicted, but it could end a very promising career and set him personally back. She wasn't a terrorist or a murderer, even if she was guilty of what the fed's claimed. She was a sister, a niece, and a doctor that people spoke of glowingly.
After Art returned his phone to its cradle he looked at Tim's empty desk, still praying he'd be there for years to come.
Clare was continuing at a fairly glacial pace, given her current condition, relying on her head start and walking all night to get away from her bad feeling. At least until she felt the churning in her stomach get worse.
It was around noon, if she could trust the sun, and she staggered back to the river so she could know vaguely where she was.
She ate more leaves, and the few berries she could recognize, imagining IHOP specials she hadn't allowed herself previously. '"When I get my life back, I'm gonna be as fat as a house and not give a good Goddamn," she muttered to herself.
Meanwhile Tim was catching up. And he'd pulled his rifle, if she'd only quit hiding in the damn brush. A begrudging smile tugged at his mouth. She was a challenge and she'd proven him right. All in all, he didn't want to shoot her. He'd just wing her, he decided, just wing her, cuff her quick and look forward to her swearing at him on the way into Lexington.
There was no way for him to say for sure she had Nelson's sidearm, to make any lethal shoot good anyway. He hadn't seen it, for all he knew, Lisbon had had it and dropped it...Tim abandoned that line of thought. Logic dictated Lidet had the gun, but she knew he was after her by now and still hadn't pulled. His instincts said she was solid, but that was based on knowing her brother, Jackie, at SERE school. An asshole, sure, but competent, reliable and deadly. Besides, asshole was sorta his job. Tim pondered if he should have mentioned that he'd met her brother to Art before going after her, too late now and it's not like they were friends anyway.
Another line of thought abandoned, Tim jumped down from his perch at the site of her sitting at the river at dusk and he sprinted after her. Within about 60 yards, he slowed and kept to the trees and brush as she'd done, watching her.
Lidet was sitting on a fallen tree that passed over a rocky patch of the river. The Rockcastle was running high after the spring snows had melted and Lidet was dangling her bare feet in it, boots on the log next to her. He climbed a hickory tree, leaving his pack on the ground, rifle slung on his back, and watched her. She was resting against a dried-out branch, eyes closed, jacket zipped to her throat, her arms crossed, hugging herself. As he lined up a shot to wing her, her eyes opened and darted around.
That damn bad feeling again.
She'd been starting to doze. Her aching feet numbed, her hunger was past the point of her noticing, and there was no one around to care if she smelled.
Tranquility shattered, she didn't move anything but her eyes. Hopefully, whoever was tasked with recovering her wasn't watching her face and didn't realize she'd noticed him.
She reminded him of a cat in a zoo. The serene lioness watching cubs play immediately before tearing the throat out of something.
Tim shifted his weight on his branch. Not a leaf shuddered, he was so careful and it was so solid, nothing there to alert her to his presence. Besides, he figured, if there'd been a reflection off his scope, her eyes wouldn't be flitting around.
Somehow she'd sensed him. If it was him she was sensing.
A/N I have no idea if the branches share staff for SERE school, but they all have it and the training is pretty standard and I like the idea of Tim being familiar with her family, so whatever. Also, I heard that there'd be more with the Lexington Marshals this season (as in ANYTHING) so, totally fangirl excited now.