by Jenna Night
* * *
“Well, we got some guns off the streets thanks to the efforts of you and your team,” Sergeant Bergman said to Harry. “That’ll likely save lives. I know what you really wanted was to capture Darrin Linder and his associates, but you still accomplished something substantial.”
Maybe so, Harry thought. But I’m not sure it made Ramona any safer.
They were still at the lakeside property. It was after sunset and the surrounding forest was dark, but the exterior lights of the house and the outbuildings were on. The police were checking the storage building where they had found the guns, as well as looking through the garage and the boat shed for any additional evidence. Bergman was waiting to hear back from his commanding officer on whether he could breach the door and go into the house legally.
Cassie had arrived and she and Ramona were walking aimlessly around the stretch of lawn illuminated by the lights attached to the eaves of the house. Ramona had been shaky in the aftermath of the shooting and Cassie was calming her down.
Harry had wanted to do that, to offer Ramona comfort and reassurance, but that had seemed like a bad idea. He’d made himself a promise that he would put some emotional distance between them and he needed to stick to that. Although when bullets were flying, keeping his distance had been the last thing on his mind.
“Have you heard anything back from the deputies on the patrol boat?” Leon asked Bergman as he and Martin walked up. The two bounty hunters had been helping the police officers load the recovered firearms into a police department van. Then they’d joined the cops in doing a sweep of the grounds for any evidence that might have been left behind,
“Unfortunately, the pursuit across the lake was pretty much over before it even started.” Bergman’s normally unemotional tone had a bitter cast to it. “The sheriff’s department only had the one boat on the lake today, and it was docked too far away when they got the call. By the time they made it over here, it was too dark to see anything.”
“Can’t you get a helicopter or a drone to look for them?” Martin asked.
Harry noticed the smallest hint of a smile at the corner of the sergeant’s lips before the cop said, “The Stone River PD doesn’t have a drone.” His expression immediately went back to being all business. “But we will have the sheriff’s department helicopter out here at first light tomorrow morning looking for them. If they approach someone’s private dock tonight, odds are pretty good that the property owner will call us. If they try to moor in an isolated area, they still need to get to shore, get to a road and then have someone pick them up. With the weather still chilly and the water in the lake very cold, they’d be fools to jump overboard and try to swim to land and escape that way. They’d end up with hypothermia in no time.”
“Is anybody claiming they aren’t fools?” Ramona asked. She’d walked up with Cassie and heard the last of the sergeant’s comments.
“I get what you mean,” Harry said. “They’re criminals and they’ve obviously made extremely bad life choices. But they aren’t stupid. If Darrin had hired some local small-time thugs to work with him, we would have caught them by now. But he hired pros.”
“Eddie Jarvis is a career criminal for certain,” Bergman said. “I imagine the skinny guy is, too. But that will just make it all the sweeter when we catch them. And when we have them, we’ll use them to get Darrin.”
Bergman’s phone rang. He excused himself and stepped away to take the call.
Harry looked around at Cassie, Ramona, Leon and Martin and let out a sigh.
“Everybody’s safe and sound,” Cassie said, catching Harry’s eye and directing the words to him, like a reminder. He was indeed relieved that Ramona and his crew were in good shape and unharmed. But Darrin and his henchmen were still at large, which meant Harry couldn’t relax. The fact that Darrin had hired good help showed that he really was trying to build a criminal empire. And that he wasn’t going to give up and go away.
Over by the front door of the house, Bergman called out to his officers that they’d gotten a warrant and it was time to go inside and conduct a search.
“I hope they find something that helps with the case,” Martin said.
Leon nodded. “Maybe they will.”
“Dad’s keeping dinner warm for us back at the ranch,” Cassie said, glancing at a text on her phone. “There’s nothing else for us to do here. We might as well head home.”
They walked back to their vehicles.
“You’re pretty quiet,” Harry said to Ramona after the two of them were buckled up in his truck. “Are you all right?” He started the engine, and then pulled out onto the road behind Cassie but in front of Martin and Leon, so that he and Ramona were in the protected center of their short caravan.
“They could be anywhere,” Ramona finally said.
Harry glanced over and saw her looking out her side window, toward the darkness.
“Darrin. His two thugs. Anyone else he might have hired. They can go wherever they want to go, do whatever they want to do. Commit crimes. Hurt people. It isn’t fair.” She shook her head.
“No, it’s not,” Harry agreed. He understood her frustration. Most people didn’t have to deal with crime all that much. But when you did have to deal with it on a regular basis, it could get to you. And he knew that was what was happening to Ramona.
She was knotting her hands in her lap, and he very nearly reached over to rest his hand on top of hers. But he caught himself at the last second. “I know things can look hopeless. And unfortunately, it’s true that we don’t win every battle.”
“If you’re trying to cheer me up, you aren’t doing a very good job.”
“The bright side is that while there are people determined to do evil things, there are also people determined to do good. And sometimes we prevail.”
He glanced over at her and she was looking at him. “Still not cheered up,” she said.
He could understand that. And while he wanted to make her feel better, he also didn’t want to lie to her. He really had no idea how this case was going to play out or what was going to happen next. But he was pretty certain that now that they had found Darrin’s lair and taken away the guns he’d obviously intended to sell, he would be looking for payback. And things might get rough. Well, rougher.
“You already know that Adam’s an excellent cook. Does the thought of a good dinner cheer you up?”
This time she laughed softly. “Okay, that does help a little.”
Harry smiled and tried to make himself look relaxed. Meanwhile, he kept a wary eye on approaching traffic as they continued down the road. Just in case. Because Ramona was right. The bad guys could be anywhere. And going forward, they truly needed to be ready for anything.
TWELVE
Harry opened the door of the Rock Solid Bail Bonds office to let Sergeant Bergman step inside. The cop typically kept his facial expression neutral, but on this visit, Harry saw concern in his eyes. After the officer stepped over the threshold, Harry closed the door behind him, flipped over the sign beside the door so it read CLOSED and then dropped the blinds so that they covered the windows facing Centennial Street.
“Have you found the guys who took off on the boat?” Ramona asked. She had a strained but slightly hopeful expression on her face as she walked up to the sergeant.
The twenty-four hours since the showdown at the lakeside house had been tense. Everyone at North Star Ranch knew to be on their guard, even though there were no signs that Darrin or his accomplices knew Ramona was staying there. It simply wasn’t worth taking the chance.
“Who else is here?” Bergman asked before answering Ramona’s question.
Harry glanced past Ramona at Cassie, Leon and Martin. “Just the five of us.”
They’d come downtown to the office earlier in the day because business outside of this case had to continue. Though the recent events with Darrin
and his henchmen over the last week were far from normal, danger came with the territory. Everyone on staff knew how to set aside their anxieties and focus on the job at hand when they had to.
Cassie needed to keep the doors open if she wanted to write new bonds and stay in business. Plus, she’d had a couple of high-flight-risk clients with upcoming court dates that she wanted to keep track of by having them physically check in.
Harry and Leon had both asked informants they used on occasion to stop by so they could find out if anybody had seen Linder or his accomplices since last night. They’d learned that word was out all over town about Darrin expanding his drug business and moving into weapons dealing, but the informants hadn’t seen Darrin himself and didn’t know anyone who had.
Cassie and the bounty hunters had been discussing further options for tracking him down when Sergeant Bergman had called Ramona. After learning she was at the bail bonds office, he’d told her he wanted to come over to talk with her and the bounty hunters.
When Bergman sat down on the sofa, he set down an electronic tablet on the coffee table. Ramona sat down to his left. Harry sat down on his right. The others remained standing, taking up positions behind the couch so that they’d be able to see the tablet screen.
“What’s up?” Ramona asked, nervously rubbing her hands together.
“We believe we have found the two men from the boat last night,” Bergman said. “I’m assuming they’re the same two perps who’ve had a hand in attacking you from the very beginning. I’m going to need you to positively identify them.”
“Were you able to get them to talk?” Ramona asked quickly. “Did they tell you where Darrin is? Are they willing to testify against him?”
“That’s not going to be possible,” Bergman said heavily.
Harry had a feeling he knew what was coming.
“They’re dead,” Bergman said.
Yeah, that was what Harry figured Bergman was going to say. Harry shifted his gaze toward Ramona and his gut twisted as he saw the color drain from her face.
“What happened?” she whispered, obviously shocked.
“We found them on the south side of the lake. They were both killed execution style. A guy who lives out that way was jogging with his dogs this morning. The dogs started acting strange, howling and pulling on their leashes, so he followed them into the trees. He saw two bodies lying there and called us.”
“But...what? Why?” Ramona sputtered as if too many thoughts were colliding in her mind for her to give clear voice to any of them.
Harry glanced over his shoulder and made eye contact with Cassie and Leon. Both gave him a slight nod, which meant they were as worried as he was. Martin had his gaze on Bergman.
“Any idea what happened?” Harry asked the sergeant.
“The boat the two men escaped in was moored at a private pier. We’ve checked out the owner of the property and we’re convinced he had no connection to Linder or his criminal enterprise. Footprints leading up to the road from the pier, plus fresh tire tracks alongside the road, suggest that they called Linder to get them and when he arrived, he shot and killed them.”
“How can you be certain it was Darrin who did it?” Cassie asked.
“I’ll get to that.” Bergman reached for the tablet on the table and tapped the screen to wake it. “I have some things to show you,” he said to Ramona.
Ramona was the one who’d been targeted from the beginning. Harry and the rest of the team had jumped in to help keep her safe and capture the bad guys, but at the end of the day, she was at the center of it all. She was the one who absolutely deserved to be kept informed. She was the one who needed to know that the police were taking her case seriously and doing their best to get justice for her. The sergeant never lost sight of that and Harry respected him all the more for it.
“I have pictures of the two men, and I need you to confirm that they were the ones who were involved in the shooting last night as well as the earlier attacks. It’s a required procedure. I’d like your confirmation because you had the binoculars and had the clearest view of them last night.”
“Are they pictures from the scene when their bodies were found?” Ramona asked hesitantly.
“They are not. They’re booking photos taken when the men were arrested for previous crimes. We were able to pull prints to identify them positively.”
First came the photo of Eddie Jarvis without his snake tattoos. Ramona quickly confirmed he was the thug she’d seen through the binoculars last night and that he’d been in the boat’s wheelhouse. Next came the photo of Skinny Guy. The man who’d used the alias of Albert Mason when he’d rented the cabin at the Western Trails Resort. His real name was Jaron Carroll. Ramona confirmed that she’d also seen him through the binoculars and that he was the man who’d shot at her and Harry from the boat, as well as being involved in the earlier attacks.
“Now that we have that done, I’ll get back to Cassie’s question about how we know Darrin was responsible for the executions.” He glanced over his shoulder at Cassie and others. “You’re going to want to see this.”
Then he turned around, tapped the screen a couple of times, and a video started. “This is from the security system on the property where the stolen boat was moored,” he said.
The video gave a relatively wide-angle view and started with the boat tied at the pier. The two thugs got out of the boat, walked the length of the pier and then started walking up the slight hill toward the road. They were moving quickly and looking around furtively as one of them talked on his cell phone. Soon, they were out of view.
Bergman fast-forwarded the video until it reached a point where Darrin Linder came into view. He was walking down the slight hill and toward the boat. He was alone, with a pistol in his hand.
“I’m assuming you’ve enlarged that image, identified the type of gun and matched the caliber of ammo to the gunshot evidence you found at the scene,” Leon said.
Bergman nodded. “Of course.”
A few seconds later in the video, Darrin climbed out of the boat carrying two large backpacks.
“We suspect the backpacks contain illegal drugs,” Bergman said. “Or possibly cash. Or guns. Maybe all three. It looks like the two accomplices were so anxious to get away from the boat and make their escape that they left them behind. So, Linder went back for them.”
As Darrin walked by the camera again, he appeared to notice it for the first time. He stopped, peered at it and then moved closer. At that point, he offered up a chilling smile.
His cheeks were sunken and the expression in his eyes made him appear feverish.
“What’s he doing?” Ramona asked.
“That is the face of a man who has snapped,” Cassie said.
Bergman nodded.
In the video, Darrin held up the pistol and blew at the barrel as if he were blowing away smoke. And then he said something, but the video didn’t include sound.
“What’s he saying?” Martin asked.
“And why would he kill his own men?” Ramona added.
“We think he’s saying, ‘I love you, Jasmine,’” Bergman said. He did a quick rewind, and from what Harry could see, it looked like those words matched the movement of Linder’s lips.
“Have you told Jasmine about this?” Ramona asked.
“Yes. We warned her that Linder is an ongoing threat to her safety, and that he’s definitely still in the area. She says her recently installed security system is working well and that she doesn’t leave her home without a friend or coworker by her side.”
The video played out with Darrin waving goodbye with his gun in his hand before turning and walking out of the frame of the camera.
Bergman turned to Ramona. “Darrin Linder appears to be a drug dealer who uses his own product, and that never ends well. Cassie’s right, he’s fallen off the edge. He’s taunting the authorit
ies in this tape because he believes he’s invincible, which is a common side effect of a lot of illicit drugs. And I think he believes his actions here will impress your cousin and help him win her back.”
Ramona hugged herself. Harry thought it was for the best that he wasn’t sitting next to her. If he were, he wouldn’t have been able to resist the temptation to wrap his arm around her shoulder, hold her close and do everything he could to make her feel safe. But that would send mixed signals about his intentions once this case was wrapped up. He did not plan to pursue any kind of relationship with her—not even friendship, even though he wanted it. She deserved more than he could give her. She deserved to have a man in her life who could offer her a future. And he was not that man.
“As far as a motive for Linder to murder his cohorts, the fact that he’s under the influence of drugs and appears to be having some sort of mental breakdown could be motive enough,” Bergman said to Ramona. “Or he could have done it on impulse, with no motive at all, for the exact same reason. Maybe he was mad at Eddie and Jaron because they left those bags behind on the boat. Or he could have decided that the shoot-out last night somehow made them too great a liability. He could have been angry that they hadn’t killed or kidnapped you yet and decided that he was finished with them.”
Fear, cold and sharp, settled in the center of Harry’s chest. “That video demonstrates that Darrin is still fixated on Jasmine,” he said. “We have to assume that he’s also still fixated on Ramona as the biggest obstacle to winning Jasmine back.” The thought of what that lunatic might do to Ramona had the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck standing on end.
“That’s precisely why I wanted you all to see the video for yourself instead of just telling you about it.” The sergeant got to his feet and picked up the tablet. “I don’t want to imply that you haven’t been vigilant in protecting Ramona...” He swept his glance across the room, directing his comments to everyone. “But now more than ever, you need to stay mindful of just how dangerous this situation is.”
