In Self Defense

by Debra Webb

  The deal was—assuming everyone survived this operation—Bateman, aka Sauder, would testify against Louis Cicero in exchange for immunity. He and his family would go into witness protection for the rest of their lives. It stunk for Sarah because she had family, but it was the best deal they were going to get.

  The old pickup belonging to Sauder rolled into the driveway. Renewed tension poured through Colt. He hoped like hell Sarah made it alive and uninjured through this mess. It would be good if Sauder did as well, but Sarah was his first priority. Branch could focus on his fugitive.

  All Sauder had to do was go inside and tell the guy, this Saul the Saw, that if he wanted the evidence he’d stolen when he disappeared, he had to let Sarah go. Then the two of them would pick up the evidence and do whatever Saul had been ordered to do.

  It was risky as hell. But they’d had little time and they couldn’t see into the house—the window curtains were all pulled tight—so their options had been limited. Sauder had refused to wear a wire and to be honest Colt didn’t consider doing so a very good idea. The first thing this bastard would do was frisk him for a wire. There had been no time for a camera or a microphone to be snaked through a hole into the house as would ordinarily be the case. Firing a flash-bang into the house would likely get Sarah killed since she wouldn’t know what to do to protect herself. There were too many variables to play this any other way but the one currently in motion.

  Sauder climbed out of the truck and walked up to the front porch. As soon as Colt heard the door open and then close, he moved through the darkness to Sauder’s truck. Thank God for all the cloud cover tonight. He’d had no time to change into darker clothes. He’d had to make do with the jeans and blue shirt he was wearing.

  Seconds of nothing but the quiet of the night ticked by. He could smell the coming rain in the air. Hopefully this would all be over before that happened.

  Shouting echoed beyond the closed door and windows. Saul the Saw was not happy.

  Moments later, the back door opened and voices echoed in the night. Sauder’s pleading tone and the growling sound of the other man warned that the two would be coming around the end of the house.

  Colt hadn’t spotted a vehicle. However the man had gotten here, the vehicle was not anywhere close to the house.

  Colt braced as the sound of their footsteps told him they were heading for the truck. He was crouched at the tailgate. As long as they didn’t come to the back of the vehicle, he was good.

  “You drive,” he heard Saul the Saw order.

  A high-pitched shriek cut through Colt like a knife. They hadn’t left Sarah in the house. She was with them. He wasn’t completely surprised. Old Saul the Saw would have considered the idea that Sauder was leading him to a trap.

  Still, there had been a chance in his excitement over winning that he might have fallen for the first option.

  The driver’s-side door opened. The truck shifted and then the door closed. Sauder was in the truck.

  “Open the door and get in,” Saul ordered.

  Sarah whimpered and then the passenger door squeaked. The truck shifted again and she cried out.

  She was in the truck.

  Colt lunged upward and rushed along the passenger side of the truck. He grabbed the so-called Saw by the hair of the head and jerked him backward. His weapon discharged into the air.

  Colt shoved the barrel of his own weapon into the bastard’s skull. “Drop it or you’re a dead man.”

  The weapon thudded on the ground.

  Wesley Sauder and his wife emerged from the truck, alive and unharmed.

  It was over.

  As soon as Branch took custody of Saul the Saw from Chicago, Colt breathed a little easier. He pulled out his cell to call Rey and saw he already had a voice mail from her. He walked away from the scene and pressed Play. Her voice whispered in the darkness. She sounded worried or upset. The sound of a car alarm echoing in the background made his heart jump. Then she went on and the fear in her voice twisted inside him.

  “Damn it. Call me when you can. I need you, Colt.”

  He grabbed the nearest deputy and told him to take over for him; he had to get to Rey. Something was wrong, bad wrong.

  Thursday, February 28, midnight

  IT WAS MIDNIGHT when Colt rolled into the parking lot of the newspaper office. There were official vehicles everywhere. Two city cruisers. Chief of Police Billy Brannigan’s truck. The damned coroner’s van. Colt’s heart rocketed into his throat. What the hell had happened here? He’d tried to call Rey back a dozen times but she hadn’t answered. Worry gnawing in his gut, he bolted from his truck and rushed toward the rear entrance.

  A Winchester PD uniformed officer was guarding the door. He stepped aside without Colt having to say a word. Good thing; he was in no mood for any territorial nonsense. Inside the newspaper building there were two more uniforms loitering around the lobby. The door to the basement was open and the coroner’s assistant, Lucky Ledbetter, was talking on his phone.

  As Colt approached the door, Ledbetter ended the call and tucked his phone away. “Hey, Sheriff, I guess you got the news.”

  Colt shook his head. “I’ve been at another crime scene. What’s going on here?”

  “Water main for the building ruptured. The city had to shut off the water to the whole block. Couple of guys from the fire department came over to pump the water out and then Smith Grider started digging up the basement floor to get to the damaged pipes to make the repairs.” Ledbetter scratched his head. “It’s the craziest thing. They found bones—human bones.”

  Dread coiled through Colt. “I guess I’ll go down and have a look.”

  “Some creepy stuff for sure, Sheriff.”

  Colt descended the stairs and took in the scene in the basement. Grider had cracked open the concrete and opened up the ground beneath to expose the water lines. The entire hole was maybe six by ten feet. Burt Johnston stood in the middle of the muddy mess, fishing waders on and holding a human skull in his hands. More bones bobbed in the knee-deep water.

  Hells bells. Someone had been buried in this basement? On instinct, he mentally ticked off any longtime missing persons. There wasn’t a soul he could think of in his lifetime who had gone missing and remained unaccounted for.

  “Colt, you have any idea where Audrey is?”

  He looked up at the sound of Chief Brannigan’s voice. “Isn’t she here?” She had said she was at the paper when she called. Dread gnawed at Colt.

  Brannigan shook his head. “She wasn’t here when I arrived. She’s not answering her phone, either, so Brian went to her house to see if she’d gone home. He said he’d check with the nursing home to make sure nothing had come up with her momma.”

  Worry twisted a little tighter inside Colt. “What’s going on with this?” He hitched his head toward Burt and the bones floating around his waders.

  “Don’t know. Grider called me as soon as he spotted the skull. Burt is trying to gather up all the pieces.” Brannigan assessed Colt for a moment. “You’ve known Audrey and her family your whole life. Any clue how this could have happened?”

  Colt shook his head. “I can’t think of anyone who went missing and hasn’t turned up. Not in the last thirty-odd years anyway.” Colt turned to the coroner. “Burt, you got any ideas on how long these remains have been down here?”

  Burt placed the skull on the trace sheet he’d laid out next to the hole. A number of other bones—a rib cage, humerus, femur. Damn.

  “Well—” the coroner set his gloved hands on his hips “—considering I recall when Porter Anderson had these pipes replaced the last time—that’s when the concrete was poured, by the way.” He gestured to the rubble that was concrete and stone. “This floor was originally brick and stone. When the pipes were replaced the last time, concrete was poured over the whole thing to level it up.” He frowned. “That was right aro
und the same time Porter died. But these aren’t his bones. He was buried over in Franklin Memorial Gardens with the rest of his kin.”

  “So,” Brannigan spoke up, “you’re saying the bones have been here maybe twenty-four or twenty-five years?”

  Burt nodded. “As close as these bones were to the pipes, they couldn’t have been here before the last repair job.” Burt nodded toward Grider. “Smith says his daddy did the previous work and he helped him. Twenty-four years ago next month.”

  Grider nodded. “We had most of this main portion of the floor dug up. If the bones had been there then we would have seen them. Someone had to put them here right before we poured the concrete. Probably buried them in the dirt around the repaired pipes the night before we poured. Wasn’t no other chance to do something like this, as I recall.”

  Yet that didn’t make a lick of sense. Colt asked, “Has the concrete been opened since you and your daddy poured it?”

  “No, sir,” Grider said with a shake of his head. “This floor was as smooth tonight as the day my daddy floated and troweled it. Besides, if anyone had cracked it open lately it would probably have been me.”

  Colt and Brannigan exchanged a look. Brannigan doled out the next question. “Did your daddy have anyone working for him who might have had something to do with this?”

  “The same four people, including me, have been working for Daddy the past thirty-five years.” He shook his head. “Someone had to do this after our crew had gone home for the day. Like I said, probably the night before we poured the concrete.”

  That didn’t leave many options. Colt said, “How about calling whoever can pull out the file and find out the exact date the concrete was poured?”

  Grider reached into his pocket. “I’ll call my wife and have her pull the file.”

  “Thanks.” Colt turned back to Brannigan. “We should send someone over to pick up Phillip Anderson and bring him over here.”

  “Got someone knocking on his door at this very moment,” Brannigan assured him.

  Hurried footfalls on the stairs had Colt and the chief of police turning in that direction. Colt hoped it was Rey. No such luck. Brian. The man looked worried. Colt’s gut clenched.

  “Audrey isn’t at home and the nursing home hasn’t seen her tonight. Her mother is sleeping.” Brian looked from one to the other. “I was in such a hurry I didn’t notice before, but the passenger-side window in her car is shattered.”

  Fear put a choke hold on Colt. The memory of the car alarm going off in the background of her voice mail slammed into him. “She was outside when she called me.”

  The words were no sooner out of his mouth than the three of them were rushing back up the stairs. Outside, Colt was the first one to reach Audrey’s car. It was empty. Air finally made it past the lump in his throat.

  “Something’s wrong.” Brian shook his head. “She wouldn’t leave in the middle of all this.” He turned toward the building. “She was worried sick about the whole mess.”

  Colt’s cell vibrated against his side. He snatched it off his belt and stared at the screen. Rey. Thank God. “Rey, where are you?”

  “Hello, Sheriff Tanner.”

  Colt looked from Brian to Brannigan. “Who is this?” he demanded.

  “That’s not important, Sheriff. The only thing you need to be concerned with are two facts. You have something that belongs to me, and I have something that belongs to you.”

  “Where is she?” The fear and worry had morphed into something black and menacing. If this bastard hurt Rey...

  “You bring Bateman and his evidence to me and I’ll give you the woman. Does that work for you?”

  “Name the time and place.” Colt wasn’t taking any chances with Rey’s life. Sauder/Bateman was sitting in his lockup at this very moment while Branch interrogated Saul the Saw. He could have him out of there before Branch knew he’d walked through the door. But he knew better than to attempt this on his own.

  Emotion was already driving him.

  He needed help. And truth be told, there wasn’t another lawman he trusted more than Branch.

  “I’ll call you back in one hour. Be ready to trade, Sheriff, or she dies.”

  The call ended.

  With both Brian and Brannigan demanding answers, Colt put in a call to Branch. When the other man answered, he said, “We need to talk.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  By the time the man told Audrey to pull over, they were just outside Winchester in the historic part of Belvidere at an old gas station that had been closed since she was in college. During the drive she had also concluded that the man was Louis Cicero’s son, L.J. He was about the same age as Sauder—Bateman, she reminded herself. He was a little more polished than the two dead guys had been. No need to see the labels to recognize a leather jacket that cost more than the average person made in several months’ work. The shoes fell into the same category, hand-tooled leather, probably couture, and the jeans and shirt wouldn’t be found in any big-box department stores.

  “Get out of the car. Make any sudden moves and I’ll put a bullet in your head.”

  “Whatever you say.” She opened the door and climbed out.

  He did the same, came around the hood to join her on the driver’s side. “This way.” He ushered her toward the gas station.

  At the entrance—a plate glass door that was now boarded up, as was the rest of the glass front—he pulled the plywood away from the door and opened it. Inside was black. He dragged the plywood back into place, then used the flashlight app on his phone to move about. He shuffled her into what had once been an office, she presumed, since there was an old metal desk. On the desk was a portable lamp—the sort that looked like a camp light and ran on a battery.

  He turned on the light, then used his gun to point to a plastic milk crate in the corner. “Sit.”

  Audrey did as she was told. He’d already called Colt so help would come. The real question in her mind was how did this guy think he was going to walk away from this? He had no backup as far as she could tell. There was the one weapon in his hand. It was an automatic, a nine-millimeter or a .40-caliber. She hadn’t managed a close enough look to say for sure. Either way, he had maybe a dozen or so rounds. Unless he was a dead shot and had several extra clips in one of those high-end pockets, he was screwed.

  Not exactly a good position for him or for her.

  She should be afraid; she was aware of this as well. But what was the point? Frankly, she had bigger problems. They’d probably found the bones by now. Everything was upside-down. Her mom couldn’t remember what happened. Neither Audrey nor her mom was even sure who the dead guy—or what was left of him—was. Maybe the Jack Torrino guy.

  Her captor sat on the edge of the desk and checked the time on his Rolex.

  “I guess you and your friends were supposed to take care of this for your father. Their failure makes you look bad, huh?”

  He assessed her for a long moment. “In my line of work,” he said, “you learn to always take out a little insurance to slant the odds in your favor. You are my insurance, Audrey. It took me a couple of days to determine the best insurance policy to go with, but I’m putting my money on you. The good sheriff has a thing for you. He’ll do whatever I tell him.”

  She ignored his attempt to make her afraid. Better men had tried. She opted not to bother telling him that the thing she and Colt had shared burned out a long time ago and had only recently flickered back to life. He might very well be putting all his eggs in the wrong basket.

  Instead, she decided a distraction was what she needed. “Did your father send a Jack Torrino to Winchester about twenty-four years ago?”

  He puffed out a laugh. “I haven’t heard that name in a hell of a long time.” He peered at her. “What the hell do you know about Torrino?”

  “You tell me what he was doing in Winchester an
d I’ll tell you where you can find him.” Sounded fair enough to her.

  He frowned. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy. Handsome, actually, in a brooding, self-centered sort of way. “Now why the hell would I care where Torrino is? If he ain’t dead, he will be if I find him.”

  “Like I said,” Audrey tossed back, shrugging, “I can tell you exactly where he is. I just want to know why he came to Winchester all those years ago.”

  “My old man got a wild hair to buy up newspapers. Especially small-town newspapers. He was buying them all over the country. I doubt even he knew exactly what the point was. To look respectable, I suppose. He’s always been a little eccentric. Anyway, Torrino was his point man. He did the negotiating with those who didn’t feel inclined to sell.”

  Audrey’s heart rate spiked. Like her father. “So he came to provide a little influence in the negotiations on the Gazette.”

  “If he was here, that’s most likely why he came.”

  “Well, that explains a lot.” All these years she had wondered what really happened that night and who the stranger was who had been buried in the basement—the dead man she had helped her mom drag down two flights of stairs and bury in the dirt around the plumbing pipes while her father lay dead from a heart attack on his desk.

  “So, where is he, assuming you actually know?”

  “They just pulled his bones out of a muddy hole in the basement of my newspaper. The one he probably tried to strong-arm my father into selling.”

  Another of those surprised chuckles erupted out of his mouth. “Your old man killed him?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Couldn’t have been you—you would have been just a kid.”

  She shook her head. “No. I didn’t help kill him. I just helped bury him.”

  He grunted. “Maybe I picked the wrong girl to kidnap. The sheriff might not care if he gets you back.”