Storm Damage (Big Sky Series Book 1)

by CP Smith

  _______________

  It was dark out when Logan jerked awake. He scanned the room for what woke him and noticed the door closing slowly behind Ty as he left. Skylar had shifted her head to his chest, so he scooted out from underneath her until she snuggled into her pillow, then crawled from her bed. The clock said it was after seven in the evening. Somehow, he and Skylar had gotten three hours of uninterrupted sleep in a hospital that prided itself on waking you every hour, on the hour, to ask you if you needed anything for pain or to take vitals. He couldn’t wait to get Skylar home where he could hole up in their bedroom and shoot anyone who breathed near her.

  On silent feet he exited her room, searching to see if Ty was still around and found him writing a note at the nurses’ station. Ty turned to leave just as Logan closed the door to Skylar’s room. He jerked his chin at Logan then pointed to a corridor just off the floor where a family waiting room was located. Logan hesitated to leave the vicinity of Skylar’s room, but shook it off and followed. If he stood in the doorway to the waiting room, he could keep an eye on anyone who approached her hallway.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Better. She’s moving around now. Walking in the hall. They’re discharging her tomorrow.”

  “And her hand?”

  “Swelling’s going down. She’s moving a few fingers now.”

  Ty glanced around the room then moved closer to Logan. “I caught up with Mac Macey since you were here. Showed him the picture of the two dead women.”

  Logan’s heart tripped a beat. Would they finally have evidence that would put Chance Bear away? “Did he know them?”

  Ty nodded. “Eleanor worked as the housekeeper for Bear Claw for more than twenty years. From the time Chance was born until she retired ten years ago. Her daughter was Chance’s tutor. He knew both, Logan. Well.”

  “Jesus. What the hell happened to the man that he’s on a killing spree?”

  “I’ve been wracking my brain about that as well, so I called my mother in Florida. She said there were rumors around town when Chance was young that Justice was heavy-handed.”

  “He beat his son?”

  “That’s the rumor. She also said Old Rip was a snake who would hit a man just for looking at him.”

  Logan’s head swam with the implications. “Beat by both maybe?”

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “The housekeeper would have known . . . her daughter too, if she tutored him for a significant amount of time.”

  “Revenge killing?” Ty speculated.

  Logan chewed on that. The murders were quick but clean. Chance was smart but seemed out of control with the number of people dying at his hand. “Maybe he didn’t kill his father, but his death triggered something. Something he can’t control.”

  “Like a psychotic break?”

  “Yeah. Years of abuse would fuck with your head. His father’s death could have triggered him. He’s free finally, but something sick grew after all those years of being a punching bag.”

  “He’s a grown man, why now?”

  “Suppressed, maybe. But if we’re right, he’s not gonna stop until everyone who knew or wronged him is dead.”

  Ty paled. “Like siblings who had everything he never had. Skylar’s safe here, but what about the boys?”

  Logan glanced at his watch and drew in a sharp breath. It was now dark, and they hadn’t arrived at the hospital for their daily visit. “Call Jake,” Logan ordered, as he ran for his own phone. “They should have been here by now.”

  When he reached Skylar’s room, he slipped inside quickly and grabbed his phone and keys from the table where he’d left them, then snuck back out without waking her.

  “You reach him?”

  Ty shook his head, so Logan pulled up his contacts and tried Josh. The phone rang until voice mail picked up. “Stay with Skylar. Don’t let her out of your sight until I get back,” Logan ordered, then took off at a fast clip for the elevators.

  He kept dialing their cell phones the whole drive back to Ennis. Fifteen minutes from home Skylar called him. Her tone was cheerful, so Ty hadn’t informed her of their suspicions.

  “Are you finally heading home to take a shower?”

  “Yeah, baby. Got tired of smelling myself. I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

  “Logan, get a good night’s sleep. You have to be exhausted. Ty’s here for a visit and I’m sure Jake and Josh will be here soon.”

  A knot formed in his throat. He had to cough to clear it. “I’ll see how it goes. If I’m too tired, I’ll stay home.”

  “You will?” she sounded suspicious.

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?” He had to learn to lie better.

  “When have you ever listened to me?”

  He had to get off the phone before she caught on. “Baby, it’s starting to snow, I’d better get off the phone.”

  There was a long pause. “Call me when you get home?”

  “Will do. Later.”

  He hung up and stepped on the gas. It wasn’t snowing and she’d know it if the blinds were still open in the room. He’d give her five minutes before she called him back. Skylar wasn’t stupid by a long shot, and her brothers were late visiting her. Coupled with the fact he’d left without saying goodbye after insisting he wouldn’t leave her side for the next two years, he figured it would be less than five.

  Three minutes later his phone was ringing. He ignored it. He couldn’t lie to her if he didn’t answer. It was still ringing when he pulled in front of her home. The white truck was parked out front, but no lights were on inside. He needed Max, but there was no time to drive to town. If they kept to their schedules, they would have left school after Jake’s football practice. That would put them home around five thirty, tops. The past two days they’d come home, grabbed a snack, and anything Skylar asked them to bring up when they visited her. There was no way they came home and fell asleep. Not her brothers. If they were safe, they would have been on the road already after calling her a million times just to check on her. But now there was radio silence.

  Logan grabbed his .40 caliber and flashlight from the glove box then climbed out of the cab slowly. He was five feet from the porch when he shined his light on the front door and found it slightly ajar. With his gun raised, he swept the outside, watching for another surprise attack. Dark spatter caught his light on the second pass, and he concentrated his light on the snow. Blood tainted the white just off the path.

  “I will skin you alive with your own knife,” Logan hissed, following the trail with his light. It headed off toward the forest. Acres of it.

  He needed his night vision and thermal scope. His M40. He could track them miles away with his sniper’s kit, and make a kill shot up to a mile in dead calm without his team. And the night was still enough to hear his heart beating in his chest.

  Logan turned on swift feet and headed back to his truck. Once he had his gear on, he’d call Ty and report in. He needed someone to know his location and the state of play. If Chance managed to kill Logan, he wanted to make sure they knew where to look for the bodies and who the killer was.

  He didn’t give Ty a chance to speak before he hung up, so Skylar wouldn’t be alerted. “Listen but don’t reply. I’m at the James homestead. Forest to the east of the house. Follow the blood trail. I’ll have my phone in my pack but silent. If you don’t hear from me by tomorrow afternoon, track my GPS. If I don’t come back with her brothers alive, tell Skylar I died trying to keep my promise to her. That the last week has been the happiest of my life.”

  Once he cut communication with Ty, he turned his phone to silent and stuffed it inside his pack to block out the light if someone managed to get a call through while he was tracking. He turned toward the forest abutting the James property and raised his M40, sighting the terrain in case Chance was waiting just inside the tree line to attack. His night vision allowed him to navigate the terrain, and his thermal scope alerted him to body heat.

  All
was quiet. No heat signatures. Time to track and bring Skylar’s brothers home.

  _______________

  His hand shook, but he didn’t let it stop him from sharpening his knife. He watched the James brothers struggle against their restraints in the firelight, while he slowly ground the steel blade to a sharp point.

  Chance had been waiting for the brothers inside their cabin when they got home from school. He’d wanted the sister. The one who looked like his mother reincarnated, but she’d managed to get herself beat up and was in the hospital.

  He studied his so-called brothers and looked for any resemblance. He was as dark as they were fair. Nothing of his mother had come through in his genetic makeup, but it had in theirs. Just like their sister.

  The older one was still bleeding from his left shoulder, courtesy of Chance. He’d tried to play the hero when Chance surprised them in their living room, rushing to grab Chance’s weapon. The bullet went clean through and lodged in the wall. He would have dug it out of the log if he cared about being caught now, but his vengeance would be complete tonight. He’d wanted the sister to take to hell with him, but the brothers would do. As long as a part of Sarah James died alongside him, he could burn in hell happy.

  He glanced at the bag of bones resting on the ground against his feet. His father and Duke Remington would bear witness to his final act of revenge against the James family. He could have shot both brothers in their home, but he wanted them to suffer more than a single gunshot to the head. Just like he’d suffered for more than thirty years. He planned to bleed them to death slowly. One puncture wound at a time. To do that he needed time and privacy, so he marched them at gunpoint into the wilderness. If it took him two days, so be it. Time meant nothing to him now. He was done on this earth, and only needed to complete this final act before he could leave.

  The younger brother never took his eyes off of Chance. He followed the motion of the knife as it sometimes sparked on the stone. The older one had been losing too much blood, so Chance had packed the bullet hole until they reached their destination. He didn’t want him bleeding out before he received his mother’s punishment.

  “Get it over with already, you fuck,” the younger one said bravely. “If you’re gonna kill us, then just do it. This Edgar Allan Poe shit is boring. And just so you know, we already figured out you killed your daddy. You’re not as smart as you think you are. You may kill us, but Logan will hunt you down and break every fucking bone in your body.”

  “Josh, shut the fuck up,” the older one growled, slumping against his restraints.

  Chance cocked his head and studied the younger one. “Maybe there is a similarity between us.”

  “You’re nothing like us.”

  “Because you grew up with a mother who cared and loved you? No. That’s not right either. She left you behind just like she left me, didn’t she? DIDN’T SHE!”

  The kid blanched then turned angry. “She didn’t fucking leave you, you dickweed,” he argued, pulling at the rope that tethered him to a tree. “They fought for two years to get you back. Everyone knows that. She loved you and it killed her she couldn’t see you.”

  “LIES!” Chance rose and covered the distance between them in the blink of an eye, pinning the kid to the tree with his blade at his neck. “She left me behind to my fate without guilt. She knew what my father was like and she still left. I was beaten daily just for living, did you know that?”

  The kid swallowed against the pressure but held Chance’s wild eyes.

  His brother tried to kick out to put distance between Chance and the kid, but Chance batted his leg away with ease. He was weakening. It was time to exact his revenge. Time to die with her precious sons.

  “You want to die?” Chance asked his youngest brother. “Die for her sins?”

  _______________

  He needed Max. The shout had carried through the trees, but from which direction?

  With the thermal scope pressed tightly to his eye, Logan scanned the distance looking for a heat signature. Slowly, he turned the focus on his scope until his surroundings cleared. Inch by inch he hunted. Out there, not far, less than a quarter mile maybe, he’d find Skylar’s brothers. He just needed . . . movement. He held his breath and focused his scope farther out. Scanning. Scanning. There.

  “He built me a fucking fire to light the way. Stupid fuck.”

  He adjusted his setting again until Josh came into focus. He was tied to a tree with a rope. His mouth was moving, and he looked pissed.

  “Keep it together, kid. I’m coming.”

  Logan moved his sight to the right and found Jake. He was slumped and bleeding. Fuck. Time to move. He started to lower his weapon when Chance Bear shot past his vision and pinned Josh to the tree with knife. No time. No fucking time.

  Logan closed his eyes to center his mind. The last time he’d been in this position he’d watched his brothers die in front of him. Not this time. He wouldn’t let Skylar down. He’d promised as long as he had air left in his lungs, no harm would come to her or her brothers. He’d broken that promise with her, he’d be damned if he let it happen again.

  He shook off his anger and rolled his neck, then sighted Chance Bear again. He was still taunting Josh. Still too close. Logan anchored himself against a tree and took a deep breath to calm himself. There was no time to calculate wind speed, gravity, terrain. He would need to make the shot of his life to save Skylar’s brothers.

  “Move, motherfucker. Get clear.”

  An instant before Logan squeezed the trigger, Chance Bear spun around and looked behind him, giving Logan a full body to target. He took it and watched smugly as Bear flew back and hit the ground as Logan’s shot tore through his leg. At the last second, Logan changed trajectory and took a maiming shot instead of a kill shot. Death would be too easy. He needed to pay for all the damage he’d done.

  Logan kept his sights on Bear to make sure he stayed down, then watched with a grin as Max jumped into his line of sight and grabbed Bear by the throat, pinning him to the ground so he wouldn’t move.

  With Bear out of commission, Logan dug through his pack for his phone and dialed Ty.

  “You find them?”

  “I found them. Bear is incapacitated.”

  “Max find you?”

  “How the fuck did . . . Tell me you didn’t leave Skylar alone to bring me my dog?” Logan growled, on the move toward Jake and Josh.

  “Fuck no. I’ve been on the receiving end of one of your punches. I sent Jared in an ambulance to Jamie’s and he brought him over. Jared said the second he cleared the truck and smelled the blood he bolted like a greyhound. Keep your eyes out for Jared, he’s out there somewhere with an EMT kit.”

  “What does Skylar know?”

  “Nothing. I called Jamie and she’s kept her on the phone for the past hour.”

  “Roger that. Gotta go.”

  Logan double-timed it to Jake and Josh, but Jared got to them first. He was treating Bear while Max kept his teeth glued to his throat when he arrived. Jake already had a compression bandage tied around his shoulder and an IV dripping from a branch when Logan broke through the brush.

  “Took you long enough.” Josh was cool and casual as he watched Jared treat Bear.

  “Sorry, kid. I got held up kissing your sister.”

  “That’s cool. It’s been an interesting night.”

  Logan stopped and looked down at Chance Bear. He was awake but zoned out, ignoring everyone including the war dog drooling on his neck.

  “You have the right to remain silent . . . Shit, I don’t know the rest.”

  “Google it,” Jake grumbled opening his eyes. “I don’t want that fuck getting off on a technicality.” Logan didn’t need to google it; he’d copied it at Duke’s office, just in case this day came and stuck it in his wallet.

  “Wicked shot by the way,” Jake continued. “How far do you think it was?”

  “Far enough.”

  “Saved us for sure,” Josh stated. “So
you can forgive yourself now.”

  Logan’s attention shot to the kid while he dug through his wallet. “What was that?”

  “Forgive yourself. The Dalai Lama said we can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves. You’ve found a home. Someone to love. Killer brothers to hang out with, when you’re not kissing my sister. If you want to enjoy all of that, then you need to forgive yourself for what happened last year. Find absolution.”

  Logan blinked. “Jesus Christ, it’s like listening to Coop speak.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  Logan stared at Josh until the ache in his chest eased. “No, kid. Highest compliment.”

  “Cool! So are you gonna find your joy and forgive yourself or what?”

  How he’d ended up in the one place he needed to be at the time he needed to be there, so he could meet the very people who would help him off the path he’d been traveling, was nothing short of divine intervention. In those months after his friends’ deaths, Logan had thought he’d been alone while traveling in circles. It was clear as day now that he’d never walked alone. He’d been directed to the one place where he could heal and find the absolution Josh talked about.

  “Joy, kid. Found it with you three, and I plan to spend the rest of my fucking life enjoying the hell out of it.”

  Epilogue

  One week later . . .

  WARMTH FILLED MY body as I slowly woke to the morning sun. I gasped and my traitorous hips moved against Logan’s hot mouth, causing my sore ribs and incision to growl at me.

  “I’m still not speaking to you,” I whimpered, clawing the bedsheets to keep from moving. “You should have told me about my brothers.”

  “Hush. Lie still and let me find my joy before you hurt yourself.”

  A different kind of warmth spread through my veins. How could I argue with that?