He didn’t speak, just waited. She appreciated that, because the surge of adrenaline had her breathing quickly and it took her a moment.
“This is it,” she whispered, letting her gut-deep certainty into her voice. “This is the place.”
He didn’t argue, just led the way back the same way they’d come, until they were safely far enough it was unlikely they’d be spotted or heard from the cabin. Then he glanced back toward where the trash can was. “What?”
“Wrappers.” He looked back at her then. “From packages labeled...soundproofing.”
She saw Stefan’s jaw tighten. “That son of a bitch. He built himself another torture room.”
“So the one in his house was just a...holding pen.” She couldn’t disguise the shudder in her voice. “Stefan, if that girl is still alive...”
“She might not be for long,” he said grimly.
Chapter 28
“No texts?” Daria asked. Stefan shook his head. “So we don’t know how far away they are.”
“We need to know if he’s here. We can’t assume he’s not just because it’s so quiet.”
“Agreed,” she said. “But the girl...she could be in there, dying, right now.” Tension echoed in her voice; she could hear it herself. But she went on. “If he’s not there, this could be our only chance to save her.”
“Daria, we have to wait for the breach team.”
“I know, I know,” she said. “I just hate this.”
“So do I,” Stefan told her. “But there are protocols for a reason.”
“I know,” she repeated. “Just tell that to my gut.”
He gave her a commiserating grimace, and she knew he did understand. That underneath that cool, calm exterior he was probably as roiled as she was. But he was a professional to the core and wouldn’t let it sway him.
“I didn’t see a garage, or even a carport,” Stefan said.
“Maybe it’s down the hill, hidden on the other side of the cabin. For that matter, we might not be able to see a car out in the open from here, if it’s on that side.”
“It would help to know if his vehicle is there. Assuming he uses his. That bright yellow Italian sports job is pretty noticeable.”
“Making up for his other shortcomings, no doubt,” she quipped.
Stefan blinked. Then he grinned at her. As she had intended.
“Not,” she said airily, “a problem you’d understand.”
The shared moment of intimacy, achieved without even a touch, warmed her. But it was immediately back to business. They needed to know about a car, and there was only one way to do that.
“Up or down?” he asked, checking both directions in turn from where they stood.
“We could each take one way. Up means more cover but tougher terrain—it’s pretty steep,” she said, looking that way. “Down’s easier, probably quicker, but more chance of getting spotted if he is in there.”
“Kind of decides it, then.”
She nodded. Then, decisively, he said, “Get back to where you can see the cabin, and I’ll see how far I can get up there.” She pondered that for a moment, wondering if he was pulling the protector card again. Before she could speak, he said quietly, “You’re the sharpshooter—you need to be stationary.”
He had a point. And his easy acknowledgment of her skill took any sting out of staying here while he risked the climb.
She heard him go, but once he was a dozen feet away from her, she heard nothing except the faintest brush of branches that could have been from any light breeze. It was amazing that a man his size could move so quietly. That was, it would be amazing if you didn’t know him, if you hadn’t seen that tight-knit grace up close and personal. As she had.
She had to suppress a shiver, which was odd given the heat that had shot through her at the memories of that up close and personal. She almost gave herself an order to stop thinking about sex with him. Aloud. Which would have been picked up by Stefan’s earpiece.
Now that would have been seriously embarrassing.
Then again...
Daria snapped out of it when something from the cabin caught the corner of her eye. She shifted the binoculars that direction, but nothing had changed. All she could discern was that a shaft of sunlight had broken through the November gloom, and it caught the upper corner of a window and sent back a flare of light. Yeah, that must be what she’d seen. She settled in to watch and wait. And listen. Most of all listen to that tiny unit in her ear.
It was several minutes before she heard anything, and then she couldn’t be sure if it had been Stefan or some creature he’d disturbed.
“Okay?” she asked quietly; they’d decided on plain English because ten-codes varied between agencies.
“Proceeding,” he said back, just as quietly. “And there’s a pond in view on this side.”
Lots of fish in the pond...
It seemed an endless stretch of time after that. She wondered idly how snipers did it, how they simply waited, ready, sometimes for hours. Sometimes even longer. Then she wondered about how some people were great shots with long guns, some with sidearms, a rare few with both, and what it was that made that difference.
Her mind kept racing in an endless loop. But it was the distraction she needed to keep from thinking about what could be going on in there, what that evil, repulsive psychopath could be doing to an innocent woman. Because if she started thinking about that, she wasn’t sure she could just wait this out.
She’d thought, occasionally, about the hazards of the job. Known that the day could easily come when she’d be one of those uniforms that went down in the line of duty. But she’d set that fear aside most of the time. Besides, she had memories others didn’t, memories of the biggest and best bodyguard service in the world, watching over her adoptive father like the predators they could become at the slightest hint of a threat. The people who could and did tell the president of the United States what to do, and he listened. Joe Colton had, anyway.
After all that, the peace of these mountains seemed endless.
Except you’re sitting here waiting for a serial killer to stick his head out like a pumpkin in a shooting gallery. And praying his latest victim is still alive.
She told herself the girl must be, or Shruggs would be back home, his twisted, insane needs assuaged for the moment. Until they built and he struck again.
You will not!
Her mind nearly shouted it, as if he could hear her thoughts if he was indeed in the small cabin.
Stefan’s voice came over her earpiece. “I’ve got movement—”
Crack!
Shot. Handgun. Large caliber. Probably a .45.
Daria’s mind raced through the cataloging in a split second as she scanned the cabin again, but over it all hung one simple fact. Stefan carried the standard FBI-issue Glock 23 in .40 caliber. That was not what she’d heard fire.
Someone else had taken a shot.
“Stefan!”
When no answer came, her pulse kicked up another notch.
Daria started moving, trying to balance her haste with care, but as a second shot came, she abandoned any pretense at secrecy since it was obviously blown already. She simply ran, scrambling, glancing at the cabin when there was a break in the trees but otherwise focused only on getting to him.
“Window to the east of the back door.”
Her breath came out in a rush at the sound of Stefan’s voice in her ear. He sounded strained to her. But who wouldn’t be with somebody capping off .45 rounds at you?
“Almost there. Status?” She allowed herself the question.
“Just get him. I’ll keep his attention here.”
His dodging the question in effect answered it, and her tension ratcheted up yet again. But he was conscious and coherent, at least. She kept moving. She had to veer right to go around a
large rock, but as she did, she realized the spot had a clear view down to the cabin. To the back door, and the half-open window beside it.
And she could see Shruggs.
Even as she looked, another sunbeam broke through. It lit up this window as it had the other one, only this time it also caught the hand holding the large 1911-model pistol.
Again her mind raced through the calculations in a split second.
Right hand. Puts body mass to center or your right. Fifteen-degree downhill slope. Distance twelve yards. No wind.
Easy peasy.
Daria heard Stefan’s shots from farther up the hill—he wasn’t hurt badly if he was capable of shooting. But she stayed focused on the window. She saw the weapon fire, saw the recoil kicking that hand back as he tried to do it with one hand. Using the big rock for cover, she let out her breath slowly as she sighted in. Put everything, even Stefan, out of her mind. Her vision narrowed to her front sight, the window and her target, out of focus but there.
Three rounds as fast as she could pull. The hand and weapon in the window jerked upward.
Two more, one lower, one to the side, covering if he went down or dodged instinctively toward the solid door.
It was only then she hesitated. Their presence could drive Shruggs to kill his victim right now if he hadn’t already. But if Stefan was hurt...
“Solid hits. He’s down.”
“Copy.”
He sounded okay. Maybe she’d been wrong—maybe he hadn’t been hit. But she couldn’t let herself think about it now. She had a job to do, a life, please God, to save.
“What if he runs?” she whispered. His answer came back in her ear without hesitation.
“Let him. He’s hurt—we’ll find him. Let’s get to her.”
She felt a tug of some deep, heartfelt emotion as he put the victim over a capture.
Daria came out of the tree line, aware she was exposing herself completely. She dived, rolled, making herself as tough a target as she could. But Stefan fired again from up the hill. And she fired, too, only at the trash can, and her round made a loud, echoing pinging sound as it hit the metal.
Nothing.
She felt her tension ease when she saw Stefan emerge from the trees above, on his feet and moving fast. He was all right. They came at the cabin from opposite sides, reached the wall and started edging toward that back door.
Still nothing. She got closer, then close enough to get a darting glance through the half-open window.
Shruggs wasn’t just down, he was out. She couldn’t tell if he was still alive, didn’t care. She reached through the window to the back door, had to flip a dead bolt but got it open. It jammed up against Shruggs, but she kept shoving. And then Stefan was there, adding his weight, and they were through.
She checked, found a faint pulse. “He’s alive. Barely.”
“There’s a landline. I’ll call it in—you find her. She’ll trust a woman.”
She nodded, shouted out an ID, hoping the victim would realize the good guys were here, and began a methodical search. She’d barely taken three steps when she heard a muffled cry from the right. Her gaze shot that direction, and she saw a closed door. She made her way over there, half listening to Stefan calling in the troops and medical help.
At the door she hesitated, then called out. “Are you alone?” There was no indication Shruggs ever let anyone else in on his ugly games, but...
Again the muffled sound, definitely female. Daria turned the doorknob, shoved it open and jumped back out of a potential line of fire.
Silence.
She risked a look.
And saw a pair of terrified eyes, looking at her out of the badly bruised face of a naked young woman bound and gagged in the corner of the small, soundproofed closet.
“It’s all right. It’s over.”
She knelt beside the woman, pulled out her pocketknife and quickly cut her free. The woman’s sobbing was broken, and she sagged against Daria. On instinct she pulled off her own coat and slipped it around the woman, who pulled it tight with trembling fingers.
Daria drew in a deep breath and turned to give Stefan a smile. It died on her lips.
He’d slid down the wall next to the landline phone and was sitting on the floor, one hand pressed to his side.
A side that was bleeding. Profusely.
Her heart skipped a beat as her mind screamed a protest.
No. No!
Even as she looked, his eyes closed and there was a slight thump as his head went back against the wall.
“Stefan!”
She wanted to run to him, but the victim beside her had to be her priority, her job. But—
“He’s yours?”
The tiny, tremulous question took her aback. She looked at the young woman, who was looking at Stefan. Who had been shot coming to her rescue.
“Yes. He’s mine.” Never had she meant those words as she did now.
Even as she said them, she heard something in her earpiece, realized belatedly that the breach team would be on that same system.
“More help is here,” she said to the woman, then gave the people outside the all clear and ordered up medical personnel.
Full of dread when she finally was able to get to Stefan, she knelt beside him. The moment she touched his cheek, his eyes opened. They were a little glassy, and she could see he was in some pain, but he still smiled at her.
“Nice shooting,” he said softly.
She smiled back at him, realizing only when she felt the trickle down her cheek that she was crying.
It really was finally over.
Chapter 29
If one more person asked how she was doing, Daria thought she might just erupt. How did they think she was doing?
The ones that congratulated her were the worst. Nice work, Bloom! Save the victim and take down the killer—can’t ask for better!
Well, yes, she could. She could ask that Stefan not be lying in the other room, hooked up to a blood bag as they replaced what he’d lost. Especially knowing if he’d stayed put after he’d been hit, if he hadn’t run down to back her up, he wouldn’t have lost nearly as much.
She sat in the waiting area clinging to the other, much more important words, from the young woman in the blue scrubs, that he would be all right. That in fact he’d been very lucky—the wound had done little damage as gunshots go, and it was the blood loss that had weakened him. Daria had thanked her even as she wondered what on earth the woman had seen that she could say any gunshot wound had done little damage. Especially after she’d peeked into the room and seen Stefan lying there, his beautiful mahogany skin a stark contrast to the sheets.
“Daria.”
She looked up at her name being spoken softly. Trey. She rose quickly, even after he waved at her to stay seated. He was simply looking at her, and she couldn’t read his expression. Her boss could be as inscrutable as he needed to be when it was called for.
“I won’t say nice work, because I know you think anything that resulted in an injury to one of us didn’t go well, but...you got him, Daria. I read both your preliminary statements, and that was some fine shooting.”
She liked that he referred to Stefan as one of them. Some local and county officials got huffy over fed involvement, even when they’d asked for the help. But not Trey. The capture of the Avalanche Killer had always been his top priority.
“Thank you,” she said, not certain what else to say.
“They’re prepping Shruggs for surgery now. He’s in bad shape but conscious. I thought you might want to see if you can get a statement out of him.”
“You could do that,” she said, thinking it might be that last bit to nail down a victory in the election tomorrow.
“You did the work,” he told her. “You earned it.”
Daria gave him the best smile she
could manage just then. “As long as you talk to the media,” she said and smiled at his grimace.
She walked in the direction he’d indicated, her thoughts practically glowing in neon in her head. This was why the people of this county had darn well better reelect this man. They’d never find a more honest, trustworthy and fair person to stand for them.
Shruggs was in much worse shape than Stefan; his skin looked like the underbelly of a dead fish. She felt no pity for him, not even hatred, for he was not worth so much emotion. She coolly opened the record function on her phone, just in case, although there were three other witnesses in the medical staff standing there, and none of them looked particularly sympathetic toward their patient.
When he looked at her as she stood by the gurney he was lying on, even the blue of his eyes—Blue Eyes—was faded.
She made her voice purposely nonchalant. “Anything you want to say now, in case you don’t make it out of surgery?”
Even as weak as he was, his gaze narrowed. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Me?” Daria gave him a dazzling smile then. “I’m the woman who shot you.”
That one hit home, as she’d hoped. She thought he would have snarled if he’d had the strength. She pushed a little harder.
“And if you die in there, no one will ever know or care. You’ll be forgotten as nothing but a sicko who got stupid and got caught.” She saw something shift in his gaze at a particular word, so she repeated it. “You’re nothing. Less than nothing.”
“I’m the one who’s gotten away with this under cops’ noses for over a decade,” he snapped.
“Not this cop,” she said. “How does it feel to know a woman took you down? A woman just like April Thomas, Lucy Reese, aka Bianca, Sabrina Gilford—”
“She wasn’t one of mine.”
Colton's Secret Investigation Page 18
