She could see Lund move, Becca move, and Hess too, but the water spray, the smoke, and the fact that her eyesight wasn’t good in the first place, made it impossible to see much more.
She slid inside the dispatch center, reached Grace and Oneida, grabbed her niece’s arm, and struggled to get her on her feet.
Behind her, Becca’s gun went off.
Chapter
Twenty-Nine
Heat surged from behind Lund, smoke roiling over him, blotting out the light. He stood from the chair, took a hop forward, and fell face first to the floor.
Wriggling his body, he dragged himself forward. Becca had tightened the chains over his boots. If he could just manage to get his turnout overalls off, he could shuck the whole damn thing, boots and all.
A trick, seeing his hands were cuffed behind his back.
A scream erupted over his head. The rookie cop, he thought. Or Grace. Or Val. He couldn’t tell over the blaring alarm.
Heat licked at his boots, his legs. He wasn’t on fire, he knew that, just too close to it. It was a hot fire, those old separating walls burning with the ferocity he expected. Eventually the water would put it out, but he had to get far enough away that he didn’t get cooked before that happened.
The smoke was a bigger problem.
He’d seen Val make a dash for it. But now he could no longer spot her. As long as she got out, saved Grace, this would work out all right.
The crack of gunfire stabbed the air.
Val?
Grace?
He pulled forward rolling his chest side to side, trying to push with his legs, but they wouldn’t move. They wouldn’t work.
Something was wrong.
It took a few more seconds to realize why.
He’d been shot.
Val’s niece clung to her like a scared kitten. Her body trembled, breath coming hard and fast, and although Val couldn’t hear anything over the fire alarm’s din, she could feel sobs wracking Grace’s body.
She brought her lips close to the teen’s ear. “Come on, Gracie. We have to get up. You have to get up.”
Smoke blotted out the emergency lights in most of the station now. Water splattered her face, her hair, and soaked into her coat. The sprinkler system should put the fire out. Maybe it already had, but it seemed like the smoke just kept coming.
“Come on, Baby. Walk with me. I need you to be strong Grace. I need your help getting Oneida out of here. She’s still alive, but I can’t move her without you.”
The girl nodded, her hair moving against Val’s cheek.
Val checked the dispatcher’s pulse to make sure she was still with them. The beat was steady and sure.
She looped one of Oneida’s arms around her neck and shoulder and Grace took the other.
“Good girl. Now out the front door.” She wasn’t sure Grace heard her, probably not. But she responded by moving forward, carrying her part of Oneida’s weight.
The exit wasn’t far, just around the corner. Val knew the station well. She didn’t have to see.
Good thing.
The going was slow, but they got around the corner.
The alarm was even louder here, making her head throb, ears hurt. She located the door handle and placed Grace’s hand on it, hoping the girl would feel the vibration of the lock release and figure out what she was asking her to do.
Feeling her way with her left hand, she found the lock release beside the door and hit the button.
She couldn’t hear the door buzz, but she felt Grace pull it wide.
“Good girl.”
She held her breath, half expecting Hess to grab them from behind. The three of them sidled into the vestibule, Val taking up the rear. She dipped her hand in her pockets. Finding her gloves, she stuck one in the door lock, bracing it open. She used the same trick on the outer door.
They laid Oneida under the building’s overhang.
Now came the hard part.
“I have to go back for Lund. He saved us. I can’t leave him in there to die.” Her throat felt thick, burning, clogged by more than smoke. She shivered in the sudden cold.
Ears still ringing from the alarm, Val couldn’t hear Grace’s whimper, but she felt it in the grasp of her hands, the shudder wracking her shoulders.
Of course Grace wouldn’t leave her. Not as easily as that. “You have to do this for me, sweetie. I need you to do this. If Oneida doesn’t get help, she’s not going to make it.”
Grace said nothing, just clutched Val’s arm hard enough to leave bruises.
“Run to the tavern. Tell them to call an ambulance and the sheriff’s department. Understand?” She raised her hand to her niece’s cheek.
Warm tears mixed with the sprinkler’s cold spray, the girl’s beautiful face knotted in distress.
“If you don’t tell someone, no one will know, Grace. No one will come. Oneida will die. And the only ones who have weapons are Becca and Hess.”
Finally, her head bobbed in a nod, but the tears didn’t stop flowing. “I love you.”
Val cupped a hand around the back of her niece’s neck and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. Her chest ached, her voice refusing to function. Releasing her, she gave her a coaxing push.
Grace gave Oneida one last look, then started in the direction of the tavern, half running, half skating.
Blinking away tears, Val scooped in a breath of fresh air, then turned and plunged back into the smoke. This time she went to her knees as soon as she’d cleared the inner door. The carpet squished under her, soaked now from the sprinklers. She couldn’t see a thing in the darkness and smoke. Her eyes burned so badly, she wanted to close them.
The alarm’s blare throbbed in her head. No use in listening for sound around her. She couldn’t hear a thing, not even the breath in her own throat or the pounding beat of her heart. She could smell nothing but smoke, taste only ash.
Touch was her only sense.
Shuffling forward, she skimmed her hands over drenched carpet on her right, on her left. She approached the spot were Lund had been tied. The fire was out, but the smoke was still too thick to see, and all she could make out was a hazy darkness looming ahead. The hulking shape of charred cubicle walls.
From the time she’d come to Lake Loyal, the sergeants all jokingly referred to the tiny office spaces as stanchions, as if they were all cows waiting to be milked. She wasn’t sure why that thought popped into her mind, but for a second she rolled it over in her thoughts the way one eats comfort food or listens to a favorite song. Those days before she’d met Dixon Hess, before she’d become chief, when everything wasn’t dependent on a body that was falling apart and a mind that made too many mistakes.
She moved slowly, not wanting to miss a square inch of carpet. Her hand hit something warm. Sticky.
Leaning her weight back on her haunches, she groped heavy fabric, then flesh, still warm. She could feel the tendons in the neck, the jaw. Wisps of long hair brushed her hand. Under her fingertips, the carotid artery was deathly still.
Val’s head spun. Her chest constricted as if being seized by a strong hand. She forced her hands to keep moving, down Becca’s body, to the holster at her side. Her gun was missing, and blood soaked her uniform, Hess’s blade was buried in her chest.
Another death on her hands.
She’d lied to Hess. While divers had searched the lake, they hadn’t recovered the baby’s body, hadn’t found a blanket or pacifier, no sign of the child at all. And yet in telling that tale, she’d set Hess against Becca.
She forced herself to take a breath, then another, trails of smoke lodging in her chest and making her cough. Becca was a murderer. Not only had she taken Kelly’s life, she’d helped Hess carry out his revenge. But that didn’t excuse what Val had done. She couldn’t help being sorry a young woman with so much potential was now gone.
Val shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She couldn’t think of Becca now. Not her betrayal. Not the way Val had sold her out in return. Right now all she coul
d do was lock Becca in a room with Monica and Tamara and pray that when the time came to pull them out again, to examine what had happened, the actions she’d taken, that she’d be able to still look at herself in a mirror.
Grabbing the knife’s handle, she worked it free of Becca’s corpse. Precious seconds ticked by, her hand slipping on blood, but finally she had a weapon, the means to protect Lund, a way to stop Hess.
The knife in her left hand, she continued her slow, groping crawl. She could sense him near even before her hand touched him.
The thick texture of canvas. A sodden sweatshirt. A thrumming pulse. A moving body. She skimmed her fingers to his face and into his hair. She’d found him, and he was alive, conscious.
Now she had to get him out of here.
She laid her fingers against his cheek, willing him to stay put, to hold on a little longer. Then she crawled back to Becca. Locating her handcuff keys, she unlocked the bracelet on her own arm and returned to Lund.
She freed his hands, then skimmed her fingers down his torso to the shackles binding his legs. One leg of his turnout pants oozed blood.
Her hands shook so badly, she couldn’t unlock the shackle chain. Lund levered himself into a sitting position, joining his hands with hers, between the two of them, they wrestled his legs free.
She wasn’t sure how damaged his leg was or how well he could move. Unable to ask, she moved back to hands and knees and started inching her way back to the main entrance.
Lund fell in behind her, one hand clamped to her ankle as if performing a search and rescue drill, dragging the injured limb behind.
Almost there.
They reached the door, and Val struggled to her feet to release the lock. She pulled the first door, pushed the second, and helped Lund out into the night.
The air was quiet outside and shockingly cold. She scooped in breath after breath, each exhalation fogging in front of her.
Lund rested on one hip, his hair drenched. Dark circles cupped his eyes. Soot smudged his face. From the look of his turnout pants, he’d lost a significant amount of blood. “We made it,” he said, his voice barely a hoarse whisper.
“We made it,” echoed Val.
The town was still, as if deserted. No movement. No lights. Low creaks and pops sounded around them, branches swaying and breaking under the weight of ice, trees not able to bear the pressure any longer.
She shivered, her muscles jerking uncontrolled. She was soaked to the skin, like her night in the river, only this time Lund couldn’t pull her from the chill. He was submerged right with her. She prayed Grace had been able to reach help.
“Why did you come back?”
She looked into Lund’s brown eyes, wondering how he, of all people, could ask that question. “Why did you set fire to the cubicle right behind you?”
He gave her an attempt at a smile. “Blue canary.”
“At least I didn’t get myself shot.”
“Go. Bring back help.”
“Grace already did. Someone should be here soon.”
But they didn’t hear the wail of a siren. They didn’t hear voices drifting from houses nearby. They only heard the otherworldly snap of falling trees and limbs groaning in the wind.
Something crunched behind them, a footfall breaking through ice-crusted snow.
“I was wondering what took you so long.”
Val tightened her grip on the knife, then turned to look into those cold eyes. “You killed your own daughter.”
“Justice.” He glared down at her. In his hand, he held Becca’s gun.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” she said.
She wanted to hurt him, wound him. Before she died, she wanted to strike back and make him bleed. “We dragged the lake where Kelly was found, but we never recovered a body. Your baby might still be alive. He probably is. But you just killed the only person who knew where he was.”
Hess didn’t move. His expression never changed. He simply stared at her, at Lund, then he raised the gun.
“Aunt Val!”
Grace raced down the street toward them, a blanket clutched around her shoulders. The silhouettes of others followed her, but Val couldn’t focus on them. All she could see was her precious niece.
Melissa’s daughter. Her most important thing.
Dixon Hess’s lips crooked into a smile, those teeth, those eyes. He turned his head toward Grace, then swung his body, leading with the gun.
Val didn’t realize she’d scrambled to her feet until she was running, launching herself. A scream shattered in her ears as she plunged the knife into Hess’s back. She pummeled him, slamming her fists against head and shoulders until his knees folded and both of them crumpled to the ice.
Chapter
Thirty
Val found Lund at Rossum Park. He was standing on the pea gravel trail that snaked around the water, crutches canted under his arms, leg encased in an immobilizer. Out on the lake, a boat bobbed at the point where ice met open water, the bright flags of divers dancing on gentle waves.
She glanced at the only other car in the lot, one of Lund’s fellow firefighters leaning on the hood, cradling a cup in his hands. The scent of coffee drifted on the cold air. He nodded to her, and she nodded back. Obviously he was giving Lund some time alone.
Maybe she should, too.
She put her hands on the wheel, neither restarting the car and heading back to the temporary police station set up in the public library’s meeting room nor pulling the key from the ignition. She had a lot to tell Lund. They’d discovered blood in the basement of his in-laws’ old dairy farm. Techs from the state crime lab had been there all morning, but Val already knew the blood belonged to Tamera Wade. They’d even found a needle and thread.
There were other things, too, even more pressing.
And at least one couldn’t wait.
Pushing past nerves, she got out of the car. She closed the door, and he turned around.
He didn’t smile, didn’t give her any sign of welcome at all. Instead they just looked at one another, communicating without her really understanding how.
Maybe that’s how it worked when you’ve gone through hell together and come out on the other side.
She walked up the trail, meeting him by the lake. She didn’t say hello or ask how he was. Instead, she simply said. “He’s going to live.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“At least it will be in prison.”
He looked as beat up as she did and only half as beat up as she felt. But he was standing. Walking. Alive.
And for that, she was profoundly grateful.
He’d been in the hospital for only a day. The gunshot, while painful, hadn’t caused permanent damage. While she’d visited his room, they hadn’t talked. It had seemed too soon, everything too raw. She’d just sat in a chair by his bed, and they’d listened to one another breathe.
He and Grace had been different. They’d made plans to hang out, Grace promising to teach him to ride once his leg healed. Lund swearing to take her fishing once the lake thawed in the spring.
But although Val’s head was bursting with things she wanted to tell him, explanations she hoped he’d understand, she’d felt they both needed time to be alive. To settle.
Or maybe she was just afraid all the explanations in the world couldn’t set things right. “I have better news. Oneida is going to make it, too.”
“I’m glad.”
“She says she might only have one kidney, but it works, so what the hell. And then she told me I looked tired and wanted me to take her hospital bed.”
He gave her a smile.
“Oh, and I talked to Kasdorf.”
“He’s awake?”
“This morning. It took a lot of convincing, but he gave me a statement. And I have it on video.”
He shot her a questioning glance, brows hunkered low over brown eyes.
“He told me how soldiers came into his home. Foreign soldiers dressed to look like firefighters.
”
“That’s a new one.”
She pointed across the lake at the forest preserve. “He also told me he was up on that ridge when Becca forced Kelly onto the ice. You’re officially cleared, no matter what that planted tissue suggests.”
He frowned out at the woods, as if he no longer cared, as if his mind was far away.
She knew what he needed to hear, and she was more than relieved she could provide it. “He also swears Becca took the baby with her when she left.”
A muscle twitched along his jaw. “You should have told me. About the baby.”
“I couldn’t …” She shook her head. She couldn’t make excuses. There were none. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t believe him.”
“Hess?”
“I don’t believe the baby is his. I think Kelly knew it, too. I think that’s why she left, to protect him from Hess.”
Val didn’t know what to say. At best, Kelly willingly went along with framing Hess for murder. At worst, she helped Schneider dispose of her aunt’s corpse. Lund had been married to her. He loved her. Maybe he still did. She could understand him wanting to think the best of his wife. But Val wasn’t willing to go along with his tender portrait, at least not without evidence to back it up. “You think the baby could be yours?”
He turned away from the divers who were searching for something that wasn’t there. “Yes.”
“You’re going to look for him.”
“I’m going to find him.”
“Lund …”
“I would appreciate any help you could give me.”
She nodded. “Of course. I’ll do everything I can.”
She peered out over the ice. Broken trees rimmed the lake, their shattered frames like something out of a disaster film. And yet the ice still clung to them, sparkling in the sun.
She’d thought she’d found something with Lund for a brief moment, but now the spark between them had changed. She supposed she was okay with that, maybe even a little relieved. She had Grace in her life, and that was hard enough.
Tomorrow she might not be able to lift her foot. The next day, tremors could steal the ability to write or raise a cup of coffee to her lips. No one could say how fast the disease would progress or the severity or the life altering effects. Next month she could be in a wheelchair or she could feel up to going for a horseback ride.
Pushed Too Far Page 20
