by J. A. Kerley
“I’ve been after people up here before,” Strather said. “If a mine opening’s small and remote enough, you can hide it with deadfalls.”
“We’ve got to get down there,” I said.
“No LZ,” the pilot said. “Not for miles.”
“ETA on the team?” Cruz asked.
“Still ten minutes, Detective.”
The pilot settled into a hover, waiting on further instructions. I saw him lift his sunglasses as if unsure of his eyes.
“Down there. What the hell’s that?”
“What?” Strather said.
“Just popped out from under that cliff, look left.”
Strather aimed the binocs. His mouth fell open. “Christ almighty,” he said. “It’s a naked woman tearing through the brush.”
“I’m on it,” the pilot said, nudging the controls as the chopper tumbled sideways. I could see her now, a blur of motion beneath the trees. I watched her stumble down an incline.
“It’s Rein,” I yelled.
“What’s she running from?” Strather said as the upper windscreen shattered.
“We’re taking fire!” the pilot yelled, instinctually rolling the chopper. Another round punched through the skin. “I see the shooter,” the pilot called. “Nine o’clock, moving low and fast toward the woman. Rifle in hand, another over his shoulder.”
“Trotman,” I yelled. “Go after him.”
“This ain’t an Apache, Detective,” he said. “It’s a search-and-rescue craft. He can shoot this thing down.”
As if knowing a point was to be made, another round whanged off the craft. “Extra glasses?” I yelled to Strather, fingers indicating circles around my eyes. He reached to the pack at his feet and jammed binoculars into my hand as the pilot retreated to safer air. I searched the ground frantically, saw Rein running toward the jutting peak we’d just skirted, a solid wall of rock.
“NO!” I yelled. “OTHER WAY!
“Shit,” Strather whispered, watching.
“What’s going on?” Cruz said, her voice dry with fear.
“Rein’s out of room,” I said. “She’s trapped.”
“Come on!” Strather yelled into the microphone.
“How soon?” I said.
“Three minutes.”
The helicopter was still in the air, Rein saw, but hanging in the distance, as if barred by an invisible shield from getting closer. The man had stopped running; he was moving towards her at a leisurely pace, an afternoon walk. Now and then he’d fire a shot, laugh. Rein’s feet were bloody from running over shards of broken rock, her breath ragged gasps.
She ducked behind a tree and studied the path ahead, seeing why her pursuer was amused: a plate of gray rock rising into the sky, nowhere to hide. The man had only to walk up and shoot her.
Bang. Just like that.
Rein looked at the gun in her hand, five rounds in the chamber, 22-caliber, about as effective here as the plastic guns she’d carried as a child, pulling her badge and announcing she was Harriet Nautilus, Girl Cop. A slug whumped into the Douglas fir shielding her, telling her he knew where she was. Another laugh. He was a hundred feet away, Rein figured.
She looked up the rock wall ahead of her, a looming gray gravestone. Rein glanced around the tree, saw him closing in with a lever-action rifle in hand. He was wearing a goddamn cowboy hat.
“This what it takes to make you feel like a man?” she called. “Hunting a defenseless woman?”
“What’s the best thing about a blow job?” he yelled back. “Ten minutes of silence.”
“Who fucked you up most, sonny?” Rein called. “Mommy or Daddy?”
He growled something incomprehensible and fired into the tree. Rein held her breath, scrambled to another tree eight feet back. She was almost to the cliff.
He kept moving forward.
Down to this, Rein thought. She listened into her head, heard Carson’s words from the long night at the range: What I do is lock my shoulders, elbows and wrists into a solid unit and roll with my …
“Step out here, Mama,” the man said, two dozen feet away. She heard him cock the rifle. “I got more important things to do.”
Rein dove out from behind the tree, hitting the ground and rolling. The man jacked his rifle to his shoulder …
“Did you see that?” Strather said, glasses to his eyes. “Jesus!”
“Is … am I seeing right?” I croaked, my heart so high in my throat I could barely speak.
“What is it?” Cruz said, shaking my arm. “What’s going on?”
“I … think …” I couldn’t speak. I could only shake.
“The shooter is down,” Strather barked into his mic. “I repeat, The shooter is down. Approach with extreme caution.”
“Carson?” Cruz said. But I could only open and close my mouth like a fish out of water. Cruz looked to Strather, his own glasses to his eyes.
“Your officer is on the move again,” he grinned. “Looking safe and uninjured. Our people will have her in one minute.”
Chapter 65
The punch I made for the party at my place used rum and tequila and vodka and I called it Tubman’s Delight, because three cups would put you underground. It seemed funny when I thought it up.
Everyone who’d worked close on the case attended except for Cruz, who said she had “more paperwork to do than there probably is in the world”. But she was going to take a break next month, flying down to visit Casa Carson for at least a week, so the future was bright.
Rein was the star of the event. She wore a University of Colorado ski cap to hide her shiny pate, but everyone had to kiss the smooth terrain. She said you could make a wish and it would come true, called it baldhead voo-doo. People thought that was a lot funnier than Tubman’s Delight.
About halfway through I was at the railing looking out over the water. The moon was a new sliver, a “hopeful moon” Rein called it. She sashayed up to me, shot a glance behind her, Harry in a deck chair, Sally beside him. They looked good.
“How you doing, girl?” I asked.
“Trying to get the hate gang out of my head. It helps to realize a lot more women might have been killed if we hadn’t dug Trotman out of the woodwork.”
I nodded. “Little Bobby spent a lot of time corkscrewing himself into the university, a helluva plan. His only bad luck came when the head of his department started writing a history of misogyny. Even when Sinclair discovered Trotman, he had no idea the squirmy little monster was a killer.” I grinned. “Nailing Trotman was your doing, officer Early.”
Rein turned to study the moon, her elbows on the railing. She stole another glance behind her, saw Harry wandering into the kitchen for a refill.
“Do you think Harry’ll ever come to grips with me being a cop?” she asked, her voice low. “Stop worrying?”
“Fully? No. It’s the way he is, Rein.”
She sighed. “I’m re-thinking law school, Carson.”
“For you, or for Harry?”
“I shouldn’t put him through this any more. It’s not fair to –” Rein’s cell phone buzzed from her belt. She started to shut it off, saw the caller was Treeka Flood, now somewhere in Florida, Tommy Flood headed for federal prison.
I backed away and left Rein with her call. It was the first Rein had heard from Treeka since the rescue and I could pretty much figure what Miz Flood had to say. The conversation took three minutes and when Rein returned to me her eyes glistened with tears.
“Treeka said … she said I gave her a chance to have, to have …”
“Yeah,” I said. “Sometimes it happens like that.”
Harry wandered up with a fresh drink and started to say something. He frowned at Rein. “What’s wrong, girl? You look sad.”
Rein wiped a tear from her cheek and downed the rest of her punch. She grinned and poked Harry in his belly.
Said, “Bet I can make detective faster than you did.”
COMING SOON
THE DEATH BOX
DECEMBER 2013
Carson Ryder thought he’d seen everything …
A specialist in twisted crimes, Detective Carson Ryder thought he’d seen the lowest depths of human depravity. But he’s barely started his new job in Miami when called to a horrific scene: a concrete pillar built of human remains, agonized expressions forever frozen in stone.
Finding the secret of the pillar drags him into the sordid world of human trafficking, where one terrified girl holds the key to unraveling a web of pain, prostitution and murder.
But Ryder’s not the only one chasing the girl. And the others will kill to keep the secret safe.
Click here to buy The Death Box.
Acknowledgments
As always, I thank the folks at the Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency and HarperCollins, UK, who take my words and make them better.
About the Author
J. A. Kerley spent years as an advertising agency writer and producer before his wife demanded he quit work and write a novel, which he thought a fine idea. The result was The Hundredth Man, the first in the Carson Ryder series. An avid angler, canoeist and hiker, Kerley has traveled extensively throughout the South, especially coastal regions such as Mobile, Alabama, the setting for many of his novels, and the Florida Keys. He has a cabin in the Kentucky mountains, which appeared as a setting in Buried Alive. He lives in Newport, Kentucky, where he enjoys sitting on the levee and watching the barges rumble up and down the Ohio River.
Also by the Author
The Hundredth Man
The Death Collectors
The Broken Souls
Blood Brother
In the Blood
Little Girls Lost
Buried Alive
The Killing Game
Copyright
This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
Harper
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First published in Great Britain by Harper 2011
Copyright © Jack Kerley 2011
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Ebook Edition © JULY 2011 ISBN: 9780007328215
Version: 2013–09–27
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