Take the Key and Lock Her Up

by LENA DIAZ,

  Alex’s eyes were open now. He tugged at his oxygen mask and pointed at Devlin.

  “No, sir,” the EMT said. “You can’t talk right now.” He replaced the mask and motioned to the other EMT. “He’s as stable as I can make him. We need to go.”

  Alex’s agitation increased. Devlin was pretty sure he knew why. He leaned in, ignoring the EMT’s frown, and squeezed Alex’s hand.

  “He’s alive, Dad. Austin is alive. He’s on his way to the hospital right now.”

  A look of relief swept over Alex’s face as Devlin let go of his hand and moved back out of the way.

  Pierce stepped up beside him. “Is he going to be okay?”

  “He supposedly had a heart attack.”

  “You’re kidding. He’s fit as a horse.”

  Which was why Devlin was so certain this was Ace’s handiwork. It wouldn’t be the first time an assassin had used drugs to fake a heart attack. And unless a coroner had a reason to search for an injection site, those kinds of deaths usually passed muster without raising any suspicions.

  “Excuse me, sir.” The EMT who’d been sitting with Braedon was outside the ambulance now, ready to close the doors, but Devlin and Pierce were in the way.

  “Wait,” Pierce said. “I’m going with you.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, that’s against hospital—”

  Pierce climbed into the back and sat beside Braedon, silently daring the EMT to stop him.

  The EMT aimed a frown at Devlin as if to warn him. “No one else. I could lose my job.”

  “Meet us at the hospital,” Pierce called out to Devlin as the other EMT closed the doors and then jogged to the front. Soon the ambulance was racing down the long driveway.

  “Devlin.”

  He turned around to see Emily frowning up at him, her brows furrowed with concern. “You need to sit in the other ambulance and get checked out. Half your hair is singed off, and I saw you limping earlier.”

  He was about to argue when her subtle head shake had him glancing past her to see Lieutenant Drier and Tuck deep in conversation a few yards away. She obviously wanted to tell him something and didn’t want the others to hear it.

  “I could probably use something for the pain.” Certainly not a lie, but it would have to be a local anesthetic. He couldn’t risk taking anything that might slow his reaction times or dull his thinking, not with Ace still out there somewhere, probably close by.

  He and Emily moved to the remaining ambulance and sat in the back with one of the EMTs for that ambulance. The second EMT was already in the driver’s seat, his image distorted by the fogged glass that separated the cab from the back.

  After the EMT examined Devlin’s scalp, he tried to get him to lie facedown on the gurney so he could check his burned calf. Devlin insisted on sitting upright but compromised by lifting his foot onto the opposite seat to elevate it for the EMT.

  “Scale of one to ten,” Emily asked, “how much does it hurt?”

  “Barely a two, maybe two and a half,” he lied. It was closer to an eight.

  The EMT arched a brow. “You must have a high pain threshold. The burns on your scalp are only first degree, but your calf has second- and third-degree burns. We’ll need to take you to the hospital for treatment.”

  “I don’t have time to—”

  Emily put her hand on his knee. “Dev, if you saw yourself in a mirror, you wouldn’t question that you need to get checked out. Your face looks sunburned. Half your hair is gone. And third-degree burns are nothing to ignore. Not to mention my boss and Tuck look like they’re plotting to put you in jail if they can figure out a charge that will stick. They’re both ticked off that you never gave a statement about the shooting in the alley. They’ll be over here any minute.”

  “Where’s my go bag?” he asked, his voice low.

  She aimed a glance at the EMT, who was kneeling on the floor, cutting away the charred portion of Devlin’s jeans. She lifted her shirt a few inches, revealing a thick pack of papers hidden underneath, half-shoved into the top of her pants.

  Devlin raised a brow and grinned. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Probably.”

  The contents of the binder.

  He leaned over and squeezed her hand. “Thanks, Em.”

  She smiled and looked toward the EMT again. “Drier asked how we got here.” She winked before continuing. “Of course I told him the truth, that we drove up here with Pierce in his GTO. When he asked who owned the Charger, I told him I thought it belonged to one of your brothers’ friends.”

  Her quick thinking and willingness to cover for him was a surprise. If Drier ran the plates on the Charger, he’d find it belonged to one of Devlin’s aliases. That would have been hard to explain if Drier thought he and Emily had driven the car. But since there was no legal reason to search a car owned by someone else, Drier wouldn’t find the burn phones and guns still inside.

  Devlin deeply regretted the loss of the guns, but thanks to Emily’s quick thinking, at least he still had the EXIT documents. Having those go public could have been disastrous. And it would have hampered his ability to figure out who was holding Kelly. Not that he’d made any headway on that. Being shot at and having to run into burning buildings was wreaking havoc on his plans.

  Eyeing Tuck and Drier, still a short distance away, he asked, “What did your boss and Tuck say when they saw you?”

  “Do you want a local for the pain?” the EMT asked.

  Devlin nodded. The throbbing in his leg was making it difficult to focus, and he needed to be on his guard in case Ace was still around. While the EMT retrieved the supplies he would need, Emily leaned toward him.

  “It was a bit awkward,” she said, in a low voice. “Apparently, the night I left my house, I called human resources to take a leave of absence to care for a sick friend in Florida. Naturally, my boss was upset I hadn’t spoken to him about it. And he wanted to know why I’m not in Florida right now. I told him my friend ended up having someone else help her and I was going to come back to the office in a few days once I’m sure my friend doesn’t need anything else from me. Not sure he believed me. He wanted to know why I’m here with you. I told him you’d finally agreed to let me interview you about the shooting outside the diner. Now that he was happy to hear. He’s really ticked that you never went to the police station to give an official statement. And now, with the fire, he’s having a hard time getting past your apparent run of bad luck. I can’t blame him for being suspicious. You’d better be really careful or he’ll figure out an excuse to haul you in for questioning.”

  “Thanks for the warning.”

  She gave him a sympathetic look.

  “What?” he demanded.

  “I asked Drier about Nancy, told him I’d heard about a murder over the radio. He said Nancy flew to Savannah about a week ago but phoned to tell her brother she was visiting with a girlfriend and wouldn’t see him for another week or so. From her injuries, it looks like she may have been one of the missing women Hawley mentioned.”

  Devlin stiffened. “Then she never went home? Never saw Gage?”

  She shook her head and straightened as Drier and Tuck reached the back of the ambulance.

  Devlin was still trying to digest the information Emily had given him and what it might mean, but, unfortunately, he still had to deal with the two cops in front of him.

  “Mr. Buchanan,” Drier said, “bad things seem to happen wherever you go . . . dead women in basements, shoot-outs in alleys, and now a suspicious fire.”

  “Is there a point in there somewhere, Lieutenant?”

  “My point is that I’d like you to come downtown to answer some questions.”

  Before Devlin could tell him what he thought of that request, the EMT stepped to the end of the ambulance. “These burns should really be checked out at the hospital, sir.”

  Going to the hospital hadn’t been in Devlin’s plans, but if it kept him from being placed in the back of a patrol car, he’d welcome the cha
nce.

  “I’m going with him.” Emily moved to the gurney beside Devlin as if to protect him somehow.

  The EMT looked like he was about to complain, but Devlin gave him his best deadly stare and the EMT turned away. He pulled one of the doors closed and was reaching for the other when Drier grabbed it.

  “Detective Tucker will go with you,” Drier said.

  Tuck gave Devlin a smug look and hopped into the back of the ambulance.

  The EMT grumbled under his breath but didn’t argue. He closed the second door and rapped on the roof. “Let’s go, Rick.”

  The ambulance took off and was soon heading down the two-lane rural highway toward town.

  When Tuck tried to question him about the case, Devlin ignored him and stared out the back window. He’d leave it to Emily to placate her fellow detective. Devlin had other things to worry about right now.

  Like why a car had just pulled out onto the road a hundred yards behind the ambulance, when the only person who lived on this stretch of highway was Alex.

  Chapter Twenty

  * * *

  DEVLIN KEPT AN eye on the road behind them, watching for the Ford Mustang he’d seen just minutes before when they’d gone around one of the many curves. The trees were pressing in close now, which made it even harder to catch a glimpse of the car he was almost certain was following them.

  Beside him, Emily was fending off Tuck’s questions about where she’d been and why she hadn’t told him she was taking a leave. Devlin wished he could help her out, but anything he said would probably make it worse.

  “And what happened to your arms?” Tuck demanded. He grabbed her right hand and pulled her arm out straight. “Looks like a glass window exploded all over you. And before you lie about that, like everything else, remember you’ll need to come up with a story to explain what looks like freaking homemade stitches on the top of your head. What’s going on?”

  As soon as Tuck mentioned the stitches, the EMT took charge. He forced Tuck to move over so he could examine her. Based on Emily’s curses, Devlin imagined she would rather have put up with Tuck’s questions than the tetanus shot the EMT insisted on giving her.

  The Mustang suddenly came into view again, rounding a curve about fifteen car lengths back. Too far away for Devlin to see if Ace was driving, or how many were in the car. He waited until Emily looked his way before flicking his glance toward the road. Her eyes widened in understanding when she saw the Mustang, but she quickly turned back to answer another question from Tuck, playing it cool.

  “How much longer until we get to the hospital?” Devlin asked the EMT. They were running without lights or sirens on since no one inside was critical.

  “Probably twenty minutes. It’s a pretty long trek to town from out here.”

  Twenty minutes. That was a lifetime in which anything could happen if Ace was in that Mustang.

  Emily flashed him a worried look.

  Tuck frowned and glanced back and forth between the two of them. “Is something going on here that I should know about?”

  “Of course not,” Emily said. “Tell me about the case. Do you have any suspects yet? Any idea where the last missing woman is being held?”

  He didn’t look convinced by her most recent lie, but he sighed and leaned back against the ambulance wall, looking as if he’d given up trying to get her to level with him.

  “We’ve had some additional developments just this morning. In addition to the vic, Nancy Thomas, I already told you about, there was an anonymous 911 call reporting a man had been shot in the woods outside of town. The vic’s name was Brad Robinson, an ex-con who got out on parole over a year ago. Turns out there were three other ex-cons found nearby, and they’d all been killed. I spoke to Robinson before he went into surgery, but he was tight-lipped about the whole thing. Insisted it was an accident, that some hunter had mistaken him for a deer.” Tuck gave a bitter laugh. “Right. A hunter shot him in the groin, twice.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why he’s lying. He won’t even admit he knew the other men were in the woods, even though all four of them were in the same prison together.”

  Devlin focused on the road behind them but filed that information away.

  “All four knew one other?” Emily said, obviously trying to encourage Tuck to keep talking.

  “Definitely. They were childhood friends, held up a convenience store together, and all got sentenced the same and ended up in the same prison, same cell block. Robinson had additional crimes, including rape, but he made a deal which made him eligible for early release. Since they were all paroled within a few weeks of each other, it’s possible they decided to work together on the outside to plan more crimes, probably to start robbing again. Drier thinks there must have been a fifth man, the one calling the shots for whatever they had planned. But something went wrong and he turned on them.”

  “I’m not sure what this has to do with the abductions and murders.”

  “We identified the man Buchanan killed, Hawley’s abductor, just last night. There was a mix-up earlier. Someone marked his prints as having been run, but they hadn’t. Anyway, once we ran them, we found out he was an ex-con. Lo and behold, he was one of Robinson’s former cell mates, also on parole. Which obviously makes us think Robinson is crucial to this case. If we can find out who hired him, we’ll find our killer. We’re close, Emily. Real close.”

  “Everybody hold on!” Devlin yelled.

  He lunged for Emily just as the ambulance swerved toward the side of the road.

  WHEN THE AMBULANCE finally shuddered to a halt on the shoulder of the road, Tuck and the EMT were on the floor. Emily would have fallen too, but Devlin had grabbed her and braced her against the wall right before the ambulance had stopped.

  He threw the doors open, scooped her in his arms, and hopped down to the pavement.

  “Hold it.” Tuck drew his gun as he climbed to his feet. “Put her down, Buchanan. I don’t trust you and I’m not letting you take Detective O’Malley wherever you’re trying to go. What just happened? And how did you know it was going to happen before it did?”

  The EMT pounded on the closed, frosted window between the back of the ambulance and the cab. “Rick, what’s going on? Why did we stop? Did we have a blowout?”

  Devlin quickly set Emily on her feet and pushed her away from him. Then, with lightning speed, he pulled the same trick on Tuck that he’d pulled on Emily in the past. He knocked his arm up and wrenched the gun away in one smooth movement, leaving Tuck standing with his arm in the air and a stunned look on his face.

  “Get down,” Devlin yelled. “Everyone down.” He pushed Emily beneath the raised rear bumper of the ambulance and ran around toward the driver’s side of the vehicle, holding Tuck’s pistol. Seconds later, he ran back and pulled Emily to her feet.

  “What are you doing, Buchanan?” Tuck demanded.

  Devlin ignored Tuck and addressed the EMT beside him. “The other EMT—”

  “Rick.”

  “He’s not the one who was driving. The EMT, Rick, is on the passenger floorboard. Dead. Has been for a while. Whoever was driving must have jumped out as soon as he stopped the ambulance. The door was standing wide open.”

  Tuck swore. The EMT stood frozen in shock.

  “Give me my gun, Buchanan. Everyone take cover inside the ambulance while I call this in.”

  Devlin ignored him. “Emily, there was a car—”

  “—following us, a black Mustang.”

  “It pulled off the highway right before the ambulance stopped,” Devlin said. “I think it was a signal. That car can’t be more than fifty yards behind us, around the curve. You’re a sitting duck out here. Get off the road behind some trees and wait there. I’ll find you.” He motioned to Tuck and the EMT. “All of you get away from the ambulance. Take cover behind a tree.”

  Emily took off running toward the nearest thick oak, twenty feet off the road.

  “Emily, wait!” Tuck yelled after her.

  She reached
the first tree and looked over her shoulder to see Devlin sprinting into the trees behind her, running back toward the curve where he’d last seen the Mustang. Tuck and the EMT must have decided Devlin was right because they both took off toward Emily.

  The three of them ran into the woods and ducked down behind a grove of trees.

  The EMT’s face was white and he looked like he might pass out any minute.

  Tuck glared at Emily. “What are you and Buchanan mixed up in?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  He gritted his teeth and grabbed his phone. He called the dispatcher and reported what had happened, giving the distress signal for “officer needs assistance.”

  It would take fifteen minutes, minimum, to get a patrol car out this far. By then, they could all be dead. Emily’s nails tightened around the bark of the tree. What was happening? Things were way too quiet.

  Bam, bam . . . bam, bam, bam! Gunshots rang out from somewhere in the woods.

  Emily threw herself on the EMT and shoved him to the ground, covering him with her body.

  Tuck dove down beside her, glaring at her as if she were the one who was firing.

  Another round of shots rang out, then nothing.

  Seconds felt like minutes. How long had it been since the last shot? Where was Devlin? Emily counted to thirty before rolling off the EMT and jumping to her feet.

  “What are you doing?” Tuck grabbed her leg. “Stay here. Wait for backup.”

  She shook his hand off her. “Yeah, I’m not real good about waiting for backup.” She took off running toward the road, realizing this was probably another one of those bad choices she tended to make under pressure. But she also knew that she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she hid like a coward and did nothing when Devlin might be hurt or trapped and needed help.

  When she reached the edge of the trees, she crouched down and cautiously looked out. The ambulance sat on the side of the road with the engine still running. Everything else was eerily silent, deserted.