He grabbed the first door on his left and twisted. It rattled in the doorjamb, but not by his power.
“Help me, please!” was the muffled cry from inside.
“Step back, I’m going to kick the door down.”
He gave them a few seconds, stepped back and hit it squarely with his boot. Two of the three hinges popped off.
Two sets of eyes stared at him. The twins clung to each other, staring at him as if he weren’t real.
“Are you hurt?” he stepped through the door.
The two girls pressed up against the wall.
What was he supposed to do with them?
“The house is on fire, you need to get out. I’m going to step back. Will you go downstairs and outside if I step back?”
The girls nodded. Well then, that was one solution.
He backed up and went one door down. The girls peeked around the door, but he really didn’t have time to coax them out. Screaming had started behind his second door. Adrenaline gave him the strength to knock it almost clean off its hinges in one kick. He owed his fellow bounty hunter, Remy, for dragging all of them out to practice just this maneuver.
A Hispanic boy scurried out from under the door as flames crawled up his curtains.
“Shit. Get out, now,” he said to the boy. Jacques turned. There were still three closed doors. Odalia and a little gaggle of teens were at work on another door. “Odalia, those kids need to get out of here, this place is going to start coming down.”
She said something to the kids or maybe it was Karen’s voice in the headset. Between the blood rushing past his ears and the fire, it was hard to hear her.
The kids pressed close to the wall and made for the stairs. Somewhere else, wood splintered and cracked. This house was going to come down around them if they didn’t get out soon. His vision was growing fuzzy from the lack of oxygen and the smoke in his lungs, but he’d die before he left anyone behind.
He kicked down another door, but this time it took two tries. He stepped into the room and froze. There weren’t any children here. It must have been where the couple slept. Pictures of the children were tacked up on the wall with an aged photograph next to them, as if there were some correlation between the adults in those pictures and the children. He didn’t have time to puzzle it out, but he grabbed a handful of the images and shoved them down his shirt.
Odalia was at work on another door. One more and they were out.
“I can’t get it,” Odalia yelled between coughing.
“Get out of here,” he got out in a wheeze as he crossed to her.
“No, I’m not leaving you.”
“Together then. On three.” The heat was near unbearable. His clothes stuck to him and the sweat got in his eyes, making it even harder to see.
“Kick now.”
Half a second behind her, he nailed the door with his heel. It cracked in half, the hinges not even budging.
“Oh fuck,” he said. “Get the other door.”
A person, he wasn’t sure if it was a boy or a girl, alive or dead, lay on the bed. One arm flopped. Alive then.
Jacques could hear Odalia coughing and hitting the last door while he crossed to this poor soul. He didn’t bother with words. Couldn’t at this point. Emotion and smoke clogged his throat. He gathered the teen in his arms and braced himself as the floor shifted.
Fuck.
He crossed to the door, glimpsing flames around the windows across the hall.
Odalia was half-carrying another teen. He followed her to the stairs, but their way was barred by a wall of fire.
“Out the window,” he yelled and ducked into a room on their right.
Odalia followed, going straight for the window, except it was nailed shut and had chicken wire over the panes. There wasn’t even furniture in the room to use to break it down.
He lay the teen down on the floor and motioned for Odalia and the other to step back. He pulled off his shirt, pushing the pictures at Odalia and wrapped it around his hand for a cushion. With a single step, he put his whole force behind the punch, cracking the glass. The wire bent under his force and wood splintered.
It wasn’t enough.
Movement down below caught his eye, but the glass was too dirty to make them out. He hauled back and punched again. And again.
A hand touched his back and Odalia was next to him. She had a dirty bit of cloth around her hand. As one, they took a half step back, one step forward and swung. The combined force popped the chicken wire off and more glass shattered.
“Again,” he thought he heard, but couldn’t be sure.
Once more they hit the window and he could feel the fresh breeze on his skin. He set his hands against the frame and pushed. It creaked and groaned, giving a little, a little more, and then slid completely out of the housing.
“Go, go, go,” he yelled at Odalia and the able bodied teen.
He scooped up his precious charge and stepped through the opening and onto the slanted roof. Oxygen stung his throat and his whole body tingled. He was dizzy and the roof was old, slippery.
Sirens clamored all around them and a red fire engine rolled onto the grass, the ladder extended up toward them. The house shuddered as more beams collapsed inside. The firemen reacted fast, guiding first the teen then Odalia down.
He edged toward the ladder, unsure how to get the teen down. There was no fight left in the nearly lifeless body in his arms.
The firemen seemed to understand and came up the ladder to him. In one motion he slung the teen over his shoulder and crawled onto the rungs. Jacques wobbled as the house shifted. His ass hit the shingles and his legs slid over the edge of the roof. He made a wild grab for the ladder as it shot past him, closing his hands around the rungs. His shoulders screamed as his weight dropped onto the joints, but he wasn’t dead.
It was only a six-foot drop to the ground, so he let go, landing and going to his knees. Firemen were by his side almost immediately, ushering him toward the road. He glanced around, relieved to see the area swarmed with police, paramedics, and firemen.
“Karen?” he croaked.
“I’m still here.” Her voice was calm, steady. The woman had nerves of steel.
“Everyone’s out.”
“Thank goodness.”
“I gotta go after them now though.” His throat felt raw, as if it had been burned.
“Back-up is there, they can...”
“They don’t know how to track.” He sidestepped the oncoming paramedics, holding up his hands. “I do.”
He turned and though is body screamed at him to stop, he jogged around the house and toward the trees. He had a promise to keep.
Odalia doubled over, coughing as her head swam. She could feel the heat from the fire at her back. A paramedic had his hand on her back, urging her farther from the blaze.
The children were safe.
Where was Jacques?
She straightened, glancing around for him.
“Where did the black man go?” she asked the paramedic.
“The one who was with you?” The paramedic was a stern-looking older man.
“Yeah.” Really, who else would she be asking about?
“He ran off that way before we could look at him.”
“What?” She turned, staring in the direction he pointed.
“We need to. . .”
“Later.” She gathered her strength, finding her reserves were deeper than she’d ever imagined, and jogged around the building. Her lungs continued to burn, but the dizziness was fading.
“Foucheaux,” someone called.
She glanced around and spied a detective to her right, headed in her direction.
“What’s going on? Where’s Savoy?” she asked.
“Dispatch said he’s following the kidnappers. Where the hell is this guy?” The detective scowled.
“Which way did he go?” She’d lost her headset inside the building and therefore
her link to Jacques.
“That way.”
She headed toward the line of brush, the thick trees, scanning them for some sign of passing. Of course Jacques would go after them. He was a bounty hunter. He would follow his prey to the ends of the earth if that’s what it took. But he wouldn’t do it alone. She would strangle him later. They were a team. He completed her.
“Graham. Vernon. Go with her,” she heard the detective yell.
She stepped past the brush line and into the trees. She scanned the thick foliage for any sign of Jacques or the kidnappers, but there were tracks every which way and three trails.
“Foucheaux?” Vernon asked.
“Shh.” She held up her hand and focused beyond the fire, letting her eyes relax, searching for a flash of movement.
Odalia couldn’t track like Jacques, but she’d grown up far enough out in the sticks she could follow an obvious trail. She just had to find it first.
There.
She struck off down the path to their right. It branched and faded quickly. It didn’t appear that these people used any one path more than the other. She took the path of least resistance, working toward the bit of movement she’d seen between the trees and bushes, the two officers behind her. They’d gone maybe fifty yards before she saw the first fresh sign of someone’s passing. A small set of footprints in fresh mud, more than likely from the woman.
They scrambled down and up a dry creek bed and stopped on the other side. Again she focused on the sounds and let her gaze rove over the ground, the trees.
There.
A few broken branches. Pretty obvious, but it was a sign.
She broke into a jog, a sense of urgency pulling her forward. Her muscles screamed to stop. Her body ached from the play and further abuse. She hadn’t slept in at least thirty-six hours. And she couldn’t stop. Not now.
The trees thinned and she saw Jacques’ broad shoulders through the trees. He crept from bush to tree, slow, his movements controlled and his gun drawn.
Odalia held her finger to her lips and gestured to the two officers. They nodded and pulled back, communicating with their back-up. She didn’t wait. She might not see what Jacques saw, but she wouldn’t leave him alone.
She held her breath while she picked her way after him. He was like a cat on the prowl, the way he moved so slowly, sometimes ducking down to all fours. She’d never had the chance to see Jacques in the field. Later, she’d have to recall this, play it over in her mind to appreciate just how skilled a tracker he was.
This far out, the noise from the fire was a distant whisper, though the black smoke streaked across the sky.
The two officers at her back whispered, their voices rising. She twisted momentarily, gesturing for them to keep it down.
“Get down!” Jacques yelled.
Odalia didn’t think. She didn’t look back toward the suspects.
She dove forward, flattening her body in a little hollow with a tree on one side for protection as a rifle blasted through the peaceful trees followed by the unmistakable clunk-clunk of a shotgun pumping.
A man yelled, one of the officers, while the other let out the cry of, “Officer down.”
“Fucking hell.” Odalia scrambled to put her back against the tree a moment before the shotgun discharged.
Another gun, not the rifle or the shotgun, cracked through the air.
Jacques had fired.
She knew the sound of his Glock as well as she knew her own from the time spent on the range. It was their version of the weekly candlelit dinner.
“Officer down.” That was Vernon, so it had to be Graham who was shot.
She peered around the tree, her gun extended.
A flash of pale skin between the boughs.
She squeezed the trigger a second after they moved.
“They’re on the run,” Jacques yelled over his shoulder.
“Damn it, Jacques, wait.” She pushed to her feet and leapt across the distance to where Vernon had Graham behind a fallen tree.
“He’s fine. Go. I’ve got this.” Vernon had his hands on Graham’s leg.
“Went straight through,” Graham managed to get out through gritted teeth.
“Okay.” Her heart was torn—care for the downed cop or go after Jacques.
Graham had Vernon and no doubt a dozen officers were on their way here. Jacques needed her more. She spun and sprinted through the trees, branches and leaves slapping her as she raced after the sounds of yelling. There was no quiet stalking now.
Another shotgun blast split the morning calm. She kept low and closed the distance between herself and Jacques. He hid behind what appeared to be an old, dilapidated wooden shed. Sweat and blood dripped down his face and onto his bare chest. She took a visual inventory of him, but found no new injuries save for some scratches.
“They’re in a cabin.” Jacques nodded behind them. “Looks pretty old, but they came straight here.”
“Think they have anyone else here?” The other house was bad enough. If they were holding still yet more teens out here. . .she didn’t want to think about that.
“Karen, we’ve got them pinned down in a cabin. It’s southwest of the house,” Jacques said.
Odalia edged toward the corner of the shed and peered around their barrier.
The cabin was a ramshackle hodgepodge of the original structure strengthened with metal siding, wire, and whatever else they could use to prop the walls up. One side looked to be completely supported by a collection of ancient refrigerators.
Jacques was still talking to Karen, and for that she was grateful. They weren’t out here with just themselves and two crazy assholes.
“You pigs stay off our land,” the woman yelled out of the window. It didn’t appear to have any glass in the frame.
Odalia could banter with the woman. Try to talk them into giving themselves up, but they’d already shot and wounded an officer. Her conscience won out.
“Give yourselves up now,” she yelled.
“No way in hell,” the woman screamed back.
Odalia thought she heard the man’s voice. It was the woman who was the driving force behind this that was for sure.
Another clunk-clunk of the shotgun.
Odalia and Jacques hit the ground not a moment too soon. The pellets ripped through the old wood like a hot knife through butter. She rolled until she could see through some brush.
She took aim. The woman stood perfectly framed in the window, peering toward the shed.
Odalia squeezed the trigger and exhaled.
The woman screamed and fell backward.
“I’ve been hit!” There was more screaming, the man yelled.
Jacques army-crawled toward her. “Odalia, what did you do that for?” he snapped.
“She was shooting at us, if you didn’t notice that.”
“Karen, we’ve got one down. Wait.” They peered toward the house together.
A rifle and a shotgun were tossed through the window onto the ground in front of the house. Jacques narrated the action to the dispatcher.
“Don’t shoot,” called John.
“Come out with your hands up,” Odalia yelled. She got to her feet, gun up and edged past the shed, Jacques coming behind her.
The man pushed the door open, hands up over his head, hunched over.
“Get on the ground. Is there anyone else inside?” Odalia went for the cabin while Jacques pinned John to the ground, patting him down for any hidden weapons.
“No, just my wife. She’s hurt real bad. You shot her!” John replied.
“Well, you shouldn’t shoot at cops,” Jacques drawled.
Odalia stepped into the cabin. It was one room, a few pieces of furniture and no surprises. Just the woman sitting on the floor, her back against the wall and a hand pressed to her arm. She glared at Odalia, but was too pale and probably shocked to do more than whine a little.
“Clear,” Odalia called over h
er shoulder.
Jacques finished tying John up with a makeshift handcuff made of the man’s suspenders. It was ingenious, but not exactly secure. They’d want something better soon.
Jacques stepped over the threshold, a hot presence at her back.
He shook his head and ran his knuckles down her spine. “Damn, baby, now we’re going to have to carry her back. That’s why I didn’t want you shooting them. That was a good shot, though.”
Odalia laughed and shook her head while Jacques relayed the latest information to Karen.
The kids were safe. The bad guys were caught. Maybe now she could get a decent night’s rest.
chapter Four
Completed
Jacques stirred the steaming brew while he walked from the kitchen into the living room. Odalia lay curled up on one side of the sofa, her hand draped over her dog Creature’s head. She still had a goofy smile on her face, and he couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t every day you got to be a hero. In his line of work, he was usually the bad guy. Odalia saw more than her fair share of bad endings. The world needed more stories that ended with reunited families.
Eleven children reunited with the families who had feared them gone. As far as they’d been able to figure out from the evidence in the house and the mad babblings of Clair and John, the couple had been trying to replace the family members they’d lost in Katrina. Jacques had recognized some dark hoodoo in the empty upstairs room.
“Here.” He handed her the herbal blend. “How’s the head?”
“Not so good.” She accepted the cup and blew across the top.
Odalia suffered from chronic migraines. He suspected they were mostly stress-induced or, like today’s, simply the by-product of not enough sleep. But that was just his assumption. He treated the symptoms and did what he could to make her happy.
He settled in on the other side of the couch and guided her feet into his lap.
“How’s your head feel?” She turned to lay on her back, propped up with several pillows.
“Stitches were a good idea.”
“What did your sergeant say?” As much as Jacques didn’t like Odalia being in the line of fire or anywhere near danger, he would never tell her that. She was a damn fine officer.
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