by Susan Stoker
Rex and Bennet lay flat, looking at each other every few seconds. His mind worked, coming up with a plan. He’d slither across the floor to the door on the opposite side of the house, go out and—
A siren blasted from extremely close by.
The shooting stopped and one of the gunmen moved around the front of the SUV.
A second later, a shot blasted from inside the house, from Bennet’s gun, and the guy who’d exposed himself was down, not moving.
“Good one, sheriff.” Rex found his phone on the floor, still recording, and set it back on what was left of the windowsill.
The two remaining cops, a man and a woman, shouted at each other, and Rex watched as red and blue lights and a strobe came into view on the rise of the driveway, then the top of a white vehicle, then…an ambulance? That had to be Clint.
“Cavalry’s ridin’ in.” Bennet kept his eye on his gunsight, shifting the barrel back and forth between the SUVs, waiting for his chance.
Rex did the same, and in seconds, the ambulance was in the yard. He spotted Clint’s dark glasses and white hair, and someone in the passenger seat who was braced and hanging on for all they were worth. The vehicle headed straight for the first truck, and the woman ran around the back of the SUV, out of range of the ambulance and Rex and Bennet’s guns.
Clint swerved and went right for the other shooter, who skittered around the back of his truck.
The ambulance braked, then went into a slide, then spun around, the tail end smacking into the spot where the shooter had stood just seconds before.
“Did he just squash that guy?” Bennet sounded surprised.
A second later, the male shooter crawled out from under the truck and stood, gun in hand.
Rex had this one. He put a bullet in the fucker’s shoulder, then in his knee.
The man went down with a piercing scream.
Clint’s grin quickly turned into a shocked expression as the last shooter peppered the ambulance with bullets.
Someone ran from the far side of the house near Bennet.
It was Treven.
Rex shouted, “Bennet, don’t shoot.”
Treven ran toward the SUV, a pistol in each hand, looking like the old west was making a comeback. “Drop your—”
Two shots sounded from behind the SUV.
“Got her.” Treven’s voice came loud in the ringing silence.
Rex helped Bennet up, despite his protests that he could do it himself, and they walked out onto the porch, or what was left of it. Wood chips lay thick on the floorboards, and the man who Bennet had shot on the porch had been hit enough times by his friends to make a hell of a red puddle. He had to be tango-uniform. Deceased.
The driver’s door of the ambulance was smashed in, and Rex helped Clint’s shocked, hyperventilating partner out of the ambulance and sat him on the ground. “Put your head between your knees.”
Clint climbed out the passenger door as Treven strolled up to them, his pistols sticking out of his jeans at his hips, his grin telling Rex how proud he was of his performance. “She was good. She almost got me with that first shot, but I took her out with the second one. She’ll be okay…with some serious shoulder surgery.”
“Thanks, buddy.” Clint smacked Treven on the back. “Saved my ass.”
Rex became surprisingly choked up looking at his friends, who had risked their lives to save them. What more could a man ask for in a friend? “You two saved our asses.” He gestured to Bennet. “And Doc Mina’s, too.” He looked behind him to where she sat in the trees. “I’m gonna go get her.”
Treven pointed to the far side of the house. “Take my ATV–I came cross country just as the big shooting started.
“Thanks.” Rex ran. In less than two minutes, he pulled up to Mina, who stood, red-eyed and shaking.
“Is everyone okay?” She reached for him.
He jumped off the four-wheeler and pulled her into his arms. “Everyone on our team is. If it hadn’t been for Clint and Trev, things could have gotten bad.”
Shouting came from the ranch, then gunshots.
He jerked and looked that direction. One of the black SUVs was moving.
“Shit.”
Chapter Nine
‡
Mina hung on to Rex as he cranked the throttle on the four-wheeler. The last twenty minutes had been hell. She’d jumped at each gunshot, and had nearly screamed when the ATV had roared past her with Treven driving.
Now what was happening?
They pulled up as Treven zip-tied the hands of a man he held face down on the hood of one of the black trucks. He pulled the guy up. “You’re gonna want to hear this, Rex.” Treven looked at Mina, a scowl on his face. “This guy was hiding in the back of the truck and tried to take off. Bennet shot out the tires.”
Bennet stood to the side, looking more confused than angry.
Mina glanced at the man in custody. Her ex-boyfriend. Oh no.
“Mina, honey. I’ve been looking for you.”
Without a glance at Rex, she set her chin. This was the part where she’d be exposed as a fraud. “This is my ex-boyfriend. Tory Pines. He was one of the men on the video. Not the shooter, but one of the people in collusion with them.”
Tory coughed a few times. “There is a video? I thought you were—”
“Shut up.” Rex stepped in front of her, staring into her eyes. “What’s going on?”
Mina sucked in a breath. “I was following him. We dated for a year, and every Thursday night, he’d leave, wouldn’t tell me why, and he’d come back hours later.”
“Don’t tell them any more.” Tory’s voice came out to whiny.
Rex turned. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”
Tory turned white and looked away.
Rex grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the house, past where Clint and his partner were administering first aid to the wounded shooters. When they were out of hearing range, Rex stopped and turned her to face him. “You were stalking your boyfriend?”
“Ex-boyfriend, and technically…yes, but I knew something was wrong.” She pulled her arm out of his too-tight grip.
He released her, looking at his hand as if he hadn’t realized what he’d been doing.
“When we broke up, I kept following him. I knew something was going on, and I wanted to find out what. Every week, he met with a group of uniformed police and people in suits, whom I assumed were with the department, too.”
“You recorded all this?”
“Yes, and when I sent the chip to the governor, I included all the video I’d recorded—about six months’ worth. Some of the videos were clearer, and they should be able to make out the faces better.” She looked at the shooters laying in the yard and the dead man on the porch. “There were more than just these four involved, but they never did anything illegal until—”
“Okay, just stop.” He held up his hand and closed his eyes for a second. “Why didn’t you tell me all this.”
She had to make this good. She had one chance to explain, to make him see she wasn’t a crazy stalker…and liar. “Imagine if I showed up at your house and told you I was surveilling my ex when I saw one of his associates shoot a man. And while I did record it on video, I didn’t get the actual footage of the shooting.”
Rex shook his head. The disappointment in his gaze sent an ache to her chest.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m sorry, Rex, I really am. I didn’t mean to mislead you, but I did what I felt I had to do to survive.”
Sirens sounded, growing closer.
“Rex.” Bennet had Tory backed up against the SUV. “He owns a trucking company. Says he doesn’t know what the cops were moving, and the man they shot was one of his drivers who got too greedy. But he’s willing to cooperate in the investigation.”
Rex turned and took a step away from her.
Her fear turned to a real, living thing inside her. Rex had to see this from her side. He had to believe she wasn’t deceitful for any reason
but to insure her safety. “I tried to tell you when we were on the blanket today, but—”
“Rex, look at this.” Clint took a paper from the pocket of the man who lay dead on the porch and held it up. A four-by-six glossy of…Mina.
Three sheriff’s cars raced into the yard.
“Mina, you’re safe now.” He didn’t meet her gaze, and walked away.
“Rex, please. Give me a chance to…”
He was too far gone now, heading for the sheriffs, who were getting pieces of information from everyone who could still talk.
Mina let him go. She’d done what she had to do to save her life, but in the process, had fallen for a too-serious, hard-edged detective who had been burned badly in his one serious relationship. Perfect. There was no one else in her life who had ever made her feel the way Rex did. He took her breath away, and gave her the confidence to be herself.
One of the sheriff’s deputies pointed at her, Rex glanced her way and nodded, his stare as cold as the dark side of the moon.
She’d done the one thing that Rex would never be able to forgive. She’d lied. End of story.
*
Rex stood in the yard watching the sheriff’s cruiser head down the driveway toward the road. Mina was in that car.
His chest contracted so hard, he had to force in a breath. How had he let himself get close to her? He’d had a feeling all along that something was missing from her story. Sure, she’d lied to him, but could he understand her reasoning? Maybe. And maybe he would forgive her someday, but he’d never see her again. There was nothing left between them, if there ever was anything to begin with.
The tail end of the cruiser disappeared over the rise. Now his heart wanted to stop beating. “Shit.” There was something. The beginnings of it, anyway. Physical, hell yeah, but something else. As if the two of them had found each other for a reason. Like they were finally waking from a long, dull dream to find themselves with the person they’d been waiting for. “Stupid.” He sounded like a bad romance novel.
“Glad she’s gone.” Bennet wheeled up next to him. The small bandages covering where he’d gotten cut by flying glass made him look like he’d been in a fight with a shaving razor.
Didn’t Bennet like Mina? He sure had seemed taken with her.
“She’s trouble.” The old sheriff rubbed a finger under his nose. “Lying like that to save her own life. What’s this world coming to?”
So now the old man was using reverse psychology? Rex bit back a smile. “When was the last time I told you to shut up?”
“Hmmm. Lemme see. Guess it was the last time I cuffed you upside the head.”
Rex remembered the occasion, when he’d been twelve. And he’d learned quick. They turned to look at the house, where sheriff’s deputies picked up shell casings and sifted through wood splinters and glass. “She caused all this. Could have gotten us killed.”
“Well, she didn’t. Get us killed, I mean. And what good would it have done if you knew about that Pines boy? Your department would have picked him up, word would have gotten out to his partners, and they’d have been more desperate, willing to kill Pines too, and in the process, taking out more cops or civilians.”
Rex hadn’t thought about the big picture that way. He’d have to sit and cogitate over it some. “Did I ever tell you you’re a smart old fox?”
“Not nearly enough.” Bennet leaned heavily on his walker. He had to be exhausted.
“Well, you are, and you mean a lot to…I love you, Bennet.”
The old man sucked in an uneven breath. “Love you too, son.” His voice cracked halfway through.
They stood silently for a few minutes as Rex’s heartbreak seemed to ease a little.
Rex looked down the hill at the outbuildings. “You want me to move your crap over to the foreman’s house?”
Bennet turned to look at the place that had sat empty since Rex had divorced Aletha. “Guess I got no choice.”
“I could put you in an old folks’ home, where you belong.” Rex backed up a step, smiling.
“Get your ass over here, boy. That comment deserves a thunk on the head.” Bennet laughed and wheeled his way toward the other door into the house, mumbling about who was the old folk and who was the dumb-as-dirt young shit who was letting an amazing girl get away from him.
“Dumb as dirt.” Maybe he was, but there were things that just couldn’t be overcome in a relationship. Doc Mina had chosen to execute number one on that list. Rex headed toward the barn to retrieve his horse.
*
Four days later, Rex sat at his desk at police headquarters. His partner’s desk butted against his, but Sontag would not be coming back. Once Internal Affairs was through with him, he’d do prison time and never work in this or any other precinct again.
Around him, detectives talked on phones, typed on keyboards, and shuffled paperwork, but all the activity in the bullpen seemed to be moving around him, like he wasn’t part of it any longer.
Flashes of the shootout on the ranch kept running through his mind. It could have turned out much worse. If it hadn’t been for Clint and Treven, he and Bennet could be in the morgue right now, and Mina? Could she have made it to Treven’s ranch before the bad cops found her?
The way he’d left her out there, exposed and vulnerable, still ate at him. He constantly ran through other scenarios, things he could have done instead of what he did. With her not knowing how to handle a horse, putting her on Merle’s back and pointing her toward Trev’s ranch wasn’t an option.
No, he’d done the only thing he could, considering the circumstances. The whole thing kept him up at night, and he took another pull on his cup of strong, bitter coffee. That wasn’t what really kept him awake all night, though.
Mina. He’d let her go, had seen her once in the local sheriff’s office in Wild Oak when he’d brought Bennet in so they could give their official statements and turn over the video of the shooting at the ranch that Rex had recorded on his phone. She’d spotted him and her whole body froze, as if she would wait there forever for him to say something.
He’d just nodded and walked past. Asshole. She didn’t deserve that. She’d lied, and that made him angry. But what would he have done in the same situation? Alone and on the run, no one to trust, unable to rent a car, to find a place to hide, to even sleep at night. Hell, for her to put as much trust in him as she had—that must have been fucking scary for her.
Had she used him for sex? He tried to tell himself she had, tried to keep up the wall of fury so he didn’t have to face the fact that he’d turned away from her when she’d needed him most. But he knew that wasn’t her. She had been sweet and generous, sexy and wild, and she’d somehow gotten into his heart.
“Damn.”
“What?” His captain stood next to his desk.
“Sir?” Rex straightened in his chair.
“I asked if you were finished with IA.” He set his palm flat on Rex’s desk. “You need a few days off? I don’t see much brain activity going on inside you.”
“No, sir. Yes, sir.” He took a breath. “No, I don’t need time off, and yes, I’m finished with Internal Affairs.”
“All right, but if desk duty gets old, you can take a break.” He set three files in Rex’s in-box. “But in the meantime, stop staring at the wall and get some of this paperwork done.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
The captain grumbled and walked away. The man tried to be a hard-ass, but he cared about his detectives.
Rex went back to the boring part of the job, and worked steadily until just after noon when his phone rang. Bennet. “Hi.”
“Turn on channel…ah hell, what channel is that pretty blonde reporter on?”
Was this something more about the shootout? Rex walked into an empty conference room and turned on the television, flipping channels looking for… “Mina?”
“Yeah. She’s giving a press conference.”
She stood tall and proud, her red hair shiny, and looking
professionally cut now, not the chopped-off look she’d come to him wearing. She read from a paper in her shaking hands.
Rex had the overwhelming urge to hold her, help her through this, be her strength, and stop her from shaking.
She finished her statement, and now the reporters shouted questions at her.
One man raised his voice. “You intentionally withheld the name of one of the conspirators in the shooting at the college. Two men and one woman were injured at that ranch, and one man was killed by bullets from his co-conspirators. Do you take any responsibility for that?”
“Fuck him.” Rex said the words into the phone.
“Yeah.” Bennet snorted. “They’re gonna be giving it to her hard. I’m gonna hang up so I don’t have to hear you swearing, son.” The call ended.
Rex slid his phone is his pocket and leaned his ass on the edge of the table. He needed some support to watch Doc getting grilled this way.
She looked right into the camera, her pretty blue eyes clear, a crease marking her perfect brow. “I made a mistake by not telling Detective Tarrow everything.” She glanced down, then back into the lens. “If I had revealed everything to him, maybe things would have turned out differently.” A tear ran from her eye. “I wish, more than anything else, that I could use my super powers and reverse time. I’d be honest with the detective and lives might have been saved, and people wouldn’t have been hurt. Please, forgive me.”
“Uh, Doctor Cooper.” The interviewer looked confused by her answer. “You’re referring to the connection between you and Tory Pines…” The questions and answers went on, but Rex didn’t hear any more of it.
What she’d said was directed to him.
He needed to talk to her. Just to let her know that it wasn’t her fault. Things might have been worse if she had revealed her acquaintance with the owner of the truck fleet. He stood and muted the volume. Who was he kidding? That wasn’t the only reason he needed to see Mina.
There was a piece of his life missing now that she wasn’t in it. Was her public apology just to clear her conscience, or was it more? Could he convince her he wasn’t a tight-assed hothead who would shove her away every time she made a mistake?
