Tanner reached beneath the hoodie and grabbed his phone off his belt. The device’s case was as wet as the rest of him, but when he activated the phone, it lit up, and he could see that he was underground and surrounded by brick walls.
There was also pine shelving, some of it still standing, and upon it were rows of sealed glass jars. It was then that Tanner realized he was in what had been the farm’s root cellar. It had likely been in a location near the house, perhaps beneath the plot of land where the barn had been.
With the phone off, his eyes adjusted to the gloom, and just enough gray light filtered in to make out shapes.
Whimpering sounds came from his left, and the sparse light revealed the dog lying across from him. She was shivering from fear.
The animal had never been trusting of humans, not even Madison, who would leave food for her.
Tanner stayed still and hoped the dog would realize he wasn’t a threat, but the whimpering continued.
Someone moved near the bush and the hole above darkened to near blackness. When that someone spoke, Tanner was not surprised by the identity of its owner.
“I know you’re hiding nearby, Tanner, and I also know you’re unarmed.”
Light returned as Sara moved about, but the hole grew dark once more as she returned and spoke in a soft voice, as if to herself.
“What was that noise?”
It was the dog, whose whimpering had grown sharper in pitch.
Self-preservation made Tanner consider killing the hound, but the act would likely only create more noise, and in a way, the dog had already saved his life. To Tanner, that meant something, man or beast.
He took out his knife, his only weapon, and prepared to defend himself as best he could, which would likely fall far short.
He was in a hole with his back against the wall, while the enemy had a superior weapon and higher ground. Once Sara discovered him, he would become the proverbial fish in a barrel, and she would take pure delight in shooting him.
The scant light increased as a hand moved aside the branches of the bush. Then Sara’s face appeared, followed by the barrel of the gun.
It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but once they had, she smiled.
“There you are.”
164
Checkmate!
At the town’s jail and only police station, Chief of Police Matt McCoy lowered the flask beneath his desk, just as the door opened and his deputy, Lydia Bradshire, stepped in and shook off the rain.
The department only had three other employees. One was an elderly clerk home with the flu, the second, a rookie male deputy whose wife just had a baby, and the third, a retired cop in his fifties from Philadelphia, who responded to calls on nights and weekends.
Ridge Creek was a quiet town of just over four thousand residents, but due to the farmland within its borders, the town had size. Still, not much ever happened in Ridge Creek, a condition that would change drastically on this rain-soaked day.
Chief McCoy was fifty-four and had been a cop in the town since age twenty. He was a big man who appeared intimidating in his beige uniform and silver badge, but he had talked his way out of trouble more than he’d ever used his fists, and not once had he fired his weapon while on duty.
Lydia Bradshire had been a crossing guard for the elementary school before joining the army. When she returned to town three years ago as a veteran who had served in a combat zone, she was hired to be a deputy.
Lydia was thirty, five-foot-eight and blonde. Her mannish uniform hid the fact that her figure was above average, but one look into her eyes told you that there was a mind working behind the ice-blue orbs, and in truth, she ran the department.
McCoy had been a good chief until his wife’s death, six months earlier. Since then, the ex-alcoholic had slipped off the wagon on a regular basis and seemed just to be putting in time until he could retire at fifty-five.
Lydia checked the station’s computer for messages and found something interesting.
“We may have trouble coming, Matt. A man and a woman robbed the bank in Ciderville and got away with nearly a million in cash, all unmarked.”
McCoy’s face screwed up in confusion. “Why would that little bank have so much cash on hand?”
“It was for their distribution center in Philly, but they park cash there sometimes to save the armored car from making a trip into the city.”
“Penny wise and pound-foolish,” McCoy said. “Was anybody hurt?”
“Yeah, a civilian named Michael Ryder was killed. When last seen, the thieves were headed toward us.”
“They wouldn’t come here. More than likely they’re headed for Philly.”
“That’s for sure,” Lydia said, as the lights flickered.
The chief stood and grabbed his raincoat. “That’s the power house, the damn roof has a leak and I’ve told the mayor more than once that it needed fixing. I’ll go check on it, but do me a favor and have Dave Robards meet me there, he’s our utility guy.”
“All right and be careful out there, trees are down all over the place.”
“Will do,” McCoy said. As soon as he reached his cruiser and knew no one was looking, he brought the flask out again.
Sara had less than a second to realize that Tanner wasn’t alone in the hole, before the dog scampered up the steep incline and pushed past her.
“Hey!”
No sooner had the dog sped by, when Tanner’s knife embedded its tip into the meat of Sara’s forearm. Between the shock of the blade and surprise at the dog, Sara found herself falling backwards onto her ass and dropping her gun.
Tanner had thrown the knife at her throat, but when she instinctively raised her hand to ward off a perceived attack by the dog, she had blocked the blade’s path.
Tanner moved up the steep stairs, while Sara was still wincing from the impact and pain of the knife. Tanner grabbed her left ankle, just above the top of her boot.
When Sara realized what he was doing, she reached out for her weapon, but it had fallen beneath another bush and was out of reach, then she was yanked down into the hole.
After the shock of impact, Sara felt Tanner’s hands close around her throat, and then heard Sherry’s voice.
“She was right here. Where the hell did she go?”
“It was that damn dog that ran past us; that’s what you saw,” Tyler said.
Down in the hole, both Tanner and Sara froze, while locked together like lovers, with their faces just inches apart and his hands still gripping her throat.
If Tanner killed Sara now, the noise it would make would alert the couple outside, and if she called to them for help, she would receive it, but only to have it followed by a bullet.
Sara stared into Tanner’s eyes, then at the entrance to the hole, back and forth, back and forth, while Tanner did the same.
“And I’m telling you that I didn’t see the dog, Tyler. I did see the woman, so watch your ass and help me check the area, because I’m telling you, she’s here somewhere.”
“We’ll find her, and we’ll kill her, but I want that bastard in the hoodie so I can cut his heart out.”
Down in the hole, Tanner relaxed his grip on Sara just a bit, to relieve the strain. She was on her back beneath him, while he was on his knees between her spread legs with his forearms pinning her down.
He was going to kill her without mercy, for he had warned her to back off and yet she just kept coming.
Yes, he planned to kill her, but it did not escape his notice that the bosom rising and falling beneath his chest was of ample proportion, the neck his hands gripped, soft, and the face, beautiful, despite the fire of hate burning within the eyes.
Sara Blake was an enemy, yes, but a woman just the same, and he was not a man who failed to appreciate such obvious charms.
He would kill her, in self-defense, plain and simple, but he knew the act would not bring him pleasure. Despite her animosity toward him and the hatred she held for him, the emotion he experienced when h
e thought of her tended more toward a mixture of annoyance and pity.
After long minutes passed without hearing voices or seeing movement, Tanner tightened his grip once more, saw fear enter Sara’s eyes, and whispered to her.
“What did you think this was, a chess match? I warned you to stay away from me, told you that I would kill you if you kept coming, and now, I’ll keep that promise.”
Sara spit in his face.
Tanner grunted his displeasure and was about to strangle her when he felt the tip of a knife pierce the fabric of his jeans, nick his inner thigh, and come to rest along the side of his testicles.
It was the knife he had thrown at her, the knife that had still been stuck in her arm when he dragged her into the hole. It was his knife, and if Sara so much as flicked her wrist, Tanner would be a eunuch.
Tanner’s eyes widened as he released his hold on her throat. After leaning back carefully, he held up his hands in a sign of surrender.
Sara smiled. “Checkmate!”
165
Straitjacket
Tyler pounded the side of his fist against a tree in frustration.
They had searched out to the road and back and come up empty. The man who had killed his brother was gone and there was nothing he could do about it.
Sherry placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “We did what we could. Now we have to get back to that farmhouse before someone else sees us.”
“I know. I just hate going back empty-handed, and what are we going to do with Randall, bury him here?”
“I think we’ll have to. At least the ground is soft with all this rain.”
Tyler struck the tree again, but then an idea came to him. “I’ll call for help.”
“We can’t do that, remember? No contact until after the Feds have called off the manhunt.”
“There won’t be any contact, not one-on-one, and besides, isn’t this what we bought the throwaway phones for?”
Sherry reached into an inner pocket on her jacket and took out a phone.
“The number is built in.”
Tyler dialed, and when nothing happened, he checked and saw that he had no bars. He kept checking as they jogged back toward the farmhouse. When they reached the area where the incomplete office building sat, he saw two bars, but still couldn’t place a call.
“What’s wrong with this thing?”
“It’s not the phone; they said on the radio that the storm was screwing with the system.”
The third try was successful, and Tyler heard the voice of his other partner.
“You wouldn’t be calling unless there was a problem, so tell me what’s wrong?”
“We need help… Randall’s dead.”
There was a pause, then the voice continued.
“Start at the beginning and tell me everything.”
Sara gave one last look around before calling down into the hole.
“It’s finally clear, come out now.”
“I can’t,” Tanner said. “Not without my hands being free. The angle is too steep.”
“Nice try, Tanner, but unless you want to stay down there with a bullet in your brain, I suggest you figure it out.”
After gaining the advantage with the knife, Sara had instructed Tanner to slide his hands inside the sleeves of his hoodie and place them behind his back. Afterwards, she reached around and tied the ends together with her free hand.
The procedure took a while to perform one-handed, but it essentially left Tanner wearing a makeshift straitjacket.
After two failed attempts, he emerged from the hole, stumbled, and fell at Sara’s feet.
She had recovered her gun after leaving the root cellar and had it pointed at Tanner’s face.
He rose to his knees, then to his feet. “Why are you keeping me alive? Are you planning to hand me over to that ex-partner of yours, or maybe the Conglomerate?”
“You’re all mine, Tanner, and by the time I get through with you, you’ll be begging for mercy.”
“But you have none to give, do you, Blake?”
“Not where you’re concerned. Now, enough talking, start moving.”
Sara pulled her phone from a pocket in her jeans, and as Tyler had done, she searched for a cell signal. Once she found one, she reached her party on the second try.
“Duke, it’s Sara Blake, and I need—”
Tanner took off as fast as he was able, given that his arms were tied behind his back.
Sara fired off a shot that missed, as Tanner weaved among the trees.
“I’ll call you back,” Sara said into the phone, before shoving it into her pocket and giving chase.
At the farm, Tyler and Sherry were discovering that they weren’t the only thieves in the world, as they realized that the bank bags were gone.
They were in the kitchen, where the odor of Randall’s corpse wasn’t as prevalent. In their absence, the body’s bowels had vacated, and the stench was great.
Sherry pulled at her hair as she spoke.
“Could one of the people we chased have doubled back and taken it?”
“No, this was kids, a redheaded snot and his girlfriend. I saw them out at that building and I’d bet you it was them.”
Sherry thought that over and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that would explain why there’s no cops or Feds here waiting for us, but how do we find those kids?”
Tyler took out the phone again. “We find them the same way we find that man and woman.”
He dialed, but there was no answer.
“I’ll try again later, in the meantime…. I’ll take care of my brother.”
“We’ll wrap him in a sheet and place him on the porch for now. Later, when we have the time, we’ll bury him.”
Tyler agreed, and they walked back into the living room to begin the grim task.
Tanner had taken off while Sara was distracted with her call, knowing that one of her shots could find his back at any moment.
He considered the risk one worth taking, since she had all but stated her intention to torture him.
Better a bullet in the back than days or weeks of agony.
His priority had been to get away, to gain distance from her. After running as fast as he could for several minutes, he had accomplished that, but knew that a hundred yards or less separated them.
The next step was to free his arms. This, he accomplished by leaning forward and slipping the knot that Sara had tied downward, until it was below his buttocks. Afterwards, he sat, lay on his back and pulled his legs flat against his chest, so that he could bring his arms around to the front.
He gave a grunt of satisfaction once he had his arms in front of him again. All that remained was to shimmy out of the hoodie, but as he began to free his arms of the knotted sleeves that bound him, he saw a faster way.
Tanner ran forward, raised his arms above his head, and leapt into the air.
Sara was running fast, gun raised up and ready, while her head swiveled in an attempt to spot Tanner.
She saw it when she was still twenty yards away, and by the time she reached the tree, she had figured out how he had done it.
Tanner’s hoodie was hanging by its sleeves from the stub of a broken branch that was situated ten feet off the ground.
Sara knew that Tanner must have maneuvered his arms in front of him before leaping up to let the jagged remains of the tree branch catch the knotted sleeves.
His weight would do the rest, and once he slipped free, he could fall to the ground and be on his way.
She sighed, but then realized that it meant that she was going in the right direction. Until she found the hoodie, she wasn’t certain of that, and had been thinking that Tanner may have doubled back.
She left the tree in a mad dash, and soon spotted the tops of buildings ahead. That meant Tanner had made it to town and was looking for a car to steal, and once he had transportation, he would be lost to her.
That thought had just left her mind when she saw Tanner. He was up ahead, lean
ing on an SUV with his legs spread wide and his arms on the vehicle’s hood.
At first, she thought Tanner had injured himself and was resting, but the position of his body was a familiar one, and through the driving rain, she made out the details of the vehicle, and saw the official decal with the badge and name of the town.
As Sara stepped from the woods, she spotted the big man in the Chief of Police uniform with his gun pointed at Tanner.
“Oh, thank God, I thought he had—”
The wet metal of the gun barrel pressed against the side of her head stopped her voice in mid-sentence. Not daring to turn her head, Sara moved her eyes to the left and viewed the female deputy at the other end of the gun.
“Drop that weapon or I will blow your head off.”
Sara released her gun and it clattered to the ground. She followed it a second later, as Deputy Lydia Bradshire knocked her legs out from under her and cuffed her, as she lay on the wet street.
“No! Wait, you don’t understand, that man is—”
This time the gun was pressed into her ear.
“You shut the hell up or I will remove my baton and shut you up. We know who you are, know that you robbed that bank in Ciderville and you will pay for murdering the man you shot.”
Sara began to protest, and Lydia lifted her to her feet by the cuffs shackled behind her back. The pain caused by that action stilled Sara’s voice, while Lydia’s whispered words replaced the gun in Sara’s ear.
“Keep talking, bitch and I’ll cripple you.”
Sara looked into Lydia’s eyes and saw that she was serious. Sara blinked against the rain, and when she looked over at Tanner, she saw him smile.
He shrugged. “They got us, partner.”
The Tanner Series - Books 1-11: Tanner - The hit man with a heart Page 51
