As if she and her shotgun amused him.
As if he was invincible.
Val had pumped the shotgun, a shell ready to fire. What she wouldn’t give for a rifle right now. The buckshot would hurt, but from this distance, it wouldn’t kill him.
Still she ached to try it and see…
Another inmate appeared at Hess’s shoulder. A big man with a bald head who Val recognized from news of his messy arrest for a violent offense in the Dells. Battery and attempted murder compounded by resisting arrest. A nasty man with a nasty past.
There was motion behind him, impossible to discern in the dusty shadow inside the battered building. Then the big inmate was pushing something forward to Hess.
Not something.
Someone.
A woman wearing the uniform of a deputy.
Pretty, dark hair cut in a bob…
Bix Johnson’s wife, Tracy.
Hess smiled as he positioned her like a shield.
The crane’s engine crescendoed with a revitalized roar, hydraulics humming.
Val tore her gaze from Tracy and found Pender.
The psychologist’s hands were on the levers, the machine’s boom moving, swinging the wrecking ball toward the jail wall.
Val swung the shotgun’s barrel in the direction of the crane. “Pender, stop! Hands up! Hands up!”
Pender looked straight at Val, shook her head, then biting her lower lip, she stared daggers at Hess as the steel ball arced toward him.
Val understood what the woman was feeling, how Hess had done horrible things to her sister and ripped her family apart, just as he’d ripped apart the town of Lake Loyal and nearly everyone living in it.
He needed to die.
Val couldn’t argue with that.
She didn’t even have to pull the trigger. She could just stand there, let Pender demolish the spot where Hess stood, crush him with the wrecking ball, watch it all happen. No one would blame Val, if she did nothing. It would all be on Pender. The town of Lake Loyal would be safe. Justice would be served.
Except…
Murder isn’t justice.
Val tried one more time. “Hands up! Hands up! Now! Now! Now!”
Pender didn’t stop.
Val squeezed the trigger.
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Val
The shotgun fired, kicking back into Val’s shoulder.
Pender jerked as the buckshot hit her. She leaned forward, sagging against the crane’s control console.
The wrecking ball careened into the jail wall, sending concrete crumbling and dust belching into the already clouded air, like a scene straight out of a war movie. Screams rose above the sound of rubble settling.
Slipping to the side, Pender fell off the machine and hit the ground limp as a rag doll.
Val’s stomach lurched. The smell of gunpowder swirled around her, mixing with concrete dust. She’d shot a woman, maybe killed her, all because she wanted what Val herself wanted, what Lund wanted, what Pete Olson wanted, along with half the town of Lake Loyal.
Hess dead.
Instead Pender might be dead… and Hess?
Val swung her focus to the spot where he’d been standing before the ball hit. Dust obscured the gaping hole on the jail’s second floor. Darkness beyond. And the screams.
But Hess wasn’t there.
Tracy wasn’t there.
Val trained the shotgun on the ground beneath, hoping to catch movement swirling amid the dust-veiled rubble.
Where in the hell were they?
“Chief Ryker!”
Val turned toward the shout. Six deputies ran toward her, all armed with rifles.
The cavalry.
Val pointed to Pender. “Suspect down. Secure the facility. Several convicts escaped, including Dixon Hess. He has a hostage. A deputy. Tracy Johnson.”
“You mean Tracy Sharp?”
Val glared at the deputy, probably a rookie by the look of him. “Whatever. A deputy has been taken hostage. Call for help.”
“There is no help to call for. There’s a fire—”
“I know,” Val said, struggling not to think about Lake Loyal up in flames. “Call anyway. Now.”
Lund
Lund lay on the waxed white tile of the morgue’s main corridor and thought he might now have at least a small sliver of understanding of the fear Val faced every damn day.
He couldn’t move his limbs.
Every breath burned like fire.
His hearing was only half there, and his thoughts were foggy and confused.
In short, his body was betraying him, and he was helpless to change it.
At first he couldn’t quite remember how he got there, his only thought the pain in his arm and agony pulsing in his head. He closed his eyes, and the picture of a black stick came to him as if the image was burned into the undersides of his eyelids. A black stick coming out of nowhere, the fingers gripping it tipped with pink nail polish, innocent, like something that would be worn by a little girl.
Lund was about to call out for help, when he heard the hint of a voice, male, female, he didn’t know. It was too faint for him to make out the words or recognize the identity.
Val?
He didn’t think so. She’d be beside him, finding out if he was okay.
Pender?
If it was her, then where was Val?
A louder voice came next, maybe the same one. A male voice, he thought, hushed. But with the ringing in Lund’s ears, there wasn’t a chance he could recognize that one either.
A scream pierced the air around him, then the sound of shouting from outside.
Lund forced his eyes open again. Nothing but white tile, same as before, like something out of a nightmare. He let his lids fall.
“You’d do well to shut up.”
That voice—maybe the same as before but louder—loud enough this time for Lund to recognize. The voice that haunted his nightmares, coursed through his blood, and was as much a part of him now as his own DNA.
Hess.
Lund reopened his eyes. Again nothing but white. He gritted his teeth, tried to lift his head, to move it at all. Sweat blossomed over his skin. Nausea swirled through his stomach and into his throat.
The scream again, short this time, like someone trying to stifle a cry of pain.
“Don’t.” Lund knew this sound was his own voice, but he wasn’t sure how he’d managed to force it out. “Don’t hurt her.”
“Oh, the firefighter is alive.”
Lund could hear the sneer in Hess’s voice, slow and smug. He wanted to bash that mouth until it could no longer speak… if only he could move. Gritting his teeth against the swirling, clammy sickness, Lund lifted his head, then turned, until his eyes half-focused on the man he hated more than anything in this world.
In any world.
Dressed in an orange, jail jumpsuit and slippers, Hess looked small, inconsequential, just as he always had. And if Lund had never met the man, maybe he would make the mistake many of Hess’s victims made and underestimate him. As it was, Lund had been through too much to underestimate Dixon Gregory Hess.
“Give her to me,” Hess said.
A shuffle of movement, and a big man with a shaved head came into Lund’s field of vision, a swastika tattooed on one side of his neck, a rifle he’d probably taken from one of the deputies Lund had talked to slung over one shoulder. One of the brute’s big mitts wrapped around Tracy Johnson’s throat.
Oh, God.
“Don’t hurt her,” Lund said, forcing his lips and tongue to move. Enough people had died. He couldn’t fail to save another. He’d already failed enough for a lifetime. “You don’t have a beef with her. Take me instead.”
“Take you… that’s a good idea.” Hess peered over Lund’s head. “Pick him up. We’ll take them both.”
While Hess controlled Tracy, big hands clamped down on Lund’s biceps and lifted him to his feet. Lund’s knees sagged, but the hands held him fa
st, clamping him back against the brute’s broad chest.
Tracy stared at Lund, brown eyes huge, tears streaking her face, lips trembling. Her fingernails held no polish at all, let alone pink. Tracy wasn’t part of this, simply another one of Hess’s victims.
Lund should have kept his mouth shut, not that it probably would have changed things. There was no bargaining with Hess. The psychopath would kill Tracy, just as he’d kill Lund, likely after making both of them live through hell. Lund wondered if she knew her husband Bix was already dead.
A grunt came from behind him, and the man mountain released one of Lund’s arms and pulled Val’s gun from the waistband of his jeans. “Look what I found.”
Hess took the weapon. “This looks like it could be a cop’s gun. Wisconsin cops usually carry Glocks, don’t they?”
The man holding Lund grunted again.
“It is, isn’t it?” Hess went on, as if talking only to himself. “It’s Chief Valerie’s gun.”
Lund’s head swirled. His stomach bucked. Leaning forward, he emptied it on the white tile floor.
Hess took a step back to avoid the mess, pulling Tracy with him. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
A shout broke from somewhere outside.
Hess looked past Lund, focusing on the behemoth behind him. “Time to go.”
The hand tightened on Lund’s arm, steering him down the long, main corridor. Lund could hear Tracy crying softly behind him. When they reached the autopsy suite, Hess pulled out a set of keys and let them in.
A body sprawled on the floor beside an empty gurney, male and dressed in scrubs. It took a moment for Lund to recognize a shaven and trimmed Harlan Runk.
“Here.” Hess handed Val’s gun to the man holding Lund. “Either of them move? Shoot.”
Hess stepped into the side room where Harlan kept his computer. When he returned, he was wearing blue scrubs and Harlan’s moth-eaten, Green Bay Packer stocking cap. He tossed the big guy a long coat. “Best I can do for a man your size.”
“Thanks.” The big man handed Val’s gun back to Hess and put on the trench. When he finished shrugging on the tiny coat, he reached for Lund.
“He’s mine,” Hess said. He gripped Lund’s arm, dug the muzzle of Val’s Glock into his side, and whispered in Lund’s ear. “Chief Valerie would never risk your hide, would she?”
The cold and empty feeling of failure settled deep in Lund’s bones. His intentions might have been good, but he’d made a horrible mistake.
Hess was right. If Val had to risk his life in order to take out the psychopath, she wouldn’t do it. She’d trade her own, if need be, but she wouldn’t consciously choose to let Lund die any more than she’d choose that for Grace or Oneida or anyone she cared about.
He’d meant to help, to prevent Tracy’s death. But instead, he might have just served up himself, and maybe Val too, to be slaughtered by a monster.
Chapter
Thirty-Three
Val
Deputies ran back down the alley between jail and morgue at a pace Val couldn’t hope to follow. Other deputies were inside, restoring order, doing their best to provide first aid. Trying to save the dying.
Several inmates wandered the grounds, dazed, stunned, bleeding. Some ran. Some searched for medical help. One man stumbled in circles, yelling at other inmates, including some probably only in his imagination, explaining in a loud voice that he had nothing to do with this mess and shouldn’t be held accountable.
And somewhere among them was Hess.
Val had to find him.
A muscle spasm had settled into her hip, every step painful, taking more and more effort, her weak leg barely holding her up. She needed crutches, a cane, something. All she had was a shotgun.
She rounded the near corner of the morgue just as the front door opened and Lund stepped out. Harlan followed, dressed in scrubs and his old Packer hat.
Val called their names.
Harlan turned to look at her… only it wasn’t Harlan.
“Chief Valerie. I should have known you wouldn’t follow the others.”
Val spotted the gun in Hess’s hand, her gun, the muzzle digging into Lund’s ribs.
Lund grimaced. Blood matted his hair and covered one side of his face, his shirt. His arm hung limp at his side.
What had Hess done to him?
Val glanced back at the drive separating morgue and jail.
“It’s no use, Chief Valerie. The deputies have their hands full. And trust me, they’re going to get even busier in a few more seconds.”
As if on cue, gunfire popped in the air, echoing off buildings.
“See?” Hess said. “I’m afraid it’s just the three of us. Too bad Grace isn’t here.”
Val said nothing. Cold opened up inside of her. Was he toying with her? Did he have Grace already? Was he making her feel relieved only until he took the mirage away? “Where is Grace?”
Lund’s eyes shifted to the left.
“You’ve lost Grace? Oh, Valerie. That’s not doing a very good job of taking care of the thing you love most.”
“You have her?” Val’s voice faltered.
Again, Lund shifted his eyes.
“Unfortunately I haven’t received my gift,” Hess said. “Not yet. But I promise I will shortly.”
The gift. The note bearing pictures of Grace.
Val’s knee wobbled. She leaned against the morgue’s steel wall, slipped her finger to the shotgun’s trigger.
Lund glanced to the side a third time, to the morgue’s door.
Definitely trying to tell her something. That Grace was in the morgue. That Lund had seen her, maybe hidden her. That Hess didn’t know.
Lund met her gaze, his eyes steady now, as if reading that she finally understood. “Shoot him.”
Cold filtered through Val’s body and pooled in her chest. Even without the difficulties with her leg and hand, she couldn’t fire a shotgun at Hess without hitting Lund, too.
“Chances are, you’ll kill him, too.” Hess taunted. “Is justice worth that much to you?”
“Shoot the bastard, Val,” Lund said. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t okay. Tears misted her eyes. She blinked them away. It would never be okay, and Hess knew it. He’d planned on it.
Val pumped a shell into place. She raised the shotgun to her shoulder. Placed her finger on the trigger.
“You’re not going to do it, Chief Valerie. You might believe in justice, but you aren’t willing to make the sacrifices it requires. Unlike you, I am.” Hess gave her another of his dead-eyed smiles. “In fact, it would be easier if I shot you right now, but that wouldn’t be justice, would it? Not when you took what I loved most from me. I’d never dream of repaying you with anything less.”
Hess pulled Lund toward Mark’s rental car, forced him behind the wheel, and climbed into the seat behind him, gun to Lund’s head.
The engine fired to life.
The wheels started moving.
Val had to do something, anything. It was risky, but she couldn’t allow Hess to take Lund. If she did, he was dead already.
She aimed the shotgun low and pulled the trigger.
Boom!
The car lurched as the right rear tire lost air.
She pumped. Shot.
Boom!
The left rear.
The car kept moving.
One last pump.
Boom!
Her third shot seemed to miss everything, the car pulling out of any reliable range.
She spun around and ran back toward the jail.
Well, as close to running as she could get.
Not wearing her uniform, Val didn’t have a radio, and dialing her cell phone would take too long. Judging from the gunfire, there would be no one to respond anyway.
She’d have to find a way to stop them herself, and with only two shells left, she had to get creative.
Lund might be willing to sacrifice himself to save Grace and her, but he wasn’t suic
idal. If she could give Hess a surprise, an obstacle, maybe that would be enough to provide Lund with a fighting chance.
Val cut across grass. It would take longer to follow the drive and reach the road, especially with two flat tires. Longer, but Val still didn’t have a second to spare.
Lund and Hess turned out of the far driveway and onto the road leading out of the industrial park.
Leading right past her.
Val reached the crane. The machine wasn’t too big, smaller than the average dump truck. Pender still sprawled beside it, groaning softly. Val stepped over the woman she shot, then willing her left leg to hold her weight and her right hand to grip the shotgun, she managed to climb into the operator’s seat.
Resting the gun in her lap, she eyed the blood smeared control panel. The beast was still running, so that was easy enough. But the rest?
There were four levers to the right of the key, and Val had no idea what any of them did.
Some plan.
When she’d run for the crane, she’d envisioned herself driving it into the road, blocking the car. It was only now that Hess and Lund were reaching the end of the morgue driveway and turning onto the road that it occurred to her that she had no idea how to drive a crane.
She pulled the first lever, moving it upward, and the crane twisted to the side.
No good.
She pushed down on the second, and the boom arm lowered, lowered, stopped.
Not enough. And Lund and Hess were drawing closer.
The third made the boom longer, the fourth lowered the ball.
Right into the street.
Lund hit the brake, tires screeching, back end fishtailing, and just as fast, he opened the driver’s door and threw himself out onto the asphalt.
The car hit the steel ball.
Lund’s body hit the pavement.
He rolled, limp and seemingly boneless. But as much as Val wanted to go to him, to make sure he was okay, she kept her focus riveted on Hess.
Pumping her second-to-last shell into the chamber, she leaned out the side of the crane’s cab, willing her leg to hold her, her arm to keep steady.
She fired.
The shotgun kicked back against her shoulder, exploding in her ears. Her aim was non-existent, the buckshot spraying everywhere, missing her target completely.
Burned Too Hot: A Thriller (Val Ryker series Book 2) Page 23
