Burned Too Hot: A Thriller (Val Ryker series Book 2)

by Ann Voss Peterson

  Fortunately the wrecking ball was a more reliable obstacle. Unable to drive Hess climbed from the far side and sprinted for the ditch.

  She pumped her last shell into the chamber. Aimed at his back.

  Steady. Steady.

  Deep breath in.

  Exhale and squeeze.

  She felt her weak leg give just as the shotgun blasted in her ears kicked against her shoulder.

  Hess kept running, down into the ditch, and disappeared from view.

  For a moment, Val didn’t move, just clung to the crane’s cab, letting the shotgun sag to her side. She’d missed. She’d had Hess, right there in front of her, and she’d failed to take him down.

  She gasped for breath, pushing back the thoughts, the feelings. She had no time for them now. She had to do what needed to be done.

  Val scrambled down from the crane. It took forever for her to stumble her way to the street. She fell to her knees beside Lund’s battered body. Holding her breath, she felt for a pulse.

  It wasn’t until she detected the rhythmic tap against her fingertips that she let the tears flow.

  Chapter

  Thirty-Four

  Grace

  Grace’s fingers cramped, blood still oozing from the slashes on her forearms from her attempts to cut the rope from her wrists. The knife shook in her grip. Shortly after the door rattled, Ethan had had a mini meltdown. She’d been able to quiet him by handing him the box of ice cream sandwiches. Now, he sat behind her tucked between Ms. Pac-Man and the wall, looking like he might barf.

  The racket outside had freaked her out—the voices, the gunshots—and any minute she expected the doorknob to start rattling again, or worse, to fly open under a barrage of bullets. She’d given up crying, given up feeling anything. All she had was the steak knife, but she knew she could use it if she had to.

  At least she hoped she could.

  Just as the thoughts crossed her mind, the doorknob began to move.

  Grace bit her lip to keep from making a sound. She wouldn’t let whoever it was take Ethan. Wouldn’t let them take her either. If she was going to die, she would go down fighting.

  The lock button popped up, and the door swung open.

  A face peered inside. Worried eyes. Blond hair.

  Grace barely managed a whisper. “Aunt Val.” The knife slipped from her fingers and clattered on the floor.

  Then Grace’s aunt was hugging her, holding her.

  Grace clung for a long time, just breathing, just being, and then she realized something was missing. Someone. “David?”

  Aunt Val pulled back from her niece and looked her in the eye. “He told me where you were.”

  Grace shook her head, but her aunt’s words didn’t make sense. How could David know, unless…

  Had he been the one rattling the doorknob?

  No, he would have said something. “Why isn’t he here?”

  A worry-crease dug between her aunt’s eyebrows. “He’s injured. A deputy drove him to the hospital.”

  “How bad?”

  “I don’t know, honey.”

  “We need to go to the hospital, to help…”

  “We will. But first, have you seen a little boy?”

  “Ethan?”

  Aunt Val nodded.

  Grace stepped to the side and motioned to the toddler, sound asleep on the floor. “He’s not hurt or anything. Just ate too much ice cream.”

  Aunt Val knelt down beside him.

  Grace felt weird, like a giggle was building inside her at the same time tears were swamping her eyes.

  “You saved him, Grace.”

  “I just brought him in from the car.”

  “You saved him.”

  And that’s when the room got really watery and the laughs mixed with the sobs. And when Aunt Val put her arms around Grace again, Grace wanted to stay like that forever.

  Val

  “You look terrible.”

  Val hadn’t meant to say the words out loud, but it was the truth. Lund’s skin was the color of old newspaper, where it wasn’t mottled with purple bruises, and his hair was spiked with dried blood. Add his bandaged head, fat lip, and the oxygen tube running under his nose, and he looked like he’d just been dragged out of a boxing ring, if not off a battlefield.

  She supposed it had been a battlefield. She was still feeling shell shocked and uneasy about all that had taken place. So many people had been swept up in this mess. Some, like Scott Tiedemann, Jerry Fruehauf, and Bix Johnson were dead. More were in this hospital. In addition to Lund, Pender, and Harlan, all recovering on this floor, there was Tracy Sharp, formerly Johnson, who went home amazingly whole after the big skinhead had been killed. Three of those deputies who saved her. And a handful of inmates injured in the demolition.

  For the most part, the victims of the Lake Loyal fire, which had destroyed much of the town’s east side before it was extinguished, were in the Reedsburg hospital, the hospital in Sauk City, and the most critical had been flown to Madison.

  “You’re not going to tell me my color is good?” The swollen lip made Lund’s words slur.

  “I wouldn’t lie to you like that. But I can tell you I’m so happy you’re alive.” She sat on the edge of his bed, as she had the night they’d kissed, the night they’d later made love. But there wasn’t an uninjured spot to kiss this time. With the IV in the back of his hand, she could barely stroke his swollen fingers.

  “I’m happy I’m alive, too.” He glanced around the room as if making sure no one was listening. “If I ever pity you and coddle you, and all those things I know you hate, be sure to wallop me upside the head, okay? I mean, after the concussion heals.”

  She laughed, just a little, although his injuries justified a bit of coddling. He’d gotten by with a very mild concussion last time, but this time he hadn’t been so lucky. Add that to all his other injuries, and Lund was not in good shape. “So what brought on this coddling aversion?”

  “Nurse Sadie. I mean, the nurse. Last time I was in here, she was the most cruel, sadistic, petty human being you can imagine. This time? So sugary sweet I’m in danger of developing diabetes. I can’t get her to leave me alone.”

  “You’re a celebrity.”

  “What?”

  “I forgot to tell you about the news coverage. Seems you’re quite the hero. The brave firefighter. In fact, you would have caught Hess if the cops didn’t screw things up.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Val shook her head. “The nurse will probably want your autograph, once you’re finally able to write.”

  Lund groaned.

  “Aunt Val?”

  Val turned to see Grace peeking around the edge of the door.

  “Have you heard from the social worker?” Grace asked.

  “Social worker?” Lund repeated.

  “Child services,” Val explained. “We haven’t been able to locate Carla. She’s been mobbed by the media, as you can imagine, and she went off the grid.” Val didn’t add that she was getting worried. There was no reason to think Carla was in danger, or that Hess would know where to find her any more than they did, but an uneasy feeling had been pinching the back of Val’s neck. She’d feel better when mother and child were reunited and settled somewhere out of Hess’s reach.

  “So you called child services?”

  “You’re worried about Hess finding him?”

  “Well, yeah.” She knew Lund would prefer taking the boy himself, making sure he was safe. “In your condition, you can’t even protect yourself. And I’m not much better off.”

  “Where will they take him?”

  “Madison for now. When we find Carla, we’ll settle her and Ethan farther away.”

  Lund didn’t look convinced.

  “We can’t keep him here.”

  “You’re right. I guess there’s no perfect answer,” Lund said. “But right now… Is Ethan here?”

  “Right outside the door with Grace.” Val would bet her niece was
getting a bit tired of babysitting. She’d been through hell herself, and then spent the last three hours providing childcare for a toddler who was burning off a sugar high.

  “Can I see him?”

  Val smiled at Lund. “Of course. I don’t know why I didn’t think of bringing him in right away. I guess this ordeal has taken a toll on me, too.”

  And had it. If it weren’t for the fact that Hess was still out there, she would want nothing more than to sleep for a month. “Bring Ethan in, Grace,” Val said.

  Her niece did.

  But instead of watching their entrance, Val focused on Lund’s face. The press of his lips. The wetness in his eyes. His expression of wonder and gratitude. It didn’t matter to him that the child was Hess’s son. To him, Ethan belonged to Kelly. And Lund himself had had a hand in bringing the little boy home.

  A knock sounded on the door, and the social worker entered to collect the boy. After a grilling from Lund about Ethan’s safety, woman and toddler left with a two-deputy escort, and the three of them were alone.

  Val’s eyes burned, and she knew it had nothing to do with symptoms of her multiple sclerosis. All of them had been through so much, and with Hess still out there, they were a long way from the end.

  Val wasn’t sure how she was going to provide the manpower to protect everyone who needed it, but she’d find a way. Maybe the county would help, or the state. Someone with bigger pockets and more officers to spare than Lake Loyal.

  Although with the kind of manhunt they were gearing up for, Val doubted anyone would have enough officers to go around.

  Grace slumped into a chair near Lund’s bed, stuck her ear buds in her ears, turned up the iTunes on her iPhone, and sank into teenage oblivion.

  Val and Lund sat together, barely talking, and she stroked his forearm until his eyes started to droop. She stood up from the bed’s edge.

  “Pink fingernails,” he said.

  Val eyed him and sat back down. “What?”

  “Nothing. Just one of the few things I remember was whoever hit me with that ASP had pink painted fingernails.”

  Val frowned. She’d assumed Lund’s assailant was Hess. But she was pretty sure neither he nor the big skinhead who’d shot at deputies with their own weapons had pink fingernails.

  His eyes closed, and she pushed up from the bed once again.

  “Where are you going?”

  “You need to sleep. And I have an appointment to keep with JoAnn Pender.”

  He nodded. “Just a little nap. Don’t go without…” He was asleep before the last words left his lips.

  Val told Grace she had to step out, relieved her niece was happy to just listen to her music and watch over Lund. She’d just stepped into the hall when the elevator door slid open and Sergeant Olson emerged.

  “Has her lawyer arrived?” Val asked him.

  “Yeah. But first, I got something you need to see.”

  Val followed him to a patient room. Inside a young girl lay unconscious in the middle of a hospital bed, a respirator tube down her throat, a machine monitoring her heart.

  Olson shifted his big feet on the tile. “Emily Lang.”

  “The runaway?”

  “She was beaten, found half-drowned in the lake. North shore.”

  Val stared at the battered little face, emotion beating at the walls she’d erected in order to face the upcoming interview with Pender. “Only twelve years old. Grace was twelve when she came to stay with me.”

  “My second is twelve…” Olson shook his head. “Whoever did this…”

  Val thought about the diapers. Could the girl have been stealing them for Ethan as Jimmy had suspected but couldn’t prove? Might she be part of this, too? “We need to check up on the neighbors in the area. Find out who owns those houses.”

  Pulling out a pad, Olson made a note.

  “Time to find out what JoAnn Pender has to say for herself. Ready?” Val asked.

  Olson nodded, matter-of-fact as usual.

  Val led the way out of the girl’s room and into one occupied by JoAnn Pender.

  When they arrived, they found the psychologist propped up in her hospital bed. A combination of bandages and tubes, the woman appeared to be in bad shape, until Val looked into her eyes. Unflinching behind her fashionable lenses, Pender’s gaze was steady, even fierce.

  A slick, dark-haired man in a nice suit sat in a chair next to Pender’s bed, and when Val and Olson entered, he stood and held out a hand. “Chief? Dawson Cook. I’m Dr. Pender’s attorney.”

  Val shook, although she could feel little with her right hand. “Mr. Cook.”

  He repeated the process with Pete Olson, and then peered out into the hall. “I thought the district attorney would be with you.”

  “District Attorney?”

  “My client has valuable information, things you need to know. But she’s not going to talk until we can negotiate a deal.”

  “We can’t negotiate anything without knowing what the information is worth,” Val said, playing the game. “The DA’s time is valuable.”

  “Oh, this will be worth it. And my client isn’t saying a word until she has immunity.”

  Val almost choked. “Immunity? Isn’t that a little ambitious?”

  “Delusional,” Olson said in a low voice.

  “She has important information,” Cook said.

  “She demolished a good part of the jail with a wrecking ball right in front of me,” Val said. “The exterior cameras caught the whole thing. And that’s only the beginning of what we know she had a hand in.”

  “Oh? What do you know she had a hand in?”

  Val eyed the man. Although she’d never met him until a minute ago, she’d heard his name before. Dawson Cook was smart, ambitious, and had at least one high-profile case under his belt. He had every right to think well of himself. But she had a hunch it went beyond that with him. She had a hunch he’d crossed the line into cocky.

  Val turned her attention to Pender. “How about your client doesn’t tell me anything to start with? Instead, I’ll tell her what we know.”

  “Go ahead,” Cook said.

  “She wanted to kill Hess for what he did to her sister, the effect it had on her family. So she studied killers, trying to learn what they did, who they were. Then when she heard he was going to be let out, she came up here.”

  “But by the time she arrived, he was back in prison,” Olson added.

  “That means noth—”

  Val held up her hand, fending off the attorney’s complaint. “So she started talking to the victims as part of her support group thing. Didn’t you, JoAnn?” Val focused on the psychologist. “But she didn’t find other people wanting to kill him. She found…”

  “Bix Johnson,” Olson supplied, right on cue.

  “Yes, Bix Johnson. And he was setting fires because he lost his job, and his wife left him, and he felt worthless. Setting fires, then being the first on the scene to put them out, made him feel powerful, gave him a chance to be the hero.”

  “This is going nowhere. All my client did was try to help this man. It isn’t a crime to try to help people.”

  “She tried to help? By blackmailing him? Or is the payment for therapy these days an ammonium nitrate bomb?”

  Pender’s lips knotted, the first reaction Val had noticed since they’d entered the room.

  “So why did you make Bix Johnson build you a bomb, JoAnn?” Val pressed.

  “That bomb? That had nothing to do with me.”

  “Wait a second here,” Cook said. Too late.

  The psychologist continued. “The whole bomb thing was Bix. He was going to use it on the Merlyne plant. For revenge, you know? For firing him. That had nothing to do with me.”

  “So why did you tell us Kyle Blaski was setting the fires?”

  Dawson Cook gave his client a look that had shut up written all over it. “You can’t prove my client had anything to do with that bomb. And she certainly couldn’t have known that Johnson was goin
g to commit suicide by setting the thing off. “

  It was true. Val didn’t think Johnson himself knew he was going to do that until moments before he did. Much of what she had pieced together so far was based on a series of guesses. But since she wasn’t in a court of law, she didn’t have to swear to tell the truth and stick to the facts. She could test some of her theories. “I’ll buy that the bomb was originally meant for the Merlyne plant, not the firehouse. But whatever the target, your purpose for it was the same.”

  “My purpose?” Pender shook her head.

  “Yes, your purpose. The bomb was a distraction. A way to keep law enforcement busy while you freed Dixon Hess.”

  “Freed Dixon Hess? I never wanted to free Dixon Hess.”

  “JoAnn…” her attorney warned.

  “No, I’m not going to sit and do nothing while she says I was trying to set that monster free.” Pender turned her focus back on Val, color rising in her face making her look three times healthier than when Val and Olson had walked in. “I meant to kill him. You’re the one who screwed that up.”

  “You thought you could kill him with a wrecking ball?” Val asked, not disguising the obvious note of incredulity in her voice. “Isn’t that plan a bit unlikely?”

  “Not with the wrecking ball. How stupid do you think I am?”

  “JoAnn…” Cook was on his feet now.

  Val leaned forward. “Then how?”

  “I was going to sedate him. Take him to a place I know. Torture him like he tortured my sister.”

  “JoAnn, please.” Cook reached her bedside. “You have to listen to me.”

  “Sedate him?” Val pressed. “With what? Ketamine?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’re a psychologist, right? Someone who studies psychology. A Ph.D. I mean, a psychiatrist is a medical doctor. They can write prescriptions, get access to drugs. But a psychologist can’t. Where were you going to get the Ketamine, JoAnn?”

  Dawson Cook placed his body between Val and Pender, throwing out his arms as if to shield his client. “Not until we talk deal! Not until a deal!”

  Val stared at him. “What does your client have to offer?”