Blake Pierce - Kate Wise - 5 - If She Fled

by Blake Pierce

  but unexpected. He blinked as if he was trying to dislodge something from

  his eye as Anna yanked her arm free and ran for the back door.

  He was on to her, though. He leaped up on the island and slid across it,

  nearly falling off. He had cut off her escape route, sensing what she had

  planned. With a scream, Anna ran for the laundry room at the far end of the

  kitchen.

  She knew he was on her heels but if she could just get to the laundry room

  and close the door, maybe she could hold him off until the FBI got there.

  She made it to the doorway, the smell of laundry detergent and dryer

  sheets sweeter than ever before. She entered the room and turned to shut the

  door, but he was already there, standing in the doorway. When she tried

  slamming the door in his face anyway, he simply batted it aside.

  Anna tried to fight against him as he came in, but with nowhere left to go,

  she was easy prey. As he pushed her hard against the wall, all Anna could do

  was wonder what in the hell was taking that FBI woman so long.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  When DeMarco slammed on the brakes in front of the Forester home,

  Kate was nearly thrown directly into the dashboard despite the seatbelt.

  DeMarco threw the car into park and both women got out, sprinting directly

  to the front door. Kate was not at all surprised to find it locked and started to

  draw her foot back to kick it in. She then saw that the lock beneath the knob

  was an electronic one and decided she’d rather not dislocate her ankle or

  knee.

  “Stand back,” DeMarco said, leveling her gun toward the lock.

  Kate swiveled to the side and winced as DeMarco fired off a single shot.

  The lock was obliterated and made a series of clicking noises. DeMarco drew

  back and delivered a harsh kick that sent the door flying inward, her second

  such attack of the day.

  Kate flanked in, ducking down with her gun drawn, as DeMarco came in

  behind her. Right away, they could hear the sounds of struggle. It sounded as

  if it was coming from the very back of the house. Kate and DeMarco nodded

  to one another and headed forward, not bothering to be stealthy, as the

  gunshot to the front door had very likely ruined their cover.

  As they came to the end of the hallway, the signs of a struggle were

  evident: a picture was knocked from the hallway wall; a coffee mug had been

  shattered on the floor, its contents splashed on the tile; several drawers were

  opened and silverware littered the floor around the edges of the kitchen bar.

  A choking sound followed by a hollow thudding noise came from further

  back behind the kitchen. Kate sprinted forward, into what looked like a

  mudroom. To the right, there was a partially opened door. From inside, there

  was a commotion, a tangle of bodies and the wretched sounds of someone

  choking.

  “FBI!”

  Kate screamed this as she drew up her gun and kicked the door open fully

  with her foot. The door, though, would not swing all the way open. It was

  stopped by one of the bodies on the floor. It was a man, kneeling over a

  woman Kate assumed to be Anna Forester.

  And the man, she assumed, was Darby Insbrook.

  “Get off of her,” Kate said, not quite in a yell but in a voice that had some ice to it.

  The tuner responded in a way that made no sense to Kate at first. He

  swung his head around and did, in fact, look to be obeying. But as he started

  to stand, his right foot kicked out at the door and it came rushing back in

  Kate’s direction. She blocked it easily but when it stopped, he was there.

  Insbrook swung hard, his right hand connecting with Kate’s cheek. She

  tumbled back directly into DeMarco. Both women stumbled backward, Kate

  doing everything she could to stay on her feet. DeMarco, on the other hand,

  hit the mudroom wall and rebounded hard. She tried raising her gun to fend

  off Insbrook, but he already had the door closed again.

  Kate acted without thinking. She charged at the door, slamming her entire

  weight into it. It caught Insbrook off guard and sent him sprawling back. His

  feet tangled over Anna Forester’s body and he barely caught himself on the

  edge of the dryer. A pile of folded clothes went toppling over into the floor.

  In the back of her mind, Kate heard herself laughing maniacally. So far, this

  was easily the clumsiest fight she had ever been in.

  He pushed himself off of the dryer and launched himself at her. Kate fired

  off a round but it was at the same moment she slammed into her. The bullet

  tore into the wall just a foot or so behind Insbrook’s head. It was not a

  shoulder thrown into her chest or even a punch or kick. Their bodies simply

  slammed together. He felt as if he easily had fifty or more pounds on her, and

  the result was nasty. Kate’s forehead dinged off of the killer’s chin and his

  knee slammed into her hip. They fell in a heap, the back of Kate’s head

  striking the door frame of the laundry room. White sparks rocketed across her

  field of vision as something like dull electricity seemed to sweep across her

  head. She was dimly aware that somewhere in the melee, she had dropped her

  gun.

  She was momentarily so blindsided and disoriented that she was barely

  aware that Insbrook kept going. He plowed through her and continued on.

  The only thing that brought Kate out of her stupor was the sound of another

  gunshot. There was a brief yelp of pain and then the sound of something

  thudding hard against the floor.

  Kate scrambled to her hands and knees, fully expecting to see Darby

  Insbrook on the tile floor of the mudroom with DeMarco holding her Glock.

  Instead, the killer had DeMarco pinned to the wall—an elbow in her chest as

  he started to wrap a piece of piano wire around her neck with the other hand.

  Kate tried getting to her feet, using the doorframe to help. The white

  sparks were still streaking across her line of vision and her knees felt

  incredibly shaky. Still, she hobbled forward and brought a knee up hard into

  Insbrook’s side, aiming for his ribs. She nearly fell again, almost losing her

  balance and only able to stay on her feet by throwing her arms around

  Insbrook’s neck. She did her best to maneuver it into a head lock but she was

  too weakened from the earlier blow. The important thing, though, was that

  Insbrook was off of DeMarco, trying to wriggle out of Kate’s grasp.

  He dropped to his knees slowly, reached back, and grabbed a handful of

  Kate’s hair. She knew what was coming next and did her best to brace her

  feet against the mudroom wall to stop it. The killer hunched over in a

  kneeling U-posture, pulled her hair hard, and sent her sailing over his

  shoulder. Kate landed hard on her back and slid across the mudroom floor,

  into the kitchen. The breath went sailing out of her and the pain in her back

  caused her to curl into the fetal position. If she could have drawn in a breath,

  she would have let out a scream.

  Insbrook came at her again, the piano wire still in his hand. She saw rage

  in his eyes, a dark glittering star that had no core. There was animalistic

  hatred there, an urge to hurt and maim and kill.

  Kate saw the
litter of silverware on the floor from the apparent struggle

  between Anna Forester and Darby Insbrook before she and DeMarco had

  arrived. She reached for a steak knife, her back screaming in pain as she did

  so. Even as she grasped for it, she knew she would be too late anyway.

  The killer dove for her, the piano wire stretched out tightly between his

  hands. She had a moment to think of Karen Hopkins and how the wire had

  actually cut into her skin. She wondered if he could actually saw through her

  neck if he tried.

  She raised the knife up and for the briefest of moments, there was

  hesitation. This was followed by what sounded like a strange snapping noise,

  organic and metallic sounding all at once. Insbrook howled—not a sound of

  pain, but of rage. Kate realized that when she had drawn the knife up, she had

  snapped the piano wire Insbrook had been wielding. She had snapped it right

  in half.

  From the floor, Insbrook threw a hard elbow out toward her. It missed, but

  he followed with a lazy kick. This one caught her in the shin and though it

  did not hurt all that bad, she knew it was going to leave one hell of a bruise.

  He came at her again and Kate managed to get to her knees before he

  could attack. She readied the knife, knowing that it was either him or her. If

  she did not cut him where it mattered, he might very well kill her.

  But just before he struck her, there were two loud popping noises, a wet

  splash against Kate’s chest, and then an unexpected right-handed veer to

  Insbrook’s approach. He tottered hard to the right and collapsed onto the

  kitchen floor.

  There was a hole in his forehead and another just below his neck. Both

  were dribbling out blood, the one beneath his neck pouring it out onto the

  floor. Kate looked behind where the killer had been coming from and saw

  DeMarco. She was still in her shooter’s stance, her face like granite and her

  knuckles white as they gripped the Glock.

  It occurred to Kate in that moment, as she saw the absolute shock and

  hatred on her partner’s face, that DeMarco had not even tried to shoot to

  wound. Either of the shots could have been fatal, much less both.

  “DeMarco…at ease. Okay?”

  DeMarco only blinked once. Several spooky moments passed before

  DeMarco got to her feet. Kate did the same, leaning back against the kitchen

  bar as she realized she was still quite dizzy. Slowly, she walked over to

  DeMarco just as DeMarco seemed to slowly start to come around. They both

  looked back into the laundry room. Anna Forester was lying on the floor. As

  Kate walked slowly into the room, she prayed the woman was still alive.

  Anna’s eyes were open, staring up at the ceiling. At first Kate feared the

  woman was dead, but then she blinked. And then she started to cry.

  Kate tried to kneel on the floor with her but ended up partially collapsing

  instead. She took the woman’s hand in her own and did her best to remain

  rational.

  “You’re okay now,” Kate said. “You’re okay.”

  DeMarco watched on as she pulled her phone out and placed a call to

  Bannerman. Even as she spoke to him, filling him in on what happened, it

  was obvious that she was doing everything she could to hold back tears—and

  to not turn around to face the death she had just doled out.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  As the evening rolled on, Kate noticed that Sheriff Bannerman looked like

  he was in shock. He worked well and managed to keep his head above the

  water, but Kate knew the look on his face very well. She was pretty sure that

  when he got home that night, he was going to think long and hard about the

  years he had served as a sheriff and what his retirement might look like.

  Kate did not get a chance to really speak to him until the ambulance had

  left the Forester house with Anna inside. As far as they could tell from first

  glance, she was going to have some massive bruising around her neck and

  she was in a serious state of shock. But all in all, Anna Forester was going to

  turn out okay.

  When the ambulance left and the last of the patrol cars left behind it,

  Bannerman went to the porch swing on the Foresters’ porch and sat down

  with a heavy sound that was part grunt and part sigh.

  “You okay?” Kate asked.

  “I will be. What about you? You got banged up pretty good. Don’t think I

  haven’t noticed that bruise on the side of your head.”

  “I’ll be okay.”

  “I’ll make her see a doctor,” DeMarco said from the place where she was

  sitting on the stairs.

  “So…tell me about this piano I’m going to have to deal with,” Bannerman

  said.

  “You won’t have to deal with it,” DeMarco said. “We spoke with our

  supervisor and he’s sending a special forensics team to look at it. There are

  hairs on those strings that could be a year or so old. And not from this area.”

  “So what does that mean? That he’s done this before?”

  “It looks that way,” Kate said, still unable to believe it. “But we won’t

  know for certain until the names we found in his address book are cross-

  examined with unexplained murders or disappearances over the last few

  years. And then we’ll have to wait on the forensics details from those hair

  samples.”

  “But…?”

  “But it feels like we just stopped a serial killer,” DeMarco said.

  Bannerman looked at Kate for some sort of confirmation and she nodded.

  He said nothing for a while and then got to his feet, though it was clear he

  was more than done for that day.

  “Thank you, ladies, for all you’ve done. I guess I’ll call a press conference

  of my own and let the locals know that the murders have come to a stop and

  the suspect has been killed.” He looked at Kate and gave a knowing grin.

  “You sure you don’t want to stick around for that?”

  “Oh, I’m certain. But thanks anyway.”

  The three of them remained on the porch for a while longer. Kate did her

  best to hide the fact that her head was still reeling and she felt slightly sick to her stomach. She figured she’d have to get okayed by a doctor to fly back out

  to Virginia. She was all but certain she had a concussion.

  But it had been worth it because it would be much easier to live the rest of

  her life constantly seeing the number twenty-three in her mind instead of

  twenty-four.

  ***

  Because she did indeed have a concussion, Kate was unable to make the

  return trip back east for another twenty hours. She skipped going back home

  right away because she knew there would be her own drama to wrap up there

  —not only with Melissa, but with Alan as well. She flew direct from O’Hare

  to Dulles exactly twenty-one hours after saving Anne Forester’s life.

  She arrived back in DC with an email waiting for her. It was not from

  Duran’s personal assistant, but from Duran himself. He would be in his

  office, waiting for her arrival. He also gave her a heads-up that the section

  chief may be in attendance.

  Kate knew she should be worried but as she watched DC’s early night

  traffic roll by through the windows of her cab, she felt a certain se
nse of

  peace to the whole thing. Yes, she knew it was not normal for Duran to hold

  meetings with agents at 8:30 at night. And she also knew that if the section

  chief—a wiry grunt of a man named Sam Hilton—was going to be in

  attendance, the meeting would likely have a very bad outcome.

  It wasn’t until she reached FBI headquarters that she realized why she

  wasn’t stressed out over the meeting. Perhaps it was the high of taking out

  Darby Insbrook or just because she was tired, but she was starting to fully

  understand how blessed she was. She had been graced with a second chapter of a career she had loved and she had a daughter who loved her, despite her any flaws and stubborn tendencies. And, if she played her cards right, she

  even still had a salvageable relationship with a man who seemed to be very

  much in love with her despite her insistence on keeping him at arm’s length.

  In other words, no matter how the meeting turned out, she still had an

  amazing life waiting for her no matter the turns.

  She took the elevator to the second floor after checking in with the after-

  hours guard. When the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, she walked to

  Duran’s office with confidence in her step. It did waver a bit when she found

  the door already open, as if he was not only expecting her but wanted her to

  know that they were waiting specifically for her.

  She entered the room and saw that Section Chief Hilton was indeed there.

  She’d only met with the man a handful of times during the course of her

  career and they had a good working relationship. Now, though, as he looked

  up from the small conference room table in the back of Duran’s office, he

  gazed at her as if he was inspecting a bothersome insect that had been

  buzzing around his head.

  Duran also sat at the table with him, but he got to his feet when Kate

  entered the room. It was an awkward sort of greeting that Duran seemed to

  regret instantly. He recovered as best as he could by simply pointing to one of

  the available chairs.

  “Have a seat, Agent Wise,” he said.

  She did as she was asked, nodding to the section chief as she did so.

  “Section Chief Hilton, it’s nice to see you.”

  “You as well. I do wish it was under better circumstances, though.”