He lifted the saturated shirt from her thigh and replaced it with two layers of cotton quilting used under horses’ leg wraps. “Ain’t nothing I can do, honey.”
She opened her mouth to correct him, to make him see, then closed it without speaking. It was no use. Layton had never believed Eric was innocent. He’d only gone along with it, because he’d been scared for her.
“Let me see your hands,” the sheriff ordered.
Eric raised his hands, palms out. “Get Sarah to a hospital. Dennis Prohaska here, too. I think he’s still alive.”
The sheriff glanced down at the still bulk of the reporter, then back at Eric. “So you had to drag someone else into this mess?”
Eric raised his chin and met the sheriff’s eyes straight on. “You’ll find your boy Burne over there.” He motioned to the other side of the rock formation with a nod of his head. “I hope he paid your bribe in full, because he’s not going to be able to make good on any outstanding promises.”
The sheriff frowned. He glanced at Layton. “Burne? Who the hell is Burne?”
“There’s no reason to pretend.” Sarah knew she should keep her mouth shut, but the words flowed out on a tide of anger and frustration, injustice and grief. “We know he paid you to kill Larry Hodgeson.”
The sheriff swung his gaze to her. A chuckle broke from his lips. “Oh, you know that, do you? I guess you were right, Layton. We don’t have to worry about this one.”
Layton kept his eyes on Sarah’s wound as if he hadn’t heard the sheriff, even though they weren’t that far apart. He wrapped a pressure bandage around her leg as tenderly as he could, securing the quilts over the wound.
“Hodgeson was paid, too, wasn’t he, Sheriff?” Eric said. “Just like you. Paid to do whatever a drug dealer wanted. Even kill.”
The sheriff shook his head. “Get down on the ground. On your belly.”
“Get Sarah and Prohaska to the hospital. Then I’ll do whatever you say, no fight. Just like we agreed.”
“You won’t fight me now. Not unless you want a bullet in your head.”
“Some threat, Gillette. That’s been your idea all along, hasn’t it?”
The sheriff’s shoulders seemed to slump, just a little, as if he was as bone tired as they were. “None of this has been my idea, son. Trust me on that.”
None was his idea? Sarah wanted to scream. “Then why are you doing this? Money?”
The sheriff scoffed and shook his head. “I’m not for sale. Don’t you forget it. I’ve never been for sale.”
“Then why?” She didn’t understand. Maybe she never would. He had men kill her brother. Same for Bracco and Glenn. Now he was going to kill Eric, and for what? “Why are you doing this?”
“Why?” He let out a long breath as if blowing smoke through tight lips. “Justice, that’s why.”
The most ridiculous answer Sarah had ever heard. “How does what you’re doing have anything to do with justice?”
“We agreed. Sarah’s out of this.” Layton’s voice rang vicious as a growl.
The sheriff shrugged a shoulder. “The lady asked.”
Sarah looked from Layton to the sheriff. Something was going on between them. An argument unvoiced. “What does justice have to do with Randy’s death? How about Glenn Freemont? And Eric? How can any of what you’ve done have to do with justice?”
Eric took a step forward.
The sheriff spun to face him. “On your belly, Lander. Now.”
Eric didn’t move.
Sheriff Gillette swung around and pointed the gun at Sarah.
Layton sucked in a breath. “Dan.”
“Fine. Fine. I’m down.” Eric lowered himself onto his stomach, hands and legs straight out from his body.
The sheriff swung his weapon back in Eric’s direction. “Cross your ankles and place your hands behind your head.”
This time, Eric followed instructions.
Tears clogged Sarah’s throat. Her stomach swirled. Her leg started throbbing, making her wish with each beat of her pulse that she could go back to numbness. But no physical pain was as bad as what was unfolding in front of her. What she couldn’t understand, let alone stop. “I don’t think you know the meaning of the word justice.”
The sheriff grimaced. He shook his head. “It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It was never supposed to happen this way.”
“Then why are you doing it?”
The sheriff didn’t look at her. Instead, he stared at the rock formation beyond the spot where Eric lay, as if he was talking to a ghost. Or just muttering to himself. “It’s not the way things should work. He’s guilty. He was sentenced. He needs to pay.”
Guilty? Sentenced? What was he talking about? Burne had been acquitted. Unless he wasn’t talking about Burne. Unless he was talking about someone else.
She thought of the articles Eric had read in the library. The other cases in which Hodgeson had testified, and the very important one where he’d delivered the crucial piece of evidence to get a conviction. “You’re talking about the drunk driver who killed your sister.”
The sheriff spun around and stared at her as if he’d just discovered she was still there. “How do you know about that?”
“Sarah.” Eric’s voice was muffled, his face down in the dust, but she could still hear the warning tone in his voice, clear as if he’d shouted.
He wanted her to keep quiet. To not put the pieces together, to not push for the truth. He wanted her to let things just go on as they were. Where the sheriff put a bullet in his brain to keep him quiet, and she walked away, with Layton at her side protecting her.
But the problem with that was, if what she thought was right, the sheriff couldn’t let her walk away, either. He would have to kill them all. At least if they acted now, if she made Eric and Layton understand, their odds would be three to one.
She knew Eric would believe her. He might have already added up all the pieces on his own. But Layton? If they were going to get out of this, she needed to convince Layton.
“Hodgeson was going to give himself up, wasn’t he, Sheriff? He was going to admit he took a bribe to lie about the fingerprints in the drug case against Walter Burne.”
The sheriff glowered at her, but he didn’t argue. He didn’t say a word.
“The only problem with him confessing was that it would call all his fingerprint identifications into question, wouldn’t it? All the fingerprint evidence Hodgeson analyzed in crimes across the whole state.”
Her hands shook. Her back was slick with clammy sweat, but she forced herself to continue. She focused on Layton and willed him to understand. “And that means the drunk driver who killed the sheriff’s sister would get a new trial. That is, if the state decided to spend the money trying him again at all. If they didn’t just let him go with time served.”
Layton closed his eyes. His shoulders slumped forward. He looked tired. Old. His face gaunt and mouth slack. “Oh, God, Sarah.”
She reached out and gripped his shoulder. “It’s true, Layton. It all adds up. You’ve got to believe me.”
“Oh, he believes you,” the sheriff said.
“Layton?” She looked from Layton to the sheriff and back again. A weight settled, sick in her stomach. It hadn’t dawned on her. The entire time she’d been outlining the sheriff’s situation, it hadn’t dawned on her once.
The drunk who killed the sheriff’s sister had been convicted on the strength of fingerprint evidence. It had happened only eight years ago. Recent enough to be in the newspaper’s Internet archives.
But he wasn’t the only one who’d had a loved one murdered.
A murder solved by fingerprint evidence. A murder that could be tried anew or even overturned. Sheriff Danny Gillette wasn’t the only one here willing to do anything to preserve justice.
She looked up at her mentor, her father in heart and word and deed. But he was the real father of another girl before he even knew her. A girl who was taken from him. A girl for whom he’d
pledged his life to see justice was done.
And that it stayed done. “Layton, how could you have murdered my brother?”
EVEN FROM TWENTY feet away, lying facedown in the dirt, Eric could see Layton’s face blanch. The older man opened his mouth, then shut it without saying a word. Tears wound down his worn cheeks.
“Your brother was a troublemaker, Ms. Trask. Always was,” the sheriff said. Even he sounded tired, beaten down like Layton. “He was a loser out for an easy buck, whether he had to cheat, steal or cook drugs to get it.”
Sarah raised her chin. Her eyes hardened. The breeze blew back her hair. “He didn’t deserve to die.” She looked like a warrior woman protecting her own. Breathtaking. Beautiful.
And if Eric had anything to say about it, she wasn’t going to fight this war alone.
Slowly he moved his hands off the back of his head. He uncrossed his ankles. With Sarah commanding the sheriff’s and Layton’s attention, maybe he could get into a better position unseen, a position where he could attack the lawman and take his gun.
The sheriff tilted his hat back and wiped a hand across his forehead. “If you want to blame someone, blame Randy himself. He was the one who went looking for Hodgeson’s body for his own gain. Or blame Hodgeson. He’s the one who took the drug dealer’s bribe. And then he had to ease his conscience, damn the consequences. Damn the whole system.”
“They didn’t kill anyone,” she said.
“Really? Both of them would have brought down the whole justice system if we’d let them. You think flooding the courts with appeals for new trials isn’t going to lead to some criminals being set free? Criminals who should rightly spend eternity behind bars? Criminals who will take more innocent lives as a result?”
She looked from the sheriff to Layton. “You took Randy’s life.”
The sheriff was the one who answered. “Your brother went looking for Hodgeson’s body so he could blackmail us.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sarah stammered.
“Believe it,” the sheriff said. “He paid me a visit as soon as he was released from jail.”
Sarah was silent for a long time. Finally she spoke. “How about Glenn? He was an innocent.”
“Glenn Freemont? An innocent?” The sheriff barked out a smoker’s laugh. “Not hardly. He was a coward with a weak stomach. He couldn’t stick to the plan. He talked big about justice, but when it came to doing what was required, he couldn’t hack it.”
“Glenn? He was working with you?”
The sheriff didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.
Eric tensed his arms, ready to raise himself in a pushup and from there, spring to his feet. He had to move slowly, carefully. One sound or sense of movement and it would be over.
“And Keith Sherwood? Is he working for you, too?”
“Keith Sherwood? He’s a loser. Has an obsession with guns and no sense of responsibility to go with it. A loose cannon and a drunk, that’s what he is. Do you think I’d take a chance on someone like that?”
Eric took his weight onto his arms and gathered his legs under him. So they’d been wrong about Keith Sherwood. It had been Glenn Freemont and Layton who had dressed as deputies and shot Randy.
“And this Bracco who died in jail. That wasn’t suicide, was it? You killed him, too.”
The sheriff continued. “You have no idea what a piece of scum Bracco was. If you want another one to blame, he’s a good one. Him and his blabbing mouth. If he hadn’t told Randy where to find Hodgeson’s body, Randy wouldn’t have been involved at all. I never should have trusted Bracco to help me take care of Hodgeson.”
Sarah breathed hard, as if she couldn’t quite catch her breath.
“We didn’t mean to have any of this happen, Sarah.” Layton’s voice was so weak, Eric could barely hear it over the whistling wind. “We just couldn’t…I couldn’t let Allison’s murderer get a new trial for something that had nothing to do with his case. Not when I could stop it. I couldn’t risk that he’d go free on some technicality when he took my Allison away forever.”
Sarah’s face drew tight. “You killed Randy!”
“The blackmail…I couldn’t risk…It couldn’t be helped.”
“And Eric?”
Eric held his breath, hoping Sarah’s mention of his name wouldn’t cause Layton to glance in his direction.
Sarah swiped at her eyes with the back of one hand. She paused, her gaze landing on him for a split second, then she focused back on Layton. “You and Glenn dressed as deputies and shot at them. You killed Randy in cold blood.”
“I’m sorry, Sarah.”
“And me? Were you going to kill me?”
She was provoking now, giving him a chance to get in position, to make his move. But even though Eric was grateful for the chance, deep down he wished she would stop. He didn’t like the way she was challenging them, making herself a threat.
He couldn’t lose her.
“I know too much now, don’t I? You’re going to have to kill me.”
Layton shook his head. “No, I’ll always protect you, Sarah. You know that. I’ll never hurt you.”
“It’s necessary, Layton.”
Layton twisted around and stared a hole through the sheriff. “You gave me your word. If I brought you out here, you’d let me take Sarah to the hospital.”
“That was before she added the whole thing up. Do you really think she is going to keep our secret? You shot her brother. We’re about to shoot her lover. You really think she’s as loyal to you as you are to her?” He swung the gun, pointing the barrel at Sarah.
Eric’s breath froze in his chest. He crouched, hands and feet under him like a runner at the starting blocks, ready to charge, but he was too far away. The sheriff could pull the trigger, he could kill Sarah before Eric could reach him. He gasped in a breath, ready to shout, to focus the sheriff’s gun back on him.
A growl ripped from the edge of the canyon.
The sheriff turned toward the sound.
A black-and-white form crouched among crags of tan and red rock. Radar had jumped out of the truck bed, as if he’d sensed the threat to his mistress.
The sheriff leveled his gun on the dog.
Eric leaped forward. Head down like a football player, he ran for all he was worth. He smacked into the sheriff just as the gun went off.
Chapter Nineteen
A scream broke from Sarah’s throat. She struggled to get up, to run to Eric and Radar, to help. Pain stabbed through her leg and it refused to move.
Straddling the sheriff, Eric slammed a fist into the man’s face. Again. Again.
Another shot cracked through the air, shaking through Sarah’s body, ringing in her ears.
Eric grabbed the hand with the gun and pounded it against the ground. The weapon skittered across red rock and slipped into a dip in the canyon. Another punch, and the sheriff’s head lolled back against the ground, his face red with blood.
Still on top of him, Eric fumbled with the sheriff’s belt. Handcuffs jingled, mixing with the constant howl of the wind.
Another jingle came from the canyon’s edge. Radar rose from his crouch and slunk up through crags of rock. Head low, he wiggled to Eric’s side. Submissive and afraid of the loud gunfire, but perfectly fine.
A breath shuddered through Sarah’s chest. Eric. Radar. She focused on Layton, on the gun in the holster by his side.
He stared at Eric, watching him handcuff the sheriff as if in a trance. His jowls hung slack, his bushy brows sheltered low over moist eyes. His body slumped as if he was more than tired, as if he’d given up. A man beaten down by life.
She still couldn’t wrap her mind around what he’d done. In her heart, she wanted him to always be the man she looked up to, relied on. But he wasn’t that man. He was her brother’s murderer.
Not only that, he’d shot at Eric before, tried to kill him. And he could do it again.
She reached for Layton’s handgun. She didn’t expect to get it so easil
y, and the roughness of the grip as her fingers closed around it came as a shock. She pulled it free of the holster. Fitting it into her palms, she slipped a finger into the trigger guard and pointed it at Layton. “It’s all over.”
He nodded but didn’t look at her. Instead he focused on the dusty rock in front of him. “I’m sorry, Sarah. I’m so sorry.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I know. When you lose someone you love, it’s never enough. Allison’s murderer was tried. He was locked away. Knowing he’s locked away was the only thing I had to cling to. I couldn’t risk that. But nothing makes up for what he’s done.”
No, she supposed it didn’t. No matter what happened to Layton, Randy would never come back.
“Give me the gun, Sarah.”
She narrowed his eyes. What, did he think she was out of her mind? “Not a chance.”
“I’m not going to hurt you. Lander, either. But I don’t want this to go on. I don’t want you to suffer through a trial. And the fingerprints Hodgeson analyzed…it’s all going to be called into question now, even the legitimate matches, even Allison’s case. I don’t want to see Allison’s killer get another chance. Let me do the right thing. Let me save all of us a lot of pain.”
He was talking about killing himself, and for a second, she thought about handing over the gun and letting him do it. The second passed. She shook her head. “I can’t do that, Layton.”
“It’s the only thing that will make up for what I’ve done, Sarah. A life for a life. I would let you shoot me, but I know you’d never pull the trigger. So let me do it. Let me make things right.”
“No, Layton. Things aren’t that easy.” A shadow fell over her. She looked up to see Eric eclipsing the sun. In his hands dangled a second set of handcuffs. Her eyes misted as he pulled Layton’s hands behind his back and slipped the cuffs on his wrists. Eric pulled off Layton’s boots next and secured his ankles just as he’d done to the sheriff.
Rocky Mountain Fugitive Page 16
