Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7)

by Brian Freeman

  He saw fresh footprints in the mud of the creek, heading east toward the lake. That was their trail.

  Stride yanked out his phone and called Maggie. ‘They’re moving east. There’s an abandoned set of railroad tracks by the lake. We should be able to get people in from the north.’

  ‘On my way,’ she told him.

  He followed the ravine, shoving branches aside and wiping water out of his eyes. He felt blind and deaf. The rain got harder, drumming like thunder on a million leaves over his head. The creek water deepened, filling his boots. Every few steps, he stopped and squinted to peer through the forest ahead of him. There was no sign of them.

  And then –

  The flaky trunk of a birch tree burst into bark and wood dust two feet from his head. The crack of a gun rippled over the noise of the storm. He squatted and caught a glimpse of a man’s legs, anchored in the creek, facing toward him. Cat was still with the man, struggling to escape. They were fifty feet away. Another second later, the man turned and disappeared, dragging Cat behind him.

  Stride gave chase, but the wilderness fought back. Spindly branches scraped his face and drew blood. The water and mud sucked his boots into the ground, clinging to him with each step. His arms hacked through the foliage, forcing a path. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes that he’d been inside the woods, but it felt longer. He no longer saw anyone ahead of him, but he kept low as he pushed forward, in case the man fired blind shots to slow his pursuers. He was glad he did, because four more gunshots echoed wildly around him, swallowed by the woods. He didn’t know how close any of the bullets had come.

  Finally, beyond the trees, he saw water and sky. He spilled out of the forest and found himself on the graveled fringe of old railroad tracks, steps from the dappled surface of Spirit Lake. The wooded land mass of Wisconsin was visible a mile across the water. Streaks of rain surged from the low clouds. Almost immediately, as he reached the clearing, gunshots rang out again. He ducked, taking cover.

  The man with the gun pulled Cat northward on the railroad tracks. On his left was the impenetrable forest, and on his right was the expanse of the lake. He had nowhere to go, but he ran anyway.

  ‘Stop!’ Stride shouted. ‘Give it up!’

  In answer, the man fired at him again and kept running.

  Stride followed. The railroad tracks were overgrown with weeds. The lake beat against the land, and the rain gushed across his body. He jogged, then threw himself flat as the man twisted back and squeezed off another shot.

  Behind him, Stride saw Serena emerge from the trees. Six other officers did, too, crouched and ready. They spread out between the woods and the lake, and all of them pushed northward. Stride moved again, closing the gap between himself and the man with the gun. Beyond the man, a quarter-mile away, he spotted Maggie and a team of officers converging from the other direction.

  They had him in a squeeze now, police coming from both sides. The man with the gun saw it, too, and he stopped dead on the tracks. He looked ahead. He looked back. There was no escape in any direction.

  He put his gun to Cat’s head. ‘Everybody stop!’

  Stride held up his hands to freeze those behind him. Up the tracks, Maggie did the same. Nobody moved. The man had a dozen guns trained on him, but he knew they wouldn’t fire with Cat in jeopardy. The man’s face swiveled back and forth, north then south. He tugged Cat tighter against his chest and jabbed the barrel into her hair above her ear. She squirmed in his grasp.

  Her eyes met Stride’s. He was only fifty feet away, close enough to fire if he got a clean shot. Which he didn’t have. He tried to will himself into her brain. To tell her to be calm. To tell her that nothing was going to happen to her. To tell her that this would all end with her safely in his arms.

  He wanted to believe that.

  The stand-off drew out. The rain poured across them from left to right like a wave, carrying a sweet smell of pine. The forest was a lush wall of green, dark on a dark sky, practically dipping its roots in the lake. The railroad tracks made parallel lines that seemed to meet at the horizon. Stride dug his feet in the gravel of the tracks, steadying himself. He pointed the barrel of his gun squarely at the man’s head, but all he saw was Cat’s face. Too close.

  His eyes flicked behind him. Serena was twenty feet back, down on one knee, her gun also aimed at the man’s body.

  ‘Let the girl go!’ Stride shouted at him. ‘Put your gun on the ground, and put your hands up.’

  The man gave no sign of surrendering. Trapped in the man’s arms, Cat used the heel of her shoe to hammer his shin, but her kicks did nothing to dislodge him. The man whispered in her ear, then moved the gun from the side of her head to the soft skin of her face, and she stopped struggling.

  ‘You can come out of this alive,’ Stride called. ‘If you put down your gun, no one’s going to shoot you.’

  Stride watched the man’s stony face as he weighed his options. He was trapped, pinned down, with nowhere to run.

  ‘You want this girl alive,’ the man shouted to Stride.

  ‘I want everybody alive.’

  ‘Call off the dogs,’ he demanded. ‘Give me a way out of this.’

  ‘You have one way out. Put the gun down. Let the girl go.’

  ‘Are you ready to let this girl die? And her baby?’

  Cat flailed again, erupting in fury, but he kept her locked in his grip. As she struggled, Stride noticed one thing that the man with the gun had missed. Cat’s hands were almost free. Their run through the woods had shredded the tape binding her wrists, and if she twisted hard, they’d come apart.

  She knew it, too. He could see it in the blackness of her eyes. There was something in her face that he’d never seen before – something determined and violent. This man had threatened her child, and she was ready to fight back.

  They were running out of time.

  ‘I want all of these cops out of here!’ the man shouted.

  ‘You can get a lawyer. You can do a deal with the feds. But not if you hurt the girl.’

  ‘As soon as I put down the gun, I’m dead. You think I don’t know that?’

  He sounded like an animal backed against a wall, and Stride didn’t like it.

  ‘If you surrender, you’re safe. You have my word. No one’s going to shoot you.’

  But the situation was spiraling out of control, and Stride couldn’t stop it.

  Cat’s hands were free. She’d severed the tape and was flexing her fingers. She’d gone limp in the man’s grasp, but the looseness was a ruse. She wanted to go for his gun. And she’d lose.

  Serena saw it, too, and she murmured a warning. ‘Jonny.’

  ‘Cat, don’t move,’ Stride called to her. ‘We’ll get you out of this. Stay calm.’

  A mistake.

  He regretted it as the words left his mouth, and the man didn’t miss it. Cat. Stride had admitted that he knew this girl. She wasn’t a stranger. She was more than a hostage.

  ‘You want to save Cat?’ the man shouted. ‘Then get these cops out of here! You’ve got ten seconds before I pull the trigger. Kill me if you want, but she’ll be on the ground. Is that what you want?’

  ‘Stop! Don’t do this! Cat, don’t move, it’s okay.’

  ‘Ten . . .’

  Cat’s fingers curled like claws. Fragments of torn tape dangled from her slim wrists. Her breathing accelerated.

  ‘Nine . . .’

  ‘Put the gun down!’ Stride shouted at the man.

  ‘Eight . . .’

  Cat stared at Stride, and he stared back. Don’t, he tried to tell her, but she wasn’t listening; she was too far gone with fear and fury.

  ‘Seven . . .’

  ‘Jonny, he’s going to do it,’ Serena whispered.

  ‘Six . . .’

  And he was. Stride knew that. The man was insane.
When he reached zero, he’d pull the trigger, regardless of the consequences. And before that, Cat would wrestle him for the gun, and he’d overwhelm her in seconds. It all ended the same way. With both of them dead.

  ‘Five . . .’

  Everything was careening to a finish. One way or another.

  ‘Four . . .’

  Stride bent down and put his gun beside him on the railroad tracks. He straightened up and put his hands in the air with his fingers spread wide.

  ‘Look at me!’ Stride shouted. ‘Look! No gun!’

  The countdown stopped. The man stared at Stride.

  ‘Now the others, too,’ he called. ‘All of them. Tell them to drop their weapons.’

  ‘First, we chat,’ Stride said. He took a step closer to the man.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ the man shouted. He kept the gun at Cat’s head. ‘She and I are going to walk out of here. Just her and me. And you’re going to let us go.’

  Stride shook his head and took another step closer. ‘I can’t let you do that. I just wanted to prove that I’m not going to shoot you.’

  ‘Stop!’

  Stride took another step closer.

  ‘I told you to stop!’

  And another step closer.

  Then the man finally did what Stride wanted. He took the gun away from Cat’s head and pointed it directly at Stride’s chest. ‘I said, stop!’

  Stride froze. No one had a clear shot yet. Cat stared at him with a question in her eyes. Now?

  ‘Let me talk to her,’ Stride said. ‘I need to talk to Cat and make sure she’s okay. Take off the gag.’

  He didn’t dare look at Serena, but he hoped she was keeping a dead aim on the man for the instant when Cat was free.

  ‘I need to talk to Cat,’ Stride repeated. ‘That’s a deal-breaker. Take off the gag!’

  The man relented. He ripped the tape away from Cat’s mouth and yanked out the gag inside. In doing so, he had to let go of the chokehold holding the girl in place. Stride wanted Cat to fall where she was, but instead, with her hands free, she grabbed the man’s wrist and sank her teeth into his thumb and knuckle, biting down hard until her teeth were stopped by bone.

  The man wailed. The gun fired wildly in the air. His hand, spurting blood, let go, and the pistol dropped at his feet.

  Stride ran. So did Cat. The girl threw herself into his arms, and Stride spun her around and lowered her to the ground and sheltered her with his body. He couldn’t see behind him. He couldn’t see the man drop to the tracks as bullets missed high, couldn’t see him grab the gun with his uninjured hand and swing around to aim at Stride’s back.

  An easy shot. A paralyzing shot. A kill shot.

  The beach was alive with gunfire. Deafening, overlapping.

  The man aimed, but he never fired again. A dozen bullets hit him at once. In his chest. In his head. The gun fell again, and so did he.

  Stride waited, protecting Cat, until the echoes died to silence.

  58

  Cat fidgeted on the hospital bed.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be here. When can I get out of this place?’

  Stride held her hand. ‘You’re not going anywhere until the doctors check you out. You and the baby. We want to make sure you’re both okay.’

  ‘I want to go home—’ she began, but then she stopped ner­vously. She looked away, not meeting Stride’s eyes. She wasn’t sure if she had a home anymore. She didn’t know whether, after everything she’d done, Stride would let her stay.

  ‘Don’t worry, you’ll go home soon,’ he told her. ‘Maybe tonight, definitely tomorrow.’ Then he added: ‘And we have a lot to talk about.’

  Her pretty face was unusually pale, her long hair dirty and matted. ‘What’s going to happen to me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied honestly, ‘but I can tell you a few things. You’re going to make a list of every house you were in and everything you and Anna stole. You’re going to go to every one of those homes in person and apologize. You’re going to return anything you still have, and you’re going to make restitution for anything you don’t. You’re going to do community service every weekend from now until you graduate from high school. And that’s just my punishment. A judge will have more to say.’

  She nodded. ‘Okay, Stride.’

  ‘I’m the easy one,’ he added. ‘Serena will be much tougher.’

  Cat gave him a tiny smile, and it was good to see that smile lighting up her face again. When he’d first met her, he’d thought she had a magical smile. Then her lips bent down in genuine confusion. ‘Why the heck aren’t you kicking me out?’

  Stride thought: Maybe because you keep telling me to.

  ‘Let’s make a new rule,’ he said. ‘You never ask me that again. Okay?’

  She nodded. ‘Okay.’

  Serena joined them in the hospital room. She sat next to Stride, and he slid an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. He could feel her exhaustion, emotional and physical. He was sure that some of the bullets that killed Bernd Frisch were hers, and she knew it, too. It didn’t matter who was on the receiving end or how justified it was or how much the man deserved it, firing a weapon into another human being took a bit of your soul and never gave it back. It wasn’t her first, but it wasn’t something that grew easier with experience.

  ‘Erin Tierney?’ Stride asked.

  ‘The doctors say she’ll make it,’ Serena said. The relief in her voice was palpable. ‘She was conscious for a while, but she’s sleeping now. She doesn’t remember much, which is a good thing. I talked to her parents, who are flying in tomorrow. We’ll get a therapist here, too.’

  ‘I’m glad she’s alive,’ Cat said from the bed.

  She didn’t ask about Anna Glick. She knew Anna was dead. Stride realized that Cat had seen way too much death this year – more than anyone should face in a lifetime. And yet fate played out strangely. If Cat hadn’t made her mistakes, things would likely be different for Erin. Other women would still be in danger. By accident, Cat had led them to an evil that was far worse than stealing jewelry or cash under the guise of painting houses. Which didn’t excuse what the girl had done.

  They’d linked Bernd Frisch through his passport to the Ingersstrom. The ship was on lockdown in the harbor. The feds and Interpol would be asking questions, and hopefully, the answers would blow open a European crime syndicate and save more lives overseas.

  Strange fate.

  Cat stared at Stride and Serena. ‘Can I ask you two a question?’

  ‘Of course,’ they said together.

  She played with her fingers and then placed both hands over her stomach. ‘Am I really ready to be a mother?’

  Stride looked at Serena, not sure which of them should answer. Finally, he said: ‘That’s your call, Cat, not ours.’

  ‘I want your opinion,’ she said. ‘And I want you to be honest with me.’

  Serena leaned forward and put her hand on top of Cat’s. ‘Honestly?’ she said. ‘No, you’re not.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that. You’re right.’

  ‘Not because you’re a bad person,’ Serena went on, ‘and definitely not because I think you would be a bad mother. It’s just that you’re too young to take on that kind of responsibility. It will cheat you and cheat your son.’

  Cat suddenly looked older than her years. ‘I’m thinking now that maybe adoption would be a better way for me to go. Are there ways to adopt where he can know who I am?’

  ‘Yes, open adoption is becoming more common,’ Serena said.

  ‘What about you two? Would you two consider adopting him?’

  Stride and Serena both stared at her, wondering what to say. ‘Cat, that’s a sweet thing to suggest,’ he began, ‘but we can’t—’

  ‘I mean, you two are going to get married, are
n’t you?’ Cat continued, as if she hadn’t already taken away enough of their emotional hiding places.

  Serena waited. And watched him. As if she were very interested in the answer he would give. She could have let him off the hook. She could have smiled or made a joke. But no. They’d left the subject of marriage off the table ever since getting back together, but sooner or later, they would have to decide what this relationship was.

  In the end, Cat gave him an out.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know it’s none of my business.’

  He hadn’t said a word, and he felt the faintest cool breeze of disappointment blowing toward him from Serena. He got up and went to the hospital window. Behind him, he heard Cat whisper: ‘Did I say something wrong?’

  He heard Serena’s reply. ‘No, he’s just not ready.’

  Stride let their hushed conversation go unanswered, even though he wanted to turn around and gather both of them up in his arms. All he could think about was how much he hated hospitals.

  ‘Can I see Al?’ Cat asked suddenly.

  ‘Maybe a little later,’ Serena told her. ‘You should get some rest.’

  ‘No, no, I’m fine. I want to see him. He saved my life, too, you know. I don’t want him thinking that I hate him.’

  Stride turned back from the window. ‘Al’s lucky. The bullet went through his shoulder muscles but nothing vital. He’ll be okay.’

  ‘Please, can I see him? Five minutes.’

  Stride and Serena both nodded. ‘Five minutes.’

  Cat didn’t waste time. She slid out of bed and pushed her toes into slippers, and the three of them went into the hospital corridor. At the nurse’s station, Stride checked on Al Pugh’s room. When they reached the boy’s doorway, and Cat saw Al in bed, she flew to his side.

  ‘Al!’ she exclaimed. She bent down and hugged him, then let go as he flinched in pain. ‘Oh, sorry! Sorry!’