by Lorie O
“Oh, crap!” Carl yelled. “He got out and is pointing a gun at us.”
“Keep taking pictures,” Perry yelled.
“He’s aiming a gun at us!”
“Then take pictures and duck!”
A shot exploded into the night and Carl howled just as the car bounced over the curb and hit the street.
“Son of a bitch,” Carl swore, bouncing sideways next to Perry as he tried turning around and ducking at the same time.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Perry whispered, searching the street ahead of them for signs of the Suburban. “Tell us where you are.”
“How in the hell do you think you’re going to get away with this?” Kylie asked, her voice tinny through the speakerphone.
“Are you kidding?” John Athey laughed. “We’ve got the perfect setup, darling. You’ve got no backup, and your police lover is grounded. I saw to it. Kind of has its advantages when you can tell the cops in the town what to do. Not to mention a Suburban that can’t be pinned to anyone.” His laugh was sinister. “Got to love a car auction and then never registering the vehicle,” he added as if he were telling a good joke.
“You killed all those girls,” she accused. Kylie wasn’t laughing.
“Not your problem anymore.”
It wasn’t exactly a confession. Perry prayed she would get him to say exactly what they needed to nail the bastard to the cross right alongside Franco. He couldn’t believe this. Not in a million years would he have guessed John Athey and Franco were in this together. They did have the perfect setup.
Only one problem. There was no such thing as perfect, and Perry would see them both dead before the night was over if he couldn’t successfully pull off an arrest. First he needed to find them, and before Kylie got hurt.
“You’re wrong, John. This is my problem, and even more so now that I know you’re guilty. This is the same SUV that tried abducting Dani and I bet we’ll find where Perry shot at it. You’re Peter. You might as well admit it. I’ve got to take you down. Do you realize how serious a punishment you’ll face for this?”
“Are you seriously as dumb of a blonde as you come across?” John demanded. “You don’t get it, sweetheart. There is no one coming to save you. Do you think you can simply say, ‘You’re under arrest,’ and I’ll pull over?”
“There is someone coming to get me. He’s right on your ass as we speak. And I’ll give him the honors of slapping the cuffs on you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Kylie squealed and Perry gripped the steering wheel so hard the car swerved and Carl gave him a nervous glance.
“Keep it cool, man,” Carl said, his voice calm as he watched Perry.
“I’m cool.” Perry would take the bastard’s life with his bare hands. If the son of a bitch laid as much as a finger on Kylie…
“Don’t say a fucking word,” John yelled through the phone. “Not a goddamn word.”
“Why are we pulling into a car wash?” Kylie asked.
“I said shut the fuck up!” John bellowed so loud it distorted through the phone.
“Car wash. Car wash,” Perry repeated. “Where the fuck is a car wash?”
“Are you sure we headed the right direction when we left the bowling alley?” Carl asked. “There are several car washes up and down this street.”
Perry didn’t want to think they were losing her. John was right on one thing. There wasn’t any backup. He did hold the power to eliminate any help for Kylie. Or he did up until he made the mistake of messing with something Perry viewed as his. He would fight for Kylie’s life, and then he would fight for her. His sister’s words picked an odd time to pop into his brain, but he agreed with her advice now. Kylie was worth laying his heart on the line for. She would become part of their family, one way or the other.
As soon as he found her.
“If you’re wired…,” John hissed. “You fucking bitch. I was just going to make you disappear. No offense but you’re a bit too old for my tastes. But if you’ve screwed me, I swear to God the last thing that fucking cop prick of yours will hear are your screams as I torture you until you die. He can live with those memories while he rots in prison for the murders of all those girls.”
“You’re going to do that in a car wash?” Kylie asked. “That convenience store will have witnesses all over the place. And I bet the drive-through at McDonald’s across the street will offer at least one or two people who will see you, too. And why would Perry go to prison?”
Kylie screamed at the same time that the sound of flesh hitting flesh made Perry’s blood boil.
“McDonald’s,” Carl yelled. “We’re going the wrong way. McDonald’s is in the other direction.”
Perry pulled a U-turn in the middle of the street, forcing a couple cars to a screeching stop, and turned on his lights while gunning it. He hauled ass down the street, yelling at Carl to call Dispatch.
“Whatever it takes!” Perry demanded. “Get backup on the scene now. Tell them whatever you have to tell them.”
Carl didn’t argue or ask for advice on what to say but fumbled with his phone while the digital camera fell to the ground at his feet.
Perry focused on the golden arches when they appeared ahead of him and Carl. He saw the convenience store Kylie had mentioned and then spotted the car wash. There weren’t any sounds coming through the phone anymore, which made Perry’s blood curdle. He didn’t want to think about what John might have done to her to make her quiet.
Perry squealed to a stop in front of the car wash, slamming the car into park before it had fully stopped. He spotted the Suburban and the open driver’s-side and passenger door didn’t look good at all. His heart swelled into his throat and he trembled when he grabbed his gun, pulling it free as he climbed out and headed around his squad car.
“Cover me,” he yelled to Carl, and held his gun out, aiming it toward the ground, while he searched for Kylie. “Athey, where the fuck are you?” he yelled.
“Perry!” Kylie howled, her high pitch sounding full of fear and panic.
At least she was alive.
Perry ran through the stall, looking both ways on the other side of the car wash, until he spotted them at the edge of the lot.
“Stay right there,” John ordered, gripping Kylie against his chest while walking backward, the gun in his hand pointed at Kylie’s head.
Her hair was messed up and her expression looked panicked, but otherwise she didn’t look hurt.
“Are you okay?” Perry asked her, an overwhelming sense of calm hitting him. Something told him John wouldn’t kill her. It would be murder one, and there wouldn’t be any way out of it. Perry was convinced the man was too much of a survivor for that.
“I’m fine,” she said, also sounding too calm.
“Get back in your car,” John ordered, taking the gun from Kylie’s head and pointing it at Perry.
“It’s over,” Perry told him. “Franco is under arrest. The FBI has been contacted.”
As if to back Perry, sirens approached, growing louder by the second.
“Backup is here. Put down the gun.”
“Like hell.” John pushed Kylie forward, causing her to trip and fall to the ground.
Perry lunged for her just as the shot rang through the air.
Chapter 27
Three months later
Kylie’s eyes burned, and she wondered for the third or fourth time since leaving Dallas if she had any sense in her head to start the trip to Kansas City this late at night. It was an eight-hour drive and it was damn near three o’clock in the morning. She wasn’t even sure there was a reason to rush back there.
Her leg cramped, the bullet wound she’d taken while in Nicaragua pretty well healed but still giving her grief from time to time. The humid night air, with summer kicking in hard and fast, seemed to make her leg act up. She didn’t mind the injury, other than it had hurt like fucking hell getting shot, since her return shot took out the leader of the cartel they were after. H
er orders had been to bring him in alive, but arresting and escorting the cartel leaders’ number one in command had satisfied Susie, and Kylie’s government. She was awarded a two-month respite once she checked out of the hospital in Dallas, for her efforts and a job well done.
Kylie passed another mile marker and squinted when her brights reflected against the road sign ahead. Five miles to Mission Hills. Already buildings lined the Interstate as she got closer to her destination.
It had been two months since she last talked to Perry. Once she was buried in the Nicaraguan jungle, Internet access was limited to a “must have” basis. Chatting online with a man who’d changed her life didn’t qualify as a “must have.” And as she’d done throughout her career, she’d engrossed herself in the community, what there was where she was located down there, and taken on her assignment with everything she had. But even after being wounded and her time in the hospital, nothing she’d done managed to get Perry out of her mind.
Was he the one?
It was a question she’d fallen asleep asking herself too many times over the past few months. Now, with a slight limp she was promised would go away with continued physical therapy, thoughts of moving to a desk job had crossed her mind. It wasn’t the most appealing thought, but there was a job opening. Susie, her supervisor, was a bit too attentive to the needs of her agents at times, and had mentioned it while visiting Kylie in the hospital.
After being released, spending a week with her parents, she looked up the job opening online. John Athey’s position, supervisor of the FBI field office in Mission Hills, still hadn’t been filled. Paul qualified for the position but had turned it down. More than likely because he wouldn’t be able to sit and play his computer games as much.
“God, am I doing the right thing?” Kylie groaned.
When she’d mentioned to Susie she might come back up here to see how everyone was doing, her supervisor set up an appointment for her to meet the area field supervisor. There were no obligations, but it was more or less a job interview. “A desk job,” Kylie muttered, wondering if she could handle it.
Her mother didn’t have the insight to see it; there was still so much mending to do between the two of them. Kylie wasn’t sure if they would ever return to the closeness many mothers and daughters shared, especially now that her father was ill and most of their conversations and actions stemmed around him. But her supervisor questioned Kylie’s motives. She hated admitting her consideration of the job was based on where she might stand with Perry.
The night John Athey took a bullet to his head and Lieutenant Franco was arrested appeared a blur in her mind. Franco had ranted about Perry being the one, that all they had to do was check his computer at the station. Perry was too calm when he announced how he’d bugged his own computer, making it clear to everyone around them that he was innocent. He had set it up so anyone typing on his computer at the station would send all keystrokes to his computer at his house.
It was the days that followed that were clearer in her memory. Learning how the two men had worked together, capturing girls, torturing them, building a Web site where people could pay to see the atrocities done to many of the teenagers which they’d run out of Franco’s house. Perry had a friend in the FBI, who never blew her cover, but verified the ISP location. Athey had prevented anyone in his office from gathering the information. Rita Simoli and Maura Reynolds’ bodies were found in shallow graves on land John Athey had owned. Franco had started spilling his guts, especially after he learned his partner in crime had killed himself, anything to lessen the charges. Kylie doubted anything he said would get him anything less than life in prison. She wouldn’t be surprised if he still got the death penalty. And after it was all wrapped up, the flight out of Kansas City, talking to Perry on the phone a few times before leaving the country, and then after that a handful of times online.
Kylie accepted his story about the lady police officer at the crime scene the night she watched her grope Perry, that her actions weren’t reciprocated. Perry stressed that over and over again, his story never changing, nor his disgust for her indifference to the grotesqueness of the scene. Like Kylie, Perry was leery of any law enforcement officer who, so early in their career, wasn’t affected by the blood and gore they were sometimes exposed to.
Remembering how he had tried calling her several times a day the first couple days after she left Kansas City and how their phone conversations had changed from confrontational to friendly, and even intimate, gave Kylie hope. She had held on to the words he’d shared with her over the phone for quite a while. The phone calls ended after she left the country.
Kylie stared at the sign that welcomed her to Mission Hills as she passed it. The very next sign showed her the speed limit.
“Crap,” she hissed, hitting her brake, but it was too late. Lights flashed in her rearview and side mirrors. “Damn it. This is the last thing I need.” Like the potentially new FBI field office supervisor needed to enter the town with a speeding ticket.
She slowed quickly, watching the speedometer go down and knowing she’d been doing a good 20 miles per hour over the limit. There wouldn’t be any getting out of this, and she doubted she could use knowing one of the local cops intimately as an excuse to get the officer not to write her a ticket.
Kylie pulled to the side of the road, hit her hazards in her newer-modeled Toyota that had been in her parents’ garage for a few years now. She’d finally taken it out and decided to drive it instead of renting a car. The officer who pulled her over would run her tag and know exactly who she was. If Perry was working tonight, he would hear her name over the radio. This wasn’t how she wanted him to know she’d returned to town. Hell, she’d even thought of approaching his nieces, since she knew where they hung out, or at least where they hung out a few months ago, and paving the way to learn if approaching Perry would even be worth it. For all she knew, he’d moved on by now.
She turned off her radio, which was barely audible. Pressing her finger on the button on her door she moved her side mirror slightly to better see the officer who got out of the patrol car behind her. Red and white lights flashed in the darkness, creating the surreal image that made it harder for suspects at night to focus clearly and see their surroundings. Being accustomed to emergency vehicle lights didn’t help her get a better image of the officer who took his time closing his door and strolling patiently toward her.
More than likely he’d already run her tag.
His flashlight washed over her car, the back of her head, and then along the outside of her car while he moved closer. Kylie watched his long muscular legs, his strides controlled and confident. He was tall, muscular, his broad chest well outlined in the darkness. As he neared she moved her finger, pushing the button to lower her window.
“Get out of the car, miss.” That deep baritone sent chills rushing over her.
Kylie’s mouth went dry when she cranked her head around, but she was unable to see his face from where she sat. Her fingers were suddenly too damp when she reached for her door handle, managed to pull it and then push open her car door. Right now would not be a good time for her leg to act up and make it more difficult to get out of her car.
“Do you know how fast you were going?” he asked, his hat shading his eyes and the top part of his face.
Kylie stood, staring at Perry’s rugged facial features, noting a day’s growth, which made it harder to read his expression. She could barely see his eyes, which appeared cold, distant, and stared down at her without offering a glimpse into what he might be feeling.
“Obviously too fast,” she offered, but didn’t smile. She rested one hand on her door, not sure she wanted him to see, or know yet, the extent of how badly she was injured, or how far she still needed to go to full recovery.
“Are you in a hurry to get somewhere?” He didn’t ask for her driver’s license and registration.
Not that she was opposed to the ticket. It was obvious by watching her speedometer decelerate that sh
e’d earned it. But this was why she’d come here, to see him. Kylie wished she could see his face better, read his facial expression. But, unless he’d moved on, he probably was guarding his feelings as much as she was guarding hers.
“I don’t know if I was in a hurry, but I was obviously not paying attention to how fast I was going. I’ve been driving all night,” she admitted, aching to take his hat off. It was as bad as if he wore dark sunglasses late at night. “I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention.”
His lips pressed into a thin line, and a moment of silence passed before his deep baritone brushed over her again, causing every hair on her body to stand at attention and her insides to tighten, creating a heat she was sure he must be able to notice.
“I find it hard to believe a special agent with the FBI wasn’t paying attention,” he accused. “Why are you here, Kylie?”
His cold words were a stab to her heart. He didn’t want her here. She could barely answer from the lump that threatened to close her throat. Worse yet, she didn’t know how to answer. And if she did, her voice would crack, her leg would give out, or something else would happen to make this moment turn from bad to worse.
As a warm breeze wrapped around her, a damp sweat spread over her body and her heart pattered furiously in her chest. Lately panic attacks were hitting her without warning. The psychiatrist she’d been forced to visit after being shot told her they were possibly a reaction to the medication she’d been on in the hospital. Not to mention, being shot was a traumatic experience, not only physically but also emotionally. Everyone handled it differently.
Kylie wasn’t sure she agreed either of those was the reason for her sudden erratic emotions. “I have some time off,” she heard herself say.
“So passing through again?”
Maybe it was for the best that she not even make it into town before learning she wasn’t wanted here. If she continued with this conversation she would break down, right here on the side of the interstate in the dark. Stability would return to her in time. And her own mental counseling told her that once she put closure where closure belonged and understood if there was anything between her and Perry, she would have better control of her emotions. As before, she would be able to keep them in check, under lock and key.
