Owens removed the bottle of sleeping pills from his pocket and emptied them into the palm of his hand. It was better to die asleep than to feel it coming. He looked over at the girls and wondered if he should share the pills and spare them.
He decided against it. The smoke would kill them long before the flames ate at their flesh, and anyway, the more pills he took, the faster they would take effect.
At the window, Sophia began to cry, but her sister took her hand.
“Don’t worry, Sophia; Daddy will save us.”
Owens smirked.
Don’t count on it kid.
After several false starts, Owens tossed the pills in his mouth. With help from the bottle of water, he swallowed every one of them. A strange sense of peace came over him then. He would die soon, yes, but he would die a free man and Ricardo Pierce would suffer.
After closing his eyes, Owens imagined the look on Pierce’s face when he discovered that the body found with his daughters’ burnt corpses was that of one Dave Owens.
Owens smiled. Even from the grave revenge would be sweet.
CHAPTER 30
Amy said nothing to Pierce, but tears fell from her eyes at the sight of him.
The skinny boy she had known was gone and a man had taken his place. He was still thin, but not in an unattractive way. Pierce had the look of a runner, although he hated any kind of exercise.
She studied the face she had always found to be handsome and discovered that it was even more so, with the sheen of youth gone. There were laugh lines around Pierce’s eyes that only added to his attractiveness. Her heart beat with fuel other than fear and Amy realized in amazement that she had never stopped loving Rick Pierce, and he was still the only man she’d ever truly loved.
It struck her once more how all the problems she had in life could be traced back to the day she threw Rick Pierce away. Had she simply stayed at his side, everything she’d ever wanted from life would have been hers.
Amy searched his eyes expecting to see hatred or incrimination, but no, there was only worry and fear.
He was terrified over the fate of his missing daughters, and Amy realized that she was the only one on earth who had a hope of saving them.
And yet, to save them was to damn herself.
***
Pierce stared at the woman who he had obsessed over for years and saw the light of recognition ignite in her gaze.
She was beautiful, and looked years younger than she was, but there was an aura of desperation and fear around her.
Pierce didn’t know if he put out the same vibe, but he was definitely feeling the emotions. His daughters were gone to God knew where and possibly in the hands of a serial killer who hated him.
Despite the tender and loving feelings he once had for Amy, all he wanted to do was to grab her and shake her until she talked.
He couldn’t do that. It wouldn’t work, but there had to be words that he could utter that would convince her to cooperate. Pierce’s mind raced over the possibilities. He had used many tactics over the years to get suspects to talk, and one of them might work with Amy.
And if they didn’t work, what then?
Pierce decided to cut to the chase and take the meeting to it’s inevitable conclusion.
He lowered himself to his knees, clasped his hands together, and begged.
***
Amy had startled at Pierce’s first movements, but then realized that he wasn’t lunging at her, but was getting down on his knees.
“Please tell me where Sophia and Rosa are, Amy. I’m begging you.”
Amy said nothing, but her tears increased and rolled down her cheeks in rapid succession.
“I love my daughters, Amy. If I could I would give you anything you ask to get them back. You loved me once; I know you did. Please have mercy on me and tell me where to find Sophia and Rosa.”
Amy released a sob, and when she looked at Pierce, she saw the tears in his eyes. He leaned closer, and when he spoke to her again, it was in a whisper.
“I could not go on in this world without my two little angels. I swear to you that I would not want to keep living. I’m begging you, Amy, honey, please? Please tell me where they are.”
Amy shook her head as love and pity battled self-preservation. In the end, she stayed silent.
Pierce let out a moan, then followed it with a gasp of surprise.
Amy was still silent, but she had raised a finger, and that finger was pointing out the window.
Pierce turned, saw the fire-ravaged terrain off in the distance, and went white with fear.
His girls were in the midst of an inferno.
***
Owens felt the pills taking effect as he could barely keep his eyes open.
Sophia and Rosa were embracing each other at the window as they watched the flames grow closer. It had to be just past dawn, but the sky was black with smoke and ash, some of which drifted in through the hole in the corner of the roof.
“There’s fire everywhere!” Sophia said.
Rosa released her and tilted her head.
“Did you hear that?”
“What?” Sophia said, but even as she spoke, she heard it. Someone was calling their names through a loud-hailer, like the type their daddy once let them play with in a police car.
They both listened, and faintly, over the roar of the surrounding fire, they heard their father’s magnified voice.
“Sophia! Rosa! Babies, do you hear me?”
Rosa screamed with joy and hugged her sister. She then turned to Owens.
“I told you our daddy would save us.”
Her words fell on deaf ears. Owens had fallen into a sleep from which he would never awaken. On his lips was a sneer. The last thing he had heard in this life was Ricardo Pierce’s voice, and Owens would die knowing he had failed.
***
Just west of the cabin, Pierce lowered the loud-hailer he’d been talking into.
“I heard a scream. I think it was Rosa.”
“I heard something too,” Simmons said.
Jimmy was standing beside Pierce. He gestured up at the sky where two planes were making a run to drop more water.
Amy had only pointed, but a trooper who was present knew the area well and had remembered that there were two old cabins in the midst of the fire. The structures had been empty for months after suffering damage from a storm.
They had all rushed to the area with the help of firefighters, and now the planes were concentrating on clearing a path to them.
“Why are the planes so damn small?” Jimmy asked.
“Our DC-10 is inoperative,” one of the firefighters said. “There’s another flying in, but its ETA isn’t for twenty more minutes.”
Two small planes dropped tons of water onto the flames at the rear of the cabin. When the mist and the steam cleared, the top of the cabin came into view for a moment. The roof was still on fire.
A flaming tree fell. It blocked the path that had just been cleared and Simmons, Jimmy, and the firefighters all cursed.
Pierce had stayed silent, but he was moving at a sprint towards the fallen tree.
“Rick!” Jimmy called out. “That tree is too big. You can’t climb over it. Wait for the planes!”
Pierce kept running. As he grew closer, he could hear his daughters screaming for him. The fallen tree had a wide circumference and was nearly five feet high on its side. Pierce angled towards a spot on the flaming trunk that had no branches and prayed that he’d be able to jump over it.
Providence was with him, and he spotted a tree stump nearby. Pierce used the stump as a launch point and hurtled over the blazing tree. The momentary heat was so intense that he felt blisters form on his face, even as his shirt caught fire.
Pierce landed hard on the other side and went into a roll that ended with him hitting a small tree with his left shoulder. The rolling about had extinguished the flames which ate at his shirt. He jumped to his feet and struggled to breathe and see.
Sm
oke was everywhere, along with growing pockets of fire. Once he was turned in the right direction, he followed the sound of his daughters’ crying to reach the cabin. The front door was ablaze, but he broke in a window on the side.
Dave Owens was lying atop a sofa, and although he was difficult to make out in the swirl of smoke, he appeared to be dead. Pierce called for his daughters and they emerged through a haze of smoke from the other side of the large room.
“Daddy!” they both cried out with tears in their eyes. Pierce was crying too, as he scooped each one of them up in an arm and dragged them through the broken window. The movement gouged deep cuts on his forearms, but Pierce was barely aware of it as he kissed his daughters.
“Hello angels, Daddy has come to take you home to Mommy.”
Rosa and Sophia were so filled with joy and relief, that all they could do was smile.
Pierce knew he couldn’t go back the way he’d come in when he saw that a second tree had fallen near the first.
“Where are those planes,” he muttered, but understood that he dared not wait for rescue. Each instant brought them closer to death, and they began coughing violently from the smoke.
Visibility was vanishing, but as he stumbled around looking for a way out, Pierce saw a squat manmade object just feet in front of him. When he realized what it was, he knew that his daughters had a chance at survival.
Pierce sat the girls down and climbed up onto the lip of the old well. He then reached down and picked up Rosa, and then Sophia. He had no idea how deep the well went, and knew that the drop inside its cobblestone walls could kill them all.
There was no choice. The heat was nearly blistering their skin and the smoke was filling their lungs. Pierce stopped coughing long enough to speak to his daughters.
“Hold on tight, and know that Daddy loves you.”
Pierce leapt backwards into the well as Sophia and Rosa screamed.
CHAPTER 31
Pierce awoke hours later and wondered what was making the hissing sound he was hearing.
It began as simple curiosity and wasn’t worth the trouble of opening his eyes. He was feeling good and thought that he must have been having a great dream before he woke up.
As he tried to recall it, the events of the fire returned to his mind. His eyes snapped open and he attempted to sit up.
Pain in his left leg caused him to cry out and he saw that his left calf was wrapped in a cast.
“Rick! Honey, it’s okay, you’re in the hospital.”
Pierce turned his head and saw Val rising from a chair.
“Where are the girls?” he asked, and there was panic in his voice.
Val kissed him.
“They’re fine, baby. Rick, you saved them.”
“I want to see them.”
“You will, but now lay back. If you haven’t noticed, you have a broken leg. You also took a nasty whack on the back of the head and cut your forearms.”
Pierce reached behind him with a bandaged arm and felt a lump the size of a golf ball on the right side of his head.
“I passed out?”
“After they found you, before that you were in a stupor. They had to pry the girls from your arms.”
“I need to see them; bring them here, please.”
“They’re in the hallway with Jimmy and Ginny. And Rick, just to prepare you, Sophia broke two fingers in the fall and Rosa has a nasty scrape on her forehead, but they’re fine. You’re the one who suffered from the smoke, it’s why they have you on oxygen for tonight.”
Pierce reached up and felt the tubes pushing air into his nostrils. He’d been so concerned about Sophia and Rosa that he’d forgotten all about the hissing sound he’d heard.
Val walked into the hall and returned moments later with Sophia and Rosa, Pierce winced at the splint on Sophia’s hand and sighed at the bandaged scrape on Rosa’s forehead. He then remembered how close a call they all had and knew that they had been extremely lucky to survive.
The girls climbed up beside him on the bed and Pierce embraced them.
“My angels,” he said, and wept tears of joy.
***
Pierce had fallen asleep again, but awoke to find Jimmy and Jake sitting in visitor chairs and watching a ball game on the TV suspended in a corner of the ceiling.
When he grabbed the control and muted the sound, his friends turned their heads and smiled at him.
“You had one close call, brother,” Jimmy said, and Pierce noticed that his left hand was heavily bandaged.
“What happened to you, the fire?”
“I tried to follow you, but I couldn’t get past that fallen tree. I gotta tell you, Rick, I thought you had all died.”
“If not for that well, we would have. How deep was it?”
“About eighteen feet, thank God the water level in the Barrens is easy to reach. Some wells are hundreds of feet deep.”
Jake showed Pierce his phone and he saw that it displayed a mugshot of Amy Lowe.
“Was she arrested for kidnapping?” Pierce asked.
“No, the DA thinks the charge will be tough to prove, so she’s being charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor and child molestation.”
“You can’t be serious, Jake. Even if she’s found guilty she won’t get much time for that.”
“Matt is of the age of consent now, but Amy Lowe definitely had sex with Matt when he was still fifteen and underage. That little bastard took pictures of her lying naked in bed when she was asleep. The photos are dated weeks before his sixteenth birthday.”
“Is there any proof that Amy and Owens were partners?”
“Dave Owens is being blamed for the kidnapping. I thought Amy Lowe looked genuinely shocked when told that Dave Owens had the girls. If you ask me, Owens stumbled on the kidnapping plot and made it his own.”
“It could be, but it was Amy who told us where to find them.”
“Actually, she just pointed at the window, didn’t she?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah, but we all knew what she meant.”
“Think about it, brother,” Jimmy said. “A smart lawyer will have a jury believing she’s innocent.”
“What about her car and her home? She must have left evidence somewhere.”
“The car was spotless and the cabin burned to the ground,” Jake said. “There is a letter that Matt handed over. Amy Lowe’s prints aren’t on it and it didn’t come from her computer.”
Pierce sighed.
“How is Christy doing?”
“She’s shocked by all of this, and she feels terrible too. The girls were taken on her watch.”
“I’ll talk to her when I get out of here. None of this was her fault; Matt used her.”
“I want to strangle that prick,” Jake said through gritted teeth. “Christy isn’t my flesh and blood but that girl is my daughter and he hurt her. He’d better stay clear of me.”
“Of all of us,” Jimmy said. “Rick and I watched that girl grow up too. I had to force myself not to hit him.”
“Jake,” Pierce said. “Has anyone called Cynthia and her mother?”
“Stacey did, and Cynthia told her to tell you how sorry she was for what her father did to your family.”
“It wasn’t her fault, but how is Cynthia taking her father’s death?”
“I think she’s relieved. She told me that his death meant that he could no longer hurt anyone. And oh, Owens jail break buddies were both recaptured. One of them was sold out for a reward by his own cousin. The other one was grabbed along with a girlfriend in the Bahamas. They had phony ID’s and passports, but the guy was recognized by a civilian who contacted the local police.”
Pierce pounded a fist into the mattress.
“I can’t believe that Amy will just walk on this.”
***
Jake received a call and had to investigate a suspicious death. Jimmy stayed with Pierce and kept him company.
“I don’t need an answer right now, but have you given my offer any
more thought, Rick?”
“I have, but I have a question, will I really work less hours than I do now?”
“You can. You’ll make more per case and it’s up to you how many hours you’ll put in. There’s paperwork involved just like on the job, but I do mine after my son goes to sleep. That way, I can spend more time with Josh.”
Pierce extended a hand and Jimmy reached over and shook it.
“You have yourself a partner. Anything that gives me more time with my family is a good thing.”
“What are you going to name your son? Jimmy is a good name.”
Pierce laughed.
“Jimmy is a great name and James will be his middle name. We’re thinking of naming him after my grandfather, Benjamin James Pierce.”
Jimmy grinned.
“Benny, or even better, BJ, I like it.”
The smile left Jimmy’s face and he leaned over and patted Pierce’s arm.
“You and the girls had a close one today, thank God you survived.”
“I still can’t get over the fact that Amy Lowe was involved in this. I thought she was firmly in my past.”
“You two have some weird karmic thing going on, but I’d be willing to bet she stays out of your life from now on.”
Jimmy stood.
“Get better, Rick, and Ginny and I will drop by when you get home and settled.”
“You do that, and Jimmy, thanks for everything. If you hadn’t found Matt when you did, today could have ended in tragedy.”
Jimmy was at the door, but he turned and gave Pierce a wink.
“Anytime, partner. Ricardo Pierce P.I., it has a ring to it.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” Pierce said.
CHAPTER 32
Coke Dyer had placed Pierce on medical leave and by the time his leg healed Pierce would be eligible to retire.
Pierce didn’t feel he needed the time to recover as much as he wanted to spend every moment with his family. Sophia and Rosa had been through a harrowing ordeal and Pierce and Val wanted to assure them that they were safe.
Other than a few nightmares suffered by Sophia, the girls bounced back within days and were bugging Val about their baby brother’s due date.
Angels (A Detective Pierce Novel Book 3) Page 14
