Tripp

by Irish Winters

  “How many floors up?” Jameson asked at his side.

  “Four. Keep up.”

  “All the way,” was the last thing Tripp heard, as he cleared the first and second floor landings. At the third, he damned near pulled his arm out of its socket when he attempted to jerk the door open. The son of a bitch was locked! How could that be? Mrs. Harrison had just come through this door and down those stairs. Suspicion climbed up Tripp’s spine. He was missing something.

  “Stand back,” Jameson ordered, his weapon, a damned sweet .44 Magnum, already in his hand. Holding Tripp back with his other arm, Jameson ran his fingers over the door. As soon as he located the keyhole beneath the stainless-steel handle, he fired once.

  BOOM!

  Tripp didn’t have time to be amazed at the fuckin’ loud noise that weapon made or this blind man’s crazy ninja skills. He ran to Ashley’s place at the opposite end of the hall, his ears ringing and Jameson on his ass. The second Tripp hit her wide-open door, he knew he’d been had. He glared at the elevator, walked over to the damn thing and punched the down arrow on the exterior control panel.

  “The son of a bitch works! It was never out of order. He was here!”

  Jameson still stood at Ashley’s doorway, his pistol near his cheek, pointed up. “Let’s make sure she’s not home. I’m going in. You should, too.”

  “Make it quick,” Tripp snapped, his pistol in his right hand, regret a sucker punch to his gut. He’d left Ashley alone. With a bird! He should’ve left one of his pistols. Why’d he need two?

  Tripp hit the emergency stop button inside the elevator car, then made a hurried, cursory run through Ashley’s place. With every step, angst choked the shit out of him. That there’d been a struggle was apparent. The careful array of items on her antique desk was scattered. The killer must’ve picked her deadbolt; Ashley was smart and paranoid. She would’ve checked her peephole if he’d knocked. The aroma of something cooking filled the air. She must’ve been in the kitchen when he’d surprised her. Poor Peewee looked like a fluffball of powdery, spiked feathers. His blanket and a shitload of down laced the floor in a wide circle around his cage.

  Tripp took a minute to calm her pet as much as he could, “Settle down, big guy. I’ll find her, I promise.”

  But Peewee wasn’t buying that line any more than Tripp did, and he was nowhere near calm enough to fool himself, much less the bird. With one last nod at her upset baby, Tripp stalked to her door, needing to run. But when he saw the bloody smear on the inside of the doorjamb, he lost it. “Gawddamnit! He’s got her!”

  A hard hand landed on his shoulder. “Then let’s end this motherfucker,” Jameson growled at his six. “Going down?”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  A second later, Tripp was inside the car, his foot tapping, his blood running hot with the need to get to Ashley before this bastard hurt her again. “He locked the fire doors, took her down in the elevator, then set the maintenance sign out to throw us off the trail.” And it worked like a fuckin’ charm! That son of a bitch! “Come on, Tenney. Move it!”

  But Jameson had paused. He cocked his head like the steady, thoughtful man he was. “No. Wait. He thinks he’s smarter than us.”

  “And he very well might be! Get in! Jesus, move your ass!”

  “First tell me what you see.”

  Tripp was half out of his mind with worry. “I see an asshole holding me up! Get in or I’m leaving without you!”

  “Blood, Tripp. Is there any blood inside the car? On the inside of the door. On the walls? Anywhere? Droplets? Spatter? Spray?”

  “Blood? Here?” Oh, yeah. Tripp’s brain flashed back online. He took a deep breath and stifled his panic, then scanned the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Everything. He hit the emergency close-door button, looking closer. No more mistakes. Ashley needed him to be smart. He swallowed past the hard knot in his throat and reopened the doors. “You’re right. Not a drop of blood in her.”

  Jameson stood with his arms braced on each side of the elevator, his head cocked to the side. If Tripp hadn’t known better, he’d swear Jameson could see something no one else could see. “That woman downstairs, do you know where she lives?” he asked quietly.

  Tripp stuck his chin toward the other end of the hall. “Mrs. Harrison, sure. Across the hall from me. My door’s the far one on your left.”

  “Think,” Jameson whispered. “This guy just gave APD a shitload of evidence in that body bag. But he’s smart. He knows it’ll take months to sift through and analyze the mess he left behind. It’ll be a good year before we get DNA matches to anyone in the system, if we get results at all. If our guy’s even in IAFIS. He knows that. He’s taunting us.”

  IAFIS stood for the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System that fell under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Right in Director Chase’s backyard.

  Tripp swallowed hard. “Get to the gawddamned point.”

  Jameson nodded down the hall, that monster weapon of his pointing the way. “He’s still here,” he whispered. Then in a louder voice, he declared, “Call it in, McClane! No one’s here. He got away again.”

  Tripp played along. “Shit, damn, and son of a bitch! Why’s this asshole always one step ahead of us?”

  “I’m beginning to think he’s smarter than the rest of us.”

  “I’ll kill him if he hurts her!” Tripp poured all his rage into that very real threat. “Gawddamn him. He’s dead. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Jameson pressed his index finger to his lips, then crept stealthily toward Tripp’s place. “Check the apartment across from Ashley’s,” he whispered. “Let’s cover all bases.”

  “You think she’s in my place?” That made no sense.

  “I think she’s still on this floor.”

  Okay then. Tripp shut down his need for revenge and followed Jameson’s calm lead. He didn’t know who lived across the hall from Ashley. Had never cared. He did now. He leaned his ear against that door, praying for some sign that she was still alive. A whimper. A thud. Any damned thing!

  Nothing. He swallowed hard, his hand to the doorknob as all those gruesome crime scene photos flashed through his mind. Bowing his head, he finally realized how much he stood to lose, that he might never see Ashley alive again. That he might’ve already lost her.

  ‘Not Ashley,’ he prayed silently. ‘God, I... I love her. I do. If you’re as good as my mom believes you are, then save Ashley!’

  With one hard kick, Tripp was inside what turned out to be an empty apartment. He made a clean sweep through the wide-open floor plan. Found nothing.

  Back in the hall, Jameson crouched at Mrs. Harrison’s door, his ear flat against the wood. He’d just beckoned Tripp forward when another hand landed on Tripp’s shoulder. Alex wax there. Tucker Chase, Eden, Ky, Isaiah, and Tate stood behind him.

  “Damned elevator’s out,” Tuck groused.

  “Quiet!” Tripp hissed. “Fucker’s still here. He just wanted us to think it was out.”

  Eden whispered, “Any reason why Ashley’s in your spare bedroom closet?”

  Tripp’s heart stuttered. “Thank fuck!” he hissed, at last believing in psychics. “You can’t read the killer, but you can read Ashley? Is she okay?”

  He and Jameson stepped away from Mrs. Harrison’s door.

  “Yes, she’s bleeding, but she’s pissed off, too. She’s got a club, Tripp, and right now, she fully believes she’s going to die. That she’s got nothing to lose. He hurt her, but she hurt him first. She’s thinking of beating him to death the first chance she gets.”

  Tripp did a neck-snapping double-take. “My Ashley?” My timid, little Ashley? Yeah, okay, so he’d just outed himself, and he’d seen Alex’s sharp eyes widen when he did. But who cared? Not Tripp. He had a woman to save.

  “Yes, your Ashley,” Eden piped up evenly. “We have to do this carefully. We still can’t read him. We don’t know what he’s doing r
ight now. What if he’s prepared to die? What if he has a bomb in there or a boobytrap?”

  Tripp hadn’t thought of those scenarios.

  “He doesn’t,” Jameson answered. “This man’s in over his head this time, and he knows it. Last night’s murder was a panic kill. He had a plan, and Tommy McMurray got in his way. Our guy over-reacted and lashed out when he should’ve taken a step back and rethought his strategy. If he thinks he’s cornered now, then this is his finale. His swan song. He won’t be taken alive.”

  Tripp didn’t like the sound of that. “You think he’d blow himself and Ashley up?”

  Eden shook her head very deliberately, side to side. “No, Tripp. From what I’m sensing in Ashley’s mind, this guy wants you to suffer first.”

  “Why? I don’t know him.”

  “Then why’s he in your place?” Tucker asked.

  “How the hell would I know?” Tripp looked to Eden for that answer.

  “That I don’t know, but Ashley’s afraid what he might do to you and your mother. That’s why she’s going to confront him.”

  “He wants you to watch while he hurts Ashley,” Jameson added. “That’s where he gets his power. He believes hurting women makes him a man. He believes he’s still in charge, that he’s all powerful.”

  “Which he sure has been,” Tucker groused.

  “Until now,” Alex said. He’d been uncharacteristically quiet.

  Tripp turned to his boss, a USMC scout sniper of legendary skill. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Elite teams who’d worked together for too many operations were oftentimes linked with an uncanny sixth sense that put them on the same wave-length and made words unnecessary. Only Tripp hadn’t worked closely with this legend yet.

  But Alex had picked up on Tripp’s intention. His cell phone was already in his hand. “You or me? Your call.”

  “You. I’ll give you fifteen to get over there and set up.” Because I need to be the first one in. I need to save my girl!

  “Only need seven.”

  Tripp dug his earbud and cell phone out of an inside jacket pocket. “Then seven it is,” he said as he set the timer on his cell and tucked his earphone in his ear. “Sync in three, two—”

  “Done.” Alex returned his cell to his jacket pocket and placed an earbud inside his ear.

  “Stay frosty, Boss,” Tripp told Alex. And please be as good as everyone says you are.

  Again, with the stoic head nod. Alex left the way he’d come. Like a deadly, quiet ghost.

  Tripp huffed a hard breath through his nose, his composure rattled. This was it, then. Ashley’s life was on the line. Stepping up to his door, he inserted his key, not assuming anything and needing to make sure it worked. Nothing happened. Tripp tried again, pushing into the door, as if more weight would do the trick. “Shit. Something’s blocking my door.”

  Damned if the only blind man on the floor didn’t step forward and ask, “What do you need?”

  “You got any C-4 breach charges on you?”

  Jameson’s head kicked back. “You sure think I work miracles, don’t you?” he asked quietly.

  Tripp gave it to him straight. “Fuck yeah, brother. I know damned well you do.” He fluttered his fingers. “Just need one. Hand it over.”

  The grin that cracked Jameson’s face was priceless. More so when he tugged what looked like a small black container out of an inner jacket pocket and produced a neat cube of the off-white plastic explosive. “I’ve got blasting caps and det cord, too,” he murmured as he produced the rest of what Tripp needed from different pockets. In seconds, the lock to his door was packed with the right amount of C-4, wired, and ready to detonate. The way forward wouldn’t be blocked long.

  “Move your ass, Alex,” he whispered.

  Of everyone in that crowded hallway, Tripp didn’t expect the confidence builder that came from Tucker Chase. “He won’t let you down, Agent McClane. Stewart’s a fuckin’ rock.”

  Tripp’s head snapped to the big guy’s jet-black eyes. “Step back,” he ordered. None of them had once asked what he and Alex were up to. Not that Tripp would’ve explained. Guess they really were psychic. He fingered the scrap of silky underwear in his pocket. Alex had one damned minute to get his ass in position.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Ashley didn’t know how much longer she should wait to attack again, or if she needed to. The jerk who’d kidnapped her was quiet. Too quiet. She wasn’t sure where he was, if he was even in Tripp’s apartment anymore. She’d hurt him. She knew she had. Maybe not enough to stop him. He’d thought he could just order her to crawl, and she’d fall apart like the weakling she’d been before? Guess again.

  She’d fought back. Hard! Yes, she’d crawled, but once he’d slammed Tripp’s door behind her, he’d kicked her ass. That sent her sprawling face first into the carpet, right on top of her club. Thinking fast, she’d rolled to one side and…

  WHAM! Up came the sawed-off end of that perch. She punched it straight into the jerk’s face, hit his nose, and dropped him to his knees. She knew now she should’ve beaten the shit out of him once she’d knocked him down. But adrenaline had gotten the best of her, darn it. Like a scared ninny, Ashley had jumped to her feet and run into Tripp’s guest bedroom, instead of back out into the hall and down the fire stairs. Her killer hadn’t followed her yet, but he would. Why else had he moved her out of her place?

  To trick Tripp, that was why. He wouldn’t think to look for her here. She knew how he operated. Tripp was emotional and reactive. He’d be frantic to save her. His mind might be firing on all eight cylinders, but his heart would be driving every last one of his decisions.

  Ashley worried for Tripp’s mother, for Mrs. Harrison, too. Had this guy already hurt them? Was that why Mrs. Harrison was so quiet? The racket Peewee made had drowned out her screams for help. There was no one coming this time, and she knew it. Tripp was out doing his job. Unless she was injured, Mrs. Harrison was too elderly to be any help. She couldn’t fight a flea anyway. That left everything up to Ashley. If she wanted to live, she’d have to fight for the right.

  Her lip and nose were bleeding, and her scalp stung where the creep had jerked patches of her hair out. But nothing was broken. When she’d resisted being dragged up the hall, she’d felt the arsenal of sharp shapes and edges inside this creep’s trench coat. They had to be weapons or tools of his diabolical trade, which was why she hadn’t dropped her club. No way. She didn’t understand why he’d let her keep it. Maybe he’d thought he could easily take it away from her? Use it on her?

  His craziness panicked Ashley. Fudge, she was trembling so hard, she could barely breathe. If she wanted to attack first, she’d soon have to give up the safety of this closet and move into the open. To effectively fight back, she needed more space to swing her club. Tripp’s closet was so full of boxes and guy stuff, there was barely room to hide. The man sure had a lot of exercise and weight-lifting equipment. Plus, that monkey-bar thing in his spare room, fastened to two walls and running over the ceiling between them. What was he, a big kid with a secret playground in his apartment?

  Her pulse pounded like a thousand hammers through her veins. Noisy hammers that made it hard to think. Harder to hear what her killer was doing out there in Tripp’s living room or kitchen. If he was still there. She’d have to choose her defensive position carefully. Let him come to her. Let him stumble over those barbells and weight sets, those big round things with handles that lay between her and the door.

  The jerk had a bloody nose now. What was he up to, treating his wound? Aww, poor creepy asshole baby! Ashley took a perverse twinge of satisfaction in that possibility. She refused to be assaulted without fighting back this time. She had to do something, now, while he thought she was scared and he was safe. Before he came at her with that knife. She had to act!

  As quietly as possible, nearly without breathing, she cracked the louvered closet door open and stepped into the cluttered guest bedr
oom. It was now or never. Whispering Tripp’s second rule and her new mantra, “Never give up. Never give up. Never,” Ashley knotted both hands in a death grip around Peewee’s perch.

  It would’ve helped if she’d sounded more like Tripp and less like herself. Because here in his apartment, she would make her last stand. Here, she would fight to the bitter end to live and to save Tripp’s mom. Or die trying.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  It was now afternoon on a godawful Tuesday. Tripp had never worked any ops with Alex Stewart, but he’d heard the office gossip. The man was a fuckin’ god who’d started The TEAM from scratch after he’d left the Corps on a hardship discharge years ago. That must’ve been when he’d lost the child Ashley told him about. Made terrible, tragic sense.

  The time left for Alex to be where he needed to be? Ten damned seconds. Then five. Everyone stepped back from the door. Swallowing hard at all the ways this could go wrong, Tripp counted down, “Three, two—”

  The breach charge detonated without making much more noise than a husky, PFFF-Whump!

  Tripp kicked his door in, both pistols up and ready, and there… across the room, standing in the breeze-blown sheers at his shattered picture window was—APD’s photographer?! He was the killer? Worse, the bastard had one arm cocked around Ashley’s neck and a twelve-inch knife in his other. He had that blade stuck under her chin. Why was she just in her bra and panties?

  “You!” Tripp spat, aware that Jameson, Tucker, Eden, Ky, Isaiah, and Tate had crowded into the room behind him. That everyone could see every last piece of Ashley.

  “Yeah, me!” the guy crowed through swollen, bloody lips. “How dumb are you, soldier boy? Three bitches? Most guys can’t handle fuckin’ one!”

  Tripp had no idea why he’d said three. Didn’t matter. I’ll kill him. “What have you done to her?”

  “Nothing but punch me and drag me,” Ashley answered hoarsely, her plump breasts crushed under his arm and her nipples on display. “I hit him, Tripp. I fought back, but then I… I lost my bat.” She must’ve meant that hefty branch on the floor.