He had to get her attention, find out what was happening. Darting from tree to tree, he closed in on the clearing. He could see the cabin’s window, so he had to assume that anybody looking out that window might catch sight of him. He pressed against an oak tree, standing sideways to reduce his visibility, and sneaked a look every few seconds. The van had the Mountainview Animal Hospital name, barely visible through a layer of dirt, on the driver’s door.
What was Rachel doing in the van? Why was she out here, and why was Jim Sullivan with her?
He heard the slap and rustle of her feet hitting dead leaves. Daring exposure, he poked his head out from behind the tree. Rachel struggled to hold onto a cardboard box with one arm while she closed the van’s door.
Tom gave a short, sharp whistle, the whistle he always used to call Billy Bob.
Rachel spun around, scanned the woods, locked eyes with Tom. Her mouth opened, but she made no sound. For a moment she seemed frozen in place. Then she shook her head, a clear warning.
Clutching the box against her chest, she turned and ran back to the cabin. When the door closed behind her, Tom felt as if she’d dropped into an abyss and he was helpless to catch her.
***
Rachel wanted to torture Leo, make him scream, make him beg for mercy, but the rage inside her didn’t direct the movements of her hands. Using forceps she’d retrieved from the van, she picked gunshot pellets out of the gaping wound with the same care she would bring to any procedure. Her gentleness hardly mattered. Without anesthetic, this had to hurt like hell.
Leo’s teeth chattered as he tried to grit them against the pain. Jim Sullivan dabbed the wound with gauze again and again, soaking up the blood so Rachel could see what she was doing. In the corner, the dog growled, a constant menacing background noise.
Rachel was aware of Sullivan glancing repeatedly at the animal, and when she looked up what she saw on his face made her go cold inside. Sullivan might be fearless in handling other aggressive dogs, but he was terrified of this one.
Tom was outside. He wouldn’t be alone. Other deputies must be out there in the woods around the cabin. They might think they could burst in and overpower Leo, but they couldn’t know the dog was in here, ready to attack on Leo’s command.
She pressed the forceps into the muscle to get at a deeply imbedded pellet. Leo cried out.
The dog jumped to his feet and snarled.
“Sorry,” Rachel said, her eyes on the dog. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. That one was hard to get at.”
She waited while he relaxed a little and his breathing returned to a rapid but normal rhythm. The dog, too, relaxed and settled down. Rachel went back to work.
After a couple of minutes, she dared to ask, “Where are Marcy and David? Are they here somewhere?”
“None of your damned business,” Leo choked out. “Keep workin’.”
“I just want to know they’re okay.”
Leo pushed himself up with one arm and leveled the gun at her. “Shut up and keep workin’.”
***
Where the hell were the other guys? What was taking them so long to find him? Tom checked the sky to orient himself, then spoke quietly into his two-way radio. “The camp is on the southeast slope. Repeat, move southeast. I need backup.”
One voice answered, “Roger, Captain.” Brandon.
He couldn’t just stand here behind a tree and wait. He needed to know what was happening in that cabin. Moving sideways, tree to tree, he worked his way into a spot that wouldn’t be visible from the cabin’s single front window. He broke away from his tree cover and sprinted to the side of the cabin. Dropping down, he duck-walked around to the front. He crouched directly under the window and listened for voices from inside.
***
“We have to use clamps,” Sullivan told Rachel, keeping his voice low. But he was watching the dog. The animal moved about restlessly in its corner, as if waiting for Leo’s command to release him from an invisible cage. “We can’t close this with sutures.”
“Stop whisperin’,” Leo said. “I know you’re plottin’ against me. You can just forget about your little plans. You cross me and you’ll end up like Hall and Rasey.”
“We’re just trying to decide how to close the wound,” Rachel said. “It’s going to hurt, no matter what we do.”
“Just get on with it!” he bellowed.
The dog snarled and took a couple of steps toward them.
“Please don’t shout,” Rachel pleaded. “Try to stay quiet.” You’re upsetting your dog, she almost said, and she had a wild urge to laugh at the innocuous sound of it.
“Stop yappin’ and do your goddamn job!” Leo pointed his pistol at the ceiling and fired.
Rachel cried out and stumbled backward into Sullivan.
The door banged open and Tom charged in.
The dog lunged. It slammed into Tom’s side and knocked him to the floor. His gun flew out of his hands.
“Leo, stop the dog!” Rachel screamed. “Call him off!”
Leo’s answer was a cackling laugh.
Tom rolled on the floor, the dog on top of him and tearing at his jacket.
Rachel threw herself at the animal, gripped its ears and pulled. The dog ignored her and ripped a sleeve off Tom’s jacket.
Where was Tom’s gun? Rachel searched frantically. There, on the floor against the wall. She dove for it.
“Good boy,” Leo called to the dog. “Good boy.”
Rachel focused on Tom’s gun and was barely aware of Sullivan struggling with Leo. She heard Leo cry out in pain. The blast of another gunshot filled the room.
“Rachel!” Tom cried. He’d pulled his body into a tight knot, one arm over his head. The other reached toward Rachel.
She scrambled toward him on her knees, the gun in one hand. Could she shoot the dog? Could she do it without hitting Tom?
“Give it to me,” Tom yelled. “Rachel, give me the gun!”
She pressed it into his hand.
The dog sank its teeth into Tom’s other arm. Tom raised the pistol and shot the animal between the eyes.
The next few seconds passed in a blur of movement. The dog dropped to the floor. Tom rolled onto his knees and pushed himself to his feet. All Rachel saw as she jumped up was Tom’s torn and bleeding arm.
Tom turned the gun on Leo. Only then did Rachel realize Leo could have shot them both, still might shoot them—if he had his gun. But the pistol was in Jim Sullivan’s hand now, and he held it out to Tom.
Leo moaned. He lay on the cot, a hand to his shoulder, blood from a fresh wound seeping through his fingers.
“Jim,” Rachel said, “did you—”
“It was him or me,” Sullivan said. His face had drained of color and he looked stunned, unbelieving. “Him or me.”
“You did good,” Tom gasped.
“Tom, you need a doctor,” Rachel said. “You have to get to the hospital. But we need to find Marcy and David—”
“Marcy and David? What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t the dispatcher—She must not have—Leo took Marcy and David, he brought them up here, at least we thought he did.”
“They’ve got to be here somewhere,” Sullivan said. He rubbed at his eyes as if trying to wake himself from a daze.
In three strides, Tom crossed the room to Leo. “Where are those kids?”
Leo laughed, a ragged noise filled with contempt and anger and pain.
Tom brought a knee down on Leo’s open wound. Leo screamed. “Answer me, you goddamned piece of shit. Where are they?”
“Out back—dog shed—Get off me, get off me!”
Rachel raced out the door. Deputies were running out of the woods from every direction. “Help Tom!” she yelled, but she didn’t slow down.
The sheet metal shed stood at the edge of the clearing. Rachel wrenched open the door and saw only darkness inside. She heard the rustle of animals moving about. “Marcy! It’s Dr. Goddard. Are you in there?”
A
muffled cry answered her.
Suddenly Brandon was beside Rachel, switching on a flashlight. “Hold on, let’s check it out before we go in.”
When Brandon shone the light into the shed, Rachel leaned forward along with him to see what they were facing. Cages lined the walls. A few were empty. Pit bulls stared back from others.
The muffled cry came again, and another joined it.
Rachel and Brandon rushed inside and fell to their knees in front of two cages that held Marcy and David. Bound and gagged, scared out of their wits, but alive.
***
The Blackwood twins entered the cabin with weapons drawn.
“Everything’s under control.” Tom tried to ignore the searing pain in his arm, the blood flowing from his wounds. “Get this son of a bitch on his feet.”
Leo moaned and swore as Kevin and Keith hauled him upright.
“You’re under arrest for the murders of Gordon Hall and—”
“He deserved it!” Leo yelled. “That son of a bitch killed my sister so he could get her kids for his wife.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Tom said.
Leo looked up at Tom with fevered eyes. “The great Dr. Hall murdered my sister, right there in his damned hospital.”
“Yeah, sure, Leo. So you sold the kids to him, then waited nine years to kill him?”
Leo gave his hideous laugh again. “You think you’re so damned smart. You don’t know the half of it yet. You don’t know who paid me to get rid of Hall.”
Chapter Forty-one
The sound of Tom’s footsteps on the tile floor echoed in his ears, loud and intrusive, as he walked down the hushed corridor of the intensive care unit. His wounded left arm throbbed in time to his footfalls. In the glass-walled rooms he passed, patients lay quietly dying or struggling to hang onto life, with tubes measuring out nourishment and pain relief and monitors tracking every faltering heartbeat. At the far end of the corridor Vicky Hall was fighting her own battle.
Tom felt as if he’d come to deliver the final blow for Vicky. He was about to destroy what was left of her family.
He found Beth Hall sitting on the floor outside Vicky’s room, her back against the wall. For one white-hot moment Tom wanted to drag the girl to her feet and shake the breath out of her. He wanted to make her answer for her stupidity. Do you have any idea what happened to Marcy and David today? Would she give a damn?
The moment passed. Marcy and David were safe in temporary foster care while the sheriff himself pulled strings to get their real grandparents declared their guardians. Leo Riggs had died on the operating table and Rayanne was being held on suspicion of drugging Vicky. Beth turned out to be relatively blameless in this mess, and she had a hard enough time ahead, with a lot of fast growing up to do. Tom didn’t need the satisfaction of ripping into her. Instead, he asked, “How’s your mother doing?”
Beth looked up at him with tear-reddened eyes. “She’s a little better now, but she’s in really bad shape.”
Tom looked through the glass at the frail figure lying in bed with an IV tube in one arm and a cannula delivering oxygen through her nose. At the foot of the bed stood Ethan, unshaven and rumpled, his shoulders slumped with exhaustion.
“Soo Jin!” Beth exclaimed. She scrambled to her feet.
Tom turned to see Soo Jin coming down the hall in a wheelchair pushed by a young blond nurse. An IV bag hung from a stand attached to the chair.
“She wants to see her mother,” the nurse said when they reached Tom and Beth. “The doctor okayed it. But not for long. She needs to get back in bed.”
Beth dropped to her knees beside the wheelchair and grasped one of Soo Jin’s hands. “I’m so glad you’re all right, I thought you were going to die too.” Fresh tears spilled down Beth’s cheeks. “I’m sorry I was so nasty to you. Please don’t leave me alone. Please.”
Soo Jin laid her free hand on the girl’s head. The IV tube trailed from the back of her hand. “You’re not alone, Beth. Let’s go in and see Mother.”
“Just two at a time,” the young nurse said.
“I’ve got business with Ethan,” Tom said. “He’ll be leaving.”
“Leaving?” Beth said. She pushed herself to her feet. “Why?”
“I’ll explain later.” Tom tapped lightly on the glass. When Ethan’s eyes met Tom’s his face went slack as realization flooded in. He’d probably heard that Leo Riggs had been arrested, that he was here in the hospital undergoing surgery. Ethan knew what was coming. He’d simply been waiting for Tom to uncover the truth.
Tom motioned for him to come out. Ethan went to his mother and kissed her forehead. He looked down at his mother for one long, last moment before he walked out of the room to face Tom. He didn’t seem surprised to see Soo Jin in the hall in her wheelchair.
Beth cocked her head. “What’s going on?”
“Go in with Mom,” Ethan said.
“But—”
“Beth,” Soo Jin said, taking the girl’s hand, “come with me.”
For a second Soo Jin’s eyes met Tom’s, and he realized that somehow she understood what was happening.
Tom held the door open for them. Doubtful and reluctant, still looking back at Tom and Ethan, Beth followed her sister into their mother’s room.
Tom watched panic building in Ethan as he clenched and unclenched his fists and his gaze darted around without lighting anywhere.
“Come on,” Tom said, gripping Ethan’s arm. “It’s time to go.”
***
At headquarters, Tom sat across the conference room table and waited while Ethan laid his head on his folded arms and sobbed. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he moaned.
A tape recorder lay on the table between them, but Tom hadn’t turned it on yet. Ethan had been pouring out his misery in tears for almost twenty minutes. Watching him, Tom wondered how this kid—in almost every way except age, he was still just a kid—could possibly survive in prison.
When Ethan’s sobs subsided to faint gasps and he raised his head, Tom switched on the recorder and recited the date and his and Ethan’s names. “Why did you do it, Ethan?” he asked. “How did you ever get hooked up with Leo, and why would you hire him to do something like that to your father?”
“I didn’t know he was going to use a dog. I didn’t know it was going to be…” His voice trailed off and he hung his head.
“So killing your father with a gun or a knife would have been okay?” Tom asked. “Your only regret is the murder method Leo used?”
Ethan buried his face in his hands.
“You’ve cried enough.” Tom reached across the table and tore Ethan’s hands away from his face. “It’s time for you to own up to what you’ve done. Tell me why you wanted your father dead.”
“You don’t understand what it was like.”
“Okay, tell me what it was like. Tell me your story.”
“Nothing I ever did was good enough for him,” Ethan choked out.
Jesus Christ, Tom thought. Had Ethan ever made it past the emotional age of ten? “So you hated him.”
“No!” Ethan cried. “I loved him. He was my dad. But my whole life, he made me feel like I was never going to measure up. All of us, we were…” He searched for a word. “We were just projects to him, like the hospital was. He was proud of Soo Jin, as if she was something he created. And Marcy and David, he liked the thought of rescuing them and making them into something better, so he could get the credit. I think Mom wanted them because she thought they were cute. Like pets. Beth and me, we didn’t mean much to them either. And Soo was the only one who turned out the way they wanted.”
Tom’s mother had seen past the facade of the Hall family, and Rachel had picked up on the truth in just a few brief encounters with the Halls. Part of the truth, anyway. A lot more might remain to be uncovered. “Leo claims your father killed Marcy and David’s real mother so he could get the kids for your mother,” Tom said. “Do you think that’s true?”
Ethan
shook his head. “I don’t know. But I can tell you, it wouldn’t surprise me. He thought there were some people who didn’t deserve to be helped. He thought drug addicts ought to be allowed to kill themselves with overdoses, nobody should try to help them get clean. He called them garbage. He said the world would be better off if we got rid of the garbage.”
“How did you get involved with Leo?” Tom asked.
“He came after me,” Ethan said. “He sought me out. And he played me, he made me feel like he was the only one who understood what I was going through. He really got off on getting me to do things behind Dad’s back, things Dad would’ve hated. He gave me drugs, he paid me to sell drugs at school.”
Tom interrupted. “You’re saying Leo’s been dealing drugs since you were in high school?”
Ethan nodded. “He was working for the Shacklefords. Then when you arrested them back in January, he just took over and kept the business going.”
All this time, Tom thought, and I didn’t have a damned clue. Some sheriff material I am. “Are you still part of it?”
“Yeah. I’ve been a courier ever since I moved to Florida. And Dad found out. It was my own stupidity—It was almost like I wanted him to find out, you know? I didn’t, not consciously, but I brought stuff into the house the last time I visited, it’s like I set myself up to get caught.”
“You told him you were working for Leo?” Tom asked.
“Yeah.” Ethan sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “He said he’d rather see me in prison than know I was living that way.”
“But he didn’t turn you in,” Tom pointed out. “You or Leo.”
“He was trying to decide how to handle it. He went to see Leo, he cut off the money—he’d been giving Leo money regularly. Dad didn’t know he had money coming in from dealing, and he thought Leo needed help to keep the garage going. When he found out about the drugs, he cut off the money supply and said he was going to make Leo pay for what he was doing.”
It was all clear to Tom now, the whole pathetic mess. Hall had no idea how much danger he’d put himself in by voicing his threat. The man’s massive ego probably made him feel invulnerable. He thought he could continue with his life while he kept his son and a lunatic like Leo waiting to learn whether he was going to expose them.
Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Page 29
