Pursuing her earlier thought, though, she said, “Poor Daniel doesn’t get to ride, either. Even if he had time, he’d feel bad abandoning me.” He did still have to feed his animals and check on them, but probably astonished them with his haste.
“The horses don’t look like they’re in mourning.” Melinda was right in front of the kitchen window, where she could see the pasture.
“I know that’s true.” Lindsay kicked off her flip-flops and tried on the boots. They were amazingly comfortable, thank goodness. She lifted a foot, admiring the glossy black boot. “I’ll look good when I do get paroled.”
Melinda laughed at her again and talked her out of making another batch of cookies.
THREE TENSE DAYS LATER, Lindsay was clinging to Melinda’s reminders of what she had to be thankful for as if it were a talisman holding magical properties. Face drawn, Daniel had less and less to say. She didn’t have anything to say, either. She kept wondering how long his cop friends would be willing to give up their days off for a woman they hadn’t even known before all this started. She kept wondering when the next body would be found…and who it would be.
Most often, she and Daniel made love before she got dressed again and began the assigned rounds he’d agreed to making routine. There was an increasing desperation to the way they clutched each other, a silent intensity to every touch.
Tonight, as she went downstairs in the dark, Lindsay was ruefully conscious of how well used her body felt and how relaxed. It and her brain had a real disconnect right now. Although she would never tell Daniel, she was growing to hate these dark hours on her own. At each window, she stood still, eyes burning with the need to see even the tiniest movement or anomaly through the slit of the blinds. That shape behind the fence was too big for a horse… But then she saw a foal bounce toward her, and after that, she recognized the larger bulk of what was probably his dam.
Tonight the moon was only a sliver from full, which helped. When it became a crescent, how would they see anything?
She moved to the next window and the next. Was that a car engine she heard? Quivering, she listened, but it wasn’t close by. People were out on the roads at night. It wasn’t really even that late.
An hour later, she’d circled the house again several times, sometimes seeing mirages that faded away when she looked hard enough. Once she saw what she first thought was a dog trotting across an open stretch of land before realizing it had to be a coyote. Were coyotes a threat to foals? She watched until it vanished from sight.
With a sigh, she wandered down the hall toward the open living space. The kitchen seemed…bright. Puzzled, her inner alarms flaring, she reminded herself there were lit numbers on the stove and microwave. Only none of those lights were orange.
Lindsay ran the last few steps, where the window framed a hot orange light. Fire.
“Daniel!” she screamed.
Chapter Fifteen
Daniel’s feet hit the floor before he was fully awake. He grabbed the pants he’d left draped on a chair and yanked them on, pulled on a Kevlar vest over his bare torso and shoved sockless feet into boots. Gun in his right hand, fumbling to close the Velcro strips on the vest, he ran for the stairs.
She waited for him at the bottom. “The house is on fire! I don’t know how it happened so fast. I looked out the kitchen window not that long ago, and now flames are climbing the wall. We can’t go out that way.”
“Have you called—”
“Yes.” Stress thinned her voice, but she held on to outward calm. “What can we do?”
“I’m going to arrest this excuse for a human being,” he snapped.
She wrung her hands. “What if he’s waiting?”
“I’m counting on it,” he said grimly.
“How…how will you get out?”
A shrill scream hurt his ear drums. Fire alarm, which meant that in seconds… With a hiss, sprinklers came on.
He had to shout with his mouth at Lindsay’s ear. “A window. Come with me.”
He hustled her to his office in the corner on the opposite side of the house from the kitchen. There, he slid the wood-framed window open and shoved out the screen. He was already wet and saw that her hair hung in dripping hanks.
“Do you have the gun?” he asked.
He couldn’t hear her answer, but she nodded and reached to retrieve it from the waistband at her lower back.
Holding her close, he put his mouth close to her ear. “Stay here unless it looks like the fire will trap you. Okay?”
“What if he gets in the house?”
“Shoot him.” Daniel’s hands tightened on her shoulders as he fought the need to stay with her. His best chance of catching this monster at last was to hunt him down outside.
He looked out, seeing nobody, before he planted a hand on the sill and vaulted out the window. A shrill neigh carried from the pasture, then another. What if the fire roared across the dry grass to surround his horses?
Daniel gritted his teeth.
Instinct had him trotting toward the back corner of his converted barn. The fire burned on the opposite side. It didn’t seem likely the arsonist would be standing on the front porch. Unless he had already fled?
Daniel rejected that thought. This killer was here for Lindsay. Why would he leave now when he had them on the run?
Yeah, and where was his car?
Daniel flattened himself against the rough board siding, gun held in a two-handed grip and took a quick look around the corner. Damn. He didn’t see anything but the horses cantering in panicked circles out in the pasture. The fire hadn’t reached there, thank God.
Moving fast, he crossed the distance to the other back corner. He flattened himself there before fear crawled up his spine. Had he just behaved predictably? Leaving Lindsay alone in a room with an open window?
He mumbled some of the worst words he knew as he ran back the way he’d come.
LINDSAY BACKED INTO the closet after Daniel was gone. She’d be hard to spot here. If someone—say, a vicious killer—looked into the room without entering, he wouldn’t see her.
The gun shook because her hands were trembling, but she held it ready to fire. She wished she could hear better, but the hiss of the sprinklers obscured any sound coming from outside. Would she even be able to hear sirens?
Please let help come fast, she begged silently.
Her vision kept blurring. She panted, blinking moisture from her eyes. When they opened, she saw a dark shape looming just outside the window. It might be Daniel…but if so, why wasn’t he saying anything? And if it wasn’t…
Just as the man started to climb in, awkwardly compared to Daniel’s exit, she made out a dark, smooth covering on his head. And something covered most of his face.
Thoughts darted through her head as she pressed back in the open closet. Had he seen her? Shoot him, Daniel had said. But Lindsay had never imagined shooting a human being, or even an animal, with the intent of killing.
Staying silent, the figure paused with a leg over the sill.
“Stop!” she yelled, without having planned it.
“There you are.”
At least, that’s what she thought he said.
She shifted the barrel of the small handgun slightly to the side and pulled the trigger. Bang! Glass splintered.
He kept coming, not believing she would actually shoot him. Because he knew her. Thought he knew her.
Oh God, oh God. Lindsay pointed the gun at him and fired.
When he yelled, she discovered she’d closed her eyes when she pulled the trigger. She opened them just in time to see him fall back out the window. More gunshots sounded almost instantly.
Freaked, she crept toward the window even knowing Daniel wouldn’t want her risking herself. But what if the killer had fired those shots and Daniel was down?
The first thing she saw
was the man running away with a lurching gait. One leg didn’t work right. Her shot might have hit his thigh.
She looked in the other direction and her breath caught. Daniel lay sprawled on the grass. Her heart stopped. But he wasn’t dead, she realized in a second. He held his gun extended in both hands, and as she watched he fired it. The running man jerked as if he’d been hit but kept going.
Lindsay scrambled out the window, tumbling painfully to her hands and knees, but jumped up immediately and racing to Daniel.
“You’re hurt!”
“Shoulder.” He rolled and climbed to his feet. “Hell. I’m not letting him get away.”
The moonlight let her see the blood spilling down his arm and over the Kevlar vest. Too much blood. Lindsay exclaimed, “You can’t go after him.”
“Watch me.” He took two strides before stopping. “What am I thinking? We can head him off. You can’t stay here alone.”
She took that to mean she should follow him. He ran for the front of the house, never even turning his head toward the fire that illuminated the night so weirdly. He was intent on the garage. Reaching it, he tapped in a code on a keypad she hadn’t even noticed was there and the door rose.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but he paid no more attention to those than he had the fire.
Within moments they were both in his truck. She thought the keys were surely in the house, but he took them from his pocket and started up the engine. He accelerated so fast her head snapped back.
“Can you see him?” he asked.
She searched the open ground. “No. But he could turn around once he knows we’re gone.”
“Why would he?”
“If he thinks you left me…” Because she was the target. She couldn’t forget that.
“He stopped to see what we were going to do. He knows you’re with me.” Daniel’s voice was gravel-rough. “He’ll have heard the sirens, too. He’s running.”
The truck swayed as they rocketed toward the road.
DANIEL FOUGHT FOR control as he pushed his pickup to an unsafe speed. His arm would hurt like hell later, but right now it was numb. He could feel the weakness in it, though, and damned if it wasn’t his right side. He couldn’t believe he’d let that scumsucker wound him. In his fear for Lindsay, he’d come around the corner of the house too fast, incautiously. His own shots had hit the bastard’s center mass, he’d swear they had, which must mean the killer wore a vest, too. Of course he did, Daniel thought in disgust. He’d planned for any eventuality before each murder, hadn’t he? If he got away this time—
Daniel savagely pulled himself back to the here and now. He’d be at the road in seconds and have to make a decision.
“I heard a car not that long ago,” Lindsay said suddenly.
He chanced a quick look at her to see that she gripped her seat belt in one hand, the armrest with the other. She sat so stiffly, her back didn’t touch the seat.
“Could you tell where?” he asked.
“I can’t be sure, but I think it was right.” She had to be terrified, but she hadn’t so much as whimpered.
“Smartest place for him to leave the car.”
He did brake, but they were still moving fast when he swerved onto the paved two-lane road. The pickup truck rocked and tires squealed as he laid down rubber. Pain finally stabbed his shoulder and upper arm, but it wasn’t so bad he couldn’t ignore it. As he accelerated again, he saw the flashing lights of an approaching fire truck in his rearview mirror.
Using his injured arm, he reached for his phone. Patted the pocket, then the one on the other side.
He mumbled a profanity. “Lost my phone.” And, damn, trying to lift his hand back to the wheel awakened a new bolt of pain. His hand and arm weren’t following orders, either. He dismissed thoughts of nerve damage. Like so much else, they could wait.
Impatiently, he asked, “Can you call Melinda or Alvarez?”
She produced her phone and dialed. When a voice answered, she put the call on speaker.
He updated Melinda in a few words and asked her to get as many officers as were immediately available to blockade this corner of the county. “Don’t know what he’s driving, but I’m betting on the white sedan.”
“On my way.”
“Wait, are you still there? This guy’s got a gun and he’s wearing Kevlar. He won’t hesitate to shoot.”
Some corner of his attention noted that his right hand was covered in blood. He was probably dripping onto the upholstery, too.
A deer appeared in the headlights, leaping a ditch and disappearing before Daniel had to brake. First movement he’d seen.
Maybe he should slow down. What if he passed that white Corolla, tucked out of sight off the road? That piece of scum could wait until the sound of his engine receded, pull out and sedately drive home. Nice to think he’d be spotted by another officer, but in reality there would be only one or two patrolling at this time of night, and they could well be on the other side of town or even responding to a call. Chaney wouldn’t do them any more good; at night, his department probably had only one deputy covering the entire county.
Daniel’s foot eased up on the accelerator and the speed dropped. At least he had two sets of eyes. At the moment, he trusted Lindsay’s more than his own. The pain, or maybe the blood loss, was getting to him.
If this monster escaped to kill again, Daniel might not be able to forgive himself.
“I see something,” Lindsay said suddenly.
“What—” Red taillights appeared ahead. Low to the ground. A car, and not a big one. Plus, these had to be on an older model.
Daniel slammed the gas pedal to the floor. With V8 at his control, the truck charged forward. If he thought he could safely run in the dark, he would have. As it was, he saw that the car ahead of him had immediately accelerated, too. Any other car on the road would have maintained a steady speed, or even pulled over when the driver became aware of a larger vehicle bearing down on him at high speed.
Still Lindsay didn’t say a word, although he was distantly aware that her body was completely rigid. She knew what was at stake here. She’d been courageous during events far outside her experience.
They were closing in. Near enough to see the car ahead was white, and so small he damn well could run right over it.
“What are you going to do?” she asked, her voice thin.
“Run him off the road.” Later he’d be irked that he’d had to damage his own truck, but that wasn’t even a consideration right now. He was more worried about what would happen once both vehicles came to a standstill. This wasn’t a man who’d put his hands in the air and surrender. Daniel didn’t even know if he’d prefer that. A part of him regretted Lindsay’s presence, because the knowledge that she was watching would keep him from stepping over the line.
The sedan began to weave from one side of the road to the other in an attempt to keep him from pulling alongside.
“Hold on,” Daniel warned, and tapped the other vehicle’s bumper. Metal screeched. A small gasp was the only giveaway of Lindsay’s tension.
The Corolla kept swerving, but erratically now, as though the driver had lost control. Daniel chose his moment and sped up again, this time scraping his fender alongside the smaller car’s. Then he yanked the wheel to the right, and the Corolla flew off the road into a barbed wire fence that worked like an arresting wire on an aircraft carrier deck.
Fighting to keep the truck on the road, Daniel braked hard, but it took time to stop. The minute he did, he threw the gear into Reverse and sped backward.
“Get down,” he ordered. “He might come out shooting.”
She unsnapped her seat belt and slid to her knees on the floorboard. In a matter of seconds, he braked with the pickup slightly behind the sedan. Then he threw open his door and jumped out, bending over to take advantage of the protection the me
tal body of his Ford offered.
He pulled his Glock from his lower back but found he couldn’t lift it with his right hand. Damn. He had a familiar sensation of time having slowed, as if the scene clicked forward like old-fashioned slides.
The car’s driver wasn’t moving. He seemed to be slumped forward. With luck his head had slammed into the windshield, but Daniel didn’t buy it. Moonlight let him see that the glass hadn’t cracked into the telltale spiderweb pattern. Weapon held out in a two-hand grip, his left hand bearing most of the weight, he jumped the ditch and advanced on the tilted white car.
“Police!” he yelled. “Put your hands on your head! Let me see them.”
The man didn’t move.
Hip against the fender and then the back door, Daniel stayed behind the driver, watching for any giveaways. When he reached the driver door, he had to brace his right hand against the glass of the passenger side back window to free his left hand to wrench open the door.
Not locked, was the last thing he thought before the man now only inches away exploded into motion.
LINDSAY HAD CALLED Melinda even before Daniel jumped out of the truck. She couldn’t tell if he even heard her.
“The attacker was wounded, and he ran. Daniel and I pursued in his pickup truck. When we saw an older Toyota Corolla, it sped up. Daniel ran it off the road and he’s approaching the driver door now.” She named the road and gave Melinda her best guess of how far they’d driven, then ended the call without waiting for a response. She had to see what was happening.
She took out her own gun again, as alien as it felt in her hands, and cautiously raised her head to see Daniel’s broad back. He was opening the sedan’s driver door with one hand…when the killer twisted in his seat and a gun barked.
Daniel reeled back. Then, shot again or not, he lunged forward and wrapped his arms around the other man and yanked him out of the car.
The Hunting Season Page 18