by Harper Shaw
Silence was her answer. Her gut feeling told her something was wrong. And one thing she learned on the police force was to always trust her gut.
It was too dark to see, and the emergency exit light didn’t cast much but shadows. She fished her flashlight out of her pocket and turned it on.
It looked like a normal, closed auto body shop.
Rebecca wished she had backup. Her instincts told her something was terribly wrong.
And as she worked her way through the shop, she came across a large, shadowed lump.
“Chad?”
It was Chad all right, and he was dead. Rebecca crouched down and checked the pulse in his neck. He wasn’t cold, not yet, but the bullet wound in the center of his forehead told her he wouldn’t be recovering.
Rebecca’s heart thundered in her chest. Her palms were sweaty, and she rubbed them on her pants. Her breath was fast, and she wished she had her gun with her.
Something dragged against the concrete behind her, and she turned fast putting her hand on her hip, only to remember that her gun wasn’t there. A large shadow loomed in the emergency exit light.
Rebecca knew she was in trouble.
The figure raised a firearm. Instinct took over, and Rebecca dove to the side. Something thudded into the wall behind her.
She turned quickly to see a spear sticking out of the concrete.
“What the fuck?”
This guy was shooting a spear gun at her. Rebecca stood from her roll and ran hard. The figure ran after her. She got to the overhead door and slid on her ass through the opening, hoping the guy was too big to fit through.
But knowing her luck, he’d be able to easily fit. Rebecca was never lucky.
Another shot rang out and Rebecca dove forward again. A spear whizzed by her head and she just managed to get out of the way. Risking quick look behind her, she got her first glimpse of the man trying to kill her.
He was tall with wide shoulders. He wore a large rain slicker with knee-high boots and the hood pulled over his head, leaving his face in shadow.
Rebecca didn’t know how many shots he had. How many spears did this guy carry for his spear gun? She didn’t plan on finding out.
So, she ran as hard as she could. A forest loomed ahead, and Rebecca planned to lose the killer in there. It was her only shot.
She hadn’t really had a chance to even process what had happened to Chad.
But it wasn’t a spear sticking out of Chad’s forehead.
It was a bullet hole.
So, either this asshole had a spear gun and a handgun. Or more than one person wanted Chad dead.
Rebecca wasn’t sure which one was worse.
Fear overtook her as she ran. Branches whipped by her face, and her feet started getting bogged down in the swampy forest.
Not for the first time that night, she wished she had a gun. Or backup. She just wanted out of Hilton Head, for good.
Someone was after her. And as she pulled out her feet, each step forward a struggle and potentially her last, hopelessness threatened.
What if there was more than one of them?
She might be running right into their trap. They wouldn’t even have to move her body. The swamp would do all that hard work for them.
It would swallow her up. She would decompose. And no one would know what had happened to her.
As the maggots and the bugs feasted, no one would know the truth.
Dying without telling it was almost worse than living.
Rebecca had to survive.
Because someone was killing them. And it could be anyone.
Chapter Eleven
“No, no, no,” Rebecca sobbed, as she pounded the base of the flashlight against her palm.
It didn’t help. The flashlight flickered and died again. Now, she was officially lost in the swamp. Nobody knew where she was, except for some guy who was trying to kill her.
She didn’t even have her gun.
Plus, Chad was dead. The man had shot him in the head. And not with a spear gun.
Which meant there were two killers, and she could be running directly toward one. Or, the killer behind her had two weapons.
Either way, she was in a shitstorm, and Rebecca wasn’t sure how she was going to stop it.
The darkness claimed everything around her, making even simple trees seem like monsters in the dying light.
It didn’t help that she needed a drink. Plus, with no flashlight there would be no differentiating between trees, or mud, or a killer with a fucking spear gun.
This type of shit wasn’t supposed to happen in Hilton Head.
But it has happened before, a voice whispered in her ear. It was so loud she almost fell over into the muck.
But it was just her head.
“Shut up,” she said out loud. Using her hand, she pulled up her knee. Her foot was stuck in the muck. It squelched as it released her shoe, and it was hard not to gag at the smell of rotting tree roots.
She hated this town. Everything bad that had ever happened to her happened in this town. It put El Paso to shame.
Using her other hand on her other knee, she pulled that foot up out of the swamp as well.
One step at a time. That was really her only option, other than giving up and dying in the swamp.
A spear gun to the head seemed kind of like a blessing when the alternative was freezing to death in a swamp, or worse, drowning in the muck.
Rebecca wanted to scream for help, but as bitter as she was, she wasn’t prepared to be killed by the fucker with a spear gun.
So, it was one step at a time as she kept moving forward. She just had to hope the killer decided she wasn’t worth the effort.
She promised herself a drink when she got out of here, but then she recanted that promise a minute later.
She was going to die sober, damn it. She was going to make her sponsor proud.
If she could make it through this sober, she could honestly make it through anything. And maybe, just maybe, she could get her job back on the El Paso police force.
That was really the only driving force in her life right now.
This deposition was a shitshow, and Rebecca was hating every second in Hilton Head.
“One foot,” she said out loud. “Two foot.” Then she sank back into the mud.
Exhaustion was threatening, despite being in such good shape. She kept herself prepared to get back on the force at any time. Because that’s all she wanted. She wanted to be a cop again.
She wanted to have a purpose in life.
She wanted, desperately, to be something.
And on leave for alcoholism was being a nothing.
“That’s bad self-talk,” she said to the swamp. “The shrink would be mad at you for talking to yourself like that.”
But she didn’t care.
Like her shrink was in this fucking swamp with her.
“It’s just you, and the trees, and the terrifying shadows behind you that you’re ignoring. That’s all there is in the world right now.”
She pulled up on her knee, raised her foot, then put it back down in the knee-high mud, repeating the same process with the other foot. She would do it over and over again until she found the end of the swamp or the end of a spear gun.
Honestly, both were shitty options.
“At least, in death, I wouldn’t be cold,” she said as more and more water found its way into her shoe. “Or wet…”
She looked around, trying to keep her brain from creating shadows in the darkness. She didn’t need any more fear than she already had.
She took a few deep breaths, trying to lower her heart rate as she looked around. The shadows of tree stumps surrounded her.
She knew she couldn’t go back. For all she knew, that big fucker in galoshes was waiting for her.
So, forward, through the swamp was the only way to go.
Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.
Her mind went back to the police academy. At one point, she w
as the slowest of her troop. Her commanding officer stayed back as she struggled to keep up with the rest of her group.
One time, he tried screaming at her to catch up. It didn’t work, and Rebecca just fell farther and farther behind.
The next day’s run, he tried to give her push-ups, in hopes that would motivate her to run faster.
It didn’t, and Rebecca was left exhausted and still last out of her entire group.
Only when he figured out that she couldn’t stand other people being punished for her actions did she flourished in gym class.
She went from being zero to hero and all it took was the rest of her troop getting push-ups for her falling behind. Then she found another level of fatigue that she didn’t know existed before.
But she had gotten through it and had even graduated at the top of her class. Simply because her will to keep others from harm was greater than her will to save herself.
Apparently, that made for a good cop.
Even if it meant the cop drank a lot.
It was too much of a burden for her, to take on the pain of others on top of her own.
Her shrink had told her that’s why she had started drinking. Because the life of a cop was too hard on someone who thought with their emotions as much as she did.
“Which is horseshit,” Rebecca said out loud. “That’s not why you started drinking.”
The therapist didn’t know the real reason and Rebecca wasn’t about to tell her.
Something caught her eye, and she looked up surprised.
Headlights.
Just a sliver, but it passed by in the distance.
That was a road.
She’d made it to a freaking road.
Rebecca wanted to scream in her excitement, but she kept herself under control.
“Now you have a direction to go,” she said to herself. “Keep going, one foot in front of the other.”
Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.
It turned into a sing-song as she made her way through the trees.
The swamp receded, and every step grew easier and easier. Her footing stabilized, and the mud turned into dirt.
Confident that no one had followed her through the mud, she began raising her arms and yelling, hoping somebody would pay attention.
Someone on this road needed to stop for her.
Growing desperate, she charged the road as a car drove by. Her feet squished in her shoes, and she knew they were ruined.
But she didn’t care.
Freezing and desperate, she screamed at someone to stop.
Finally, she reached the edge of the road.
Headlights emerged from down the highway, and Rebecca stepped out onto the shoulder, waving her arms in the air.
She honestly didn’t care if it was the murderer. At least the car would be warm.
As it got closer, Rebecca recognized the unmistakable silhouette of a cop car. It flashed its headlights at her, then slowed to the side of the road.
“Officer,” she gasped as the cop eased out of the car. “I’m so glad to see you. There’s been a murder. You need to go help him. I need help, please.”
The officer simply stared at her, and it took a moment for Rebecca to realize that he had a sidearm trained on her.
“Rebecca Morgan?”
Rebecca raised her hands over her head.
“What’s going on?” she asked him, thoroughly confused.
“Rebecca Morgan, you’re under arrest. Get down face-first on the asphalt and place your hands behind your back.”
“What?” Rebecca asked incredulously. “You can’t possibly be serious?”
“I’m not asking you again, Morgan,” the cop barked. He said something into his radio that Rebecca didn’t hear. “Don’t make me shoot you.”
Rebecca sank to her knees and then lay down on the cold asphalt. It sucked the remaining heat away from her body, and she was left shivering as her teeth chattered.
The cop walked over, and Rebecca knew he had his gun trained on her the whole time.
“I’m unarmed,” she called.
The cop didn’t seem to care. He wasn’t taking any chances.
“Put your hands behind your back,” he said.
Rebecca did what she was told.
The officer placed handcuffs around her wrist and then hauled her to her feet.
“Are you going to tell me what you’re arresting me for?” Rebecca asked him.
“The murder of Chad McMahon.”
Chapter Twelve
Rebecca chewed her nails as she waited in the interview room.
And waited.
And waited.
Chief Bradshaw was using a classic police technique of making the suspect wait.
Although, if he put her under arrest already, she was no longer a suspect. They were convinced she’d killed the old football star.
And an arrest that quickly after a death could only mean one thing. They had physical evidence tying her to the crime—more than her simply finding him and not calling the cops. Faruq was many things, but he wasn’t stupid. They’d found something on Chad, but Rebecca had no idea what.
She should lawyer up. Everything she’d ever been taught about being a cop told her to get a lawyer before the chief started asking questions. But her curiosity was getting the better of her. She wanted to know what they had on her, and she wanted to know who the crazy fucker was who’d shot at her with a spear gun.
He was big, that was sure. Well over six feet. And ruthless, if he was stalking her around the garage.
Rebecca had a morbid curiosity combined with an internal push to solve Chad’s murder. She owed it to Chad to find the legitimate truth of his death.
She wanted to tell the world the truth, instead of hiding it. She needed Faruq to understand what had happened—to find the real killer and help Rebecca seek closure.
And Rebecca needed closure for Chad because he’d died with the same guilt they all carried. He didn’t deserve it. None of them did. Now Chad wouldn’t be able to see it through. All his potential had died with his girlfriend on that night all those years ago.
He’d never had the chance to turn it around. Never had a chance to reach his potential.
Sadness filled Rebecca at the thought about Chad. How she’d caught him dumpster diving. She needed to figure out who killed him.
At least he’d be at peace or with Monica.
Rebecca shifted uncomfortably in her chair. She didn’t really believe in that stuff. Her time as a cop had shown her how terrible people could be to each other.
It stopped her from believing in anything.
The door opened and the chief walked through, closing it behind him.
“You’re in a lot of trouble here, Morgan,” he said. “I don’t envy you.”
“And you have more of a problem on your hands than you realize.”
“Oh?” he said, raising and eyebrow and flipping open a file. “Do tell. I’m sure a cop from El Paso on leave for alcoholism can tell me about problems.”
The retort burned.
“Someone was there, at Chad’s shop,” Rebecca said, staring at the chief. “A guy was dressed in galoshes and a hood with a spear gun…”
“A spear gun?” Faruq said, leaning back in his chair. “That’s a stretch, even for you. How much did you have to drink to come up with that?”
“Fine,” Rebecca said, anger and hurt rising, “don’t believe me, but you don’t have to be an asshole about it.”
“Would you believe you, in my position?” he scoffed. “You sound fucking crazy, Morgan. You have to see that.”
“Yeah, and I’m not,” she said angrily. “I didn’t do anything to Chad. And some bastard was chasing me through the swamp, where I almost died. So, you’re wasting your time on me.”
“Did you check Chad? Before you left, did you try to revive him?”
“There was no point.”
“Why not?”
“Because he died of a bullet
wound, center of the forehead.”
“So, it wasn’t a spear sticking out of his head?”
Fear replaced the annoyance and the anger.
Faruq had something.
Rebecca was beginning to think it was worse than she thought. Someone was setting her up.
“I don’t know about you,” the chief said, “but that didn’t look like a spear sticking out of his head, Morgan.”
Rebecca wisely stayed quiet.
“It looked to me like a bullet wound. And I’ve been around the job long enough to know a Ruger wound when I see one.”
Rebecca’s mouth went dry as she thought about the ramifications here. She wasn’t wrong. They must have something forensic on her.
“And, as you’re from the El Paso Police Department, you have a Ruger as your sidearm. Am I right?”
Silence was Rebecca’s answer.
She should have called for her lawyer.
“Why were you looking for Chad all afternoon? His dad said a woman of your description was there asking questions.”
“I saw him after the deposition, and I wanted to have a chat with an old friend,” she lied.
“Mmhmm,” the chief answered. “And then he just ends up dead with a Ruger hole in his head?”
“Coincidence,” Rebecca said. “Like I told you, I walked into his shop to find him dead. Then some big fucker with a spear gun came at me and I ran.”
“Right…”
Faruq slapped a package on to the table—a clear evidence bag with her sidearm inside.
“So, if I run ballistics on that gun, it won’t be the same one that killed Chad?”
Her pulse roared in her ears as the stress threatened to consume her. How the fuck had he gotten her sidearm? It should be locked up in her parents’ house, not sitting on the table in front of her.
Definitely not used to kill an old high school friend
It shouldn’t be here.
But its presence told her why she was sitting in cuffs.
Because, Rebecca wouldn’t doubt the gun had killed Chad. Meaning that not only was someone after her, but someone was trying to frame her for murder.
“I don’t know where you got that,” Rebecca said, trying to keep the heat from rising to her face. She couldn’t blush. She couldn’t give an inch to Faruq.