Her Dark Web Defender

by Dana Nussio

  He shifted the weapon slightly just the same. Then, and only then, Tony released the magazine, unloaded the round and tossed the weapon in a patch of trees in front of the house.

  “Ankle holster.”

  “I don’t have it.” He lifted both pant legs to show him.

  “Guess you weren’t as prepared as you thought.”

  Tony gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to say something that would tempt the suspect to fire sooner. No matter what she’d done, Kelly needed him to keep his cool now.

  “Phone, too.”

  Tony pulled it from his front slacks pocket and tossed it in the same direction he’d thrown the gun. He grimaced when it hit one of the trees and made a glass-cracking sound.

  “You won’t be needing that, anyway.”

  The judge chuckled in that same grating way he’d always done when Tony had been on the witness stand in his court. Tony followed Stevenson’s instructions to lie on the ground and put his hands behind his head. He’d said it would be the same as Tony did in all his arrests, but Tony never forgot to cuff a suspect as Stevenson neglected to do.

  “Uncomfortable, isn’t it? Don’t get any ideas about playing hero. It won’t be as sexy as it is in the movies. She’ll just get to watch you die first instead of the other way around.”

  As Tony arched his back to lift his head, he bit his lip to keep from calling out. He lowered his head again but tilted it so he could still see them both. That was why Stevenson had held her until he’d arrived. He planned to force him to watch the woman he loved die. After that, he would be simple to kill. He might even beg him to pull the trigger.

  “You two made this so easy.”

  Kelly asked the question before Tony could.

  “How did we do that?”

  She was trying to keep him talking, too, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. Stevenson was too caught up in his story to realize he was losing part of his audience.

  “Oh, not at first, when you made me follow you both and then put GPS trackers on your personal cars, so I could plan your little accident.”

  “Just the personal ones? Not the rentals?”

  Kelly looked in the direction he assumed hers was parked, then back the way he’d come.

  “I already knew where you were at work.” He pulled his cell from his pocket. “A burner. Besides, all the good electronics are at home. The signal’s shoddy here, anyway.”

  Not weak enough that Tony and Kelly had failed to receive his texts. Tony could only hope that the one he’d sent to Dawson had reached him.

  “I loved how much work you two put in trying not to be discovered, by the way. The park and ride. Hotel. You did try, anyway.”

  Tony managed to stay still, but Kelly startled over the revelations and then winced while staring down at her arm.

  Stevenson was grinning now as if he was just warming up to his story.

  “But now? This is great. You’re both here. With the boy over there.” He indicated Fox’s body with a tilt of his head. “This place is perfect for a cemetery, though I’m afraid you won’t have well-tended graves. Just dust-to-dust like the rest of the wildlife out here. In fact, the animals will probably help. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Kelly straightened her shoulders and then blinked several times as if fighting tears again as she drew her tethered hands closer to her body.

  “Are you telling me you think no one will miss us? That the rest of the task force won’t be even a little interested in hunting for two team members who just vanished?”

  “They might, but who’s going to tell them where to look? I know I won’t.”

  She opened her mouth as if to challenge him again but finally closed it.

  “You see, that’s the genius part.” Stevenson held his hands wide. “You two have been keeping secrets from the rest of the task force, and the photos I’ll send will prove that. Oh, yes, I have pictures. Steamy ones. I’ll send them, old school, through the mail, so they won’t be easily traced. Once these little gems come to light, every case the task-force lovers have investigated will be scrutinized.”

  Stevenson gestured toward Fox’s body. “Including the one about a murder suspect who appears to have skipped town. In the end, no one will care if two police lovebirds seem to have taken off together, as well.”

  Kelly finally turned back to Stevenson. “You won’t get away with this.”

  “Of course, I will. Just like my empire flew under the radar for years. If not for a loser who took the game too far, only my friends on the Dark Web would ever have known that Soleil Enterprises existed.”

  The problem was that Stevenson was probably right. The task force could have searched for years and still never tied him to the random suspects whose depraved needs he served. Even if Tony had longed to transfer from the department, the thought of leaving this way and having the convictions he’d helped to secure brought into question made it tragic.

  “The death of those girls was unfortunate, but they were collateral damage in an otherwise successful business model. Just like the two of you will be.”

  At Stevenson’s words, Kelly straightened slightly, her chin lifted. Something about her move struck Tony as different, less submissive. His heart thudded where he’d pressed it to the ground. She only needed to hold on a little longer—at least he hoped it wouldn’t be too long—but he sensed she was tired of waiting.

  “And what about Harper?”

  Her words were too low and measured.

  Stevenson brushed away her comment with a wave of his hand. “Cory didn’t tell me for sure, but I have to say, if she isn’t dead already, she soon will be. That’s probably best. Just one more loose end, all neatly tied and tucked away for good.”

  “You did this to them!”

  Kelly came up off the ground in a fluid move and lunged for Stevenson, her wound forgotten in a rage-swallowed haze. Though she caught him off guard, her nails sinking into the flesh of his forearm, he curved the gun up over her with the reflexes of a much younger man and brought the grip down on her head in a sickening thud.

  She seemed to fall in slow motion, as muscles, bones and determination collapsed in a downward slide. Blood colored her hair, the light brown quickly turning orange. Unlike its impetus, her landing was deafening in its silence. Was she unconscious? Or dead?

  “No!”

  Tony pushed up and off the ground and charged Stevenson without a weapon. Without hope. At the first pop from the other man’s pistol, he remembered to at least run in a zigzag pattern. By the second, he was nearly on him. As the judge aimed once more at his throat, just above the top of his vest, Tony leaped forward.

  He didn’t care. He’d thought that he’d only let Stevenson hurt her over his dead body. Now he realized he’d really meant it. The odd click at his collarbone as he overtook the suspect and connected with the muzzle didn’t make any sense at first. Shouldn’t it have been louder? Shouldn’t the pain have been sharper or hotter or something?

  The wide eyes behind those glasses told him the weapon had failed to fire, but the thought barely registered as Tony pounded his fist into Stevenson’s forearm until his grip released on the gun. Then he swiped it out of reach for either of them.

  The pounding seemed to come from somewhere outside of him. Hard knuckles connecting with forgiving flesh, once, twice, one hundred times. Glasses flying off. Grunts. Pleas. More thuds. He didn’t care. He couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to.

  “Tony, stop! You’re going to kill him.”

  Chapter 27

  Kelly could breathe again when the glaze in Tony’s eyes finally cleared. He couldn’t seem to stop trembling, which made sense because neither could she. His knuckles were cut, Stevenson’s nose still gushed, and though the blood on her arm was congealing, she figured it was covering her hair now, too.

  “You’re not—” He back
ed onto his haunches and looked down at the suspect. “Oh, my God. What was I...?”

  As Tony crawled over to her, Kelly blinked several times, trying to force away the red and yellow spots still shimmying in front of her eyes. Even that didn’t stop the conga drums that hammered in the back of her head, making her world shudder and sway. But something about Stevenson’s hands moving to his face, where the blood continued to pour, wasn’t right.

  “You need to cuff him, Tony.”

  “Right. Wait. I don’t have any handcuffs.”

  “He does.” She lifted her bound hands slightly and indicated the direction of Stevenson’s bag.

  Tony told the judge to roll onto his stomach, and with some painful shifting, Kelly kicked the bag his way. He pulled out zip ties, several pairs of disposable gloves, scissors and disinfectant wipes. He examined the blood on his hands, only some of which could have come from his cuts.

  “Guess it’s a little late for those.”

  “Have you ever heard of police brutality?” Stevenson called out as Tony bound Stevenson’s hands.

  While Tony repeated the Miranda warning from memory, he used some of the wipes on his own skin.

  “Ever heard of self-defense?”

  The man kept talking, but Tony left him and crouched next to Kelly instead and used the scissors to free her hands.

  “Harper’s here somewhere. I just know it.”

  “Even if you were in any condition to go into these woods and look for her, and you aren’t, we can’t move until backup arrives. For him.”

  “You called for backup?”

  “Of course, I did. You should have, too.”

  He practically spat the words.

  She shook her head as she used her good arm to push herself up from the ground. “I couldn’t. You have to understand.”

  “Don’t even talk to me about this right now.”

  The sound of crunching gravel drew her attention back to the driveway. A line of emergency vehicles—police, county sheriff, ambulance—showed through the low-lying branches. They’d come in on silent, but they’d shown up only because Tony had been the one to call for them.

  Soon Kelly sat on the loading deck on the back of one of the ambulances while an emergency medical technician finished bandaging her arm and the cut on her head. He even rigged a sling of sorts to hold her forearm against her body.

  As he waited next to the emergency vehicle, Tony waved over Dawson. Eric followed closely behind him.

  “You two are in a world of trouble,” Dawson said when they reached them. “What the hell were you thinking, coming here without backup? What happened to you? What happened to Fox? And, for that matter, who did that to Stevenson... I mean the suspect? He looks like someone beat the hell out of him.”

  Eric blanched as he looked from the body on the ground to the suspect being shifted onto a gurney. “Stevenson was connected to these cases? The judge?”

  Tony spread his hands in a jerking movement as a signal for the questions to stop.

  “No time for that now. It’ll all be in the report. But we have reason to believe that the Toledo teen might be somewhere on this property. We need to conduct a full search. Would you call for the dogs, Special Agent Dawson?”

  “Alive?” Dawson asked.

  “Maybe.” Kelly willed it to be true.

  But Tony stomped on her words with his own.

  “Probably not.” He caught her sharp glance and then looked away. “We need to find out for sure.”

  His pessimistic prediction didn’t stop him from rushing to the opposite side of the clearing and digging through the brush, where he’d tossed his weapon and his phone. He emerged about a minute later, carrying both. He handed Kelly his cell, its display glass crushed, while he tucked his Glock back in his hip holster.

  Kelly returned his phone to him and slid off the deck to her feet, keeping her arm tightly against her.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not. You aren’t even assigned to the task force anymore.”

  “How did you know that?” She looked back and forth between him and Dawson. “I was just informed.”

  “I was told before you were. Anyway, you can’t go searching. You have that. And that.” He pointed to the sling and then to the gauze pad taped to her head.

  “You heard him say that one was just a scratch, and the head thing is tiny. Head wounds just bleed a lot.”

  “The EMT said you might have a concussion, too.”

  “So I won’t go to sleep.”

  He crossed his arms. “When you declined ambulance transport, you agreed to take yourself to ER.”

  Kelly took a deep breath, but she couldn’t keep from gritting her teeth. “I didn’t ask for your permission to search for Harper. It’s why I came here, and I’m not leaving until I do it.”

  She turned to their boss, suddenly aware that she might not need Tony’s approval, but she would require the go-ahead from her superior, especially now that she’d been reassigned to the Brighton Post.

  “Look, Special Agent Dawson, I promise I’ll go to ER as soon as we’re finished. I’ll get a tetanus shot. Then I’ll pack up my stuff and be back at the Brighton Post as soon as the doctors release me. But right now, I need to help. Whether she’s dead or alive, please let me finish what I started. Let me give the girl’s family some closure.”

  Dawson frowned, but when he turned to Tony, his mouth softened. He reached into his pocket and handed each of them a few pairs of disposable gloves.

  “Fine. Just stay with Lazzaro. And only in and around the structures for now. The other teams will be taking on the woods as soon as they show up with the search-and-rescue dogs and their handlers.”

  She nodded. At least they were pretending there was some hope. Even if it was like telling them they could look for clothes at a discount store, but only in the shoe department, she would take what she could get. She had to do something.

  Dawson instructed Eric, who still looked pastier than normal, to pull the map up on his laptop again so they could assign search areas once the teams arrived.

  Tony started toward the cabin without her, putting on the gloves as he walked. “I won’t wait for you.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to.” Kelly scrambled after him, attempting several times to put a glove on one-handed. Finally, she stopped and tried again, using her arm in the sling for leverage.

  “Here. Give me that.”

  He took the glove and yanked it on her hand, but he wouldn’t look at her as he did it. If he could have done it without touching her, he probably would have tried that, too.

  Still, he signaled for her to wait as he withdrew his weapon and entered the building.

  “It’s clear,” he called from inside.

  She pushed the door open to find the place in barely better shape than its weatherworn exterior. With only one window in the front and another one in the back that she hadn’t seen before, the place was so dark that she had to use her phone’s flashlight app just to see around. The retro-looking sofa with tapered legs and mustard-colored cushions looked like it had actually been around since the 1960s.

  Someone had been living there, though. The bed was unmade, and clothes were piled in the corner. Bags of garbage had been dumped against the wall. The pantry’s high shelves had enough nonperishables to feed at least one person for a few months.

  It seemed odd that the shelves only went halfway down, and nothing was stacked on the floor, but she doubted there were many normal things about a suspect who was into princesses.

  Tony emerged from the small bedroom after checking out the closet. “He was here, but it doesn’t look like she was. No women’s clothes. No tiaras.”

  Kelly couldn’t help it. She shivered. “Do you think Fox lied about even k
nowing Harper? He knew about LITTLE BO PEEP. Police didn’t tell anyone about that. Then he also said she was no princess. As in past tense.”

  “People lie. You know that. They do it all the time.”

  With that, he started out the door to examine the perimeter of the house. Kelly hurried after him.

  “All right. That’s enough.”

  “What’s that?” He turned his head to the side but didn’t look at her.

  “You know what I’m talking about. I’ve already said I’m sorry for coming here without backup. Without you.”

  His gaze flicked to hers and away again. “You could have gotten yourself killed, all while trying to play the hero.”

  “I realize that now.” She’d known when she’d decided to come, too. “Isn’t that a little hypocritical? I’m not the only one who rushed in here like Dirty Harry. You’re lucky to be alive, too.”

  She shivered at the thought of those rounds Tony had dodged as he’d raced to stop Stevenson. Especially the misfire, which would have been deadly accurate. At least she’d been unconscious for most of it and had to learn that story secondhand.

  “Fine. We both screwed up.”

  “Don’t you get it? I had to come alone. Stevenson hinted that he had Harper. He threatened everyone if I didn’t come alone. I had no choice.”

  This time he trapped her in his stare. “Oh, you had a choice. You chose to lie. About your mother. You knew I would be happy for you that you’d turned a corner with her. You knew I would want to believe your story, even if it didn’t ring true.”

  Having finished with the outside of the house, he tromped ahead and didn’t stop until he reached the barn door. Kelly had to struggle to keep up with him. With each step, her arm burned, and her head throbbed. Her decision to skip even the ibuprofen from her purse didn’t seem so wise now.

  “It’s not that simple,” she said when she’d caught up with him again. “If I’d told you, there would have been no way you would have let me go alone.”

  “Hell no, I wouldn’t have.”

  “That’s just it. He said he would kill you first.”