“Dad?” Claire froze in place with outstretched arms.
Vincent, with a ribbon of blood running down his left side, understood what was happening and waved his daughter away. “Claire!” he yelled. “Run! Go!”
Claire ran toward her father as two more shots pinged, kicking the dirt up around her feet.
“No!” Vincent shouted. “Claire! Don’t!”
Two more shots pinged close on Claire’s heels as she grabbed her father and dragged him to safety behind the boulder. “Dad!” she said. “Look at me. Are you okay?”
Vincent threw a look over his shoulder and saw that he had been clipped in the shoulder by a small-caliber rifle—enough to maim, not enough to kill. “It hurts.” He winced. “But he’s not trying to kill us.”
“What? How?”
With their backs against a large boulder, Vincent surveyed his surroundings. They were at a bend in the road that curved to the left, concealed by the boulder and the steep mountainside behind it.
Based on the source of the shots, the shooter was somewhere in the trees behind them. Forty yards, he estimated. Maybe fifty.
“Dad. What do we do?”
Vincent held up a hand to keep her quiet as he took account of their surroundings. To the left was the trail, leading up a mile and curving toward the top of the mountain.
To the right, it led back down to the cabin. Based on how fast Claire and Vincent had run up the trail when they first arrived, Claire could run back down it in four minutes, minus one because it was downhill. But for the wounded Vincent, it would probably take a little longer.
He decided.
“You’ve gotta run.” He looked at his daughter.
“What?”
Vincent grabbed his daughter by the shoulders and pulled her in close. “No questions. No debates. I’m going to lead this guy away. You’re going to go back to the cabin. Zigzag the entire run down. It’ll be harder for him to line up a shot.”
“But Dad—”
“My gun is in my suitcase,” Vincent continued. “Grab it, load it, call the police, and wait for someone to come get you. If it’s anyone other than the cops or myself, you shoot them. Center mass and then to the head.”
“Dad, please!”
Vincent kissed his daughter on the cheek and offered up a little prayer in his head. “On three,” he said.
“Dad—”
“No more waiting—one.”
Claire swallowed.
“Two.”
Claire readied herself to flee.
“Three!”
The two of them ran out of cover, Claire ducking right and Vincent ducking left. “Up here!” Vincent shouted to the sniper, waving his arms as he fled. “Here! Over here!”
He threw a look over his shoulder. Claire sprinted down the hill, faster and harder than she had ever run in her life.
Vincent ran in the opposite direction and continued waving his arms and calling out to the sniper hiding among the trees, but no shots rang out in reply.
“What the fuck.” Vincent scanned the tree line. “Where the hell are you?”
Nothing.
Not a peep.
Just the sounds of the wind rustling through the trees, Vincent, unsure of his next move, reversed directions and hightailed down the mountain after his daughter.
When Vincent arrived and burst through the door, Claire whirled around with the gun pointed at him. “Whoa!” he shouted. “Claire, it’s me!”
Claire lowered the weapon and breathed a sigh of relief. “Shit. I almost shot you!”
Vincent threw the door shut and locked it, taking the pistol from Claire as he asked for her phone. He couldn’t find his. “Call the cops. Tell them what’s going on. Tell them we need help.”
Claire searched around for the phone as Vincent moved around the house and began closing every curtain, drape, and opening that provided a view into the cabin. “Dad!” Claire shouted. “The phones aren’t working!”
“Shit,” Vincent said, recalling that reception had been spotty here since they arrived. “Bring it in here. We’ll try to find a signal.”
A primal, frightening, and gut-churning voice came from outside the cabin. “Vincent!”
Ivan Petrov.
Vincent and Claire fell silent.
“Claire,” Vincent said, “bo and hide. Now.”
“Dad—”
“Now!”
Claire retreated into the bathroom as Vincent scanned the place with his Glock.
Two seconds passed.
Five.
Everything was still.
A hail of gunfire tore through the front door.
Vincent fell to his belly and rolled out of the way to his left as the door turned into sawdust. He rolled and fired his Glock in reply. As the gunfire died down, Vincent popped off one last shot before smoke choked the air.
Vincent, with five bullets left in his clip, perched on one knee as Ivan called out, “I’m coming, Vincent. I’m coming to settle our business.”
What the hell is he talking about?
The windows in the kitchen behind Vincent shattered. Vincent again fell to the floor as glass showered all around him and the relentless onslaught of the gunfire became deafeningly loud.
Then nothing.
Vincent heard someone kick in the front door, followed by heavy boots as they stomped on the wooden floors.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Ivan said. “Let’s settle this like men.”
Vincent raised his Glock over the counter and squeezed off two shots. Ivan fired in reply. Vincent ducked and covered behind the countertop.
“I’ve got a shooter outside!” Ivan yelled. “You’re completely pinned down. Throw out your gun! Now!”
Vincent checked the clip in his gun: only two shots left. He shook his head and pounded his fist in frustration on the floor.
“It’s done, Vincent,” Ivan said. Vincent could tell he was inching closer. “Just come out. Let’s settle this like men.”
Vincent heard Ivan’s booted feet approaching from the left.
“You killed my son, Vincent,” Ivan said. “And now I’m going to kill your child in front of you.”
Vincent surged to his feet. He drew a deep breath as Ivan appeared around the corner. Vincent pushed off the floorboards, rolled right, raised the gun, and fired off the last two rounds.
Both landed center mass in Ivan’s chest. He shuddered violently, but his eyes stayed wide.
“Game over, comrade,” Vincent said. Ivan fell to his back, the life fleeing his body.
More gunfire erupted through the kitchen windows.
Vincent flipped onto his stomach and crawled across the floor toward Ivan’s gun.
He snatched the gun, raised it, and emptied the thing, returning fire.
Everything fell silent.
Five seconds passed.
“Dad…” Claire called out in a whimper from the bathroom.
Vincent rose to a half-crouch and moved toward the bathroom. He kicked the door open, looked inside, and saw his daughter lying on the ground. Her face was pale, and she was covered in blood.
19
Stone approached Vincent as he waited in the hallway of the ICU unit in a local hospital in Big Bear. Vincent was sitting in a chair with his head in his hands. When she approached, he looked up, eyes swollen. His arm was in a sling.
“My God,” Stone said. “Are you all right? I heard what happened.”
Vincent shook his head. “The doctor’s with Claire right now. She was shot.”
Stone trembled. “Jesus…Jesus, I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah.” Vincent stood up, avoiding eye contact. “Yeah, me too.” He paced the floor, his thoughts as scattered and tattered as his clothing.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“The doctors think so. She got hit once in the leg and in the arm. She’s lost a lot of blood, but they think she’ll be fine.”
Stone breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God
. That’s great news.”
“Yeah. Let’s hope so.”
Stone looked around. “What about your ex? Her mother?”
“Hell if I know,” Vincent said. “That women is usually in one part of the world or another at any given moment. Paris was the last stop. Mexico before that.”
“I’m, uh… I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Don’t be. I pushed that woman away. Believe me. Only reason she keeps moving is because I kept her so stationary for so many years. I’ve caused my family a lot of trouble. Tonight is just another addition to the madness.”
“You can’t blame yourself.”
“I can. Believe me.”
“I’ve got my people on the scene at the cabin,” Stone said. “They said they found two separate sets of shell casings, one inside the cabin—Ivan’s—and a scattering of rifle rounds in the trees about fifty yards from the kitchen windows.”
Vincent nodded. “Ivan had someone with him, backing him up. This all started when Claire and I were on a hike. Someone shot me in the shoulder. I tried to draw the fire, so Claire could retreat, but the shooter never showed up until we got back to the cabin.”
Stone closed her eyes, resting her palm against her head. “Ivan set it up,” she said. “Right? He wounds you, waits for you to go back to the cabin…” She sighed. “That must be why he had that case with him.”
Vincent furrowed his brow. “What case?”
“He brought torture tools with him. We found a case inside his coat. I’m assuming he was going to use them.”
Vincent sat back down as thoughts of what could have happened to him, and his daughter plagued his mind. “He said I killed his son. He said he was there for revenge.”
Stone looked around, like the answers to her questions were somewhere in the hallway. “I don’t… What does that mean?”
“You’ll have to check old case files, but I think I might have put his kid away. It was probably that deal I worked for the DEA on Viktor ten years ago. Ivan’s kid gets locked away; something happens to him, so he blames me. This whole thing was a ruse to get me out in the open.”
“Why didn’t he kill you when you got into that fight at the club? It was a perfect opportunity.”
Vincent motioned down the hall to Claire’s room. “Because he wanted her, too. I just had to lead him back to her. That was the whole plan. Ivan didn’t know my real identity. He just knew about the Brody character. The DEA files were too well sealed to know my identity. So, Ivan draws me out of hiding, offs Viktor, sets up that deal, lets his guy take the fall, then he waits until I leave so he could follow me back here to kill my kid and me.”
“How could he have found you?”
“Someone must have followed me from the airport. The sniper he had with him, probably. Hell, they both might have been there, and I just didn’t know it.”
Stone took a breath. “Look, it’s over now. Ivan Petrov is dead. The threat is over.”
Vincent shook his head. “It’s not over,” he said. “Someone was with him in the woods. That sniper. I’m assuming you haven’t found a body.”
“No,” Stone said. “Not yet. But my guys said they found a blood trail leading away from the tree line where he was shooting from. He’s most likely dead, based on the amount of blood they found. But even if he’s not, he’s wounded, so he can’t get too far.”
Vincent rose again and glanced down the hallway, looking but not seeing anything. “No,” he said. “No, he’s around. Ivan may be dead. But this isn’t over.” He moved toward Claire’s room. “Not yet.”
20
The sniper was a highly trained, and ruthless man that had become so accustomed to a hardened lifestyle that a bullet wound to the stomach was nothing more than a minor inconvenience.
After fleeing the cabin and making the trek back to the motel just outside of Big Bear, the sniper doused his wound with alcohol, cleaned and stitched it, and wrapped it with a bandage from the kit he had in his bag.
He then changed into clean clothes, disassembled and stored his sniper rifle in a bag, and went about making his next move, now with a Beretta, a shotgun, and a hunting knife at his disposal.
He laid the instruments on the bed, checked the rounds, cleaned them, and stuffed them in a duffel bag.
The sniper knew that Vincent was wounded, perhaps his daughter as well. The sniper knew that he needed to be systematic, and the best way to accomplish that was by scouring the nearby hospitals and seeing if Vincent and his kid had checked in.
It didn’t matter that Ivan was dead. It didn’t matter that the man who hired the sniper was killed. He had been paid to do a job, and he was damn well going to finish it.
Claire was stable and asleep an hour after Stone arrived at the hospital. Vincent was by her side, clutching her hand. She remained pale and asleep.
The hospital monitors blipped and beeped and reminded Vincent she was alive. Every few seconds, he would watch her as she breathed, just like he did when she was a baby in her crib. He always hoped for the best but prepared himself for the worst, and this time was no different.
Seconds earlier, the doctor had left, his prognosis that Claire’s condition seemed stable. But they would update Vincent in the next few hours. Tears welled up in his eyes as he chastised himself for allowing this to happen to his only daughter.
This is your fault.
You did this.
You and your obsession with this job.
It’s cost you everything: your marriage, your sanity, your health, and you almost lost your little girl as a result.
The tears from his eyes flowed freely.
Damn you.
God damn you, Edgar Vincent. This is your responsibility. Your doing. You put Claire in this position. This is the end of the line, champ. Your days of being the best of the best are over.
Too many people are dying as a result.
Vincent nearly collapsed onto the floor as he looked at his daughter’s slack face, brushing away strands of her flaxen hair as he looked to the heavens and cursed it all.
“I’m so sorry,” he said softly. “This is all my fault. Please don’t blame me, honey. Please don’t hate me…”
Vincent kissed his daughter’s hand and sat back, unsure of the future.
For the first time in his life, for the first time ever, Edgar Vincent felt completely and utterly hopeless as his daughter clung to life. Snow began to fall outside the window, the early hours of the evening settling in as Vincent prepared for a quiet night in the hospital.
If only it were that simple.
21
Stone zipped up her jacket and bade goodbye to Vincent in the doorway of Claire’s room. “I’ve gotta get back to Chicago,” she said. “I have a debriefing with Kosinski.”
“Tell that asshole I said to go hell,” Vincent said. “And tell him if he contacts me again, I’ll break his legs.”
Stone smirked. “Fair enough. Try to get some rest. Don’t worry about the paperwork; I’ve got you covered. Police here want to talk to you, but I’ll run interference. I’m going to meet with them at their station in a few minutes. They’ll want to question you, eventually, but I can hold them off for a day or two while you deal with Claire.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Stone stuck out her hand. “I’m sorry, Vincent. You did a hell of a job, but I’m sorry for what it cost you.”
“Been thinking the same thing all night. I’m starting to think this job took a toll on me a while ago.”
“You’re a great cop, Vincent. Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently.”
“I hope I don’t see you at anything other than a barbecue.” Vincent shook Stone’s hand. “Talk to you soon, Stone. Make sure you drop me a line on my cell. Don’t think I’ll be hanging around the station at Hollow Green much anymore.”
“Sounds like quittin’ talk,” she said.
“It is,” he said. “And I’m not even going to bother drafting a letter of resignation.”
>
Stone patted Vincent on the arm, turned, and left. “You’ll be missed,” she called out from down the hallway. “Don’t go soft on me Stone. I’m sure I’ll see you somewhere down the road. No matter how long that road may be.”
Vincent couldn’t help but smile through the fatigue as he turned into his daughter’s room and sat in a chair. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was near two in the morning, so the chief at HGPD headquarters was most likely not in her office.
Perfect time to leave a voicemail.
Vincent pulled out his cell phone and called. It rang two times before voicemail picked up. “This is Chief Ellis of the Hollow Green Police Department. Please leave your name and number at the beep.”
“Chief Ellis,” Vincent said. “It’s Detective Vincent. Listen, uh, I’m just calling because…” He held his breath, chagrined at the fact that it was taking so much energy to say what he wanted to say. “I’m calling because I’m tendering my resignation,” he continued, “effective immediately. I just…” He leaned back and rubbed his temples. “I need to walk away. I need to call it quits. There’s too much at stake to keep rolling the dice with this job. I have very few people left in my life that still want me around…” He looked at Claire, her face angelic in the moonlight. “And I need to be here for them.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll be getting my stuff sometime this week. Let me know if you have any questions. Take care.”
Vincent hung up. He stuffed the phone in his pocket along with his career, cases, and partners he had left behind in Hollow Green.
I’ll need to tell Brandt I quit, too.
She definitely won’t be too pleased to hear that I’m leaving.
But Vincent just sighed his tension away as he melted into his chair, his gaze on Claire, holding out hope that she would wake at any moment. “It’s over, sweetie,” he said. “It’s all over.”
A little over an hour later, Vincent stood up and went for a stretch in the hallway. Everything was quiet, the night shift barely making a peep as Vincent shook the tension out of his body.
He glanced around: not a soul in sight. It wasn’t a big hospital, only three stories, just a few wings, and maybe a few people currently on rotation in Claire’s wing.
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