Even though they were standing in two different storage units, concrete walls separating them, Maggie could imagine Matt’s face as he realized their own personal nemesis was back. And had the upper hand again. The detective probably was as tense as she was, but sporting a more intimidating facial expression. Hard jaw, pursed lips, eyes a raging storm. While Maggie could barely keep the picture frame steady in her hands.
“I thought you said you don’t kill women.” Matt’s voice was ice. The man’s eyes stayed on him. The gun stayed on her.
“I did say that,” he admitted. “But after the runaround this one has given me, I might reconsider if I don’t get a win soon. So, please, drop your gun or I’ll make sure her part in your investigating stops here.”
Maggie wished the wall between them was gone. She wanted—no, needed—to see the detective. To know everything was going to be okay. To see those storm-cloud eyes and feel their power. Maybe it would make her feel less helpless. She glanced around the unit to see if there was anything she could use to defend herself. Or to attack.
“And what will you do with her if I follow your order?” Matt asked. “What stops you from shooting her now?”
The man actually grinned.
“Because I have a few questions only she can answer.” His grin unhinged. His head tilted to the side like a dog hearing a foreign sound. Maggie didn’t like the change. Or how fast it happened. “But you know, I can’t really think of a reason for me to not shoot you.”
Maggie took a small step forward. Her voice was louder than she thought was possible with the fear coursing through her.
“If you kill him then you’ll not only have an entire county of law enforcement hunting you down, you’ll have an entire community hunting you. And they won’t stop until you’re found.”
The man glanced at her, the grin back. And just as sinister looking.
“You underestimate my power to disappear.”
There was a clear point of pride in the way he said it. Maggie’s stomach knotted.
“If you kill him,” she started, slow but strong, “I’ll fight until you have to kill me, too. Then I can’t answer any of your questions.”
The man didn’t respond for a moment. Instead, he looked between them. Maggie wondered what Matt was thinking. Again, she wished the wall was gone.
“Oh, okay,” he finally said. “I see. You two are a thing.” He nodded in Matt’s direction. “You’re willing to die for her and she’s willing to die for you. Looks like this investigation has been heating up while you two have been in hiding. How cute.”
Maggie didn’t have time to dwell on his words. All of his attention went back to Matt.
“So now we have another very real choice for you to make. You can put the gun down and let me take Ms. Carson here so we can have a little chat. Or you can not put it down and I’ll just kill her and do what I do best and you’ll never see me again or find out any truth whatsoever. Or, my new favorite option, I can just kill you now, which will force your girlfriend here to attack me until I kill her, too.” The man laughed. “Now, if you ask me, the first option is the best bet, considering it’s the only one where you both live. But I have to admit that while I might have known your wife, I don’t know you, Detective. You might like having the women around you die.” His lips pulled into a wider smile. It was downright sickening. “Everyone has their own secret kink after all. Maybe that’s yours. Who am I to judge?”
The world around them disappeared. All Maggie could see and hear was a madman with a gun. It was like she was seeing him for the first time. He wasn’t just a criminal, some unknown piece to a larger puzzle, he was the end game. Even without her memories, Maggie knew right then and there that she was looking at pure evil. Smiling like he was at the damn park or out with friends. Average looking in every physical detail while hiding a core dripping with evil. And she believed that evil.
Matt must have also believed it.
“Good choice, Detective,” the man said, his eyes moving downward for a moment. Maggie heard metal hit concrete. He had dropped his gun. “Now, back up against the wall, Detective.”
“Why?” Matt asked, voice still arctic.
“Don’t worry, I’m just going to shut you in. I think it’s time you took a time-out.”
The man switched his aim from her to Matt and stepped out of view. The moment she heard the sound of the metal door shifting, Maggie made a split-second decision.
She ran.
Fast.
Moving out of the twelfth storage unit, she ran like there was no tomorrow to the corner of the building, only a few units away. It gave her just enough time to clear the corner before the man yelled.
“Stop!”
But Maggie wasn’t going to stop. She wasn’t going to let him use her against the detective anymore. Instead she was going to use the adrenaline coursing through her, dulling the pain and wounds she’d racked up over the last two weeks, and try to put as much distance between herself and the man.
If he really wanted her, then he was going to have to catch her first.
* * *
THE DOOR SLAMMED DOWN, sounding like a gunshot in the new night Matt found himself in.
“Stop!” the man yelled on the other side. For a moment Matt thought the man was talking to him. Confused, he paused to listen. Footsteps raced away. Two sets.
She ran, Matt thought, adrenaline rocketing through every inch of his body within seconds. He scooped up his gun and grabbed the bottom of the door. If he knew he had a clean shot at their perp, he would have taken it through the door. Instead, he held the gun ready and pulled the door up.
It rose an inch and stopped. Matt fell against it, confused. He readjusted and tried again. It stopped again. Hung on something.
A lock.
Their mystery man had come prepared.
Matt took a few steps back. The unit was bathed in darkness but that hadn’t stopped him from taking stock of its contents when he’d first come in. There was nothing he could use to push the door off its tracks.
Nothing but himself.
He squared his shoulders, held his gun low and charged forward. The pain that shot through his body as he hit the aged metal, mingling with the soreness that was already there, meant nothing to Matt. The only detail he was focused on was the fact the door was still standing.
He backed up to the middle of the room and tried again.
The metal and his shoulder protested in sound and pain.
“You can do this,” he said.
He took his spot back up again. He dropped his shoulder low, ready again, when a sound chilled him to the bone.
A gunshot.
He stepped back until he was touching the wall. Matt wasn’t about to waste another breath on being in the storage unit. He ran at the old metal door, mind already on the layout of the outdoor units they’d passed coming in. Because he had no plans on staying in the dark anymore. Not when Maggie was out there.
His shoulder connected with the door. This time it didn’t stop. The metal overhead buckled and then snapped off the tracks holding the top of the door in place. Matt fell forward, riding the door as it fell beneath him. Together they hit the ground in a loud tangle of metal, human and dirt. It wasn’t a perfect kicking-the-door-down move but it got him out in the daylight. He scrambled to his feet, rolling off the door and pulling up his gun. He took a beat to listen. No one made a sound.
Matt ran around the building, toward the front. Toward where he thought the gunshot had gone off. The small road between each row of outdoor units was covered in dirt. Matt moved fast across it, slowing at corners but keeping his eyes on the ground. Three buildings over and he finally saw what he was looking for. Footprints, small footprints.
Maggie.
He followed them past a row of units to around the building’s corner. There he froze. Mat
t wasn’t just looking at dirt anymore. There was blood, too. A lot of it.
“No! Matt!”
Like a string was attached from her voice to every part of his body, Matt was propelled around the corner. The man was there. He had Maggie’s hair by the ends, yanking her out of an open unit. There was blood caking her shirt.
“I’m not playing around anymore,” the man yelled. “You’re going to tell me everything!”
Maggie stumbled to her knees. It only agitated him even further. He put the muzzle of his gun to her temple.
“Stop right there,” Matt boomed. He closed as much distance as he could before the man’s attention switched to him. Maybe the sorry son of a bitch knew that Matt wasn’t going to let him off the hook as easily as he had before. His confidence appeared shaken when he finally locked eyes with Matt.
“Why can’t you let me take her?” he asked. “I told you that I won’t kill a woman.”
Matt planted his feet firm.
“But you said earlier you might,” Matt reminded him. “And even if you won’t, I bet you have friends who would.” Matt took a tentative step forward. “I think it’s time you put down the gun.”
The man’s focus scattered. He looked from Matt to his gun and then back to Matt. He was weighing his options. Judging by his widening eyes, he was realizing he didn’t have many.
“If you take me in, you’ll never know the truth about what happened to your wife,” he said quickly. He shook his gun enough to make Maggie wince. Matt took another step forward in turn. “It’s either her or the truth.”
Matt didn’t have to think about this choice. As much as he’d loved his wife, he’d accepted her death. He’d tried to move on. Just like she’d want him to do. And while he didn’t want to lose the truth behind what had really happened, there was no way he was going to give up Maggie for it.
No, he would never sacrifice her.
Before Matt could let him know exactly what he thought about that choice, the man shook his head.
“Because I’m not going to jail, Detective,” he said. “Not now. Not ever.”
Matt believed him. So much so that his body reacted to the promise.
The promise of resistance.
When Matt spoke, he knew that one way or the other, it would be the last thing he said to the man.
“And she’s not going with you.”
The man’s jaw hardened. His eyes narrowed. His brow creased. He swung his gun around, leaving Maggie in the clear, and tried to set his sights on his new target.
But Matt was faster.
His bullet found the man’s chest.
It was all that was needed to take him down.
He hit the dirt. Hard.
Matt ran forward and kicked his gun away.
“Are you okay?” Matt asked, dropping down next to Maggie. Her eyes stayed on the man.
“He’s trying to say something,” she whispered.
Matt turned around. The man was looking at him, his mouth moving. They had to get closer to hear him.
“I t-told you,” he whispered. “I—I don’t kill women.”
* * *
THE MAN DIED right then and there, in front of them both on the ground of Danny’s Storage Facility. As far as last words went, his sounded movieworthy.
And unsettling.
Not that Maggie had the sanity to really think on them. The detective was back on her within seconds of the man’s last breath.
“Where are you hurt?” he asked. “Maggie! Where are you hurt?”
He grabbed at her shirt, trying to find the source of the blood. It shifted the cloth and its wetness to a dry spot of her skin. The contrast shocked Maggie back into action.
“It’s not mine,” she said, voice barely registering even to her own ears. She cleared her throat.
“What?” Matt continued to search her body. She took his hands before rocking up to her feet.
“The blood isn’t mine.”
Maggie turned on her heel and stumbled into the open storage unit. Ralph was propped up against a wall, at the end of his own blood trail, barely conscious.
“He was coming to check on us when I ran into him. He tried to find us a hiding spot and got shot. I dragged him in here.”
Maggie sat down on the concrete next to the man. She applied pressure to the stomach wound and ignored how warm his blood was as it pushed through her fingers.
“It’s going to be okay,” Matt assured over her shoulder.
Ralph was barely hanging on but managed to ask about his mom as Matt stepped out to call in reinforcements.
Maggie put on a smile she hoped conveyed unyielding confidence.
“I’m sure she’s fine. Just like you’re going to be.”
Maggie hoped she wasn’t lying.
Chapter Eighteen
Ralph and his mother left in one ambulance together. She’d been ordered at gunpoint to open the gate but, thankfully, words were the extent of the gunman’s attack. His focus had been resolutely on Maggie. And the contents of the locked cabinet. Neither of which he had been able to obtain in the end.
Maggie stood off to the side of the crime scene now being submerged in a constant wave of local PD and Riker County deputies. She watched as Matt was next to the gunman’s body, talking to Detective Ansler. Without Matt she had no idea where she would be or if she’d even be alive. Their backup deputies had still been a few minutes out when Matt was finally able to call them in. That would have been a big enough gap for the man to take her away without anyone being able to follow.
The man might have said he never killed women, but the fact of the matter was that Erin Walker had been run over. As best as she could guess he had paid Ken Morrison to do it. In her book that meant he had no problem killing women, he just preferred outsourcing. Now with Ken and the man both dead Maggie was hoping for some peace. For all of them.
“How are you doing?” Maggie’s heart jumped to her throat. Sheriff Billy Reed immediately looked apologetic. “Sorry, I thought you heard me walk up.”
Maggie took a deep breath and let it out.
“It’s okay. I was just stuck in my own head,” she admitted. “But I’m doing okay. Though I wish we had more answers.”
The sheriff nodded.
“But at least we know a man willing to kill is now off the streets,” he pointed out. “Even if we don’t have all of the answers, that’s enough to make me happy.”
Maggie didn’t skip a beat.
“But I need more. We need more.”
Together they looked over at Matt. He was talking to Detective Ansler. His face was stone.
“He hasn’t gotten the chance to look in the unit you were in earlier, has he?”
Maggie’s gaze stayed on the detective in question. He’d chosen her over finally knowing the truth about his wife, unaware Maggie had already stumbled upon a new lead.
“No. We were focused on Ralph until the ambulance got here and then you guys showed up.”
The sheriff surprised her with a small sigh. She glanced up at him. He looked tired.
“So he doesn’t know that the unit you were in belonged to Erin yet.”
Maggie shook her head.
“No,” she confirmed. “He doesn’t.”
They were quiet for a few seconds. Maggie was reminded that Sheriff Reed wasn’t just Matt’s boss, but also his friend.
“He’s not going to take it well,” he finally said. “But maybe what’s inside will give us answers we couldn’t get from him.”
Maggie looked back at the gunman. Dead. She felt no sympathy for him. He’d shot Ralph without provocation or hesitation.
“Are you going to tell him?” She angled her entire body in front of the sheriff, no longer able to bear the sight of the man’s lifeless body a few yards away.
&
nbsp; “To be honest, I think it should be you who does it,” the sheriff said. “I feel like it would mean more.”
That confused her.
“Mean more?”
He fixed her with a pointed stare.
“You never believed Erin’s death was simple and were criticized for it. Still, you pressed on until the road dead-ended. Years later and, even with more to lose than before, you still never gave up.” He gave her a small smile. “Going down the roads you two went down to find the truth, in my book, makes you like partners. And hard news, good or bad, comes easier from partners.”
Maggie returned the smile, touched by the sheriff’s gentle words. She didn’t have to ask it and he didn’t have to say it but Maggie felt like he had just apologized and forgiven her in one fell swoop. Where the sheriff saw redemption, the others in Riker County’s Sheriff Department would, too. Eventually.
It made Maggie’s heart feel lighter.
Finally, she’d risen from the actions she regretted taking five years ago. Or, at least, how she’d handled the beginning of looking into Erin’s death. She never should have cornered Matt the way she had. Especially after the funeral. There had been better ways to go about it but Maggie had been single-minded, driven by an obsession and pushed by unhappiness in her own life at the time. Maybe now she could reform her relationship with the department and the detective himself.
Though when she met Matt’s gaze after he was done talking to Ansler, she felt the weight of a different burden settle.
She left the sheriff’s side and moved closer to Matt.
“Did our mystery man have the key on him by chance?” she started.
Matt nodded. He produced the key she’d hidden at the bottom of the hotel pool from his back pocket. It looked impossibly small in the plastic evidence bag it was in.
“It was the only item he had on him aside from a key to a stolen car out front.”
“Good.” She took a breath. “Because I need to show you something.”
Matt didn’t question her as she led him back to the twelfth legacy unit. She paused only long enough to look at the tenth’s damage. The metal door was on the ground, bent awkwardly.
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