by Dale Mayer
“One down,” she snapped.
She got a response immediately as her phone rang. “What the hell are you doing?” the sheriff roared.
“After Jed and Pierce got into a shootout earlier, and you walked away, the Billy boys came back looking for trouble. Pierce caught Billy siphoning gas out of the truck.”
“What? So he siphons off a couple bucks’ worth of gasoline. Is that worth knocking him out cold and tying him up? You guys are the ones skirting the law now.”
She gasped in disbelief at his words. “Are you serious? Ross said Jed and the Billy brothers are threatening to burn down Pete’s place. And you know they’re gunning for Pierce. Do you even care?”
“Why should I care?” the sheriff said calmly. “He’s a stranger. He’s a nobody.”
“But he’s protecting somebody who’s part of this community,” she snapped. “Pete’s coming back, and this is his place. He needs our help making sure nobody rides roughshod all over it.”
“You’re the one who says Pete’s coming back,” the sheriff snapped. “You and that lover boy of yours.”
She stiffened at the reference to Pierce. “Hardly,” she said sarcastically. “You’re the sheriff. You should be here keeping Jed and the Billy boys back.”
“According to Jed and the Billy boys, your friend attacked them without provocation. So when I come out in the morning, it’ll be to arrest Pierce.”
She snorted. “Well, good luck with that,” she said. “He’s got friends in high places.”
“Sure he does. That boy is all talk. You’ve always been an easy mark for the men. Offer you a few flowers and a cup of coffee, and you lie down for any of them,” he sneered.
She was horrified that he’d go down that path. “You are out of line.” Her voice was hard. “And that’s not appropriate behavior between colleagues.”
“You were a colleague,” he said. “But I’ve just fired you, so you’re nobody now.” And with that he hung up.
She stared down at her phone in disbelief. “Fired?” For some reason that had never occurred to her. He had a right to fire her, but he had to have a reason. Did he in this case? She wasn’t going against his orders. He hadn’t ordered her to come back. He hadn’t ordered her to leave the place alone. He hadn’t ordered her not to get involved. She had citizens here in trouble, and she was trying to help out.
She sent her father a text. Apparently helping out Pierce and Pete just got me fired.
Her father texted back. Sorry, kiddo. Not surprised. Your sheriff doesn’t like anybody who goes against his wishes.
And yet, technically he never told me not to do this. So I’m not sure what he’s firing me over. Of course he made a lot of nasty innuendos about me and Pierce.
That’s the level he operates at. If he doesn’t have anything specific to blame you for, he’ll find something. And, in this case, it’ll be an inappropriate relationship causing you to overstep your boundaries.
She ran a hand through her hair and wondered what the hell she would do now. Life had gone into an absolute spiral since she’d met Pierce.
She glared out the window, pocketing her phone. “Well, Pierce, is this what happens? Do you inspire a reign of chaos everywhere you go?”
Ross was gone; one of the Billy boys was tied up; Jed was injured, and Pierce was out there with Salem. And she was stuck inside. What the hell was she was supposed to do with that?
Not liking any of her options, she slipped out the back door and wandered down the porch to take a look into the shadows. Her car was in the barn. She needed to go home, pick up the deputy’s car and take it back to the station. By now the sheriff would have told Stephen and Roy. They’d both be smirking and saying they’d told her that her actions would get her fired. Not that they had, but, of course, they’d be all about kissing up to the sheriff for firing her. A paycheck was a paycheck in this town where so many businesses had gone under. She had a little money saved, so she was good for a bit, but obviously she’d now have to consider moving. She stepped back inside and headed to the living room to peer out from behind the curtains. Still no sign of anything or anyone.
Just then a text came back from her father. Just got a phone call from your mom. Something about this blowing up all over the news.
She brightened. Instead of trying to text an answer, she called him. When he answered on the first ring, she said, “Pierce said he would contact the media.”
“Good,” he said. “I’ve already tried to contact the higher-ups, but everybody wants to leave the sheriff to do his job.”
“You know what that’s all about,” she said. “But, in this instance, the sheriff is just waiting for the dust to die down. Then he’ll come in and make it look like he made it all happen—or not—depending on the outcome. He doesn’t let anybody take the glory away from him, and neither will he put himself in danger or get his hands dirty.”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m at the back of the house,” she said. “Pierce took off into the shadows, and I have no clue what he’s up to. Of course, I have Billy here tied up. Ross slipped away earlier, but honestly, I don’t know if we can trust him. He could just as easily have gone to Jed’s.”
“Your mom contacted Vicky. She and the kids are okay. They’re at her mom’s. Your mom is trying to convince her not to go home. I’m not sure it’ll take very much convincing after this. She’s pretty scared.”
“The only thing is, she needs her job,” Hedi said sadly. “And he’ll find her there.”
“Yeah, true enough. The sheriff won’t arrest Jed for beating on his wife and kids. He sure as hell won’t arrest Jed for going after a guy who shot him.”
“No, but Jed was going to kill Pierce, and I can attest to that.”
“Chances are you’ll have to,” her father warned.
“It was all in the line of duty. But I’m no longer an official officer of the law.” Her tone had turned hard. “So I guess right now I’m just a private citizen helping a friend.”
“Just a question on that,” her dad asked. “Which friend?”
“At this time, both of them,” she said softly. “There’s a lot to like about Pierce. He’s a good man. He also stood up for me against Jed, beat Jed down for hurting his kids. No doubt Pierce’s one of the good guys. But he’s only here for a short time, and then he’s taking off again.”
“Too bad,” the ex-sheriff said. “Sounds to me like he’d make a great sheriff.”
She laughed at that. “I don’t know,” she said. “He’s pretty unbridled.”
“What the job needs is somebody who knows when it’s time to act and who knows when it’s time to sit back. So far we’ve seen he knows when it’s time to act. The question now is, is he astute enough to recognize when it’s time to sit back?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but, as I’m no longer here on behalf of the law, I’m feeling a bit at loose ends.”
“You want to stay?”
“Yes,” she said, her tone sharp. “I’ll finish what I started. Besides, without me, Pierce has no backup.”
“Me and the boys are out here,” her father said. “You can either join us or you can stay where you are. But you do need to confirm either way with us, so we know to look for you when shadows start moving.”
“I’m here at the house,” she said. “I want to do a full search on the outbuildings. But remember Pierce is out in the shadows. I don’t know where. Not even sure what he’s after.”
“If he’s smart, he’ll have gone to Jed’s house to see if they’re there.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t know where Jed is. He should have gotten that hand looked after.”
“It depends on how drunk he is. Right now he won’t be feeling any pain. It’ll just be that same old festering anger, only now he has a specific target,” her father warned. “I’m sorry for Pete. It seems like he’s the one caught in the middle of all of this.”
“He is, indeed,” she said. “I
’d love to see him come back sooner rather than later—get his input on the renovations.”
“I hear you. But that’s out of my hands. If Pete calls me for a ride, I’ll be the first one to go get him. Hell, maybe I’ll call him and offer him one first.”
On that note she hung up. She stood for a few moments, then slipped outside, listening to the silence around her. There hadn’t been anything while she’d been talking, but it was so easy to miss a sound.
Taking a chance, she slipped to the fence line and crept around to the barn. As soon as she stepped inside, the air felt different, staticky with expectancy. And she knew she wasn’t alone.
Jed’s house loomed large on the left. Pierce leaned against a tree and studied it. Jed was out front beside a pickup—looked like a reject from the junkyard—swearing and cursing at something. Then that seemed to be all he did besides drinking and abusing people and Salem. Jed might have been a good man in his heyday, but circumstances and the bottle had dragged him down, way down.
There was no way to make heads or tails out of his words either, but apparently the truck wouldn’t start. No surprise there. A providence that Pierce would look on with a smile. He couldn’t be sure what Jed’s plan was, but it likely wasn’t anything decent.
Just then Jed turned and stumbled back to the house, and Pierce meant stumbled. Jed could barely keep himself upright. He’d obviously come home and consumed the better part of a bottle. He held a propane torch canister in his hand, which also didn’t say much good about what was going on in his head. He made it inside the door, slamming it behind him. Once again words filled the air, but they were just the same repeated swear words from before.
Pierce slipped up to the corner of the house and peered in the window. Jed appeared to be alone. He was pouring a slug back from the bottle that only had a couple inches left on the bottom. When he ran out, if he did run out, then things would get ugly yet again. Jed would need a steady influx of that booze to keep him going, to fuel his anger, to numb his gunshot wound. Either that or it would knock him out. But he had a huge tolerance. So many alcoholics could function at levels that would knock out normal individuals.
Pierce studied Jed as he moved around the house, knocking papers off the table and dumping chairs to the side. He was trying to light the propane torch in his hand with a sparking fire, trying to get it to give him a few inches of flame. It was an accident waiting to happen. Jed swore again when it wouldn’t light. This time Pierce sighed with relief.
When something cold nestled his hand, he jumped slightly and turned to look down. “Well, Salem, you are one sneaky dog,” he whispered. He crouched lower and gently stroked her head.
She looked at him with those huge eyes, worried she was trusting the wrong man yet again.
He brushed his hand down the back of her neck, scratched her ruff and said, “How are you doing, huh? You shouldn’t be over here. This is one guy who’ll torture you and watch you burn alive.”
She seemed to understand his words because she shot a hesitant look toward the house.
He straightened, peered in the window and saw Jed coming around to the rear kitchen door. Calling Salem to him with hand signals, Pierce raced back to the tree, the two of them blending into the fence in the woods. He watched from a distance as Jed tripped out the back door, standing there cursing the moon, shaking a fist at the sky. Pierce wondered at the anger that drove this man. And then he heard Jed speak.
“Goddammit, Vicky. Get your fucking ass back home again. I’m hungry. A man needs to eat, you know?”
Pierce’s eyebrows shot up. So he was upset about Vicky. He saw a phone in Jed’s hand and realized Jed was talking. Then he smashed the phone against a fence post. A shot Pierce didn’t think Jed could make, except for the fact that he was drunk. And somehow drunks seemed to have the luck.
“Goddamn bitch. No way you get to leave me,” he roared.
That made more sense. Vicky was gone, and here Jed was. That was the last straw for him. And just like that, he fired up that spark to get the torch to light, and, indeed, it did.
Out came a good foot-long shot of flame. And that had Jed laughing like a loon. He shut down the burner again, lit it once more to make sure it worked once more, and then walked around the house toward his junkyard truck.
Pierce knew the real trouble had just started. They were heading into a full-blown war right now, and it was one nobody would win. His first priority was to avoid loss of life. The second priority was to avoid loss of property. And the only property he gave a shit about was Pete’s.
Seeing Jed get into the truck and manage to start it up, put it in gear and reverse it down the driveway had Pierce racing back toward Pete’s property. With Salem running free at his side, the two matched pace for pace with the truck on the road. At least the driveway would take some twists and turns, whereas Pierce cut across the back forty and would be there, hopefully, at the same time.
Chapter 11
Back in the house, Hedi saw Billy lying on the floor, staring up at her, absolute hate in his gaze. She crouched and said, “Oh, I’m sorry you’re awake. You’re much easier to deal with when you’re unconscious.”
“So are you,” he mumbled around the cloth in his mouth, glaring at her.
She ignored him, knowing he was very much of the opinion a woman should be available whenever a man wanted, and it didn’t matter if she was willing or not. She walked to the front door and stared out. Her knees were weak from her damn fast mad dash back from the barn, but now she knew that was where the danger was. Only one handgun did not an army make.
Hating to be inside, she walked back to the kitchen and slipped out into the darkness. Instantly she felt better. She hated that she’d run away from the evil presence in the barn and wondered at the sense of going back in again. Was Bobby there? If so, she wasn’t ready to take him on, not on her own. Not when she didn’t know where Jed was.
She checked out the lay of the land, slipped to the right, away from the barn, caught up with the fence and crept along the side so she was between the barn and the house where she had a better vantage point. A copse of trees was there, and she could hide a little easier.
From that point she crouched down low and watched. When her phone buzzed in her hand, she took a look and read the message from Pierce. “Shit, shit, shit,” she snapped. This was so not cool.
She forwarded the text to her father, adding, Jed is liquored up and running around with a working blowtorch.
She could only hope her father and his men stopped Jed before he got here and caused any more trouble. If ever there was a mangy dog that needed to be put down, it was Jed.
In the last two years of being a deputy her job had been pretty damn easy. She’d learned a lot from her father and less than nothing from the current sheriff. She wondered if tonight’s media hype would cause a kerfuffle. Or would it garner only a brief mention and disappear like so many other incidents? She really wanted the sheriff gone but didn’t know how to make that happen.
Waiting for something to happen was interminable. Five minutes became ten. Where was Jed? He should be coming any moment. And whoever was in the barn, what were they doing? Just waiting for Jed to show up?
In the distance she could hear an owl’s long cry. She turned to look up but didn’t see any owl.
Her eye caught a sign of movement. She twisted slightly to spot Pierce motioning at her several trees behind her. She nodded, took a careful look around and then crept low along the grass. There was no way to make it, fast or slow, and not be noticed. There just wasn’t enough here for total ground cover. If she was lucky, whoever was in the barn was deep in the barn and not looking out the double doors.
When she reached Pierce’s side, she hunkered down and whispered, “What the hell’s going on?”
“Jed is gunning toward murder and arson,” he said. “I was hoping our backup would come a little faster.”
“My father, Roger, and Stew, one of his former deputies, are he
re,” she said. “They’re hoping to stop Jed before he gets here.”
“Somebody has to,” he said. “Jed is just a live wire. He’s on a rampage. I think he got a call from his wife saying she was leaving him.”
“Oh, shit. That would be really bad timing on her part,” Hedi said.
“And sent Jed, who was already on the edge—or rather over the edge—completely off the cliff,” Pierce said.
Her phone rang. “Dad, what’s up?”
“Jed is one cagey drunk. He must have seen us without us seeing him,” he said. “When he didn’t show up on the roadway as soon as we expected, we went looking for him. Found his abandoned truck—that second work truck of his—parked off-road. He left it and obviously took off on foot. We checked his ride, specifically for the torch. And, yeah, he still has it.”
“So he could already be here,” she said, looking around the area. “I think somebody’s in the barn. It’s probably Bobby, waiting for Jed to show up.”
“Make sure you don’t go back in that barn or the house,” her father ordered.
“I’m out in the trees with Pierce. He also said he heard part of a conversation with Jed about maybe Vicky leaving him.”
“If that’s the case,” her father said, “nobody is bringing Jed in tonight. He’ll take out as many as he can, including himself. But, if he doesn’t get stopped here, you know he’ll be going after his wife next.”
“Please get her someplace safe,” she told her father urgently.
“I’m sending Stew to Vicky and the kids. He’ll watch over them, even move them if he has to.”
Hedi nodded. “Those kids have been through enough already. We can’t have Jed taking them all out just because he’s pissed.”
“He’s been pissed for a long time,” her father said. “Make sure you’re not a target of Jed’s rage tonight.”
“Not planning on that, but someone needs to stop him. And I want to make sure we take down Bobby in the barn, if that’s who’s there,” she said. “I just can’t be sure it is.” She turned to look at Pierce.