Meredith scooted away from the corner and rolled to her hands and knees to crawl toward Josh.
He squatted down and pulled her to him. She trembled violently enough I saw it from where I crouched. Josh put his arms around her and kept his attention on me. “She asked me to help her. We figured out about the stealing but not who his partners were.”
Meredith pulled her head up and in a quavering voice said, “Chad did it to make me happy. He thought I wanted all that expensive stuff. But not like that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“At first, I didn’t trust you,” Josh said.
“But you trusted Clete?” I couldn’t hide the incredulous tone of my voice.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead as if a great pain jabbed his brain. “That was a mistake.”
Meredith managed to choke out words between sobs. “That was me. I thought Clete cared about Chad and he’d h-h-help us.”
Josh patted Meredith’s back. “I still don’t trust Deputy Dawg. But then, we were getting close and I…”
I had no reason to believe him. But I did. “You what?”
He wouldn’t look me in the eye. “I didn’t want to put you in danger.”
I let loose and yelled, “Damn it to hell!”
A crack of a rifle and a whizz of a bullet too close to my cheek sent me diving. I slid into Josh, who flattened himself partially on top of Meredith.
Shit, shit, shit. I was honest to God being shot at. Every nerve sizzled and I wanted to dive into a hole.
Meredith started screaming again—just what I didn’t need. Josh patted her and soothed, “It’s okay.”
“Is that your father?” As if it was all Josh’s fault.
He shook his head. “It was earlier but this isn’t Dad’s 12 gauge.”
“Clete,” I said.
“How do you know it’s not Deputy Dawg? He’s dumb enough to shoot at whatever moves.”
I glared at him. “It came from the direction of the barn.”
Something crashed on the steps of the back porch, and Trey yelled, “Kate.”
Damn it. I hollered, “Get down.”
The doorknob rattled. “I saw Clete shoot in here. Are you okay?” He’d called me stupid, but risking himself to check on me trumped every dumb thing I’d ever done.
The rifle cracked again and Trey yelped, “Ah!” The door trembled as if he fell against it.
I sprang up, keeping my head down and scuttled to the door. I reached for the knob and pulled it open. “What the hell are you thinking?”
Trey fell into the kitchen with a grunt of pain. He panted and lay back, and in a whisper said, “Kate. Thank God you’re okay.”
“Dumbass.” If I could punch him or Josh or any other damned man who thought he needed to protect me, I would have. In the nose, to hear the cartilage crunch and see the blood spurt. I had half a mind to let Trey bleed out.
Josh crawled to me and tugged Trey into the kitchen, and I slammed the door. I slid back and bent over Trey. Meredith curled into a ball in the middle of the kitchen and resorted to hysterics.
Trey groaned and clutched his knee to his chest. I peeled his hands away. “Where are you hit?”
He licked his lips and whispered, “You’re not hurt? Stay down. I called for backup.”
Backup meant Milo, fifty miles away, or the state troopers from North Platte or Broken Butte. We couldn’t hole up against Clete that long.
I found the source of Trey’s bleeding. The bullet hit a fleshy part of his left calf. I surged across the kitchen and whipped a kitchen towel from the handle of the stove. Meredith lay in a fetal position in the middle of the kitchen floor, her hands over her head, gurbling and sobbing. Josh eased up to look out the shattered glass of the kitchen door.
I wound the towel around Trey’s calf. “Josh. I need you to hold pressure here.”
He kept his focus out the window. “I think Clete is going into the barn. There’s an old pickup in there.”
“Does it run?”
Josh nodded. “Probably has quarter tank of gas. He can damned sure get down the road.”
“Where’s Enoch?”
Trey moaned. “The old man.”
Josh flung himself to the ground. “What?”
Trey winced. “He’s down.”
Josh’s words were strangled. “Did you shoot him?”
Trey shook his head, his forehead wrinkled in pain. “No. He collapsed by the windmill.”
Josh started for the door.
“Stop,” I ordered. “Stay here. Meredith will freak out if you leave, and I need you to put pressure on this.”
Meredith forced herself to sit. “Josh? Josh. Don’t leave me. Please. Please.” She scurried across the floor and wrapped her arms around his legs. “No. Don’t go.”
I had to agree with her sister, Emily. Meredith had a knack for drama.
Josh knelt down and pried her free.
I grabbed Trey’s gun from his hand. “I’ve got this.” Done talking, I ran in a crouch across the living room and out the front door. I continued across the front porch and tumbled down the stairs. No shots.
Clete was in the barn. Clouds now shrouded the moon, sinking the prairie in darkness. I ran from the house across the open ranch yard and sprinted along the side to the back of the barn. I hopped the wood fence and landed on the frozen sand of the corral, running for the windmill before I hit the ground. In the darkness, Enoch looked like an unstuffed scarecrow. Even without bright moonlight, his face looked pale as flour. I leaned close and detected a hint of breath. The heartbeat in his throat jittered.
I shoved the gun in my holster and gathered him in a fireman’s carry, his feeble protests not slowing me. “Shh. Enoch. You need to be quiet,” I whispered. I thought about taking him back to the house, but we’d be an open target. Our best shot was the barn. I could hide Enoch in a stall and stop Clete from escaping. If I were Wonder Woman. Or really lucky.
On a normal day, flinging the extra 120 pounds over my shoulders might have seemed difficult. Tonight, he felt like little more than a sack of potatoes, and I humped to the barn door at the back. The metal latch froze my hand when I eased the door open.
Luck played fast and loose with us, and the clouds cleared the moon, flashing a slit of light into the black interior. I managed to get us inside and kick the door closed. The wind died out, and the only sound was my heavy breathing.
A shot exploded and wood splintered on the door behind us.
Enoch and I hit the dirt of the barn alley in a puff of dust. The door of a stall was open an inch. I jumped up. The combination of near-total darkness, Clete’s probable panic, and maybe poor aim evened out the bad trick the moon had played by lighting us up.
Huffing and scruffing along the hay-strewn floor, I managed to drag Enoch. I pushed the stall door open and yanked Enoch inside and piled hay on top of him. Maybe the insulation of the barn and straw would keep him from freezing to death. It was all I could do for him until I dealt with the shooter. Dust and hay scratched my nose, smelling musty and green.
“Clete,” I called out. He didn’t answer, but straw stirred so I knew he was moving.
“Backup is on the way.”
“Liar,” he hollered at me, and I placed him close to the front of the barn.
I pulled Trey’s gun and eased from the stall, slowing my breathing and not making a sound. A gust of wind rattled against the barn walls, and Enoch let out a slight moan. I strained to hear Clete, but there was only silence. Where was he? “If you give up now, it will be better for you.”
Pop. Zwing. Thunk. A bullet lodged somewhere in the barn wall behind me. My heart clogged my throat, and I clenched my teeth to keep from screaming.
He’d given up the rifle for my Smith and Wesson. “Let me go. Don’t make me kill you.” His craggy voice had an edge of fear.
I stared into darkness as thick as a stack of black cats. “That’s not going to happen. Even if you get away, we’re going
to catch you.”
He laughed, the sound of the last clutch at hope. “I know these hills. I can hide.”
He was moving closer to the stall where Enoch lay. I backtracked to stay between them. “I know the hills better. I’ll find you.”
Pop. Hay ruffled and whispered. My senses shouted, and I fought to keep from turning tail.
He wasn’t aiming so much as guessing, but that might kill me just as true. “It’s your son, isn’t it?”
“Stepson!” He sounded like Meredith with his high-pitched wail. “He’s not my blood.”
“But you raised him. You taught him right from wrong.” I lunged, then tucked and rolled.
He didn’t shoot again. “If I didn’t help him, my wife said she’d leave. She’d take half my retirement.”
I tried to lead him away from Enoch by tossing a shovel across the alley.
Clete was willing to kill for a $4,000-a-month pension? I couldn’t understand that. “You’ve paved the way for him all his life.”
Clete seemed to be circling, maybe trying to get a bead on me. “Not me. His mother babied him.”
“But Chad, he was the son you never had, huh?” I took a few quick steps to the right as silently as possible.
Clete wasn’t masking his movements. “Chad had something on the ball. He was smart and didn’t mind a little hard work.”
“So you recruited him.”
“No. Ron moved out to Needles because it was an easy job. Then he got involved in this gang. He tried to get Chad to move out there, but Chad figured out stealing would be easier here. And it was. They drew me into it, and for a while, we were in high cotton. But then Ron got caught.”
I kept my silence and tried to close in on Clete.
Clete sounded teary. “I didn’t want to kill Chad. I don’t want to kill anyone. But he was going to quit. How long would it take Josh and Meredith to convince Chad to turn us in?”
I had to be within a couple of yards from Clete. I calculated whether I should jump at him and take him down or shoot. The academy told us our goal is to stop the threat. Could I do that without killing Clete?
Clete’s heavy breathing moved toward the pickup.
I crept a few steps.
Clete’s voice sounded farther toward the front of the barn than where I thought the pickup was parked. “Leave it alone, Katie. No one expects you to solve a murder.”
I tiptoed forward, frustrated at my slow progress but needing to stay silent.
I shouldn’t have bothered. I expected Clete to fling open the pickup door, throw himself inside, crank the engine and barrel through the barn door, giving me ample time to shoot the tires, or in the worst case, shoot Clete. He had other ideas.
The creak of the back barn door made me jerk my head around. I changed directions and lunged after Clete. I stumbled in the hay and whacked my elbow on the pickup, but lurched through the darkness toward the sliver of light left by the open door.
By the time I flew into the barnyard, Clete was halfway to Trey’s cruiser. I sped after him then pulled up short and spun around. Enoch might be freezing in the barn. I couldn’t chase Clete and leave Enoch to die.
I sprinted back, burst into the silent barn, and flung myself into the stall.
“Enoch!” I felt in the hay until my hand hit against his still form. A thin moan escaped from him when I hefted him to a fireman’s carry. “You’re alive. Good. That’s good.” I breathed hard and uttered the words to give us both courage.
Back out the door, moving much more slowly than previously, I murmured to Enoch, “Gonna get you some help. Josh’s here.”
The door to Trey’s cruiser gaped, and the car light reflected on emptiness. I prayed Clete had fled and wasn’t aiming his gun on us now. Enoch might be little more than porous bones, but I struggled under his awkward weight. My boots thudded like a rockslide up the step and I hurled us into the kitchen.
Meredith screamed, of course. Josh knelt on the floor next to Trey, and both of them stared at me when I stumbled in. Josh jumped to his feet and grabbed hold of Enoch before I cleared the threshold.
“Dad!” Josh held the old man.
“Get him in there.” I pointed to the living room. I yelled at Meredith, “Gather blankets.” I ran after Josh. “Backup is on the way and they’ll have an ambulance. For now, try to warm him up.”
Meredith still huddled in the corner of the kitchen. “Now!” I grabbed her arm and jerked her to her feet. “Clete is on the run. You’re safe.”
Trey winced in pain and spoke around clenched teeth. “Are you okay?”
Instead of shouting at him to shut up, I bent over. “Give me your keys.”
He hesitated and I didn’t wait. “Keys! Clete is probably going to find my car down the road, and I left my keys in it.”
Trey still didn’t reach into any pockets. “Let him go. Wait for backup.”
I threw myself to my knees and thrust a hand in his jacket pocket. He struggled, but I had the advantage of not being wounded. When that search came up empty I dove my hand into his other pocket. Bingo.
With a pasty face and a quarter his normal strength and fight, he said, “Don’t go. Let the troopers—”
I was already out the door, leaving my words to fall on his head. “It’s my job.”
31
I took off for Trey’s cruiser. I didn’t have a coat, gloves, or a cap. It had started snowing, and the wind whipped shards of snow through the air, but the blood pulsing through my veins kept me plenty warm. My hands automatically did what they were supposed to, shutting the door, inserting the key, cranking the engine, backing out, and taking off down the gravel road.
I rounded the corner, not gratified I’d been right that Clete would take my car. It was gone, but Trey’s car, the one Josh stole, sat in the dark. Without thinking about the action, I grabbed the radio and keyed the mic. Just before I spoke I threw it aside like it was an angry rattler. Clete would be able to hear anything I said.
I took a hand off of the wheel to search my pocket for my phone. No surprise it wasn’t there; probably lying in any number of places on the Stevenses’ ranch. I knew backup was on the way, just not how far away.
I headed east, toward Meredith’s house and County Road 67. I figured Clete would make a run for the paved road and race away as fast as possible. I scanned the road in front of my headlights but didn’t see any tracks in the blowing snow that had barely begun to stick to the road. Nearly to the curve, I glanced in the rearview mirror. Crap. I caught the flash of a brake light. I’d guessed wrong. Clete had taken the gravel road to the west.
The frenzied blue and red lights of Trey’s borrowed patrol car beat into the night. Clete thought I was going in the wrong direction. I doused the flashers, headlights included, and jerked the wheel to the right, flying off the road and bouncing along the pasture in my panicked U-turn. I pulled back on the gravel and buried the gas pedal. I had to catch Clete. The backup trooper didn’t know what to look for. He would be on his way to Stevens Ranch, via County Road 67. He wouldn’t know Clete was traveling in the opposite direction.
I slid on the gravel but kept my grip on the wheel, steering out of the waggle and speeding down the middle of the road, bouncing with the uneven surface. I caught another glimpse of taillights, closer this time. Clete couldn’t know I trailed him, and he tapped his brakes. Then he was gone again, and all I had was the faint image of his tracks on the road.
In a few seconds I hit a series of washboards, and the wheel felt like a jackhammer. My fingers clamped down, and my arms clenched in an effort to keep it steady. The back wheels bounced in a staccato, and the rear of the car took off for the left. I pulled my foot from the gas, but refused to apply brakes. This must have been where Clete had slowed.
My brain galloped ahead and jittered with impatience as my body, trapped in the vibrating car, lagged behind. The road evened out, relatively, and I pushed the gas pedal with the weight of my whole body. I pulled Trey’s gun from my holster a
nd wedged it between my seat and the console, ready for me to grab if I got the opportunity.
I’d like to take matters into my own hands. I’d been shot at way too many times in one night. An old man had been left for dead. Chad six feet under. That felt like a good enough reason for me to end it here and now. But I couldn’t let loose and execute Clete.
I’d still like to grab hold of that jerk and see some justice come his way.
I assumed Clete was heading for the north-south gravel road a mile west of County Road 67. Head north on that for about twenty-five miles, and you’ll come across Shorty Cally’s summer range, and another forty-five miles emptied you out onto Highway 20 in Choker County. Clete probably thought to head up that isolated road and detour into the hills. A body could hide out quite a while this time of year. Cally used that pasture only in midsummer. But if I kept Clete ignorant of me following him, I’d know where he hid.
I leaned into the windshield trying to make out the road without headlights. I could see only a few feet ahead of my grill, and the skiff of snow obscured the details of the road. If I came across a washout or some other hazard, I would have no time to react.
The engine roared in my ears, and all my focus pinned to the two tracks in front of me. I didn’t know if I was closing the gap, but I might lose all my teeth from the bone-rattling jarring of the road. Anything with a smidge of wiggle room rattled and shook.
I should be coming to the intersection of the north-south road. I squinted, fighting to see into the darkness, but I was reduced to trusting in fate, something I hated. The road followed a series of rolling hills, and I felt like a sailor in a gathering storm, rising up, dropping down. On the next rise I thought I made out the intersection. I looked to the north and saw nothing. At the junction ahead, I was surprised to see Clete’s tracks take to the south.
This was a whole new problem. If he hit the highway with my cruiser’s powerful engine, we’d be in a high-speed chase that could endanger others. It’s not like the county highway was as busy as the D.C. Beltway at rush hour, but if even one car was out there, it would be dangerous.
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