Law & Beard

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  There was just something about this boy that was rubbing me the wrong way. Despite Steel’s numerous searches, he couldn’t find a single thing out about him, and it had us both concerned.

  “Please, Mommy?”

  Cody was wearing goggles and flippers—or mask and fins as Steel referred to them. I’d found out earlier in the day when Steel came by my place that tomorrow was the annual training for his SCUBA certifications. He’d had all of this stuff in his cruiser, but he had to take it out because apparently his vehicle had to be taken in for maintenance.

  Cody, Conleigh, and I had helped him carry all of his stuff in. That was when Steel had discussed with both of my children—even Conleigh had listened entranced—what a certified scuba guy like him could do.

  He’d showed them portable emergency oxygen tanks. He’d showed them his regulator, and answered Cody’s eight million two hundred seven questions about SCUBA diving. The rest of the night, Cody kept sneaking in there to see the various pieces of equipment and then I’d help him research them online.

  Before Steel knew it, Cody would be there in that water right along with him.

  “Come on, buddy,” I said and slammed the laptop closed. “Let’s go put that up. Then it’s time for bed. For real. We have a million and two things to do tomorrow, and I can’t have you sleeping the day away.”

  “What are we doing?” he asked, walking like a penguin to try to keep the flippers on.

  “Mom?”

  I looked up to see Conleigh standing in the doorway of the room she was sharing with Cody for the night.

  “Yeah?” I asked, still somewhat upset with her.

  I say somewhat because I’d had a lot of time to think over the past several hours, and I was no longer as mad as I was when I’d first found her missing.

  “There was a loud crash outside the window…did you hear it?”

  I shook my head, then gestured with my hand. “Come in here. We’ll take care of this heathen, then we’ll investigate.”

  Conleigh followed, her steps mirroring mine as we waited for Cody to shuffle across the carpet toward Steel’s spare bedroom where he kept all of his extra crap.

  He also had a gun safe in there the size of a small Texas town, a spare bed, a freakin’ motorcycle, and a toolbox that was nearly the same size as the gun safe.

  To say the room was cluttered was an understatement.

  I’d just bent down to help Cody get his flipper off when something akin to glass breaking followed by a whooshing sound caused me to jerk upright.

  “What was that?”

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

  More glass breaking.

  “What the fuck?” I breathed.

  I walked to the door and looked down the hallway into the house beyond it.

  Steel’s place was a lot like mine. It wasn’t an open floor plan at all, but a bunch of defined rooms. So, it took me a little bit to realize that there was smoke in the air.

  “Shit.”

  Another glass window broke, and I saw a bottle fly through the room.

  It smashed against the wall opposite the window with a crash and that was when I saw the fire engulf the entire wall.

  “Oh my God.”

  I pulled out my phone and dialed 911 as I moved back into the room, slamming the door and locking it.

  “Conleigh! Get that comforter off the bed and shove it against the crack at the bottom of the door.”

  Conleigh started to move almost before I’d even finished instructing her.

  Just as I was about to tell Cody what to do, the dispatcher picked up.

  “911, what’s your emergency?”

  “My name is Winnie, and I’m at Chief of Police Steel Cross’s house. There are…there are glass bottles with something flammable in them crashing through the windows. And the rags stuffed into the bottles are lit on fire so they ignite whatever’s in the bottle as soon as the glass breaks. A man—I didn’t see him, but he yelled something—was throwing them.”

  I couldn’t remember what they were called but I knew that the dispatcher would figure out what it was.

  “How many, and where are you?”

  “I’m in the room at the end of the hall where his safe is located. Both of my children are with me. There are no windows in here, and the last bottle the man threw hit the wall right at the end of the hallway. There’s not another room besides the bathroom for us to go to, and that window is too small for us to get through.”

  My voice sounded calm, but I was anything but.

  I was literally shaking like a leaf, and the looks of fear on my babies’ faces was enough to haunt me for the rest of my days.

  “Units have been dispatched. Is there something you can shove against the door to keep out the smoke?”

  “I’ve already done that,” I answered the dispatcher.

  “What about something wet you can wrap around your face?”

  I didn’t see a damn thing. Out of all the stuff in this room, none of it appeared to be anything that I could use.

  Although, there sure was plenty of stuff that was flammable.

  That’s when I saw the first tendril of smoke filter through the vent in the ceiling and realized that this might not work out too well.

  I looked at my babies, then took another look around the room, taking everything in. The gun safe. The motorcycle.

  Steel’s scuba gear.

  Then I saw the portable tanks of oxygen, and I had an idea.

  Placing the phone on the bed, I walked to the safe, entered the code—grateful to have a man like Steel who thought ahead and made sure I memorized his codes—and started pulling out guns by the handful.

  Chapter 20

  My favorite childhood memory is not paying bills.

  -Sean to Steel

  Steel

  “Did they get out?” I breathed.

  My house was standing, but it wasn’t going to be fixed easily.

  Water dripped from the ceilings and ran down the walls. Most of the windows were broken—either by whomever had thrown the Molotov fucking cocktails through my windows or by the fire department. I wasn’t sure.

  I had holes in my roof, and I didn’t fucking care.

  “We got Winnie out,” one firefighter, Cook, said. “She was passed out next to the gun safe in your spare bedroom…but we couldn’t find the kids. The Molotov cocktails were thrown in at the front three windows, one of which cut off the hallway from the rest of the house. It went up fast. Her call into dispatch said they were in that room. But she did make mention of a window in the bathroom. Our first thought was that they were able to get out there, but the glass is broken. No signs of anybody making it out of there. Winnie was bussed to the hospital about three minutes before you arrived.”

  I swallowed and stepped onto the first smoking cinder that used to be my front room.

  “The kids,” I croaked. “Have you searched for them at all yet?”

  “That was our next step, Chief,” Cook said faintly. “We have to move the walls on that part of the house, and for that to happen we have to wait for them to cool down.”

  I could see it. Everything had collapsed into itself. Really the only thing I could see standing in that part of the house was the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that’d been on the wall of my office, but even those weren’t in all that great of shape.

  The rest of the house, though likely salvageable, was covered in water, soot and ash.

  I headed to the part of the house where they’d found Winnie, no other reason than an instinct telling me to go there.

  I looked around the area, covering my face with my shirt to avoid breathing in the soot and smoke that was still leeching into the room from the opposite side of the house.

  I’d done this. I’d allowed this to happen.

  That was why I was late today. That niggling feeling in the back of my head had finally shined bright in the forefront of my
mind, and I’d connected the proverbial dots.

  Andy Anderson was Anderson Munnick.

  After acquiring a search warrant for his temporary residence—which had been at the low-income hotel in town, I’d gone with three other officers to either arrest Anderson or seize his computers.

  If I could prove he’d done anything with Conleigh, I would have him. His being with a minor, while on parole for rape, would send him back forever.

  I swallowed.

  But he hadn’t been there.

  Why? Because he’d been here.

  Terrorizing Winnie, Cody, and Conleigh.

  I started walking through the house, ignoring the way my feet started to go through some of the walls that’d collapsed onto the floor.

  If I didn’t, my stomach started to crawl.

  What was I stepping on? Could it be them?

  I closed my eyes and tried not to think about Conleigh and Cody, or the way that they were probably buried under that pile of burning ash forty feet away from this room.

  We made it to where they’d found Winnie when we came to a stop.

  Everything in this room had been my pride and joy. At least, I realized it was until about a half an hour ago.

  Then I realized that my prized possessions weren’t things. They were people.

  “The funny thing here is that she had all those guns laying around her. How many did you have?”

  The question was asked so gently that I knew he was trying to broach the subject without tipping me over completely.

  “We found her right there.” Cook pointed to the spot next to where my guns lay in a discarded mess. “Do you think she was going to shoot the guy?”

  “Maybe,” I muttered. “I suppose it’s possible if she felt that was the only way she could protect them.”

  A thump had me looking over at Cook, but Cook was just standing there with his arms crossed over his chest.

  His bunker gear was half on, half off. His shirt was saturated with sweat, and his face was coated in grime. The only clean spots on his face were from the sweat that had poured down his cheeks and forehead.

  “Did you say something?”

  Thump-thump.

  I turned back and looked at the pile of guns on the ground, and I immediately felt an almost irrational surge of emotion pouring through me before I catapulted myself toward the safe.

  My fingers hit the safe’s dial and slipped off as a layer of ash and soot fell away.

  I wiped the entire thing off with my hand, then tried again.

  43-99-36-96-12.

  I’d never hated this combination more in my life.

  I spun the dial and twisted the locks, swinging the door open.

  “Stop touching me!” Cody shrieked.

  “I’m not touching you, you’re touching me!”

  I’d never, not once in my life, been happier to hear two children fighting than I was in that moment.

  I looked at the two children in the safe.

  Conleigh had joked that it was so big she could fit in it earlier in the day…but I’d didn’t really consider the idea of her actually fitting in there.

  Apparently, she could fit in there, though, and so could Cody.

  They had my two back-up SCUBA regulators in their hands, but neither was in their mouths.

  And before I could process much more than that, two missiles hit me at my waist and knocked me backward.

  “Steel!”

  “Steel!”

  As they cried in my arms, I felt sick to my stomach.

  “Come on, you two,” I said, standing up with both still in my arms. “Let’s go get y’all checked out.”

  Conleigh was sobbing but managed to turn with me.

  Cody hadn’t even made it to the ground because he was clinging to my neck.

  I turned, finding Fender standing on the concrete of my front porch.

  “Did you check her feed?”

  Fender nodded. “Anderson.”

  I closed my eyes with the confirmation.

  “Fuck.”

  I started walking through the house.

  Conleigh tripped at my side, but Fender caught her other arm and helped her along, but all the while neither kid let me go.

  ***

  “I want him found,” I ordered softly so as not to wake Winnie, who’d been admitted for the night for observation due to smoke inhalation.

  They’d given her a few breathing treatments and started her on some antibiotics prophylactically, but otherwise, they’d given her a clean bill of health.

  She’d passed out only moments before firefighters had found her. Having known the room that she was in, they’d come right to her.

  The fire had been put out moments after she’d been pulled from the house, but it wasn’t the fire that had been so destructive. It’d been the smoke.

  “We’ve got every agency in the state looking for him,” Fender said. “Called other chapters. They’ve got everyone looking on their ends, too. He’ll be found.”

  I took a deep breath and then blew it out.

  “Go home. Get some rest. Thank you for your help.”

  Fender smacked my back and then left without another word.

  “You need anything?”

  I looked over at Sean, who was standing next to the door.

  He was working tonight, but he’d stopped in on his way out to make sure that Winnie was all right.

  She was, thank God.

  “No,” I paused. “But Sean?”

  He straightened himself up off the wall. “Yeah?”

  “Don’t let your guard down. This fool is all for Winnie and, by association, Conleigh. Don’t let them out of your sight.”

  Sean nodded. “Truth and Ghost have the safe house locked down. Don’t worry about them.”

  I laughed. “I wish it was that easy.”

  Sean left a few minutes later, and Winnie woke up, she broke my heart.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?” I asked, leaning down and pressing my lips against her cheek.

  “For burning your house down.”

  “It wasn’t you,” I countered. “Don’t worry your pretty little face about it.”

  She smiled. “It was Anderson.”

  The confirmation was good to hear, but I’d already known. “I know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  And she kept saying she was sorry for the next ten minutes until her voice finally gave out. Even then, she kept saying it with her eyes.

  “I love you,” I promised her, causing her eyes to fill with tears. “Now stop worrying. The kids are safe. Every cop in the freakin’ state of Alabama is looking for Anderson. Don’t worry.”

  She closed her eyes, and then opened them again, indicating a ‘yes.’

  When she silently puckered her lips, I breathed a sigh of relief.

  Too soon, it turned out.

  ***

  Six hours later

  My eyes snapped open as I heard the window break. Glass crashed to the ground.

  I was at the safe house, along with Ghost and the kids, and trying to catch a few hours of shut eye before I started my own personal hunt for the douchebag who’d made our lives a living hell.

  I’d been in the throes of deep sleep when the crash had woken me.

  And then I heard the whoosh that only meant one single thing to me.

  Fire.

  I jackknifed out of bed and started running in the direction of Cody and Conleigh’s frantic voices which were steadily rising in volume.

  I found them in the bathroom that connected the bedroom that I was in with theirs.

  My gun was still tucked securely in the waistband of my jeans, thank God, because I used the butt of it to knock out the glass.

  Which was my mistake.

  Because in doing so, I indicated to Anderson, who I now knew was outside, where we were. I yanked my face away from the broken windo
w just in time, too.

  I almost lost my face to a bullet seconds later.

  “Fuck!” I hissed, backing away.

  “Both of you out,” I ordered, gesturing to the door.

  Conleigh opened the door and moaned at the sight of the fire.

  “I hate fire,” she whispered just barely loud enough to be heard over the crackling flames that were quickly overtaking the curtains on the wall the bottle hit.

  I agreed but didn’t say it.

  “Go,” I ordered, pushing them both into the hallway before closing the door.

  They went, and I pushed them around the fire, herding them into the room on the opposite side of the house.

  It was the room that Ghost had been staying in, but when I pushed it open, there was no Ghost.

  The window, however, was open and the curtains were flapping in the breeze.

  A gunshot sounded again, echoing into the room, and I felt my stomach clench.

  Then return fire sounded.

  Ghost.

  “Ghost!” I called out the open window.

  “Present!”

  I would’ve laughed had I not been so fucking scared.

  Having two kids in a gunfight was definitely not something I wanted to experience ever again.

  Add a fire to that gunfight? Well, let’s just say I know exactly what my nightmares will consist of for the rest of my fucking life.

  “Yo!”

  Ghost came running out of the woods, and I blew out a breath. “Come on, you two.”

  Something cracked behind me, and I winced when I saw the door that had been closed was now open. A bullet had hit the door handle, and I highly doubted that it would be an easy repair thanks to half the door missing.

  “Takes some balls to do it while we’re here,” Ghost, who’d come out of the woods like a wraith, said.

  I handed over Cody, and Ghost took him with very little effort.

  Conleigh crawled out moments later and then backed away.

  The moment my foot hit the windowsill, something cracked behind me, and a sudden blaze of fire licked my right side.

  And everything went black.

  ***

  “Don’t let her out of your sight.” I heard my son’s voice saying. “Take her out of state. Don’t let her come back until this is taken care of.”

  I’d heard Winnie’s voice at some point in this conversation, but the pain had sucked me back under before I could do or say anything.