by L. K. Hill
The weight lifted from her back and strong hands yanked her upward. She was carried, inches above the floor, by two Prowlers, who took her to the soft spot in the ground and slammed her feet in. They sunk smoothly twelve inches into the quicksand.
Oh no.
The scene that met her eyes made her insides feel hollow with terror.
The two officers who'd been clearing debris lay motionless near the doorway. The man on his stomach, the woman staring up at the concrete ceiling with glassy eyes.
The Prowlers who’d burst from the grate had wrestled Tyke and Gabe to their knees on the other side of the sand pit. The two of them knelt in the quicksand, which covered them to their thighs. Three men held each of their arms flush against their sides. Gabe stared at Kyra with alert, energized eyes. They scanned her, silently asking if she was okay. Tyke slumped in defeat. Where Gabe looked ready to pounce at the first opportunity, Tyke's face held fear and resignation.
The two men standing behind them were what truly chilled the marrow in Kyra’s bones. Gabe and Tyke were two of the men she’d want to see most in the world in any situation. Behind them stood the only two men she feared and hated.
Behind Gabe, holding a .357 magnum to the back of his head, stood Chris Dunnworthy. “Chris?” she gasped.
“Hey, Kyra,” he flashed her a smug smile.
Kyra’s eyes slid to the right, focusing on the man who held a gun to the back of Tyke’s head: the killer she’d been face to face with not an hour ago. He’d put on some actual clothes. Dark pants, a grungy tee shirt and an open, button-down plaid. The sleeves had been torn off mid-bicep, and strings of material hung off them. His dead eyes riveted on Kyra’s face, watching her every move. Every nuance of her expression. His expression might have been called smug, yet it was more terrifying than that. The face of an evil man who'd just won his manipulative game.
“You’re with him?” she asked Chris.
He shrugged. “Didn’t take us long to meet once I arrived. I tried to follow you into the city, but kept losing track of you. I never was much of a tracker. He," he nodded toward the killer, "realized I was following you and recruited me. Wanted to keep an eye on you. I told you not to refuse me.” He grinned again.
"Chris," she whispered, "you can't trust him. Whatever he's offered you…he's a murder—"
"Can it, Kyra," Chris snapped. "You're not going to convince me of anything. I've been waiting to screw you over just like you did me for years."
Kyra’s eyes shifted from Gabe to Tyke, and around the room as Gabe’s had. Unless a huge contingent of cops made it through that pile of debris soon, they were good and trapped.
She met the killer's dead eyes. “Please don’t hurt them.”
The corners of his mouth turned up. “Relax, Chameleon,” his voice sounded soft, almost a whisper. It still grated in a deep, chilling way. “We’re not going to hurt them.” He paused, reaching behind his belt and pulling out a .45. Kyra tensed. “You are.”
Gabe tried to twist around to look at the killer. His three captors restrained him, keeping him from even craning his neck around. Gabe had never laid eyes on the killer. He obviously wanted to.
The killer stepped out to one side and put the handgun on the ground. With one push, it slid past Gabe and his captors and came to rest perfectly on the concrete beside the sand pit, where Kyra could reach it easily.
She frowned up at him.
He looked more pleased than before, and her guts twisted into knots.
“This is going to happen quickly, Chameleon, so keep up,” the killer said, his voice calm. He might have been discussing the weather. “You have one shot in that gun. Only one. When you pick it up, you will have a choice of who you want to kill. You may kill me if you wish. Or you may kill…” his eyes shifted to Chris, “someone else.”
Kyra couldn’t breathe. Surely he couldn’t mean…
“You will have three seconds to decide, or both your friends will die. Make your decision now, and stick with it.”
He went back to his original spot behind Tyke and raised a magnum to the back of Tyke's head. Both Tyke and Gabe at gun point. Only one bullet in her gun.
No, this couldn’t be happening. She didn't doubt he told the truth. She needed two bullets and two seconds to save both men. She wouldn’t get them. She'd have to choose.
No, no, please, please, no!
“Three,” the killer said.
Chris grinned confidently. The killer nodded at Kyra’s captors. They let her go and stepped back. The sudden freedom felt jarring.
“Two.”
Kyra lunged toward the gun at her feet. Her ankles stuck fast in the quicksand, but she snatched the gun and straightened. The half-second it took to slip her palm around the handle and her finger inside the trigger guard felt like a lifetime.
“One.”
Three guns pointed. Two shots rang out.
Chapter 25
Kyra’s bullet hit Chris between the eyes, saving Gabe.
The killer’s slug exploded from between Tyke’s eyes, spraying Kyra’s belt with blood.
The Prowlers scattered, disappearing past the grate they'd burst through.
The killer followed them, throwing a pleased look over his shoulder before the darkness swallowed him.
Kyra fell to her knees.
Gabe gathered Tyke into his arms and howled.
Chapter 26
Minutes passed like millennia. Kyra concentrated on breathing while Gabe sobbed over Tyke’s body. An ever-widening pool of blood leaked from Tyke’s head. The wet sand that trapped the three of them slurped it up like a thirsty child.
Voices and the footsteps came in muffled bursts from other places. Kyra couldn’t give them any attention. A series of crashes rumbled the walls and ground of the tunnel. A surprising amount of dust filled the air.
Shaun appeared, along with others. Cora. Other people. Dozens of bodies moving around the small space. Soon so many stood between her and Gabe, she couldn’t see him or Tyke anymore.
“Ma’am? Ma’am, are you okay?” She didn’t recognize the man speaking to her. He wore a SWAT uniform. His voice sounded like it came from down a long, hollow tunnel. Too many people occupied this room for his voice to sound like that.
Conversation buzzed around her ears. In the distance. She only registered snatches.
“Doesn’t appear injured…”
“…in shock…”
The crackle of radio static. “Officer down…”
“Need life flight…”
“…us some damn buses! Now!”
Hands gripped Kyra gently under the arms and lifted her to her feet. Several pairs of strong hands gripped each of her calves and, after several tries, extricated her feet from the sucking quicksand.
Kyra turned her head to look into the face of one of the men who'd just freed her. He looked familiar. Fine features, aquiline nose, hair gathered in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. She blinked and searched for Gabe.
She did see Gabe, then. He stood where he’d held Tyke a moment ago. Or had more time passed than that? When her gaze first fell on him, he cast an ominous gaze toward the open grate. His head swung left. Kyra followed his gaze. Tyke’s body had been strapped to a back board. His fellow officers took hold of it and ran from the room, obviously still hoping to save him.
Gabe looked utterly spent. He met Kyra's eyes, then looked away. What she saw in that glance scared her. Anger. Blame. Or merely indifference?
He glanced toward the open grate again.
“Come on, Ma’am,” the officer on Kyra’s right said gently. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“No,” the second her voice vibrated in her throat, Kyra felt more grounded. “Wait!” She reached a hand toward Gabe.
He looked at her, but turned away. With his back to her, he raised his voice. “Get her out of here.” He retrieved his gun, where it lay on the floor near the wall. "And officer," the man holding Kyra's elbow looked toward Gabe. "Be careful of this one. Her lies
have already gotten one of our brothers killed tonight."
Then he stalked into the darkness that had swallowed the killer.
“No. Gabe! Wait!”
Strong hands pulled her away. “This tunnel isn't stable. We need to get you out, Ma’am.”
“He can’t go in there alone. Wait, wait, wait!”
The room that damaged Kyra’s world dwindled, growing smaller and smaller as the determined hands of Abstreuse's finest dragged her away.
Chapter 27
The tunnels grew darker and lighter by turns as Gabe jogged through them. Some were completely enclosed with intact ceilings and stale air. Then the ceilings crumbled away for a time, revealing an angry, roiling sky with flashes of lightning high in the clouds, and the clean smell of wet earth filled Gabe’s nose. Then back to the enclosed tunnels.
Gun drawn, not caring what lay before or behind him, Gabe bulled his way forward. The raw pain his chest and sick twisting of his guts propelled him forward. All sound—voice, footsteps, chaos—had fallen away long before. He doubted anyone would follow. Those with the desire had too much to deal with back there. Most were too sensible to follow Gabe into a possible death trap. Just as well. He didn’t need anyone else’s blood on his hands.
He didn’t know what he expected to find. Only that he needed to find it.
He froze. Something changed. He couldn’t have said what. The feel of the air. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred.
He swung in a silent circle, gun raised, eyes combing the dimness for threats. The tunnel he stood in had most of its ceiling intact, except for a six-inch-gap directly above him, which had fallen away, revealing the dark sky far above.
“Where are you?” Gabe said. He kept his voice soft. It sounded loud in the silence. A warm, humid wind stirred Gabe’s hair, and thunder rumbled in the distance so low, he wondered if he’d imagined it. “Answer me,” he demanded. His voice echoed ever so slightly off the tunnel walls.
The deep, gravelly voice that answered came from somewhere on top of the tunnel. It wafted down to Gabe through the six-inch gap, and Gabe recognized it as the same one who’d spoken to Kyra, kicked the gun to her, and shot Tyke. “Why do you follow me, Detective?”
Rage flared in Gabe’s belly. His voice shook with barely-controlled fury. “You killed my partner. My brother. The man I cared for most in the world.”
The silence felt so heavy, Gabe found it difficult to draw breath. Something stirred in his chest. He didn’t understand.
“Is that so?” The gravelly voice came so quietly, Gabe barely heard it.
Gabe’s rage flared again. “Meet me face to face, Coward!”
“I am no coward, Detective.”
“Then look me in the eye.”
Another band of silence met Gabe’s ears. A soft, steady tapping, started above his head and moved away from him. Shoes walking along the roof of the tunnel, tapping the concrete lightly with each step. “Who would it serve, Detective?”
“Me!” Gabe shouted. “And all your victims. At some point, you’ll have to look a judge in the eye and own up to what you’ve done.”
“And you’re that judge tonight, Detective? Judge, jury and executioner, if you have your way. Are you so above the law?”
“I’m an enforcer of the law,” Gabe said through clenched teeth. “And yes, to keep you from hurting anyone else, I will be your executioner.” He raised his gun. The concrete was decades old and crumbling. His bullet might make it collapse, bringing the killer onto his level. It could also cause a mass-scale cave-in. Chances were, it wouldn’t go through the concrete and stop the killer’s heart. Gabe kept his gun trained on the tapping sound, waiting for his moment.
A soft, chilling chuckle came from the top of the tunnel. Gabe stepped to his left, trying to see the right side of the tunnel’s top a little better through the gap. He caught movement. Perhaps a hint of a sleeve. No more.
“Do you deny your crimes?” He called up to the gap.
“What crimes are those?” the voice returned, keeping time with the tapping of the shoes.
“You’re a pedophile. A murderer. You hurt children.”
“I’ve never hurt a child,” the man said sharply, the first display of emotion since the conversation began.
Gabe hesitated. Kyra said this man hadn’t killed Dillon. She’d spent time in the killer’s company, and something she’d learned must have made her think so. Did she know something for certain, or did the killer merely say this same thing to her? He might be lying.
“Did you kill my brother?”
“I already answered that, Detective.” The voice sounded cold now, with a note of petulance.
“Did you take my brother from me twenty-five years ago?”
The killer hesitated. Gabe felt it. Not a measured pause, or a refusal to answer. An actual hesitation. Gabe pressed his advantage. “I know you know who I am. Why else would you send me the rosaries?”
The tapping of the shoes stopped. Gabe stood directly below the killer, gun pointed upward. He could hear the man’s breathing above him. Thunder rumbled in the distance again, drowning it out for four seconds.
“You assume too much, Detective.”
Gabe took a deep breath. He gripped his Glock so hard his arms shook. He willed himself to be calm, alert. “What do I assume?” he asked.
“Everything,” the man spat. “You assume you’re the only one who relives that day twenty-five years ago. The only one who attaches any importance to it.”
Confusion and horror warred in Gabe’s chest. What a twisted thing to say. “You relive the day you took my brother? Bullshit! We found your pictures at the ranch. How many children did you kill out there? My brother was a nameless, faceless victim to you.”
“You assume I’ve shattered you thoroughly tonight.” His voice sounded calmer now. Almost gloating. “Trust me, Detective, I can do worse.”
“You didn’t shatter me,” Gabe said through clenched teeth, though the image of Tyke slumping into the sand pit flashed with constancy before his eyes. With each flash, a lance of pain exploded across his heart. “You pissed me off.”
“What happened tonight was not about you, Detective. It was about her. The Chameleon.”
A soft fear, subtle beside the searing pain in his chest, reared its head in Gabe’s stomach. He suppressed it ruthlessly. Kyra had lied to him. Again. And now Tyke was dead. “What the hell do you have against her?” he asked. “She’s not a working girl. You have no reason to harm her.”
The shoe tapping resumed as the killer continued walking. Gabe followed, gun still raised. Twenty yards further on, the ceiling of the tunnel fell away completely. The killer would have to jump down into the tunnel with Gabe, or turn and walk back the way they’d come.
“She’s smarter than you are, Detective.”
Gabe frowned. “You…think I don’t know that?”
“She’s the one person in this city who's a threat to me. She sees what others don't. I shattered her to protect myself. The same is not true of you. You,” the footsteps paused, “I will shatter for fun.”
“Why?” Gabe growled. “Why send the rosaries to me, and not Hammond’s family?”
Silence.
“Who the hell is buried on that scaffold at the ranch?”
Silence.
Gabe backed up several steps and raised his gun, praying the bullet would bring the killer face to face with him. He pointed his Glock at the last spot he’d heard the man’s voice. Just before he squeezed the trigger, the voice reached his ears again.
“The rain will come now, Detective. Take care it doesn’t drown you.”
Gabe squeezed. The bullet rang out deafeningly in the silence. The top of the tunnel where it hit instantly buckled, white powder and chunks of concrete raining down in the space below. The concrete cracked loudly, all the way back to where Gabe stood. He whirled and watched the cracks reach into the darkness behind him.
Yet the structural integrity of the tunnel he
ld. The place where his bullet struck became a six-foot-wide hole in the top. Gabe lunged for it, using the bigger chunks of debris to climb up through the gap. In seconds, he stood on the roof of the crumbling tunnel, where the killer stood moments before and peered down through the gap to where he'd been.
The killer either ran back the other way—though Gabe hadn't heard footsteps overhead—or slid off to one of the sides of the tunnel. All around him, Gabe saw a maze of broken-topped tunnels. Whatever had once covered them was completely gone. Now they looked as if they'd been built on top of the ground for no apparent reason. Even that was deceptive, of course. They didn't sit lightly on top of the ground. They were sinking into it.
More jagged, broken tops met Gabe's eyes everywhere he turned. Plenty of shadows. Plenty of places to hide. The killer might be watching him now from some dark crevice. Or he might be long gone.
In the distance, he saw faint pink light. Light from the Mire, or beyond it. Light from the part of Abstreuse Gabe policed. He’d never realized how little he knew the bowels of this city. How little he wanted to.
Footsteps on the pavement came from below, in the tunnel. They advanced toward him, not away. Gabe leapt back into the tunnel with gun raised and found himself face to face with a man he didn’t recognize. The man had fine features, an aquiline nose, and dark hair pulled into a band at the nape of his neck.
The killer couldn’t have gotten so far back into the darkness. If he had, he wouldn’t have come running back toward Gabe.
“What’s your name?” Gabe thundered.
“My name is of little consequence, Detective,” the man said calmly. Definitely not the same voice from the top of the tunnel. This one sounded smoothly masculine, and soft. Not the hard, gravelly edge the killer affected.
“I’m not you’re killer,” the man said. “Most people know me as Nickel.”
Gabe lowered his gun without dropping it entirely. “What are you doing here?”
“Our goals, where this heathen is concerned, are the same, Detective. Where has he gone?”
Gabe swallowed, suspicion making him grip his gun tighter. “He’s just…gone.”