Marshall's Law

by Denise A. Agnew

  A cough rattled in Dana’s throat, and the soreness became worse. “Gregory is a pig.”

  Maybe if she sympathized with the mad girl, she’d let her go in favor of finding Gregory and Neal later and cutting their nuts off.

  No such luck. The squinting, nasty glare in Jenny’s eyes didn’t dissipate one iota. “And Neal is a weak, simpering, effeminate bastard who couldn’t screw if his life depended on it.”

  “Why did you hurt Neal? Did he insult you too?”

  Jenny leaned against a big leather chair, her eyes holding a vacant quality. “I told him we should be adventurous. Go out in the woods and make it like animals in the bushes. That excited him. After we finished doing it, I told him what I did to Gregory. Told him what I planned to do to you. He tried to get the gun away from me. I shot him, and he fell and hit his head. I didn’t wait around to see if he was alive. I hoped he was dead.”

  Dana’s mind froze like a glacier, slow moving and incapable of seeing an escape route. Though not a psychologist, Dana knew enough to acknowledge Jenny must have had a history of problems…psychological and otherwise. Her comment about her mother and father thinking she’d lost control gave some indication. Dana’s mind turned to Marshall and if he had time to find her. Until then she would find a way to survive.

  “Logan, I want answers out of Gregory now,” Marshall growled into the phone at the Sheriff’s Office. “We’ll keep in radio contact.” He took a shuddering breath. “Keep Lucille in the dark about Dana for as long as you can.”

  “I’ll join you as quickly as I can,” Logan said.

  Marshall acknowledged his friend and then slammed down the receiver. When he’d realized that Dana had been kidnapped and maybe injured, he’d mobilized the off-duty deputies attending the ceremony to search for Dana. All the while his heart ached and he muttered a plea. Hang on, sweetheart. I’ll find you. Just hang on. He rushed for the door and ran smack into Sheriff Pizer standing in the doorway.

  Sheriff Pizer, still dressed casual, had an expression on his thin face Marshall had never seen before. “I’ve got something important.”

  “What is it?” Marshall knew he shouldn’t snap at his boss, but at this point the only person in the world he cared about was in terrible danger. “I’ve got Skeeter, Douglas, Martin and Griggs set to search already.”

  Pizer gripped Marshall’s arm. This close Marshall could see the man’s face had gone ghost white. “There’s something you should know. I just got a call from my wife. She expected Jenny to be home, but she wasn’t there. She…um…said earlier that she didn’t want to attend your ceremony.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Marshall asked, wrenching out of Pizer’s grip and heading toward the arms room.

  Sheriff Pizer followed and watched as Marshall gathered enough weapons to make an arsenal. “Jenny left a note on the fridge.” Pizer’s eyes went glassy with tears and his voice came harsh. “A suicide note.”

  Marshall froze, his instant worry for the sheriff mingling with urgency to find Dana. “Suicide.”

  “There’s more. She said in the note she was taking Dana with her. That they were both going to die.”

  “What?” Marshall couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Then, before Pizer could say another word, Marshall started out the door. “We’ve got to find them. You coming with me?”

  Pizer hesitated for all of a second then followed.

  Think fast, Dana. This is spiraling into the land of no return.

  Jenny became more agitated second by second. Dana couldn’t guess when this woman would snap. And if that happened…she didn’t want to think about the consequences.

  She allowed another deep cough to shudder through her lungs. Jenny peered at her. “You going to die on me before I can kill you?”

  “I just might.”

  As Jenny came toward her, Dana stayed immobile. Let the woman think she’d frozen to the spot with fear.

  “What are you going to do?” Dana asked, her voice sounding harsh to her own ears.

  “We’re going to jump off that cliff I talked about earlier. You and I. Together.”

  Stunned, Dana didn’t move, her muscles tightening with tension.

  Think. Think. Make your move when she gets closer.

  Jenny reached her, stood rigid and stone-faced. “You know, we could have been friends if you hadn’t tried to take Marshall from me.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ll leave town. I won’t tell anyone what happened. Marshall will never see me again.”

  Now or never. She drew her hand from her pocket and aimed for the woman’s throat, jamming it forward with a punching motion that sent the key into the side of Jenny’s neck. Jenny reacted with a scream, dropping the gun and reaching for her throat. Dana sprang for the door and slammed through it.

  She heard a second screech of pain and the animal quality of Jenny’s howl made Dana dash headlong down the steps and veer to the left. She’d scampered maybe fifty feet into the forest when she heard the shot and felt the fire of pain.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Rain slashed against the windshield of Marshall’s car as he drove with Pizer into the mountainous area south of Macon. Minutes ago they received a report from Logan that Neal regained consciousness and had said that Jenny shot him. Neal reported that Jenny had whispered about leaping off a cliff to her death and that she’d stabbed Gregory.

  “The big problem is knowing which cliff Jenny was talking about,” Pizer said, his voice filled with an agony Marshall never expected to hear coming from this man.

  Marshall nodded. “There are dozens of roads into the mountains. A virtual suicide banquet waiting to happen.”

  “How are we going to find them in this mess?”

  Lightning illuminated the sky with an almost constant glow. The tempest reminded Marshall of the storm that had battered the area the day Dana arrived in town.

  I’ll find you, sweetheart, if it’s the last thing I do.

  Marshall kept the vow going in his head, silent and strong. The prayer gave him sanity. Marshall knew Dana would fight for her life. Strong, capable, and tougher than any woman he knew, she would live through this ordeal.

  “I’m sorry, Marshall,” Sheriff Pizer said. “If I’d had any idea that Jenny would do this…”

  “Let’s worry about that later. We need to find them now.”

  Pizer looked defeated, as if his daughter had already committed suicide. Had Pizer been ignorant of his daughter’s illness? Or had he ignored danger signals until the timer rang and rescue came too late? Maybe, just maybe, they could save Jenny at the same time they rescued Dana. Without a doubt, Marshall knew he would save Dana’s life first and worry about Jenny second.

  The radio crackled and Skeeter’s voice came over the airwaves. Pizer picked up the handset and told Skeeter to go ahead.

  “Sheriff, we have a report from a woman saying she saw an SUV heading up Gold Pan Road. She didn’t think anything of it at the time. She was out walking the dog. Then she heard the report about Dana’s kidnapping and the description of Jenny’s vehicle and put two and two together.”

  “Stand by,” Pizer said. He turned to Marshall. “I think I know where they’re going.” Pizer’s voice shook, as if terror seized him by the throat.

  “Where?”

  “Our cabin.”

  Marshall’s throat tightened. “That’s near Jagged Point, ten miles from here.” He cursed and floored it, and the Grand Cherokee gripped the road with a vengeance.

  Pizer’s face told it all. Maybe time had already run out. “Skeeter, get up to Jagged Point and my cabin.” He gave directions to the cabin. “Use extreme caution. I have reason to believe my daughter will do anything. Anything.”

  After Skeeter signed off the sheriff reported to the dispatcher where they were heading.

  Pizer slammed his fist onto the console of the vehicle. “Damn it, why didn’t I think of the cabin first? We haven’t been up there since last fall. We’re getting ready
to sell the place, and I just didn’t think of it.”

  Marshall gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Do you have any clue at all why she wants to take Dana down with her?”

  Pizer didn’t answer for a long time, and Marshall almost asked again. The older man cleared his throat, and when he spoke he sounded on the verge of tears. “Jenny’s always been wild and sometimes totally unable to control emotions like anger. But she’s smart. She managed to get that scholarship to Stanford. She’s always been able to hide what she is…she always kept her grades up and volunteered at the hospital…”

  “But she didn’t always know right from wrong,” Marshall said.

  “We tried so hard…her mother and me…from the time that girl was a baby…”

  Marshall knew his boss struggled with the ironies of Jenny’s mind. Brilliant didn’t mean incapable of insanity. History was filled with cases of famous people who’d lost their minds to various mental illnesses, or had struggled on a daily basis to keep one foot in reality. Jenny Pizer might be sharp, but she’d slipped the last cog.

  Pizer shifted in the seat and gazed out his side window. “Nobody knows this, but back when she was a teen, she got pregnant and decided to keep the baby. Before the word got out she miscarried and then tried to commit suicide. See, before tonight Jenny always seemed to take her anger out on herself. She could snap at her mom and me, and maybe make snide remarks when life didn’t go her way, but she never hurt anyone physically. We thought about taking her to a shrink more than once. We wondered if the things she did were just anger or something more. We should have listened to our instincts.”

  Marshall didn’t plan to psychoanalyze Jenny now, not when the woman he loved more than life could die any moment. “Do you know what set her off this time?”

  “I was hoping you would know.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because Jenny’s had a crush on you for some time. Didn’t you know?”

  Marshall grimaced, remembering how Jenny pursued him. He recalled the football game and Jenny’s lip lock. “I knew she liked me, but what’s that got to do with—” He glanced at Pizer. “Wait a minute, you don’t think I was having an affair with your daughter?”

  Pizer shook his head. “I know you too well for that. Besides, I know you’ve got some deep feelings for Dana Cummings.”

  Seemed half the town realized that he’d fallen hard for Dana before he knew it himself. As fear raced through him, he prayed he’d get another chance to tell Dana that he loved her.

  Please, God, I want to marry her and have babies with her and grow old with her in my arms.

  Rain came in merciless sheets, and Marshall slowed the car.

  Pizer pointed out the windshield. “There’s Gold Pan now. Looks like recent tracks.”

  Marshall saw the rain filled tracks washing away under the torrent and turned down the road. The tires lost their grip in the mud and fishtailed, but Marshall brought them under control. Then he received a mental flash. He’d learned long ago never to second-guess a strong premonition.

  He snapped up the radio and put a call out for Logan. When he located him, Marshall asked, “Logan, what type of firepower do you have with you?” He glanced at Pizer a moment, then pressed onward. “Didn’t you used to have a Remington .308 with a tactical night scope?”

  Pizer glared at him, but Marshall ignored him.

  Logan said, “You got it. But it’s back in Atlanta. It’s not like I expected to need it in sleepy little Macon. Besides in this weather and no ambient light, it would be hard to use.”

  Pizer cursed and grabbed the radio mike out of Marshall’s hand. “I should have known you were some sort of spook or military man.”

  “I’m neither.” Logan’s voice crackled in the static. “I’m former D.E.A.”

  “D.E.A., C.I.A., F.B.I. I don’t care what you are or what you were. You’re not shooting my daughter. We’re giving her a chance to surrender and to walk away from this so she can get the help she needs. Jenny is not a murderer.”

  Pizer signed off before Logan could reply.

  Marshall had never experienced an easy relationship with Pizer, and now the stakes had risen about as far as they could go. As the vehicle rolled over muddy road and the wipers struggled to clear the rain, Marshall knew he’d have to use plain talk to get Pizer to understand his position.

  “Jenny attacked Gregory and Neal with intent to harm or kill. Jenny said she’d kill herself. She’s kidnapped Dana with the intent to hurt her. We can’t ignore that,” Marshall said.

  “When we get to the cabin, I’ll go in first. I’ll talk her out of whatever she’s got planned.”

  “Would she have access to a gun?”

  “There aren’t any weapons at the cabin, but we have some at the house. She might have taken one after her mother and I left for your ceremony.” He sighed. “Jenny was taking so long to get ready. She said she’d come by the ceremony later. I just thought she wasn’t interested. I was damned stupid thinking that. She’s gone to every party she thinks you might attend. This one shouldn’t have been different.”

  Marshall didn’t offer words of comfort. As long as he’d worked with this man, Marshall never realized the secrets hidden within their family. “What if Jenny can’t be reasoned with? What then?”

  “I can talk her out of it.”

  So that was it. Marshall prayed Pizer was right. “If you can’t, I will take care of this myself. You saw the stuff I took from the weapons room. I’m not underestimating your daughter, Sheriff. If she’s as smart as you say, she’s a bomb waiting to go off.”

  Pizer glared, but he seemed to be contemplating. “It’s not like we’re going into a situation where there are several highly trained men ready to blow our heads off.”

  “We don’t know what we’ve got. We don’t know what she’s planned. I understand what you’re thinking, sir, but you understand this. I’ll do anything to bring Dana out of this alive.”

  If Pizer fired him after this incident, he didn’t care. All he cared about now revolved around saving Dana’s life. He felt he’d tested the fates. Would the woman he loved be snatched from him before he could tell her?

  Pain seared through Dana’s right side like a whip, and for a stunned second she wondered if she would die here and now. She grabbed her side and stumbled, veering left and right. Desire to live pushed her feet into action. Another shot zinged by, thumping into a tree trunk not far from her and spraying bark over her. She plunged into the woods as if an entire army pursued her.

  Weaving side to side, she darted from one tree to another, hoping the night would cloak her. Rain soaked her again, and along with the burning in her side, she shivered deep and hard. Darkness messed with her peripheral vision and she bumped into another tree, scraping her left arm on bark. Jamming back a pained cry, she stumbled forward. Rocks, trees, fallen branches—the entire area seemed against her.

  Jenny’s shrieks of frustration and anger seemed to echo in her head.

  Cold air rushed down her throat as her lungs labored, and over the rasping of her breath she heard her heart pounding. Or was it the sound of Jenny giving chase? Renewed terror sent her careening through the forest with no thought to direction. She didn’t feel the hot burn in her side anymore. Fleeing overshadowed her pain.

  It seemed she’d run forever, half feeling her way through the treacherous landscape, squinting through the rain in her eyes. Lightning crashed, and she gave an involuntary shriek.

  “Oh God.”

  She clammed a hand over her mouth as if she could take back the exclamation. Lightning came again and the fork of fire sent another sound to her lips. She stopped running in time to see the cliff.

  Dana grabbed the tree limb next to her as her knees threatened to buckle and her side renewed its throbbing beat. Her heart banged unmercifully, and she wondered if it would burst from her chest. A few more steps and she would have plunged off the edge.

  I’ll be damned. Lightning saved my life.
<
br />   Weakness slid through her limbs and Dana realized her entire body was filled with a fine shivering. Her insides felt like gelatin.

  No. I have to keep moving. Work my way along the cliff, backtrack somehow. Back to the main road. Back to Marshall.

  She stepped back from the cliff edge, moving quickly until she put yards between her and certain death.

  She listened. Rain pounding the earth. The howling of a canine in the far distance. Thunder rolling through the hills.

  Then, before Dana could struggle against it, darkness closed around her and silenced the sounds.

  The sharp teeth of icy wind battered Marshall right through his rain gear. Sticky mud sucked at his boots and rain dripped off the hat he donned before leaving the vehicle. With a pack and climbing equipment strapped to his back, Marshall carried the most paraphernalia. He hoped he wouldn’t need the climbing equipment, but he wanted to be prepared.

  Logan joined them at the bottom of the trail and brought along his own weapon, an assault rifle that looked as lethal as its reputation. Pizer stopped as light filtered through the tree and glowered when he saw Logan’s weapon choice. Logan sent him an uncompromising expression and said nothing.

  Lights shone through the cabin windows as Marshall, Logan and Pizer edged closer to the small clearing surrounding the old dwelling. They hunkered down so they would be less visible.

  Pizer inched forward, but Marshall grabbed his sleeve. “We’ll go around the sides while you approach the front. Is there is a back entrance?”

  Pizer nodded. “Yeah. Enters the kitchen.”

  “I’ll take that,” Marshall said.

  Pizer reached into his back pocket and drew out a key. “Here, take this in case you need it. Opens the whole place.”

  Marshall wanted to say that he didn’t plan on being that subtle if all hell broke loose. Instead he watched Pizer head for the front door. Marshall’s muscles tensed tight as wire.

  “You think he can do this?” Logan asked.

  Shaking his head, Marshall shifted and stood. “I’m not sure. I hope he can, but I’m glad you brought the extra firepower. I’ve got a hunch little Miss Jenny Pizer isn’t as harmless as her father would like to think.”