Razing Kayne

by Julieanne Reeves

  RAZING KAYNE

  By

  Julieanne Reeves

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2012 Julieanne Reeves

  NOOK EDITION

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copy Right Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  All brand names and product names used in this book are trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names of their respective holders. Hellsgate Publishing and Julieanne Reeves are not associated with any product or vendor in this book.

  Hellsgate Publishing and the Burning H logo are trademarks of Julieanne Reeves DBA as Hellsgate Publishing.

  www.julieannereeves.com

  Editorial Service: Finish-the-story.com

  Cover: Killion Group Inc.

  Image: Zai Aragon| Shutterstock.com

  Internal Formatting: Killion Group Inc.

  First Edition: November 2012

  ISBN: 978-0-615-67103-1

  Published in the United States of America

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Fourty

  Chapter Fourty-One

  Chapter Fourty-Two

  Chapter Fourty-Three

  Chapter Fourty-Four

  Chapter Fourty-Five

  Chapter Fourty-Six

  Chapter Fourty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Author Bio

  Dedication Page

  To the brave men and women who choose to walk the thin blue line: Thank you for your unwavering service. You are our every-day hometown heroes.

  In Loving Memory of:

  Pamela Rea Reeves: You handed me my first romance book and said read. I did. You encouraged me to chase rainbows, and taught me to dream, to love, to hope; to fly. I've never stopped. Thanks, Mom.

  Marcy Rogers: The founder of Marcy's Kids (Now Payson Community Kids) A non-profit outreach program for “at risk” youth. They say one person can't make a difference. Well whoever the hell “they” are, were wrong. They hadn't met you.

  ~*~*~*~*~*~

  To my family – the cool ones who actually know I write – thank you for your support and encouragement. Tracy, that includes you and Shannon, you've been my sisters since the very beginning.

  To my children, Puddleduck and Werewolf: You are not of my body, but of my heart. No mother has ever loved her children more than I love you. You are my light and my strength; you make my world whole.

  Last, and certainly not least, to my posse: The irreverent, crazy, funny as hell, keep me up way too late laughing until I cry, women of “Wisteria Lane.” You are quite simply the best. Thanks for celebrating the good, lamenting the bad, talking me down from the ledges, and helping me bury the bodies.

  Acknowledgments Page

  Payson Fire Chief Marty Demasi and Hellsgate Fire Captain John Wisner: Thanks for answering all my strange random technical questions about procedures and fire apparatus.

  Arizona State Trooper (Ret.) Roger Cain, Payson PD Sgt. Dean Faust (Ret.) US Border Patrol Senior Agent Paul Reece (Ret.) and a few active duty who I won’t name here (you know who you are): Thanks for letting me tap into your collective knowledge and experience.

  Any liberties I took, or mistakes I made were entirely mine, because you guys rock!

  To all the Dispatchers, Officers, Firefighters, EMS and ED personnel of Northern Gila County: None of you made it into these stores. I promise. It was an incredible honor to work with you over the years. Thanks for the laughs, the friendship, and the great memories.

  Sharon “Shay” Cox and Author Hayden Braeburn: Thanks for letting me use your first names.

  To Ondrej Kasl: You make an awesome undercover InterPol Agent. Thanks for the use of your name. I had no idea you'd become such an important character in this series. It should be an interesting journey.

  “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.”

  ~ Washington Irving

  PROLOGUE

  Santa Barbara California,

  Two years ago.

  Officer Kayne Dobrescu pulled into his designated parking space, shut off his Titan Sidewinder Softail motorcycle—a holdover from his bachelor days—and let out a heavy sigh, staring at the apartment building his family called home.

  God, he was tired. No, exhausted—mentally, physically, emotionally exhausted. He'd just finished the second of back-to-back double shifts, and it had been ten days since he'd had a day off. Officers were discouraged from working so many hours for safety reasons, but the department had been seriously short-staffed lately, and Kayne desperately needed the money. He had a wife and three precious children who depended on him for everything.

  He hated how little time he got to spend with them these days. It seemed like he only ever saw them anymore when they were sleeping, and he missed them with every fiber of his being. But he was the sole provider, and they depended on him to keep a roof over their heads and food in their bellies, and ensure they were cared for while he worked.

  Resigning himself to the inevitable argument that he was sure would ensue sometime tonight between him and his wife, he unstrapped his helmet and climbed off his bike, thinking of the three bright spots in his dreary world. As tired as he was, he wanted to spend time with his kids. So, he'd lock up his gun and dump his duffel bag full of duty gear in his closet, pack up two toddlers and a baby, and head to the park. There he’d spend the afternoon pushing swings, rolling around in the grass, chasing them through the sand, and racing them down the slide; all the while listening to their sweet little voices say, “Again, Papa, do it again!” followed by uncontrollable giggles of delight.

  Kayne was grinning by the time he reached the door. He made a big procession of getting his keys out and noisily rattling them as he unlocked the door, knowing they would hear and be ready to pounce. He pushed open the door, bracing for impact.

  Deafening silence greeted him.

  He glanced toward the corner, on
ly to see the stroller in its usual place. Reason said they could be anywhere, but his gut screamed something was very, very wrong.

  Instinct trumped reason. He palmed his service weapon and began searching for the unseen threat. Living room, clear. Kitchen, clear.

  Senses on high alert, he eased around the corner and made his way down the hallway. As he reached the bathroom door, an unidentifiable noise stopped him in his tracks. After a moment he heard it again, a soft sob. Oksana.

  With little regard to his own safety, he pushed open the door, having no clue what he was about to find within, but needing to know his family was safe. His terrified wife, Oksana, stood over Niki and Natalia's bodies. She was fully dressed and sopping wet. Both children lay prone on the floor, wrapped in towels.

  For one brief second Kayne thought she'd looked happy to see him, but then it registered what was wrong. Niki and Natalia lay unmoving, their skin blue, their sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. His children were dead.

  “My God, Oksana, what have you done?” A part of him, the cop part, realized there was no chance of bringing them back, but the father in him fell to his knees, needing desperately to try and save his children. Christ, she’d drowned them. She’d fucking drowned them.

  “Call 9-1-1!” he shouted, even as he began to administer C.P.R. He checked Niki, who was closest, and confirmed what he already knew. No pulse, no respiration. Sealing his mouth over his son's, he gave him two quick breaths before turning to his daughter to repeat the process. Somewhere in the back of his mind he wondered where Tasha was, but, right now, Niki and Natalia needed him. He had to focus on them.

  Kayne had no idea how long he'd been administering to his children—breathe for Niki, breathe for Natalia, begin chest compressions on both simultaneously, repeat process—when the unmistakable sound of a bullet being expelled and a new round chambered in a semi-automatic pulled him out of panic.

  Kayne stilled and looked over his shoulder at Oksana.

  “I'm so sorry.”

  Her voice was barely a whisper. The firearm was pointed toward him, held in a violently trembling hand. How the hell had she gotten a hold of his service weapon?

  She spoke again, but he couldn’t hear her over the rush of blood pumping through his body. A look of determination crossed her face, and she swiftly turned the gun on herself, placing it against her head. Before he could stop her, before he could do more than shout, “No!” she pulled the trigger, doing the only thing she could to him that was worse than killing him.

  Leaving him to live with the knowledge he'd failed his children and his wife.

  ONE

  Snow.

  Shitloads of it, as far as the eye could see.

  Usually when people thought of Arizona—if they bothered to think of it at all—they pictured Phoenix with its desert and cacti, not realizing that mountain communities like Payson existed. With an elevation of 5,157 feet, Payson resembled the northwestern suburbs of Denver topographically and climatically speaking, though it was home to a mere thirty-thousand full-time residents.

  More than seventy miles from the nearest city, tucked between the Mogollon Rim to the north, the Hellsgate wilderness to the east, Mount Ord to the south, and the Mazatzal Range to the west, Payson provided a gateway to some of the best hunting, fishing, and camping areas in the state. In short, the sleepy little town was an outdoors-man’s paradise.

  Though he'd simply been trying to outrun his past, somehow State Trooper, Kayne Dobrescu, had managed to snag one of the most coveted assignments the Highway Patrol offered. He'd gladly take a little snow in winter over the 120 degree weather on the desert floor he'd been putting up with for the past two years.

  The radar gun whined, alerting him to a speeding vehicle, and Kayne glanced up from his paperwork. The midnight-blue Tahoe was traveling twelve miles an hour over the posted speed limit, on a dark highway, through an area known for nighttime elk migration. Tangling with one of those beasts could almost ensure a fatality.

  By the time he'd tossed his paperwork on the passenger seat, maneuvered his patrol car out of its hiding spot and onto the highway, and activated his emergency lights, the Tahoe was pulling over. He liked cooperative drivers. While it wasn’t necessarily an admission of guilt, it went a long way in his book and usually meant the difference between a warning and a ticket.

  Kayne called the traffic stop in to dispatch, noting the vanity plate: IM 10-7, a radio call sign officers used to signal off duty. He exited his patrol car. The interior lights in the Tahoe came on, affording him a dim view through the tinted windows as he approached the vehicle.

  A quick glance inside told him the driver was a woman with a car full of young children. Two of them small enough to be in safety seats, all four sound asleep.

  “Good evening, ma'am—”

  “Sorry,” she said at the same time and handed over her license and registration before he’d requested it. She wasn’t strikingly beautiful, but she was more than girl-next-door pretty. She had long curly hair, not really blond, not brown either, but a dozen shades in between. It fell across her shoulders and disappeared down her back, leaving the ample curves of her breasts on display beneath a clingy pale blue sweater.

  At the touch of her hand, he took a quick step back. Damn! He had no business thinking about how nicely those breasts would fill his hands.

  “Been pulled over before, huh?” he asked, all business. Something about her made him want to flirt, just a little. A foreign emotion, one he’d best steer clear of.

  “Now why would you assume something like that?” she said innocently. Too innocently.

  So she wasn’t above a little harmless flirting either. Hm…Was she trying to get out of a ticket or did she feel the spark too? And why the hell do you care?

  “So, what am I going to find if I run this?” He glanced at the license. Jessica Hallstatt. He didn't pay much attention to her stated height and weight—they were rarely reliable, though from what he could see, she was close to five-foot-three and about 130 pounds. He did note she was three years younger than his own thirty-four years.

  “That's a really good question. Last I heard, they still hadn't had any luck pinning those murders on me. You know that whole lack of physical evidence is such a hindrance, and since I always Priority Mail my drugs...” She paused, tapping one slim finger against her chin, as though deep in thought. “I don't know, you tell me.” She laughed, revealing a little dimple in her left cheek.

  Kayne shook his head and introduced himself. He had to touch her again.

  She grinned. “I heard we had a rookie in town. I dispatched for Payson Police until two years ago.”

  Kayne leaned against the door while they quietly made small talk for several minutes. Then one of the kids made a noise, reminding him that he had no business flirting with this woman, and so he said, “Keep your speed down and take care of those kids.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Jessica gave a tired smile. “And thanks for the warning instead of a ticket. I'd say I won't do it again, but I think we both know that would be a lie, and I’ve tried to make it a habit of only lying to myself.”

  Kayne's mind drifted to Jessica time and again throughout the rest of his shift. He found himself recalling the way his skin had tingled at the sound of her slightly sultry voice, or the way his gut clenched at the feel of her smooth delicate palm brushing against his larger calloused one. Each time, he pushed those thoughts away. Sure she was pretty enough with that heart-shaped face and sassy little dimple, but she had to be married. Even if she wasn't, she screamed forever, and he wasn’t that man anymore.

  It wasn't until later that night, when he took off his uniform, that he realized he still had her driver's license and registration. He'd tucked it into his shirt pocket, as he did on any stop, and forgot about it.

  “Damn.” He didn’t need a distraction, no matter how sexy that dimple was.

  ***

  The next morning, Kayne woke to the sound of his phone. He de
bated whether to answer for three solid rings. It had interrupted a very erotic dream involving a petite blonde with huge, whiskey-colored eyes. He had no business fantasizing about Jessica, he thought, even as he reached down and fisted his throbbing cock, giving it a couple of lazy strokes to relieve some of the ache before he answered the phone.

  “'Lo,” he grumbled into the phone. By the sound of radio traffic in the background, he knew dispatch was calling.

  “Morning, sunshine.”

  Candice. No one should be that happy this early in the morning.

  “Sarge needs you to cover day shift.”

  “When?”

  “Uh, now?”

  “Great.” Kayne sighed. Apparently sleep was overrated.

  “If it makes you feel better, he has someone to cover your shift so you can take me out tonight.”

  Kayne wasn't sure if she was joking or hinting, so he felt it best to nip it in the bud with a simple, “I don't date.”

  Before she could respond, Kayne heard, “Eleven-three-two traffic!” in the background—an officer calling in a traffic stop. Thankfully, it would keep her from questioning him further. He hung up, climbed out of bed and into the shower, pretty sure his day was sliding downhill fast.

  After a quick shower, Kayne threw on a clean uniform, strapped on his bullet resistant vest and duty belt, and headed out the door.

  Following a cursory safety inspection, he settled into his patrol car, ready to begin his shift. One of the advantages—and sometimes disadvantages—of working in a remote area was having a take-home vehicle, thus allowing him to respond immediately to afterhours emergency callouts.

  “Hey, you eat yet?” Del St. Phillips, a seasoned State Trooper asked when Kayne radioed 10-8. His onduty status.