by Jeff Carson
She held her breath, feeling tiny droplets bathe every inch of her exposed skin. And then the grisly shower subsided.
CHAPTER 46
The sound ripped Wolf out of semiconsciousness. Like standing on the highway in a windstorm, he felt tiny particles hit his chin.
Warm, pink mist swirled and rained down. Shutting his eyes, he knew that one of his detectives had just died.
As he waited his turn, Jack’s image filled his mind and he concentrated on it. His son’s steeled expression told him not to worry, that he could take care of himself, that he’d be all right without his father.
Lauren’s pretty, freckled face appeared next. She stood in a meadow with Ella in her arms. The little girl’s green eyes were squinted like her mother’s as she laughed at one of Wolf’s jokes.
Behind them a murky form stood in front of blazing white light. Then it sharpened into a familiar, shapely silhouette—Sarah, his ex-wife and the only other woman he’d ever loved.
The hallucinations disappeared, and when Wolf opened his eyes a man stood over him, cradling a tournament-modified fifty-caliber sniper rifle.
“Are you okay?” Ethan asked.
Wolf blinked through a persistent red blur, wondering if he heard things correctly.
“What are you going to do?”
Wolf turned his head toward Patterson’s voice. “You’re alive.” Relief hit him like an avalanche at seeing her sitting up next to him.
She ignored him and looked up at Ethan Womack. “Ethan, what are you doing?”
Ethan looked genuinely confused. “I’m seeing if you’re okay.”
“Oh,” she said. “Okay, thanks. Can you please lower the rifle?”
“It was my fault,” Wolf said.
Ethan’s eyes flashed and then narrowed.
“I dropped Sergeant Henning. I pulled him from your brother’s grip. I shouldn’t have put him in the hut with those women and children. It was my fault.”
Ethan stared at him with unblinking eyes. “You have to call an ambulance.”
“Can you please put that down?” Patterson asked Ethan again.
“You have to call an ambulance.” Ethan walked to the workbench and put down the gun. “Your friend is very sick.”
Patterson turned to Wolf and held out her hand. “You have your phone?”
Fighting through the pain shooting through his shoulder, Wolf dug out his cell and handed it over. “Here.”
“You have reception, thank God.” She dialed. “It’s going through. Tammy, this is Heather. We found Tom. Listen carefully. We need a medevac helicopter near Turkey Hill Ranch Road. Is this phone showing up on the map? … all right …”
Wolf sat up and gazed at Ethan Womack.
Ethan stared back with a vacant expression. “You’re David Wolf.”
He nodded.
“I had something.”
“You had something?”
“For you.”
“Okay.” Wolf narrowed his eyes. “Had what?”
“A video.”
“Okay.”
Apparently done talking, Ethan sat down on the dirt and watched Patterson.
Straining to keep upright, pain throbbed through every inch of Wolf’s upper body, so he leaned back and closed his eyes.
CHAPTER 47
“David!”
Lauren dodged a gurney being wheeled down the hospital hallway and ran to Wolf.
“My God.” She stopped and studied his face with the eyes of a nurse. “What happened to you? I came as soon as I heard. What happened?”
“Where’s Ella?”
“She’s downstairs. I didn’t know … they said you were fine but I didn’t want to scare her. She’s with a friend of mine from the second floor NICU.” She cradled his face with her cool hands and ran a thumb over his mouth.
He ran his tongue over his split lower lip, then the upper. “Got in a bit of a scuffle.”
“My God,” she said again.
“You should see the other guy.”
“I heard something about Tom Rachette being kidnapped, and he’s in critical condition. And Heather was hurt, too? What happened?”
Wolf pulled her into a hug, certain the pain in his shoulder meant he’d ripped cartilage or torn a tendon. “Tom’s been upgraded to stable. He was severely dehydrated and needed some antibiotics to help the infection in his hand, but his vitals are on the rise. Heather’s fine. Dislocated thumb and some cuts.”
“I heard his finger was severed. Is that true?”
Wolf raised his own left hand, displaying the stump where his pinkie finger used to be, and told her about the past twenty-four hours in as simple terms as possible.
When he was done, she asked, “Greg Barker? When he talked to us on the sidewalk yesterday morning ... he’d already killed Pat Xander and kidnapped Tom?”
He nodded and pulled her head to his chest. “Try not to think about it.”
Though that was easier said than done. Closing his own eyes, he watched a slideshow of bad images. First the dead body in the trunk, then Paul Womack’s suicide video, and then Greg and Peter Barker’s entangled headless corpses.
He felt desperate to rest but suspected he’d need drugs to find sleep anytime soon.
“How did the art show go?”
They separated and she shook her head.
“What?”
“Oh …”
“What? What happened?”
Avoiding his gaze, she said, “Let’s just say I kneed Baron in the nuts when he tried to kiss me afterwards.”
Anger flared inside Wolf, but when Lauren looked up with her shimmering emerald eyes, he smiled, sensing that was all she needed. “Okay. We’ll just say that you kneed him in the nuts then.”
She smiled and playfully head-butted his chest, and they walked arm in arm down the hall and through some automatic doors.
In the next hallway, laughter spilled out of Rachette’s hospital room.
Lauren knocked as they entered.
The window blinds were drawn open, letting in a shaft of morning light from the sun rising between two peaks. Patterson stood at the foot of the hospital bed and Charlotte was bedside. Both wore smiles and wiped fresh tears.
“Hey, there they are,” Rachette said with a dreamy lilt.
“Wow, you’re looking better,” Wolf lied.
His detective’s pale skin glistened with sweat. His swollen eyelids were cracked open, revealing bloodshot eyes.
“Just woke up,” Rachette said. “I was telling the girls I could smell them.”
Charlotte smiled and kissed him on the cheek. More tears spilled as she stroked her husband’s stubble.
Patterson backed away and turned to Wolf and Lauren. Eyeing Wolf’s face, she said, “I see you’re still looking like shit.”
Wolf smiled, then put a hand to his lips and groaned. “Everyone needs to stop making me smile.”
Lauren cuddled him and made some comforting noises.
“Where’re Scott and Tommy?” he asked.
Patterson pointed at the wall. “Down in my room, sleeping in.”
“Sounds like a good idea. Been a long night.”
“It was.” Every movement, every word looked like it pained Patterson.
“I heard you hurt your ribs,” Lauren said. “How are they?”
“Not bad. Two hairline fractures.” Patterson looked Wolf in the eye for a long moment, then held up her bandaged hand. “We’ve had some sort of curse put on our left hands, apparently.”
Wolf nodded, then locked his gaze on her’s. “Thank you. I don’t know how the hell you did it, but thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” There seemed to be a hint of shame in her voice.
He knew nothing of the details yet. The rest of the night had been too much of a blur, with helicopters landing and taking off, and flashing vehicles driving up the valley, and his head ringing from Barker’s savage blows.
But he knew she’d killed two Barkers to save the two me
n standing in this room.
“You did what you had to do,” Wolf said.
“I personally can’t wait to hear the story.” Sheriff MacLean appeared in the doorway.
“Hey, Sheriff,” Rachette said, sounding like he was about to lose consciousness again.
MacLean walked inside. “Hey, Tom. Geez, he’s out of it, huh?”
Rachette closed his eyes and went to sleep, but his bandaged hand remained pointed straight in the air.
Her nursing instincts taking over, Lauren walked to Rachette and guided his hand back to his chest.
“Can I talk to you?”
Wolf nodded and followed MacLean out into the hallway.
MacLean led the way to a bank of windows at the end of the hall and studied Wolf’s face. “You look like shit.”
“So I hear.”
A family of deer stood outside, chewing on grass shoots sprouting between dew-covered sage.
“What happened?” MacLean asked.
Wolf thought about his answer and told his story, starting with the video and ending with Ethan Womack literally blowing Greg and Peter Barker’s heads off.
MacLean stared at him. “You knew the Barkers were behind it.”
Wolf said nothing.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” MacLean’s question contained no judgment.
“I had no choice. They had Rachette and I had to take care of it myself.”
“Sounds like you got your ass handed to you and Patterson took care of it herself.”
Wolf smiled and closed his eyes. “Yeah.”
MacLean gazed out the window and petted his mustache. As if he’d been stung by a bee, he slapped his pants pocket and pulled out his phone. “Damn it. Another message from White. DA’s office is freaking out about this one. Ethan Womack is off limits until we meet on this. We have his doctor coming up from Taos right now. He’ll be in the station this afternoon. Last night, he was an uncooperative asshole. Now that we have his patient in custody, seems he’s had a change of heart.”
One floor below, Ethan Womack was being treated for three broken ribs where a slug had hit a bulletproof shield somehow installed in his coat. The details of that revelation were still as murky as the past twenty-four hours.
“We need to do a trace on Paul Womack’s phone,” Wolf said.
“We already did that.” MacLean put a palm on the window. “Everyone has a cell nowadays, and when we noticed Paul’s corpse was sans phone I ordered a triangulation.”
“Where is it?”
MacLean pushed off from the window and turned to Wolf. “Last place it pinged was five miles north of Ashland.”
“That’s near Turkey Hill Ranch,” Wolf said.
MacLean nodded and gazed out the window.
Without asking, Wolf could tell that the sheriff was thinking about Ellen and Chad Mink. “I want to see that phone first.” He rubbed a tender spot on his head.
“Yeah, well, you need to rest. Like I said, you look like shit. Dang it.” He slapped his leg again and drew his phone. “Yeah … yeah … son of a bitch. I have to call White. Just … get some rest. And when you do get back into the station, please bring a full report.” He poked the phone screen and put it to his ear. “And one word for you.”
“What?”
“Ice. Looks like a golf ball got sewn into your upper lip.”
CHAPTER 48
The next morning, Wolf sat in his cool leather office chair and moved his computer mouse, thankful that the computer screen flickered to life and there was no lengthy booting-up process in his future.
The past twenty-four hours had been spent reclined, though anything but relaxing. Instead of mindlessly watching The Rifleman reruns and drinking Newcastles on the couch at home, which he would have enjoyed, he’d been sitting in thinly cushioned hospital chairs waiting for Rachette to regain consciousness.
When that had seemed unlikely for another day, Wolf had reluctantly gone home with Lauren and spent his time writing up a full report for MacLean on Lauren’s laptop. The exercise had raised many more questions than answers about Ethan Womack.
For instance, how had Ethan become ensnared by the Barkers in the first place? Had he approached them or they him? The fingerprints on the bullet casings found at Pat Xander’s murder scene could be explained simply enough—the gun used had been Ethan Womack’s Kimber 1911 pistol. The ammunition was his.
Had Ethan placed his fingerprints all over Pat’s car against his will or on purpose?
Scrolling through a list of bureaucratic emails only served to numb Wolf’s mind even more.
Standing up from his desk, he gazed out the window and watched the chairlift cables glinting on Rocky Points Resort, stitching the mountain like the scars on Ethan Womack’s skull.
A therapist named Tennimen had shown up the previous evening to help with the delicate process of interrogating Ethan Womack. Questioning a mentally impaired person required a level of care that was above and beyond normal procedures, and District Attorney Sawyer White had erred on the side of caution with his recommendations for Ethan Womack’s case. Rightfully so, Wolf supposed. But that meant answers could be a long time coming.
He pulled out his cellphone and scrolled to Deputy Charlotte Munford’s number, then hovered his thumb over the call button. Deciding against bothering her, he pocketed his phone and sat back in his chair.
Two knocks hit his door and it swung open before he could open his mouth.
“Wolf.” MacLean thrust his head inside. “Back already?”
MacLean came in and shut the door behind him.
“Come in.”
MacLean walked over carrying a large plastic evidence bag in his hands. Inside was a folded garment Wolf recognized as the jacket Ethan had been wearing when he was shot by Peter “Peat” Barker.
“You seen this shit?” MacLean dropped it on his desk. “This is a Tenzeneta model jacket, made by Carlos Cabrillo Clothing. It’s the latest in bulletproof casual wear.”
Wolf raised his eyebrows.
“Yeah. Only a few companies in the world doing this type of thing, and T ’n’ T Guns in Taos carries a few of these babies. This one right here will run you a cool two thousand five hundred dollars. I talked to Ethan Womack’s employer, who said he gave Ethan a thirty percent employee discount last December. Apparently, it took him a year to save up for it. Wore it everywhere, even in eighty-degree weather.” MacLean looked like he was picturing himself wearing it. “Can stop a .45 ACP round from point-blank range. Which I can’t believe, feeling this thing.” He pinched it through the plastic. “The armor inside is bendy. Pick it up. It’s not much heavier than a normal winter coat.”
Wolf did, and concurred with MacLean’s assessment with a nod, then dropped it on the desk.
The sheriff picked up the bag, tucked it under his arm, and put on a serious expression. He dug into his pocket and produced a USB memory stick, then placed it in front of Wolf.
“What’s this?”
“We found Paul Womack’s phone at Turkey Hill. And we found the original, pre-edited suicide video on it.”
Wolf picked it up and twirled it in his fingers. “I asked you to let me see it first.”
MacLean’s face blushed. “Lorber and I saw it when we transferred the video onto this USB, which I’m graciously giving you now.”
Wolf nodded, unsure why he was so self-conscious about others watching it beforehand. His chest and throat tightened, and something akin to dread descended on him.
“And you’re sure the Barkers edited it?”
MacLean nodded. “Cormack had a computer with video-editing software on it. Lorber says there’s no doubt, and if our resident computer nerd says so, then …”
Wolf’s vision blurred as he twirled the USB some more. He heard the screams of the Afghani women and children echoing in his head.
“He doesn’t off himself in it,” MacLean said, all seriousness in his voice now. “That noise at the end of the video you got was put there by th
e Barkers.” Knocking on Wolf’s desk, he turned and walked toward the door. “I’ll give you some privacy. Then come see me, all right?”
He looked up from the USB and nodded. “Yeah.”
The door clicked shut and MacLean’s cologne whirlwind settled.
Slowly, Wolf bent down and inserted the USB in the computer tower, then pulled up the file directory onscreen. Two files were listed.
The first was named The Barker-Edited Version.
The second, Paul Womack’s Original Video.
He clicked play on the first.
“You—witness. Wolf. It’s … your fault. Wolf. It’s … your fault.”
“You—witness. Wolf. It’s … your fault. Wolf. It’s … your fault.”
Black screen. Pop.
He closed the video player and clicked the next file.
Leaning back in his chair, he took a deep breath. Then he tilted forward towards the monitor and watched as Paul Womack’s face flashed onscreen.
Paul stared at his phone from inches away, so close that Wolf could see the freckles on his nose. And then the image swirled and Paul propped the phone on the table, adjusting it to point at a vacant chair.
Carrying a Beretta M9 pistol, Paul Womack walked to the chair and sat down.
“Hello, Wolf.” He smiled warmly, the way Wolf remembered the first day of RIP. “There’s no way to preface this, so I’m just going to begin. I’ve always wanted to explain to you who I was, but I was afraid of how you’d look at me. I was afraid you’d walk away from being the best friend I’ve ever had. I hope that now, after you’ve met my brother, you’ll understand what I meant that day in Bamyani.”
The room closed in on Wolf as he thought back.
“Do you remember?” Paul said, pausing enough for Wolf to retrieve the memory. “Right after you got me out of the hut. After I murdered that innocent woman and her little girl. Robbed them of their lives. Remember what I told you?”
Paul’s mouth curled into a smile that failed to reach his eyes. “Of course you remember. And now you see how God repaid me, right? You were there to witness it. It’s so awe-inspiring to me that God spoke to me in such clear, uncertain terms. I hope that by thinking back on that day with Henning, you know that God exists. And he’s an ironic son of a bitch, ain’t he?”