“Let me try to egg him out,” Lott said. “But be ready for him to try to make a run for it.”
“Go ahead,” Agent Munn said. “We either arrest him or kill him and I honestly don’t care which at this point.”
After seeing the woman embalmed and floating in that car, and digging Trish’s body out of the lake, Lott didn’t much care either.
“Hey, Williams,” Lott shouted to the car, standing up near the edge of the road and lowering his gun to his side. “Now who is boring? We’re getting tired out here.”
Williams rolled down the window, his hands not visible, and looked across the road to Lott.
Lott had been, for a moment, afraid it would be someone else in the car, but it was actually Williams.
In the flesh.
They had finally cornered the bastard.
Lott didn’t let himself smile, kept his poker face on solid.
“I’m surprised the four of you survived that blast,” Williams said. “Very impressive, Detective.”
“We knew you weren’t in there,” Lott said. “And we knew you weren’t coming to the mortuary either. “We rescued that poor state cop’s family the moment he turned on the lights. What an amateur play. We expected more of you.”
Williams said nothing, so Lott went on.
“You thought you were playing us, but we played you the entire time,” Lott said, lying. “We were just waiting for you to make a boneheaded mistake like this one, show yourself, and make it easy for us to trap you or kill you. And what kind of stupid name is Jefferson Last, anyway?”
Williams seemed to jerk at that.
Lott smiled. The bluster was completely gone from the man.
“And it was very nice of you to lead us to your body dump,” Lott said. “And show us exactly who was working with you. They are singing like songbirds on a beautiful day, by the way. They don’t much like you.”
Williams jerked at that as well.
“You know,” Lott said, “if you hadn’t decided to move on and push all that money into Jefferson Last corporations, we never would have trapped you like this.”
“Who says I am trapped, Detective?” Williams asked, turning to really stare at Lott.
Lott suddenly knew what Williams had done. He had rigged the car to explode just in case. He liked that kind of dramatics it seemed. And Lott had a hunch Williams would take himself out this time.
“I suppose you could take the easy way out, give up the fight, lose the game,” Lott said, “by letting us kill you, or you blowing yourself up with that rigged car.”
Again Williams jerked.
Bluff called. Lott had hit it right on the head again.
“Not fun having someone ahead of you, is it?” Lott asked, laughing. “So how about you take the fight to the courts, see if you and your team of lawyers are smart enough to beat a few dumb cops and prosecuting attorneys.”
Williams just sat there, saying nothing.
“Don’t think you can beat us, do you?”
Williams sat staring forward.
“Then pull the trigger on that bomb,” Lott said, “if you think you can’t beat us yet again. This is getting boring.”
Williams sat for a long moment and Lott just let him.
Finally Williams lifted his hands slowly to the steering wheel. “Come and get me, Detective.”
“You really do think I’m that stupid,” Lott said, laughing. “I’d suggest you blow yourself up right now, or just make a sudden move and let us all put a few hundred bullets into your pathetic body. Great target practice. You clearly keep underestimating us and that won’t get you a win in court.”
“I’ll walk free,” Williams said. “You watch, Detective.”
“Maybe in hell,” Lott said, laughing.
“I swear, Detective,” Williams said, “You can really get on a person’s nerves.”
“I’ve been told that,” Lott said.
Williams reached for the door handle and pushed the door open.
Then suddenly Williams’ face went white and he scrambled to do something under the dash.
“Down everyone!” Lott shouted and dove for the weed-choked ditch.
And for the second time, an explosion triggered by Williams smashed into Lott’s back.
A moment later, but what seemed like an eternity, he heard Agent Munn shout to see if everyone was all right.
Lott could barely hear her, his ears were ringing so loud.
But all he could do was smile, because burning in the brush against the hillside about ten feet in front of him was what was left of Willis Williams.
And never had Lott seen such a perfect sight.
A moment later, an angel appeared over him, looking very, very worried.
She asked if he was all right. Lott rolled over slowly onto his back in the weeds and he reached up and indicated she should come closer.
She leaned in, even more worried.
Then he kissed her.
He planned on doing that a lot more very shortly.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
May 17, 2015
9:20 A.M.
McCall, Idaho
Julia smiled at the wonderful man asleep in her bed.
The suite around them was wonderful and Doc said she and Lott could use it as long as they wanted.
The sun was already up and full and she had ordered them both room service breakfast.
After the explosion on the hill and the death of Williams, they had spent some time giving statements, then promised more today and for the next week or so.
They had flown back to McCall, and Doc had suggested they just stay in the Shore Lodge suite for the night, since Lott was again covered in dirt and mud from the ditch.
They both liked the idea.
Lott had gone into the shower after they got back to the room to get clean and she had decided they had waited more than long enough. She took off her clothes and joined him, helping him wash his back.
And then he helped her.
Then together, they tumbled into the soft featherbed and made love in the most wonderful and slow way.
After so many years, she couldn’t even believe that was possible for her. But it clearly was.
Then they had gone out for a late dinner with Doc and Annie and Fleet, then had come back and fallen asleep in each other’s arms.
It had felt so natural.
The sun through the drapes woke her and she had gotten up, ordered breakfast, and then gone back to bed.
Now she lay there staring at Lott. She couldn’t believe it, but she had fallen in love again. She had thought that part of her life was over. But it clearly wasn’t.
She touched him gently, just wanting to feel his skin. Then she cuddled against him, her body pressed against his.
Lott smiled and turned slightly so he could look into her eyes. “Even though I hurt in more places than I care to think about, that feels wonderful.”
She laughed. “We are getting a little old to be blown up twice in one day.”
“Anyone’s too old for that,” Lott said.
“Have I ever told you I love you, Detective,” she said, smiling at him.
“You haven’t,” Lott said, smiling back at her. “And I love you as well, you know that, Detective?”
“I do,” she said.
She kissed him.
He kissed her back.
And then for the next thirty minutes, until breakfast arrived, they did some pretty amazing things for two retired detectives.
The Cold Poker Gang Mysteries continue with the next book in the series, Calling Dead. Following is a sample chapter from that book.
PROLOGUE
August 7th, 2000
9:30 A.M.
In the desert outside of Las Vegas, Nevada
DETECTIVE BAYARD LOTT stood in the old mine tunnel, staring at the eleven dead women sitting in a neat row on the dirt floor in front of him. Lott had his hands on his hips and was doing his best to keep his breathing level.
>
And failing.
Not easy. Not easy at all with such a horrific sight.
The tunnel was supported by square and rough wooden pillars about a foot or so apart and not much more than six feet over the hard-dirt floor. The timbers looked old and very dry and some had visible rot on the edges. Dirt and dust filtered down in around the timbers with almost every sound.
It felt to Lott as if the entire thing might come down at any moment. He had always hated enclosed, tight spaces, and this mine was not helping that hatred in any way.
In fact, what he wanted to do was just turn and get out of there, but the bodies in front of him made that impossible.
He was only ten paces inside the boarded-up entrance. The light from the bright day outside helped his flashlight illuminate the scene clearly, while at the same time casting strange and odd-shaped deep black shadows that made the dead women seem even more horrific, if that was possible.
The heat had to be over a hundred inside the tunnel and the air felt used and contaminated with the death he faced. He was sweating, even though the August day outside hadn’t gotten that hot yet. It would, later in the afternoon. He couldn’t imagine staying in this mine very long now, let alone in the high heat of the desert summer day.
He knew that going deeper underground was cooler, but not this close to the surface in this kind of intense desert heat. This felt more like the interior of a closed-up car.
The smell was like a musty dry cloth that had gone sour. The stench clogged everything in Lott’s senses, which was part of why he was breathing through his mouth instead of his nose.
Beside him, his partner, Detective Andor Williams, took slow, loud breaths through his mouth as well.
Andor was shorter than Lott’s six feet by five inches, but was a bit wider. Standing side-by-side, they almost touched both sides of the mine walls with their shoulders. Lott’s head was only a few inches under the closest timber holding up the dirt above and he had walked bent over to just get this far inside.
Now, seeing what was in here, neither one of them had wanted to take a step farther than what they had already done.
On the dirt floor in front of Lott, sitting with their backs against the left wall of the tunnel, legs stretched out on the dirt, were the eleven dead women. The women were mummified in the heat after clearly being in here for some time, their faces contorted and sunken-in with wrinkles that made them look ancient.
Lott had no doubt that the heat and the tunnel environment was going to make it hell to determine how long these poor women had been in this mine.
It might have been only weeks, but it could have been years. After decades of working as a cop in Las Vegas, Lott had seen heat do some amazing things to a dead human body, so the physical condition of the bodies was no surprise to him.
But what they wore was what surprised him.
Each woman had a black clutch purse on her lap, and her mummified hands covered the purse. Each woman was fully dressed in identical black skirts and white blouses, just sitting with their backs to the wall.
If that wasn’t strange enough, they all had long dark hair, trimmed to exactly the same length and in exactly the same style. That, combined with the schoolgirl look of all of them, made the scene look more like a bunch of large wrinkled dolls sitting there instead of women.
Thankfully, all had their eyes closed.
“This is one sick mother who did this,” Andor said softly.
Lott could only agree. He had no doubt this sight was going to give him nightmares for a very long time.
“Let’s back out of here until forensics can clear the place,” Lott said. “If we’re lucky, we can just work off the pictures they take.”
More than anything, he wanted to be out of that closed-in space and away from the dead women. As a detective, he had seen a lot of death and he had never gotten used to it.
Andor nodded and turned to head back to the mine entrance ten steps away. “Let’s just hope the sick bastard who did this left the identifications of those women in those purses.”
Lott took one more look back at the eleven dead women, their skin mummified, all dressed like a class of schoolgirls from a very strict school with a uniform dress code.
Horrific didn’t begin to describe the scene.
He turned to follow his partner back out into the warm and cleansing desert sunshine. He had a hunch that nothing about this case was going to be easy.
And that hunch proved to be very accurate.
Read more in Calling Dead, available from your favorite bookseller.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today bestselling author Dean Wesley Smith published more than a hundred novels in thirty years and hundreds and hundreds of short stories across many genres.
He wrote a couple dozen Star Trek novels, the only two original Men in Black novels, Spider-Man and X-Men novels, plus novels set in gaming and television worlds. Writing with his wife Kristine Kathryn Rusch under the name Kathryn Wesley, they wrote the novel for the NBC miniseries The Tenth Kingdom and other books for Hallmark Hall of Fame movies.
He wrote novels under dozens of pen names in the worlds of comic books and movies, including novelizations of a dozen films, from The Final Fantasy to Steel to Rundown.
He now writes his own original fiction under just the one name, Dean Wesley Smith. In addition to his upcoming novel releases, his monthly magazine called Smith’s Monthly premiered October 1, 2013, filled entirely with his original novels and stories.
Dean also worked as an editor and publisher, first at Pulphouse Publishing, then for VB Tech Journal, then for Pocket Books. He now plays a role as an executive editor for the original anthology series Fiction River.
For more information go to www.deanwesleysmith.com, www.smithsmonthly.com or www.fictionriver.com.
Look for These Other Titles from Dean Wesley Smith
Cold Poker Gang Series
Kill Game
Cold Call
Calling Dead
Bad Beat
Doc Hill Series
Dead Money
“The Road Back”
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Table of Contents
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Part One
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
Part Two
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Part Three
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Part Four
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Part Five
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Part Six
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 FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Calling Dead Sample Chapter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Look for These Other Titles from Dean Wesley Smith
Copyright Information
Smith, Dean Wesley, Cold Call: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery
Cold Call: A Cold Poker Gang Mystery Page 14