David Wolf series Box Set 2

by Jeff Carson

  Even if things were still going to plan, if Wolf was nowhere close to finishing his climb up the cliff face behind the property, she was not in position to start banging pots and pans.

  Damn it. Wolf was silent, and the sisters had the edge. They knew the forest. According to Wolf, they had sensors, and as far as she knew they signaled her position right now.

  She leaned back against the tree trunk and shook her head. Something must have happened to Wolf’s radio, she thought. Otherwise he would be communicating. That was the only thing she could think of.

  What if he’s fallen off the cliff face and is lying dead on the ground right now? Then what?

  “Shut up and move,” she hissed to herself.

  She needed a better view of the property below. Scanning straight across the slope, she found a group of old-growth pine trees below that would give her an improved vantage.

  With a quick breath she gripped her pistol, then sprinted for it, trying to keep her footfalls as silent as possible. She swerved and ducked, jumped a downed log, and baseball-slid through pine needles to a stop at one of the thick trunks.

  For five seconds she steadied her breath and then poked her head out. There! She cheered silently to herself as she saw that Wolf was already up the cliff and making his way across the property to Rachette. Something must have happened to his radio. Then her face fell and she gasped in horror, because what was about to happen next she could see as clear as Rocky Mountain air.

  Chapter 60

  Wolf was only halfway up the rock face when his forearms started giving out.

  The rope had been there, just as he’d hoped. The Grigri was doing its job—the cam inside the device pinching the belay side of the rope, arresting his downward motion when he needed.

  And now he was using his full bodyweight on the rope, stretching his forearms, staring alternately between the rest of the climb ahead of him and the trail below. He stared longingly at the path, and then the stairs that led up the cliffs, but he knew to take the route was too exposed.

  Wolf’s father had helped set up the security system surrounding the property, which meant the trail from the dock, and the stairway up the rocks, would have been equipped with at least one sensor. To not do so would have been negligent.

  Steeling himself for another push of exertion, he sucked in a breath, gripped a thin hold with his right hand and hauled himself up. Then he pulled the slack of the rope through the Grigri. He changed hands, heaved himself a foot up the rock, and pulled the slack of the rope.

  The light was fading fast, like he’d suddenly entered a cave. The skies would open up with rain again soon.

  He pictured himself summiting. He envisioned himself doing it in one continuous burst of energy.

  With clenched teeth, he reached up and grabbed another handhold.

  Pulling up with shaking biceps, he thought of the two deputies’ lives at stake on top and it fueled his muscles with another burst of energy. And a minute later, when that wasn’t enough, he thought about Sarah’s dead body, and how he was sure now that one of these twin sisters had shot her dead.

  Two minutes later, Wolf summited the top of the cliff and collapsed onto his front, panting for oxygen. Feeling exposed, he quickly gained his composure and ducked behind a wind-warped scrub oak. On the way to his cover, he saw the two women he now knew as Hannah and Rachel Kipling at the front of the house.

  Chest heaving, pulse pounding in his temples, the muscles in his biceps feeling like they’d been torn in half, Wolf watched in silence.

  Blood trickled out of his nose and onto his teeth. When he wiped it, his right-hand middle finger flexed against his palm as the tendon in his forearm cramped with agonizing pain.

  He froze as the two sisters looked toward him, but they turned and looked back up the mountain the opposite way.

  Studying the two women, he saw they were identical physically, but surely not the same mentally. One sat on the front steps of the house, looking defeated, while the other glared into the trees above with a raised chin. He thought about the makeup on Kimber’s face last night. How it had seemed overdone. That had been Hannah, he knew now. The picture from Boise had shown she was without a mole on her lip, and she was the one who had taken a baseball bat to her classmate in middle school. It made sense that Hannah would not be sitting defeated, she would be standing, ready to fight as she gazed into the trees up the mountain.

  Wolf snapped out of his thoughts and moved silently to the trees to his left.

  The rope scraped across the top of the cliff below him. He stopped and dropped to his knees again, watching in horror as a fist-sized rock dislodged and rolled before stopping a few inches from the edge. If he’d raked the stone with his rope any harder he would have sent it crashing over the edge, giving away his position.

  He flipped the line over the stone and crouched behind a thick pine trunk. The cabin above was built perpendicular to the edge of the cliff, with the front of the house on Wolf’s right, where Rachette’s SUV was parked and the stairway climbed to the upper-level deck and front door.

  The rear of the cabin had an upper-level deck and a door to a ground level underneath it. The side of the house was straight ahead, and Wolf recognized the kitchen through the windows on the upper floor.

  He watched as Hannah walked away from him along the front of the house. She paused and kicked something on the ground, then continued in a jog into the woods.

  He sagged with relief to see she’d kicked Rachette, who in turn writhed in pain. His deputy was hurt, but he was alive.

  Any doubt he had of that sister being Hannah was gone now.

  Wolf’s anxiety ratcheted up a notch when he realized what she was doing: going after Patterson.

  He pulled his dive knife and severed the rope below the Grigri, then watched the frayed end disappear over the edge.

  Gripping the rope above the device, he paused before cutting it, thinking he might be able to use the rest to restrain one of the sisters. The multi-colored nylon weave ran from his Grigri, through two carabiners attached to the top anchor lines, and then back over the cliff all the way to the bottom. Instead of slicing it, he jammed the knife home in its sleeve and reeled the rope hand over hand, up the cliff, and through the two carabiners until he had thirty or so feet of it coiled on his arm.

  He took the coil, slung it over his head, and sprinted silently to the rear of the house.

  Once up against the side of the house, he walked toward the front and peered around the corner. Rachette was near his SUV, fluttering his eyes as he barely held onto consciousness, his shoulder covered in blood and his face looking ghost white.

  The sister who’d stayed behind, Rachel, paced short steps at the base of the stairway that led to the second floor. She looked eagerly in the opposite direction toward her sister, who made her way past the front of the house and out of sight.

  Patterson was coming from up and from the right. Hannah was clearly going to try to flank her from the left.

  “Be careful,” Rachel hissed. “She could have a rifle!”

  Wolf ducked back around the corner, knowing he had to act fast.

  He peered out again, and then with light feet stepped around the corner, keeping the stairway between himself and Rachel. Without slowing he bent down, picked up a stone, and lobbed it high in the air and over the back of the SUV, all the while moving forward at the same silent pace.

  The stone landed with a splat and Rachel turned toward the noise and pointed her pistol. He sprang up from behind at the same instant, clubbing her on top of her head as hard as he could with the butt of the knife handle.

  His fist was a sledgehammer with a solid-plug center, and the muffled knock on her skull dropped her to the ground face first, unconscious.

  He sheathed his knife, and then took her pistol and tucked it into the waist of his harness. He grabbed her under her arms and pulled her back the way he’d come. Tossing her into the dirt on the side of the house, he went back up to Rachet
te.

  Rachette looked up at him and smiled.

  “Don’t say anything,” Wolf whispered.

  He grabbed Rachette under the arms and dragged him backwards, scraping his heels along the dirt and wet grass, down to the side of the house next to Rachel.

  “Drop the cop, and drop the gun.”

  His stomach sank. With a slow squat, he laid Rachette down and held up his hands.

  “Slowly. Pull the gun out of your harness and toss it to your side.”

  He gritted his teeth and did as he was told.

  “Thank you. And now the dive knife.”

  He pulled the knife and tossed it next to the gun.

  Quick, soggy, footsteps approached behind him, and he turned to see Hannah picking up the weapons.

  “Hannah?”

  She raised her eyebrows and tucked the pistol into the back of her jeans; then she picked up the knife and stared at it, as if the blade was a medallion hanging from a hypnotist’s chain. Then she turned, hauled back, and threw the knife across the lawn and over the cliff. With a sour smile, she faced Wolf and pointed the gun.

  An icy raindrop slapped the back of Wolf’s neck and trickled down his wetsuit. Another one smacked the wood side of the house, and a cold breeze drove up over the edge of the cliff.

  Hannah glanced at Rachette and then raked her eyes up and down Wolf. “Nice outfit. I got to thinking just now, why the hell did that midget deputy of yours stop in front of our camera and go into the woods? And then we saw that boat go by. I almost didn’t put it together.” She twirled a finger in the air. “But then I did, and I came around the house.”

  Wolf glared. “Why did you kill Sarah?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I killed Sarah? Oh yeah, we heard about that.” She shrugged. “You’re better off without that slut, believe me.”

  “What the hell do you want?” he asked. His chest heaved, and despite the cold wind that howled up the cliff, he was sweating under the wetsuit.

  Hannah’s cool façade cracked for an instant and she thrust the gun at him. “To be left alone!”

  “Then”—he waved a hand—“go. Get out of here. Leave me and my deputies, and you and your crazy-ass sister get the hell out of here.”

  “She’s not crazy.”

  “Ah, right. That’s you.”

  Hannah peered around the corner to the front of the house and then pointed the gun at Rachette. “Tell your deputy to come out with her hands up or I shoot this guy again. She’s at the back of the house.”

  Wolf glanced toward the rear of the property.

  “Do it!”

  Rachette stared up at Wolf from the ground, shaking his head in defiance.

  “Patterson!” Wolf yelled. “Come out!”

  Wind whooshed through pines and more raindrops knocked on the side of the house.

  “Patterson!”

  “Here.” Patterson came around the corner with both hands in the air, her pistol aimed to the sky.

  “Drop it!” Hannah pushed the gun closer to Rachette. “I swear to God, I shot him once, I’ll shoot him again. I’ll shoot him in the face. Drop it.”

  Patterson threw her gun to the side and walked toward them. Her eyes were half closed, eyeing Hannah with burning hatred.

  “Okay, you got us,” Wolf said. “Now what? What’s your plan, Hannah?”

  She backed away from Rachette and walked to her sister, who lay motionless next to him.

  “Rachel.” She slapped her cheek. “You okay?”

  Rachel groaned and rocked her head back and forth.

  Hannah glared at Wolf and raised the gun. “You two, back up. Towards the cliff.”

  Chapter 61

  Rachette stared at Patterson and Wolf’s drawn faces, and felt the hope that he might live to see another day, like the blood that seeped from his shoulder, drain from his body. He no longer had the strength to press on his own wound, and he no longer cared. He was on the way out and he knew it. The cold was absolute, but his chin no longer bounced from shivering. That had to be a bad sign.

  All he cared about now was the wellbeing of his two partners. Now that he sat on death’s door, he could see so clearly now that these two people were everything to him. Nobody else came close.

  And now the barrel of a gun was pushing his two friends toward the edge of a cliff.

  And now he knew what he had to do.

  Patterson was saying something, her arms raised, probably trying to bargain their way out of it somehow.

  He looked at Wolf. Such a God among men was this sheriff. Such a man of honor and dignity. Such a … Rachette did a double take, because Wolf had just slung the rope from his neck and dropped it on the ground.

  For a moment it was like Rachette was watching nothing of significance, like he was staring at water swirling down a drain. But then he squinted, because Wolf was doing something, he realized. Because the rope was on the ground; but that was not everything, because Wolf was grasping the end, and he was twisting it in his fingers.

  Hannah was preoccupied with talking to Patterson, noticing none of it. But how long could that last? He had to act.

  With all his might, Rachette pushed air through his lungs. “Hey!” He looked at Patterson and winked.

  Patterson frowned and shook her head

  Hannah stopped marching toward his friends and turned to him.

  “You know what?” Rachette cleared his throat, tasting blood in his mouth. That had to be a bad sign. “You know what I told these two, Kimber, Hannah, or whatever the hell your name is?”

  Hannah walked away from Wolf and Patterson and stopped at Rachette’s legs, tilting her head.

  “I told them you were a crazy bitch. And I was right!” Rachette let out a long, contrived laugh that turned into genuine mirth. “Remember when we made out that time?”

  Hannah shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

  “Because you’re a crazy bitch.” Patterson lifted her chin. “My partner’s rarely right, but this time he’s spot on. A crazy bitch.”

  Hannah stopped and looked at Patterson, frowning like she’d just taken a bite out of a lemon. With a shake of her head, she curled her lip in amusement. Then her face dropped.

  Rachette watched in sickening horror as Hannah raised her pistol.

  “No!” Rachette screamed as fast as he could. “Me! Me! Me!”

  It was no use. Without hesitation, Hannah pointed her pistol at Patterson and pulled the trigger.

  The gun roared and Rachette turned his eyes away at the last second, seeing the bright flash of light illuminate the side of the house, like lightning. As the echo of the shot faded into the distance, his eyes instantly welled up.

  He inhaled and stretched his mouth, and then he screamed. “Ahh—”

  “What the hell?” Hannah yelled.

  Rachette blinked and looked down. Patterson was still standing. Unharmed.

  Chapter 62

  Wolf, Patterson, and Hannah stood in a more-or-less equilateral-triangle formation, with Hannah at the point nearest the house, swaying her pistol between the two of them, pushing them ever closer to the cliff, all the while keeping a safe distance.

  When Wolf had found the end of the rope that was coiled around his neck and started tying the knot with his right hand, he’d exchanged a glance with Patterson. I need a diversion, he’d screamed with his eyes.

  He could only assume that Patterson had read the situation correctly, because without a second’s hesitation she began sniveling.

  “Please,” Patterson spoke with heart-stopping pain and passion in her voice. “We didn’t bring up the rest of our squad because we want to help. Listen. It’s the—”

  “You know what?” Rachette squirmed to life from his position on the ground. “You know what I told these two, Kimber, Hannah, or whatever the hell …”

  Dammit.

  Apparently Rachette had come up with a plan of his own.

  Hannah turned her gaze from Patterson to Rachette.

  Wolf
blocked out everything and concentrated on the knot in his fingers. Easily enough, he twisted the rope with one hand into a regular knot and tightened it, but he needed two hands for the pretzel twist, the push-through of the end of the rope, and the final cinch to complete the slipknot.

  Hannah’s expression changed, like she was about to act, and by the looks of it, Rachette had seconds to live.

  Abandoning stealth, Wolf looked down at the end of the knot, cinched it tight, making it complete and ready to use, and then pulled open the loop with a quick motion that burned his thumb.

  As Wolf dropped the climbing-rope loop to his side and twirled it once, Hannah aimed at Patterson.

  He stepped toward Hannah and let the rope fly with a side-armed toss his father would have been proud of. The loop wobbled and widened at the perfect moment, as if guided by a higher power, and encircled her gun arm and her torso. He pulled back as hard as he could, cinching the lasso tight and yanking Hannah off balance.

  At the same instant she shot, she stumbled toward him and landed hard on her knees. “What the hell?”

  Wolf had no time to attack.

  Without hesitation, she raised the pistol and aimed it at Wolf’s center mass, and then squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter 63

  Something bounced in front of Rachette, a line of rope or a cord, and for a second he blinked through the tears, trying to focus on what it was. He felt a surge of excitement, because it was the rope that had been in Wolf’s hand. One end was a loop, now cinched tight around Hannah’s upper arms and torso, and the other end was in Wolf’s hand.

  A lasso, he realized. Wolf had thrown a lasso made from the rope and pulled her down.

  Before Rachette could form a smile, Hannah’s gun roared and spat fire once, twice, three times. Her teeth were bared as her arm kicked back with each shot. Then she dropped her gun and grabbed at the rope with both hands, wriggling like it was a piranha biting at her skin.