by Rowe, Julie
They were out of hallway and options, with only two rooms left to check. Behind his dad was a room marked mechanical. His stolen ID card opened the door, and they both went inside.
A few seconds later, a group of men stopped at the hallway intersection about ten feet from the room they were hiding in.
“Don’t smell any smoke or see any evidence of a fire.” The sheriff’s voice. “Who triggered the alarm?”
“The only people in the building at the time were janitorial staff, security, and Ben, one of our researchers, who keeps odd hours.” Didn’t know that voice.
“We still have to clear the building, including the restricted area.” Another new voice. Belligerent and suspicious.
“Mike Shingle,” his dad whispered in his ear. “Fire chief.”
“No one is stopping you, Shingle,” the sheriff said, calm and cooperative. “Clear away.”
Shingle wasn’t done talking. “With that outbreak going on, I don’t know why you’re here. It’s a fire alarm, not a break-in.”
Little did he know.
“The city boys those doctors called in are handling all the shit in town. Blackwater was there, too. We’re looking after outlying areas.” Jesus, Blackwater wasn’t just calm, he was making sense. “Don’t you have a job to do?” he asked in a condescending tone.
Ah, there was the asshole he knew all too well.
No one answered him, but someone did stomp away with heavy boots.
“Blackwater, finish in here,” the sheriff said. “I’m going to have a look around outside. The last thing we need is for this place to go up in smoke.”
No noise for several seconds, then there was a thump against the wall much closer to the mechanical room than Smoke was expecting.
“What the fuck is going on?” Blackwater asked. “First that stupid nurse gets kidnapped, the next thing I know Bruce has her at the house. Then, she escapes with help and no one can find her, but you do find and shoot a big Indian riding one of your ATVs. Where’s the Indian?”
“I don’t know. He got loose somehow. There were two others. Some old guy and a dude named Jim.”
“Jim? Jim Smoke?”
“He didn’t give us his last name.”
“Where is he?” Blackwater growled so low and angry.
“He got himself out of some handcuffs and disappeared.”
A cold angry bark echoed down the hall along with the vibration of another punch against the wall. “Get this situation under control. Find those men or, by God, you’ll be the next body at the morgue.”
“You need me, Deputy,” the other guy said, making the title sound like an insult. “I’m the one with the contacts and the buyers. The guy who makes you the real money. It’s time you do your job.”
There was a scuffle, thumps, then silence.
“You listen to me you little puke,” Blackwater snarled. “Your contacts, your buyers, they don’t care who they buy from as long as there’s something to buy. They won’t care if you disappear into a hole in the desert and never come back.”
“You can’t touch me,” the man said. “I’ve got an insurance policy. I disappear, and evidence from this place lands in the inbox of every major news outlet in the state.”
More thumps and someone made a pain-filled sound.
“You’re not the only one with an insurance policy, boy.” Blackwater’s voice sounded like crushed glass. “I’ve got enough evidence on you to put you in jail for the rest of your miserable life. I’ve got friends and those friends have friends in law enforcement, government, and the military. Your policy doesn’t mean shit to me. Do what you’re paid to do, or I’ll put a bullet in your head right now.”
“Okay, okay,” the man said in a placating tone. “I’ll go—”
There was a metallic click, a scuffle, and an incoherent shout echoed down the hallway. More thumps, the smack of shoes trying to find purchase on the floor, the slap of flesh pounding against flesh. A man chanting as bone crunched and the slap’s pitch rose with the echo of something…wet. “You. Little. Fucker. You little fucker.”
Blackwater was beating his own man to death.
Smoke stared at the doorknob he could barely see in the dark, rage a cold fire in his belly. He had to stop this, had to bring the man down, but the hand on his shoulder, his father’s hand, froze him in place.
Smoke gritted his teeth and resisted the incompressible need to throw that hand off of his body, charge into the hallway, and give Blackwater a taste of his own medicine.
“If you go out there now,” his father said in an almost silent whisper, “he’ll kill you, me, and Kini.”
He’d known Blackwater was going to be trouble. There was an indelible stamp of cruelty and arrogance on his face. It was the only emotion besides frustration Smoke had seen in the other man.
Blackwater liked killing.
It was in his voice as he caved in the head and body of the drug-dealing lowlife who worked for him. Smoke could almost feel the impact of the other man’s fists go through his body like they were his own. The shock of each hit reverberated through his hands and arms.
Power, pleasure, and pain.
Smoke’s stomach twisted and heaved. Dizziness forced his hands out to find purchase, to push against the wall to hold himself upright. Was that what he’d become? A sadistic nightmare of a man who got off on other people’s pain?
Is that why he fought the desperate urge to kill people all the time?
He wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there, breathing through his mouth, his head hanging down like a horse that had run too far, too fast, but as he slowly got his body under control, he realized the noise in the hallway had stopped.
No, not stopped, changed to a step, step, drag. Step, step, drag. Then it paused. Right outside the door to the mechanical room.
Had he made some sound that gave them away?
Smoke shifted his weight, sliding to the left, while his father slid to the right. They waited for the door to open, for that moment of surprise that might allow two men armed with knives to win against a man armed with a gun.
The door didn’t open.
The one across the hallway, the storage room door, did.
There was a grunt, then Blackwater dragged the body inside. The door closed on its own, leaving nothing for Smoke and his father to listen to but silence.
Neither of them said anything, just waited. And waited. Finally, after several minutes Smoke opened the mechanical room door a crack. No one out there, but on the floor, bloody drag marks and boot prints going into the storage room. There were none coming out.
Smoke’s father nudged him out of the way. Stepping carefully to avoid the blood, he opened the door to the storage room.
Inside, the drag marks and footprints led straight to the back wall but was empty of people or bodies.
Smoke glanced at his father and found the same confused expression probably on his face.
“Where—?” Jim began.
Smoke took a closer look at the drag marks. They didn’t just lead up to the back wall completely covered in a shelving unit, they appeared to go under it.
“Sonofabitch,” he muttered, approaching the shelves then testing them to see how they were attached to the wall and if they could be moved. The first few were solid, but one seemed shallower than the others. It jiggled. Behind it, at the correct height and location, he found a doorknob.
Elation coursed through his body, feeding him energy and hope. Until he discovered his stolen ID card wouldn’t unlock it, then the adrenaline drained away leaving him at the mercy of frustration, exhaustion, and pain.
He was right back where he started—desperate for the kill.
“She’s in there, Dad.” Smoke didn’t even recognize his own voice. It sounded like it belonged to someone broken and insane. “I’ve got to get her out before that asshole kills her.”
“We’ve got to find the keys or something to pick the locks with,” his dad muttered. “Or…hey, there�
�s firemen still in the building, right?”
“Probably. What…?” Smoke stared at his dad’s face.
“I’ll bet they have an axe capable of getting through that door.”
Smoke looked at his father’s clothing and his own, both splattered with blood. “They’re not going to be interested in giving either of us an axe.”
“We don’t have time to ask.” His dad turned and walked out of the storage room.
Smoke followed, his limp slowing him down enough that his father rounded the first corner a few seconds before him.
“Stop! Police. Hands in the air.” The shout didn’t sound very far away. “Don’t move and keep your hands up.”
Smoke froze a couple of feet from the corner, listening hard.
“I said, don’t move,” said the same voice. Was there only one?
He heard the jingle of handcuffs moving closer to the corner. “How did you get the blood on your clothing, sir?”
He heard the unmistakable metallic zip of a handcuff tightening.
Smoke went around the corner as fast as his injured leg would allow, grabbed the uniformed police officer, one hand on the back of his neck, the other twisting his free hand behind him.
The officer shouted something Smoke couldn’t make out and tried to mule kick his right knee.
Dad turned, grabbing the cop’s gun and turning it on its owner. “We don’t want to hurt you,” he said with calm conviction. “We just witnessed Deputy Blackwater beating a man to death, and we believe he’s got a hostage.”
“Blackwater?” the cop’s voice was high with stress and disbelief. “You’ve got to be shitting me. You’re covered in blood.”
“Most of it my own,” his dad told the cop.
Blah, blah, blah. This wasn’t getting them any closer to getting through the door Kini was probably behind. Trapped and at the mercy of a fucking animal.
“No time,” Smoke said to his father.
His dad made eye contact then fished around for the keys to the handcuffs. He unlocked the cuff already on his wrist and put it on the cop, securing both hands behind the man’s back.
“Any other police or law enforcement here?” Smoke asked.
The cop stared at him like he was a boogey man.
So, no then.
They started walking toward the front entrance, the public entrance, of the building.
“We’re going to use your radio in your car to call for help.”
“Bullshit,” the cop said with a humorless laugh.
“No time for bullshit. Blackwater has an injured woman behind a locked door and very few reasons to keep her alive.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“There’s more going on here than what the sign says,” Dad said. “Something illegal, and Blackwater is involved up to his neck.”
“What the fuck have you guys been smoking?” the cop asked as they saw a group of men, firemen, and security guards clustered up ahead.
Someone spotted them and swore, alerting all of them that something not right was going on. As Smoke and his dad approached, the group backed up, then scattered or backed off.
“What do you want?” one of the security guards asked.
“The authorities.”
“Dude,” one of the firefighters said. “You’ve got a cop in your hands.”
“Not one of these dirty local pigs,” Dad said. “The FBI or Homeland Security.”
They kept moving at a steady pace toward the front doors.
“You want the FBI here?” someone asked incredulously as they went out.
“Yeah. We’re reasonably sure they’re not dirty,” Smoke told the group, then they left the building.
The officer’s car was parked on the sidewalk about twenty feet from the door. There were two firetrucks not far away. They shoved the cop in the back seat of his own car and engaged the locks.
Dad got into the front seat. “I’m going to lock myself in here and try to reach an outside law enforcement agency. I’d tell you to stay here and wait for backup, but I know you won’t do that, so…” He handed Smoke the gun. “Grab an axe and go get her.”
Smoke took the weapon but didn’t have to raise it to clear the way between him and the nearest firetruck. He took an axe off the side of the vehicle and headed back into the building.
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was the smell that woke her. Damp, iron rich, and with a hint of decay. Blood and a lot of it, mingled with death.
Kini had learned death’s scent as a child, entangled with her memories of her parents and the home that should have been a safe place, but never was.
Now, it woke her fast and froze her in place, curled in a fetal position on the narrow cot. Only her eyes moved, searching for the source of the smell, but there was nothing in front of her that hadn’t been there when she’d dozed off.
The overhead fluorescent lights threw enough shadows for her to detect someone moving around behind the half wall at her back. The shadows moved again, and she heard a grunt as something was dragged across the floor in her direction.
Blackwater came into her field of view. He was dragging someone behind him, leaving a wide trail of blood and other…stuff.
This wasn’t real, couldn’t be real, but the smell only got stronger. Only served to raise her awareness higher. No dream was this tangible.
She studied the person on the floor. Even though they were face up, there was no face left to see. It had been beaten into a pulpy mass of blood, skin, hair, and bone.
Kini sucked in a breath as dread’s icy fingers penetrated every muscle and bone in her body.
Blackwater’s head whipped around to pin her in place. He dropped the body, roared incoherently, and lunged at her.
She screamed, threw herself backward, covered her head and neck with her arms, and braced for the collision.
The impact of his body hitting hers never came.
Instead, he loomed over, his breath hot and fetid wafting over her neck, her hair. Something tugged at the handcuff attached to her wrist.
Blackwater began to laugh—a mean, mockery of humor. “Not so tough now, are you?”
Even his voice sounded crazy.
She didn’t say anything, didn’t move, had no desire at all in lowering her arms and facing this…creature.
“Now, now, Dale. There’s no need to scare the nice nurse.”
Kini peeked out from behind her arms and hands. Sheriff Davis stood on the other side of the room, the door behind him clicking closed.
No, no, no. The sheriff and Blackwater were involved in whatever lunacy this was?
The two men smiled at her as if sharing a joke only they found funny.
“Go on, Dale. Cut up the garbage. You and I can have a conversation with Miss Kerek when you’re done.”
Blackwater strode back to the body, picked up a leg, and dragged it a couple of feet before the words slipped out of her mouth, “Cut up?”
He gave her a delighted grin. “We’ve got one of those industrial wood chippers. Comes in really handy for all kinds of”—he glanced at the body then at her—“garbage.”
Oh my God.
Blackwater winked, then dragged the body across the room and through the unmarked doorway the sheriff had entered by. The sheriff followed him through the door. It closed behind him.
Despite the steel door between the rooms, she had no trouble hearing the rumble of the wood chipper’s motor or the higher pitch whine as…things were fed into it.
Her breathing sped up. They were going to put her into the wood chipper. The sheriff had done everything but say the words. She was going to be ground into bits. Spots swam in her vision as sweat broke out over her body. Her stomach twisted. The roar of her blood rushing through her body blocked out even the sound of the chipper. And other louder sounds.
Blackness reached out and grabbed her.
Kini came to, crumpled on the edge cot, her handcuffed arm the only thing holding her on it.
>
She tried to sit up, or shift back, get out of the uncomfortable position, but her brain and her body didn’t seem to be speaking to each other.
The wood chipper wasn’t running. Her eyes popped open as soon as the lack of sound registered, and she looked around.
The blood trail was still there in all its glory. The lab was still a mess, but there were only two sets of bloody footprints going to the room with the chipper, but none coming out.
Where were Blackwater and Sheriff Davis?
Probably disposing of the body or, rather, ensuring that the method of disposal was completed. What would they do with the remains after they put them through the wood chipper? Was it fertilizer for the jojoba and marijuana plants?
Yuck.
The door opened, and the sheriff strode into the room. But no Blackwater.
The sheriff’s face was oddly calm.
“Where’s Blackwater?”
“No need to worry about him. He’s taking a permanent dirt nap.” The sheriff walked to the incubators and began pulling out sample containers and petri dishes, collecting them in an untidy group on the nearest counter.
He’d killed his own deputy.
Pins and needles pricked at the ends of her fingers, numbing first her hands then her arms.
He’d killed his own deputy.
Her breathing sped up, attempting to outrun the evidence in front of her eyes. Evidence that the sheriff wasn’t just involved in producing pathogens for sale; he was responsible for the outbreak.
He’d killed his own deputy.
There was nothing to stop him from killing her.
A small duffle bag was retrieved from a cupboard, and he stuffed everything into it willy-nilly, without any concern for what might happen if one of the petri dishes lost its lid.
Blackwater had told her what was in some of those containers. Aggressive pathogens, every single one.
“Sheriff, please be careful with those,” she said, attempting to sound helpful rather than helpless. “It would be easy to accidently expose yourself to one of those organisms.”
One corner of his lip lifted in a sneer, and he pulled out his gun and aimed it at her head. “Shut up.”
She closed her mouth and ducked her head.