The Sheriff of Shelter Valley

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  As if she could. She’d been trapped in a haze of pain and fear.

  Talk. That was what she had to do. But to do that, she had to think.

  Her heart pounding as panic sliced through her, Beth wished the red haze would carry her away.

  “We had to say right and good at least four times during a session.” She barely opened her mouth as she spoke.

  Not missing a beat, Greg continued to stroke the hair away from her face. She loved him so much.

  A picture of a padded table flashed before her eyes. A room, mostly in darkness, music playing, strong scents.

  “They were massage sessions. I was a masseuse.”

  She thought about it. Knew it to be true. Yet rejected the idea at the same time. She didn’t feel like a masseuse. Was more comfortable with the idea of cleaning toilets.

  Greg still said nothing, just continued to stroke her, to give her something to concentrate on so she could stay in touch with reality. Beth wondered what he was thinking and turned to look up at him.

  He smiled down at her, his eyes filled with such warmth, such strength, she wanted to die right then and there. During a perfect moment. And escape all the horrible things to come.

  “I had to say right and good at least once every quarter of an hour. More often when the subject appeared amenable.”

  “Subject’s a funny word to use,” Greg said, his tone nonjudgmental. “Aren’t people who have massages usually referred to as clients?”

  “I suppose so.” Beth tried to get back to that room, but another pain shot through her skull. “I don’t know why I said that.”

  “I have to ask you something,” Greg said slowly, “but please understand that I’m not trying to pressure you, nor will the answer change how I feel about you.”

  She looked up at him again, and a sense of fresh air penetrated the suffocating darkness. “How do you feel about me?”

  His eyes grew brighter, giving her the distinct impression that he’d had something very definite to say and then changed his mind. “I believe in you.”

  It was enough.

  Probably as much as she was ready to hear.

  “What were you going to ask me?”

  “Were you being forced to do what you were doing? Was it against your will?”

  Her chest constricted. The red haze circled her vision. “Yes.” And then, just as clearly, “No.” She stopped. Begged herself for answers, for anything that would make sense of the debilitating emotions consuming her. “I believed strongly in what I was doing. It was right and good.”

  She didn’t even hear the words she’d said until she felt Greg stiffen, and thought back over them.

  “What does it mean?” she whispered, a tiny child huddled in a corner. “Why do I keep saying that? And why do those words scare me so much?”

  “I don’t know, sweetie.” His voice came from far off. “But I can promise you we’re going to find out.”

  “GREG?”

  It was very late. Or very early. He’d carried her to his bed and, still dressed in their sweats, they were lying together on top of the sheet. She’d been too hot for covers.

  “Yeah?”

  He’d told her to try to sleep. With her head on his chest, she thought she felt secure enough to do so. Ryan would be up in another couple of hours.

  “What’s going to happen if whatever we find out means we can’t be together?”

  He didn’t say anything, just pulled her closer.

  “I know you might not even want a future with me, but what if we don’t have that option?”

  “We’ll have it.”

  “I’m scared to death I did something horrible. That I’m in trouble.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking. Please.” She was starting to cry. She didn’t want to. She just couldn’t seem to help it.

  His sigh was more telling than any words. “I’m scared, too.”

  GREG WAS HOME all day Sunday. Word had spread around town that Beth was living with him, and that she’d been “set up” with the postcard thing—he wasn’t sure where that had come from, but suspected his sister—and his cell phone rang on and off all day. When it woke Beth for the second time, he unput it on silent.

  He spent a good part of the day playing quietly with Ryan. The little guy was an amazing kid, perceptive far beyond his age. Whenever he glanced over at his sleeping mother, his wide-eyed look seemed to tell Greg that he understood and that everything would be all right.

  The toddler was probably seeking reassurance, not giving it, but Greg felt better, anyway.

  He napped when Ryan napped, ate when the little boy seemed hungry, and at seven-thirty that night, when Ryan lay down in his crib, Greg climbed into his own bed across the hall, took Beth into his arms and willed himself to sleep.

  His gut twisted at the thought of the next day, the answers he was going to get, one way or another. Burt. Foltz. His father.

  And Beth.

  He had to know.

  And then he had to have the strength to endure whatever came next.

  Beth sighed, her body pressing a little more closely against him, as though, even in her sleep, she needed the assurance that he was there.

  He was. And he would be in the days to come. Somehow.

  With that decision made, an evanescent peace passed through him, calming him enough to let him sleep.

  GREG HAD HUGH FOLTZ AND BURT CULVER in his office by nine o’clock Monday morning. His buddy, Gary Miller, an old partner from the Phoenix police department who’d gone undercover when Greg went over to the sheriff’s department, was moving mountains in Houston. And while Greg waited impatiently to find out what kind of challenges awaited him there, he tackled his own mountainous problem in Kachina County.

  “I’m sorry.” Hugh Foltz sat in the chair in front of Greg’s desk. There wasn’t even a hint of the bravado Greg had never, until that moment, seen him without. Just the slumped shoulders of a man who knew he’d come up wanting.

  “Sorry’s not good enough.” Greg was seething, ready to tear somebody’s throat out. Ready to howl with pain and trying to pretend he wasn’t.

  “He was just a kid, Greg. A sweet kid who got suckered by some punks, at a school he never should’ve been attending, with promises of protection and friendship. And by the time he figured out that he wanted no part of what was going on, he knew too much. They had their hooks in him and wouldn’t let go. Threatened to kill his mother. My mother.” Foltz wasn’t crying on Greg’s shoulder. Wasn’t whining or courting sympathy. He was stating the facts. Unemotionally. Honestly. Just like Greg would have done.

  Culver sat in the chair next to his ex-boss, facing his current one, his expression that of a man who’d lived too long, seen too much. He was pulling at his ear.

  “When our mother left our dad,” Foltz continued, “she took the kid—he was only a baby then—and moved to Phoenix with the first of many boyfriends. I finished college, had a life, paid far too little attention to this kid who needed a father figure. That should’ve been me.” He shrugged. “I started investigating those carjackings, found out what was happening with the Bloodhounds and went in to bust them all. That’s when I learned Colby was involved. It was up to me whether or not I sent him to jail. What kind of cop would I be if I couldn’t protect my own kid brother?”

  “An honest one?” Greg suggested harshly, threatened by the compassion he felt for the older man—a man he’d once admired above all others. Including his own father.

  “My position was going to allow me to do something I needed to do. It was going to let me make something right. I was going to save my brother’s life. Holding the incident over his head, I was able to force him to run all his decisions by me from then on and to make the right ones.”

  Culver looked at Greg.

  “What about that little matter of justice?” Greg asked. “What about the citizens you’d sworn to protect?”

  “I did protect them,�
� Foltz said. “Not in the way you would have.” His right hand gestured in Greg’s direction. “Not in the way the law would have me do, but they were nonetheless protected.”

  Culver shook his head.

  “There was nothing I could do about the victims,” Foltz went on, “but I could make damn certain the carjackings stopped for good. Which was more than any judge would’ve been able to do. The courts would never have gotten a conviction.”

  Len had intimated the Bloodhounds were that good.

  “I went in with death threats that weren’t empty, and I got the kid out. By the end of that month, the driving force behind the Bloodhounds was out of the country.”

  “Then, tell me why I’ve spent the summer cleaning up after a series of crimes that resemble those carjackings of ten years ago—right down to the indentations on their front ends.”

  “Rabbit Rock,” Foltz said.

  Greg nodded.

  “The carjackings weren’t a joyride,” Foltz said, his eyes deadly serious. “They were an initiation process.”

  Greg sat forward, giving his full attention to the retired sheriff.

  “Each pair of applicants—” the older man practically spat when he said the word “—had to steal a car. They could do whatever they wished with the victims, but it was understood that if they went easy, they weren’t right for the Bloodhounds. In that case, they should count themselves or their loved ones as good as dead. Once the victim was disposed of in some fashion, they were to drive the car to Rabbit Rock, where the rest of the gang would be waiting. In order to prove they had no fear and that they’d do whatever they were told, the potential Bloodhounds had to drive that car full speed into Rabbit Rock. If they survived, then they were in.”

  “How many kids died in the process?” Greg asked quietly.

  “Only one that I know of.” Foltz’s mouth was turned down at the corners. “Most of them were so strung out by the time they got to that point, they rolled like rubber with the blow.”

  “We’ve got another gang on our hands.” Culver sat forward, speaking for the first time. “It’s the only explanation. And I’m guessing either the drug traffickers Hugh scared out of the country crossed back over the border, or some punk who was once a Bloodhound decided to go into business for himself.”

  “God, I’m sorry,” Foltz said, looking at Greg. “I’d rather be dead myself than know I’m the cause of the hell that’s been happening on the highway this summer. I swear to God I was sure they were unconnected.”

  Greg stood. “Yeah, well, we don’t have time for sorry. Right now, this county needs you. You’re the only one who has the full story from ten years ago. Names, dates, all of it.”

  Foltz stood, too, hiking up a pair of jeans over the belly that had started to expand since his retirement. “How do you know I still have any of that?”

  “Because I know you,” Greg said. “Your brain has a record filed away for every single case you ever supervised.”

  Hugh nodded. Stepped up to Greg’s desk. “About the Bloodhound deal, I’ll put it all in writing—”

  “Not now, Hugh,” Greg said, forestalling any more of the contrition he wasn’t in the mood to stomach. “What’s past might be better just left there. For now, let’s concentrate on the bastards messing up my present.”

  ONCE HE HAD THE INFORMATION he needed, it took Culver a little under six hours to track down the thirty-year-old loser who’d been terrorizing high school drug addicts into joining forces with him. Greg’s discovery of the Rabbit Rock connection made an impossible task almost easy. The carjackings were indeed—and once again—an initiation process. They served one purpose: to prove loyalty to the point of death to Steel Crane, an ex-Bloodhound who’d been in and out of prison since his late teens. These crimes also ensured future loyalty, as they gave Crane something to hold over his members’ heads. Him or jail. That would be the only choice left to them. And Crane knew guys in jail. Guys who’d make anyone who’d been “disloyal” wish he were dead.

  Just after six o’clock that night, with Steel Crane in custody, Foltz and Culver left Greg’s office. Greg had requested that they give him some time to consider any future action against either or both of them.

  He was tired. Ready to go home. To have dinner with Ryan. And to cuddle up to Ryan’s mother for as many hours as he could get away with. Sometime soon, he’d want to do more than cuddle. Sometime soon, he’d want to make love with her again.

  He shouldn’t, but he’d worry about that when he had to.

  His cell phone rang as he was leaving the office. Greg picked it up on his way downstairs. Gary had handled his inquiries carefully—until he’d discovered there was a hit man after Beth Silverman. Then caution be damned; he’d called everyone he knew. The rest of what Greg’s old partner had to say turned Greg’s blood cold. With the bubble on top of his car, he made the twenty-mile trip to Shelter Valley in a record twelve minutes.

  BETH HEARD THE GARAGE DOOR OPEN when Greg got home. She’d fed Ryan, who’d gone to bed an hour and a half early, exhausted from the upheaval of the past couple of days. Her son was already a creature of routine, a little boy who liked his life organized and predictable. Taking after his mother.

  She knew it all now. Like a motion picture with scrambled frames, her entire life had scrolled before her throughout that long day—until she’d fallen into a state of numbed acceptance, too weak to be afraid anymore.

  It was Beth’s own mental weakness that had started the whole thing. Or at least, her part in it. She’d been so culpable. So easy to brainwash.

  And the things she’d done…

  Feeling dead inside, she got up to open the door from the garage into the house. She’d been waiting for Greg. Waiting to tell him it was all over.

  Unlocking the dead bolt, Beth was fully prepared to get through the conversation ahead without crying. Without asking anything for herself. Prepared to beg for Ryan, though. To somehow make Greg promise that he would not abandon her son, that Ryan would never be in the custody of his father or anyone else from Sterling Silver.

  She was not prepared for the black-sheathed arm that came around the door, or the leather-clad hand that grasped her wrist and bent it back until she heard it snap.

  Maybe that was why she didn’t feel a thing. She opened her mouth to scream but no sound came out.

  “Got you, bitch.” The muffled growl struck the first chord of fear in her. And once feeling started, it didn’t stop. The pain in her wrist was now so sharp she was afraid she might pass out. Or throw up.

  Before she could do either, she was outside the house. In the dark, gassy smelling garage, another leathered hand came over her mouth. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She was completely gripped by cold, dead fear.

  “We do this easy, or we do it my way,” the voice said.

  He was enjoying this.

  Beth knew then that she was going to die. Somehow that made all the difference. Freed her. She didn’t even care all that much about dying if she could get the bastard away from Greg’s house. Away from her son.

  Greg would be home soon. He’d save Ryan.

  “James sent you.” She was surprised how easily she found the strength to talk, as he dragged her toward the running car. It was parked under a tree across the street. She wondered how the guy had managed to open the garage door, and then noticed glass from the window on the ground.

  He was holding her hand, making it appear as though she were friendly with him, a willing companion. All he had to do was give her fingers the lightest tug and searing pain shot through her wrist, up her arm and into her shoulder. Ensuring her cooperation.

  As long as he left her son alone, he didn’t have anything to worry about. Her life wasn’t worth the struggle. Not after what she’d remembered that day.

  She stumbled and he pulled down on her hand. Slowly.

  “It’s already broken,” she muttered. Were her words starting to slur?

  The guy grunted.

&n
bsp; “So how many years did he get you out of?” she thought about asking, but wasn’t sure she’d actually said it aloud.

  “Shut up.” The words were accompanied by another tug on her wrist.

  Oh. The pain was so sharp, spearing through her in white-hot agony. Death was even more painful than she’d imagined it would be. He tugged one more time.

  Losing all sense of reality, Beth jerked forward and retched. She vomited all over the driveway, herself and the shoes of the man who appeared to be holding her head, but was in the process of breaking her neck.

  He had to let her finish vomiting first. He couldn’t get a good enough grip when she kept convulsing away from him. In a semi-delirious state, she wondered if that was supposed to be funny.

  Mostly, Beth was just glad she was going to die before she was raped.

  If James had sent him, the man gradually adding pressure to her neck was a rapist. A prominent Texas prosecuting attorney, James Silverman had one of the best conviction records in the state—except when it came to rape. During those trials, he often seemed to have commitments elsewhere. Beth hadn’t known, until years after she’d married him, that James was not as right and good as she’d thought.

  James had purposely thrown more than one case. But only cases of rape… Despite his “spiritual” beliefs, he’d begun to reveal his misogyny, his deep-down contempt for women. And over the years he’d gradually begun to develop sympathy for men who were, as he explained it, so tormented by women that they couldn’t help being driven to punish them, to put them in their place. He didn’t see it as an act of aggression but one of desperation. He got many of them off and then brought them into Sterling Silver. There, they received protection, sex twice a week and, occasionally, undercover jobs to do.

  Lost in the story of her past, as she had been on and off for most of the day, she was hardly aware of the pressure, the nausea, the night.

  Thoughts flashed through her mind, obliterating her awareness of the ground below her face, the unbearable pain in her wrist, the fact that she was never going to hold her baby boy again.