At Close Range

Home > Romance > At Close Range > Page 18
At Close Range Page 18

by Jessica Andersen


  Fear, pure and icy, washed through Cassie as she finally understood what she’d gotten herself into. She had no weapon, no plan, and her backup was more hope than reality.

  What the hell had she been thinking?

  She hadn’t been thinking, she realized. She’d been reacting to the threat, to the victim.

  Now the victim was gone. The killer had no more hold on her.

  Cassie took a step back. Then another. The man’s eyes didn’t shift. He didn’t speak, didn’t react, as though he was made of wax, or maybe the composite that had been used to form the mud daub of the fake Anasazi temple.

  Heart slamming in her ribs, Cassie turned to flee, to escape the smell of blood and the sight of death.

  A rock-painted panel slid into place, trapping her in the kiva with the dead-eyed man. A loud, satisfied chuckle sounded from the loudspeakers. “Not yet, Officer Dumont. The fun’s barely even started!” There was a pause, then the voice said,

  “Nevada? Will you please restrain Officer Dumont while we wait for the others?”

  Nevada. The name rang a faint bell. That had been the name of the drifter who’d briefly lived in the first crime scene apartment. She didn’t know anything else about him, but wondered whether it was a coincidence that their other suspect had been named after a place. Denver. Nevada. Any connection?

  Then it was past time to wonder. The dead-eyed man came at her in a rush.

  Cassie lashed out a kick and shifted on the balls of her feet when he closed in.

  Heart pounding, mind racing, she worked her way around, turning him toward the body, so she could slide a step closer to the bloody knife. Another step. Almost there.

  “My name is Cassie. Did you know that? And your name’s Nevada, right?” She talked, hoping to distract him, to hide her intentions from the voice on the loudspeaker.

  She didn’t know whether the other man could see into the kiva itself, whether he had control of the museum cameras or not.

  “You don’t need to do this, Nevada.” She shifted sideways, wanting to duck down and grab the knife, but sure her adversary would lunge the moment she did. “You don’t have to listen to him. We can help you.”

  Something flickered in those chill eyes.

  She pressed the advantage. “We can help you. We know you didn’t mean any of it.”

  Those cold blue eyes flickered again, but this time with mirth. Nevada’s lips curved.

  “Oh, but I did mean to do it, Officer Dumont. And I enjoyed it. The slut taught me well.” He licked his lips and closed in on her, crowding her against the textured kiva wall.

  Heart pounding, Cassie broke to the side, knowing that the fire code would require a second exit from the kiva but not having a clue where they’d stashed it. She ran from Nevada, but he only laughed and followed at a leisurely pace.

  “It’s a round room,” he called. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Excellent!” the disembodied voice said over the loudspeakers. “Her friends are here, with the FBI agent in the lead. Sorry there’s no view-screen. You’ll have to take my word for it.”

  Cassie froze at the words FBI agent. Seth! He’d come for her!

  Nevada grabbed her in that instant, and yanked her arm up behind her back. She screeched and fought, and shouted “Seth!” as loud as she could, not knowing if her voice would penetrate the intricate maze of tunnels and composite. “Seth, I’m in the kiva!”

  “That did it,” the voice said, satisfied. “He’s headed this way now. Too bad for him he’s already dead.”

  There was a click.

  The rapid beep of a digital countdown.

  And a searing, howling explosion.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Seth heard her voice, and bolted toward the sound, toward his woman, not caring that he left the other Bear Claw cops behind.

  Forget backup. This was personal.

  He lunged through a fake stone archway, his only concern getting to her before it was too late. He charged down a tunnel that was so narrow he had to duck down inside it, and cursed under his breath as he ran.

  She’d better be okay, he kept thinking, or the bastard was dead. No due process, no Miranda, nothing.

  Just dead.

  He saw a light at the end of the tunnel and hurtled toward it, knowing she had to be near, knowing he just had to—

  An explosion ripped through the tunnel, through the very fabric of the building, as though the world was ending with him in the middle of the chaos.

  The shock wave blasted Seth off his feet and sent him sprawling into a larger space, where signs and corridors radiated off from a pseudo-archaeological site. He hit hard and cursed a punch of pain, but kept rolling until he slammed up against a wall. He struggled to his knees, pulled his weapon and fanned the area.

  Deserted.

  The tunnel he’d come from was completely demolished. He could hear shouts and groans from the other side, and knew some of the others had been trapped. Dust and fumes and chunks of rubble belched from the tunnel, warning him there would be no backup.

  He was on his own.

  He tried not to think about the men who were trapped beneath the collapsed tunnel. It hadn’t been made of stone, but the composite had been laid over steel supports and heavy sheets of plywood. That was bad enough.

  Then the sprinkler system cut in with a thump and a hiss, and water rained down on him.

  Seth cursed and hauled himself to his feet. His only hope was that the bomber would assume he’d been caught in the tunnel blast. That might give him an edge. An opportunity to get to Cassie.

  With her image fixed in his mind, all attitude and hidden vulnerability, he struggled to his feet, weapon in his hand. He didn’t need to look far for evidence. A red smear mocked him from an arrowed sign.

  He tried not to wonder whether it was her blood or another’s, tried not to worry that he hadn’t heard her shout again. He followed the sign down another tunnel, a narrower one with no light at the end, no sprinklers.

  Hell, with nothing at the end. The tunnel simply stopped at a blank wall that looked the same as the walls on either side of him. The wall matched the floor and ceiling, as though he’d gone down a sandy wormhole and run into a dead end.

  “Come on, come on!” He cursed under his breath and ran his fingers around the edge, working by the illumination provided by hidden lights, which flickered as though the blast had messed with the power.

  There had to be a crack. A latch. Something. The exhibit designers wouldn’t have built a tunnel that led nowhere.

  Would they?

  The lights flickered again and died just as his fingers found a pressure pad.

  Crouched in the darkness, alone and armed, he held his fingers to the pad and pressed his ear to the blank wall, which had to be a door.

  At first, he heard nothing. Then he heard the sweetest sound ever. Cassie’s voice, giving somebody holy hell.

  Then he heard a gunshot.

  And his heart stopped.

  “YOU WANT TO SAY that again?” Nevada asked. He gestured to the hole blasted in the roof of the kiva, at the powdery, plastery dust raining down.

  Cassie’s heart drummed against her ribs. “I said that only a wuss would kill because someone else told him to. That’s not very original, you know. That’s not very—”

  “Shut up!” He twisted her arm up higher, until her shoulder screamed with pain and she went limp because it was either that or pass out.

  He shoved her to the floor beside the dead woman, not close enough to touch, but near enough that Cassie could see the woman’s skin going waxy, to see the cheerful pink polish on her nails and the stump of her severed index finger.

  Cassie nearly retched from the pain and the sight, but held it in, held it together.

  Barely.

  She yanked her eyes up to Nevada and bared her teeth. Make him mad, she heard one of her instructors say. Get him to rush you, then go for his crotch.

  It wasn’t Lee in her head
now. He was gone. In his place, she’d found the memory of her classes. Her training. Her friends.

  The man she loved.

  Seth.

  “What sort of a pansy goes after women, anyway? Not much of a challenge, if you ask me,” she goaded Nevada. Just a step closer, she urged him. Just. One. More.

  Step. She’d kick him in the crotch, in the knee, in the stomach, wherever she could reach him.

  She wouldn’t think about what might happen, what already had. Seth had been buried in the explosion. The bastard on the loudspeaker had switched the audio over to the museum lobby just after the blast. She’d felt the tremors, heard the shouts, and the awful, terrible silence. Then she’d heard her coworkers shouting over the echoes of secondary collapses. She’d heard her name and Seth’s. She’d heard the desperation in the voices, the rapid-fire orders to start digging through the rubble, to find another way through into the Anasazi exhibit.

  She’d heard Alissa’s voice, sounding stressed. But she’d also heard Mendoza and Piedmont, and half a dozen others she could have sworn hated her.

  They were all cursing and urging each other on, not just to find Seth, but to find her.

  “They won’t get here in time,” Nevada said, as though he’d read her mind. “They’ll be too late. They always are. Stupid-ass cops.” He grabbed her by the throat without warning, and forced her to the ground with more strength than his midsized frame suggested.

  She struggled, kicking at him and scratching at those cold, dead eyes.

  They were shark’s eyes, she thought.

  Predator’s eyes.

  He replaced his choking hand with his shod foot and pressed down on her windpipe hard enough to send skitters of gray dancing across her vision. She gurgled and flailed out, but he had her pinned.

  Her heart iced over when he bore down harder on her throat and shifted so he could grab her left hand. He reached across and plucked the bloodstained knife from the floor.

  Then he chuckled, flattened her hand against the floor and set the blade against the first joint of her index finger.

  “I always like to take a souvenir,” he said conversationally as the lights flickered overhead.

  And he began to saw.

  AT THE SOUND of the gunshot, Seth had hit the button on the wall, intending to barrel through and take out the man on the other side. But when the power kicked back on moments later, the sliding door opened to reveal no room, no man. Instead, he saw the outside of a beehive-shaped structure made of two-by-fours, steel beams and composite.

  He’d wound up on the outside of the display somehow.

  And Cassie was inside it. He could see the bullet hole punched through the top and hear the muffled sounds of a struggle within.

  He wanted to shout her name, to tell her he was coming, but he didn’t dare. The bastard had a gun, and Seth had no intention of being a target as he scaled the sloped side of the display.

  He would have to be quick and quiet.

  There was no other choice.

  He holstered his weapon to leave his hands free, and set his foot on the lowest tier of steel beams. He heard voices inside, and wondered what had happened to the third man. His gut kicked a warning, but he didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t wait for backup, couldn’t take the time to look for the mastermind.

  He needed to get to Cassie.

  Needed to save her.

  He tested the beam, jiggling a moment to see if the structure would sway, or if he would alert the man inside. When there was only a small noise, Seth started up, praying he would be in time.

  Praying she’d still be alive when he reached the top.

  THE FIRST SLICE was a white fury of pain, of bodily insult and injury. Cassie bucked against Nevada and screamed, almost paralyzed with disbelief that he’d cut her, that this was happening to her. She wasn’t supposed to be caught like this. She was a cop for chrissake! She was trained! She was—

  Captured. Powerless. She wept as the knife bit deeper into her finger and grated against bone. She screamed again. An unholy light crept into her captor’s cold eyes as he fed off her pain.

  “That’s it,” he murmured, “that’s the way. Let it out. Nobody can hear you, he’s promised the back exits are blocked. You can scream as loud as you want. Even if they can hear you, they can’t get to you. You’re all alone.”

  This time when she screamed, her voice cracked with pain, with the hopelessness.

  Her mind fragmented away from the weight of his body, the feel of his foot across her throat and the hot sear of the blade severing nerves and tendons. She though about Seth, her lover.

  Her love.

  He was gone and she’d missed out on telling him she loved him. He might not want to hear it, but she didn’t care. She needed him to know.

  Seth! she called in her heart, though she knew he was already gone. Help me!

  And then suddenly there was a light shining above her, a hand reaching down, an angel coming down through the authentic-looking smoke hole in the center of the model kiva—

  Only it was no angel. It was Seth.

  And the look on his face would have done a demon proud.

  HE SAW THE BLOOD first—Cassie’s blood spilling too red over the knife, over the man’s hand. Her skin was pale and the horrible, wrenching screams had stopped.

  Please, God, let me be in time.

  He dropped down through the hole and landed square atop Cassie’s captor as the bastard reared back and lifted the knife high for the final slash. The man shouted and twisted, slashing high and wild while Seth clamped his legs around his torso and squeezed as hard as he could. The wiry man bucked beneath him and they spun and went down in a sprawl.

  Seth slammed into the floor hard and felt his right knee give. Agony howled up his leg and his calf went numb, but he ignored the pain. He staggered to his feet and reached for his holster.

  “Seth, look out. He’s got a gun!”

  Cassie’s voice brought a wash of heat and relief, but her message came a split second too late. The man tossed his knife aside and hauled out a gun that looked police-issue. Maybe the one Cassie had lost in the earlier chase after the first murder. Maybe another.

  The men faced each other for a heartbeat, weapons pointed at each other’s hearts, neither flinching.

  The man’s average-looking face flattened in an eerily emotionless smile. “Even if you kill me, the planner will still kill you both. He’s watching even now. Like an overseer.

  A god.” He raised his voice and called, “Tell him! Tell him that there’s no way out, that I’ll have my women and my souvenirs, that nobody can take that away from me!

  Not the slut. Not anybody!”

  His only answer was silence.

  The man’s breathing sounded suddenly harsh in the false circular room. Varitek spared a glance at Cassie. He’d expected her to be curled up in the corner, cradling her wounded hand.

  Instead, she was inching her way toward the knife. When she saw his glance, she mouthed, Distract him, damn it!

  But the madman was already distracted, and becoming more agitated by the moment. “Tell him!” he shouted toward the ceiling. “Tell him that you’ve got the stupid-ass Bear Claw cops chasing their own tails now, that it’s all gone according to your plan!”

  When there was still no answer, the gun in the man’s hand began to shake. His eyes went wide and white and his lips pulled back across his gums. “Tell them!”

  “He’s gone,” Seth said. He kept the gun trained on the other man, but held out a hand. “He left you. You don’t have any backup. Give me the weapon. I can help you. I can—”

  “You can die!” the madman screamed, and he fired.

  Seth saw it coming and threw himself flat, but there was no place to hide in the round room, no way out except the smoke hole fifteen feet off the ground. He rolled and fired, missed and fired again, catching the other man in the meaty part of the leg with his second shot.

  The bullet should have bro
ught the guy down. Instead, pushed past pain by betrayal or insanity or both, the madman twisted his lips in a grimace of disgust, raised his weapon and sighted on Seth. He said, “The plan works both ways. I may not have any backup, but neither do you.”

  His finger tightened on the trigger and Seth dove for the bastard’s legs, braced for the burn of impact, but instead the man screamed and collapsed in an ungraceful heap.

  A buck knife protruded from his ankle.

  Seth flipped the bastard onto his belly, stripped his belt off and used it to strap his hands and feet together. Once that was done, he leaned close and said, “You’re wrong. I had the best backup I could ever ask for.” Seth grinned, feeling the first stirring of relief. “I’ve got Cassie.”

  WHEN SETH TURNED to her, breathing heavily and looking every inch the arrogant, too-bossy Fed she’d once ordered off her crime scene, Cassie smiled.

  “You’re alive.”

  He limped over to her, favoring his right leg, looked down at her with those serious green eyes, and touched her cheek. “So are you.”

  He kissed her, and somehow the words didn’t seem so important anymore. She leaned into him, savored the solid strength and the warmth of him, and felt a final tear leak from between her lashes.

  He caught it with a kiss. “Finger hurt?”

  “Not unless I think about it.” Which she was determined not to do. She held her wounded hand tight to her chest and told herself it was numb. Which it was. Mostly.

  “I’m just…” She trailed off, trying to find the right words. “I thought you were gone. In the explosion.” Which reminded her. “The voice! There’s a third man, he—”

  Seth stopped her with a gentle touch of his fingertip to her lower lip. “I know. He’s long gone. I wound up in some sort of access tunnel and found vid screens, microphones, the whole bit. He’d made a decent nest for himself. We’ll get some evidence off of it. Later.” He eased her to her feet. “Much later. First, it’s the hospital for you.”

  She glanced down and smiled crookedly at his knee. “You, too.”

  He chuckled. “We’re quite a pair, aren’t we?”

  It seemed wrong to think of love with a woman’s discarded body in the corner and an unconscious man bound with his own belt on the floor. But then again, Cassie had never been one to do things by the rules when it came to relationships.

 

‹ Prev