by Jeramy Gates
“You mean crossover? Is it GM?”
“I guess. I’m not sure about the make or model.”
“Can you get me a license plate number?”
“Give me a minute.” Val clenched her jaw and floored it as she came out of another corner. For a few seconds, the road opened up. The Packard accelerated up to eighty miles per hour in the short span, and then Val had to slam on the brakes again.
As she flew around the next corner, the Packard drifted into the oncoming lane. As luck would have it, a vehicle appeared heading straight for her. Val swerved, and the other car’s horn blared as the driver veered onto the shoulder of the road. Val’s tires screeched. Her rear-end fishtailed as she struggled to maintain control. She turned into the skid, teasing the brakes, and eased the Packard back into her lane.
“That was close,” she mumbled.
“Be careful, Val. You won’t do that girl any favors by running off the road.”
“You don’t have to remind me. Is Diekmann on his way? I don’t have my scanner on.”
Matt was quiet for a moment as he checked his computer. “It looks like Diekmann is in Bodega Bay, headed north.”
“He must have been looking for me at the hotel,” Val said. “Is he going to the campground?”
“I think so. An ambulance is on the way, too. And they’ve issued an alert for the SUV. Hang on a sec…”
At last, the road straightened out heading into Stumptown. Val roared past a 25mph speed limit sign doing seventy. Up ahead, the stop light at the center of town turned red. Val laid on the horn to alert anyone who might be in the area, and then flew through the intersection, still accelerating. The taillights of the SUV came into view. Valkyrie realized that she’d closed the distance to a quarter mile.
Odin saw her coming up on him, and jumped into the oncoming lane, swerving around a slow-moving truck. Valkyrie tensed up and gripped the wheel as she followed him. As she came around the truck, an oncoming car appeared around the corner up ahead. Val stomped on the accelerator, and the tires chirped as the propulsion threw her back against the seat. The Packard put on a burst of speed and Val swerved back into her own lane with inches to spare. She forced herself to breathe as her heart hammered in her chest.
Matt returned:
“Val, they’re forming a roadblock just outside Forestville!”
“Perfect. That’s just a few miles ahead. I’m right on his tail.”
“What’s he driving?”
“It’s a GMC… I think it says Acadia. The plate says EXC4U.”
“Stay on him; I might be able to help.”
The two vehicles flew through the small town of Rio Nido in about half a second. It was little more than a housing development on the side of the road, directly across from the Russian River. After taking a sharp inside turn, the road opened up into a long gentle sweep to the right. Half a mile ahead, Valkyrie saw the lights of Korbel Winery flashing through the trees. Just beyond, the glow of police lights at the roadblock. She waited for an oncoming car to pass and then accelerated, swinging into the other lane, trying to bring herself even with the SUV. Odin saw her coming and swerved to the left, cutting her off.
Valkyrie slid back in behind him. She hovered there, right on the vehicle’s bumper. Val glanced into the Acadia’s side-mirror and saw Odin staring back at her with an insane grin. She looked up the road and realized they had already cut the distance to the roadblock in half.
“Matt,” she said in a worried voice. “I don’t think he’s slowing down!”
“What?”
“Odin… I think he means to run the roadblock.”
“That’s insane! He’ll be killed.”
“I’ve got to stop him. I’m going to ram his car.”
“No! Just give me a few more seconds.”
“I don’t have a few more seconds.”
Val stomped on the gas. At the same moment, something entirely unexpected happened. Without any warning whatsoever, the SUV’s lights went out. Valkyrie had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision as the vehicle suddenly slowed. The Packard’s rear end locked up, and Val went fishtailing down the road with clouds of black smoke pouring up from the tires. She twisted the wheel, spinning the Packard in a slow 180-degree turn. She released the brakes and hit the gas just enough to pull out of the spin. Thirty feet ahead of her, the SUV rolled to a stop.
Val parked the Packard sideways across the road to block Odin’s path, in case he tried to escape again. He was trapped between her and the sheriff’s roadblock. She stepped out and drew her gun, bracing her arms across the struts under the convertible roof.
Odin was furious. He leapt out of the SUV and ran straight for her. Val’s finger danced on the trigger, but she couldn’t take a shot. There were too many dangers in her line of fire. The girl was still sitting in the car, and behind her stood half a dozen cops. It was too much risk.
Odin raised the shotgun and leveled it at her. Val ducked for cover. She crawled back into the Packard and Odin let out an insane laugh as he jogged up to the car. He walked around the front, staring at her through the windshield. With a menacing smile, he put the shotgun stock to his shoulder and pulled the trigger.
Val flinched as the birdshot struck the windshield. To Odin’s surprise, the glass didn’t even crack. Val grinned as she saw the mystified look on Odin’s face. He quickly reloaded two more shells and fired again with both barrels. Still, nothing happened.
“Bulletproof glass!” Val shouted.
Odin was in the process of reloading again when three deputies appeared behind him with their guns drawn. Val recognized Nate as one of them. “Drop it!” he shouted. “Drop your weapon and place your hands on your head!”
Odin slumped his shoulders in defeat. He lowered the gun and turned to face them, his gaze fixed on the ground. Then, with a hair-raising scream he raised the weapon. All three deputies opened fire. Odin managed to squeeze off one shot that went over their heads as he fell backwards. He turned, twisted on his way down, and landed on one knee. He was still clinging to the gun, making an effort to lift the barrel. The deputies fired again, and this time they kept going until Odin was on the ground and their magazines were empty.
Val carefully placed her gun on the passenger seat and stepped out of the car with her hands on her head. Nate rushed up to cuff her.
Chapter 32
One hour later, at five a.m., Valkyrie found herself sitting in the interrogation room at the Sequoia County Sheriff’s department. Sheriff Diekmann brought in two cups of coffee. He placed one in front of her and then took a sip of the other as he settled down across from her. For a minute, the two of them just stared at each other. Diekmann looked tired, worn out, the care lines on his face deepened with age, dark circles of exhaustion under his eyes. She saw disappointment etched into his face, and that was the worst part. Diekmann didn’t seem angry. Just frustrated. Val couldn’t take it anymore.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “I know what you’re going to say: That I lied to you. That I took you for granted. I’m sorry for that.”
Diekmann raised an eyebrow. Still, he just stared.
“If you knew the truth, you would understand,” she continued. “If you knew what he did to me…”
“I know,” Diekmann said. His voice was gravelly, low. He sounded even more exhausted than he looked. “Riley showed me the stories. Is it all true?”
Valkyrie nodded mutely. She closed her eyes, the images flashing through her mind. Tom sitting in that chair with his arms bound behind him, his head leaning forward, blood streaming down the front of his shirt. Kyle’s young body loaded into a coroner’s van. Tears came to her eyes, and she leaned forward, elbows on the table, her cuffed hands folded together.
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same, sheriff. If someone did that to you… you know what you would do.”
He leaned back in his chair, his button-front shirt stretching tight across his belly. “I suppose that’s true,” he
said at last. “I won’t lie, if someone did that to me -to the people I love- I’d kill him.”
“I tried to get help,” Val said. “I talked to the FBI for months, until they told me to quit calling. They had bigger concerns.”
Diekmann sighed and shifted his weight to one side. “What am I supposed to do with you? You lied to me. You impersonated a federal agent. That little car chase of yours almost got people killed.”
“But it didn’t,” Val said quickly. “I didn’t hurt anyone. I saved people, sheriff. Can’t you see that? Can you imagine how many more people might have died, if I hadn’t stopped him?”
Diekmann took another sip of coffee. He glanced at the clock, at the one-way mirror on the wall, and then brought his gaze back to Valkyrie. “It seems I have a problem.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When I first met you, I know for a fact that you showed me a badge. Somehow, I can’t seem to locate it now. You didn’t have it with you when we brought you in. I got a search warrant for your car and your hotel room, but it wasn’t there either. We did find a lot of other interesting stuff, computers and gadgets, but nobody seems to know what the heck any of it is.”
Valkyrie smiled. Her wallet and fake IDs had been in her jacket, which Riley took from her when she left the campsite. She wondered if he even knew he had them.
“So what am I going to do with you?” Diekmann continued. “It seems I have a vigilante on my hands. On one hand, I know you’ve committed felonies in this little vendetta of yours. The problem is, I can’t prove any of it. Also, I have a hard time condemning you for anything you’ve done, because I understand why you did it.”
“What about the Special Agent?” Val said. “Is he going to charge me?”
“I don’t see how he can without any evidence. All we have now is my testimony against yours, and that won’t get far in court. I told him I’d call when I had you in custody, but now I don’t see much point.”
Val’s eyes widened hopefully. “So you’re not going to charge me?”
“With what, lying to me? You made a wreck out of my county, that’s true, but at the same time you put two serial killers out to pasture in less than a week. Around here, many people believe the letter of the law and the spirit of the law are two different things. I happen to be one of those people. When the law fails to provide the results it should, it sometimes falls to citizens to set things right. Hopefully, they do so without making criminals of themselves. In this case, I would say you have walked a very fine line. I’m willing to drop all the charges against you, on the condition that you get out of my county and don’t come back. Can I trust you to do that?”
“Absolutely.”
“We’ll see,” he said skeptically. “I can’t trust you, but I’m inclined to believe you this time because I know you got what you came for. With Odin dead and Loki behind bars and headed for prison, I don’t see any reason for you to stick around causing any more trouble.”
“Agreed. I’ll be on the road by noon.” Diekmann unlocked her cuffs and Valkyrie rose to leave. The sheriff opened the door for her. As she stepped out, he touched her on the arm.
“One more thing,” he said. “Everything else aside, I do respect you. I can’t imagine what you’ve been living with all these years. I just hope you can move on.”
“Thanks, sheriff.”
At the front desk, Laura handed Valkyrie a bag with her personal belongings. Valkyrie thanked her.
“We’re going to miss you around here,” Laura said. “I know a lot of deputies who’ll be crying in their beer tonight.”
Val smiled. “I was just getting used to this place. It truly is beautiful. Maybe I’ll come back for a visit some time.”
“No you won’t!” Diekmann’s voice shouted down the hall.
Val found her Packard parked in the lot out front. She also found Riley leaning up against the fender, waiting for her. He was dressed in jeans and a white button-front shirt, untucked, with the sleeves rolled up. He smiled and handed Val her jacket as she approached him.
“I thought you might want this back,” he said.
“Thanks. Feels a little light.”
“I threw your IDs in the river. I figured that was better than handing them to the feds.”
“I guess I owe you one, then,” said Val.
“Not at all. In fact, one of the reasons I’m here is that I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I don’t even feel like the same person I was a week ago. I don’t know how you did it, but I want to thank you for that.”
Val bent close and kissed Riley on the lips. He pulled her closer. For a moment, the two of them stood there, locked in a silent embrace. At last, Valkyrie pulled away.
“You haven’t changed,” she said, brushing his bangs out of his eyes. “You’ve just found another part of yourself; another facet. It was always there.”
“If you say so.”
“So what will happen now?”
“About what?” Riley said, frowning.
“About her. What will you do about Jackie?”
He considered that for a moment. “I guess we’d better have a long talk. I don’t know what to think. Half of me wants to fire her.”
“And the other half?”
“The other half… wants to believe that maybe she did it for me, in some way. That maybe she was trying to protect me.”
“Or keep you to herself?”
He cracked a smile. “Or that, I suppose.”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Riley. Do you want to know if she loves you? I can tell you what I think, but it would be best if you just ask her. Unless of course, you decide you don’t want her. I’m sure you could find another willing woman to take her place.”
“Not like you,” he said.
“Of course not,” she said with a wink. “I’m a Valkyrie. Mortal women don’t stand a chance.”
Valkyrie stepped away from him. He reached out to her, brushed his hand across hers, but Valkyrie didn’t fall for it. She knew that they could stand there and talk until the sun came up, but it wouldn’t change a thing. Valkyrie liked Riley a lot, he was a good man, but he wasn’t someone she could fall in love with. That was why she’d chosen him in the first place. It was going to be a long time before Val could fall in love with anyone.
Val climbed into her car and left. Riley stood in the parking lot, watching after her as the predawn light cast a soft pink glow across the sky. And then she was gone.
Chapter 33
Riley drank an entire pot of coffee that morning. After saying his goodbyes to Valkyrie, he drove to the office and waited for Jackie to arrive. For two hours, he gazed through the windows at the street out front, sipping coffee and contemplating what he was going to say when -and if- she walked through that door.
An amazing transformation took place while Riley was sitting there. The rosy hues of sunrise slowly transformed to sweet golden light that brought the city to life around him. Traffic peaked around seven-thirty and then ebbed into a steady flow. Faces began to appear outside his window, people hurrying to the coffee shop down the street for their morning latte, shortly thereafter returning on their way back to the bank, or the real estate office, or any of a hundred other small business around the town square.
Jackie showed up at eight a.m. sharp. She stepped through the door and then stood there, staring at him. Ten seconds passed that way, each wondering what the other was about to say, expecting the worst. At last, Jackie spoke:
“Are you going to fire me?”
“I said I would, didn’t I? Is there some reason I shouldn’t?”
Jackie struggled for a few moments. She started to say something, stopped, and then started again. “I had to protect you,” she finally managed to say.
“From what?”
“From that woman, Riley. She is dangerous.”
“She was never a danger to me.”
“How could you possibly know that? Her entire
life was a lie. Everything she said to you was a lie. For all we know, she could be working with the killer!”
“I think it’s safe to say she’s not.”
She crossed her arms. “Oh? How can you possibly know that?”
“Because he’s dead. She caught him this morning.”
Jackie’s jaw dropped. “But it… it doesn’t… How could I know that? I still had to protect you.”
“I’m flattered that you care enough to protect me from beautiful, exotic women,” Riley said.
“Don’t even-”
“But it wasn’t your place,” he said, cutting her off. “I specifically told you to let it be. Instead, you turned her in. Because of that, a serial killer almost got away.”
Jackie’s eyes brimmed with tears as she searched for a response. Riley was relentless:
“He tortured a woman, Jackie. Killed her husband and tortured her, the same way he did with Val. He also abducted a child. If not for Valkyrie, he would have murdered a little girl last night. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Jackie nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks. She sniffed and reached for a tissue. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“That doesn’t change what you did. In the future, how can I know that I can trust you to respect my wishes? I need to know that, if we’re going to continue working together.”
“I swear,” she said. “I didn’t know all that was going on. I thought she was just after you. When you called me the other morning from her hotel, I just knew…” Her voice trailed away, as if she suddenly realized she had said too much.
“Go on,” Riley said. “Finish what you were going to say.”
Jackie exhaled rapidly, an exhausted, flustered sound. “Riley, I… I don’t know what to say.”
Riley set his coffee on the desk. He stood in front of her, face to face, and took one of her hands in his. Her skin was soft, flawless; her perfect nails a glossy cabernet red.
“Jackie, I love you. You know that, right? I’ve always been in love with you.”