“Yes, ma’am,” Todd said.
Bree picked up the rifle and handed it back to Matt.
Matt held it at his hip. “Let’s go.”
“He went that way.” Bree pointed toward the woods.
Matt pulled out his flashlight and shone it on the ground. Flattened weeds and broken underbrush indicated a recent trail into the forest.
Bree set off without waiting for Matt. He quickened his strides to catch up.
Touching his mic, he spoke in a whisper. “Do you know where he’s going?”
“I do.” Bree plunged into the woods.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Bree knew the way. She hadn’t lived on this land since she was a child, but years of running wild in the woods had left an imprint on her mind. Her feet knew the trail that led from the barn to the dogs’ yard.
Despite their smoke-tinged lungs, she and Matt should be able to catch Elias. He was much older than they were. Plus, both Bree and Matt were in excellent condition. They ran regularly. No doubt Elias had expected to be fleeing in his Jeep, not on foot.
At the edge of the clearing, she stopped and listened. Behind them, the fire crackled and roared. Something rustled to her right, and the hairs on her arms stood.
Matt had his flashlight out. He crouched and examined the ground. “He went this way.” Matt indicated a slight veering off to the right. Bree followed him. The excavation was just ahead, a gaping scar in the earth where two people had been buried.
“Hold on,” Matt said, his voice barely audible in her earpiece.
She turned and walked back to him.
He pointed to a rusty metal stake in the ground. A heavily rusted chain lay coiled next to it. Matt indicated the end of the stake. Bree looked closer.
Blood.
And it was fresh.
Elias must have cut himself. Had he tripped in the darkness? She hoped he was hurt badly enough for it to slow him down.
Keeping his light close to the ground, Matt moved to the right. Underbrush crunched as they walked. Bree scanned the woods around them, readjusting her grip. This couldn’t be right.
A trail of blood drops led them in a U-turn that took them right back to the house.
Bree stood in the woods looking at her family home. The back door stood ajar. This was the place where her father had murdered her mother. Inside, another killer waited. She hesitated for barely a few seconds before working her way around the yard. She stayed in the trees until they’d reached the side of the house.
Only a dozen yards of weeds separated them from the back porch. Her gaze dropped to the missing board and the gap she’d crawled through all those years ago. A gunshot blasted in her mind.
It had been in her mind, right?
She glanced at Matt. He hadn’t flinched, so she was reasonably certain the gunshot had been her imagination. Being back at this house, under fire, was seriously messing with her head. But this was one fear she had to face.
With a sweep of her hand, she led the way across the ground. At the corner of the house, she motioned for Matt to go around to the front door. She didn’t want Elias getting away. He’d hurt too many people, and tonight, he was both armed and out of control.
They needed to stop him.
At the back steps, she took care to be quiet. Matt jogged away and disappeared around the front of the house. Bree approached the back door as she would any other dangerous situation. She avoided the center of the doorway. Holding her gun close to her chest, she stepped inside.
She could still hear the fire from the barn, but it had faded to background noise. Her ears echoed with her own pulse—and with the past.
Smoke from the barn fire had seeped inside and filled the air with a gray haze. She swept her gun around the kitchen. No Elias. Bree struggled to not see the house as it had appeared twenty-seven years before. The kitchen table had been there, and Bree had coaxed her little sister out from under it. She could hear her parents fighting in the bedroom. Daddy’s curses. The fleshy slap of an open hand on a face. Mommy’s sobs.
Bree shook her head to clear it. No one was in the kitchen. She turned down the hall that led to the bedrooms. She stepped one foot into the room she’d shared with Erin and swept the barrel of her gun from corner to corner. Her hands were shaking. Empty. Hall bath, also empty. At the end of the very short hall, the nursery faced her parents’ bedroom. Adam had been in there, crying, screaming. Bree had lifted him out. She’d carried him from the house, with her little sister in tow.
Adam’s not here.
But in her mind, he wouldn’t stop wailing.
Get your head in the game.
Where is Elias?
But she couldn’t refocus. The past continued to call to her. Bree turned around. Across the hall from the nursery was her parents’ bedroom. She pictured her father pinning her mother against the wall, one hand around her throat, the other holding a gun.
You’re going to end up dead in the very house from which you once escaped death.
The crackle of fire caught her attention and brought her back to the present. Her heart kicked as she scanned the room. A small cloud of smoke drifted from what had been Adam’s nursery, and it was not smoke carrying in the air from the barn.
The smoke was dark and concentrated and spreading right toward her.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“The fire jumped to the house,” Matt said in his mic. “Get out.”
Outside, the fire had spread across the grass and into the trees around the barn. Wind carried embers to the house. The roof and one wall were already blazing. There was plenty of dried, rotting wood to burn.
Smoke filled the living room. Matt couldn’t see into the adjoining kitchen. Staying low, he moved through the room, his rifle firmly pressed into his shoulder. In the kitchen, he swung the barrel 180 degrees. Empty.
Where was Bree?
Matt turned into the hallway that led to the bedrooms. He moved into a wall of thicker smoke. His eyes and throat burned. Flames glowed in the first bedroom. He paused in the doorway. Fire engulfed the exterior wall and licked at the floorboards.
Soon, it would consume the entire house.
He turned back to the hall. The smoke thickened, choking him and obscuring his visibility. He could barely see two feet in front of him. He couldn’t suppress a cough. He gagged as he continued down the hall.
Bree had to be here somewhere. He wouldn’t leave this house without her.
CHAPTER FORTY
An orange glow brightened the smoke-filled air. Bree’s eyes were tearing, and she could barely see. The fire was spreading fast. Coughing, she began backtracking. She had to get out of here. Her team would cover the exits. The fire would drive Elias from the house.
Or it wouldn’t and he would die.
Before she took two steps, something swung at her from the right. A board. Bree ducked and blocked the blow, but it hit her wrist. Pain sliced through her arm and numbed her fingers. Her gun flew out of her hand, skittered across the floor, and stopped at the base of the wall. She lunged toward her weapon.
“Stop!” Elias was right next to her. The muzzle of his gun pressed into her temple.
Bree’s breath locked in her lungs. Her heart thundered like a team of Clydesdales.
“Move.” Elias forced her a few feet backward into her parents’ bedroom, where the smoke was thinner. Soot blackened his face, and blood soaked his pant leg. He yelled into her ear, “This is where your father shot her. She was standing right where you are. He shot her in the head. She was dead before she hit the floor.”
Fear gripped Bree, but her mind whirled. How did he know all this? Maybe he’d seen her parents’ file. Maybe he’d talked to the sheriff or a deputy who’d responded. He’d been around long enough.
A slight scuff sounded in the other room. Matt? The fire?
“His brains and blood splattered all over this wall.” Elias pointed behind her.
“You knew my father?” Bree coughed.
“He was a useful bastard. The only person I knew—besides me—with no conscience.” Elias sounded impressed.
“Which one of you killed Jane and Frank?” Bree asked.
“You think I’m going to blab all my secrets?” Elias wheezed. He wiped his face on his shoulder, as if trying to clear his eyes. “Fuck you. I’m not confessing.”
He was too calm. Bree needed to throw him off. “Shawn overdosed.”
Elias flinched, then flattened his lips. “It was inevitable. Is he alive?”
“I don’t know, but you’re going to prison.”
Elias bared his teeth. “It’s been thirty years. You’ll never prove anything.”
“Harley is still alive.” She actually had no idea if he was alive or dead. She hadn’t had time to call the hospital, but Elias didn’t know that. “So is Curtis.”
She hoped.
Elias froze; his mouth opened, then closed again. His teeth were white in his soot-streaked face. She held his gaze.
“I won’t go to prison,” he said in a calm voice.
“You won’t get away with this,” Bree said. “There are additional deputies here. Put down the gun, Elias. This house is on fire. We need to get out.”
“No. That’s not what’s going to happen. I have an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.” He stared at her, and she understood. He was going to kill her, then himself. He wouldn’t surrender. He wasn’t the kind of man who could go to prison. He’d spent his adult life as a pillar of the community, a respected leader. His ego would never let him accept his downfall.
Bree suppressed a flashback, but panic encroached on her nerves. Her memories were ingrained. They didn’t require conscious thought. Her body recognized the danger on a primal level.
She couldn’t die. She couldn’t do that to Kayla and Luke. Could she disarm Elias without getting shot in the head?
Over Elias’s shoulder, a shadow appeared. Matt?
Bree needed to distract Elias. “So, you’re going to go out in a blaze of glory?” She uttered the clichéd words with contempt.
Elias sneered. “I’ll go out the way I’ve lived my entire life—on my own terms.”
An old board squeaked under Matt’s weight. Elias turned. He and Matt fired simultaneously. Matt clutched his chest and went down. Fear barreled through Bree. Matt! But she couldn’t go to him. She needed to stop the threat.
She sprang at Elias, shoving at his gun hand. He fumbled but didn’t drop his gun. Bree’s momentum carried her another step. Her boot caught on a loose floorboard, and she lurched forward. In her peripheral vision, she saw Elias swinging his gun toward her.
Bree landed on one knee, drew her backup piece from her ankle holster, and shot Elias in the dead center of his chest. A large spot of blood bloomed on his shoulder. A smaller one appeared high on his chest. He staggered backward two steps, until his back hit the corridor wall, then he slid down to a sitting position. He might survive her 9mm slug to the chest. But Matt had shot him with a high-velocity rifle. That bullet entered the body with a hole the size of an olive. The exit hole would be as large as an orange. If they didn’t help him, he would bleed to death.
He might bleed to death anyway.
Bree grabbed Elias’s gun from the floor. Then she dropped to her knees beside Matt.
“Vest,” he wheezed and slapped his own ribs. “I’m OK.”
She didn’t have time for an exhale of relief. “We have to get out of here. Can you walk?”
Matt nodded, and she helped him to his feet. They each grabbed one of Elias’s arms and dragged him down the hall and out of the house through the back door.
Outside, they crossed fifty feet of grass and let Elias fall onto his back. On the other side of the yard, she could see Todd and Collins with Curtis. The fresh air cut through the gunk in her throat and lungs, and she began to hack up disgusting things. She gagged and spit out a mouthful of soot. Next to her, Matt removed his vest and rubbed his chest.
Elias groaned. “You should have left me inside.”
Bree pressed both hands to the shoulder wound. “I want you alive to go to prison.”
She wanted to be relieved she cared enough to save his life, but she actually thought death would be the easy way out. Elias deserved to pay for what he’d done for the next twenty years.
A parade of emergency vehicles arrived. The next minutes were controlled chaos of firemen dragging hoses, EMTs taking charge of the wounded, and state police arriving.
She and Matt relinquished the weapons they’d used to shoot Elias. The guns would be returned after the state police ballistics lab was finished with them.
Since Bree and Matt had both been involved with the shooting, the state police would take over the scene and investigation. For once, Bree was perfectly fine with letting go. One of her deputies brought her a canister of sanitizing wipes, and she used them to clean Elias’s blood from her hands.
“Here.” Matt handed her a bottle of water.
“Thanks.” She dumped half on her face, then drank the rest. Then she turned and splayed her hands on his chest. “Are you all right?”
He grimaced, rubbing his solar plexus. “I feel like I’ve been hit with a sledgehammer, but I’ll take it over a bullet hole.”
Thankful for body armor, she kissed him hard on the mouth, then pressed her forehead to his. Somehow, their fingers became intertwined. They stayed that way for several minutes. A truckload of gratitude rolled over Bree. She and Matt were both all right. They’d saved each other.
A state trooper approached. Matt tried to pull his hand away, but she held on. She didn’t care who saw them. She wasn’t ready to let go of him yet.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The next morning, Bree stood in the hospital elevator answering Nick West’s email on her cell phone. As much as she hated media exposure, she arranged the interview she’d promised him. He’d kept his word. She would keep hers. Hitting “Send,” she approached Curtis’s hospital room. Anders stood in the hallway, leaning on the wall just outside the door.
Bree stopped next to him. “Everything OK?”
“Yeah.” He pushed off the wall. “Mrs. E just had to see him for herself.”
“I understand.” Bree cleared her throat. She’d sucked down some oxygen the night before, but her throat and lungs still ached from inhaling smoke.
“You want me to get her?” Anders offered.
“No. I can wait.” Bree would not interrupt Mrs. Evans’s reunion with her son. Now that she had the kids, she understood what these minutes would bring to the older woman.
“Good. She can’t be out of the house long anyway. She gets tired.”
“You’re a good friend,” Bree said.
Anders flushed and averted his eyes.
“Anders?” Mrs. Evans’s voice sounded thin and weak.
Anders turned into the doorway. “Yes, ma’am?”
“I’m ready.” She sounded short of breath.
Anders went into the room. Bree heard Mrs. Evans say goodbye to her son.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” She emerged from the room, leaning on a walker with a portable oxygen converter strapped to it. She saw Bree and shuffled closer.
The old woman’s eyes glistened with unshed tears. “Thank you. You said you’d find him, and you did.” Mrs. Evans reached out and touched Bree’s forearm. “I’m sorry I slapped you.”
“Apology accepted.” Bree nodded. “I received an email from the medical examiner. The DNA match came through, confirming Frank’s identification.”
Mrs. Evans squeezed her eyes closed for a few seconds before opening them again. “Does that mean we can bury him?”
“The medical examiner will contact you about releasing Frank’s remains.”
Mrs. Evans sighed. “At least I’ll be able to put him to rest before I die.”
Bree’s heart ached for her. “Is Anders taking care of you?”
“He’s a good boy.” Mrs. Evans’s eyes brightened. She lowered her voice. “T
hey’re more than friends, you know.”
“Really?” Bree wasn’t surprised.
“They think I don’t know, but I’m not blind.” She rolled her eyes. “Years ago, it might have bothered me, but even an old gal like me can learn. I’m happy Curtis won’t be alone when I die. In the end, all a parent can hope for is that their kid is happy, right?”
“Right.” Bree’s eyes went misty. She thought of Luke and Kayla. Would they be happy? “Are you going to let them know you know?”
“We’ll see.” Mrs. Evans looked thoughtful. “It’s their secret to tell, not mine. I’ll find a way to make it clear that I support them.”
Anders appeared in the doorway. He leaned back in to speak to Curtis. “I’ll take your mom home and come back.” Then he strode into the hallway and stopped next to Mrs. Evans. “Are you OK?”
“I am.” She shuffled toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Smiling, Bree went into the room. Curtis sat propped on pillows. A rolling tray in front of him held a plastic cup of water. His face was pale. One hand was wrapped in bandages. His voice was barely a rasp. “Thank you for saving me.”
“I wish I could have found you sooner.” Bree stopped next to the bed. “Are you supposed to talk?”
He shook his head and croaked, “Not much.”
Bree took her notepad and pen from her pocket and set them on the tray. “If it hurts too much to talk, you can write your answers.”
He nodded.
“How did he kidnap you?” she asked.
Curtis wrote: Put a nail in my tire. When I stopped for the flat, he pulled up next to me with a gun, forced me into his Jeep.
“Do you know why?”
A tear leaked from Curtis’s eye. He looked away and took a minute to compose himself. He set the pen down and spoke in his painful whisper. “Elias killed Frank.”
“You saw it?”
Curtis nodded once. “Frank took me out for pizza that night. He got a call from Elias while we were out. When Elias called, Frank went running.”
Right Behind Her (Bree Taggert) Page 26