Hunted in Conard County

by Rachel Lee

  But her mind was having none of it. It had gone into replay mode, had carried her back to that awful night. She was hardly aware of speaking.

  * * *

  She could still remember the warm breeze that stirred the palms, making their fronds clatter. The humidity that made the air almost thick enough to chew. She seldom paid attention to the weather while on a call, so it sometimes surprised her how clearly she remembered it. A typical Florida summer night, nothing unusual.

  There wasn’t anything unusual about the shouting from the second-floor apartment. A painted steel railing lined the front of the building-length balcony, the local version of a hall. Nearby residents had emerged from their apartments in nightclothes and were being urged away by the cops who’d already arrived.

  The call from several neighbors said the man inside that apartment owned a gun. Clear the civilians, first.

  She walked up to the scene commander, a lieutenant she knew well. “So what’s up, Pete?”

  “The guy upstairs is armed.”

  “For certain?”

  Pete faced her. “For certain. The first two responding officers arrived and knocked. He shouted for them to get away or he’d shoot.”

  “Not so easy to do through a steel door.” She knew these places. It could still be done, though, if the guy had enough firepower. Additionally, that door was his only way out.

  She could hear the grinding of the engine of the SWAT truck approaching. “What are their orders? Do you need me at all?”

  “You wanna try to talk to him? From what I’ve been hearing, he’s so drunk he should be laid out flat. Violent. Aggressive. And he’s not answering the phone.”

  “How many people in there?”

  “His wife for sure. Neighbors think they have a couple of kids. Apparently, he and the rest of the community don’t mix well.”

  “I wonder why.”

  Pete scanned the scene, making sure that balcony was clear and civilians were being ushered out of range. “I don’t think you should go up there.”

  “Is he more likely to listen to me on a bullhorn?”

  Pete gave her a mirthless half smile.

  “If he were alone, I’d let SWAT handle it, Pete. But if there’s any chance we can get him out of there without his family getting hurt, I’ll try it.”

  “I know you will.” He sighed audibly. The screaming from the apartment continued, laced with threats.

  “Got a name?”

  “The neighbors know him as Faz, we’ve gathered. Short for Fasio. Apartment management lists the tenants as Fasio and Darlene Maines.”

  “Faz, it is.” She started toward the stairs at the end of the balcony.

  Pete grabbed her arm. “You got your vest?”

  “I’m wearing it.”

  “Let me get you a helmet.”

  She turned to look at him. “Like that helmet would make the guy feel safer? More cooperative? You might as well send SWAT up there.”

  Pete just shook his head. “Resign yourself. They’re not going to be far behind you. If you can get him to step out far enough, they’ll swarm him.”

  Standard with an armed abuser. She wasn’t going to argue about that. She mounted the stairs easily. Adrenaline pumped through her, driving all fear away. Talk the man down. Convince him to come out so he couldn’t shoot up his family. Behind her she heard the carefully quieted steps of SWAT. They were deploying rapidly.

  When she reached the door, she raised a hand to knock. Not the usual loud police hammering, just an ordinary knock.

  * * *

  She snapped back to the present and looked at Stu. He waited patiently. How much had she said aloud? She had no idea.

  But she needed to make short work of the ending. “He came out shooting. I got grazed on the side of the head, but the blow was enough to cause a concussion and a brain bleed. I don’t remember much after the bullet hit me. A little of the team swarming him, then I was out of it. He’s alive, his family’s alive, and he’s in prison for a long time.”

  “Shooting a cop is a stupid thing to do.”

  “He’d been doing stupid things for a while, I heard. Now he can do them in prison.” She shook her arms, trying to dispel the adrenaline and cortisol that were rampaging through her, just as on the night when it happened.

  “So no helmet, huh?”

  She stopped pacing, still shaking her arms. “No. You don’t get very far when you arrive looking like a storm trooper.”

  “Good point. My God, woman, you are incredibly brave. There’s a reason I wore a helmet when I was stationed overseas.”

  “It was my job to calm things down, not ramp them up.”

  He nodded. “Remembering that night hurt, didn’t it?”

  “Hell, yeah.” She didn’t want to admit how much.

  “I’ve got some memories that still hurt, too. Life and death situations tend to do that. But I hope you’re proud of yourself for trying. You were absolutely right about his family.”

  “I know I was,” she agreed. “I’ve seen what happens when a guy tips over the edge and nobody is in time to stop him.”

  He rose from the couch. “How about you, Snowy and I take a walk? It’ll work through the tension that just swamped you.”

  She looked out the living room window and realized the evening had grown dark. Colder, too, probably. It was a good idea, though. Walking off the aftereffects of the cortisol blast the memory had given her was the healthiest way to handle it. That or going to a gym.

  “That sounds good.”

  “If you’ve got any, you might want to find some gloves. Or a warm jacket with deep pockets. I’ll meet you downstairs in the parking lot. I need my own jacket.”

  * * *

  Outside, Stu unlocked his vehicle. From the trunk he pulled out a light but insulated jacket and donned his gun belt again. Long habit. Walking streets in the dark without the tools of his trade always felt uncomfortable. This might be a mostly peaceful town, but Afghanistan had taught him a whole different bunch of lessons.

  God, imagine that woman going alone to meet a raging drunk with a gun. Yeah, he knew she had backup, but it remained she was going to be the first face that man saw, and he was out of his mind and waving a weapon.

  She knew that and went, anyway. Courage. She’d clearly been focused on the threatened family, wanting to get them out safely. SWAT busting in there might have caused a rain of bullets from the perp, and some of them might have hit his family.

  Considering the guy had come out shooting at Kerri, he ought to be damn grateful he was in a cell instead of a coffin.

  The night was chilly, but not enough to make him zip up his jacket. He could taste winter on the air, though. It was coming, even if it might take another month or so before the first flurries arrived to announce it.

  He slammed that tailgate shut, pressed the lock button on his key tab and turned just in time to see Kerri emerge from the stairs with Snowy.

  Cute dog, he thought. Cute woman. A pair that would catch eyes wherever they went.

  But he still had some questions. Like had her injury cost her her job? Were there things she couldn’t do? How circumscribed had her life become? How circumscribed did she want it to be?

  He’d gotten the sense that she hadn’t been comfortable telling him about her epilepsy to begin with. He sure as hell didn’t see any reason why she should feel that way. Why it should embarrass her.

  But maybe it did. It had certainly caused her some serious life changes or she wouldn’t be here teaching at a community college. If she was still having seizures—and that was evidenced by her service dog—then she probably couldn’t drive. How many other things were there? Then he remembered her saying she’d walk to Maude’s. No, no driving for her. Hard thing to live with.

  But driving...oh, that brought on a whole new set of prob
lems around here. There were simply times when walking anywhere wouldn’t be smart or safe. One of them was going to have to look into rides for her in bad weather.

  She came up to him with a smile, Snowy clearly back on duty and walking sedately beside her. “Thanks for the idea,” she said.

  “If you had any idea how many hours I spend on my butt in this car...oh, wait. You do.”

  At last she laughed, an easy sound that suggested she’d left her nightmare behind. He wished he thought it wouldn’t return but he knew better. Memories like that had a way of creeping up on you just as you were falling asleep. At least his did. He’d long since lost count of the nights he’d climbed out of bed to do pushups and squats in order to shove his memories back into the box.

  “Let’s walk toward town,” he suggested. “Maybe we could stop for a piece of pie or some cocoa.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  * * *

  On the east end of town, in an older neighborhood of smaller houses, a predator hunted.

  Ivan Rampin eyed every house he passed. Plotting his move would take a week or two, but he had to know which women lived alone, or spent a lot of time at night alone. Flying off half-cocked would only get him into trouble.

  He had other standards, of course. He preferred women who were in their twenties or early thirties. Reasonably good-looking would be nice but it wasn’t a requirement. After all, he enjoyed himself in the dark.

  He also had to find a house he could get into without risk of being seen. Or even find a late-night jogger who would pass near the park. But it was getting chillier at night, and he’d prefer to be indoors when he had his fun.

  Last spring he’d taken two college women. He savored the memories the way he would have savored a good piece of chocolate cake. Their fear had filled his nostrils with a special scent, one he couldn’t get elsewhere. He loved their initial struggles, and their final acquiescence to his knife. He conquered them, and it made him feel powerful and strong.

  He’d escaped detection those times and felt emboldened by success. But he wasn’t stupid enough to think he could keep taking coeds. Besides, he wanted women with more experience. He was sure they’d be a bigger challenge.

  Smiling in anticipation, he kept walking and scanning, sometimes taking to the alleys behind the houses. Watching, waiting.

  It was hard to wait. Very hard. But he held himself back because a single mistake could end his fun forever.

  Patience, he reminded himself, was a virtue. Hadn’t his mother always said so?

  Chapter 3

  It was shortly after eight when they walked through the door of the diner. The place had started quieting for the night and few tables and booths were occupied.

  Kerri blew on her cold fingers. She was going to need a better pair of gloves. As they slid into a booth near the window from where they could watch the last evening stragglers pass by, she said to Stu, “I think I’m going to have to consider winter clothing.”

  That caused him to grin. “Not prepared, I take it.”

  “It’s not like it’s easy to find suitable clothes in Florida. Oh, sure, I could get jackets and gloves, but I never needed to. My uniform came with a reasonable jacket, but I doubt it would work here.”

  “I doubt it, too. I’m off tomorrow. If you like, I’ll introduce you to a local landmark, Freitag’s Mercantile. You can find everything you might want there.”

  She nodded. “But you have to promise me to help me choose. I have no idea how cold it can get here and what would be the best items to own, especially since I walk everywhere.”

  “I thought that might be the case.”

  A younger woman who looked strikingly like Maude approached their booth. “What’ll it be?” she asked without any friendly preamble.

  “Cocoa?” Stu questioned Kerri.

  “Sounds good.”

  Then he looked up at the woman. “What kind of pie do you still have today, Mavis?”

  “Slim pickin’s,” came the answer. “Most of it disappears at lunch and dinner. I have a couple of wedges of blueberry, and a few of apple. That’s it.” No apology, not in word or voice.

  “I’d like apple,” Stu said. “Kerri?”

  “Apple for me, too. Thank you.”

  “Warmed up?” Mavis asked.

  They both answered in the affirmative.

  Mavis started to turn away, then paused. “You come by early enough tomorrow and I should have blueberry buckle. If you want something different.” Then she stomped away.

  “Just like her mother,” Stu remarked. “Peas in a pod. Her mom had a heart attack recently, but you’d never guess by the way Maude plunged back into work. Except she usually lets Mavis take over after dinner. Must be hard for Maude to do. She’s been running this place since the age of the dinosaurs, from what I hear.”

  “An icon.”

  “Exactly. This town will never be the same if she retires.”

  “Mavis is a pretty good stand-in.”

  Stu laughed. “For certain.”

  Kerri’s spirits began to lift. She was starting to like this town. It felt like a true community, where everyone knew everyone else, and could share their stories. Well, with the possible exception that she didn’t want her story shared. She was still too uncomfortable with that. From the sound of it, she couldn’t prevent it, though.

  Pie plates landed with a clatter on the table. The cocoa was hardly placed more gently and sloshed slightly into the saucers. Forks and spoons, wrapped in paper napkins, followed.

  “Thanks,” they both said like a chorus.

  Like everything else she’d tasted from this diner, the pie was exquisite. A little extra cinnamon, which she loved.

  “Oh, yum,” she said after a few mouthfuls.

  “You can always get the best pies here, whole or half if you want. The bakery one street over doesn’t even try to compete.”

  “I hadn’t even realized there was a bakery.”

  “Apparently, it was Melinda’s dream, and she got started a few years back. Absolutely the place for turnovers, muffins, cakes, fresh bread. We’ll go scope it tomorrow if you have the time after Freitag’s.”

  The sad thing, she guessed, was that she would have the time. In coming here, leaving her old life behind, she hadn’t thought about the days when she’d have little to do except walk and play with Snowy, who once again was lying quietly beneath the table. No hamburgers, no interest.

  She’d led a really busy life before. Now...well, she guessed she’d better take up reading and maybe knitting or some other hobby.

  “I guess I’m going to need to build a whole new life for myself,” she remarked. “Too much time on my hands right now and I’m not used to that.”

  He tilted his head. “Before too long there will be snow on the ground. If you can walk, you can ski cross-country. One of my favorite winter activities. If you’re willing, we’ll try it.”

  “I’m willing.” Very much so. It sounded like a great way to enjoy winter and get some exercise at the same time.

  The smile he gave her across the table warmed her. “We’ll look at skis tomorrow, too, if you want. You can think about it because outfitting is fairly expensive. Or we can rent until you’re sure you like it.”

  She didn’t say so, but she had plenty of money. A pension, her job and a lump sum from her retirement account. She almost sighed. There were some things she hadn’t been thinking about at all, she realized. Like someone to advise her retirement. The college offered options and she still had time to transfer those savings into another retirement plan.

  She’d been letting things slide. Time to get going again. This really wasn’t like her.

  “I think I need to get a handle on my life,” she said wryly.

  “I suspect the past year or so has been full of shocks and changes for you.”
<
br />   She nodded, but it still didn’t feel good. “I’ve been lax.”

  “Give yourself some space. You’ll get up to speed again.”

  She hoped so. Thinking about it now, facing how little she’d really been coping, she wondered if there had been other brain damage, as well, yet to be recognized.

  “Being shot in the head is the pits,” she announced.

  Stu looked up from the last of his pie. “What do you mean, apart from the obvious?”

  “I can’t be sure I’ve discovered all the damage yet. I seem to be letting too much slide, important things. I’ve been in a kind of suspended animation in some ways.”

  He finished his pie, evidently ruminating about what she’d said. “It takes time to heal,” he said as he pushed his plate away. “Be kind to yourself. There wasn’t just the shooting, but a lot of aftermath, from your epilepsy to a huge change in your life. You have a right to be stunned.”

  That brought a faint smile to her face. “Yeah, like fish hit with dynamite.”

  He smiled broadly. “Good analogy. But you’ll pick up all the threads again. I’m sure of it.”

  She wished she could be that sure. Oh, hell, now she had something else to wonder about? She gave herself an inward shake. No point in it, except to worry, perhaps needlessly. Waste of time. If something else was wrong with her, she’d find out soon enough.

  The cocoa was rich, rich enough to be a meal in itself. When she finished hers, she felt like smacking her lips. “I need to work out after this dessert.”

  Stu chuckled. “I feel you. Let’s take the long way back.”

  He insisted on picking up the tab, so she left the tip. The money rested on the table. There was an old-timey feel to that, just leaving the money and not having to wait for it to be picked up, or to go to the register. Mavis was busy with another lone customer and didn’t seem to notice when they left. The bell over the door probably told her all she needed to know.

  Outside, the temperature had dropped further. Earlier the air had been fairly still, but now a breeze was blowing. Even with her jacket zipped and her hands stuffed into her pockets, Kerri soon began to feel cold. She definitely needed to get better winter clothing tomorrow. It couldn’t wait.