BIG SKY SECRETS 03: End Game (20 page)

He whined louder.

She moved to a window and pulled the curtain back a few inches to survey the yard. “There’s nothing out there. Do you smell a rabbit or something?”

The first bullet smashed through the window in front of her and sent searing pain through her right hand, spattering her shirt with blood. The second broke the neighboring window and whistled past her ear, sending glass shards slicing across her cheek. Crying out, she stumbled backward, trying to staunch the heavy flow of blood from her shattered hand with the hem of her shirt.

Buddy yelped and ran for the kitchen, his tail between his legs. She spun around and followed, putting another wall between her and the shooter, then grabbed for the phone above the counter.

The line was dead.

With her good hand she rummaged in a drawer for a kitchen towel and then wrapped it tightly around the wound. She tried to tighten her fist. Pain rocketed up her arm, sending dark spots in front of her eyes. He’d gotten her gun hand—possibly shattered bone. There was no way she could grip her weapon and shoot with accuracy. Left-handed, she’d never been able to do better than seventy percent accuracy on the range.

She searched her empty pockets for her cell.
Where was it?
She’d paced all through the house in her impatience. She’d had it her hand…

Another living room window exploded, followed by the lamp next to the sofa. Crouching low, she edged to the corner of the kitchen door. The ruby gleam of her cell phone taunted her from over by the front entrance. Too far. Too much risk. Yet if she didn’t call for backup…

She turned, gauging the distance to the door. If she could make it across the yard and vault over the fence, then she could reach the surrounding forest. There were deer trails back there, some that ran close to the highway.

From outside she heard a twig snap, then another, coming around the side of the cabin.
Too late.

Once again, a series of bullets shattered glass, this time at the back door and kitchen windows.

“Come on, Buddy. Where are you?” She scanned the room for the terrified dog. He’d disappeared, but with luck he’d sense her departure and run after her.

Another window shattered, this time by the kitchen table.

A prayer on her lips, she crouched low and ran for the front door, reached up to twist the dead bolt and glanced outside, then grabbed her cell phone from the floor and raced for the open front gate and her patrol car. Fifteen feet to go. Ten—

In front of her, the driver’s side window shattered into tiny prisms of safety glass that bloomed inward like crystalline fabric with one perfect, round, nine-millimeter hole in the center.

“I don’t think you’ll be going anywhere just yet, Megan.”

The voice was clear now, unfiltered by whatever he’d put over his phone receiver in the past. She turned slowly and looked into his almost familiar face.

A face that had aged; one that had been repaired and remolded over the years after the meth-lab explosion when he was just a teen. But it was still a face she’d sworn she’d never forget.
“Rex.”

Rex Nelson. Son of the former sheriff.

“Move nice and slow. Release the buckle of your service belt. Let it fall. Touch that weapon and I’ll blow you apart.”

She fumbled with the buckle, feigning a concerted effort.

“
Now,
or you lose a knee.” He watched with intense fascination as her service belt hit the ground, and with it, her gun. “I’ve waited so long for this. I thought about it for years, behind bars. When I found out you were a deputy, I couldn’t believe my luck. It’s been fun, putting you to the test.”

“Test?” Horrified, she stared at him. Had those other deaths been part of a plan that he’d been mounting against
her?

“At first I just wanted to make you look stupid—for you to publicly fail. To lose your reputation and career.” He fluttered his hand dismissively. “Perfect justice for what happened to my father. But obviously that didn’t work, so now we need to move to Step Two.”

“I…I don’t understand.”

“Don’t toy with me—of course you do. You deserve to suffer as much as I have.” His mouth twisted. “You and your cousin Erin purposely
destroyed
my family—and that friend of yours, too. And now I’m going to pay back each of you. One by one by one. But…I don’t think you’ll be the first to die. I believe I’ll leave you here while I go see the other two. Then you can dwell on your sins while you bleed your life away.”

He pulled a long, gleaming bowie knife from a leather scabbard at his side and ran a thumb along the edge. A thin red line welled up in its wake.

Time—she needed more time.
“None of us tried to destroy your family. We were just kids back then. At least tell me what we did to deserve this.”

“You remember the day my father and I left town. It was my senior year, and I didn’t even get to finish it out. I saw you on the street and I yelled at you as we passed. Do you remember?”

She jerked her head in a single nod. “I couldn’t make out the words.”

“I said that I’d come back someday, and justice would be served.” He bared his teeth in a smile. “And now it will be.”

“But I did nothing to you. Ever.”

His eyes narrowed, gleaming with a sudden rush of hatred that made her shudder. “Nothing? You all did nothing but complain, and vilify my father. Your whole family did, until they stirred up the whole town. He didn’t mess up that murder investigation. He was a
good
sheriff. He did everything right. But you made sure he lost his job. And do you know what happened then?”

She shook her head, eyeing the blade as he took another step closer. She backed up another foot along the side of the car.

He was a good six feet of solid muscle. She was half his weight. Maybe she could take him down on a good day, but with only one good hand…

Could she move fast enough to get the gun out of her ankle holster? He was close. Too close. He’d be on her in a heartbeat if she tried. She thought of all the moves she’d learned in self-defense classes, considering and discarding one after another. His gun was trained on her chest, center mass. One wrong move and he could fire.
Lord, help me, here. I’ve got to warn Erin and Kris—I can’t die here. Not right now.

“My father drank himself to death. He lost his job, his pride, his future because of you. You see my face? A beating destroyed my nose in high school. One of his broken beer bottles finished the job after we left town.” Rex’s voice rose, dripping venom. “Each time I look in the mirror, I think of everything you did to destroy my father. And then I think of all the ways I’d like to see you die.”

S
cott looked at the speedometer of his truck, then dropped down to seventy.

He’d been thinking about going back to Chicago before yesterday’s argument with Megan. He’d known that he would have to go back sometime and deal with the trouble that was brewing in his absence.

He just hadn’t planned on it right now.

But her words had struck him like a switchblade, and they’d been playing through his thoughts ever since.
I know you don’t want to be a cop any longer. If you can’t handle it anymore, that’s okay.

Is that what had happened? Had he chosen to use his medical leave as an escape, rather than to continue his fight against the corruption he’d found festering in the department?

Its roots were tangled deep into the very fabric of the place he’d once loved so much, twisting among the men he’d once admired and some of the good cops he’d worked with on the street before moving into Homicide.

Once he’d started to delve into that sorry mess, he’d soon discovered that a bullet to the shoulder might not be the end of it, and he could end up paying with his life.

But now the airport was just a couple hours away. He had his bags packed, his tickets bought, and a neighbor was taking care of his animals.

So even though it was over with Megan—and she’d made that plenty clear—he could come back here with a clear conscience, after doing everything in his power to help clean up the problems in Chicago.

The cold, heavy weight taking the place of his heart expanded even more.
Megan.
From the moment he’d first seen her, he’d been entranced by her sparkling shamrock-green eyes and all of those golden highlights in her auburn hair.

And when she’d first started talking about her job—

He smiled to himself, remembering. She had the kind of fire he’d once had, before going out on one too many calls; seeing far too many gut-wrenching situations. He’d developed distance then, that protective shell that kept a guy from feeling too much.

But Megan—just being around her had made him feel alive again. Though the more he was with her, the more he feared for her…and that had swiftly led to the end of any hope for a future with a woman who had so totally captured his heart.

A woman who faced danger every day of her life, with courage and intelligence. Who was facing even greater danger now.

An uneasy feeling crept through him and wouldn’t let go.

He looked at the speedometer again and realized he’d dropped to fifty. Then forty-five.

What was he thinking, leaving for Chicago now?

Maybe she’d insisted that she didn’t need his help. Maybe she still wouldn’t accept it. But if he didn’t go back, he knew it would be a mistake.

And if the small, insistent voice of warning in his head was right, he might regret it for the rest of his life.

A wave of dizziness washed through her as Megan clamped her blood-soaked hand beneath her other arm, trying to stop the bleeding.
Keep him talking. Anything, to keep him here and find a way to stop him….

“I…I thought you got those scars from that meth explosion in high school.” Stars danced in front of her eyes as a wave of nausea rose through her midsection.

“Some, not that it matters anymore. And now I’m the one with all the power.” Rex studied her, his mouth curved in smug satisfaction. He studied the gun in his right hand, the knife in his left. “It’s so hard to choose. I almost hate to end this. But…I really should be going.”

From the corner of her eye Megan saw Buddy cowering at the edge of the yard, a good thirty feet behind Rex. Even from here, she could see he was shaking with fear, though he didn’t take his eyes off her face.

He was terrified of most men. She was sure he wouldn’t dare come closer to this one.
Please, Buddy. Bark. Run. Anything for a distraction.

He crept forward, his head and body lowered, his ears flat.
Come on, Buddy.

With one fluid motion he coiled, then launched himself at Rex’s back in a furious explosion of snapping jaws.

Rex fell forward with a scream, stumbling to his knees as he swung out with the side of his gun, smashing it against the side of Buddy’s head. The dog yelped and fell motionless at his feet.

“Buddy!” Horror ripped through her, coupled with a surge of anger. She blinked and forced herself into the cool, methodical, professional persona born of thousands of hours of training over the years. She dropped to one knee to mask the motion of reaching for the small semi-automatic in her ankle holster. “Oh,
please
.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice as Rex stood up, two-handing his own gun. He raised it until she was looking down the barrel.

With a fierce cry she lunged forward, ramming her head into his stomach. He staggered backward, doubled over his arms. She spun, threw all her weight into her elbow and caught the side of his temple.

He sprawled on the ground, groaning…but when he rolled to one side he still had his gun held weakly in one trembling hand. A litany of curses flew from his mouth as he lifted it in her direction.

Out of the shadows another figure flew into view.
Scott.
Startled, Megan saw him dive for the gun, roll and jump to his feet, with the gun trained on Rex. “You won’t be needing this, mister.”

She immediately hurried to Buddy’s side. The dog was lying flat and still where he’d fallen, a small pool of blood seeping from a jagged laceration at the side of his muzzle. “Oh, Buddy,” she whispered, resting a gentle hand on his head and stroking his body. Joy exploded through her when she felt the faint, shallow rise and fall of his ribs. “He’s breathing!”

At the sound of her voice, he lifted his head a few inches, then dropped back and managed a single thump of his tail.

She sat back on her heels and looked over at Scott. His face was pale and drawn, as if he were steeling himself against considerable pain radiating through his bad shoulder, and she knew what his swift action had cost him. But still, he was watching her with an expression so worried, so tender, that it nearly took her breath away. “You came back,” she said in wonderment. “Why?”

“I had to,” he said simply. “I couldn’t walk away from the best thing I’ve ever found on this earth. I just hope you can forgive me.”