Danger on the Mountain (16 page)

SEVENTEEN

T
he minute Eli finished his statement, Reese was headed for his cruiser. Eli was right behind him in his own car. Over the radio, Eli told him, “I’m getting Cal and Mitchell for backup. I don’t like this any more than you do.”

Reese cranked the car and let Eli pull out first. Eli knew the fastest route to the place. With one hand on the wheel, he dialed Maggie’s number. A number he’d programmed into his phone. Speed dial number one.

He held the phone to his ear and listened to it ring. “Come on, Maggie, pick up.”

Her phone went to voice mail.

Reese hung up, and his worry meter shot off the chart. She’d just texted him thirty minutes ago. Why wasn’t she answering?

Eli made a left, then a right, then they were on the main road going toward the edge of town. Reese wanted to floor it, but there were too many side roads, the sun was sinking behind the mountain to his right and he didn’t want to take a chance on hitting someone who may decide not to come to a complete stop at the numerous stop signs lining the road.

So he gritted his teeth and kept it ten miles over the speed limit.

* * *

“Jason!” Maggie screamed as she raced to the fallen deputy’s side. She dropped to her knees beside the man and felt for a pulse. She looked up and saw Shannon standing in the doorway that looked like it might lead back into a pantry. “Get down!” Maggie yelled. “Someone’s shooting!” Then Maggie noticed the gun in the woman’s hand and froze. “You?” she whispered.

“Me.” She lifted the weapon and Maggie screamed and ducked, rolling toward the counter, searching for any kind of cover she could find. The bullet shattered the glass display behind her.

“Stop! What are you doing? Why?” Maggie felt the terror choke her, closing her throat, numbing her reflexes, freezing her brain. “Shannon, stop! Talk to me!”

“He promised me the baby.” The flat monotone spiked Maggie’s fear. Horror flooded her as she tried to piece together what Shannon was saying.

“What baby? Who promised you a baby?”

“Kent. He promised to give me the baby when she was born.”

Realization dawned. “What? Give you my baby? Are you crazy?”

“Actually, yes. At least that’s what the doctors tell me.” Shannon moved and Maggie could see her in the round mirror above the door. Shannon held the weapon like she knew how to use it. But then she’d already taken Jason down with no trouble. The deputy lay still, pale as death. Maggie wanted to go to him. Help him, but knew if she moved Shannon would shoot her.

She licked her lips. “Where’s Belle?”

“Belle’s fine. Don’t worry about Belle. Belle’s mine now. I’m going to take care of her like I should have all along.”

“Why did he promise you Belle, Shannon? You should know I’d never give up my baby.”

“You were negligent! I proved that in the store.”

Maggie knew immediately what the woman referred to. She’d been desperate to get out of the house. So, when Belle was about three weeks old, Maggie had strolled her up to the shopping center. In one of the stores, Maggie had turned to look at something and when she turned back, Belle was gone. “You took her.”

“I wanted to teach you a lesson. Show you that you couldn’t take care of her.”

“You scared me to death.”

“We were one aisle over. You should have realized that you were in no shape to take care of her.”

“She’s mine!”

“No, she’s mine.” It wasn’t the words that sent sheer fear shuddering through her, it was the without-a-doubt certainty with which Shannon said the words that scared her senseless.

“Why did he promise to give her to you? Why?” Shannon knew her husband hadn’t wanted the baby, but to think he’d schemed to get rid of her...

“I can’t have children, and I can’t adopt. Belle was my one hope to be a mother.” Shannon’s voice cracked, then steadied. “And I
will
be her mother. He was going to give her to me. Then he took her away.” She paused. “He took her away!”

Maggie flinched. “So you killed him.” Somehow she knew it. She didn’t know why, she just knew it was true.

A perfectly arched brow lifted over one cold eye. “I did. He found the envelope your grandfather sent you. He came home early that day and found it in the mailbox. When he looked inside, he knew your baby was going to rescue him from the gambling debts he’d managed to rack up. If you were dead, the money would go to whoever got custody of Belle.”

Maggie’s breaths came in pants. She had to get out of here. Had to do something to save herself. Save Belle. But Belle wasn’t here.

She froze as something warm touched the back of her neck. Shannon’s voice hissed in her ear. “Now it’ll be my money. And Belle will be mine, too.”

“Not without my signature,” Maggie blurted out.

The woman behind her froze. “What do you mean?”

“I changed the will. I changed everything. Unless you have my signature on a new will, my death means nothing.”

“You’re lying.” But Maggie could hear a faint thread of worry in her voice.

“Then kill me and find out,” Maggie bluffed, keeping her words low and steady.

A slight pause. “Go.”

“What?”

“In the car. Go.”

Maggie stood on trembling legs, using the counter to pull herself up. The gun jabbed her lower back and she stumbled out from behind the counter. Her gaze fell to Jason, bleeding on the floor. Maggie moved toward him. “Let me help him.”

“No.” Shannon shoved her once again and Maggie tripped over Jason, landing with a thud half on top of him, half on the floor. His weapon still in his holster, her fingers closed over the butt.

“Get up!” Shannon screamed. “I’m sure you told someone you were coming here! Now move! Into the police car.”

Maggie pulled on the gun. But it wouldn’t move, still strapped into the holster. And she didn’t have time to figure out how to release it. “I’m sorry, Jason,” she whispered. But she’d had no idea that Shannon was so unstable.

“Let’s go now!”

Maggie thought fast. “I need the keys. They’re in his pocket.”

“Then hurry up and get them!” Shannon screamed at her. Maggie dug into the pocket with her right hand, hoping Shannon wasn’t paying attention to her left.

Maggie got the keys, stood, stumbled and got her balance. She shoved her hands into her pockets and made her way to the door. “Take me to Belle, Shannon.”

“Not a chance. Into the driver’s seat.”

Maggie stepped out into the cold, the wind biting at her bare face. She made her way through the swirling snow, got to the car, opened the door and slid behind the wheel.

She pulled the keys from her right pocket and jammed them into the ignition. “Where am I going?”

“To get the paper you need to sign so that I get Belle and all the money.”

Maggie swallowed hard. “It’s at my house.”

Shannon simply glared at her, the gun never wavering. “Then go home.”

* * *

Reese pulled into the parking lot of Simon’s Stop and Go and stared at the dark building. His heart sank. He didn’t have to examine the structure to know they weren’t there.

Eli sidled up beside him. Cal and Mitchell turned in, too. Reese opened the door and raced toward the store, leaving the car running, the car door open.

He pushed the unlocked door open and stepped inside. His eyes landed on Jason. “Oh, no.”

Reese launched himself to the deputy’s side and felt for a pulse. Faint and weak, but there.

As he was reaching for his radio to call for help, Eli and the other officer came through the door. When Eli saw Jason on the floor, he gave a harsh exclamation and dropped to the floor opposite Reese. “Is he alive?”

“Barely.” Speaking into the radio, he gave their location. “Officer down, send a helicopter.” He looked at Eli. “It can land in the parking lot.”

“Absolutely.”

He spotted something on the floor near the counter and got to his feet. He reached down and picked up a scarf. “It’s Maggie’s. She was here.”

Eli still had his finger on Jason’s pulse. He looked up and nodded. “I’ll get Mitchell to stay with Jason. The rest of us need to figure out where Maggie and Shannon went. His keys are missing and his cruiser’s gone.”

Reese nodded. “They’re in his car. You got a GPS tracker on that thing?”

“Yeah.” While Eli called that in, Reese gave the store another once-over, but didn’t see anything else that might give him a clue as to where Maggie might be going.

“His radio’s gone.”

“What?”

Eli looked up. “Jason’s radio. It’s missing.”

Reese frowned and wondered what that meant.

He turned his up and listened.

Nothing but police chatter about the nightmare he was living. “I’ll keep listening. Someone took that radio for a purpose. If he—or she—wants to get in touch with one of us, we need to be paying attention.”

“Good idea. I’m just going to—”

Reese cut him off with a wave as he lifted the radio to his hear. Maggie was saying, “...knows I’m with you, Shannon, he’ll know you’re involved in this.”

“You’re lying. Now shut up and drive.”

Reese looked at Eli. “Maggie has it.”

* * *

With her left hand in her pocket, holding down the button to transmit, she drove with her right hand. She’d managed to turn the volume all the way down on the radio so Shannon wouldn’t be able to hear any transmissions coming through, but if there was someone listening, they’d hear her and Shannon talking.

Please God, let there be someone listening.

“Tell me why you killed Kent. He was your brother.”

“He was a liar,” Shannon snarled, spittle flying from her tense lips.

“But to kill him...” Maggie bit her lip. “Did you plan it all along?”

“No, of course not. It was something we planned together. I wanted a baby. He didn’t want ‘the brat.’” Maggie glanced out the corner of her eye and saw Shannon frown in disgust. “To call that beautiful baby a brat was awful.
Kent
was awful. I begged him to let me have her, and he agreed.”

“But why? There had to be something in it for him.”

“He got to keep you,” she said with a shrug.

Maggie flinched. She never would have survived living with Kent if he’d given Belle away. And she never would have seen her baby again if Shannon had had her way.

And now she was in the same situation. Unless she got Shannon to give up, she’d never hold Belle again. The thought was enough to freeze her muscles. Maggie swallowed hard and focused on driving.

“He found that letter from your grandfather. He was planning to kill you—did you know that?” Shannon said it conversationally, as though her words didn’t hold the power of a boxer’s punch.

“What?” Maggie gaped long enough to run off the road onto the edge. Tires crunched and the wheel jerked from her grasp.

Shannon screamed and waved her weapon. “Pay attention!”

Maggie got control of the car. “How do you know that? I thought you just said he planned to give you Belle and keep me. Why would he want to kill me?”

“For the money. That’s why he had to die.”

“Money?” Maggie blinked. “I’m confused.”

Shannon gave a long-suffering sigh. “You haven’t put it together yet? He found the envelope in the mail after he promised me Belle.”

The envelope. Realization dawned. “And once he saw that Belle came with the money only upon my death, he knew he had to keep her and get rid of me,” Maggie whispered.

“Exactly.”

“So he backed out of your agreement.”

“And I threatened to tell you.” Shannon shook her head. “Two weeks before I killed him, he tried to kill me, can you believe it? He grabbed me around the throat and...” She gulped and shuddered. “I got away from him, but knew it wouldn’t be the last time he tried. I knew I had to get rid of him.”

“So you hit him with a car?”

“I did.” A hard, determined expression crossed Shannon’s face. A look so scary that Maggie winced. “The opportunity just was suddenly there and without even really thinking, I just...did it. I pressed the gas pedal and...” A slight smile curved her lips. “I did it and it was so easy.” The smile disappeared and she gave Maggie a bitter look. “I knew I was in your will to be guardian of Belle if something happened to you and Kent. Well, something happened to Kent. Now it’s your turn.”

The woman was sick, mentally ill. Maggie whispered, “You really think you’ll get away with killing me, too?”

“After you sign that paper, I will.”

* * *

“They’re going to Maggie’s house,” Reese said over the radio to Eli. “Shannon killed her brother and it looks like she plans to kill Maggie.” He shuddered at the information he’d just overheard.

His phone buzzed, and he glanced at it. A text message from Trevor, his buddy in Spartanburg.

Eli took the next turn. “Is Belle with them?”

“No. Doesn’t sound like it. Keep listening.”

As they drove, Reese prayed. He snatched his phone and read the text.

And felt dread center itself in his gut. With a whispered prayer, he tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and grabbed his radio once again.

He knew Eli had called for backup from Bryson City, even Asheville, but that didn’t mean they’d get there in time. “Eli, I don’t know how volatile Shannon is. I found an aspirin bottle in Maggie’s cabinet, only it wasn’t aspirin in the bottle. I sent a pill to Asheville to be tested and it’s medication used for people with schizophrenia.”

A low whistle came through the radio as Eli processed what that might mean.

“But there are other reasons someone takes that kind of drug. Schizophrenia’s just one of them.” Reese said the words, but his gut didn’t believe Shannon was taking the medication for anything else. If Shannon was truly mentally ill, Maggie had a whole different set of problems on her hands. And even if Shannon wasn’t having a schizophrenic episode, she still had a gun and planned to get rid of Maggie. The only plus would be Shannon might be in a frame of mind to be reasoned with.

Maybe. Hopefully. His heart shuddered at the thought of Maggie being in a hostage situation. A SWAT team from Asheville was already en route.

Then again, if he and Eli got to Maggie’s house in time, they could just stop Shannon in her tracks and be done with it. He liked that plan.