Dead Aim (3 page)

"Thank you."

"I'll see you tomorrow at the precinct," Detective Leopold said.

"Oh, I'll be there."

"Pretty crazy stuff," Jerry Tedworth said to Leopold as soon as they'd left the hospital room. "Do you believe her?"

"She makes it hard for me not to. She's smart and she's strong and she absolutely believes what she's telling us."

"Like you said, she's had a bad knock on the head."

"Wishful thinking. I hope to hell she didn't get it right."

"Why not?"

"Because if Arapahoe Junction and the dam were also targets, that would mean mass murder. Who commits mass murder? It takes a special kind of criminal. Nuts. Sociopaths. Terrorists. We don't want to have to deal with a case like that." He punched the button at the elevator. "We'd better hope she's just having hallucinations."

Breathe deep. Calm down.

Her head was pounding and Alex forced herself to unclench her fists. All this emotion wasn't going to help anything. Leopold hadn't been out of line in suspecting she might not have all her marbles at present. At least he had listened and promised he'd check into everything she'd told him. But it didn't stop the anger and frustration she was feeling.

Anger and frustration and this haunting antiseptic smell of a hospital room.

Dad . . .

She quickly blocked the memory. Don't think about her father. Jesus, she had to get out of here. She didn't need that wound ripped open. Well, tomorrow she'd go to the police station and see if she could identify any pictures in the mug books.

If they were there, she'd know them. Every feature of those faces was engraved permanently on her memory.

"She's being discharged tomorrow," Lester said as soon as Powers answered the phone. "Two police detectives were there to see her tonight."

Powers muttered an oath. "You should have gotten to her while she was unconscious."

"I told you, her room's right next to the nurses' station. I couldn't do it without being noticed. I'll find a way to put her down tomorrow."

"You'd better. If you'd been on time, I wouldn't have had to take down that helicopter. And, dammit, she can recognize me."

He didn't care that the woman could also recognize both him and Decker, Lester thought. "Maybe you shouldn't have come along."

"And trust the two of you to do the job right? I had to be sure. It's too important. I'm the one who has to report to Betworth."

Bastard. "Well, you can trust me to do this one. I'll let you know when she's no longer a problem." He hung up.

He leaned back against the brick wall and looked up at the seventh floor of St. Joseph's Hospital. Too bad he hadn't been able to reach Graham before she talked to the police.

Oh, well, he was used to doing damage control.

Sarah was waiting for Alex when she came out of the police station late the next afternoon. She was still wearing her work clothes and had obviously come straight from the site. "Any luck?"

Alex wearily shook her head. "It seemed as if there were thousands of faces. . . . They were all blurring together. But I'll be coming back."

"I know you will." Sarah unlocked her car door and motioned for Monty to get in the backseat. "That's a given. When?"

"Tomorrow." She got into the passenger seat. "I'll need to pick up my rental car at Arapahoe Junction so that I'll be mobile. May I go back with you?"

Sarah nodded. "That's why I'm here. I thought you'd want to go back." She pulled away from the curb. "Why don't you try to nap on the way up there? You probably shouldn't even be out of the hospital yet."

"You're the one who should be sleeping." Alex glanced back at the golden retriever, who was stretched out on the backseat. "Like Monty."

"He needs it. Monty's the one who does the work. I just go along for the ride."

"Yeah, sure." Alex stared unseeingly out the window. "Leopold isn't sure that I'm not imagining everything. He says there's no proof. Do you believe me, Sarah?"

"Damn straight I do. I called John after I left you last night. He's going to try to light a fire under the FBI team who's doing the investigation at the dam."

If anyone could do that, it was Sarah's husband, John Logan, Alex thought. He was a billionaire whose influence stretched from the political elite of Washington to Wall Street. "Good. Though I don't know what the hell they're going to find at the dam that they didn't before. They went over that entire area with a fine-tooth comb." She rubbed her temple. "But maybe they'll be able to find the helicopter and pilot."

"That's possible." Sarah gave her a sideways glance. "Now stop thinking and close your eyes, dammit."

"What else did Logan say?"

"Quite a bit." She made a face. "He said for me to go home. He said it was bad enough that he had to worry about me on disaster sites, but he wasn't about to let me run around with scumbags blowing up dams."

"And you said?"

"Nothing. He didn't expect me to cave. I told him I'd be home when the job was done." Her expression became shadowed. "Which may be pretty soon. I think they're going to change the status at Arapahoe from rescue to recovery tomorrow. They say there's not much chance of there being anyone left alive."

"Shit."

"Right." She drew a deep breath. "But even if the job is done, I'm not leaving you alone here. If you won't come home with me, I'm staying with you."

"No, I can't blame your husband for being worried. He's right. You have enough on your plate without worrying about me."

"Shut up," Sarah said. "We've discussed this before."

"I'm not your responsibility."

Sarah didn't answer.

God, she was stubborn.

Stubborn, loyal, and brave, and the best friend a woman could have. All good reasons to get her to go home to her husband and leave Alex to solve her own problems. But Alex couldn't argue with her right now. She was so exhausted she could barely put two sentences together. She leaned her head back against the seat rest. "We'll talk later."

Sarah chuckled. "That's what John said, and in exactly that tone." She switched on the headlights as the sun disappeared behind the mountains. "And I'll tell you what I told him. Don't mess with me or I'll sic my dog on you."

Alex found herself smiling as she repeated, "We'll talk later."

"Go to sleep. It's going to be another hour or so before we get to the site."

Alex doubted she could sleep, but she fell silent, gazing out at the rolling foothills through which they were driving. This was wonderful country. Purple shadows, white peaks in the distance, such a beautiful place. Terrible things shouldn't happen in beautiful places like this. . . .

Chapter 2.

She woke with a start to full darkness.

Monty was barking, jumping back and forth on the backseat, trying to climb up to the back window.

She shook her head to clear it. "What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know." Sarah was looking at her rearview mirror. "Maybe he doesn't like that asshole tailgating me."

Alex glanced behind her at the two brilliant headlights glaring from the car behind them. "Monty's smart, but I doubt if he's aware of traffic violations, Sarah."

"You never know." She frowned. "It's not like him to--" Her expression cleared. "The idiot's passing me, thank God. I'm going to let him do it. I don't know what his hurry is; I'm doing the speed limit. You'd think that--" Monty lunged over to the side window, and his barking became frantically shrill as the car pulled almost even with them. "Easy, boy. It's okay."

But it wasn't okay. Alex caught a glint of metal in the hand of the shadowy figure driving the other car. Oh, God, a gun. "Duck!" She reached over and pushed Sarah down and against the door.

The glass shattered.

Sarah gasped as the bullet struck her. Blood stained the shoulder of her sweater as she slumped forward.

The jeep skidded across the tarmac, the headlights spearing the valley hundreds of feet below.

Alex grabbed the steering wheel, her foot reaching over to stomp on the brake as the jeep plunged off the mountain road.

Death.

They were going to die.

The jeep plunged down the steep, rocky slope toward the waiting darkness.

The jeep stopped abruptly. Alex realized dazedly that it had hit a tree.

Monty was crawling over the back of the front seat, trying desperately to get to Sarah.

Sarah.

Blood was still running down Sarah's arm and she was slumped against the door.

"Sarah . . ." She had to get Sarah out of the car and try to stop the bleeding.

She opened the passenger door and started to get out.

Nothing was beneath her feet.

She looked down and swallowed hard as shock ran through her. The jeep was balanced on a jutting outcrop of the mountain, hundreds of feet above the valley. The vehicle had only been stopped from catapulting over the ledge by a scrawny pine tree balanced precariously at the edge of the slope. There was no way they could get out the passenger door. She reached over Sarah and pushed at her door. It opened a crack and then stuck. She opened the window. "Out, boy."

He didn't move.

"Dammit, out! I have to get her out of here!"

Monty looked at her a moment and then jumped out the window.

Alex crawled over Sarah. Monty was sitting quietly beside the car and whined when she wriggled out the window.

"I know. We'll get her out." She pulled the door, trying to get leverage to open it. It moved only a few inches. She pulled again, using all her strength. The door opened another foot. It would have to do.

She grabbed Sarah under the armpits and tugged. Awkward. So damn awkward. She tugged again. What if she was causing Sarah to bleed more? Don't think about it. What else could she do? If that tree gave way, the jeep might topple over at any minute.

So get her out of the car. Get her against the cliff wall.

It took her another few minutes to pull Sarah out of the car and drag her across the ledge to comparative safety under the outcropping of the cliff wall.

Monty sat down beside Sarah and looked pleadingly at Alex.

"I know. I'll try to help her." She opened Sarah's sweater and then her blouse. The wound was high and the bleeding wasn't as bad as she'd feared, she realized with relief. "Stay with her, Monty."

She went back to the jeep, grabbed Sarah's handbag, and pulled out her cell phone.

Call 911. Tell them to come.

Tell them they had to come and save Sarah.

The 911 operator was quick and efficient, and it was frustrating how little information Alex could give her. "I don't know where I am. Somewhere on Highway 30 between Denver and Arapahoe Junction. I told you, I woke up and--"

Someone was shining a flashlight down at them from the road above.

A man was silhouetted against the headlights of the car behind him.

Monty growled.

Her heart jumped. Keep calm. Don't panic. He would have a difficult time reaching them even if he tried to descend the steep slope. And an accurate shot would be nearly impossible from that almost vertical angle.

"I'll keep my cell line open," she said to the 911 operator. "See if you can trace it. Maybe you can at least zero in on the closest tower." She drew Monty closer to the cliff wall next to Sarah and hopefully out of range of that bastard above.

What if he did try to come down? She had no weapon. She'd left her gun behind in the trailer. God, she felt helpless. Like a sitting duck.

She wasn't helpless, dammit. She would hear that bastard on the rock and she would fight. If nothing else, she'd tackle him or push him off the damn mountain. She ran to the jeep, got the first-aid kit and blanket out of the back. A weapon. What could she use as a weapon? The small shovel Sarah always kept in her vehicles. She grabbed the shovel and ran back to Sarah.

She dressed Sarah's wound and covered her. Sweet Jesus, why didn't she regain consciousness? Alex drew her protectively closer.

But her other hand tightened on the shovel.

.

Arapahoe Junction

A tall, muscular man straightened away from the door to Sarah's hospital room as Alex came down the hall. "Ms. Graham? I'm John Logan."

She recognized him immediately from the photos Sarah had shown her. But the photographs couldn't capture the sheer dominant presence of the man. He had been frantic when Alex phoned him when they'd gotten to the hospital a few hours ago. Now he was fully in control and chilly, very chilly. How could she blame him, she thought wearily. He probably thought she was at fault for Sarah's injury, and he was right. "The doctors say that Sarah will be fine. She'll be out of here in a few days, but it will take another couple months to fully recuperate."

"I know all that." His words were curt. "What I don't know is how I'm supposed to make sure she has the time to recuperate."