Dying to Kill (Angel Delaney Mysteries Book #2) (32 page)

“Why would you do that?”

“I’ll be honest with you, Darryl. Gracie and Justin are just kids. Justin has been shot. He needs medical attention. You don’t want him to die, do you?”

“No.”

“Then take me as a hostage.” She advanced again until her head almost reached the opening.

“Yeah, like that’s gonna happen.”

“You’ve got a much better chance with me. Trust me on this. My boyfriend is a cop. He’s out there right now. Do you honestly think he’s going to do anything to jeopardize my health? If I tell him to keep everybody back, he will. Honest. Let the kids go, Darryl.”

He didn’t answer.

“I’m coming up.” Angel took a step. “You’ll see that I don’t have a gun. I’m being square with you, Darryl. You’ll have a much better chance taking me hostage over those teenagers. They’re unpredictable and—”

“Okay. Come up, but put your hands in the air where I can see them.”

Angel raised her arms and took the remaining steps slowly, deliberately, her gaze scanning the baled hay. She hesitated when she caught sight of Darryl. He stood against the wall, holding one of his uncle’s handguns. His gaze darted back and forth between Angel and the kids. “Get over there next to them.”

Angel didn’t have to be told twice. Her heart thumped in her ears, nearly drowning out Gracie’s sobs. Angel closed the distance in three steps and dropped down in front of the injured boy. He’d been shot in the abdomen; his chest rose and fell, but his skin was pasty white. “We have to get him to a doctor fast.” Angel glanced up at Darryl. “There’s an ambulance here. Please let the police come up here to get him.”

“No.” He clenched his teeth together. “Nobody’s coming up here.”

Angel froze. “You said you’d let them go.”

“I can’t.” Darryl was near to tears himself. “Don’t you see? They’ll shoot me the minute I go outside. You’re trying to trick me.”

“No, they won’t. I’ll be with you. They’d have to shoot me too, and they won’t do that.”

Angel took off her jacket and pressed it to Justin’s wound, choking back sobs as she had visions of Dani and Billy bathed in blood. Her efforts had been useless then. “Darryl, please listen to me. If we don’t get him out of here, he’ll die. We can’t let that happen.”

Telling Gracie to put pressure on Justin’s wound, Angel scrambled to her feet and went to Darryl. She grabbed his free hand. “Come with me. We’ll go down together. We’ll go out to your Harley. They won’t shoot you if I’m on the bike with you, Darryl. They won’t. As long as I’m with you, you’re safe.”

Her actions took him off guard, and he stared at her for a long moment. Angel met his gaze, hoping her expression conveyed the compassion she was striving for and not the contempt she felt.

“I’ll be safe?”

She nodded. “We’ll head east. There are a lot of trails out there and a lot of roads. They won’t be able to follow us.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I care, Darryl.” She pinched her lips together. “Because I care about what happens to those kids.”

She pulled on his arm, and he followed her down. She walked in front of him as they reached the entrance of the barn. “Don’t shoot!” she yelled as they came to the open barn door. She stepped out first, her hands raised.

“Try anything and she gets it!” Darryl shouted. His gun was pressing into her back. He inched her toward the bike. “Get on,” he ordered. “You drive.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw officers enter the barn. The kids would be safe. Her heart dropped to her knees. Her plan had worked.

Good job, Angel.
She swung her leg over the seat.
What are you going to do next?

Callen felt numb as he watched Angel come out of the barn at gunpoint. She’d done it. He had no idea how, but she’d gotten Darryl away from the kids. They were still in a hostage situation, only now the odds were better—he hoped. If they had a SWAT team, one of the sharpshooters would’ve been able to pick Darryl off. But Callen didn’t trust any of the officers out there to put Darryl out of commission.

He’d alerted the officers to hold their fire—to wait until Angel gave them the opportunity they’d need. And she would—he had no doubt about that. He just wished it wasn’t her getting on that bike.

He leaned on the hood of his car, Darryl in his sights. Other officers were doing the same.

Darryl, weapon still in hand and pointing at Angel’s head, climbed on the bike behind her.

“I don’t know how to drive these things,” Angel insisted. “You should drive.”

Actually, she had driven a cycle, numerous times. Tim had owned one in his younger days, and in Florida she’d been trained to patrol using bikes, cycles, and horses, as well as cars. She hoped she’d be able to remember the basics, because right now her latent skill was the only thing that might save her.

“And have you jump off and the cops shoot me in the back?” Darryl punctuated his comment by pushing the gun squarely against her rib cage. “The key’s in the ignition. Just crank it.”

Angel did as he said. If Darryl decided to shoot, the bullet would go straight into her heart.

He helped her shift it into gear. “Go.”

Please, God, please let this work.
Angel gripped the handlebars and gunned it. The bike leaped forward, front wheels lifting off the ground like a rearing horse. She hung on as the bike dropped back to earth, then sprang forward. She blew out a long sigh of relief and glanced back. Mission accomplished.

She could hear Darryl swearing. His free arm no longer gripped her waist, and the gun had flown out of his hand when he hit the gravel road. He was now lying on his back in the middle of the driveway, surrounded by cops. She released the pedal and braked, then turned around and headed back.

“Nice job, Angel.” Nick patted her on the shoulder. “Where’d you learn to handle a Harley?”

“Florida,” she answered.

“You lied,” Darryl whined. “You said you didn’t know how to ride. You told me I’d be safe with you.”

“I said as long as you were with me.” Her mouth grim, she added, “You’re not with me now, are you?”

An hour later Angel was back at Callen’s place, putting ice on her throbbing arm. The body did miraculous things when caught in a life-and-death situation. She could attest to that. She’d been aware of the ache, but it hadn’t been all that painful until the ordeal was over and she had begun to relax.

Kath brought the ice bag and propped it between Angel’s arm and the couch.

“Thanks.” Angel took a sip of ice water and set the glass back on the coffee table.

Once she was settled, Callen started lecturing her, but it wasn’t the lecture she expected. Callen didn’t tell her she was an idiot for running headlong into a dangerous situation. Instead, he said, “If you’re going to act like a cop, then be one. Quit telling yourself you were doing it to please your dad. I saw you out there, Angel. You weren’t worried about impressing anyone. You had one thing on your mind and that was to get Gracie and Justin out of that barn and away from Darryl.”

“Hush, Callen, leave the poor girl alone.” Kath softened the demand with a smile. “Angel has plenty of time to think about whether or not she wants to change careers. She doesn’t have to decide about going back to work today. But what I do want you to do is tell me what happened. How did Gracie and her boyfriend end up as hostages?”

Angel looked at Callen. “Do you want to tell her or should I?”

“I will. You need to rest.”

“It’s my arm that needs rest. Not my mouth.”

“So you say.”

She slapped his arm, then left her hand where it had connected.

Callen went on to tell Kath about the phone call Angel had gotten. As he spoke Angel thought about the moments after Darryl’s arrest. A tearful Gracie emerged from the barn, just in front of the EMTs who were carrying Justin out on a stretcher. She made a beeline for Angel, hugging and holding her with the intensity of a child Dorothy’s age, her cool aloofness long gone.

“They said he was going to be okay.” Gracie hugged her even harder. “I was so scared.”

“You were brave.”

“You didn’t really mean what you said about me killing Phillip, did you?”

“Darryl thought you had.” Angel guided her out of the road and onto the porch. “Let’s sit down.” The suggestion was for her own benefit more than Gracie’s. The adrenaline rush had evaporated, and her legs felt as though they were going to melt. “Tell me what happened.”

“About Phillip?”

“That too, but let’s start with your standing me up.”

“I’m sorry about that. I wanted to get home. I saw the drawing on the news this morning—the one who killed that girl in Florence. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. After school I thought about it again. Some of the kids had a copy of the picture. I guess the cops were handing them out. Anyway, I took one and started really looking at it. That’s when I knew it was Darryl.” She covered her mouth with the back of her hand. “I got really scared. I wanted to go home.”

“But why? All you had to do was call the police.”

“No, you don’t understand. My grandparents were picking up my brother and sister from school and they were going to take them to the aquarium. Darryl was there and told them he’d pick me up.”

“You still could’ve called the police.”

“I was afraid to. They put my mom in jail. So I called you. I figured you’d know what to do. Anyway, Justin saw me in the hall and offered to take me home. I told him I had to wait for you, but he said it would be too dangerous to wait around ’cause Darryl could be there any minute. All I could think about was getting home. Turns out Darryl didn’t come to the school at all. He was out at the house stealing one of Phillip’s guns.”

“He was in the house? How did you end up in the barn?”

“We were getting out of the pickup when Darryl came up from the root cellar. Justin grabbed my hand and told me to run. We headed for the barn, hoping he wouldn’t see us. It was stupid. Darryl came after us. He made us go up into the loft. I think he was going to tie us up so he could get away. We’d just gotten up there when you came, and he got real scared and said he was going to kill us if we said anything.”

Angel knew the rest of the story all too well. She squeezed Callen’s hand, thankful to be alive and grateful he had allowed her to deal with Darryl her own way.

“So the case is closed,” Kath said.

“Not yet.” Callen stroked Angel’s hair. “We still need to get the test results on the evidence we sent in.”

“And there’s still Phillip Jenkins’s murder,” Angel said. “Gracie told me Phillip was dead when she and Justin came by to pick up her essay for an afternoon class.”

“Do you think she’s telling the truth?” Kath asked.

“I do now.” Angel frowned. “And that lets Darryl off the hook as far as killing his uncle is concerned, since he got to the house after Gracie. Which means Candace didn’t kill him either, unless she did it before she left to pick up the kids. Which she didn’t do, because Becky came after she left to have her afternoon meeting with her boss.” Angel rolled her eyes. “Did I say meeting?”

“So the secretary killed him?” Kath frowned. “I’m confused.”

“She says he was alive when she left, so either she’s lying or someone else came to pay Phillip a visit after she left.”

“And,” Callen interjected, “that may have been Fitzgibbon, Savage, or one of the women in your support group.”

“Any of them could be Dragonslayer,” Angel said. “I think he or she killed Kelsey and Jenkins. Douglas Stanton from the bank may be the next victim.”

“He’s still missing,” Callen added.

Angel’s cell phone rang. She’d set her bag on the floor next to the sofa.

“Stay where you are,” Kath said. “I’ll get it.” She located and answered the phone. “Sure, she’s right here.” She handed Angel the phone. “It’s Rachael.”

“Hi, Rach, what’s up?”

“Am I glad I caught you. Things are going from bad to worse. Janet called and said her ex was in town. She decided to do what we’d talked about, which was going to the police and turning him in for blackmail. Well, you are not going to believe this, but when the police went to arrest him, he was dead.”

“What?” Angel sat up straight and swung her legs off the couch.

“What’s wrong?” Callen asked.

The ice pack fell against her back. Angel got up and began pacing. “Do they know what happened or who did it?”

“He was shot—similar to Jenkins. Dragonslayer left another note on Janet’s computer. All it said was ‘He won’t bother you again.
’
”

Angel glanced at Callen’s worried expression. “I’ll be right over.”

THIRTY-ONE

A
ngel got the details, and Callen insisted that if she planned on going anywhere, he was going with her.

“Good. You need to be there. The same person who killed Jim Kelsey killed Phillip Jenkins and Janet’s ex. Janet’s ex is Charles Campbell, by the way. Now that you’ve solved your Florence murder, you can come back to these.”

“If this Dragonslayer is real.” Callen massaged his neck and tipped his head back. “And you’re right. I need to go.”