Fatal Judgment (33 page)

Along with the judge.

______

At the impromptu command post that had been set up at Reynolds’s cabin, Jake tried to ignore the fact that the woods around them were being searched. He chose to believe Liz was still alive.

It was the only way he could stay focused. And in control.

Motioning to Todd to join him, he strode toward the tire tracks the other marshal had discovered. If there were tire prints, there might also be footprints.

Two sets, he hoped.

The rocky ground didn’t offer much. But as he scrutinized the tire tracks, then widened his scan to what he assumed was the area around the car, he picked up an indentation that, from a distance, looked like it could be a shoe print.

As he moved toward it, Todd fell in behind him. “See something?”

He pointed toward the disturbed area. “That might be a print.”

Todd squinted at it as they approached. “Maybe.”

Stopping a foot away from the muddy patch, Jake dropped down to study the impression. It was definitely a shoe print. More like a boot print, based on size.

But it was the scuffed mud next to it that drew his attention. It appeared to be a much smaller partial shoe print.

Yes!

Todd knelt beside him. “It looks as if he was dragging something—or someone.”

“Yeah. Or partly dragging, anyway.” He did his best to contain his burgeoning hope, trying to engage the left side of his brain. “I see part of a shoe print. That means Liz was still on her feet when she left here. And if they’ve only been gone for . . .”

His BlackBerry began to vibrate, and he pulled it off his belt, glancing at the display area. The caller ID was unfamiliar.

“Taylor.”

“Marshal Taylor, this is Hal Davis, chief of police in Potosi. The Highway Patrol patched me through to you. We just had a call from two juveniles who say they saw suspicious activity about four miles from your position. It involved a gray-haired man and an elderly woman who appeared to be injured. The man pulled his car behind some evergreens to shield it from the road, then took off with the woman down the gravel path that leads into the property. The kids didn’t get the license plate, but the color matches the BOLO alert. I have an officer in your area who should be arriving momentarily. He can lead you to the entrance.”

Jake’s pulse skyrocketed. Motioning to Todd and the other marshals milling around the area, he rose and took off at a sprint for the vehicles parked a couple hundred yards from the cabin.

“Okay. We’re heading for the main road as we speak. Alert your officer we’ll meet him or her there. Are there any buildings on the property?”

“Not that we know of.”

“How far back does the road go?”

“I don’t have that information. It’s a three-hundred-acre parcel, but most owners don’t go to the expense of building roads too far back. Just enough to get them away from the main road.”

“All right. Tell your officer no siren. We’ll stop an eighth of a mile away from the entrance and go in on foot. I don’t want to advertise our presence.”

“I copy that.”

“I also need an EMT crew standing by. Make sure at least one of them is a paramedic. They should wait half a mile away until we give the signal to move in.”

“Understood.”

Ending the call, Jake stopped beside the Highway Patrol SUVs that had transported them here. The other marshals gathered around as he filled them in.

“We’ll fan out and go in through the woods.” He fitted his voice-activated earpiece into place as he issued the clipped instructions, and the other marshals followed suit. “We’ll work on the assumption that our guy isn’t going in too deep. If Liz is injured, he won’t want to transport her very far. Let’s do it.”

By the time they piled into the two Suburbans and arrived at the main road, the police cruiser was waiting for them. Jake motioned through the window for the officer to move out. The man floored it, and they fell in behind him, spitting gravel.

Pulling out his BlackBerry, he punched in Matt’s number. When his boss answered, he brought him quickly up to speed.

“We also need a medevac helicopter ASAP,” he finished.

“I’ll take care of it. Just rescue the judge.”

“That’s my plan.”

As he ended the call and they sped down the two-lane road, Jake sent seven silent words heavenward.

Please, Lord—let us be in time!

She couldn’t breathe.

Every time Liz tried to suck air into her lungs, pain exploded in her midsection.

She felt the hovering, shadowy presence of death.

Pressure built behind her eyes, but no tears came. Through a haze of pain and dizziness, she watched her tormentor moving about as she tried to inhale tiny breaths that wouldn’t cause further agony. It didn’t work. No matter how slight the rise and fall of her chest, searing shafts of pain shot through her.

She couldn’t even cry out. Not only had the gag silenced her, it had also sucked out whatever moisture had remained in her mouth. Her tongue felt huge and parched.

All at once a muscle cramp seized her shoulder, and she gasped at this new torture. She tried to maneuver herself into a different position, tried to rise to her knees, to flex her shoulders—anything to alleviate the spasm. But weakness had robbed her limbs of their ability to respond to the commands of her brain.

Her body stiffened as the cramp twisted the muscle in her shoulder, and a despair deeper than any she had ever known rolled over her, crushing in its intensity, sucking the hope out of her.

All her life, she’d been a fighter. A woman who’d never believed in giving up. Who’d always battled to survive. To endure. That’s why she’d tried so hard to escape. Why she’d left clues every chance she’d gotten.

But she’d finally reached her limit.

She was ready to concede defeat.

Until the pungent smell of kerosene seeped into her fading consciousness and jerked her attention back to her abductor.

Blinking, she tried to focus. Straw was piled high around the lean-to now. So high she could barely see over the top.

And Reynolds was dousing it with kerosene, his movements methodical, impassive.

A splash of the noxious liquid hit her face, trickling down her chin, soaking into the rag around her mouth. She gagged at the taste, but there was nothing in her stomach to retch up.

As the final horror registered, revulsion and fear clawed at her.

No!

She tried to scream the word.

The gag muffled her cry of terror. But it couldn’t stop the surge of adrenaline that shot through her, giving her a final burst of panicked energy. She’d been ready to die. But not like this. Not engulfed in flames.

Desperately she yanked at the restraint holding her wrists. Again. And again. And again.

But it didn’t give.

Then Reynolds lit a match. Threw it in her direction. Repeated the action. Over and over again. Like he was playing some macabre carnival game.

As flames began to curl up from the straw and smoke started to waft her direction, he finally spoke.

“Good-bye, Judge. And good riddance.”

Jake was out of his vehicle and sprinting toward the woods even before the SUV came to a full stop. Gesturing toward the other marshals to spread out, he plunged into the thicket of branches, grateful that much of the stubby undergrowth had been nipped by frost and died back.

He was making steady progress when a puff of smoke rising above the trees up ahead caught his attention—and sent his pulse rocketing off the scale.

“We have smoke. Move in!” As he issued the curt instruction into the mike on his cuff, he broke into a flat-out run.

Thirty seconds later, he emerged into a small clearing. He could see billows of smoke, and through it some sort of lean-to structure. Here and there, fingers of flame licked upward.

Then, as a gust of wind whipped the smoke aside for a brief instant, he saw Liz.

In the middle of the inferno.

He whispered a word he rarely used.

“What’s wrong?” Todd’s voice.

“I see Liz. She’s in the lean-to. I’m going in.” He raced toward the blaze, adrenaline pulsing through his body. “We need to—”

The crack of a rifle ricocheted through the woods.

It wasn’t one of theirs.

Jake dived for the ground as another bullet ripped past him, so close he could feel the vapor bulge.

His gaze riveted on the lean-to still thirty feet away, he pressed himself flat to the ground. Now he could smell kerosene as well. Reynolds had used an accelerant.

They had very little time.

“Jake—are you hit?” Mark’s terse question crackled through his earpiece.

“No. But I can’t budge till we get this guy.” He tried to keep the panic and desperation out of his voice. “Todd . . . can you spot him?”

“Not yet. But I’m working on it.”

He looked again at the lean-to, the smoke and flames increasing by the second. Terror tightened his throat. He couldn’t lose Liz. Not when they were this close.

Not when he could no longer imagine a future without her.

“Work faster! We’ve only got seconds!”

How in the world had they found him?

Martin hunkered down among some large boulders near the edge of the woods. Good thing he’d taken one more look over his shoulder as he trekked back toward his car or he would have missed the guy running toward the lean-to.

If he hadn’t checked back, the judge might have survived.

And he couldn’t allow that.

He wasn’t going to fail a second time.

Peeking over the rocks, he saw that the man was still on the ground. A marshal or FBI agent, maybe, based on his attire. And he wasn’t moving. Martin wasn’t sure he’d hit him, though. Surprise had thrown off his usual precise aim. But it didn’t matter. If the man wasn’t hit, he was pinned down. There was no way he could get to the judge to save her. That was all that mattered.

Except . . . he wouldn’t have come alone. The place was probably swarming with law-enforcement types.

The reality slammed into him, stealing the breath from his lungs.