Pushed Too Far: A Thriller (25 page)

Sandoval didn’t answer. Or maybe Lund couldn’t hear.

Keeping one hand on Kasdorf’s chest, he twisted around to search for his fellow firefighter. The smoke seemed to be growing thicker, even down here, and it took a few seconds before he could make out distant shapes in the dark gloom.

Sandoval was in front of the fake shelves, face down on the cellar floor.

The house cleared and no sign of Chief Schneider, save possibly the blood in the dining room, Val allowed Olson to lead her to the outbuilding in back.

If Chief Schneider had done the things she suspected, she probably shouldn’t be so worried about him now. But no matter what he’d done, she’d cared about him, admired him, respected him, and she couldn’t shut those feelings off like a spigot.

The meager glow of the sun had faded completely, though Val wasn’t sure if it had set or the clouds were just too thick for its last rays to poke through. Walking the short distance across the yard was dangerously slick, ice skates probably more valuable now than boots.

Once a pole barn, probably designed for horses, the steel structure hadn’t seen animals of any kind for years. Now home to boxes, an old refrigerator and what looked like a vehicle hidden under a tarp, the place smelled of mouse droppings and dust, and although they were sheltered from the pattering rain, the metal walls seemed to intensify the chill.

At least she couldn’t detect the scent of blood.

Olson and Becca moved quickly, leading with their weapons. They cleared the building, then moved to the vehicle and pulled the tarp off a pickup truck.

“No one inside.” Becca called.

Val let out a breath and crossed the cluttered dirt floor.

“No, but get a load of this.” Olson pointed to the scraped up bumper and left fender. Traces of bright green marred the paint.

For a moment, Val just stared. A long ago murder she could keep distant, more of a mental puzzle than a visceral reality. The fact that Schneider had tried to kill her just last night to cover up his crime wasn’t as easy to compartmentalize.

But she still didn’t want to see him dead.

Becca’s radio broke the moment, crackling to life, Oneida’s voice booming out the call. “Shots fired. 1324 Sunrise Ridge Road. Shots fired.”

Val didn’t need to check the GPS to know the address belonged to one Dale W. Kasdorf.

W
ith no handcuffs, no rope, no nothing to secure Kasdorf, Lund didn’t dare leave him to check on Sandoval. At best, the guy would probably scurry back to wherever he’d been hiding and die of carbon monoxide poisoning. At worst, he’d get his hands on another weapon and make sure he finished both Sandoval and him.

So he did the only thing he could do. He pulled back his fist and nailed the nutbag in the jaw.

A pair of night vision goggles that had flown off when he’d tackled Kasdorf proved to be broken, and Lund tossed them aside. Taking the rifle, he crossed the basement to Sandoval and knelt by his side. “Jorge?”

The firefighter was breathing, the hiss of his respirator mixing with Lund’s. A groan shuddered through his body.

“Can you move, man? I’ve got to get you out of here.”

Another groan.

Lund decided to take that as a yes.

Grasping a shoulder, he slowly rolled Sandoval to his side. Through his mask, he could see the man’s eyes were open, though flinching in pain. He scanned his coat. There was a rip in the side of his chest, but no blood. Not that he was sure he’d be able to see an injury through the thick turnout gear and darkness. “Can you stand up?”

Sandoval mumbled something, then struggled to comply.

Lund took one arm and pulled him to his feet. He shuffled him up against the shelving. “Hold on, okay? I’ll be right back.”

Sandoval nodded, his face a grimace.

On his way back to collect Kasdorf, Lund pulled out his radio, but try as he might, all he got was static. Damn paranoid bastard was probably jamming the signal. He slung the man across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry and returned to Sandoval.

They were on their own.

“Lean on me.”

“I can make it. Go on, get him out.”

He could barely hear the words, ears still ringing, but it wasn’t tough to figure out the message. “Do you always have to be a pain in the ass? Lean on me, anyway.”

Sandoval chuckled a touch, then doubled over in pain.

The going was slow, each step an ordeal. They crossed the basement easily enough, but the stairs proved to be immeasurably difficult. More than once Lund thought about leaving Sandoval, taking Kasdorf out, then coming back. But then what? If the place collapsed, he would have sacrificed a good man for the nut who shot him, and he just couldn’t live with that.

Sweat stung his eyes, making it tough to see. The temperature had to be seven or eight hundred degrees easy. His shirt and jeans were soaked under the heavily insulated turnout gear, but without it, he’d be cooked like Christmas turkey.

Smoke choked the main floor, and he made for the door as fast as he could. At least he and Sandoval still had their SCBA intact. Kasdorf was taking it all in, provided he was still breathing at all.

When they emerged, the first face he latched onto was Val’s. She stood next to Chief Fruehauf, the rookie cop and Sergeant Olson with her.

And absolutely no sign of Dixon Hess.

Luck was smiling on both of them tonight.

Dempsey met them as soon as he stepped off the porch. “Sandoval, you hurt?”

“He was shot by Mr. Second Amendment here,” Lund said.

Dempsey looped Sandoval’s arm over his shoulder and half carried him away from the burning house.

The EMTs met them at the perimeter with a stretcher. Lund let them take Kasdorf, and they immediately slapped an oxygen mask on him and made for the ambulance.

Dempsey helped Sandoval take off his SCBA and coat. He studied the hole in the coat and corresponding tear in the side of the vest. “It doesn’t look like it went through. Guess it was a good idea to wear these vests after all, eh Lund?”

Lund gave him a nod, although he still couldn’t hear him very well over the clanging in his ears.

Dempsey helped the injured firefighter peel off his vest. “No blood.”

The round had glanced off, ripping his coat, tearing the fabric of the vest, and probably breaking a few ribs in the process, but Sandoval was going to be okay.

“You weren’t even shot, you whiner.” Lund gave him a smile.

Sandoval grinned back. “Yeah, I’m a real pussy. And you fell for it, helping me out of that house.”

Finally able to breathe, Lund took off his own coat, despite the icy rain, and let cool wash over him. Dempsey guided Sandoval to the ambulance, and it pulled out, taking the injured firefighter and Kasdorf to the hospital. Sergeant Olson followed in the police SUV.

Val walked back toward him, the rookie officer, Schoenborn, in her wake.

While he didn’t want to show it, he drank in the look of worried relief in Val’s eyes. He wasn’t sure if she was as taken with him as he was with her, but there seemed to be something there, something that could grow into more. At least he’d like to think so.

“David?”

He didn’t remember her ever calling him by his first name, and it sounded awkward. Unnatural. “Is everything okay?”

She stopped when she reached the squad car. “Can you come over here?”

He headed down the gravel to the black and white parked on the road’s shoulder.

She gave him an attempt at a smile. “I need you to come with us. There are a few things we have to talk about.”

“About Kasdorf? Bastard took two shots at us.”

“Yes, Kasdorf.” She hesitated, as if uncomfortable continuing.

“Something else?”

“A few questions.”

“Questions?” Unnatural turned to downright wrong. “What’s going on?”

“We’ve gotten some new information.”

“About what?”

“Kelly. We’ve discovered evidence that suggests she was with someone shortly before she died.”

“That’s great.”

Val didn’t look like she thought it was great. In fact, she looked like it was the worst thing that had happened in a while.

And he knew what her week had been like.

“Who was she with?”

“We can talk about it at the station.”

“As in you have something you need my help with? Or as in you can interrogate me more effectively there?”

She stared at him, her eyes focused on his, her mouth neither frowning nor smiling but exactly neutral.

Oh, shit.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Please, sir.” The rookie cop opened the squad car’s door—the back door—and gestured for him to climb inside. “We’d like to do this with your cooperation.”

He glanced back at Val.

“Please, David.”

And right that moment, he knew he’d never want to hear a woman call him by his first name again.

Val had never hated her job as much as she did right that moment.

The look of betrayal on Lund’s face was burned in her memory like a brand of fire. After all the suspicions she’d subjected him to the first time they’d thought Kelly died, after the truce they’d struck, after the feelings that were starting to take root between them, for her to do this was unforgivable.

Especially since deep in her heart she still couldn’t believe he’d killed his wife.

So why was she doing it? Because of a DNA test? Because Becca was looking on? Because it was her job?

Damn her job.

She pulled in a shaky breath and resisted her need to turn around and check on him through the steel grating separating the front seat from the back. Seeing him in the cage, helpless, would only be piling on the humiliation. At least, she didn’t have to stoop to that.

The roads were the same as when they’d driven down, skating-rink slick, but Becca was rock solid behind the wheel. Broken trees lined the road into town, branches having snapped under layers of ice. At least the radio had been quiet for the last few minutes. Not that there were any spare officers to send if a problem did arise.

Val couldn’t remember ever having been stretched this thin. Not before she’d become chief and certainly not after. She just prayed Lake Loyal made it through the night.

The power seemed to still be on when they turned onto Elmwood Avenue. Ice covered pavement reflected the handful of streetlights with mirror-like clarity. Blue-tinged piles of road salt scattered the surface but couldn’t keep up with the steady patter of freezing rain. Theirs was the only car out and about, most residents smart enough to stay off the roads.

Becca pulled into the police station driveway and stopped in front of the entrance used to bring arrestees into the holding cell.

Val didn’t like the idea of marching Lund in like a criminal, even in light of reality, but at this time of night, they didn’t use the front entrance, so she let it slide.

She got out and opened the door for Lund, avoiding his eyes. For the first time since she got the position, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be chief. Technically she was still on suspension, but with Schneider gone, no one seemed to mind too much that she was back on the job.