Pushed Too Far: A Thriller (27 page)

“Let him go, Valerie.”

The smell of urine and blood made her head swim. Her right hand wouldn’t hold, the fingers worthless. He was heavy, so heavy.

“I’ll give you a choice. Step away or I start carving up the little girl.”

She gasped for breath. He would kill Grace anyway. She knew that. As soon as Schneider was dead, Hess would focus on punishing Val by torturing Grace. Killing her in front of Val’s eyes.

Grace’s whimper crescendoed.

Val let go.

“Step away.”

God help her, she did.

Where in the hell was that cop?

When Lund had first heard Hess’s voice drifting through the intercom system, he’d thought it had to be a recording, a joke, something.

It didn’t take long to figure out it was real.

He tried the door out of the interrogation room again, even though he knew it wouldn’t budge. Damn, damn, damn. He was trapped. Utterly helpless. And just feet away Hess was going to kill Val, he was going to kill Grace. And Lund could do nothing but listen to them die.

How long could it take to salt a sidewalk?

“Oh, don’t be upset about him.”
The voice again, over the intercom.
“He had it coming. You know he did.”

He heard a soft mewing, probably Grace.

That poor, poor girl.

He jerked the door latch again and again, but nothing he did mattered.

“Check him,”
Hess ordered.

Time ticked by, finally Lund picked up Val’s faint voice.
“He’s dead.”

“Too bad. Look at him, hanging there. Pitiful.”
Hess sounded happy, almost giddy.
“He was the one who started this. Kelly never would have left if it wasn’t for him. She was mine.”

Lund’s throat tightened. Years ago, he’d come to terms with the fact that Kelly didn’t love him. He’d been her savior, and he’d told himself that was good enough for him. But he didn’t believe for one second that she belonged to Hess.

He never would.

“He took her away from me.”

“You didn’t love Kelly.”
Val’s voice sounded strong. Unbowed.

“I didn’t say I loved her. I said she was mine. The baby was mine. Schneider and you and the lawyers, none of you had the right to take them from me.”

Lund’s mind stuttered. He couldn’t have heard right.

What baby?

A metallic clink sounded. At first Lund thought it was the cop walking back into the building. Then he realized it came over the speaker.

“Put them on. Hands in front.”

Handcuffs.

“Do it.”

“I … can’t. I have a problem with my hand.”

“Do it or Grace gets cut.”

“Please. I’ll let you put them on, but I can’t fasten the other side myself.”

The braced open outer door rattled.

Lund sprang for it, pulling it open. “It’s Hess—”

Words jamming in his throat, he stared into the barrel of a gun for the second time that day.

“Back off. Hands up,” the rookie said.

Oh, hell. He did as she ordered. “Hess is in the station. He has Val and her niece, and Schneider and Oneida, too. I think Schneider is dead.”

“Turn around. Hands against the wall.”

“You have to call for help. You have to stop him.” He didn’t want to have to take the gun from her, but he would try. Even if it likely meant getting shot in the process. “Listen. The intercom is on. You can hear him.”

She paused.

Silence from the speaker.

“Against the wall.”

“You can’t think I’m making this up.”

“Do it. If what you say is true, I’ll release you.”

He blew a breath through tight lips. “All right.” He assumed the position. She clapped the handcuffs on one wrist then the other.

“Now go call for back up.”

“Not until I know you’re telling the truth. Come on.”

She marched him out into the hall.

He waited to hear Hess’s voice, to prove to the rookie that what he said was true.

She stepped up to the door leading into the station just as Hess’s voice reached them. “
What do you say I start by carving my initials in her cheek
?”

Lund twisted around, trying to meet Schoenborn’s eyes. “Is that enough proof for you?”

Too late.

She’d already hit the button signaling someone in the dispatch center to buzz her in.

Val was still struggling to close the handcuff around her left wrist when the buzzer sounded.

She froze. Her heart beat hard enough to break a rib. The reality of the situation cut into her like the cold edge of Hess’s blade.

Any surprise entrance Becca and Lund might have made was gone. All the killer had to do was look into the dispatch center monitors and he’d know they weren’t alone.

She could only pray Becca had called for help. That a tactical team was waiting to charge in, somehow out of sight. But even as she concocted the scenario in her mind, she knew it was impossible.

Gripping Grace by the hair, Hess dragged her into the dispatch center and looked up at the monitors, then down at the paperweight depressing the intercom’s talk button. “Think you’re smart, huh?”

Then before Val could make sense of it, he hit the button and the door buzzed open.

Lund stepped through first, his hands behind his back.

Becca followed, pushing Lund in front of her with one hand, she held her gun in the other.

Val opened her mouth to warn them about Hess, but stopped before uttering a sound.

Because Becca didn’t need a warning. She had to have heard Hess’s voice over the intercom. She had to know he was here.

Becca shoved Lund a few steps in front of her gun, then turned a smile on Hess. “Hi, Daddy. I’m home.”

“D
addy?” Val echoed. She glanced from Becca to Dixon Hess and felt something inside her snap.

All along the question had been not who wanted Kelly dead, but who wanted her found. And the only answer was Dixon Hess.

And the daughter nobody knew about.

The rookie had been the one to discover Kelly’s body, not Lund. She’d found her while on routine patrol. She’d also been the one to pick up garbage from the shore, including the tissue with Lund’s DNA.

Val hadn’t noticed before, but every bit of evidence pointing to Lund as Kelly’s murderer had come from Becca. She’d had her hand in it all. It was as clear to her as a signed confession. “You killed Kelly. Didn’t you, Becca? You found her. And somehow forced her to walk out on that ice.”

“I had to. He was innocent.” She stared at Val, looking the same as she always did, young, pretty, a good cop in the making.

How could this be happening?

“Put him over there.” One hand gripping Grace’s hair and the other holding the knife, Hess nodded to a chair one of the sergeants had left in the doorway of his cubicle. “And throw some leg shackles on him.”

Becca marched Lund dutifully to the cubicle wall, shoved him into the chair and brought out the chains.

All the instances when Hess knew things he shouldn’t have ricocheted through Val’s mind. Tamara Wade’s well-timed habeas corpus motion. Grace’s schedule at school. The hotel where Monica and Derrick were staying.

Becca knew or could have easily learned all of those things, then conveyed them to Hess.

There was only one thing she couldn’t account for. “How did you let him know about Schneider? Since you found out, you’ve been with me.”

Becca peered up from her task and shot her a look of disdain a high school mean girl would envy. “You think I didn’t know until tonight? You were the one who sent me to Harlan.”

Harlan. She should have figured that. Harlan would tell an attractive woman like Becca everything she wanted to know. And a few more things she didn’t.

“You really were indispensable, Valerie.” Hess chuckled. “Guess you were telling the truth. You do believe in justice.”

Val leaned back against the wall outside her office door and tried to stay upright.

Grace.

Lund.

If not for her, neither one would be here. If not for her, Hess never would have hurt Oneida. He never would have learned Jeff Schneider set him up.

It really was all her fault.

The overhead lights flickered. Once. Twice. Ice weighing down the power lines outside.

“So now you’re going to kill us?” Lund asked.

“Not all. Not right away.” Hess pulled Grace’s hair, forcing her head back, her body tight against his chest.

A low sound came from her throat, a shuddering moan, as if she was too afraid to form words. Blood trailed down her cheek and neck.

Her beautiful niece. Her brilliant niece. The girl whose greatest joy was helping someone else.

“Grace is going to die first.”

“No.” Val lurched forward before she was aware she was moving.

Hess brought the blade to her niece’s throat. “Stop.”

Somehow Val found the strength to halt.

“Back up. Against the wall. Or it’s over right now.”

Her breath rasped in her ears, mixing with the mewing again coming from Grace.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What was she thinking rushing him like that? Hess wasn’t a man she could intimidate with a rush of action. She needed to stall, buy time. She needed to keep him talking, find a way out of this.

She returned to the wall and eyed the front door.

She was close, only a few feet. Not that she would ever run out and leave them in the first place, and she supposed Hess knew that. But as bad as the weather was, no emergency calls had come in since she arrived. Without car wrecks to keep them busy, officers would eventually return to the station, especially those called in to deal with the ice storm.

“You’re thinking someone is going to come back and save you, aren’t you Valerie?”

Bringing her focus back to Hess, she kept quiet. She’d telegraphed her thoughts by looking at the door, and she wasn’t about to open her mouth and give him more insight.

“No one’s coming.”

“They’re all very busy,” Becca said. “It only sounds quiet because the county has taken over dispatch. We have a weather emergency out there. The interstate has gotten worse. It’s totally blocked.”

She sounded happy, like a little kid talking about a snow day.

Val wanted to jam those shackles down her throat.

“What I was saying was that Grace dies first. Don’t worry, Valerie, I’ll make it painful and slow.” He traced the blade up Grace’s neck and over her lips, then nodded toward Lund. “And fireman here will sit and watch, unable to do anything to stop me. Helpless. Worthless. Impotent.”

Lund sat expressionless except for a muscle working along his jaw.

Becca yanked the chain tight around his boots and turnout pants, then trussed his legs together.