Tearing Down Walls (Love Under Construction Series Book 2) (43 page)

Vic felt like the whole world was getting sucked down through a tiny hole in the ground, never to be found again. He got spots in front of his eyes and felt faint.

Then he started yelling. “Laura! Turn off your phone! NOW!” He ran back to the car, grabbed her phone, and yelled, “Nikki, is that you?”

“Vic? What’s wrong, babe?”

“Tell Tony – Wagner’s been tracking us by the GPS locator function on our phones. He’s probably on top of us right now. Get somebody this direction – THIS SECOND!” He hit END, then turned the phone off, and turned his off too. He turned to Laura; her face had blanched white, and she was trembling all over.

“Baby, it’ll be okay. We’ve just got to get out of here. Get in the car,” he told her, his voice firm, and she got back in and sat down.

But it was too late. Vic heard an engine on the other side of the warehouse door, and he knew Wagner had found them. Worse yet, they were trapped in the building. He wasn’t about to tell Laura, but he was pretty sure they didn’t stand a chance.

Nikki wanted to wail when the phone went dead. Instead of running into the bathroom to scream for Tony, she dialed 9-1-1 and the operator answered, “Shelby County nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

“This is Nikki Walters, Tony Walters’ wife. I need anyone you can send to the Lindon Brothers warehouse out around Clay Village. I can’t remember the address. And send an ambulance too. I’m pretty sure they’ll need one. And please hurry.”

“Mrs. Walters, please calm down. What’s going on?” the operator asked.

“Cletus Wagner! He’s wanted for murder by the Jefferson County police and sheriff’s departments. And he’s going to try to kill my husband’s cousin and a friend trapped in the warehouse. Please, please, just send someone! Hurry!”

“Yes ma’am. I really need the address; I don’t have a listing for . . .”

“Just a minute!” She ran into the bathroom and screamed, “What’s the address for the warehouse?”

“I don’t know. It’s on Fellows Lane. Why?” Tony asked.

“Fellows Lane! Please! Just get someone on the way!” Nikki shouted to the operator.

“Yes ma’am. I’m dispatching them now.”

“Thank you!” Nikki hit END and threw the phone down, then picked it back up and dialed Peyton’s number.

“Hey! How are . . .”

“Peyton! Wagner’s going to beat you there!” Nikki screamed into the phone.

“What the hell? How did he . . .”

“The GPS locators on our phones. That’s how he’s been tracking us. I called nine-one-one – they’re sending people right now. Are you almost there?”

“Almost – ETA of about eleven minutes.” She heard him say something to José, then he said, “Honey, don’t worry. They’ll be okay. Just stay by the phone and I’ll call you.”

“Okay. Peyton, please . . .”

“It’ll be all right. I’ll call you. Sit tight.”

“Okay.” She hit END again, then threw the phone back onto the bed and burst into tears.

“Hey, baby, what was that . . .” Tony walked into the bedroom with a towel around his waist to find Nikki sobbing into the comforter. “What the . . .”

“Oh, Tony, he’s found them.”

Tony’s head started spinning and he sat down on the side of the bed, a buzzing starting in his ears. “How the hell did he . . .”

“The GPS locators on our phones. He’s been tracking us with them. Vic figured it out, but too late. I called the Shelby County nine-one-one center, asked them to send police and an ambulance.” She looked up at Tony, her face soaked. “I’m so scared.”

“I hate to tell you this, but so am I,” he said and pulled her into him. “Somebody’s going to die at that warehouse. I just hope it’s Wagner.”

“Get down behind the car and stay there” Vic growled at Laura. “I mean it. Right there. Here’s your phone; might as well turn it on and get ready. When you see a chance, run out the door and keep going. Don’t look back. I’ll be fine.” He kissed her on the forehead, and she grabbed him and planted a hard, solid kiss right on his mouth, but he pushed her back and said, “Keep yourself together.” Crouched behind the car, he pulled his Ruger and crept in silence to the entry door, standing against the wall beside it. Within seconds, there was what looked like a forty-five pointed right in his face.

Wagner looked down the barrel and said, “Well, well, well! What have we here? So, tell me, who shoots first, dago?”

Just hearing that hate word set Vic on fire. “Hmmm. I don’t know, asshole. I’m thinking me, but . . . no, I’m right after all. It will be me. So decide if you want to live.”

“Yeah, right. Let’s just see how that goes.” Wagner didn’t flinch and didn’t look away. And just when Vic thought he had the advantage, the unknown human factor struck.

She tried everything to stop it, but she couldn’t.

Laura sneezed.

And that was all it took for Vic to flinch. The split second it took for him to glance Laura’s way was all Wagner needed and, as Vic moved, Wagner fired. From four feet away, the bullet ripped through Vic’s upper right shoulder, grazing his collarbone and lodging in his trapezius. The burn took his breath away, and the explosion of nerve action caused his hand to open and his arm to jerk. With that, the Ruger dropped and slid across the floor and under the Mustang. Laura saw it all, heard the gun slide, and dropped to her knees behind the car, trying in desperation to reach the weapon, but she couldn’t.

The pain behind Vic’s eyes infuriated him, and he bent down and slammed into Wagner with the full weight of his body. When he hit the smaller man, he crushed Wagner between his body and the wall, and Wagner let out a loud groan as Vic knocked all of the air out of his lungs. In the same motion, Vic reached out with his left arm and smacked Wagner’s right arm against a steel stud, knocking the murderer’s gun to the ground.

“I’m gonna enjoy killing you,” Vic growled and grabbed Wagner by the neck, then spun him around with his back to the room. And that was when Laura saw it – the flash of steel as Wagner pulled an eight-inch blade from his belt. He drew it down and back, then let it fly in an upward arc toward Vic.

It touched down about two inches below Vic’s waist to the right and the blade almost disappeared into the larger man. Before Vic could react, Wagner yanked it out and drove it in again. The look on Vic’s face was a mixture of disbelief and agony, and he fell to his knees and slumped against the wall.

“You kill me? I don’t think so, big boy!” Wagner cackled. “I know she’s here, and I’ll slit your throat and then do what I came here to do.” He stood over Vic, blade in hand, leering.

Every minute of Laura’s training kicked in, and she looked around, frantic. There was nothing in the empty building except the car, two guns she couldn’t reach, and . . . a sledgehammer.

As Wagner’s gloating filled the warehouse, Laura sprinted across the room and grabbed up the weighty sledge. It had to be sixteen pounds, but she ran back across the room with it. Wagner held up the blade like a trophy, then bent down over Vic.

I’ve got one chance. If I mess this up, we’re both dead. Swing and swing hard, Laura,
she told herself. She got as close as she thought she needed to be, then turned with her back to Wagner and spun around, drawing the sledgehammer out and up like a thrower launching a discus.

When it connected, there was a sound like a pumpkin being dropped from an overpass as it plowed into Wagner’s skull. Laura jumped in horror as the back of Wagner’s head exploded and brain matter sprayed all over her, the coppery smell of blood everywhere. He fell with a thud and lay stone still, a pool of dark red spreading around him.

Time halted. Laura saw him fall, saw the blood, heard the sledgehammer as it hit the floor when her hands couldn’t seem to hold it anymore. She stood staring, for how long she didn’t know. Then she heard a groan.

Vic was barely conscious, and Laura heard herself begin to scream. “Vic! Oh my god, noooo!” She dropped to her knees, trying to figure out what to do, how to help him, where to touch him. “I’m so sorry! If I hadn’t sneezed, if I’d just . . .”

“It’s okay, little one. It’ll be okay,” Vic told her, his voice disappearing. He lifted his left hand from the front of his jeans and looked at the blood on his palm, then tried to wipe it on his jeans leg, but it was everywhere, so much blood, and Laura’s heart was pounding so hard that she struggled to breathe.

Apply pressure, Billings.
All the field training the military had given her rolled back into her addled brain, and she tried to decide which wound was bleeding the most, then put her hand over it and pressed as hard as she could. “Hang on, please hang on. Oh god, please hang on,” she whispered to him over and over. He tried one last time to wipe his hand on his jeans, then reached up to her face with his index finger. She waited as he touched her cheek, then pulled his finger back and looked at it. Eyes half closed, he turned his finger toward her and smiled. It took Laura a second to figure out what he was showing her, and then her heart broke.

It was a tear.

Before she could say anything, Vic’s eyes closed and he slumped down and went still.
Oh god,
Laura’s mind screamed.
This can’t happen. Not now. I can’t lose you, Vic. I love you. You’re my last hope.

“Shit!” was all Peyton could get out. When he and José pulled up to the building, the green Rav 4 was sitting there. Both men drew their weapons and advanced toward the building, but they couldn’t hear any sound coming from inside. Nodding to each other, they made their way to the open door, and José slipped in with Peyton right behind him.

The sight that met them was surreal. Wagner’s body lay on the floor surrounded by a puddle of blood the size of a Volkswagen, and brain matter was scattered all around. A third of his head, the back third, was missing, and a piece of his skull was fifteen feet away. Then they looked down.

Just inside the door, slumped against the wall, was Vic. He was more pale than his dark complexion should’ve allowed, and his eyes were closed, body limp. Laura hovered above him, her hand pressed firmly to his abdomen, blood leaking out between her fingers, running down his pelvis, between his legs, and all over the floor. Her hair and face had blood and brain matter all over them, and neither man could tell if she was injured because of all the blood. When she looked up at them, the sheen of tears on her face surprised both of them, and she was choking down sobs. Laura turned a look on them so pleading in its starkness that it made Peyton’s knees weak and José had trouble holding himself together.

But it only took Peyton a moment to act. “Laura, honey, let me do that. Keep your hands there; I’ll slip mine under and you can get up.” He moved into position and did what he’d promised. Within seconds, she was free and Peyton was pressing harder on Vic’s wounds than she’d been able to. José grabbed both of her arms and pulled her into him, and she clung to him like a terrified child. The two men looked at each other, then at Vic, and they both knew he wouldn’t make it. There was too much blood and his wounds seemed too deep.

Before José could get Laura calmed enough to make a call, he heard sirens. He locked his gaze with Peyton’s, and Peyton’s eyes closed as he pressed down on Vic.

“Let me go!” Laura screamed and broke free from José, going straight back to Vic. She took his hand in hers and pressed it to her cheek.