Deeper Than the Grave (25 page)

Chapter Fifty-three

“Of course it's me. Don't shoot.”

My heart skipped a beat as I stuffed the pistol into the back of my jeans and scrambled on top of the display table. Trey waited, ice crystals in his hair, his coat billowing in the sleeting wind. He was holding onto the windowsill with bare white fingers, his teeth chattering as I cranked open the glass.

I stood on tiptoe. “How in the hell did you get here?”

“I'm standing on the dumpster. I told you this window was easily—”

“Not the window, here, at the shop!”

“Oh. That. I never left.”

I slipped my hands through the opening and held his cold face between them. “Jesus, Trey, where have you been?”

“I parked on the other side of the square so you wouldn't see me. Or hear. But I could see and hear you. Until the electricity went out, and the towers went down—”

“The towers aren't down. It's a jammer. In Rose's truck.”

His eyes flared. “I knew it! I told you—”

“You did. You told me a lot of things. And I'll be very happy to keep listening if you can get us out of here.”

“I will.” He hesitated. “I'm sorry I frightened you. Earlier. And broke your computer. And—”

I pressed fingers over his cold mouth. “Not now.”

“And I wanted to come back in, especially after the things you said, but I couldn't. And then I saw Richard, and then I could, but before I could, I heard the rifle shot, saw you both move inside. And then I saw Rose come from behind a bulldozer, but I couldn't get a clear shot, because I couldn't get a clear background, not with you somewhere in the shop, and…I am so sorry.”

“Me too. But that's for later.” I wiped his ice-crusted hair from his forehead. “Right now I need you to get us out of here.”

“That's my main goal.” He looked beyond me to the security monitor. “Why is she doing this? What does she want?”

“She wants Braxton's bones, and she's willing to kill me and Richard to get them.”

“But you don't have—”

“Actually, I do.”

“You what?”

“I'll explain later. Can we make a run for it?”

He shook his head. “From where she's standing, she can cover both the front and back doors.”

“We can't stay here much longer.” I jerked my head toward Richard. “He's been hit.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough.”

Trey peered beyond me to where Richard slumped in the corner. The rain slanted in mercilessly, and the wind howled behind him. Trey's eyes didn't reveal an ounce of mercy either.

I shook my head. “We can't leave him here. He's in this mess because he tried to protect me. She'll kill him out of pure spite, and he doesn't deserve that.”

Trey blinked, and I saw his priorities rearranging themselves. Richard, no longer a bad guy, was now reclassified as hostage in need of rescue. A different flowchart, different protocol. I was dying to pepper him with questions, but knew I had to let him think. He had experience with barricaded shooter scenarios. I had zip.

He did a quick calculation. “How are you for ammo?”

“I've got every bit of it in here. Plus every long gun in the shop, still in the gun safe.”

“What can Rose access?”

“Nothing except the reenactment supplies. Clothes, campware…oh shit.”

“What?

I looked down at the video screen. Sure enough, Rose had found the kerosene. She looked demonic in the flashing emergency light—her white hair wild, her face dirty, shotgun held in one hand while she dragged the plastic jugs out with the other. She had no way out, and she knew it. The airport was shut down, every interstate a parking lot of spun-out wrecks; even her massive four-wheel drive truck wouldn't get her out of the city. But it would get her back to her property. And she could burn the shop down before she left, pick us all off like rabbits when we tried to run. And then the fire would turn everything to ash, and the papers would call it an unfortunate accident. A candle falling over, a dropped cigarette. Of course this was how Tai Randolph would go, they'd say, that girl never could manage anything.

I gritted my teeth. “I am not letting that bitch burn down my life. I swear to God, Trey, I—”

“I know. Let me think.”

Trey readjusted his position. He was soaking wet, shivering harder. He didn't have long before hypothermia set in.

“Stay here,” he said. “Don't open that door unless she sets a fire and you have no other option. If I can find the jammer and disarm it, I'll do that first, so keep your phone on. Call 911 as soon as you can.”

“Wait, what are you going to do?”

“I'm going to neutralize the threat.”

“What does that mean?”

His voice was soft and terrifying. “You know what that means.”

I grabbed his hands. “No, no, no! You can't do that. You're not a cop anymore, they'll send you to prison this time. You have to—”

“I have to do what's necessary.”

I grabbed his collar and held tight. “You find the jammer, call 911, and then run, you hear me?”

“The police won't be able to get here in time.”

“Damn it, Trey, don't—”

He pulled free of my fingers, to the edge of the dumpster where I could not reach him. He had that look of trying to make words happen, trying hard. But then he gave up trying, and I watched as his expression shifted, becoming stiller, flatter, reserved and relentless. I watched him become an assassin, right in front of me, as cold and merciless as the night.

I felt tears spring to my eyes. “No. Please no.”

But a swirl of snow wrapped him like a shroud, and when it cleared, he was gone.

Chapter Fifty-four

I pressed my face to the window, but all I got in return was an icy slap of wind. Trey was out there in the night, part of the howl and storm, and I was stuck in the safe room—again. I felt the surge—itchy, restless, like nausea if nausea were bright purple and two thousand volts and toxic as mercury.

I clenched my teeth. “No no no! Not now!”

But I could feel the panic spreading. It would take me down if I stayed in that room. I climbed down to where Richard slumped in the corner. He'd gone quiet, which meant shock was setting in. And although he deserved every ounce of pain wracking his body, he didn't deserve to die.

I kicked his foot. “Get up, we have to go.”

He moaned and slumped sideways. I bent down and grabbed his chin. His eyes fluttered open, but his pupils were dilated, his gaze blank.

“Damn it, Richard, Trey is about to take on a woman with a fucking twelve-gauge all by himself, and I am not going to sit in this room while he does it.”

But Richard wasn't going anywhere. Behind me, the video screen revealed Rose. She'd already emptied one container of kerosene and was opening a gallon of lamp oil, twisting the cap with one hand, holding it with the other. The shotgun stood beside her, propped against the counter. She had no reason to think she might need it. No way to know she was in a sniper's crosshairs.

I'll do what's necessary
, he'd said.

I cursed, shoved an extra speedloader in my pocket. The door would lock behind me automatically, protecting Richard. If I could get it open quietly, I could use the hallway as concealment. It would let me get the drop on her—no way she could get the shotgun up in time—and I had a wall to duck behind if she did.

I took a deep breath, feeling the panic melt and a new feeling rise, a quickening heady sensation. So this was what it was like for Trey, sliding into the plan, the protocol, the flow. Everything made sense, so clear and clean…

I pulled out my .38, warm now from my body. One more ammo check—locked and loaded. One more check of the video screen to make sure Rose was still occupied. Then I eased the door open and slipped into the hallway.

The smell of kerosene hit me first. The emergency light above the door still pulsed bloody red, and the headlights from Richard's truck threw a curtain of blinding light through the front windows. It illuminated Rose, standing at the counter now, the shotgun a foot away. My training unfolded like a map—solid stance, slight lean, both hands on the weapon—and I took a deep breath and stepped around the corner.

I aimed right at her heart. “Freeze, Rose!”

She dropped the lamp oil and lunged for the shotgun. She was quicker than I'd expected and managed to grab it, but I pinged a shot into the counter, and she froze, clutching it right above the stock.

I put the sights back on her. “Drop it. Now.”

She was breathing hard, her sides heaving. Not fear—fury—as defiant as she'd been the first time I'd spotted her.

She glared at me. “What are you gonna do, girl, stand there all night? Nobody's coming. You're all alone.”

I kept the gun aimed at her chest. “That's where you're wrong.”

And from somewhere out of the blinding wall of brightness, Trey stepped into the shop, his silhouette a blur against the brilliance, his shoes crunching broken glass. He looked murderously surreal in the flashing red light, his weapon drawn, his voice cool and firm.

“Get back in the room, Tai.”

I kept my stance.
“
No,
you
get in the room. If anybody's getting shot tonight, I'm doing the shooting.”

“No, you're not. Get in the room. I'll deal with this.”

This
, he'd said. Not
her
. Rose switched her attention his way. She didn't drop the shotgun. I could see her running the possibilities—how quickly she could grab the trigger, which target to take down first, could she get us both with one pull—and I knew she'd tumbled down to her last option, that she was in the desperation zone. Her eyes switched from me to Trey and back to me. Calculating.

I shook my head. “Don't you even think about it. You might get one of us, but not both. And the one of us you don't get will put you down, Rose Amberdecker, like a dog, but not before you scream and beg and bleed and die for a very long time. Because as you pointed out, we are all alone out here.”

Trey stayed silent. No orders, no demands. I squinted at him again the light. He had his finger on the trigger, primed for imminent threat. All Rose had to do was make a suspicious twitch, and he'd drop her. One shot, one kill. And as I saw him standing there in the bright merciless glare, the cold dead darkness behind, I realized that he wanted her to try it. He was giving her the space to take that move because he wanted to shoot her, wanted it very badly.

And I knew it wasn't restraint that held him back. He was simply waiting for the trigger. And she was going to give it to him, any second now. And I wanted desperately to go to him, put a hand on him, bring him back from the edge, but I wasn't about to cross his muzzle range, wasn't about to stand so close that Rose could whip the shotgun up and take us down together.

I forced myself to sound calm. “Trey?”

He didn't answer, didn't lower the gun.

“I'm gonna get her weapon now. You cover me, okay?”

No response.

“Hey? Boyfriend? Answer me.”

Trey blinked. A shudder rippled through him, and he let out the half-breath he'd been holding. He slipped his finger alongside the barrel, nodded.

“Copy that. I mean, yes. You're covered. Get her weapon.”

I didn't hesitate. I tucked my .38 back into the small of my back and snatched the shotgun out of her hands. She didn't protest, probably because Trey still reeked of loose-cannon dangerous. But she glared hot hate at me as I proceeded to unload her weapon.

“I've got lawyers,” she said. “Mean smart ones.”

“You're gonna need them. Because I am shouting this story from the rooftops, to anybody who will listen.” I pumped the magazine, dumping the cartridges on the floor, one by one. “Braxton and Josephina. Their baby. That whole other line of Amberdeckers you've pretended didn't exist for a hundred years. I talked to one of them this very afternoon. Their story is gonna be front page news.”

“You've got no proof.”

“I've got plenty, especially once I get Braxton's bones and all his DNA into evidence.”

Her eyes blazed. “Those belong to me.”

“No, they don't. And they never have.” I took a step back, out of her range. “It wasn't enough that Braxton's bones went in the ground. You had to go get them out of his damn coffin, probably gonna burn them to ashes, but Lucius beat you to them. So you killed him with the first thing you could grab, the pry bar. Only the bones weren't in the coffin.”

Her chest heaved, but she didn't speak. I put the unloaded gun on the floor and kicked it to the corner, put my .38 right back on her.

“You thought the same thing everybody did—that Lucius had had a partner that night, someone who took the bones off his hands. So you shoved his body in the empty casket and searched his apartment the next day. But you didn't find anything, and when the bones didn't turn up, you kept quiet. Until the tornado.” I raised the gun a smidgen so that she was staring straight down the barrel. “And me. You didn't see me coming either. But the best part is, the bones were right under your nose the whole time.”

She remained silent. Trey too. Up close, I could see the wreckage of his clothing. He had to be on the verge of collapse. Rose looked on the verge of collapse too, and I probably wasn't far behind. And then it hit me with a wallop—we were still alone in the darkened snowbound shop, me and Trey and a vengeful murderess, with Richard bleeding out in the back room.

“Trey?”

“Yes?”

I stepped closer to him. “So…what now?”

“Now we wait.”

“For what?”

He cocked his head, listening. “For that.”

And then I heard it too—the low drumming whine, coming closer, the only noise in a city frozen solid.

A helicopter.

It appeared as suddenly as a UFO, and even from a hundred feet below, I could feel the whoosh and swirl of the wind coming through the broken shop window, the savage chop-chop-chop as it swooped and hovered. It landed in the middle of the square, kicking up tornadoes of silted ice and powdery snow, shredding the steely air, gracefully, powerfully.

A Black Hawk. With FBI emblazoned on its side.

The hatch opened and Garrity jumped out, his dark gray coat flapping in the wind. He made a slashing motion across his throat, and the engine whined to a halt. He jogged toward us, but I didn't drop the gun, not even when he came busting through my ruined door, gold shield flashing in the fierce-white light, S&W in hand.

He looked from me to Trey to Rose, then back to Trey. “What the hell?”

I gripped my own gun tighter. “About freaking time.”