Hijack in Abstract (A Cherry Tucker Mystery) (30 page)

Forty

“Elen
a,” cried Yuri. “You are here.”

I spun around. Elena, the crabby SipNZip clerk, held a handgun that matched Yuri’s. “What are you doing here? You’re the shooter?”

“Put down your rifle and give me Yuri’s gun.” She gripped her gun in both hands with her arms extended and legs planted. “I am master shot.”

“You missed us,” said Max.

“Let’s not agitate her. She did do a job on your Hummer. And Tyrone.”

I laid the rifle on the ground and took the Beretta from Max’s fist to lie next to the Winchester. Tater bleated and nibbled at the Winchester’s walnut stock.

“Kick them toward me,” she said. “Away from Maksim Avtaikin.”

My Grandpa would whip my butt if the gravel scratched his Winchester 70 Featherlight, but I complied. I did have the gun-to-my-head excuse.

“Where’s the BMW?” I said. “That’s your vehicle isn’t it? You’ve been following me? Yuri didn’t know about me, how did you?”

“Shut up and sit next to Maksim.”

The bullets inside my shirt clinked as I dropped to the ground beside Max. I laid my hand against his tensed shoulder.

With his body pointed toward the Jaguar, Max couldn’t see Elena. “I could have taken care of this,” he muttered.

I knew he wished we’d taken his gun-to-the-window approach the night she parked outside his house. “Bear, she wouldn’t have told us anything and Luke would have arrested you for threatening her,” I whispered.

Max stared into the darkened sky, gritting his teeth.

“Still don’t know how a SipNZip employee could afford a BMW,” I said. “You must be making money hand over fist from robbing. That’s all you are. A bunch of bandits.”

“BMW was a gift,” Elena smirked.

“From you, I suppose.” I cast a scathing look at Rupert.

He grinned, held up a hand, and let it drop. “She’s managed her operation well. A reward. I have found women like Elena and Miss David more reliable than the men.”

Yuri strode past us to Elena and tried to hug her. “Baby.”

Elena shoved him away. “Not now. You let this
`suka
take your gun?” She spat on the ground.

“I get the feeling you don’t like me,” I said to Elena. “Have you been planning to kill me or is this a spur of the moment decision?”

“You identified Yuri in his picture. And you are very busy talking about it. I heard you in SipNZip and saw your fast car.” She pointed the gun at Max. “Plus you are meeting with this one many times. I watch you and decide I don’t trust you.”

“You’ve been spying on the farm, too.” My skin prickled at the thought of Elena stalking my family. Tater nosed me, and I wrapped an arm around his scratchy neck.

“You gave this as your home address on SipNZip application.” Elena’s gun didn’t waver as she spoke. “But you do not come to the farm often. Tonight I am lucky. I park behind barns and wait. Two birds at once.”

“You are so good, baby,” said Yuri. “My hero.”

Max’s hand grasped mine. “Tell her I already made deal.”

“What deal?” I said and gave Tater a shove as he tried to bite Max’s hand. I angled toward his ear. “You didn’t make any deal.”

Max turned his head and glowered at me. “I lied to you. I was leaving you here to meet agents.”

Rupert slid from his lean against the Jag to crouch next to Max. “You already spoke to the agents?
B’lyad
.”

“What agents?” I said.

“The Special Agents with Department of Labor,” Max closed his eyes and forced the words. “They want Rupert, Rurik Agadzinoff. He owns conglomerate of gas stations. He puts illegals in stores. Fakes invoices. Products sold from black market. Hijacks trucks for products. I find out he is not real lawyer when IRS looks into my bingo.”

“
Zatk`nis
,” yelled Rupert and slammed a fist into Max’s knee.

Max’s body levitated with pain. At his scream, Tater reared back and galloped away.

“Agents will get Rupert on tax evasion, money laundering, visa fraud,” Max coughed out a laugh and closed his eyes. “It’s too late. I gave testimony already.”

“I thought you were worried about deportation,” I said, lying the back of my hand against the Bear’s cheek.

“My visa is real,” his voice hissed from his throat. Max’s eyes fluttered opened and found me. “Filed illegally. Rupert paid off someone in Citizenship Immigration Service.”

“The name on the folder?” I said. “Is that the C.I.S. worker who took the bribe?”

“It’s not too late, Rupert,” said Elena. “We can still get away.”

I looked up and found the barrel of the Beretta aimed at me again. “Yes, it is too late. The police are on their way. The Feds have already taken the SipNZip.”

“No,” said Elena and pushed Yuri. “Get in car, Yuri. You, too, Rupert. I will take care of them.”

“Find out where the files are first,” said Rupert.

Rupert rose, kicked Max in the ribs, and scurried to the car. I glanced toward the house, wondering what had happened to the 9-1-1 call. Then realized my sheriff’s department wouldn’t careen into the driveway with sirens screaming and blueberries spinning if they knew we were replaying the Shootout at the O.K. Corral. They knew the farm and how to approach us.

Maybe they were watching us now, waiting for their opportunity to move in.

Or maybe Miss David had been too freaked out to call 9-1-1.

I found Max’s hand and squeezed. Unless a sharpshooter had a bead trained on Elena, it didn’t really matter.

He tugged on my hand. “Get me a gun,” he mouthed.

How in the hell did he think I could do that? The Beretta and Winchester still lay on the ground on the other side of Elena. She held a sleek and scary piece of metal pointed at us. However, her focus was on Yuri, still standing behind us and giving Elena a litany of his love and devotion. Or pointers on how to kill us and what to do with our bodies. It was hard to tell in a foreign language and the Jag’s lights shown on his back so I couldn’t see his face.

I dropped Max’s hand and inched toward Elena. Come on Cherry, I thought, what’s the difference if she shoots you from a few feet compared to one yard? Cops do this every day.

Well, maybe not the cops in Halo, but I found my risk-taking brain cells easily fueled by pep talks.

The sound of small hoof beats galloping across the grass-lined clay distracted Elena for a moment. Rupert leaned out the window and yelled at Yuri to hurry up his dissertation on love. Or death. The giant, white goat sailed into view just as Yuri finished with a rude gesture at Rupert. Startled by Tater’s reappearance, Elena tipped up her pistol.

I pushed from my squat, launching myself at the guns. Elena spun around to face me. I scooped up the Beretta and underhanded it toward Max. The chunk of metal thumped the ground. Elena yodeled a string of curses and pointed the gun. Tater leapt at my accessible form sprawled on the ground and landed on my back with a kidney crushing blow. Elena fired. And another gun fired.

And then it really went to hell.

What sounded like an army of vehicles roared into the lane. No sirens or lights, but they sprayed gravel and dirt all the same. Some went right and left, tearing across the farm yard in different directions and ripping through the ratty remains of Grandma Jo’s azaleas. Spotlights blazed and flashed.

My back felt broken. I lost focus on anything but pain.

Forty-One

It took two men to get the heavy goat off me. Then I had to continue to lie face down in the gravel while the EMT made sure my spine hadn’t really been snapped before they could roll me over and put me on a cart. Luke knelt at my side, holding my hands and wiping my face while I bawled for that stupid goat who loved to ram my truck and chew my clothes.

“I let him out of the pasture,” I sobbed, “just to spite Pearl. And look what happened.”

“He took your bullet,” said Luke. “I’m not sorry.”

Which made me cry harder.

“Tater’s tough,” Luke’s voice dropped to apologetic. “He’s hurt, but alive. Please don’t worry about the goat, darlin’. Let’s get you fixed up first.”

I pushed up on my elbows so I could watch the EMTs loading Max into one ambulance. I blew him a kiss and he sent me a tired smile. Elena went into the second, while I waited for the third ambulance to arrive.

Rupert and Yuri had already been deposited in police cars and whisked away. The Department of Labor’s Special Agents had gleefully snapped up Rupert, while our boys in brown had stolen Yuri to the Forks County Jail. Miss David left with one officer from each department.

“Miss David said she stayed with Agadzinoff because she thought he’d protect her from deportation,” said Luke. “Her real name is Natalya Davidovich. She worked as the middle man between Rupert and the crooked Citizenship employee.”

“Rupert said Max abandoned her.”

“She didn’t look abandoned to me,” said Luke. “She looked like she enjoyed living in Buckhead.”

“You’re so cynical. I think she loved Max and he cared for her. Someday maybe he’ll tell me that story.”

Luke cocked a strong look at me. “What was with the kiss blowing thing?”

“We thought we were going to die together. The man is in pain. Max and Tater saved my life.”

“Judging by the bullets jiggling around your bra, I think you did plenty to help him.” Luke pulled on my shirt’s knot, causing the remaining two bullets to spill onto my skirt. He watched them fall and glanced back at me. “Next time I go hunting, would you carry my ammo for me?”

His attempt to make me smile failed.

“What took you so long to come?” I said, starting a fresh cascade of tears. “If y’all had gotten here sooner, Tater wouldn’t have gotten shot.”

“Honey, the vet’s doing emergency surgery. Please don’t worry about Tater.”

“I can’t help it,” I sobbed. “Stupid goat.”

“We had a great response time, considering we couldn’t understand the caller and had to get the teams coordinated on the fly. The dispatcher heard the gunfire and used the landline to get your location.”

“Miss David is not as cool-headed as she’d like to appear,” I mumbled, noting that jealousy made me unappreciative.

Luke interrupted that thought. “She did fine. Not everyone charges into a situation with guns a’blazing like you. And what kind of idiot lunges at captured weapons when someone’s pointing a forty-five at their head?”

“Since childhood, I’ve been trained by a sheriff to handle crisis,” I sniffled. “The worst thing you can do is panic.”

“You should panic more,” Luke’s voice betrayed his hostility. “Maybe then you’d stay out of these situations. Thank the good Lord we were able capture Regis Sharp without your help. That fool tried to take on Miss April and got caught in a landslide in her trailer while she called for help. This time we had plainclothes waiting. And I had Ernie Pike picked up, too. You may have grown up around a sheriff, but some of us have had real training to serve and protect.”

“There’s the Luke I know,” I said, noticing his confidence had returned. Mine reared its ugly head as well. “And I’ll have you know, if I had stayed hidden in the house with Miss David, Max would be dead and those three would have gotten away. Everyone would think the Bear had ordered the hijacking and was keeping illegals in his store as cheap labor. He told Elena he had flipped, but I know he hadn’t spoken to y’all. He doesn’t trust cops. And thanks to me, they now have those files with the name of the corrupt C.I.S. worker.”

In the glare of the task-force lighting, Luke’s eyes appeared as burnished as new quarters. I caught a tremble in his hands as he brushed a wet strand of hair from my cheek. “The Special Agents have been gathering information about Agadzinoff for months. They’ve been checking on the SipNZip ever since it opened. They didn’t need you playing Die Hard to catch Agadzinoff.”

“So Tater sacrificed himself for nothing.”

“Tater did good,” Luke sighed and brushed a kiss on my forehead. “When that goat gets out of surgery, I’m chaining it to your leg.”