Minutes to Kill (24 page)

“Yes. He texted me this morning.”

“Where is he now?” Brody asked. Hannah’s youngest brother had a reputation for living off the grid.

Hannah scrolled on her phone. “He’ll be here sometime tonight. Hopefully his phone is still charged and he’s checking it, but no promises. You know Mac.” She lowered her cell. “Now what?”

“I don’t know. We keep looking for Chet.” Brody paced. “We’ve called in additional law enforcement from the county and state. Search teams are being organized.”

Chief Horner walked into the room. “The state police are setting up a command post at the county administration building. I’ll need you there. Also, the mayor scheduled a press conference in two hours. I’d like to have something intelligent to say.”

“Yes, sir.” Restless, Brody clenched his hands into fists. Prepping the chief for a press release was the last thing Brody wanted to do. He should be out there, looking for Chet. The image of his friend unconscious and gagged twisted his gut every time he looked at it. Chet wasn’t in the best health. The sun had been down for an hour, and the temperature outside was dropping.

“Hopefully, the press conference will clear the media from our street.” The chief waved at the windows. Outside, media vans lined the street. Using the police station as a backdrop, reporters stood on the sidewalk and spoke into cameras.

Brody waited for the chief to leave. He turned to Hannah. “You can come with me.”

“He didn’t say that.”

“There is no safer place for you to be than a building full of cops. I don’t want you to be alone until the guy who kidnapped Chet is apprehended. His brother won’t say why he came to New York, but I assume he came for you. Plus, my gut is telling me Mick and his brother killed those two women and shot Lance.”

Hannah put a hand on his arm. Her eyes were bleak. “I’m so sorry. This is my fault. I brought this man here. I should have just gone with Mick Arnette. Maybe he would have released Chet.”

“I didn’t mean it was your fault. Going with him would have been crazy. He would have killed you both.” Brody covered her hand with his. “Every available member of law enforcement will be out there looking for Chet. We’ll find him.”

But would it be too late?

Chapter Thirty-One

Mick sat in the back of the police car. In the front seat, on the other side of the metal barrier that separated him from the cops, sat two sherif
f
’s deputies.

He was fucked. He and Sam hadn’t discussed a contingency plan in case one of them was caught. But Mick would never give up on his brother. Sam was around here somewhere, waiting.

The cops turned onto a rural highway. Traffic was light. They approached a bridge. Mick stared out the side window. How was he going to get out of this? That damned blond hadn’t done what he’d expected. He’d assumed she’d do as he said to save her friend, but no, the selfish bitch had called the cops.

Didn’t she understand she was signing her friend’s death warrant?

Not that the old guy was going to survive no matter what she did. Once Sam had an idea in his head . . .

The car approached an overpass. A moving van barreled toward them in the other lane, its high-mounted headlights glaring through the windshield. Just as they hit the end of the bridge, the van swerved toward the police car. With a crash and a groan of metal, the police car slid off the embankment. Mick’s body slammed against the seat belt. The deputy grabbed the radio, but the car jerked, and he dropped the receiver.

The car bounced. Mick lost perspective as the world slammed. The vehicle came to a stop. He hung forward, his weight shifted, the seat belt digging into his chest and collarbone. With his hands cuffed behind his back, he hung helpless. The pressure of the strap across his chest forced him to take shallow breaths.

The deputy grabbed the mic on his uniform and called for assistance.

“Shit. You all right, Steve?” the deputy in the passenger seat asked.

“I’m good.” The driver unsnapped his seat belt. Turning on the interior light, he glanced in the back. “You alive, Arnette?”

Mick didn’t answer.
Fuck that cop. Let him crawl back here and find out.

A figure appeared next to Mick’s head. A man leaned down to look into the window. With the light in the vehicle and the darkness outside, it took Mick a second to realize it was his brother. A long-sleeve jacket covered his tatted arms and the bandage on his bicep where he’d been grazed by the cop’s bullet. Combined with a pair of khaki pants, his new look was electronic-store salesman.

“Hey, are you guys OK?” he asked the cops, then pointed a gun through the broken passenger window. Two gunshots echoed in the car as he put a bullet into each cop’s head. Mick flinched. Blood splattered the interior. Sam fired two more shots. Making sure the cops were dead, or just for fun?

His brother leaned into the rear compartment, a knife in his hand. He flicked his wrist and cut the seat belt.

Mick fell forward. “I’m glad to see you.”

“You didn’t think I’d let them take you away?” Sam caught him, his hands gentle.

“Of course not.” Mick should have known his brother would come after him.

Sam leaned into the front of the vehicle and searched the cops until he found a handcuff key. The back door wouldn’t open, so he released Mick’s hands and helped him wriggle out the broken window.

“Did they radio for help?”

“Tried.” Mick coughed. “Not sure if they got through.”

“Let’s get out of here.” Sam grabbed his arm, hauled him to his feet, and half carried him up the embankment. The moving van sat on the shoulder of the road. Other than a dented front fender, the vehicle wasn’t damaged. Sam shoved Mick into the passenger seat. Rounding the vehicle, he climbed behind the wheel.

Mick looked back. At the bottom of the hill, the cop car was still. From a distance, there was no sign that the two deputies had been shot.

“How’s the arm?”

“I’ve had worse.” Sam’s wound had been shallow. He accelerated, putting the scene behind them. A mile up the road he turned onto a dirt road. They drove a few hundred yards and turned again. Trees cropped up around the lane. Sam stopped the vehicle behind a half-collapsed, abandoned outbuilding. The Charger was parked behind the building.

Mick rubbed his shoulder. The seat belt had done a number on him. “How did you know where I was?”

“News report.” Sam held up a different prepaid smartphone than he’d been using before. “I destroyed the old phone in case the cops got into yours.” He rooted in a bag on the bench seat between them and pulled out another phone, which he handed to Mick. “I stole the van and waited down the road. On TV, they showed you being driven away.”

Mick shoved the new phone in his pocket. “Did you know that old dude we snatched was a cop?”

Sam nodded.

“What did you do with him?”

“I got him stashed where we spent the night. Nobody’s gonna find him.” Sam got out of the van.

They’d parked in an isolated spot overnight. It wasn’t the first time they’d slept in the car, but it had been damned cold. They’d had to start the car engine every hour.

Mick followed his brother. His whole body hurt.

Sam opened the driver’s door of the Charger. He reached in and pulled out a plastic bag. He tossed it to Mick. “Here. Change your clothes. There’s a razor in there, too. Your picture was all over the news.”

Shivering, Mick stripped off his jeans and T-shirt and tugged on the cheap khakis and blue polo shirt. Appearance aside, he was glad to don the fleece jacket. “I look like an idiot.”

“You look like you want to sell me a data plan. Now shut up and shave.” Sam tossed him a bottle of water.

Mick used the water and shaving cream to remove his goatee. He nicked himself multiple times in the cold.

Sam squinted at him. “I don’t think it’s enough.”

“Turn on the dome light.” Tilting the side mirror out, Mick lathered his head and shaved it bald. The night air froze his bare scalp.

“Better,” Sam said. “Do you still want the blond?” His eyes shone as if he was hoping Mick said yes.

“More than ever.” Anger surged in Mick’s chest. She’d defied him. She’d beaten him. She needed to suffer. He wanted her on her knees and begging. He’d never thought she would best him. How did a woman take him out twice? “She needs to pay.”

“All right, but then we’re wiping out all the loose ends here and heading south. Imagine how much money we’ll make when we don’t have to share our take with someone like Mr. K.”

“We’re going to make a killing.”

“Fucking A.” Sam grinned. “I have a plan.”

“Have to find the woman first. She was with that cop at the police station.” Mick rubbed his oddly smooth head in frustration. The cop’s body language with the lawyer was all possessive. He’d keep her close.

“I know.” Sam grinned. “I GPSed his car.”

“You did what?”

Sam shrugged. “Was easy. It was getting dark, and there were so many reporters and cameramen wandering around the parking lot, I just walked right through the crowd and slid it under the fender. Dressed like this”—he gestured toward his torso—“nobody looked at me twice.”

He opened an app on his phone. “Look. Here they are.” Handing the phone to Mick, Sam hurried to the driver’s door. “There’s gonna be a press conference over here.” He pointed to another point on the map. “I’ll bet that’s where they’re headed. I scoped out a few excellent places along the route for an ambush. Let’s go get her.”

Mick shivered in the leather seat. Was that a snowflake? Fuck. This. State. “We could just run. Forget about the woman. Forget about the cop. Head somewhere warm.”

“Hell, no.” Sam’s black eyes snapped. “You want the blond, and I want her, too. You promised. I broke you out of jail! You can’t go back on your word.”

Sam in a rage was way more dangerous than the police. The only way to calm him down was to give him what he wanted.

“You’re right. I promised.” Mick took the device and got into the passenger seat. He buckled up. The crash had given him new appreciation for seat belts. A small green dot moved on a map. “The GPS was ballsy.”

“You think that’s ballsy? Wait till you hear the rest of my plan.” Sam patted the duffel bag at his side. “Go ahead. Take a look.”

Mick unzipped the bag. “Holy fuck. We drove across the country with
that
in the car?”

Sam shrugged. “It’s not dangerous until it’s detonated.”

In the passenger seat of the unmarked car, Hannah rubbed her hand on her denim-clad thigh as Brody ended his call. “That was Detective Douglas in Vegas. Mick Arnette’s prints match the one set of prints they found in your rental car. Mick has never been arrested in Nevada, and he isn’t in the national fingerprint database either. They’re going to check out the address on his license. They’ll let me know what they find.”

Would they find Jewel?

“Douglas did say that they have a criminal record for Sam Arnette. According to Douglas, Sam is one nasty SOB. He was dishonorably discharged from the army. Douglas doesn’t know why. Vegas police arrested him for armed robbery, but the sole witness mysteriously disappeared, so he was never convicted. Douglas is sending me a picture of Sam.” His phone buzzed. He swiped the screen with his thumb and handed it to Hannah.

“That’s the other man from the attack in Vegas,” she said.

Brody nodded. “Makes sense that the brothers would be together.”

Police chatter hummed from the radio on the dashboard. Brody’s phone buzzed again. He answered it, uttered a few yeses, then signed off with “Call me when you have something.”

“The warrant came through for Mick’s phone,” Brody said. “The geeks are already analyzing his records and trying to track data usage and pings on local towers. Hopefully they’ll be able to narrow down the search for Chet.” Brody took a deep breath. He looked haggard. The chief had kept him busy for too long. It was almost seven o’clock. Only one hour left until the end of Mick’s deadline. Tick tock. “It gets worse.”

“Tell me.” Her stomach did a slow roll as Brody steered through a turn. She grabbed the armrest. He was pushing the speed.

“The scene of yesterday’s shooting? The one where the woman was murdered?”

Hannah’s brain shot ahead of his words. “The Arnettes?”

“Their fingerprints were all over the inside of that house. Sam’s prints were on the bat used to kill Joleen.”

Her hand shot up to cover her mouth. That woman was killed because the Arnette brothers followed Hannah to Scarlet Falls from Las Vegas. Sam had beaten that woman to death with a bat. What would he do to Chet?

“What if we can’t find him?” she asked.

“There’s no
we.
” Brody’s tone sharpened. “You’re a civilian. Law enforcement will find Chet. Local, county, and state cops are all over this, and the FBI is on alert. Every inch of this county will be combed. There isn’t anything else that can be done at this point. Patrol cops are already out searching.”

Hannah nodded. “I still feel like it’s my fault, and I hate waiting.”

“You cannot take the blame for what some psycho criminal does.”

She knew Brody was right, but she still felt like she’d brought this danger home. If Grant hadn’t taken the family away, who knew what could have happened to them. Instead of Chet, Sam Arnette could have Carson or Ellie or another member of the family in his clutches. The temperature was still dropping. The forecast called for below-freezing temperatures tonight. Snow was a possibility. In the photo, Chet was wearing a thin shirt. No jacket. If he was still alive, he wouldn’t last long outside tonight.

A voice call came over the radio. Brody turned up the volume. The dispatcher called off a string of numbers that meant nothing to Hannah, but the tone was urgent. Hannah caught the words
shooting
and
officers down
.

Brody reached for his phone and speed-dialed a number.

“All units, be on the lookout . . .” Mick Arnette’s name and description followed.

Brody ended his call. He curled his fingers around his phone and punched his thigh. “A moving van knocked the sheriff’s car off an overpass. Both deputies were shot and killed. Mick Arnette escaped.”

He slowed the car and turned right. The rural road was empty, and he punched the accelerator. The car surged forward into the dark.

“He’s loose?” Horror crawled up Hannah’s throat.

Brody nodded.

“Oh, no.” Two women were murdered. Chet was taken, and two police officers were dead. “Now what?”

“Massive manhunt,” Brody said. Determination hardened his face. The car approached a wooden bridge over a shallow creek, and he slowed the vehicle.

The bridge exploded in front of them. Wood and dirt plumed into the air as the car hurtled forward into a cloud of smoke.