Without Remorse, page 13
Every time she glanced off to the left trail, leading past a stack of busted dishwashers, he shifted uncomfortably, almost as if he wanted to stand in front of her and block her line of sight. She frowned, taking a step towards this area and pointing. “What's down here, sir?”
“Hey now!” he said, sharply, some of the teasing, jovial tone being replaced by a sharp bark. “You can't be here. You ain't got one of them—paper things. Whachoo call it?”
“Warrant?” Dakota guessed.
He nodded, pointing. “You ain't got a warrant. Stay where you are.”
Dakota was ready to correct him on this point, but before she could, she heard the sound of clinking chains, slobbering, heavy panting. Then footsteps came as well. A few moments passed and a woman emerged at the end of this same path Dakota had been peering down, stepping from behind a shipping container. The woman strolled nonchalantly forward, leading two rottweilers on leashes. She wore shoes and a shirt, thankfully, but her clothing wasn't in a much better state than her husband’s.
Dakota could almost smell the grease and WD-40 from here.
“Ah, there we are. How's it going hon?” Johnny called, waving at his approaching wife. “We got us some guests.”
The woman was frowning as she drew nearer though, her eyes narrowed. If her husband's gaze could've been described as mean, hers was downright nasty. Dakota supposed in some cases opposites attracted. But more often than not, in her experience, birds of a feather flocked together.
And these two birds were not the sort to be intent on sharing their nest with strangers. Even federal strangers.
“Hey, you can't be here!” Mrs. Hendricks called, shaking one of her chains and picking up the pace. The two slobbering beasts leading her were panting, drooling but pausing every now and then long enough to shoot hungry glances in the agents' direction.
Marcus stepped back, one hand at his holster, another extended towards the hounds and their handler. “Stay back,” he warned. “Stay back!”
Mr. Hendricks sneered, “Wachoo gonna do, suit? Shoot my dogs?”
Mrs. Hendricks's scowl—and seeming sense of hygiene—matched her husband’s. She stalked forward, rattling the chains. “Come on now,” she said. “You two ain't supposed to be trespassing.”
“Ma'am,” Dakota said, keeping her tone even, though adrenaline was now racing through her body. She could sense the impending threat drawing nearer. So far, no sign of a weapon on the two. The dogs, though, were baring teeth—clearly homeschooled pups without much fondness for strangers. “We're FBI,” Dakota repeated. “I need you to stop coming towards us.”
“You're trespassers!” the woman screeched. “Damn authoritarian pricks! Get off our land. Get out of here!”
“Ma'am—stop now!” Dakota warned.
“Stay back!” Marcus called.
But she was shaking her head. Her husband was egging her on with faint giggles while slapping a greasy hand against his leg. “You tell 'em, Kim,” he was saying. “Go on you two, get!”
Dakota wanted to look over her shoulder to see if backup was on its way, but she didn't want to risk losing line of sight with the suspects. The strange, looming creations of metal and mannequin around them only fueled the uneasy atmosphere. No distant sound of sirens; though she'd asked them to keep the noise to a minimum. No flash of lights off the tall walls of junked metal either, though.
They were on their own. The couple was behaving aggressively. Over-aggressively. The sort of behavior two killers hoping to get away with murder might exhibit? Unwilling to go down without a fight?
Dakota saved her breath now, slowly lifting her weapon from her holster, but aiming it towards the ground.
Mrs. Hendricks noticed the motion. Her cruel eyes narrowed, her gaze piercing Dakota like some jackdaw. And then, she clicked her tongue. “Told you to leave,” she muttered. “Have it your way. Beemo! Bambam! Go!” She reached down and unhooked the strained chains from the taut collars.
The rottweilers loosed snarls and barks and then, at twin pats from their owner, bolted forward in blurs of brown and black.
“Hey! Hey, don't you—” Marcus tried to shout, but too late.
Dakota had an angle on the first hound, her finger tensed on the trigger. But shooting another person's dog? Even scumbags like this? It was protocol, but Dakota had always had a soft spot for animals with sucky owners. So she kept her gun low and instead hurtled back, shouting at Marcus, “Get off the ground! Off the ground!”
Agent Clement hadn't even drawn his weapon. Briefly, Dakota wondered just how badly the shooting on the last case had affected her partner. She could still picture the blood streaking the warehouse floor. The woman bound in a chair, the faint tap of footsteps against cold concrete and the noxious odor of blood on still air.
Marcus liked people. Shooting someone went against the grain of his character. If there was one flaw he had as an investigator, it was that he was just too damn personable.
At her shout, though, the two of them moved towards the same source of protection. The rusted-out truck.
Mr. Hendricks's eyes widened, and he flung to the side, off the hood of the car, moving towards his perilous puppies.
The dogs ignored their owner, bolting right past him, jostling him enough, though, that more of his whiskey-tea sloshed out of his mug.
He was shouting after his hounds. “Get 'em boys! Go Bambam! Go!”
Dakota didn't have time to try and intervene with the man though. Things were escalating fast. No gunshots yet. Where was backup? Shit. She flung herself stumbling onto the rusted hood of Johnny's dilapidated truck. Marcus hit it a second later.
It wasn't like most vehicles. Normally, some bodyweight would have been absorbed by a faint bounce, the tires and shocks. But as this thing was missing its tires. And probably everything else; it instead felt like slamming into a brick wall.
Dakota cursed, scrambling up; Marcus had launched over the hood with his giant gait and landed on the roof of the truck.
The chains in Mrs. Hendricks’s hand rattled where they dangled, loose and limp. The dogs snarled, teeth flashing as they both hit the front of the truck at the same time. Then came a horrible sound of unclipped claws scrambling against untreated metal.
Dakota rolled sharply, wincing where her arm scraped against the rough surface. Something cold seeped through her sleeve—spilled tea.
Slobber speckled her exposed ankle. Teeth scored across the rubber of her shoe. She shouted, kicking out—a shove-kick, sending one of the dogs flying back. Her sympathy for the curs didn't extend to the possibility of rabies.
“Told you two to get!” Hendricks crowed.
His wife was trying to tug his arm, though, dragging him back and whispering fiercely in his ear. Dakota could only pick out the occasional word over the sound of her own beating heart, her scrambling motions on the metal hull, and the hullabaloo of the rottweilers.
“...out of here...” she was saying. “More... up...”
Her husband muttered a few times, yanking his arm petulantly from her grip, but at last he seemed to relent. He allowed his wife to guide him hurriedly away from the dog and the agents, hastening down a row of old jalopies. More strange metal sculptures stared out with vacant eyes along the road that led away from the car. Then, the couple disappeared around the edge of a shipping container, vanishing.
Dakota's heart pounded as Marcus dragged her onto the roof next to him. The two of them pressed back-to-back, legs tucked up, huddled against each other and, momentarily, out of the reach of the hounds. The dogs hadn't yet realized if they reached the top of the hood, they could then make their way to the roof. Instead, they were now at the base of the left passenger-side door, both snarling, leaping, claws scraping against the metal doors before landing back on the weeds and yellow grass. They circled a couple of times, trying from different angles, still glaring and growling.
Dakota felt a flicker of frustration. Her gun was holstered again, and she was loathe to draw it, even to protect against the dogs. For now, they were safe. But if one of the hounds got near to mauling Marcus, she realized—with a sinking sensation—she wouldn't have a choice. She'd have to put it down.
Still, for the moment, it hadn't come to that.
Her heart pounded. The dogs scraped and scratched and slobbered.
And then, a new sound.
An engine. The grumble of an old, struggling vehicle. A second later, a small pieced-together jalopy emerged around the edge of the same shipping container. This car was moving fast. A cloud of black smoke spat up from the exhaust, trailing with the dirt on the air.
Mr. Hendricks was whooping and hollering, pumping a fist out of the window as they sped hastily past the stationary agents on their island of rust.
Mrs. Hendricks was driving, and didn't look towards Dakota, keeping her eyes fixed on the cramped road that led back out of the junkyard.
“Shit!” Dakota snapped.
She stared, glaring after the fleeing vehicle. They couldn't stay up here—the suspects would get away. She felt her stomach twist, turn. She gritted her teeth and then raised her weapon.
No choice. She had to do it. She aimed, then pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
The gunshot rang in her ears with a loud snap like a firecracker. Her aim was true. One of the mannequins toppled with a loud crash slamming into a stack of washing machines. At the sound, the rottweilers turned sharply, still panting, still slobbering. Dakota shot another mannequin. This one toppled as well, ricocheting off the corrugated metal side of the shipping container. One of the mannequins' heads fell off, hitting the ground and rolling.
Bambam first spotted the head, turning faintly.
“Go on,” Dakota muttered beneath her breath. “Come on—just go!”
She shot the mannequin head again, sending it rolling like a ball across the ground. “Nice aim,” Marcus muttered.
Dakota shushed him, nudging him towards the edge of the car in the opposite direction of the beheaded mannequin.
Both the dogs were now facing the rolling white ball-shaped item. They shot frustrated looks back towards their prey perched on the top of the rusted truck. But now, the loud bangs from the gun were frightening them. While the playful tottering of the mannequin head was enticing.
It took them a few more seconds to make up their minds. Precious seconds in which the Hendricks were still speeding away in their junker vehicle. Instead of heading towards the road, though, they reached the gate and instead turned sharply to the left back into the junkyard, along a row of stacked cars. Dakota couldn't be sure why, but she supposed backup was possibly visible now on the horizon.
Still, there was likely more than one exit to this place.
Finally, as one of the forearms of a metal creation toppled and began rolling down a slope, the rottweilers turned and broke towards their new toys, scampering after the head and arm.
“Now!” Dakota hissed.
Marcus and Dakota shoved off the truck, hitting the ground softly and moving as quickly, but silently, as possible back up the road, towards the gate.
They both broke into a sprint. The dogs suddenly barked, and Dakota heard the sound of pursuing paws.
“The car!” she shouted. “Get to the car!” She could only hope she'd bought enough time by sending the dogs the other direction for those precious few seconds.
Marcus and Dakota sprinted down the hill, shoulder to shoulder, choking and coughing on the dust and exhaust lingering on the air. It smelled of diesel and cigarette smoke.
The dogs chased after them. The fifty-foot gap they'd managed to create rapidly closed. Far, far faster than Dakota would've first thought possible.
Thirty feet. Twenty.
The dogs covered the distance in a blur of brown and black. Ahead, past the gate, Dakota's eyes settled on their parked vehicle. The sound of keys jangled next to her where Marcus held them in one hand. She noticed his other hand kept pumping at his side but occasionally tapping against his holster as if assuring himself it was still there.
But for the moment, he was following her lead. Neither of them wanted to kill the dogs. And neither of them wanted to get mauled or let the Hendricks escape.
At a breakneck pace, the two of them sprinted towards the ajar gate and their motionless vehicle.
The dogs closed the distance—if they'd been well-fed or watered, at all, Dakota felt nearly certain they would've caught up. As it was, though, the hounds were already tired, lagging. But still, doggedly, they pursed.
Ten feet, five. The slobbering, the snarling was the ghoul at her heels. Dakota reached the gate, slipping through; Marcus followed a second later. The headlights flashed as he clicked the locks.
“Get in! Get in!” he shouted.
Dakota ripped her door open, and Marcus followed a second later. Bambam caught the edge of Dakota's sleeve, ripping at it, but coming away with fabric.
She flung herself into the car; Marcus did also.
The doors slammed in synchronization, and suddenly, the sounds from outside their stationary vehicle were muted. The panting, the barking, the growling faded to a muffled background noise. Now, the only sound was the heavy breathing and faint coughing inside the vehicle as the two agents tried to dislodge the dust from their throats.
“Shit,” Dakota said.
“Crap,” Marcus concurred.
They both heaved, leaning back in their seats. Dakota knew dogs didn't know how to work handles, but just in case, she pressed the lock to her door. In the mirror, behind them, about a mile up the road, she spotted flashing blue and red.
“Backup,” she muttered.
Marcus nodded, letting out a wheezing breath. “Maybe we should've waited.”
Dakota shook her head though, pointing at the cameras. “They would've seen us waiting. Might've let them grab a weapon, or bolt. We need to go after them, Clement. Each second wasted...”
Marcus sighed, his massive chest rising and falling beneath his unbuttoned suit top. The comic book shirt beneath was stained with sweat. He shook his head in frustration but then muttered, “I know... I know...” He slipped the keys into the ignition, started the car, and began to trundle back towards the gates just long enough to warn the hounds. The rottweilers backed away, still barking, but now very much a nuisance rather than a threat.
Marcus brought their car against the gate, bumping the metal further open until they were able to crawl through the entrance. Then, he turned sharply on the side road where the Hendricks had escaped. The dust was still swirling, lingering on the air.
“Think they're gone?” Marcus said.
Dakota just adamantly shook her head. “They spotted the cops and peeled off. Must be there's another way out of here.”
Clement picked up the pace, flooring the pedal, hastening through the junkyard, moving along a maze of metal and scrap. More sculptures and metal creations leered down at them from along the side of the road, like some poorly constructed Halloween haunted house.
The attempts at depth or artistic expression only made Dakota's skin crawl. She couldn't shake the images of the very real victims these killers had left behind. The stall-tenders back at the convention had seemed certain. Two killers. It would've taken two people to lift such heavy metal bars. And now, their two suspects were out of sight.
Marcus reached the end of the large space, turning up the dirt path.
Dakota suddenly froze. “There!” she pointed sharply.
Marcus followed her indicating finger. His eyes suddenly widened as he spotted the source of their suspects' delay.
Another gate. This one locked. Mrs. Hendricks was still sitting in the driver's seat, pounding her hand against the horn in order to rush her husband. Johnny was busy trying to find the proper key, attempting to fit it into a padlock for the gate that led onto a long, dirt road heading in the opposite direction from the front entrance.
“Go!” Dakota shouted. “Go! Marcus!”
“I'm going!” he shouted back.
And he was. They zipped faster, faster along the road. Dakota bit her lip, feeling a surge of excitement. The two junkyard owners were shouting at each other now. Still struggling to find the proper key for the—
Johnny crowed, pumping a fist very much in the same way he had when leaving the agents to his hounds. The padlock came off. The chain rattled and he tossed it over his shoulder towards Marcus's vehicle. They were still about a hundred feet away. But closing the distance.
Johnny flung himself through the window as his wife nearly ran him over.
Dakota cursed in frustration. They were going to get away. The gate was open now. The backup wouldn't know about this off-grid road. Did it even lead back to a highway?
“Marcus, careful!” Dakota said suddenly.
Her eyes were fixed on a tall stack of precariously placed vehicles on the other side of the gate, about twenty paces past where Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks were picking up speed. This part of the junkyard extended past this second exit, closed off by fencing and wire. The tops of the jutting cars were visible over the barbed wire. Johnny was pumping his fist again.
Dakota cursed, shouted, “Steady!” Then, as Marcus gripped the wheel, she lowered her window, catching a mouthful of exhaust and dust. She leaned out the window, trying not to gag, aiming towards the stacked cars.
Her eyes were on a truck that still had its tires—somewhat inflated—halfway up the mountain of vehicular rejects.
She aimed, heart in her throat. Fired. Missed. Fired again. Hit.
One of the tires popped. The Hendricks had made it through their gate, and were navigating along the bumpy, jarring road ahead, slower than before, but still moving.
Marcus yelled in surprise.
“Watch out!” Dakota warned.
The popped tired on the precariously balanced truck wobbled. The four cars stacked on top of it also shook. Then, the truck slipped.
