Payback, page 32
“So what do we do next?” Justin’s quiet question had Gin and Trey exchanging a look.
“It’s still early enough that Hillyer should be finishing up his day at the dealership,” Trey said.
“And hopefully we can surprise them.” She inclined her head toward her partner. “We’ll need some backup.”
Trey nodded. “I’ll call Chief Mannis.”
An hour later, Gin, Trey, and Justin were standing in the parking lot of a strip mall a few blocks down the street from the Hillyer car dealership. The two-story showroom wasn’t visible from their position, but that was by design. Gin had wanted the element of surprise, so even though they couldn’t see the showroom, no one inside it could see them either.
Four squad cars and an armored vehicle with a heavily armed SWAT team riding in it were parked at random spots on the far edges of the lot. Their presence was starting to draw a rapidly growing crowd as the officers quietly moved between parked cars and ushered sales staff and customers alike out of the area.
Gin watched Chief Mannis walking toward them, accompanied by two officers carrying bulletproof vests. The small group stopped in front of Gin, their eyes flat and faces grim.
“We’ve checked the records, and Hillyer has a half dozen firearms registered in his name. Once we verified that the suspect was at work, we sent a couple of officers to his house. They accounted for all the registered weapons, except for two. An AR-15 rifle and a Beretta pistol are missing.”
“Semi-automatics,” Trey said in a low voice.
“They are that, son,” Mannis confirmed. He gestured to the officers standing behind him. They stepped forward and held out the vests to the three agents. “I agreed to giving you a ten-minute head start, but in return, you all need to put these on. They’re equipped with a communication device, so be sure to put those attached headsets on as well. I want to know what you’re doing for every one of those ten minutes.”
Gin reached over and unhooked the strap from her gun holster. She’d never been particularly fond of the Kevlar vests, but she wasn’t about to waste any time arguing with the chief of police.
She set her gun harness on the hood of their car and slipped the barrel of her Glock under her belt at the small of her back. She pulled the vest over her head and strapped it into place while Trey and Justin did the same. Shrugging back into her jacket, she put the headset on, then tried out a few test words which got her a thumbs-up, not only from her two team members but also from the head of SWAT who was standing next to his armored vehicle.
The chief gave a quick, approving nod. “Good. Now, what’s your plan, Agent Reilly?”
“To go in quietly and hopefully corner him inside his office,” Gin said. “Agents Robard and Cameron will take the flanking positions, and I’ll cover the middle.”
Mannis’ eyebrows immediately beetled together. “You’re taking the middle?”
Gin set her feet apart and gave him a polite smile. “We’re all qualified shooters, Chief. I’m the lead on the case, so I take the middle.”
A shadow of a smile crossed the chief’s lips. “I’m old enough to be old-fashioned about it, Agent Reilly, but smart enough to know not to raise any objections.” He glanced at his watch. “We don’t want to run into any coffee breaks or someone calling it quits early, so you’d better get going.” He tapped his wrist. “You have your ten minutes, and then we’ll be rolling in behind you.”
The drive along the two blocks to the dealership was made in silence. Not wanting to attract any attention, Trey leisurely pulled into the parking lot, then selected a space where they had a clear view of the showroom with its all-glass front and several cars on display inside.
“It doesn’t look like there’s anyone around,” Justin noted from his position in the back seat.
“No, it doesn’t,” Gin agreed. She tapped a finger lightly against the earpiece of her headset. “The place appears deserted. We might be looking at a hostage situation. Stand by.” She lifted a standard-sized piece of paper with a floor plan printed on it off the dashboard where she had set it after leaving the hotel that morning. “According to this, Hillyer’s office is on the second floor, and the stairs going up there are located in the middle of the showroom.” She held the paper up so her team could get one last look at how the showroom and second floor offices were laid out. After folding the paper into quarters and tucking it inside her jacket pocket, she cracked open the car door and glanced at Trey. “Let’s go.”
“I’ve got left,” Trey said over his shoulder to Justin who was close behind him.
“I’m going right,” Justin responded.
Gin waited by the car for several long moments, watching the two men work their way toward opposite ends of the building. Holding her gun at her side, in case there was a chance everyone at the dealership was in an afternoon briefing of some kind, her gaze scanned the roofline as she approached the building. Not spotting anyone, she slowly walked up the three cement steps. Standing in front of the glass doors, she still didn’t see anyone.
Lifting her Glock into a firing position, she quietly pushed open one of the doors and slipped inside, staying in a crouched position as she swept her weapon in a wide sideways arc. Everything was quiet, and even stepping across the tiled floor as lightly as possible, she could still hear her footsteps in the deafening silence.
Slowly and methodically, she made her way to the cubicle she knew was used by Michelle Hillyer. A trail of blood led from the opening, along the showroom floor, toward a doorway on the far side of the room. After quickly checking to make sure the cubicle was empty, Gin followed the blood trail.
She was moving past another open cubicle when a small movement caught her eye. Rapidly pivoting on one foot, she rounded a half wall and found herself pointing her gun right into the face of a frightened middle-aged woman.
“Please,” the cowering woman squeaked. “Please don’t shoot me.”
Gin squatted down to her level, lowering her gun until the barrel was pointing at the floor. “Shh. Stay quiet. I’m with the FBI. Are you the only one in here?”
“Y-y-e-s,” the woman said through chattering teeth. “He took everyone’s phones then locked them all in the break room, but I ducked behind my desk before he saw me.”
“Who locked everyone in the breakroom?”
“Mr. Hillyer.” Frightened eyes rolled up to the ceiling. “We have a meeting every morning and everyone is supposed to go. I was the last one out here and about to join the others when he came down from his office on the second floor, acting like a crazy person. He was shouting when he walked into the breakroom, and I think I heard a gunshot. Then I saw him walk back out and lock the door. I crawled under my desk, so I couldn’t see much else after that, but I think he walked into Mrs. Hillyer’s cubicle and punched her in the face or something, because he dragged her right past me, with her kicking and screaming the whole way. And blood was gushing out her nose like someone had turned a faucet on full force.”
“Did he go back up to his office?” Gin asked.
“I don’t know,” the woman sobbed. “I don’t think so. I think he went up the emergency stairwell, because I heard a heavy door slam, and there isn’t a door to the second floor. You have to go up those steps.” She pointed a shaking finger at the staircase on the far side of the showroom.
“Where does the stairwell go?” Gin asked. When all she got was a sob in response, she put a hard demand in her voice. “That stairwell. Where does it go?”
“Nowhere.” The woman’s head was down and her hands were covering her face. “It just goes up to the roof.”
“Okay. We’ll check it out,” Gin said. “What I want you to do is to stay put and keep quiet. Can you do that?”
At the sound of a gunshot coming from somewhere overhead, Gin’s shoulders visibly tightened. When the woman looked up at her with frightened tears streaming down her cheeks, Gin put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a quick, hard squeeze. “It will be all right. Just keep your head down.”
Silently swearing at their loss of being able to surprise Hillyer, Gin moved off as she spoke into her headset. “Suspect might be heading for the roof with a hostage. Team one, enter the building and meet me at the south end of the showroom. Team two, be aware there might be a gunman on the roof. One employee in an office, the others are locked in the breakroom.”
In less than twenty seconds, both Trey and Justin stepped into the building and headed for the far end, where Gin was waiting by the emergency stairwell.
“Where did that shot come from, and who’s the hostage?” Justin asked.
“It sounded like it came from the roof, and the hostage is Michelle Hillyer.” Gin gestured for the two men to line up behind her as she slowly opened the emergency door and stepped into the stairwell, her gun pointing upward as she looked and listened for any sign of movement.
Seeing none, she carefully started up the steps, moving more rapidly as the sounds of fast-approaching sirens grew louder. At the top of the stairs, she once again barely opened the door, peering through the crack, trying to locate Hillyer.
She finally spotted him, standing next to the edge of the roof, to the right of a large air conditioning unit. He was screaming at his wife who lay on the ground behind him, a pool of blood inching out from beneath her head. In between him and the door where the team was standing, was a whole lot of empty space.
As Hillyer lifted a foot off the ground and gave the unmoving Michelle a vicious kick in the side, Gin quietly shut the door and turned to look at her team, with her gaze going first to Justin. “I want you to join the SWAT team out front and create a distraction.” When he lifted a questioning eyebrow, she shook her head. “You’ll think of something. We need to get across a lot of open area to get a clean shot, and it would be nice if he had his mind on something besides us coming up behind him.”
Justin’s gaze hardened. “I’ll think of something, and you be careful. If you get yourself shot, I’m going to be pissed.” Without another word, he disappeared down the stairs.
“What now?” Trey whispered close to Gin’s ear.
“We give Justin two minutes to come up with something before we go to Plan B.”
“Do we have a Plan B?” her partner asked.
Gin shook her head. “Not yet.”
She opened the door, once again peering through the narrow slit. Hillyer had begun pacing back and forth, his attention on the growing army of cops gathering in front of the building. “No one come in here,” he shouted in an oddly shrill voice. “I’ll start shooting people if anyone comes into the building.”
While he continued to shout out threats to the crowd below, Gin counted off the seconds, almost reaching the two-minute mark when Justin’s voice blasted through a bullhorn.
“Hillyer. There isn’t anywhere for you to go. We know you started that fire at the Oasis nightclub in Denver and killed those four people. You also killed a former Roller in Louisiana and in Seattle, and burned Charlie Holt to death in his car. He was blackmailing you, wasn’t he? He knew you set the Bannon house on fire, didn’t he?”
The dealership owner started pacing faster, an agitated hand running back and forth across the top of his head as he screamed incomprehensible words back at Justin. Thinking it was now or never, Gin motioned for Trey to go left where the rooftop cooling unit gave him some cover. She headed to the right, so if Hillyer turned, he would hopefully spot her first and keep his back to Trey.
She crept along in a straight line, moving to Hillyer’s right as her partner went the other way, using the air conditioning to conceal his careful progress as he crept closer. Gin was out in the open and halfway across the roof when Hillyer suddenly turned, lifting his rifle in one smooth, practiced move.
Gin got off one shot and heard him scream before something slammed into the center of her chest, quickly followed by a second blow to her gut that sent her flying backward and cutting off her air supply from the sheer force of the double hit. She landed on her back and skidded ten feet across the rough surface before her head struck the raised wall around the perimeter of the roof. It stopped her uncontrolled movement but also had her seeing stars. She lifted her head just enough to see Trey tackle a limping Hillyer before her vision grayed at the edges and went black.
When she opened her eyes again, she could only see Justin. His face was so close to hers it filled her field of vision.
“Gin? Are you all right? Say something.”
“You’re blocking my view,” she whispered.
Justin grinned and looked over his shoulder. “She’s okay. Probably just winded from taking a couple of bullets.” He shifted his gaze back to her. “Just lie still and catch your breath. You’re going to have a nasty bruise where that hardware buried itself in the Kevlar.”
She closed her eyes. Keeping her breathing shallow to help control the pain, she turned her head to look at the wall of blue uniforms circling her, and just beyond them was Hillyer, lying on a gurney. His hands were cuffed together in front of him, and three SWAT team members stood over him as he was being attended to by a couple of paramedics. “What happened? Is Trey all right?”
Her partner’s face appeared, hovering over her. “I’m fine. Hillyer didn’t give me a lot of trouble since you put a round into his leg.” He grinned. “Nice shooting, by the way.”
Gin tried to return the smile, but it hurt too much. “What about his wife? How badly is she hurt?”
“Michelle Hillyer is dead.” This time it was Chief Mannis who answered her question. “Her husband shot her in the head before you had any chance of reaching her.”
“That’s right, I did,” Hillyer yelled. “I gave her a chance to finally get together with that football hero she worshiped so much.” He cracked out a high-pitched laugh. “Provided he’s in hell, which is where she’s headed. Payback. Payback for all the years I had to listen to her shit.”
“Get him out of here,” Mannis growled. As Hillyer’s gurney was wheeled away, the chief walked over to Gin and held out a hand. “Do you think you can sit up, or should we get you a gurney too?”
“I’ll help her, Chief,” Justin put in. “You and Trey can make that trip to the hospital we talked about to interrogate Hillyer.” When Gin made a strangled sound of protest, Justin put a gentle hand on her shoulder to keep her in place. “When you were out cold, we all decided that Trey and the chief can handle the interview while you get checked out.” When she frowned at him, some of the worry drained out of his gaze and his mouth quirked into a smile. “Unless you want to fill out another mountain of that paperwork to transfer a second prisoner to the U.S. Marshals Service?”
At the thought of Trey being buried in red tape, Gin managed a smile after all. Taking the hand Justin was holding out, she let him pull her to a sitting position. The pain had her panting as she rested her forehead against his shoulder. “I say we get some agents from the Charlotte office to deal with the marshals,” she said. “Let’s get me out of this vest and checked out. Then I’d like to get back to the hotel and a very hot shower.”
Justin’s smile grew as he helped her to her feet. “Now that sounds like a great plan. And after that shower, I vote we head to the airport and get out of here.”
Gin tried to sit up but the immediate shot of across her chest had her staying where she was. “Can you remind Trey to call Stroberg and fill him in on what happened? I don’t want him hearing it on the news.”
“He can call Stroberg on the way to the airport,” Justin said. He held out a hand.
Gin took it and let him ease her up into a sitting position. “And there’s Cheryl Young’s yearbook. I need to return it before we leave.” She closed her eyes and panted, waiting for the pain to ease before looking up at Justin.
He slipped an arm around her shoulders to give her some extra support. “We can do that too on the way to the airport.”
Smiling, she leaned against him and nodded. “Yeah, we can. Let’s do that and then go home.”
Thank you for buying Payback! There is no greater compliment to an author than someone reading your book. Don’t miss Gin’s next case as she and her team travel to the edge of one of the most remote areas in the country to track down a killer who doesn’t see Gin and Trey as hunters, but as targets. Now available for pre-order on Amazon, you can grab your copy of JAGGED EDGE here: Click here
And again, thank you!
~ CR Chandler
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C.R. Chandler, Payback
