Dead on Arrival, page 17
Cree searched for foreclosed or abandoned properties. Danielle Sawyer had been killed here in Battle Mountain. Stood to reason she’d been hiding here when the bomber had finally caught up with her. The MDT spat out a list. He ran through it, one by one. The victim had been on the run since high school. She’d known what she was doing. Problem was, whoever had hunted her all these years was better. Nothing too close to town. Would’ve made it hard for Danielle Sawyer to stay under the radar, but not too far, either. She would’ve wanted access to a vehicle if she’d needed to ditch hers and groceries if she intended to stay a while. “Where did your sister find you?”
A cabin crept up the screen, and Cree stopped scrolling. Familiarity lanced through him. He pressed back into the leather seat. His grandfather’s cabin. It had been years since the old man had passed away, and Cree hadn’t ever intended to go back. Hadn’t hired anyone to take care of it while he was on tour or working the bomb squad up in Larimer County.
It was the perfect safe house.
Not too far.
Not too close.
And nowhere near any nosy neighbors.
“Gotcha.” Cree shut the terminal lid and put the truck into gear. Tires protested as he hit the accelerator and pulled away from the curb. The steering wheel caught on the blisters under his fingers. Sunlight reflected off the ash-covered badge he’d set on the dashboard, keeping him in the moment. Trees thickened the faster he raced along one of two roads out of town until he couldn’t see Battle Mountain in the rearview mirror at all.
His sense of direction and the fact his grandfather had forced him to memorize a map of the area had him pulling off the main road earlier than what would get him to the cabin fastest. The truck’s hood dipped and rose along the dirt and gravel road, and he slowed to a near crawl so as not to kick up dust. If the bomber had ambushed her sister at the cabin and then gone to extreme lengths to hide her involvement, she might not have had time to get the lay of the land. He cut the truck’s automatic daytime lights and pulled in headfirst beneath an overgrown tree Cree had used for target practice all those years ago. “Here we go.”
Eyes on the cabin higher up the mountain, he reached for the glove box and found another of the chief’s backup weapons. He shouldered out of the truck and closed the driver’s-side door behind him as quietly as possible. After checking the magazine, he loaded a round into the chamber and wedged it between his lower back and waistband. He rounded the hood of the truck. Hatchet scars scored the thin bark along the tree’s trunk, and at the base, covered in pine needles, he found the hatchet his grandfather had gifted him for his eighteenth birthday, the last time they’d been together before the old man had passed. Cree smoothed his thumb along the handle, then gripped it hard.
He kept low and moved fast through the trees, making sure he was never in sight of the cabin’s west window positioned in the living room. His heart thudded steadily behind his ears. A late-model gray sedan demanded attention from the gravel driveway, and confirmation pulsed through him. Crouching low behind the vehicle, he slid his fingers the length of the tire treads. Same pattern he’d discovered behind the bakery where Alma had last been seen. This was it. His partner was in there, and he wasn’t going back to town without her.
The muscles along the backs of his legs burned as he maneuvered around the rear of the vehicle. Distraction. Agent Freehan had trained with the best of the best over the years. She knew her way around explosive devices. No telling how many she’d planted in case someone got too close.
There. The stockpile of wood had grown since the time he’d left this place behind. Whether it’d been seen to by Danielle Sawyer or her sister in recent months, it didn’t matter. What did matter was the white bricks of C4 hidden inside. Travis Foster’s construction manager had reported twenty pounds of the explosive missing from their worksite. The bomber had already gone through at least ten between the gulch, Galaxy Electronics, Cree’s truck, the lake, and the station, leaving ten pounds unaccounted for. Agent Freehan had mostly likely positioned similar devices around the perimeter here.
Cree gripped the hatchet before embedding it into a nearby log. Crossing beneath the west window, he crouched in front of the stockpile and pulled the device free. No countdown. This one had been set up to detonate with a remote trigger. A cell phone in this case. Clever. One press of a button and the entire cabin and the surrounding property would go up in flames. Carefully detaching the cell phone from the device, he scanned through the call log. Only one number in the history. Memorizing it, he reattached the phone and worked his way back to the vehicle in the driveway. He slid under the frame and used the pliability of the C4 to attach the homemade device to the undercarriage. “Let’s see what you do with a taste of your own medicine, Freehan.”
In seconds, he left the safety of the vehicle and retreated into the woods, finding five more devices like the one he’d discovered positioned strategically at the cabin’s structural walls. Taking position at the clearing’s edge, he unpocketed his own phone and dialed the number from the trigger’s call history. The line rang once. Twice.
“Agent Freehan.” The same voice he’d heard over Danielle Sawyer’s voice mail grated along his nerves, out of breath, and Cree’s body tightened in response. The screams of a kid staticked through the line, and his insides constricted.
“Let my partner walk out of there on her own two feet with the boy, and I’ll let you do the same,” he said.
“Officer Gregson, how nice of you to join us. I’m curious, though. How did you get this number? Couldn’t have been from the friend you had looking into me at the ATF. You and I both know I’ve been doing this too long to make a simple mistake like using my work phone for personal calls.” Freehan’s outline crossed in front of the east window as she searched the perimeter. She wanted him to know she knew he’d sent someone to look into her, throw him off guard, maybe make him rethink his approach, but it wouldn’t work. Red hair swept over her shoulders as she leaned into the glass, and he backed into the tree line. She moved onto the next window, making it easy to track her movements. “You took apart my security system, didn’t you?”
“Not all of it. Just enough to ensure whatever you had planned won’t work.” Cree kept to the trees as he rounded the property. “Where are Alma and the boy?”
“Right here, of course,” Freehan said. “Although I can’t guarantee your partner will be here much longer.”
“We’ll see about that.” He ended the call, then dialed a second number. Cree crossed the overgrown space between the tree line and the south wall of the cabin. He hit the green button to connect.
The explosion ripped through the sedan.
Chapter Fifteen
The boy’s screams kept her conscious, almost willing her to stay in the fight.
Then an explosion rocked through one side of the cabin.
The quake rolled beneath her and threatened to bring down the entire structure. The window above the kitchenette shattered. Glass rained down around her. Alma rolled to her bleeding side. Her stitches hadn’t been enough to keep her wound together during the fight, but she couldn’t give in. Not yet. Blood escaped from between her clenched teeth. She spat to clear her mouth and her senses as Agent Freehan rocked back on her heels.
Now was her chance.
Alma wiped the blood from her mouth and lunged.
Shoving the bomber over the countertop, she gripped the back of Freehan’s head and rocketed it into the counter. One of the drawers shook from the impact. Alma fisted a handful of the agent’s long hair but had to let go at the swift swipe of a knife from the butcher block. She fell back against the floor as Agent Freehan advanced.
“Nobody is taking him from me.” The baby’s cries intensified as if on cue. Both hands wrapped around the knife’s handle, the bomber held it over her head. Ready to plunge it in Alma’s chest.
Alma rolled as fast as she could just as the tip of the blade imbedded into the floor, and she got to her feet. Spanning her arms wide, she searched for a weapon—anything that would counter a kitchen knife—and brushed against a set of dusty curtains. She ripped one panel free just as Agent Freehan attacked, knife first.
Alma wrapped the fabric around the bomber’s wrist and twisted as hard as she could. The pop of a fractured bone barely registered through the toddler’s screams. She pinned her attacker’s arm against her injured side and tightened her hold on the curtain panel. “Your sister didn’t deserve to die in that gulch. All she wanted was to escape the past, but you wouldn’t let her. You were so determined to make her pay for something she wasn’t responsible for that you wasted your entire life instead of trying to move on.”
An echo of that pain reverberated through Alma as she considered how many months she’d wasted following the same path. Hurt, determined to be alone, using the past as a crutch to keep herself from moving forward. But Cree had brought hope and light into her life. He’d given her the strength to face down the shadows that had become so deeply ingrained she hadn’t seen a way out of the darkness. That strength, she realized, had been there all along. It had just taken someone like him to prove she was more than a victim, more than a trauma survivor. That she wasn’t alone. “You’re going to spend the rest of your life behind bars because you wouldn’t take responsibility for your own happiness.”
Agent Freehan launched her free arm for another strike, but Alma was faster. With both hands pinned, the killer raged to gain some semblance of control. “You have no idea what she took from me.”
“She didn’t take anything.” Alma hauled her boot into the side of the bomber’s knee, and the agent collapsed to the floor. Tightening her hold around the curtain panel, she forced Agent Freehan to drop the knife. Metal met wood with a hard thud. “You were never a victim. No matter how many times you’ve tried to convince yourself otherwise, you don’t get to have your happily-ever-after.” The bomber’s own words from the voice mail she’d left her sister echoed through Alma’s head. “It’s over.”
“No.” Agent Freehan struggled against the pressure on her broken wrist, a fire Alma had seen all too often during her marriage in the killer’s eyes. “This isn’t over. This isn’t how it ends for me.”
The boy quieted down, watching in angst, but still clenching small fists, his bottle forgotten. The cabin’s front door crashed inward, and Alma’s fight instincts automatically responded. Until recognition flared. “Cree.”
Her partner stood in the doorframe, what looked like a hatchet in one hand and his phone in the other. He scanned the room and took in her hold on Agent Freehan. Cree had come for her. “Looks like I missed one hell of a party. Agent Freehan, nice to meet you face-to-face.”
The bomber didn’t answer, didn’t even seem to breathe as she seethed.
A wave of dizziness crowded Alma’s head as the entire investigation over the past four days led to this. She released her numb grip from the curtain panel and slumped back against the wall. She forced her fingernails into the palms of her hands to keep herself from mentally detaching. The boy’s cries filtered in and out through the pulse thudding hard at the back of her skull, and she crossed the room. Red stains of distress across the baby’s face paled as she reached into the pack-and-play and hefted him to her chest. “You’re safe now. I’m going to get you to your daddy at the hospital. Okay? He’s worried about you, but you’ll be together soon enough. You’re safe.” She automatically bounced him on her hip, pressing a hand into his back. The cries quieted, and she set her temple against his warm cheek.
“Any sudden movements, Agent Freehan, and your car will be the least of your worries.” Cree wrenched the killer’s hands behind her back, ignoring the groan of pain from her broken wrist, and produced a set of cuffs from his back pocket.
Sirens echoed off the cliffs, and Alma stepped near the window in time to see a Battle Mountain patrol cruiser dipping and climbing up the dirt road. Flames charred stretches of gravel as she took in the aftermath but didn’t shift toward the cabin.
It was over.
She soothed small circles into the boy’s back as Cree led Agent Freehan toward the front door. Then froze. The curtain panel stretched the length of the floor where she’d left it. But where was the knife she’d forced the killer to drop? Alma turned after Cree. Too late. “Watch out!”
Agent Freehan wrenched free of Cree’s hold and dropped to the floor. Faster than Alma thought possible, the bomber rolled, maneuvering her cuffed wrists under her boots, just as Alma had at the lake. Freehan pulled the knife from beneath her leather jacket and focused her wrath at Alma.
One second. Two.
“No!” Alma spun to protect the boy and braced for the striking pain of the blade.
Only it never came.
A rough exhale reached her ears. She twisted around, her hold tight on the boy. And found Cree standing between her and Agent Freehand. Too close. The woman’s expression warped from surprise into satisfaction, and Alma’s heart shot into her throat. Just as the front door burst open. “Cree?”
He didn’t answer.
“Battle Mountain PD! On the ground! Now!” Easton Ford raised his weapon and targeted Agent Freehan.
The killer raised both hands still bound by the cuffs and backed away from Cree, the knife no longer in her grip. She followed instructions and got down on one knee, then the other, before laying face-first on the floor. Cold eyes found Alma, and Agent Freehan smirked. “You took something of mine. I take something of yours.”
Cree collapsed, drawing a panicked scream from her throat.
“No!” Tightening her hold on the toddler, Alma dropped to her knees as the pain in her shoulder screamed for relief. It took more effort than she’d imagined to turn him onto his back. A line of blood escaped the corner of his mouth. “Hang on. Help is already on the way. Just hang on.”
Forest green eyes found hers—slowly—and Cree intertwined his hand with hers. The wound spat blood around the blade still protruding from his rib cage. Too deep, but she couldn’t risk removing it. He might bleed internally before the EMTs had a chance. “Your...theory worked. The skull. You...found her.”
“Shh. Try not to talk right now.” In an instant, she was back in that gulch, watching an innocent life drain in front of her eyes, and there hadn’t been anything she could do. “Save your energy.”
“Danielle Sawyer.” A rough cough clenched every muscle in his body, and Alma strengthened her grip in his hand. “You found her.”
Tears burned in her eyes. Tears for the pain he suffered, for the time she’d wasted trying to hide from the world, for the potential loss between them. Tears for the victim and the pain she must’ve endured to protect her son. The boy set his head against her shoulder. Her side protested from the added weight of his small body, but she wasn’t going to let him go. “We found her. Together.”
Easton dragged Agent Freehan outside.
Cree’s eyelids fell as he sucked in a ragged breath. His grip on her hand lightened, but Alma would hold on longer for the both of them if that was what she was required to do. “I was never...going to go back.”
“I know.” Distant sirens bounced off the cliff walls and pierced through the pops of the smoldering vehicle outside. Her knees went numb pressed against the floor, but she wouldn’t leave him. Ever. Cree had saved her. In more ways than one.
Without his knowledge of explosives and all the packages they came in, Agent Freehan would’ve gotten her way days ago. And without his compassion and ability to see past the mask she wore for the people of this town, she wouldn’t have developed the strength to rise above her hurt. Therapy, a groundbreaking book, a new mind set on life and recovery—none of it had compared to his willingness to help her to be seen again instead of hiding behind the pain. She wasn’t a lone survivor. He’d made her story part of his story, and she loved him for it. Alma soothed circles into his hand just as he’d done for her back at his apartment. She had to keep him talking. She had to keep him alive. “Cree, look at me.”
The seconds ticked off one by one, and the pressure behind her rib cage intensified the longer he lay there, unmoving.
His eyelids strained to open, and a hint of a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. The sirens were growing closer, but Cree was fighting a losing battle. They wouldn’t make it in time. “Hey, partner.”
She shifted on her knees, centering herself and the toddler in his limited vision. Her tears dropped to his T-shirt. “I love you.”
* * *
“YOU CERTAINLY KNOW how to party down here in the middle of nowhere,” a deep voice said.
A sense of familiarity punctuated through the weight of painkillers and gravity cementing Cree in place. He knew that voice. Although it had been a couple days since he’d heard it last. Prying his eyes open, he took in the whitewashed walls he’d hoped never to see again. Same monitors, too. He took in the sterile tile and scratchy bedding. Battle Mountain’s emergency clinic.
Movement registered off to his left from the side of the bed, and the outline of well-built strength consumed his attention. Kendric Hudson locked mishappen brown eyes on him, and the past rushed to meet the present. The ATF’s newest bomb squad technician instructor Cree had pulled from the ecoterrorist attack had sustained permanent scarring along one side of his face. The same scarring carved down Cree’s back.
“You look as bad as I feel.” His voice scraped along his throat as Cree attempted to sit higher in the bed. A dull ache ignited across his midsection. Two broken ribs were nothing compared to cold metal slicing through body parts never meant to see the light of day. A groan escaped his control, and he set his head back against the pillows stacked behind him. “The sheriff called in a favor, didn’t he? He sent you to convince me to come back.”
