Chapter Forty-Eight
Crouching, King scanned the ground. Their footprints were ridiculously easy to follow in the snow. This wasn’t even going to be a challenge. They couldn’t be too far ahead, or the snow would have obliterated their tracks.
They were following a game trail toward Grey Lake. Once they reached it, Kruger would take them around to the populated side of the lake. It was a solid plan.
But Ms. Dane was not in top condition. She was smart and tough, but physically, she was soft. It was no insult. She was a hell of a woman, though maybe a bit too intelligent. In his opinion, women shouldn’t try to compete with men. But even with that one flaw, Ms. Dane was the first woman he’d ever admired. Not that he desired her. He had no interest in a relationship with anyone. He liked being alone. But for the first time, he might have a real regret after he killed someone.
Not that it would stop him.
If he had to choose between Ms. Dane and himself, the choice was damned simple. Besides, women made men weak. Ms. Dane would be the end of Kruger. Like a wolf targeting the weakest, trailing member of the herd, King only had to catch up with her. Kruger would be at her side.
He’d kill the pair of them and dispose of their bodies. No one would find them. Either he’d borrow a boat and sink them in the middle of the lake. Or he’d bury them where he’d left Vic in ’94.
Wouldn’t it be ironic to put Kruger next to the father he’d been looking for all these years?
He straightened and followed the trail of footprints. The snow had brightened the landscape enough that he didn’t need his flashlight. He followed their trail. They were headed toward the stream that fed the lake. The woods opened at the edge of a gully. If he hadn’t known it was there, he might have slid into it.
The footprints turned toward the lake, following the flow of the water. He kept as far away from the drop-off as possible, stopping when the ground in front of him fell away. He crouched again. Digging the flashlight from his pocket, he risked a quick look at the trail. He did not want to end up in the gully. But beneath the fresh landslide, he saw a clear path through broken foliage. Something large had gone over the edge.
One of them had fallen.
Anticipation surged through his veins as he illuminated the slope, searching for a way down. He picked his way carefully down to the bottom of the embankment and examined the ground. They’d spent some time here, and the tracks leading away were different. He spotted something red in the snow. Blood. One of them was injured. That’s why the footprints were closer together—more shuffling and less striding. The stream ran though the bottom of a deep gully. The embankments were steep, hard enough for a fit man to climb, let alone an injured person. They’d be stuck in the gully until it reached the lake. This would almost be too easy.
He followed their trail, breaking into a light jog. Excitement invigorated him. The hunt was almost over.
After he’d eliminated Kruger and Dane, he’d take care of Sharp. Then he was home free. Every thread between him and Mary would be severed.
Almost all, he corrected. But Owen Walsh would be dead soon enough. Paranoid Owen, who had been riddled with guilt and fear for more than two decades. Owen had called him the second Lincoln Sharp had attempted to make contact. Now Owen had only weeks to live. Cancer was eating him with the same efficiency as his conscience had over the years. Soon, Owen would be gone, and he would be the only one who knew what had happened that night.
In the parking lot of PJ’s, he assessed the fallout. Three drunken fools had beaten the crap out of each other over a woman. If the three men had been less drunk and more intelligent, at least one of them would have realized that Mary was a hooker. She would have done all of them in turn for the right amount of money. What a bunch of assholes.
As chief deputy, it was his responsibility to sort the mess out.
He pointed to one of the deputies on duty. “Bill, you follow these two idiots to the ER. When they’ve been cleared, bring them into the station for processing.” He turned to another deputy. “Owen, you drive this asshole to the station.” He handed off Lou Ford, still cursing and arguing and being a drunken pain in the ass. Lou was a frequent flyer in the drunk and disorderly department.
Mary tried to slink off through the parking lot, but he spotted her.
“You’re under arrest too,” he said once he’d caught up with her.
She propped a fist on her hip. “You’re kidding?”
“We both know I have no sense of humor.” He cuffed her and put her in his patrol car. Like Lou Ford, it wasn’t her first ride in his back seat. “P. J. is tired of you soliciting customers. He says you’re fired, by the way.”
He followed Owen back to the station. Mary was compliant. But not even a quart of Wild Turkey would make Lou Ford cooperate. He cursed and thrashed and dragged his feet. They entered the back door of the station, and he brought Mary into the corridor.
“Don’t I get a phone call?” She sulked. “I need to call my mama.”
“Little help here,” Owen called out from the doorway. Lou had planted his feet like a mule, leaning back and refusing to budge.
Son of a . . .
He unlocked one of Mary’s handcuffs and fastened it to the ring next to the payphone. Digging in his pocket, he came up with a quarter. “Here. Make your call.”
He walked to the doorway. Taking Lou’s opposite arm, he pulled. But Lou leaned over and retched. Disgust and anger reared up inside him.
“Do not puke in my station!” he yelled.
Owen had clearly had enough of this shit too. He raised a fist. At the same time that Owen punched Lou in the head, King kicked out. One sweep of his big, black cop shoe knocked Lou’s feet out from under him. Already leaning over and unbalanced, the drunk went down hard, his posture sending him over to the right. His head hit the wall with the sickening clunk of bone on cinderblock.
Lou sprawled on the floor and didn’t move.
“What did you do?” Owen yelled.
He poked Lou with a toe. Still no movement.
Owen bent over the body. One hand went to the drunk’s neck. He looked up and mouthed, “He’s dead.”
King lifted a shoulder. “He was a waste of oxygen, and his liver wouldn’t have lasted too much longer anyway.”
The man’s death didn’t bother him, but he’d have to think fast to avoid a legal fallout. The only worry on his mind was his future.
“Now what do we do?” Owen stood. Removing his campaign hat, he rubbed the top of his skull as if he was trying to stimulate his brain.
Good luck.
Owen was a decent cop, but he was no Einstein.
And this situation was going to need a solid plan. Finesse would be required.
Owen dropped his hand and shoved his hat back on his head. “We have to call the sheriff.”
“No.” King would do whatever was necessary to fix this. “My career is not going down for this piece of shit.”
“What do we do?” Owen gestured to the body at their feet. “We can’t just pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Why not?” He reached for one of Lou’s arms. “We’ll put him in the cell to sleep it off, like we’ve done before. Nothing unusual about that. When he doesn’t wake up, we’ll be surprised.”
Owen hesitated.
“He just got into a bar fight,” he argued. “Who’s to say he didn’t get hit in the head at PJ’s?”
The best lies were the simple ones.
“OK.” Owen’s arm shook as they picked up the body and dragged it into the holding cell.
The station was empty. The only other staff member on duty was the dispatcher, and he had a room to himself. They positioned Owen on his side on the cot, his body curled up as if asleep. Then they left him there.
King closed the cell door and smiled. “Done.”
“You’re forgetting something.” Owen’s gaze indicated the doorway that led into the rear corridor.
Mary.
He had forgotten about her. Unfortunately for Mary, she was a witness.
“Come on.” He moved toward the doorway.
“What are you going to do?” Owen asked.
“Just follow me.”
Mary was still cuffed to the ring in the wall. Her eyes widened as he approached her, the whites glowing in the dim corridor. She pressed her back against the wall. She knew what she’d seen and what it meant.
“How about we make a deal, Mary?” King walked closer.
She swallowed, the column of her throat undulating. “Wh-at?” Her voice trembled.
“I’ll drop the charges. You forget you were here tonight.”
Mary’s quick nod was tense and desperate.
He took off her handcuffs. “I’ll even drive you back to PJ’s.”
With one hand on her bicep, he guided her out the rear door and into the back seat of his car. He glanced over his shoulder at Owen. “Do your paperwork on Ford as if he passed out—then go back out like normal. We’ll find him dead later.”
Owen nodded.
Then King drove out into the countryside, away from Grey’s Hollow and into neighboring Scarlet Falls. If a client killed Mary, he’d want to put some distance between her body and the crime scene.
Mary pressed her hands to the side window. “This ain’t the way to PJ’s.”
At a rest stop, he pulled off the road and parked. There were no other cars in sight. Insects hummed in the warm August night. He got out of the car and opened the rear door.
“Get out,” he said.
She obeyed. Between the hem of her miniskirt and her fuck-me heels, she wobbled as she climbed from the back seat. She sidled along the car fender. He closed the rear door.
As he turned to reach for her arm, she kicked out. His hips jerked sideways. Her foot struck him high on the thigh and grazed his groin. His knees buckled, and she bolted, stepping right out of her shoes.
Shit!
Cupping his balls, he limped after her.
He recovered his stride after a couple of minutes, but she’d put a hundred feet between them. Barefoot, she hit the side of the road, turned, and ran straight up the yellow line. Ahead, her bare legs churned, but he was gaining on her.
Until he saw the one thing that could ruin his plan.
Headlights.
Screaming, Mary stayed in the center of the road and waved her arms. The vehicle slowed, then stopped. A man got out of a sedan and stepped into the beams of his headlights.
“Help me!” Mary yelled, glancing over her shoulder. “He’s going to kill me.”
He closed the gap just as Mary reached her Good Samaritan.
The man was tall and athletic-looking. “Is everything all right, Deputy?”
“Just fine. I’m arresting this woman,” he said, cuffing Mary’s arms behind her back.
“No.” Mary struggled. “He’s going to kill me! Please. Help.”
The man shifted his weight. Hell, even if the man left now, he was a risk. A witness. Thanks to Mary’s outbursts, the man would remember her.
“She’s been drinking.” He took Mary by the arm and tugged her back. “You can get back in your car now, sir. I have everything under control.”
The man pivoted, slowly, uncertainly. When the man’s back was turned, he pulled his baton off his duty belt and hit him over the head. The man’s legs crumbled. He went down hard.
Mary screamed again.
He had to get her off this road.
“Shut up.” Anger roared inside him as he knocked her to the ground and straddled her. With her hands cuffed behind her back, she couldn’t resist. His fingers were around her throat. He squeezed until she was still and lifeless and fucking quiet.
He stopped, panting.
She was dead.
Fuck! That hadn’t been part of the plan.
Her death should have looked like an accident. No chance of that with his fingermarks around her neck.
Now what?
Now he had two more deaths to cover up, that’s what.
He’d have to improvise. He ran to the vehicle and opened the trunk. Hauling Mary off the pavement, he put her inside. Then he dragged the man to the back of the car and muscled him in too. Sliding behind the wheel, he opened the glove compartment and found the registration. Victor Kruger lived in Scarlet Falls.
Correction: Had lived in Scarlet Falls.
He needed a plan to get rid of both bodies and the car. The car he could sink in Grey Lake. If he put Victor at the wheel of his car, the deaths could look like a combination murder and suicide. But they would have no connection to one another. Murder-suicides were typically crimes of passion, born of the desperation that came from twisted love.
If these bodies were ever discovered, what he needed was a way to make it appear as if Victor killed Mary and then left town. The car could go in the lake with Mary in the trunk. He’d bury Vic in the woods. He knew just the spot. When it was done, he’d call Owen for a pickup. Owen was an accessory. He’d keep his mouth shut.
A twig cracked ahead, pulling his attention back to his task. Kruger and Dane must be just ahead. He slowed his pace, easing along the trail. The footprints muddied in the snow, as if they’d stopped to rest. His gaze fell to the spot of blood in the snow ahead. He walked closer. They couldn’t be far, not with one of them still bleeding.
The footprints disappeared into the thick foliage of an evergreen tree. Could they be trying to hide? With slow and silent steps, he eased forward and separated the branches of the evergreen. She huddled on the ground, wet, cold, and scraggly as a lost kitten.
“Ms. Dane. Nice to see you.” He gestured with the barrel of the rifle. Her hand was bloody.
Ms. Dane lifted her hands. Her skin and lips were blue, and she staggered as she tried to get to her feet. Even if he hadn’t found her, she wouldn’t have lasted much longer. She was running on pure determination, which he admitted, she had in spades.
It was a shame she had to die.
“Where’s Kruger?” he asked.
“He went ahead for help.” She swayed on her feet. “I can’t walk anymore.”
Kruger would never leave her.
“Liar.” King whipped the rifle around and smacked her in the face with the butt of the stock. She crumpled to the ground and lay in the snow, unmoving. He hadn’t delivered a full-force blow, hadn’t meant to knock her out, only to stun her. But she was a more delicate creature than he was accustomed to handling. Whatever. At this point, he needed to be flexible and keep his eyes on the prize. Now he would use her as bait.
He aimed the rifle at her face. “Come on out, Kruger. I know you can hear me. You have three seconds to show yourself before I pull the trigger.”