CHAPTER SEVEN

“What is it?” Stevie asked as she and Zane entered the lobby and heard Sheila slam down the phone. They’d just processed Dawn Hazelwood, who was sitting on a bench in the back of the office, handcuffed to a ring embedded in the wall. It was serving as Solitude’s current holding cell since six inches of water still filled the town’s actual cell.

“What is wrong with people?” Sheila exclaimed. “Has the rain made everyone batty? Are their brains growing mildew? There are shots being fired. Lots of them, down at the campground near the west bend of the river.”

Stevie knew the exact place she meant.

“Who called it in?” Zane asked.

“A worried neighbor. She said it sounded like more gunfire than simply idiots blowing off steam. She said it sounded like a battle.”

“Send Kenny and Carter,” said Zane. Stevie slipped her coat back on. “Tell them to meet us at the highway marker right before the turn into the campground.”

She and Zane each got in their vehicles and drove toward the campground. The camp was run by the United States Forest Service and backed up to the Rogue River. During the summer, the campground rented tiny log cabins and nice trailer sites along with traditional spaces for tents. It was closed for the winter, but that didn’t stop people from driving around the gate and using the fishing dock. Or stop teenagers from throwing beer parties.

Two Solitude PD cruisers were parked on the highway shoulder a quarter mile from the campground. Kenny and Carter had their trunks open, gathering additional gear. She and Zane stopped behind them to hold a quick meeting. As she stepped out of the car, Stevie heard constant distant gunfire. Adrenaline shot through her nerves. She reached back into her car and grabbed the rifle at her dash, slinging it over her shoulder.

“Damn, I wish we had county backup,” Zane admitted. “I don’t like going into this situation blind.”

“I could scout ahead,” Carter suggested. “It might be target practice, you know.”

They listened to the shots, and Stevie knew that was a hopeful wish.

“No one practices here,” Kenny pointed out. “There’s a great place at the quarry a half mile away. Why would they do it here?”

“I’m going to assume it’s hostile,” Zane said. “Carter, I want you and Stevie to block the entrance with your vehicles but cut back and enter the campground by following the riverbank. Kenny and I will come in from the west on the utility access road. Everyone’s radios working?”

They all did a voice check.

“Get all the ammo you can carry,” Zane said grimly. “But our main goal is to not get shot and not let anyone else get hurt,” he emphasized. “Let’s go.” He headed back to his vehicle, Stevie on his tail. At his car, he stopped and hugged her tightly. “Don’t do anything stupid.” His voice was urgent, and he clenched her head in his hands, staring into her eyes as if he could will her safe. “Don’t let Carter do anything stupid.”

She kissed him. “Right back at you.” Stepping away, she held his gaze for a moment before she turned and walked back to her car, putting on her game face.

Please keep everyone safe.

###

Zane put Stevie out of his mind. He knew better than to worry about her. She was a better cop than the other two men, possibly better than he was. She’d worked in violent parts of Los Angeles before moving back to Solitude. He couldn’t be distracted with concerns about her safety.

But she’s my wife.

Tough. Get over it . . . I’ve got three officers who deserve my best right now.

He and Kenny drove another mile down the highway and turned onto an unmarked gravel road. Zane bumped his head as his vehicle rocked over the ruts. He’d busted numerous teens for underage drinking down this way, but they preferred to do that in the summer. At the moment, it was forty degrees and getting dark. At least the rain had paused.

He parked and Kenny stopped right behind him. Together they jogged toward the sound of gunfire. It was more intermittent now.

“Did you hear that?” asked Kenny.

“Did someone shout?”

“Yeah. And he was angry. This isn’t casual target practice.”

I knew that from the beginning.

Zane asked Carter for their location.

“We’re still on the riverbank, but we’ve passed all the campsites and are almost to the log cabins,” Carter panted. “I can see flashes from the gunfire. It’s near your end in the west.”

“Let me know what you see as you get closer.”

Zane and Kenny approached the river but kept moving in the direction of the campground. In his mind, he studied the layout of the camp. Cabins clustered at the far west end. The fishing dock ran along the river near the last of the cabins.

Visibility was getting worse, but Zane could still see a good hundred feet in front of him. The shots grew louder, and there were more shouts. He couldn’t make out the words.

“Listen!” Kenny stopped and froze behind a tree. Zane concentrated, trying to hear over the rush of the river, and thought he heard a high whine.

“Is that a dirt bike?” he whispered.

“Yeah, it’s coming in from the north. Must be on one of the hiking trails.”

“Zane,” came Carter through his earpiece. “There’s a motorcycle or something coming in.”

“We hear it.”

He gestured for Kenny to sit tight for a moment as he strained to see. A faint outline of a cabin was a hundred feet ahead at two o’clock, close to the river. He couldn’t see more cabins, but he knew they were scattered beyond it.

Directly ahead, a shadow ran in the distance. Zane tracked it to the thick trunk of a fir tree where it vanished. A moment later, gunfire flashed from a weapon’s barrel at the fir tree, pinpointing the shooter’s location.

“See that?” Kenny whispered.

“Yes.” I need backup.

The sheer danger of their situation froze him in place. He could be leading three officers into a nightmare.

A terrified scream made sweat bloom under his arms.

“Jeez,” Kenny choked out as he wiped his forehead. “Was that a kid screaming?”

Zane didn’t answer; the question was rhetorical. Liam?

Another shadowy figure moved in the dim light. This one was slightly closer, and as it stopped to fire, Zane saw a flash of his face.

Damn, if that’s not a Dodge brother.

Logic told him the first shadowy figure was the other brother.

“Stevie,” he whispered into his mic, “I think two of the shooters are the Dodge brothers.”

“Got it,” came Stevie’s reply. “Carter and I think they’re firing at someone in the cabin closest to the river. And someone in the cabin is firing back. I’ve seen flashes from a window.”

“Did you hear the scream?”

“Yeah. That was from the cabin too. Zane . . . that was a child.”

“I know.”

“Are there more shooters?” she asked. “Two in the woods, one in the cabin?”

“I don’t know. Keep your eyes open. I don’t know what happened to the dirt bike.”

“We’ve got to get the kid out. Clearly the shooters in the woods are out to hurt whoever is in the cabin.”

“Agreed. Where are you?”

“We’re behind cabin 13. It’s fifty yards northeast of the cabin with the gunfire flashes.”

“Sit tight for a few minutes. We need to get closer.”

He gestured for Kenny to follow him, and staying low, they darted to another set of trees.

The dirt bike whine moved closer. Zane and Kenny turned their attention to the north, where the engine sounds came from.

“I don’t see a headlight,” whispered Kenny. “We should see one by now.”

Unless you don’t want to be seen.

The engine cut off.

Damn, that sounded close.

A moment later, a third figure dashed from the direction of the dirt bike noise and moved in the direction of the first two shooters. Zane spotted the silhouette of a gun in his hand. Before he could speak to Kenny, the new shooter took a stance and fired in the direction where Zane had seen a Dodge brother.

Zane darted behind his tree as the racket of return fire filled the evening. The new shooter wasn’t directly between him and the brothers, but he wasn’t taking any chances with a stray bullet from the Dodges.

After a moment, he heard footsteps running in his direction. Risking a look, he saw it was the new shooter. He was tall and thin with a heavy beard, and he wore a black cap and dark clothing, blending in with his surroundings. The runner stopped and shot back at the men who had been firing on the cabin. An adult-male scream filled up the night, the shots momentarily pausing. Then came an eruption of anguished cursing.

Black Hat jogged closer to Zane’s hiding spot. He passed the tree, and Zane raised his weapon, stepped out, and spoke to the man’s back. “Stop. Solitude Police.”

The man froze and spread out his arms, holding his weapon with one finger through the trigger guard.

He looked over his shoulder, making eye contact with Zane.

“Thank God, the police are here,” he uttered.

That’s Wade Pierce.

###

Stevie and Carter peered out from behind their cabin. It was good cover, made from actual logs that were at least ten inches in diameter, but Stevie was still thankful for her vest.

Remembering Dawn’s statement about Knight Products selling faulty vests to the military infuriated her all over again. People had to trust their equipment.

“Zane says to wait here until they can get closer,” she told Carter.

“Fine by me,” muttered Carter. “Sorry, running toward gunfire makes me nervous.”

“Find your damn spine,” Stevie ordered harshly. It wasn’t time to offer sympathy. “I don’t need you flaking out on me. On all of us.”

Determination filled his face, pleasing her.

The loud river hadn’t blocked out the petrified scream a minute ago. Terror had shot to the very marrow of her bones at the noise. She’d heard a scream like that once before when a child fell during a skateboard competition. The bone sticking out of his arm had justified the otherworldly sounds.

Fresh gunfire sounded.

She exchanged a look with Carter. “That’s coming from a different direction,” he muttered.

Zane?

Another scream followed by adult-male swearing rattled her nerves. Someone had been shot. She risked another look around the corner, spotting a person writhing on the ground fifty feet away. One of the men Zane had believed was a Dodge brother.

Good.

“Zane,” she spoke into her mic. “One of them is down. I don’t know where the other one is.”

Silence.

Panic swirled in her stomach. “Zane?”

“Hang on.”

She exhaled. Stay focused.

But it was hard when gunfire surrounded your husband.

Please let nothing happen to him.

Her plans for his special evening were in the toilet. She told herself that it didn’t matter. It was just pie.

“Zane—”

“Wait.”

“Dammit,” she mumbled to Carter. “What’s going on?” She peeked around the corner again. The man on the ground had stopped moving. Shit.

The gunfire started again. This time it’d moved closer to the river, but someone was also returning fire from the cabin.

“Stevie. Liam and Marcus are in the cabin,” Zane finally said.

“How do you know?”

“Because Wade Pierce just told me.”

“What?”

“Wade was on the dirt bike. He’s been following Ethan Dodge. It looks like Ethan got a phone call from his brother, Lyle, when Lyle found the boy and his uncle at the cabin. Wade tried to follow Ethan here but lost him until he heard the gunfire.”

“Wade just shot one of them?”

“Yes.”

“Zane, the guy who was shot isn’t moving anymore,” Stevie told him in a low tone.

“Dammit. But our focus now is on getting Liam out of the cabin. And Marcus is not a friendly. Wade heard that Marcus tried to sell the boy to Dawn Hazelwood.”

“Wade didn’t say that when I talked to him earlier today,” said Stevie, stunned by the news about Marcus.

“He heard Ethan talk about it with Lyle. He said Marcus wanted a lot of money.”

“I don’t understand,” she whispered.

“We’ll figure it out later. Right now, we need to get to Liam. We’re down to one Dodge brother, so Kenny and I will get to the back of the cabin and figure out where the boy is inside. I want you and Carter to focus on Marcus and the remaining Dodge.”

“Understood.”

She turned to Carter. “Move with me. We need to find the other outside shooter. And the shooter in the cabin is not friendly.” With Carter right behind her, they moved out from their cover.

“Did you see how high the river is?” Carter asked quietly as they jogged between the trees and other cabins. “I’ve never seen it like that.”

“Couldn’t miss it.” As they’d followed the riverbank into the campground earlier, the roar of the water had made it impossible to hear. She still had the river’s smell of churned-up mud and moss in her nose.

The gunfire had stopped. Stevie realized she preferred the noise; it told her the shooters’ locations.

“Give me the boy, Marcus!” came a yell from ahead of them.

Stevie and Carter dipped behind a large bush and froze.

“I told Dawn what I wanted for him!” shouted Marcus from the cabin.

“She said for you to go to hell!” the shooter yelled back. “She won’t pay that kind of money. Now send him out before I have to come in and get him!”

The soft sound of a child crying reached Stevie. Liam.

Did Dawn know where he was all along?

“Fuck you!” Marcus yelled.

A barrage of bullets hit the front door of the cabin.

###

Zane didn’t know whether to feel relieved or sorry for Wade.

“Oh my God,” Wade breathed, bending over to rest his hands on his thighs. “Liam’s alive. I’d hoped he was when I overheard Ethan, but I wasn’t positive . . .”

“Stay back,” ordered Zane. “We’ll get him out.”

“I can—”

“You will do nothing but stay right here!” He held Wade’s gaze to make his point.

Zane struggled to understand that the man he’d originally thought had killed two FBI agents was standing beside him. And he’d just shot one of the Dodge brothers.

Wade looked exhausted. His hair and beard hadn’t been touched in days, and the odor from his filthy clothing rivaled a pig farm. He was the epitome of a man who had been on the run for three months, avoiding the police, and searching for his son.

Zane signaled Kenny and moved toward the back of the cabin. He saw two small windows on the side closest to him and hoped there was a door on the side facing the river. He ignored the yelling between Marcus and the remaining brother at the front of the cabin. They were now Stevie and Carter’s responsibility.

Soft cursing told him Wade had not listened to his directions and was following.

“Damn you, Marcus,” Wade muttered. “I never dreamed you could be bought.”

“Why would Marcus sell Liam to Dawn Hazelwood?” Kenny asked Wade, as he silently tread behind Zane.

“Kenny, shut up,” hissed Zane.

“She wants to blackmail me into giving her the evidence to put Knight Products out of business.”

Zane halted and whirled around, crouching in the poor light. “Both of you. Shut. Up. Now.”

The men shut up.

Zane pushed on. Liam hadn’t fallen in the river. He should feel relieved, but the jacket still stuck in his mind. Along with mental echoes of another boy who didn’t make it.

Liam was lucky. The other boy hadn’t been.

He shook his head, getting the drowned boy out of his thoughts.

“What’s that?” Kenny whispered at the exact moment Zane saw a figure drop from one of the back windows.

The figure was small and faded into the shadows of the cabin.

Liam.

Gunfire started again, and the boy darted away from the house. He ran in a confused zigzag pattern, tripped, and fell down, but he instantly jumped back up and sprinted in another direction. The wrong direction. Away from them.

“Liam!” Wade shouted. He lunged forward, but Zane grabbed him, nearly dropping his gun.

“You’re running into gunfire.”

“My boy is running into gunfire!”

Zane tapped his mic with his weapon still in hand. “Stevie! The boy has slipped out the back, and we need a distraction now!”

There was no answer, but a moment later, new shots sounded from farther away, creating more shouting from the front of the house.

“Zane, Liam’s getting too close to the water,” said Kenny. “The banks will be slick.”

Wade broke out of Zane’s grip and ran full tilt after his son.

Cursing, Zane sprinted after him.

###

Stevie fired. The first idea that popped in her head for a distraction.

She knew the last Dodge brother was between her position and the river. He was still firing at the house, the flashes from his muzzle giving her a target.

A piercing scream from his direction was a welcome sound to her ears.

“Let’s go!” she told Carter.

They carefully followed the sounds of a male cursing. They passed the unmoving body of the first Dodge brother. Stevie stopped for a quick moment and checked his pulse. None.

“There’s still someone with a gun in the house,” Carter reminded her unnecessarily.

“Zane said Liam got out. I wonder if Marcus knows that yet.”

They found the second brother thrashing in the mud, a gunshot wound in his leg. Carter kicked the rifle out of his reach and searched him on the ground, cuffing the suspect as Stevie covered him, keeping one eye on the silent cabin.

Where is Marcus?

“Name?” Stevie ordered.

“Fuck you! Aren’t you going to help me? I’m fucking bleeding here!”

No jetting spurts came from the gunshot wound, and the blood flow looked slow to Stevie’s eyes. “I think you’ll live. Unlike your brother over there.”

The man tipped his head back into the mud and let out an inhuman wail.

He hadn’t realized his brother had died.

Hairs rose on Stevie’s arms at the sound, and even Carter stumbled backward a step.

“Liam? Liam? Where the hell are you?” came shouts from inside the cabin.

Now Marcus knows Liam got out.