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D
o they know you like that, Turner, these friends of yours? Do they know you like I do?” John demanded.
On the other end of the phone he could hear Turner’s harsh gasp. He grimaced. He was pushing her with his questions, he knew,
but this had to end soon. She couldn’t take it much longer. Hell, he couldn’t take it much longer. The trees over his head
moaned in the wind, as if in agreement.
“You may be right,” she said in his ear.
“What?”
“I may not have any real friends anymore. You’re right.”
She sounded eerily close. He frowned. “That’s not—”
“But that doesn’t matter.”
“Turner—”
“Bringing Calvin to justice is what matters. I’m sorry, John.”
“Wait—”
“I’m sorry.” She clicked off.
John swore and shoved the cell in his pocket. At almost the same moment, a bizarre sound started in the woods. A crying wail,
but deeper, almost a howl. It went on in an undulating moan until it abruptly ended on a high squeak. There was a pause, and
then the crying began again.
It was the Great Dane Turner had stolen. He was howling in the woods nearby. That meant she was here, somewhere close. John
stood and turned in the direction of the sound. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone step into the clearing. Shit,
she was getting bold. What did she think she was doing?
Except the person in the clearing was a man. Holding a rifle. John froze, watching the big man stride confidently across the
mowed grass at the back of Calvin’s cabin. The intruder hadn’t seen him. He seemed to be concentrating on Squeaky’s howls.
John couldn’t see the dog from where he stood, but the other guy must be able to. The dog cut off in midhowl. Almost immediately
he began a staccato barking. The woofs were deep and menacing, despite Squeaky’s unfortunate name. Where was Turner?
“Shut up,” the man said. He said it without inflection, his voice strangely even. Then he raised his rifle to his shoulder
and sighted down the barrel. “Shut up, dog.”
Squeaky continued barking.
Well, shit. John unholstered his Glock and aimed it at the man’s back. “FBI. Put down—”
He didn’t have time to finish the command, because the son of a bitch whirled and fired into the woods at him.
Crap.
The shooter had to be a certified lunatic.
John dived and squeezed off four rounds at the same time, the crack of the Glock loud in his ears. He fired twice more from
the ground and then belly-crawled around the side of the tree trunk he’d been sitting next to. He chanced a look. The shooter
was nowhere in sight. Impossible to know if he’d hit the man, but considering the distance, probably not.
John raised his voice. “FBI. Throw down your weapon!”
The answer was another gunshot that chipped the bark over his head. The shot had come from the front corner of the cabin.
John aimed and squeezed off three rounds to keep the asshole there.
Squeaky was moaning now. The loud shots had probably terrified the dog. Strange that he hadn’t run away. John did a kind of
crab crawl to another tree, his shoulder protesting all the way. The lunatic with the rifle snapped off two more rounds. A
sapling in front of him shattered.
His cell phone rang.
He swore and fumbled for it, cutting off the ring tone.
“What?”
“John? John?” Turner’s voice was the highest he’d ever heard it. She sounded near hysterics. “Oh, God, are you all right?”
“Hi, honey. I’m kind of busy right now.”
The shooter peered around the side of the cabin and John sent three more bullets his way, just to keep him occupied. Splinters
of wood exploded from the corner of the building.
“But are you hurt?”
“No, I’m fine.” John shifted to try to crawl to a closer tree. The leaves to his right jumped in the air from another shot.
He flattened again. “Turner, listen, you need to get out of here.”
“But—”
“This guy’s got a screw loose. He’s shooting at anything that moves. Tell me you’re driving away from the cabin.”
“I’m in it.”
“In the cabin?”
“Yes.”
John closed his eyes briefly. “Fuck.”
“What?”
“Sorry. That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
He raised himself to his elbows and fired two fast shots. Immediately, a shower of wood chips hit him from the tree he was
peering around. Good. The shooter was still at the corner of the building.
“Okay,” he said to Turner. “Can you see the guy shooting?”
“No. I’m on the floor in the kitchen.”
He glanced at the rear of the cabin. There were four screen windows in a row. “Is the kitchen at the back?”
“Yes.”
“Grab something and wave it in the window.”
There was a pause, and then a broom appeared at the bottom edge of the middle right window.
“I see you,” John said. “I want you to move to the last window in back. To your right as you face the back of the house. Can
you do that without being seen from the front?”
“Yes.” She sounded out of breath. “But what about you? He’s shooting at you, John!”
The shooter did another peekaboo, and John got off a round at him.
“I’m an FBI agent, honey.” He rolled to his side, ejected the spent clip from the Glock, and shoved another one in before
rising to his elbows and firing once more at the corner. “Have a little faith.”
“But—”
Crap.
The shooter hadn’t returned his fire. “Move! Now!”
John got to his feet and made a crouching run at the cabin. The shooter’s silence might be a ruse to draw him out, but he
had to take that chance with Turner in the cabin.
He made the back corner of the cabin without being shot and flattened himself against the dusty shingles. “Turner? Why aren’t
you at that window?”
“I’m—”
A gunshot sounded loud inside the cabin.
Christ, no.
John fought down panic. He peered over the windowsill and saw a man’s bulk in the kitchen. He shoved the cell in his pocket,
backed up two steps, and fired five rounds in rapid succession into the kitchen, his shoulder jolting with the recoils. The
glass in the window exploded, some of the shards driving themselves into the outer screen. He squinted through the mess. The
shooter inside was slumped against the kitchen doorway. To John’s left, the screen on the end window burst suddenly outward,
and Turner tumbled to the ground. He gave her one piercing glance and saw no blood.
Thank you, God.
He turned back to the room and found the man’s shape was gone.
Well, shit.
“Run, goddamnit!” he bellowed at Turner.
She gave him a white-faced stare and then took off.
He holstered the Glock, grabbed the window screen, and pulled it off the window. Then he put both hands on the windowsill
and vaulted into the kitchen, his shoulder bitching like a mother. A piece of glass embedded itself in his left palm.
He crouched and silently drew the Glock again, listening. The cabin was quiet. The kitchen was square with a rustic wood table
and four chairs, two of them now overturned. Turner’s broom lay underneath one of the chairs. Broken glass from the window
made a mosaic on the floor. He didn’t see any blood spatter.
John took two swift steps to the inner kitchen wall near the doorway, the glass crunching under his boots. He flattened himself
and listened again.
Nothing.
He drew a quick breath and stepped around the corner, leading with his Glock. Outside the kitchen was a hallway. He scanned
left, then right, listening. All he heard was his own harsh breath. To the right was a large doorway, probably access to a
living room or some kind of entrance hall. But Turner had come out from the back corner window. Had the shooter followed her
there?
John turned left down the hallway. The first door was to his left, and it was closed. One of the windows along the back of
the cabin would be in there. He backed up a step and kicked the door open, going in low. The door crashed against the wall.
It was a bedroom. There was a single bed and a closet on the right. John crossed to the closet and checked. Nothing but hangers.
He hunkered by the bed and flung up the bed skirt, prepared to fire if there was any movement. The space underneath was empty.
He went back out in the hall again and kicked in the next door. Another bedroom, single bed, the screen missing on the window
where Turner had leaped out. But—
A crash came from the front of the house.
John whirled and strode to the hallway, holding the Glock in both hands in a shooter’s stance. The son of a bitch must’ve
been in the front room all the time, waiting for him to move away so he could flee the cabin.
The hall led to a big open area, a den or family room. He swept the space with the Glock, checking behind the sofa and chairs
before running out on the porch, where he found footprints in the dust. John scanned the woods outside and then crouched to
look at the dusty porch floorboards. Two sets of footprints going in, a woman’s and a man in boots. One set leaving. The man’s.
The shooter had gotten away.
Nearby, Squeaky began howling again.
John walked around the cabin, gun held by his side. A humongous black-and-white dog stood by the edge of the woods. The dog
spotted him and switched to staccato barking. He was tied to a tree. No wonder Squeaky hadn’t run at the sound of the gunshots—she’d
tied the dog up as a diversion for him. John swore and dug the piece of glass out of his left palm with the fingernails of
his other hand. Blood spurted from the wound.
“Guess she abandoned both of us, bud.”
T
urner jammed her foot hard on the brake. The Chevy shuddered to an abrupt stop, and she had to brace one hand on the dash
to keep from catapulting into the steering column. She’d turned onto a forest access road several miles away from Calvin’s
cabin. She switched the engine off, grabbed her cell, and quickly punched in John’s number. The other end began to ring.
Come on. Come on.
She felt her chin tremble involuntarily, either from the aftereffects of adrenaline or, more likely, fear for John’s life.
Fifteen minutes ago she’d been standing in Calvin’s cabin. A thrill of undiluted horror had coursed down her spine when she’d
realized that those were gunshots she was hearing outside. And that John was out there alone with whoever was shooting. Up
until that moment she’d been excited in a fearful kind of way. It’d been almost a game. A game to outwit John and enter the
cabin while he was watching it. In fact, she’d just been congratulating herself on getting in when the shots shattered her
smugness.
After that, everything had happened so fast. The assailant had invaded the cabin and fired at her. She still didn’t know how
he had missed, he’d been that close. John had ordered her out and then ordered her to run. She hadn’t liked it. It didn’t
feel right to run away when she knew he was going to confront a man with a gun, but she was afraid that if she stayed she
would distract him. So she’d run and abandoned him to face down a possible killer.
And now he wasn’t answering his phone. He might be a FBI agent, but people were killed in the line of duty every day. Oh,
Lord—
“MacKinnon.”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath of relief. For a moment she couldn’t speak, her throat was so constricted, and
then she managed to get out, “You’re okay.”
“Me and Squeaky.” He sounded almost lazy.
Turner’s eyes widened, and she looked at the empty seat beside her. “Oh, my goodness. I forgot him!”
“Shh. He’ll hear you. It’ll hurt his feelings.”
“Is he okay?”
“Well, we’ve established that he likes peanut butter granola bars.”
Turner winced. “You didn’t.”
“Hey, he was hungry. You didn’t feed him this morning, remember?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Did you find what you were looking for in the cabin?”
“No,” she admitted. “I’d barely got in when the shooting started.”
“Huh. Nice diversion, by the way. Staking Squeaky out and leaving him to howl so I’d go investigate.”
She grinned shakily. “Thanks.”
“No prob.” His voice was dry as dust. “What were you looking for, exactly?”
“A computer. Or a disc.”
“Yeah?”
“I didn’t see any, but I only looked in the front room and the kitchen—”
“Okay.” She could hear him opening a door. “We’re searching for a second set of books that documents Calvin embezzling from
the bank.”
She caught her breath. “Yes. Are you, um, offering to help?”
“Maybe. What if he doesn’t keep a second set? What if he has no records?”
“Then I’m out of luck, aren’t I?” She’d tried not to think about that possibility too much over the last four years. Assuming
there wasn’t evidence of his crime didn’t get her anywhere. “But I think he does. He’s very meticulous at the bank—he likes
to document everything and gets upset if something isn’t written down. Or entered into the bank’s database.”
“Okay.” More rummaging sounds.
“Did you arrest him?”
“Who?”
“The guy shooting.”
“Nope.” He grunted as if moving something. “Got away.”
“At least he didn’t hurt you.”
“Mmm. Y’know, this image you have of me—that I’m easily bruised—is starting to erode my masculine self-esteem. I may need
therapy.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Yeah, I know. Your dog is howling outside again.”
Turner smiled. “He must like you. He misses you already.”
“Me or the peanut butter granola bars.”
“You do realize that those aren’t good for him, don’t you?”
“And pickled herring is?”
“Maybe you can get him some real dog food. But make sure it’s a name brand, like Purina or Iams. I don’t trust those generic—”
“Turner—”
“And I’ve heard you’re supposed to get a special kind of food for big dogs. For their joints.”
“I’m not keeping Squeaky,” he said flatly.
She straightened in her seat. “You’re not going to send him to the pound, are you?”
“Of course not—”
“Or a kennel? He’d too big for a kennel.”
“He belongs to Hyman—”
“You’re going to give him back to a criminal?”
“And his name is Duke.”
“John!”
She heard his impatient exhalation. “He belongs to Hyman. You can’t just go around stealing dogs whenever you feel like it.”
“Calvin left him out without any water.”
“For one day.”
“I—”
“No, listen for a moment,” he said in a hard voice. “Hyman has no animal-cruelty complaints against him. I looked. The lack
of water may have been a onetime lapse of judgment, for all you know.”
“But—”
“Listen,” he growled.
Turner compressed her lips.
“Hyman may have done everything you’ve said he’s done,” John said in a low, intense voice. “He may have embezzled from the
bank, he may be a thief. Heck, he may be a mass murderer, for all I know. But he didn’t abuse his dog.”
“He didn’t have water!”
“Okay, let’s say he did, Turner. Let’s say he did abuse Squeaky. What the hell do you think the police are for? You make a
complaint, they investigate, and if it’s valid, the case is turned over to the courts. That’s how it’s done in America. It’s
a good system. It keeps us from anarchy. Bottom line, you don’t have the right to take the law into your own hands.”
She grimaced, knowing he was right. “I don’t want you to give Squeaky back to him.”
There was a masculine sigh from the other end. “I’m not seeing anything here.”
Not a subtle change of subject, but she still needed to know. “Have you gone through the drawers in the bedrooms? It might
be only a disc with information—”
“I know how to search a house, honey.”
“What about the garage?”
“I’ll check the garage and the house once more, but right now I’m not seeing it.”
Turner swallowed. The evidence had to be at the cabin. There wasn’t any other place—
“Are you going to come in now?” His voice was tender, the tones unnervingly seductive.
She stared out at the surrounding woods. Some of the trees near the access road had been cut. Dismembered logs lay in sawdust
blood, impotent and dead. Even the underbrush had been crushed under heavy machinery.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“Jesus.” Disgust was strong in his voice. “Didn’t a word of what I just said get to you? You’re done acting like a vigilante.
Why aren’t you coming in?”
“I’ve told you. This is important. I can’t give up just because the going gets rough—”
“Yeah, well, what if the going gets lethal?”
She frowned. “What?”
“Who do you think that son of a bitch was after?”
She hadn’t considered the matter. There hadn’t been time. “I—”
“He had the place staked out long before you got here. I found six cigarette butts under a tree.”
“That’s—”
“He went into the cabin after you.”
“Me?” She felt like laughing, but her throat was dry. “Don’t be silly. I’m a librarian.”
“You’re no longer just a librarian. You’ve abandoned your camouflage, decided to take the law into your own hands. Everyone
knows you’re a hunter now.”
“For goodness’ sakes—”
“Listen to me,” he growled. “That guy wanted to kill you. He had a sniper’s rifle and he was staked out in the woods waiting
for you.”
She pressed a trembling finger to the spot between her eyebrows. This just wasn’t believable. “But you’re the FBI agent. Maybe
he followed you here. Do you have any enemies?”
“Plenty. But that’s not who this guy is. I want you to come in—”
“No!”
“Goddamnit! You were almost killed today. Are revenge and ego worth your life?”
She gasped. “Ego?”
“Yeah, ego. Don’t you have a bit of it tied up in this thing? Turner Hastings, who’s so much smarter than everyone else—”
“Oh! You—”
“Fools an entire town into thinking she’s the meek librarian—”
“That’s—”
“Doesn’t need the cops or the FBI. Can investigate and bring in a thief all by herself.”
Turner breathed deeply through her nose. She suddenly noticed that a small, slim lizard had crawled on top of one of the logs
in front of her. It was light brown except for its tail, which was electric blue. She stared. The lizard flickered and was
gone. Maybe she’d imagined it. A blue-tailed lizard? It seemed so unlikely.
“I think you’re the one with a hurt ego,” she said very quietly. “You’re the big tough FBI agent who can’t catch one little
librarian.”
John was silent on the other end. She’d finally said too much, pushed him too far. He’d leave now.
Then he sighed over the phone. “You might be right. Maybe my ego is hurting. But you still need to come in.”
Why did she feel such relief that he hadn’t hung up on her? “Why would the shooter be after me, John?”
“You’re a very smart woman, baby. Don’t play dumb now. Hyman must’ve hired him.”
She swallowed. Calvin the bank president? The mayor of Winosha? “That’s not possible. Where would he find a hit man in Wisconsin?”
“You’d be surprised. Do you understand now why you have to come in?”
“No.”
“Jesus Christ,” he exploded. She’d never heard him lose control before. He sounded enraged. “I’m about to pop a vein here.
You’ve got a hit man after you, Turner. This guy didn’t even stop when I identified myself. He had no fear of killing a FBI
agent. Don’t do this to me.”
“I’m not—”
“Your life is in danger, goddamnit! Do what I say for once.”
“I—”
A siren sounded on John’s end. “Crap. The local yokels are here. Just what I need to make my day perfect.”
Turner frowned at her watch. “It took them long enough. I called 911 half an hour ago.”
There was a short silence.
“You called the police.” His voice was expressionless.
“I didn’t like you in there alone with that lunatic.”
“I’m a friggin’ FBI special agent and you called the cops to help me.”
“FBI agents get killed, too.”
“Special—” John blew out a breath into the phone. “I don’t have time for this. They’re getting out of their cars. Where can
I meet you?”
“I can’t.”
“Meet me, Turner.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you dare hang up—”
But she pressed the
End
button.
She let her head drop to the seat back. She felt so tired. Exhausted, like she’d been up for days. God, what a mess. She’d
lost Squeaky, there didn’t seem to be any evidence of Calvin’s guilt, and she’d been shot at. And she’d ruined things with
John. Totally and irrevocably. He wouldn’t be calling her anymore with the morning crossword or to ask what she’d eaten for
breakfast. It was a wonder that he’d put up with her this long. Her eyes blurred, and she felt the tears trickle down her
face to drip into her T-shirt. She didn’t bother to wipe them off. There wasn’t anyone to see, and she wasn’t sure she even
cared anymore.
She stared at the severed logs in front of her, but the blue-tailed lizard didn’t reappear.