Rapid Fire (28 page)

If she’d
let him.

If the
Mastermind let him.

At the
thought, he bent to the stubborn lock with renewed determination.

“CHIEF?”
MAYA RAISED HER own weapon, instinctively squaring off against the man who
looked like her superior until she got to his eyes, which were mad. Murderous.
Disconnected. Downright scary. “Chief, I want you to drop your weapon and kick
it over here. We can work this out.”

His lips
twisted in an eerie parody of the reassuring smile he’d used to send the task
force members to their assignments time and again over the past nine-plus
months as they’d sought to solve the Canyon Kidnappings, the Museum Murders and
now the new crime wave, which had been orchestrated by—

Maya’s
brain jammed and she glanced down at Henkes’s body beneath the sofa. She didn’t
see any blood, but he didn’t look like he was breathing, either. “Did he come
after you?”

She
directed the question at the chief, but her mind was racing as too many seeming
coincidences lined up into a theory that seemed more bizarre than believable.

Chief
Parry snorted. “Don’t be naive, Cooper. We both know what happened here.” He
used his weapon to gesture at Ilona and Kiernan lying limply on the sofa.

Maya
shifted, trying to plan a clean shot that would keep him from harming the
others if it came to it, then froze when he returned his aim to her. She licked
her lips. “Why don’t you tell me?”

Talk to
the suspect, Thorne’s long-ago voice had said during one of his lectures. An
image of him danced at the edge of her mind, casual and long-haired and
careless, as he’d been back then. Stall as long as you can while your backup
works into position.

Only
there wasn’t any backup. She was on her own.

Thorne,
where are you? With gut-deep simplicity, she wished she hadn’t let him walk
away. So he wasn’t perfect. Neither was she.

But their
imperfections meshed perfectly. Yes, he tempted her, but in a good way. A
strong way.

Why
hadn’t she seen that sooner?

“I’ll
tell you what happened,” the chief said slowly, slyly as though playing a part,
or maybe planning another move. But then his features darkened and his eyes
shone with a mad sort of truth. “He was going to shut us down.”

“Shut who
down? The PD?” Maya tipped her weapon down slightly and eased away from the
couch, away from Kiernan, Ilona and Wexton Henkes.

What the
hell had happened here?

“Me. The
Bear Claw PD. All of it.” The chief’s face contorted and his voice deepened
with fury when he said, “He played off nice to my face and to the cameras, but
I found out what he was really up to.” He strode to the sofa and kicked
Wexton’s motionless body. “Bastard. Once he won the election, he was planning
on replacing me with someone younger and faster. He was planning on reimaging
the entire PD based on some half-assed study his college roommate did.” The
chief turned to Maya, and she realized he was too close to her. He leaned
nearer to her and brought his weapon to bear. “So I took care of him.”

Maya held
herself still, forced herself to breathe evenly when she said, “By kidnapping
those girls? By killing all those people? How could you?”

He
grinned, the expression somehow more frightening than the twisted smile of
moments earlier. “By bringing you three in, of course. First I had to get rid
of our old crime scene analyst. I talked Fitz into retiring down to Florida
because I knew he’d see through me. I wanted you and your friends in the PD
because I knew from your records that you wouldn’t fit in, that you’d
destabilize the force. Disorganize things.” His smile gained an edge. “That
part of it was even more successful than I’d dreamed. First everyone hated the
three of you, and then the other two started sleeping with task force members,
confusing things even more. I couldn’t have planned it better if I’d tried.
When I saw how well that worked, I brought in your old boyfriend. Or did you
think nobody knew why you transferred out of the High Top Bluff Academy so
lickety-split?”

Maya’s
mouth went bone-dry and her heart pounded in her chest, in her head, as too
many things started making sense. Disillusionment flared. Disappointment.
Betrayal. “But you’re the chief!”

If the
accusation came out sounding weak, it was because she couldn’t comprehend his
actions. He was a cop. His reputation was sterling. He didn’t fit any of the
profiles, for God’s sake.

But
Henkes was on the floor. His wife and child were sprawled on the sofa. And the
chief of the Bear Claw PD had his gun aimed at Maya’s heart when he said,
“Twenty years on the job, and this is the thanks I get? I was trying to fix
things, don’t you understand? I was trying to protect Bear Claw from Henkes.”

“By
killing him?” Maya said sharply. She gestured to the body. “If that was the
plan, why not just do it? Why did you use Croft and Barnes? Why kill the other
people, innocent people? How was that protecting Bear Claw?”

Parry’s
eyes shone with fervid intensity. “It wasn’t enough to kill him. Too many other
politicians have already bought into his plan. I had to discredit him. Destroy
him. Make myself into a hero so nobody could touch me.” He kicked Henkes again,
and this time got a groan in response. “He’s not dead, just drugged. He’ll wake
up in jail, arrested on three charges of first-degree murder. He shouldn’t stay
unconscious as long as you did. Your allergy to the drug was…unexpected, though
I enjoyed picturing your face when you saw that I’d opened the bottle you kept
in your kitchen.” His smile turned mocking. “Such a stereotype. The drunk
keeping a bottle close at hand. Tell me—did you take a drink once you figured out
your boyfriend was really after your job?”

“That’s a
lie!” Maya snapped before she could stop herself.

“It’s the
truth. Ask him yourself.” The chief chuckled and returned his attention to
Henkes again. He prodded the groaning man with his foot. “He’ll stay altered
for a few hours at most, like Kiernan did when I broke his leg.” Parry’s eyes
swept the three people in the room. Ilona. Kiernan. Maya. He lingered longest
on Maya and the corners of his mouth lifted when he said, “Don’t worry. I’ll
see to it that you get a proper state funeral. As long as I can live a hero, I
have no problem letting you die as one.”

Heart
pounding, palms sweating, Maya lifted her weapon. “William Parry, you are under
arrest for the—”

There was
a flurry of motion. The chief yanked up his weapon at the moment Thorne burst
through the door, shouting, “Maya, drop it!”

“Thorne,
it’s the chief!” she cried quickly, heart jamming into her throat. “He’s the
Mastermind!”

“She’s
insane,” Parry said calmly, finger tightening on the trigger of his weapon.
“She’s already killed Henkes, and was about to go after the wife and kid when I
got here. She’s had it in for him the whole time because of what she did to
that high school kid back when she was married and a drunk.”

“Don’t
listen to him. He’s lying. He told me you were only after my job the whole
time.” Maya looked over at Thorne, her heart jolting in relief at the sight of
his strong shoulders and determined expression. But then she saw that the gun
in his hand was pointed at her.

And his
expression was deadly blank.

I heard
the gunshot, he’d said. I heard you scream and I smelled your blood.

“Thorne!”
Maya said desperately. “Trust me. The chief killed all those people. He told me
so himself.” His expression didn’t change and Maya felt her heart crack in her
chest. “I swear it! Thorne, I love you. Do you hear me? I don’t care about the
job. Not anymore—I care about you. I love you. If you’ve ever loved me. Hell,
if you even like me a little, listen to me. I—”

“You’ve
cried wolf one too many times, Officer Cooper,” the chief barked. “This is your
last warning. Drop your weapon or I’ll—”

Maya
turned and lifted her gun, finger tightening as she aimed at the chief’s head,
knowing it was the only way to ensure the safety of the innocents in the room.
The chief raised his own weapon—

A giant’s
fist slammed into Maya. Pain ripped through her, hot, searing pain that stole
her breath and brought darkness. She screamed and spun, and saw an arc of blood
follow her.

Her legs
crumpled beneath her and she fell.

The last
thing she saw was Thorne’s face.

And the
gun in his hand.

Chapter
Fifteen

“Good
shot,” the chief said, his words echoing through the pounding numbness that
surrounded Thorne.

A slap of
pure rage blasted through his chest, through the barriers surrounding his
heart, the ones Maya had penetrated without meaning to, without even knowing.
He glanced around the room, at the pricey antique furniture and the signs of a
struggle. He saw blood and heard a woman’s scream echo in his ears.

Maya’s
scream.

As he’d
foreseen, he’d shot the woman he loved.

I love
you, she’d said, trying to make him understand, make him believe. But it had
been too late by that point.

No, it
had been too late the moment they met. Some futures were immutable.

Thorne
nodded slowly. “Yes, it was.” Then he lunged at the chief, leading with his
fists.

His first
punch landed on the bastard’s jaw. He felt bone crunch and was glad for it. The
attack spun Parry away from the others, and Thorne closed in with a flurry of
blows, driving the chief away from his victims.

Yes,
victims. Thorne had realized it too late. He should’ve seen it earlier, should
have listened to Maya’s suspicions. They’d had it right early on, suspecting
that the Mastermind was a member of the Bear Claw PD. There were too many
events centered on the department.

More
importantly, too many events centered on destabilizing the PD.

Knowing
it, Thorne weathered the chief’s return blow and drove his head into the
bastard’s stomach, knocking the breath out of him, sending him flailing
backward. The older man tripped over a claw-footed stool and went down hard.
The impact jarred the gun from his grip and Thorne kicked the weapon aside.
Head ringing with images and pain, Thorne stood over his fallen enemy and
leveled his weapon, aiming the business end square between his superior
officer’s eyes. “I could do it,” he said conversationally, the calm of his tone
at odds with the wildfire that raged within him.

Do it,
his instincts chanted in tones that sounded like Mason Falk’s voice. Do it. He
took your woman from you. He took everything from you.

Parry’s
face blurred in his mind’s eye, becoming that of Donny Greek, who had died at
Thorne’s hands.

Justifiable
homicide, they had called it. Could they really argue that this was any less
justified?

The
killing rage rose within Thorne as he thought of the lives lost because of
Parry’s misguided attempt to save his own ass. Because whatever his skewed
rationalization, that was what it had been. That, and an unreasonable focus on
Wexton Henkes. Thorne bet that if they looked deeply enough into Parry’s past,
they would find a connection to Henkes, a reason the chief had become fixated
on this particular man.

There was
another motive here. A woman, perhaps. Money. It usually came down to one or
the other. But this time it had spun out of control. The chief had become a
victim of his own deluded grandiosity. He’d seen himself as a controller, and
had enlisted others in his deadly plan. Bradford Croft. Nevada Barnes. Drew
Wilson. God knew, they’d probably find others during the investigation that
would lead to Parry’s trial.