Shallow Creek (21 page)

Chapter 49

Two simultaneous noises dropped Brendan to the dirt: a bullet thudding into Michelle’s truck, and the
crack of the gun that fired it.  He quickly scrambled across the dead grass to put the rear axle of the truck between him and Grant’s wrath.  Leaning against the big tire, Brendan checked his own pistol one more time.  Why hadn’t he grabbed one of the weapons lying around at the cabin?  A shotgun would be handy right now.

Another bullet ricocheted under the truck, making multiple impacts before whizzing out into the dirt past Brendan’s leg.  He didn’t react.  There was just as much chance of that kind of shot hitting him whether he moved or not.  This wasn’t his first shootout, but he sort of liked the idea of making it his last.  Getting shot at in the service of his country was one thing, but getting shot at by some dick meth dealer wasn’t worth the sacrifice.

A couple of shots close together slammed into the bed on the other side of the truck.  Brendan counted to three and then stood up carefully, hunching his back to keep the bed as protection.  Now bent at the waist, Brendan leaned to the back of the truck, put one hand on the large bumper for support, and stole a peek around the edge of the tailgate.

The red truck had flipped onto its side.  Grant, apparently none the worse for wear, must’ve been using the center console as a step, because the top of his torso was extended out through the now up
wards-facing passenger side window.  Spotting Brendan, Grant squeezed off another round, barely missing Brendan’s retreating skull.

“You always sucked at shooting
,” Brendan yelled as soon as he resumed sitting with his back to the truck wheel.

“Shut the fuck up!”

Another shot plowed into the truck somewhere, getting nothing more than a muffled
thunk
for its efforts.  However many bullets Grant had in that pistol, Brendan was sure the guy was close to empty now.  It was just a matter of time before the idiot wasted all of them.  He did have a bad temper after all.

“Shame you screwed this all up, bro,” Brendan called back.  “Michelle’s a real nice lady.”

“I told you to shut up!”

No bullets that time.  Brendan guessed he had to try harder then.

“Great in the sack, too.  Hard to find a chick her age who’ll do all those nasty things.”

Brendan only knew his brother was screaming at the top of his lungs because of the inhuman roar resonating after all the remaining bullets were expended into the side of Michelle’s truck.  The telltale click of the empty magazine needed no deciphering.

He popped up over the top of the truck bed, smoothly leveled his sights on his brother’s head, and—

Missed.

Grant’s head dipped suddenly into the truck, his arms flailing up in the air, right as Brendan’s pistol kicked up with the release of its payload.  Brendan never missed a target once, never mind twice.  Fueled by this frustration, Brendan banged the gun against Michelle’s truck, gouging the paint.  He paid no attention to this as he sprinted to Grant’s upturned pickup.  With a simple jump he pulled his body up onto the outside of the truck bed, crying out when his wounded arm felt like someone had just sawed it off with a butter knife.

Once the adrenaline overpowered the pain, Brendan crawled forward, now hearing the sounds of a struggle emanating from inside the passenger cabin below him.  The view that greeted him when he peered in through the shattered window got him back on his feet, pointing his pistol downward.

Special Agent Casey Spee, wrists bound in duct tape, legs still in the backseat, had both hands on Grant’s face, gouging his eyeballs.  Grant gripped her wrists with one hand, but his other arm was twisted under him, out of view.  With the way the two wrestled back and forth, Brendan had no shot.  He tracked his brother’s movements closely, but Spee was attempting to crawl out of the backseat to get on top of Grant.

At Brendan’s appearance, Spee looked up.  Grant’s body twisted suddenly.  A glint of metal darted across the dark space.  Before Brendan could pull the trigger, Grant, with blood leaking out of one eye,
grinned up at him with Spee’s hair firmly in one hand and a knife in the other.

She punched at him violently, but one hard yank on her hair twisted her head around.  Her shoulders were forced to follow, pinning
her arms uselessly under her.  A thin line of red tracked across her throat where the tip of Grant’s knife had barely broken the skin as she rotated.

Now finally Spee held still, and Brendan waited
furiously for his brother’s next move.

Chapter 50

“You’re really shitty at this game.”  Blood mixed in with spittle as Grant spat out each syllable.

Brendan didn’t budge an inch.  “Let her go.”

Grant laughed merrily.
  “If you shoot me, my hand might just slip and cut a new mouth for Ms. Spee.” He lightly dragged the knife over her throat. “Right across here.”

“Shoot him, Brendan,” Spee said awkwardly.  Speaking with a sharp object poking at her neck didn’t seem that comfortable.

“Yeah, shoot me, Brendan,” Grant imitated before cracking himself up again.

He couldn’t live with Spee’s life on his conscience, Brendan knew that much.  As long as he had his gun, there was a chance he’d find a shot.

“How about you put that gun on the door there and get the hell off my truck?”

Shit.

“I can’t do that.”

The knife penetrated a quarter inch against Spee’s neck.  She screamed as her skin bowed under the pressure and then ripped open, but she kept the rest of her body motionless.

“Oh, I think you can.” Grant smiled that vile fucking smirk that Brendan wanted to eradicate.

Without a word, Brendan pulled the gun out of view, ejected the chambered round, and released the magazine onto the ground.  No way in hell was this psycho getting his hands on a loaded weapon.  He couldn’t tell if Grant had noticed or heard the mechanisms in action, so he just carefully placed the gun against the door panel.

“Good.  Now get down and back up a ways, like ten yards or so.”

Brendan ground his teeth, but obeyed the command.  He
lowered himself off the truck and retreated to the desired distance.  His brother’s hand appeared, swatting around the precariously balanced gun.  Unable to gain a purchase on it, Grant inadvertently swiped the pistol off the door and down the front of the hood, away from Brendan.

After much shuffling from inside the cab, and many different iterations of
the word
bitch
, Spee’s head appeared through the window.  Her face jerked up to the sky and she shrieked horrifically as Grant used her hair as a handhold to work his way out of the cab from behind her.  Once he cleared the opening, Grant wrenched Spee up by the hair.  She struggled to right herself, hindered greatly by her bound hands.

As she brought a knee up onto the door of the overturned pickup, she slipped and fell free from Grant’s grip, spilling onto the dirt.  Brendan raced forward, but Grant dived off the truck and dragged Spee to her unsteady feet.

“Back up!”  Grant’s knife graced Spee’s neck once more.

Brendan gave up a few paces, but now he was close enough to clearly see the panic on his brother’s face.  The fading light revealed a frantic picture while distant sirens danced through the trees.

“Throw your phone down,” Grant commanded, favoring one leg.

Brendan pulled his cell from his pocket and did so, watching Grant adjust his grip to pull Spee’s face up and close to his own.  The knife needled at her exposed neck.

“You don’t have to do this, man.  It’s not too late.”

“Shut up
.  You think I wanted this?  You think this was in the damn plan?”

Brendan said nothing.

“This is all Taryn’s fault.” Grant’s voice cracked, but his knife stayed steady.  “I did this for her.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m fucking serious!  Didn’t you see her?  Her messed-up teeth?  The face of a fifty-year-old?  That was the price for helping our sister.”

“How the hell did you
help
her, you psycho?”

Grant grimaced at the insult and pulled tighter on Spee’s face.
  “You should’ve seen what she was into before, man.  Screwing guys all over, begging for food, stripping.  I saved her from all of that.  I did that!”

“Yeah
, she’s a picture of health now.” Brendan shuffled forward an inch.

Grant’s eyes took on a glassy sheen.
  “She almost died after she took some of that shit the Mexicans cooked up.  I don’t know what they cut it with, but I didn’t care.  I tried to help her then.  I tried to get her clean, but she was using again in a week.  So you know what I did?  I learned how to make the stuff right, how to get the mix so that nothing’s left over after the reactions.  But I sucked at it, so I brought in Serge.”

“The big bald bastard living with Taryn?”

“Yeah, he’s her personal cook and guardian.” Grant spoke faster now.  “She’s never ODed, she’s never been back to hospital.  Serge takes care of her and makes sure she’s as good as an addict can be.”

“So you need multiple kitchens, or labs, or whatever you call them, just to service our sister’s habit?  No way.”

Grant laughed at this.  Brendan could hear the sirens drawing closer.

“You have no idea how much money’s involved here, man.  After I forced those Latin fucks out, cornering the market was easier than taking a piss.  So yeah, we expanded our supply to increase our reach.  I hired more guys and—”

Brendan’s phone beeped in the dirt.  He was as shocked as Grant by the interruption.  The damn thing had been dead on the ride over to the cabin.

“That a text?” Grant asked.  When Brendan nodded, Grant smiled crookedly and told him to read it.  At this point,
Brendan welcomed any distraction.

“It’s from Marcus,” Brendan announced after picking up the phone, which he’d taken a few steps forward to retrieve.  His face dropped.  “Oh
, shit.”

Grant’s smile faltered.
  “What is it?”

Brendan looked up slowly and met his brother’s gaze with a somber expression.
  “Taryn’s dead.”

“You’re a liar.”

“Marcus says the trailer blew up.”

“You’re lying,” Grant insisted.

“You just told me Serge cooks this shit for Taryn.”

“But not in the trailer,” Grant exclaimed.  “I always told him, ‘Never in the trailer!’”

The knife fell from Spee’s neck.  She instantly swung her combined fists toward Grant’s crotch, but he avoided a direct hit.  Brendan started to move as the police tore into view, racing down the road.  Grant’s knife tilted and swooped down on Spee as she stumbled, off-balance from her failed assault.

Brendan grabbed his brother’s wrist as the blade sunk up to the hilt in Spee’s throat.
  Blood poured out from under Grant’s hand, streaming down Spee’s neck.  Cars screeched to a halt.  Doors opened and voices shouted.  Spee slid off the blade and sank to the dirt, her blood splashing in the dying grass.

More voices shouted.  The brothers stood frozen, eyes locked.

Grant moved his free hand, trying to get both hands on his knife.  Brendan kicked out his knee and drove Grant’s wrist up, ramming the knife into his neck hard enough to crack his skull against the truck’s driveshaft.  Grant’s jaw dropped open and his eyes rolled up into his head.  Without hesitation, Brendan threw his brother aside.  Grant collapsed, unconscious and bleeding out rapidly.

Kill confirmed, Brendan dropped to his knees and carefully inspected Spee, who still blinked slowly.  Her face held the expression of disbelief that he’d seen many times on those without much time left in the world of the living.

“Michelle—”

“Hush, Casey
.” He gently guided the matted hair off her face as she tried to whisper to him, the blood gurgling in her throat.  “Don’t you worry about Michelle.  She’s going to pull through, and so are you.”

“No—” she moaned as her eyes went wide.

Strong arms locked onto Brendan and hefted him backwards, clearing the path for the paramedics.  Special Agent Casey Spee of the Drug Enforcement Administration blinked no more.

Chapter 5
1

“Hey, you.”

Michelle looked up groggily and managed a weak smile.
  “Hey, Tenny.”

Brendan shifted forward in his chair and gently took her pale hand.
  With all the blood loss, she was almost as white as the hospital bed sheets.  Her head was tilted up a little by the bed, and also supported by a large pillow.

“How you feeling?”

She blinked slowly, keeping her eyes closed for a few seconds before opening them again.  “Like I got shot in the ass.”

“Luckily your ass is still in one piece.”

“The doctor said I was lucky to be alive, ass or no ass.”

Brendan nodded solemnly.
  “I’m no expert, but I was worried you wouldn’t make it.  I’ve seen guys die from less.” He stroked her hand.  “You’re one tough lady.”

“You know it.”

Michelle needed rest, and Brendan knew that, but so many questions remained unanswered for him.  “When I told you the DEA agents had been kidnapped, you knew it was Spee.  How did you know that?”

“Hmm?”

“You knew Spee was out at the cabin with Grant.  Were you an informant for her, too?”

She focused on his face, looking much more alert suddenly.
  “You can’t tell anyone,” she said under her breath.  “Grant’s guys are still out there.”

“Sure, sure
.  No problem.  You should probably sleep now.”

“What happened to Spee?” 
Michelle pulled her hand out of his, placing it on her stomach.  “The other agent only told me that Grant had been killed.  He wouldn’t even tell me how, not until the investigation is closed.”

Brendan had sat up for most of two nights reliving the moment when his brother killed Casey.  Thirty-six hours after the incident, he still couldn’t believe he’d been so close to saving her, yet pitifully too late.  All the training, all the missions, none of it had prepared him for that instant in time when he
’d failed miserably.

“Grant killed Agent Spee.”

Michelle didn’t visibly react.  “Oh.”

The pair absorbed the silence.  A nurse poked her head in to take Michelle’s vitals and to ask her a couple of simple questions.  Before leaving, she requested that Brendan alert someone if Michelle fell asleep and woke back up again, or if she needed to use the bathroom.

When the nurse left, Michelle spoke up.  “You probably think I’m a horrible person.”

“No—”

“It wasn’t until Sadie was born that I realized how bad I was.” Her voice drifted far, far away.  “And then my cousin Dale died.”

“Dale?”

“Scott’s brother,” she mumbled.  “Supposed to be a simple OD, but I didn’t believe that.  Grant was too crazy when he got angry, and people got hurt.”  She gave him a knowing glance.  “Dale probably screwed up a deal and Grant killed him.”

“Did you tell anyone else about this?”

Michelle ignored him.  “I don’t even know if those Mexicans trying to rape me and Kim was real.  Grant was real messed up in the head.  He could’ve set that all up to make me fall in love with him.”

“I don’t know about all that, Michelle.”

The tears started, and neither person made a move to wipe them away.  “Spee’s dead because I didn’t call and tell where Grant had her,” she moaned.  Brendan recalled that he hadn’t been able to call it in either.  “But I only had
her
cell number, so I was helpless.  I’m useless.”

Brendan crouched next to the bed and pulled the oily hair off her face.  She’d grown a few
more wrinkles since they were kids, but she still looked about the same.  One time she’d fallen off a horse and broken her arm, eliciting the same tears she cried now.  Brendan had consoled her then, and here he was doing so again.

“That’s not your fault
.”  Her sobs slowed down as she paid him some attention.  “You got out there as fast as you could and tried to help them.  What else could you have done?”

She nodded and sniffed wetly.  A tissue box sat on a small table
, so Brendan passed her a tissue to blow her nose.  That done, she settled down and sighed deeply.

“Mom told me you were hanging out with Kim.”

“I was.”

“Do you like her?”

“Yes.”

“Take her away from here.
” She turned her head toward his.  “Promise me.”

Brendan mulled
over his response before opening his mouth.  “I’d like to give that a shot, but she’s pretty damn pissed about us having sex.”

“I’ll clean that up,” she said.  “Just promise me you’ll take her away.  She deserves more than living in Mom’s garage, and this place is dangerous now.  Just because Grant’s gone, that doesn’t mean the senseless violence will just stop.”

When she tried to shift in the bed, she gasped and immediately gave up, quickly reaching for her IV button to click some morphine into her bloodstream.  Brendan gently rested his hand on her shoulder as he stood up, not really knowing what kind of physical affection was needed by a gunshot victim.  Out in the sandbox, dragging the wounded through a hail of gunfire was about all the touching necessary.

“Hey, Michelle—”

Brendan turned to find Kim stepping into the room.  She paused at the sight of him.

“I didn’t know you’d be here.” 
She looked back to her sister. “I’ll just come back later.  Maybe.”

Sh
e spun on her heels and made to leave.

“Stop, Kim,” Brendan said.
  “I’m the one who should be going.”

She regarded
him coolly before very deliberately stepping farther into the room to let him out.

“This is going to sound weird
, but I was drugged, and I really don’t remember it,” he said quickly, trying to squeeze all the words out before his brain kicked in to shut off the ill-advised verbal torrent.

“It?” she said
.  “Is that what you old people call sex now?”

Brendan took a deep breath and excused himself, hoping that Michelle could keep her promise to clean this all up.  If she did, he knew he’d keep the promise he hadn’t actually agreed to yet.