In Seconds

24

Myles checked outside his front windows. He saw no truck parked at Vivian’s, no vehicle at all, except for hers, which was in the drive. From what he could tell, there were no lights on in the front of her house, and no squad car rolling down the street. The view looked exactly like it did every other night. The houses sat dark and quiet, the lake glimmered, placid, beneath the moon, and the stars dangled like Christmas ornaments above.

Because he doubted Ink and Lloyd would’ve approached Vivian’s house from the front, and he figured they’d probably come out the same way they went in, he hurried through his kitchen and exited onto the deck. There he paused to listen. He could hear his heart pounding with urgency, maybe even fear despite the gun in his hand, but he couldn’t hear voices or movement.

Had he already missed them?

That upstairs light didn’t allow him to see in the first-floor windows. Maybe when they found her gone they’d left without bothering to turn it off. Or they were ransacking her house right now, looking for clues or leaving surprises…?.

Guessing they’d be too disappointed and angry at finding her gone to simply go away, he walked as quickly and quietly as possible through Vivian’s garden. He had no idea what vegetables he happened to be trampling, but he wasn’t worried about it. If he could arrest Ink and Lloyd, send them back to prison where they belonged, it’d be worth a few smashed tomatoes.

Although Myles had put on his bulletproof vest along with his utility belt, he hadn’t taken the time to change into his uniform. He wore the vest over his T-shirt, knew it probably looked a little ridiculous, but he had what was necessary. That was all that mattered.

When he discovered the broken door, which stood slightly ajar, and the glass on the floor inside, he was especially glad he’d had the presence of mind to put on some shoes.

Someone had been in her house, all right.

Hinges squealing as he pushed the door wider, Myles stepped over the shards of glass and stopped again to listen. He couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything, either. There was no light whatsoever in this room. The moon slanted into the front of the house and didn’t filter to the back. Myles had brought his flashlight, but he didn’t dare use it. He wanted to find Ink and Lloyd before they realized he was there, so he felt his way through instead, hoping he wouldn’t knock something over in the process.

He hadn’t even made it out of the laundry room and into the kitchen when he heard footsteps pounding down the stairs. Whoever was here seemed to be leaving.

Without seeing where he was going, he couldn’t move fast so he snapped on his flashlight and charged through the swinging doors between the kitchen and the living room.

The shifting glow of his flashlight landed on the back of a man who was opening the door. Ink. He turned at that second, giving Myles a glimpse of his face. Then Myles spotted a second man, Lloyd, standing behind Ink across the threshold.

Lloyd had a gun. Ducking behind the sofa, Myles called out, “Hold it right there or I’ll shoot!”

They didn’t stop. Myles hadn’t really expected them to. Ink shoved Lloyd to the side, and attempted to shut the door behind him, so Myles squeezed the trigger. He felt the familiar recoil travel up his arm and hoped to God he’d hit something. He was peering around the sofa to see, when someone flung the door open again. It crashed against the wall with a bang that reverberated through the house just before the sound of a second shot, this one coming from the bad guys.

Ink had taken control of the firearm. Blinded by Myles’s flashlight, he was shooting into the dark, but he’d come darn close. Too close. When Myles heard the bullet whiz past his ear, he tossed the flashlight into the living room so it couldn’t give his location away and dropped to the floor. But there wasn’t any time for the Oh, shit! that was going through his mind. He had to act and he had to act now.

Lifting his Glock, he fired once, twice, three times.

And he hit someone. He heard the grunt of pain, the curse.

Hoping the squad car he’d ordered would come and hem them in at the front, he waited. Without his flashlight, he couldn’t see them anymore. “Ink?” he called out. “Drop your weapon!”

“Go to hell!” came the reply. Then someone started to run.

It had to be Lloyd. Myles didn’t believe Ink could move that fast, not with his handicap. That meant he had a good chance of apprehending Ink, even if Lloyd managed to escape. But he wouldn’t get anyone if he stayed where he was. He had to sacrifice the cover of the sofa in order to advance.

First, he wanted to reload. The clip he’d been using wasn’t out of bullets, but he didn’t want to be down to two or three shots if he got into another exchange. So he changed clips by feel alone, then rose cautiously to his feet.

His abandoned flashlight painted a steady white circle on the wall. It was the only thing he could see as he darted for the door. He reached it without incident, but as soon as he stepped through it he heard another blast.

This one wasn’t from his gun, either.

Then he felt the pain.

The sound of gunshots woke Laurel from a deep sleep. She blinked against the darkness, wondering if she could’ve dreamed the sound. Had she been reliving that night in Colorado as she so often did?

She didn’t think so. After a few seconds of trying to catch her breath and sort out the thoughts and feelings bombarding her from all sides, she heard another shot.

That was when she knew it was real.

“Myles?” she called.

No answer. It felt as if she was completely alone in the house, but she knew he’d never leave her without someone else being there. Not in her current predicament. And not without good reason.

“Myles?” she called again.

The familiar influx of adrenaline began to pour through her. Something was wrong. Something terrible.

Where was her gun?

She had to rack her brain to remember. It was in her purse. But she hadn’t fallen asleep in this room, hadn’t brought it upstairs with her. The last she remembered was that she’d had it in Myles’s kitchen while he was cooking her meal.

“God, please,” she mumbled. She wasn’t praying for anything specific. Nothing she could identify in this hellish moment. She was praying for all of it. Safety. For herself, for Myles, for everyone in Pineview. For Virgil and Rex and the children. She didn’t want to find the sheriff dead. She couldn’t take that. Not after what she’d seen that night in Colorado.

More shots rang out. Whatever was going on hadn’t ended. She had to get out there and help, if she could. But she didn’t even have her jeans. After Myles had carried her to bed, she’d shed them for the sake of comfort and curled up under Marley’s blankets.

Where were they? Probably on the floor somewhere, but she was already in the hall and wasn’t willing to waste so much as a second going back.

Running down the stairs, she rushed into the kitchen to get her gun. She could see a light burning upstairs at her house, but that didn’t surprise her. What did was that she didn’t hear any sirens or police activity out front.

Where was the rest of the police force? Had Myles gone over there by himself? If so, what had motivated him to do that?

She found her purse on the table, where she’d left it, and pulled out her gun. Then she ran through the living room and out the front door. There’d been no new shots since she’d left Marley’s bedroom, but she didn’t hear Myles making an arrest, or coming back home, either.

Why not?

“Myles? Where are you?”

“Get back…in the house…and lock the door!”

Relief flooded through her as she recognized his voice, but she didn’t turn back as he asked. It sounded as if he was in pain, as if he could hardly talk, let alone yell.

She imagined him bleeding on her front porch.

She glanced around, looking for danger, but saw nothing and hurried closer. A series of dark, amorphous shapes surrounded her, but she realized those shapes were her car, her chairs, her hibiscus plant, the columns on her porch. Whatever had happened was over.

“Myles?”

“Didn’t you…hear me?” he said hoarsely. “I have a deputy…on the way. He’ll…help me. Get…inside. Now!”

If Ink and his partner were around, they would’ve fired again. At her, if not him. But she wasn’t sure it would’ve stopped her. She had to get to Myles right away, before it was too late. That was all she cared about. So she lowered her gun and ran hell-bent for her porch.

She found him lying, alone, on her welcome mat. “Have you been shot?”

“Just…in the leg. I’m…okay.”

He was okay if the bullet hadn’t struck a major artery. She stepped over him to turn on the porch light and saw that he’d actually been shot twice. Once in the leg and once in the neck.

“Turn that off!” he growled, but she didn’t. She could hear a siren now. The deputy was on his way. Ink and his partner were gone. She had to stop the bleeding.

Tears streamed down her face as she ran inside to get a clean sheet she could cut up and tie around his leg. This was exactly what she’d been afraid of. She’d brought The Crew to town, and now they were hurting the people who meant the most to her.

She returned as a parade of cop cars drove down their street. The neighbors closest to the corner had been roused from sleep. They stumbled out of their house and stood in front, rubbing their eyes and yawning as they watched to see what was going on. A few began to walk over. But she ignored them. In situations like this, seconds mattered.

Using a pair of scissors, she cut the sheet and tied a strip above Myles’s thigh, where he’d been shot. The leg injury looked worse than the wound in his neck, which appeared to be a simple grazing. She was wiping the blood away when she felt his hand slip beneath her underwear and cup her ass.

“What are you doing?” She sniffled, surprised. The porch railing blocked any view of her from the oncoming cop and the neighbors, but that would change within seconds.

His teeth flashed as he gave her a lopsided grin. “Hey, stop crying. I don’t think I’d want to touch you so badly if I was about to die.”

Laughing, she pushed his hand away and laid her head on his chest. The bulletproof vest wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but nothing had ever felt better than the tenderness he showed her by running his fingers through her hair. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmured. “I’m fine.”

And that was when she knew. He might be fighting it—might be as scared of falling in love again as she was—but he cared about her every bit as much as she cared about him.

“What the hell’s wrong with you? Run!” L.J. whispered harshly. They didn’t have time for Ink to limp along. They were dead if they didn’t get out of Pineview fast. It seemed as if the police were coming from every direction. The flashing lights on top of their cruisers made L.J. dizzy with their strobe effect.

He moved deeper into the forest, into the welcoming shelter of the trees, but the red of those lights seemed to reflect all around him, and the sirens were deafening. The cops were too close…?.

“I’m…coming,” Ink gasped, but he wasn’t making great progress, and L.J. didn’t want to wait. Why should he? Ink was nothing but a crazy old gimp. The heartless son of a bitch had dragged him into some deep shit, and now it was all going wrong, just as he’d known it would.

Ink could go down for it alone. No way would L.J. be caught with him, not if he could help it.

Once he’d made that decision, L.J.’s path seemed so ridiculously obvious he almost couldn’t believe he hadn’t broken away from Ink sooner. He’d leave his old cellie; Ink would never know where he’d gone. Then he wouldn’t be tied to this nightmare, this…this violent nut job. After the gunfight that had just occurred, Ink wouldn’t make it till morning before they dragged his ass off to jail.

Picking up speed, L.J. put more distance between them. But it wasn’t that much easier for him to run. He’d been shot in the left shoulder. He had no idea how bad his injury was, but he knew it hurt more than anything he’d ever experienced before. Pain radiated through his whole chest, and blood flowed down the front of his shirt, causing the fabric to stick to him. With his luck, he’d lose too much blood and be unable to continue moving at all. Then Ink would catch up and kill him for trying to get away. He was already making guttural threats as loudly as he dared.

“You leave me behind, you little prick, and I’ll kill you. I swear to God I will. If I have to hunt you across the entire country, I’ll be there someday when you least expect it.”

Those words terrified L.J., which only made him run faster. He’d seen what Ink could do, how casually and carelessly he killed whoever stood in his way. Ink was so twisted he made L.J., who’d always been the badass of his neighborhood, feel like a choirboy.

He wanted to turn around and scream, “You can eat shit and die, sucker!” and continue charging through the forest. But as they left the highway behind, with all those headlights zipping past, it was getting too dark to see. There was no telling what he might run or fall into; his legs were already wobbling.

Besides all that, Ink had the keys to the truck, and the truck was an absolute necessity. They couldn’t escape on foot. Even if the cops didn’t find them, they couldn’t travel fast enough, wouldn’t have enough food and water to reach a safe place, especially with him bleeding all over. It wasn’t as if they could stumble into a gas station and ask to use the bathroom so he could clean up, or go to a hospital. Their future well-being hung on getting to the truck before the police discovered it, and driving to their cabin where they’d have the privacy to recuperate and live until everything went back to normal.

Ink had him again. If he kept running, he’d probably die in the forest. Or the police would find him and send him back to prison. His only real hope was to head to the truck with Ink and try to reach the cabin.

Slowing to a stop, he bent over to catch his breath. The air rattled painfully in his lungs, and his heart pounded. It seemed to vibrate through his entire body, which shook uncontrollably.

“What the…hell were…you thinking?” Ink said as he came scraping up from behind. “You thought…you could…leave…my ass?”

He’d been thinking he’d risk almost anything to do just that. But this was not the time. “I wanted—” he dragged some air into his lungs “—to get farther…from the…the cops.” He felt for the hole in his shoulder, found a small circle below his collarbone. “I’ve been…shot. Don’t know how long…I’ll be able to…keep running.”

Ink was gasping, too, but this seemed to pacify him. “You were…hit? Where?”

“Shoulder.”

Ink gave no indication whether that mattered to him or not. He grabbed L.J. by the back of the shirt and shoved him forward. “We have…to keep moving.”

Dizziness threatened to overwhelm L.J. Even worse, the darkness of the surrounding forest suddenly seemed too forbidding, too impenetrable. He felt as if his feet were five times their normal size. He could hardly move. He wanted to lie down, to somehow rid himself of the anvil crushing his chest.

“Do you…know where…we’re at?” Because he didn’t. He couldn’t remember. He could only feel the pain.

“Yeah. Truck’s not…far,” Ink said, “Get going,” and gave him another push.

It was a nine millimeter, not the most powerful gun around, but that was the best Rex’s friend could do on such short notice. And it could certainly be lethal, especially at close range. A nine millimeter wasn’t going to stop someone as big as Horse, not unless Virgil hit him in just the right place. And it wouldn’t be worth much if he wound up facing an army.

As he drove the car he’d rented at the airport past Horse’s illegal club on sixtieth and Vermont, Virgil hoped he wouldn’t have to confront The Crew en masse, but it didn’t look promising. Although he’d hoped to arrive early, before the nightly activities really got under way, he’d spent too long getting here. He’d had to pick up the car, rendezvous with Rex’s friend, who’d taken him to meet another friend, and buy the gun. Then he’d messed around trying to get a silencer, to no avail. And after that, he’d had an hour’s drive on freeways that were almost as congested at night as they were during the day.

Already the club was packed. Cars, trucks and motorcycles lined both sides of the street; groups, mostly men with a few hookers thrown in, congregated on the sidewalks, some smoking weed, some buying harder drugs. Inside, he knew he’d find rooms where these men could take the girls for just about any activity they chose, including a gang bang. There’d be slot machines and other types of gambling, gun sales, whatever a guy could want.

He’d called Rex a few minutes ago, reaching him as he was going into the hospital, and gotten Mona’s number. She was still cliqued up with The Crew, still one of them. But she liked Rex, and Rex trusted her. Virgil hoped to God he could trust her, too, because she’d agreed to be his eyes and ears tonight. According to her last text, he’d beaten her to the club, but when she eventually showed up she was supposed to scope out the place, report on who was inside, who else they were expecting, what they were doing, where Horse was and when Virgil might have an opportunity to get him alone.

His plan, simple though it was, sounded feasible in theory. But Virgil couldn’t be sure Mona would provide reliable information. She could get high and forget the whole damn thing. He also had no guarantee she’d want the money he offered more than what Horse might provide if she turned on him instead. She could decide to tell Horse he was sitting outside, lure him right into a trap.

Trusting her was a high-risk venture. But he had to trust someone. Without intel, he’d have no chance whatsoever.

He didn’t bother ducking his head or even looking away when he passed the men on the sidewalk. Chances were slim any of them would recognize him. He grew up in L.A., but he hadn’t been a gangbanger until he went to prison. And thanks to tougher sentencing laws, he’d been dropped into the federal system, served his time in Arizona and then Colorado. Maybe a few of The Crew members he’d known had found their way to L.A. to live with the brothers and be a bigger part of the criminal empire, but acting suspicious would cause more of a ripple among this group than acting unafraid, as if he belonged right where he was.

The picture of Peyton hugging Brady that he’d put on the console stared up at him as he rounded the corner and parked. He was too anxious, didn’t want to wait for Mona. Peyton could go into labor anytime. He hated the thought of her being alone, especially now, while they were dealing with so much.

If she lost the baby…

He couldn’t even consider that. Neither could he get ahead of himself. Not if he hoped to see her again.

Taking the gun from the seat beside him, he checked the magazine while he called Laurel. He’d brought the prepaid cell phone he’d purchased so he’d have a safe way to communicate, something that wouldn’t contain all his contacts if it fell into the wrong hands. So he hated to dial her number. It meant he’d have to destroy the phone before he went in. But talking to her might get him new information and shore up his resolve. If he had to kill Horse, he hoped it would save her, too.

But her voice mail answered. “You’ve reached the Stewart residence…?.”

Where the hell was she? It was two in the morning. She should be at home.

Worry tightened his stomach muscles. Had Ink gotten to her? Was it too late?

If so, The Crew had no idea what was about to happen to them. Because once he unleashed his rage—

The beep sounded, signaling that it was time to leave a message. He didn’t really know what to tell her. What could he say after so much had happened?

Something. This could be his last chance to communicate with the sister, who’d stood by him through every problem and setback, even when the entire world, including their mother, seemed determined to break him.

“Hey, ah, it’s me,” he said into the phone. “I wanted to let you know that…that I’m sorry. I wish you’d never been dragged into any of this, wish I’d been able to find another way to manage my life so that there’d be no spillover on you. But…that doesn’t help much, does it? We are where we are. Just know this—I love you. I’ve always loved you.”

Another call came in as he was hanging up. After checking caller ID, he punched the Talk button. “Yeah?”

“It’s me. I’m a block away.”

Mona. The game was on. Either she’d give him the information he needed to kill Horse, or she’d give up the information Horse needed to kill him.