Too Far Gone

90

Alexa and Bond agreed that they couldn’t wait for Leland to make the next move. They didn’t really know much about Leland and what drove him. Bond said Leland thought more like an animal that could only plan in the short term, and react to situations as they came, than a person. Alexa thought he was very possibly clinically insane, which as long as he was alone out here and unthreatened wasn’t a big deal. He lacked social skills, might even be marginally retarded. Whatever the reality was, he was no ordinary criminal, and Alexa and Bond knew they couldn’t trust him to do what most people would in similar circumstances.

Leland might or might not know other cops were coming and that his time was running out. Neither of them believed he would cut and run. Unless he was so seriously wounded that he was lying in the brush dying, Leland would try to resolve the immediate problem. He’d come for them or wait in hiding for them to move into his field of fire. Either way, Alexa didn’t think he would wait long, given his wound.

Alexa stayed with Manseur, watching Larry Bond as he started his wide circle around the rear of the cabin. She was twenty feet from the edge of the dock, kneeling beside Manseur, who slumped, eyes closed, with his back against a tree. Bond moved silently, a man who hunted deer by stalking them, and his camouflage helped him melt into the foliage. One second he was there, the next gone.

Alexa turned her radio up until it squealed and backed off until it was quiet. She wouldn’t call Bond, but he would be able to call her when he found Leland, or got to Kennedy.

She hoped Leland was dead, but despite Bond’s confidence in his shot, she couldn’t relax. Leland was a large and powerful man, and he had Kennedy’s rifle. If he was drawing a bead on her at that moment, she wouldn’t ever know it. Given the speed of a. 270 round, you’d never hear the shot that got you.

Alexa thought about Kennedy, who was likely dead, the young deputy lying lifeless on the dock, the dead kidnapper in the cabin, and the shot-up briefcase full of bonds. The missing diary pages also entered her thoughts, and she wondered if they were in the cabin. Hearing a twig snap, she pivoted to see Leland Ticholet, stark naked except for the ballistic vest. He stood not ten feet away, aiming Kennedy’s rifle at her head. She froze. Leland’s wild eyes were burning like coals. Silver shells with black heads and yellow plastic points radiated from his mouth like talons. Alexa could see his finger in the guard as he squeezed the trigger once, and then again. She read the sudden slacking of his facial muscles when nothing happened, and she realized that there was no shell in the chamber.

Howling, Leland threw the weapon at her like a spear, then darted past her, zigzagging through the brush. She raised the Mossberg and fired twice.

“Alexa!” Bond’s voice called out from the radio’s speaker.

Fingers trembling, she keyed her radio. “Larry. I’m okay.”

“You get him?”

“I tried. He ran off. How’s Kennedy?”

“Alive. Leland hit him good in the head, but he’s got a strong pulse. I’m coming back now. Wait for me.”

“Okay,” she said.

Alexa looked at Manseur, whose eyes were open now. He had drawn his Glock and was aiming in the direction Leland had run. Leland had to be stopped.

“Wait for Kennedy,” she told Manseur. He nodded, squeezing his eyes shut when the pain hit him. Reloading as she walked, Alexa took off after her quarry.