Dead Run

CHAPTER 55

Wednesday, November 21

6:00 p.m.

Rick tapped on Carla’s front door. It drifted open. Frowning, he nudged the door wider and slipped inside.

“Carla,” he called. “It’s Rick.”

She didn’t reply and his senses sharpened. This felt wrong. Bad wrong. He swept his gaze over the room. Except for the trail of water that led from the doorway where he stood toward the back of the house, nothing appeared out of place. He narrowed his eyes. Someone had come in from the rain and walked dripping wet through the house, not pausing to wipe their feet or towel off.

Someone other than Carla, judging by the way the wooden floors gleamed. She obviously took excellent care of them.

He told himself to get out. He told himself to call the KWPD and wait on the front porch until they arrived.

But Val was the KWPD.

And he was also the enemy.

Dammit. He flexed his fingers. When Sam died, he had promised himself he would never fire a gun again. For the first time since that day, he wished for the muscle his Walther PPK 380 had provided. He wished he was the man he’d been then-arrogant, cocky, invincible.

Problem was, now he understood how tenuous life was. How fragile.

Rick moved his gaze around the room again, this time looking for something he could use to protect himself. His gaze landed on a large brass candlestick on the mantel. He crossed to the fireplace and lifted it, weighing it in his hand. Not as effective as the Walther, he acknowledged. But it would have to do.

He followed the trail of water, inching forward, straining to listen. From the back of the house came a sound, one he couldn’t place. Like an ill-fitting door being dragged across the floor.

He wasn’t alone.

Carla.

Rick forced himself to proceed slowly, to not abandon stealth. He found Carla in the kitchen. She lay on her side on the floor, wedged against the far cabinet, her arm hitched up the wainscoting. Then he saw the blood, an obscene smear across the light-colored tile. A growing pool around her torso.

“Carla!” he cried and raced to her side. Snatching a dish towel from the counter, he pressed it to the gaping wound in her chest. Then he saw the others.

There were so many of them. Her attacker had hacked at her as if in a frenzy.

She couldn’t survive an attack like this. If the paramedics were here now, working to save her, she wouldn’t survive.

Her eyes fluttered open. They looked dull already.

“No,” he muttered fiercely. “Don’t die, baby. You’re not going to die, you hear me? You’re not.”

She held his gaze. Her lips moved, as if she was trying to speak. “What, sweetheart? Tell me.”

He bent his ear close to her mouth. Her breath stirred against his cheek, though no sound emerged. He drew away. Her eyes closed, a small smile curved the edges of her lips.

Tears burned his eyes. “No! Dammit, Carla!” He shook her; her head lolled to the side. “Come back, baby. Come ba-”

“Get up, Rick.”

Rick whipped his head around. Val stood in the doorway behind him, his gaze on Carla. He wore a hooded black rain slicker. Water dripped from the slicker onto the floor, pooling at his feet.

A trail of water from the door to the back of the house.

Fury choked him. Betrayal with it. “Is that all you have to say? Get up, Rick?”

He turned his expressionless eyes on Rick. “Is she dead?”

“What do you think?”

“I think that yes, she is.”

Rick eased to his feet, shaking with rage. “What are you doing here, Val?”

“Carla called me,” he replied woodenly. “She told me to meet her here, that it was urgent.”

Liar! Dirty, fucking liar. “Did she?” Rick managed to say. “I wonder why?”

“Maybe for the same reason she asked you to meet her here.”

“I didn’t say that she did.”

A flush spread up the other man’s cheeks. Val drew his Colt Python revolver and aimed it at Rick. “I think you had better move away from the body.”

Rick did, careful not to step in blood and contaminate the scene. He wondered if Val knew about the tape. And if he did know, whether he had already found it. He prayed he hadn’t.

“Why don’t you call this in, Val? Get a crew out ASAP.” He folded his arms across his chest and met the other man’s gaze. “There’s nowhere I have to be.”

Val stared blankly at him a moment, then slowly shook his head. “That’s where you’re wrong. You and I are going down to headquarters. We need to have a little chat.”

“I think not. I prefer to be right here when the evidence crew arrives. Just want to make sure the evidence isn’t contaminated. You know crime-scene procedure, Lieutenant. Leaving a murder scene unattended constitutes a serious breach.”

“If I were you, I’d be a little less concerned with my duty and more concerned with your own ass.”

“Meaning?”

Val narrowed his eyes. “This doesn’t look good for you, does it, Rick? Finding you this way? With her?”

“Where’s the weapon? Where’s the blood?” Rick held out his hands, palms up. “My hands are red, from where I tried to stop her bleeding. But the way she was killed, it should be all over me.

“Her gun’s on the counter,” Rick continued. “Judging by the trail of blood, it looks as if she dragged herself across the floor in an attempt to retrieve it. That’s why her arm’s hitched up like that, she tried to pull herself up, one drawer at a time.” His voice cracked. “She didn’t make it.”

Val didn’t even blink. “Your point?”

“My point, old friend, is that I didn’t kill her. She went for her gun after her attacker left, probably before I arrived.

“Her killer could have exited this door,” Rick continued, motioning the rear door, “then made his way around to the front. If wearing something like a-” he eyed the other man with feigned ingenuousness “-like a rubber rain slicker, he could step out into the rain and by the time he made it around the house, he’d be clean. The rain would have washed away the evidence of his deed. That make sense to you, Val?”

Val crossed to where Carla lay. He stepped over her, retrieved and pocketed her pistol. “Poor deluded Rick. He hasn’t been the same since his kid died. Such a tragedy. It breaks my heart. It really does.”

Rick struggled to keep his fury in check. He couldn’t give Val anything to use against him. He tried another tack. “Remember that time we lifted your dad’s pellet gun and decided every streetlight in town was big game? Remember how indignant we were when the cops showed up?” Rick shook his head. “Twelve years old and we thought we shouldn’t have to answer to anybody.”

“A couple of smart-asses.” A smile tugged at the corners of Val’s mouth. “The way we talked to that cop, today a kid like that’d make my blood boil.”

“Your old man kicked your ass.”

“What about yours? You couldn’t ride your bike for a week.”

“We were going to conquer the world, Val. When I think of the way we used to strut, it’s a wonder anybody put up with us. Cocksure punks, that’s what we were. And then we discovered girls.”

“Yee-ha.”

“What happened to us, Val? We were best friends. We would have died for each other.” Rick lowered his voice to a soft plea. “When did it all change? When did we begin taking it all so seriously?”

Val’s smile faded. “I’m tired, Rick. So fucking tired of it all. This game stinks.”

“So let’s stop playing.” He looked his old friend dead in the eyes, aching for what had been-and regretting what must be. His friend was going down. And he had to be the one to do it. “Let’s stop taking it all so seriously, let’s be the boys we used to be. Cocksure punks out to save the world.”

Val hesitated; his hand shook slightly. “You can’t go back, Rick. We both know that.”

“You can,” Rick murmured, pressing his advantage. “I’ll help you. Talk to me, Val. I’m here for you, buddy.”

For a second, Rick saw the boy he had known and loved in Val’s eyes. The kid who had been so eager to prove himself to the world, to be the people’s champion, a hero.

In the next moment, that boy was gone. In his place was a man Rick didn’t recognize. “Screw that. We’re going to take a little ride.”

He meant to kill him. And there was nobody to stop him.

“Don’t do this, Val,” Rick implored. “I don’t know what you’ve gotten yourself into, but I’ll help you. You talk to me and I’ll see to it that-”

“Cut the cop bullshit! You think I don’t know the way it works? I’ve been a cop my whole life!” He motioned with his gun. “Now, shut the fuck up and get your hands behind your head. We’re going for a little ride.”