Hunter/Prey

Chapter 16

Trooper Jones wasn’t going to be a problem, but Sergeant Harper, the shift supervisor, was another story. Beckard knew both men well enough to be indifferent of Jones and very, very wary of Harper.

“Tell me again,” Harper was saying from the front passenger seat of the Crown Victoria. “What were you doing out there in the middle of the night with a knife?”

Beckard sat in the back of the vehicle, on the wrong side of a fourteen-gauge steel partition. The setup had been good enough to haul around criminals for the last ten years or so, and it was still good now. Not that Beckard had any ideas about escaping.

Not yet, anyway. They were on their way to the closest hospital nearly twenty-five miles away, which he was very thankful for. Once he got his wounds taken care of and was satisfied he wasn’t going to die tonight, he could then decide how to proceed. Besides, he was too busy grimacing through the pain, which ironically probably made his story more convincing to Harper, who kept a close eye on him by way of the rearview mirror.

Or, at least, Beckard hoped he was being convincing. Harper was a hard-ass, so there was always a chance he wasn’t buying it. It was difficult to tell from the man’s facial expression, which looked permanently frozen in a state of being pissed off.

“I had the knife in my truck, Sarge,” Beckard said. “It’s a good thing, too. I was coming home from Rita’s when she came out of nowhere and almost sideswiped me. I figured she was drunk and chased her, tried to flag her down before she did the same thing to some poor sap on the highway, but she wouldn’t stop. I ended up having to PIT her, and we went flying into the woods.”

“Why didn’t you call for backup?” Harper asked.

“No time. I did what I thought I had to at the time.”

“And the shotgun?”

“She had it in her car. Don’t ask me what she was doing with it. Maybe you can get her to talk later at the station.”

“I’ll do that.”

Did the sergeant looked convinced? Maybe semi-convinced?

Damn, it was hard to read the guy.

“Cold back there?” Jones asked with a grin.

Beckard snorted. Although he hadn’t felt the cold while he was stumbling his way through the woods bare-chested, he could feel it now. He would have preferred something longer — maybe a sweater — but one of Jones’s spare work shirts from the trunk would have to do for now.

“How’s the arm?” Harper asked.

“It hurts like fuck, Sarge,” Beckard said. It was the only thing he had said in the last few minutes that wasn’t a complete fabrication. “Jones, step on it, man. I’m dying back here.”

Jones chuckled behind the wheel. “I’m already going seventy. Any faster and you might end up in the woods again, pal.”

“Where did the dog go after it attacked you?” Harper asked.

“I have no friggin’ idea, Sarge,” Beckard said. “I was too busy running for my life.”

“It wasn’t hers? The dog?”

“I don’t think so. I’d remember a dog in the backseat of the Ford.”

“So where’d it come from?”

Beckard shrugged. “It looked wild.”

“Rabies?” Jones said, still with that stupid grin on his face.

“God, I hope not,” Beckard said, and played along by frowning at the suggestion he might have contracted rabies from the dog bite.

Bite? That was a mauling.

“Well, was it foaming at the mouth?” Jones asked.

“It was too dark,” Beckard said. “I couldn’t see shit. And, like I said, I was too busy trying to stay one step ahead of the crazy bitch.”

Jones laughed again. “Some night.”

“No kidding.”

Harper didn’t join in, and his face remained stoic. The veteran trooper was one of the more well-liked supervisors among the noncommissioned personnel at the state police. Personally, Beckard had never had any real uses for the man, and he assumed Harper would say the same thing about him, if asked. Of course, Beckard liked to think he could have won the older man over if they’d had more shifts together.

Ifs and asses don’t grow on grasses.

“I called the lieutenant,” Harper was saying. “Had to wake him up, but since no one’s dead — yet — he’s going to let us handle it until tomorrow morning when he comes in. So you have that long to get your story straight.”

“Yes, sir,” Beckard said. Then, because he knew Harper expected it, “But there’s nothing to get straight, Sarge. I told you the whole story. All of it.”

Harper nodded but said nothing. He looked out the front windshield at the other Crown Vic driving further up the road in front of them. Allie was in the backseat of the other vehicle right now. Beckard wondered if she was doing her song and dance at the moment, trying to convince the occupants of the other car the way he was in this one. She had a lot of work ahead of her, because he was pretty sure he had been mostly successful. At least with Jones. Harper, on the other hand…

Beckard was buoyed by one fact: Harper may be suspicious (Great instincts, asshole), but he didn’t have any solid proof that Beckard was lying. He had been careful to tailor his story to match the evidence the other troopers would have found by now. His truck, the shotgun, and Allie’s Ford. There wasn’t a third vehicle at the crash site, so Beckard still had no idea where the hell those hunters had come from.

There were just the kids back at the cabin to worry about. The two live ones, anyway. For the life of him, Beckard couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t called the cops yet. All it would take was one phone call to 911 and his ass was cooked. He figured it probably had something to do with Allie. Did she say something to them? Convince them to hold off calling the cops?

I killed her sister and their friends. Maybe they agreed to let her hunt me down.

Crazy kids and their blood vendettas.

He might have chuckled softly to himself, because Harper glanced up at the rearview mirror for a brief second. “You say something?”

“Did anyone call 911?” Beckard asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe someone heard all the shooting in the woods. That shotgun made a hell of a ruckus. Or maybe someone saw the cars on the side of the road?”

“We didn’t get any calls.” He turned almost completely around in his seat so he could look back at Beckard. “Why didn’t you call? What happened to your cell phone?”

“I lost it in the crash. She must have tossed it before she came after me to finish the job.”

Harper stared at him in silence for a moment.

“What’s on your mind, Sarge?” Beckard said. He wanted to add, Come right out and say it to my face, motherfucker. But he said instead, “If you wanna ask me something, I’m an open book, Sarge. Besides, why would I lie? By morning, you’ll be able to confirm everything I’ve told you, anyway.”

“What’s one woman doing out here in the middle of nowhere, driving around with a shotgun? She doesn’t live around here. Her ID says she’s from Los Angeles.”

Beckard shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her. I just know what happened and that I’m lucky to be alive.”

The trooper nodded, though Beckard knew the man was far from convinced. He turned back around, then unclipped his radio and keyed it. “Come in, Stevens.”

“Stevens here,” a male voice answered. Stevens was the driver of the other Crown Vic.

“Station’s coming up. Take the woman to processing and then straight into one of the interrogation rooms. No one goes to see her or asks her any questions without my permission, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Stevens said.

Shit. He’s going to talk to her himself.

Beckard fidgeted in his seat. Even though he wasn’t restrained, he now understood the helpless feeling that came with sitting in the back of a moving police cruiser. The backseat was claustrophobic and suffocating.

“Jones,” Beckard said, “can you please drive faster? I’m dying back here.”

Jones looked over at Harper for permission, but the sergeant shook his head.

Beckard gritted his teeth.

Motherfucker.

He sat back and concentrated on the back of Harper’s head on the other side of the partition. Harper had a bit of a bald spot that wasn’t apparent from the front, and Beckard wondered how hard he’d have to push to get a knife through the man’s skull. The more he zeroed in on Harper’s head, the more the pain faded into the background…

He must have dozed off during the rest of the ride to the hospital. By the time he opened his eyes to the dull backseat ceiling light shining in his face, the car had stopped and doors were slamming shut up front. Jones helped him out of the Crown Vic while Harper went on ahead to take care of the paperwork.

“You don’t look so hot,” Jones said.

Beckard grunted. “I was shotgunned, chased through the woods, got my nose broken, and a wild dog tried to maul my arm off. I’m peachy.”

Jones chuckled. “How was Rita’s, by the way?”

“I dunno. I spent most of the night trying to pick up Sarah.”

“The new waitress?”

“Uh huh.”

“She’s hot.”

“Why you think I was trying to pick her up?”

“Say no more. You get anywhere?”

“I said ‘tried,’ didn’t I?”

“Ha ha,” Jones said. “It wasn’t your night, was it?”

“That’s the understatement of the century, Jones. I don’t think it’s been my year.”

“Yeah, well, night’s still young.”

That’s what I’m counting on, he thought, but said instead, “Lord help me.”

A nurse came outside with a wheelchair before they reached the lobby. Beckard sat down gratefully and was pushed inside.

The hospital was a one-floor building, just big enough to support the two closest towns along the highway. It had everything he needed, but Beckard was more concerned about its proximity to the state police station about twenty minutes, give or take, further down the road. Allie would be there right now and soon, Harper would be joining her.

Harper.

The man was trouble. Maybe even more than Allie, because people would actually believe him, whereas Allie was a stranger. Worse, a vigilante. Cops hated vigilantes, especially ones brandishing shotguns and trying to shoot one of their own. Law-enforcement types tended to demand evidence before you could whack someone.

But Harper. If he believed her, if he decided not to wait until morning when the lieutenant came in to start the investigation, then Beckard was screwed.

Shit.

He had a lot of time to think about what to do, how to handle Harper and Allie, while waiting for the doctor on call. When the doctor finally showed up at his room, Beckard was disappointed to see she was a brunette. Pretty enough, but a bit on the short side and maybe ten years too old. Way out of his range.

She gave him a cursory look before going to work unwrapping the gauze dressing around his arm that the troopers had put on him back in the woods. “Looks like you had yourself some night, trooper.”

“Tell me about it,” Beckard said. “Can I get something for the pain, doc? I’m really suffering here.”

“What’s worse, the nose, the arm, or the side?”

“I can’t pick just one, doc. They all hurt like a sonofabitch.”

“I need to know what I’m dealing with first.” She swung a magnifying lamp over to get a better look at his arm. “Looks like you have extensive muscle and tendon damage. That’s the bad news.”

“You mean there’s good news?”

“It didn’t reach the bone.”

“It feels like my arm’s about to fall off.”

“I bet. What did you do to it?”

“What? The dog?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing. It was a wild dog.”

Like Harper, she didn’t look like she believed him. “Did they catch it? We need to find out if it’s been immunized in case of rabies.”

“Good luck with that,” Beckard said. “It ran off into the woods. Like I said. Wild dog, doc.”

“Dogs rarely bite people for no reason,” the doctor said doubtfully.

“I don’t know what to tell ya,” Beckard said with a shrug. “This one did. I didn’t do a damn thing to it.”

“Uh huh.”

Sonofabitch. I must be losing it. Can’t even convince a tired doctor.

Before the woman could grill him some more, Jones appeared at the open door and leaned in. “He gonna play the piano again, doc?”

“You play the piano?” the doctor asked Beckard.

He shook his head. “He’s just messing around.”

“Hunh,” she said.

“Where’s Harper?” Beckard asked Jones.

“Robbins picked him up a few minutes ago,” the other trooper said.

“He went home?”

“Back to the station.”

Of course he did.

“He’s hot to interrogate the woman,” Jones continued, then made a gun with his finger and “shot” Beckard. “He’s probably really interested in how a 120-pound woman got the jump on you. Hell, we all are.”

“I told you, the crash knocked me out,” Beckard said, but he was already thinking, Harper, you motherfucker. He said to Jones, “Once the doc knits me back up, can you give me a ride back home? I’m exhausted, man.”

“You don’t wanna stay the night?”

“Do I have to?” Beckard asked the doctor.

“You mean you don’t want to stay?” she said, looking surprised.

“Not if I don’t have to.”

“You’re pretty bad off, trooper. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t insist you spend the night.”

“But I don’t have to…”

She shook her head. He had expected more of a fight, but apparently the woman couldn’t care less if he dropped dead soon. That should have made him a bit peeved, but Beckard was instead impressed with her indifference.

“I can’t make you stay,” she said. “You’ll have to sign forms saying that you’re refusing medical treatment.”

“You’re crazy, man,” Jones said from the door.

“Give me the papers to sign,” Beckard said to the doctor.

She shrugged. “Your funeral.”

“Until then, can you at least make sure I don’t bleed to death before I step out of this place?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

He grinned. He was really starting to like her. Maybe he could even overlook her height and age…

“Hell of a night, huh?” Jones said when they were back on the highway again. “At least you got to go to Rita’s. I might stop in after work, see if Sarah’s still there. Wanna come and take a second swing at the prize?”

“I think I’m done with Rita’s for a while,” Beckard said.

“Oh, come on, don’t be such a baby,” Jones laughed. “One dog bite and some buckshot, and you’re crying like a little girl.”

“That damn mutt almost took my entire arm off, man.”

“Waaah,” Jones said, mimicking a baby crying.

Beckard smiled. He liked Jones. They had known each other since their cadet days, so he wasn’t really looking forward to doing this. He had his knife, which Jones had given back to him after the hospital, but knives were always tricky. Besides, there was another, better option.

Now sitting in the front passenger seat, Beckard reached over and pulled out Jones’s gun from its holster.

“What the fuck you doing?” Jones said, his eyes widening. He might have grabbed for the gun back if both his hands weren’t on the steering wheel.

“Sorry,” Beckard said, shoving the Glock against Jones’s temple. “Pull over to the shoulder.”

Jones swallowed and did as he was told.

“Turn off the lights,” Beckard said.

Jones did. Not that he really needed to. The highway was always empty this time of the morning. It would be a few more hours before the truckers started coming through in a constant stream. For now, there wasn’t another vehicle in either direction, leaving the headlights of the Crown Vic a lonely pool of bright lights in a sea of black nothing.

It was perfect.

“What are you doing, man?” Jones asked.

The trooper looked genuinely scared, which told Beckard he hadn’t seen the way Beckard’s right hand was shaking. Just the effort of holding the gun up made him wince, every sensitive muscle that the dog’s teeth had torn through earlier rippling mercilessly.

“Out of the car,” Beckard said.

He opened the passenger-side door and climbed out, secretly grimacing when Jones couldn’t see him, and quickly changed the gun to his left hand. Beckard was right-handed like most of the world’s population, and if he had to shoot the cop from long distance — and at this point, long-distance was anything over a foot — he didn’t like his chances.

Jones climbed out of the other side and stared at him across the roof. “What are you doing, Beckard? What the fuck are you doing, man?”

Beckard didn’t answer him. He circled around the hood of the squad car instead before saying, “Assume the position.”

“What?”

“Assume the fucking position!”

Jones did, facing his driver-side door and spreading his legs before putting his arms behind his head.

“Don’t fuck with me!” Beckard shouted. He wasn’t worried about being overheard. They might as well be the only two living souls in the universe, given the emptiness around them at the moment.

Jones reluctantly laced his fingers together. “What now?”

“Sorry, buddy,” Beckard said. “I always liked you.”

“What are you—” Jones started to say, but never finished because Beckard shoved the Glock against the back of trooper’s head and pulled the trigger.

It was hard to miss from that kind of range, even left-handed.