Hunter/Prey

Chapter 17

She didn’t say a word between the time they threw her into the police car, during the long drive to the police station, and when they booked her before eventually putting her into an interrogation room in the back of a long hallway. There, they handcuffed her right wrist to a steel ring at the edge of the table. The room was sparse and there were no recording devices she could see, or even one of those one-way mirrors where someone could watch her from a connected room.

Allie didn’t say anything, because they didn’t ask her anything.

After about five minutes, a female trooper named Tanner finally showed up to check her for injuries. Tanner jotted down notes on a cheap notepad, indicating her bruised side and the dry blood she had forgotten to completely wipe from around her mouth. Allie made sure the trooper saw the additional bruising along her wrists and ankles from the duct tape. She kept waiting for Tanner to ask a question, but the woman never did.

Tanner left twenty minutes later, but not before handcuffing her back to the table. She sat in silence and resumed waiting.

It was cold inside the small room, and very quiet. The building had been mostly empty when they brought her in, which wasn’t surprising, given where she was and the time of day. It wasn’t as if these people saw a lot of crimes in their jurisdiction — at least, not since the Roadside Killer “retired.”

She knew from her trips to the area that law enforcement in the surrounding two counties spent most of their time dealing with highway accidents and writing tickets, and you didn’t need a lot of manpower for that between midnight and early morning. She had counted less than ten people in the entire building, and most of them looked bored. There wasn’t the buzz resulting from the action in the woods that she had expected, which surprised her a bit.

Allie didn’t know when she laid her head down on the table, but she didn’t open her eyes again until the door clicked open and one of the troopers, an older man with blond hair, stepped inside.

“Allie Krycek,” the man said.

She waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat down across the table from her, then opened a folder with her name on the label and began flipping through it. Like the other cops in the building, he looked ready to go home and get some sleep.

What’s it going to take to get these people excited?

“How are you?” he asked. His nametag read: “Sgt. Harper.”

“Is that a rhetorical question?”

He looked up and smiled. “I genuinely want to know how you are right now, Allie. May I call you Allie?”

“Why not.”

“Before we start, do you need immediate medical attention? Do you need me to take you to a hospital? I want to make sure you’re all right to continue.”

“I’m fine,” she lied.

The truth was, her ribs were killing her, but at the moment she needed to talk to this man more than she needed to see a doctor. The idea of Beckard still running around out there made her grind her teeth.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“What about your ribs?” Harper asked, ignoring her question. “You told Corporal Tanner they were broken. Are you sure you don’t need a doctor to look at them?”

“I’ll live for now. Where is he?” she asked again.

“Who?”

“Beckard. If that’s his real name.”

Harper nodded. “That’s his real name.”

“What did he tell you?”

Harper didn’t answer right away. He went back to flipping through the papers in front of him in silence for a moment. He was in his early forties, and out here she guessed the girls probably called someone with his looks handsome, though back in L.A. he would be invisible on the streets.

“That you’re dangerous,” Harper said finally.

He closed the folder and put his hands over it, then looked across at her with a measured stare that she couldn’t decide if it was an attempt at intimidation or…something else. She could easily picture him in an old Western, the aw-shucks sheriff who was smarter than the country bumpkin vibe he gave off.

Or she could have been misreading him completely.

“He’s lying,” Allie said.

“Trooper Beckard?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t tell you what he said.”

“It doesn’t matter. He’s lying. And I can prove it.”

“How?”

“There’s a cabin in the woods…”

Harper smiled.

“What?” she said, unable to hide her annoyance.

“It’s an old trooper joke,” Harper said. “A cabin in the woods invariably comes up during an investigation out here.” He waved it off. “Sorry. Go on…”

“There is a cabin in the woods,” she continued, “where you’ll find all the evidence you’ll need that Beckard is lying through his teeth. Your fellow trooper left behind four bodies, but he also made the mistake of leaving behind two eyewitnesses. And a dog.”

“A dog?”

“Beckard killed its owner.”

“You said there are four bodies out there? At this cabin?”

“Yes.”

The police sergeant leaned back in his chair. He had calm eyes, and they hadn’t left her face the entire time. Now, he seemed to be really peering at her, and for just a moment she was afraid the man could stare right into her soul.

“And you said there are eyewitnesses?” Harper asked.

“Two of them.”

“In this cabin in the woods.”

“Correct.”

“So why haven’t we heard from them?”

“Because I told them not to call 911 until sunrise.”

“And why did you do that?”

“I needed the time to kill Beckard first.”

She expected a bigger reaction, but Harper simply lifted both eyebrows as if to say, “Hunh.”

“That’s it?” she said.

“Hmm?”

“I just told you I wanted to kill one of your troopers, and all you do is raise your eyebrows?”

“I don’t like Beckard, either,” Harper said. “The guy rubs me the wrong way. Whenever I meet him, like tonight, I always think he’s hiding something. That he’s doing something he doesn’t want me to know. Doesn’t want anyone to know.” The trooper shrugged again. “Where is this cabin in the woods?”

“You actually believe me…”

“Can’t hurt to check.”

“I don’t know the exact location, but it’s not far from the crash site. Maybe a mile northwest.”

“A cabin one mile northwest from the crash site?”

“I think so. I’m not sure. It was dark, and I was mostly just stumbling around following his blood trail.”

“Beckard’s.”

“Yes.”

“After you shotgunned him.”

“Yes.”

“Hunh.” Harper nodded and seemed to drift off momentarily.

“What?” she prompted.

“There are some good hunting grounds just beyond the crash site,” Harper said. “A lot of hunters have blinds out there. The ones with a lot of money have cabins.”

“This one wasn’t that small. Two bedrooms and a bath.”

“Not many of those around…”

“You actually believe me.”

She couldn’t hide her surprise. She was sure Beckard would have poisoned the well by now. Not just with Harper, but the entire state police in the hour or so since her arrest. He had done a masterful job convincing the college kids back at the cabin, and he didn’t even know them. These were his people, his colleagues.

And yet here was Harper nodding at her. “I believe that you believe it, Allie.”

It was probably just her imagination, but her ribs seemed to have stopped hurting and she was having less trouble breathing. Even the cold in the room seemed to have faded and the handcuff around her right wrist not quite as biting.

“What now?” she asked Harper.

He glanced at his watch. “The lieutenant doesn’t get up for another three hours, and he won’t be in for another five. I’m just the night supervisor, so it’s not my call to make—”

“Beckard is the Roadside Killer,” Allie said.

Now that got the response she was hoping for.

“What are you talking about?” Harper asked.

“Beckard. He’s the Roadside Killer.”

“The Roadside Killer retired. He hasn’t been active in seven years.”

“You’re wrong. He never stopped. He just got more careful.” She leaned forward, staring Harper in the eyes, willing him to see and believe her. “He’s one of you, don’t you get it? He’s a cop. He didn’t retire to Mexico or Cabo. He just adapted. He got smarter. He’s been working the highway, killing all this time, and you don’t even know it.”

“But you did,” Harper said.

“Yes.”

“CID closed the case five years ago. Even the feds stopped pursuing clues. Are you saying you managed to do something, by yourself, that both of those organizations couldn’t with all their manpower?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Because I had no choice.”

“Meaning?”

“He killed my little sister ten years ago,” Allie said. “For you, the state police and the feds, it was a job. To me, it was goddamn personal.”

Harper left twenty minutes later, and Allie did her best to temper her growing excitement. The state police sergeant had believed her.

He had believed her!

She hadn’t anticipated finding an ally out here, especially this late in the game. She was always convinced it was going to be a solo job; her against the world. The authorities would never believe her because she didn’t have a name or a face or anything that would constitute “evidence.” She had a gut feeling, anecdotes, piles of police reports and newspaper clippings, and endless nights to put them all together. All those killings that were supposed to be random, that she knew weren’t. He had gotten smarter, craftier, and was spreading out his murders beyond his usual hunting ground, even leaving the state once or twice.

But it was him. She knew it was him. She felt it.

And now Harper was on his way to the cabin. Even if he never found it, soon Wade would call 911 and it would be over for Beckard. He had to know that, didn’t he? Sooner or later, his lies would unravel and he would have to run.

So was that what he was doing now? Running?

If he was smart, anyway.

Harper had told her Beckard was taken to the hospital, then later driven home by one of the troopers. The sergeant had been smart about it; he wouldn’t contact Beckard until he found the cabin and talked to Wade and Rachel. When they had all the evidence they needed, they would swoop in and take Beckard. But only then.

“It’s tricky,” Harper had said. “He’s one of us. If we move on him now, and it turns out you’re lying to me—”

“I’m not,” she had interrupted.

“If it turns out you’re lying,” Harper had continued, “my career is DOA. You understand, right? I can’t move on him yet, not without corroboration from these college kids.”

She had nodded grudgingly. Harper had his livelihood to think about, and to just take the word of a woman who had been caught carrying a shotgun around in the woods, who had already admitted to trying to kill one of his troopers…

Yeah, she didn’t blame him. She would have done the exact same thing in his shoes.

Of course, none of that made waiting in the interrogation room after he left any easier. She also swore the temperature had started dropping again. Harper had believed enough of what she had told him to take off the handcuffs, which allowed her to get up and walk around to fight against the growing chill.

She paced back and forth, walking the entire length of the room at least a dozen times in as many minutes. They had taken her watch when they processed her, so she didn’t know what time it was. When he was in here, Harper had told her his lieutenant wasn’t going to wake up for another three hours. Six in the morning, she guessed. Maybe seven, if the higher-ranked trooper was a late riser.

And Harper had just left thirty minutes ago — or had it been an hour now?

Time had a way of slipping by when all you had was gray concrete to stare at. Suddenly she wished there was a two-way mirror across from her so she could get someone’s attention. The door remained locked from the other side, and she couldn’t see anyone in the hallway through the security window. When she tried the door, it wouldn’t budge. She wondered if she could ram it open with her shoulders, but it felt too solid, and she wasn’t sure she could risk it with her broken ribs. Besides, although she couldn’t see a guard outside, that didn’t mean there wasn’t one further up the hallway.

The quiet inside and outside the room was unsettling. The entire building had seemed asleep when she first showed up, but it was downright dead at the moment.

And she was tired. So tired.

Maybe it was the ribs. Or the bruised skin around her wrists and ankles. She had also gained a couple of extra bumps when the troopers tackled her back at the crash site, because apparently the rest of her body hadn’t been hurting enough.

Gee, thanks for that, guys.

With nothing to do and no one to talk to, she continued pacing the room, willing Harper to hurry up and reach the cabin. If he could find it. There was no guarantee of that, either, especially at night. She remembered being led out of the woods in the police cruiser and the seemingly endless walls of silent trees standing at sentry on both sides of the highway.

Podunk country. What did you expect?

The click of the door opening snapped her back. She was on the other side of the table, looking across the room.

“Did you find the cabin?” Allie asked.

“The cabin?” he said, pushing the door open and standing in the open frame with a gun in his fist.

Beckard.

He looked like shit. Worse than shit, really.

His face was purple and black, with a big Band-Aid over the bridge of his broken nose so that when he talked, his voice sounded slightly muffled. His right hand was bundled up in thick gauze tape and hung loosely at his side like a useless sack of meat. Which explained why he was using his left hand to hold the gun. He was favoring his right side, where she had put buckshot through him last night, as he stood there looking in at her.

Allie wondered what the chances were that he was not ambidextrous. It was hard to shoot a gun straight, and even harder to shoot a gun with your weak hand. That same ex-cop had taught her that. Even this close, it might be worth taking the chance to test his accuracy—

He must have seen the spark of a plan forming in her eyes, because he smiled. “I’d like to take you with me, but I’m not against shooting you and starting over. Understand?”

“You shoot me, and everyone will hear the gunshot.”

He shrugged. “You’ve been a thorn in my side all night, missy. At this point, if I can’t take you with me, I’m just gonna end it now and call it a career. It’s been one hell of a ride already. Ten years. Brett Favre wishes he had my winning streak.”

“Bullshit.”

“You think so? Try me, then.”

She stared into those dark, soulless eyes and knew he meant it. He would die here if he had to, if it meant taking her with him.

Remember, he’s a psychopath.

She nodded. “All right. So now what?”

He reached behind his back (she could see him wincing with the effort and thought, Hurts, asshole?) and brought back a pair of handcuffs and tossed it onto the table. It skidded across the metal surface and over to her.

“Remember,” he said, “we both get out of here alive, or neither one of us does. Frankly, I don’t give a shit anymore.”