Chapter Twenty-Eight
Harvey kicked through the heavy double doors.
A mess of features contorted as Superintendent Pierce Shelton whipped his attention in Harvey’s direction.
He’d never met the man—hadn’t seen anything more than his smiling photo in the monthly ranger newsletter—but every cell in Harvey’s body told him this was the son of a bitch who’d attacked Drennan in the park.
Who’d wanted to use her to get to the woman currently cut open on the table.
Straightening, the superintendent seemed to gauge the distance between him and the door and conclude his chances weren’t great.
Now unmasked and exposed by the sharp fluorescent lighting overhead, Pierce Shelton’s appearance exceeded his midlife age.
More gray, more shadows to his face, more wear around his eyes.
Not from exhaustion. Desperation. His hand shook as he pulled away from the victim on the table.
“Ranger Knight, what a pleasant surprise. I don’t expect you’re here for an update on the Ellender Garza case? Because I can confidently tell you the case is closed, and your services are no longer needed.”
Harvey scanned the office, with its wall of freezers, Dr. Yarrow’s desk shoved to one side, and the body Shelton stood over. Ice flooded his veins. Drennan. Where was Drennan? The rumble in his chest barely maintained a human effort as he took a step deeper into the morgue. “Where is she?”
A brittle smile spread across Shelton’s face. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Drennan Hawes. The medical examiner you abducted.” Her name grounded him in ways he’d never experienced before. No amount of meditation, centering or yoga had come close to the warmth her mere existence produced in his chest. Harvey took that next step.
“Doesn’t ring a bell. Then again, I’m not familiar with the people in this office.
I have rangers for that.” Shelton shrugged, his mouth pinching with the effort.
Every word out of this bastard’s mouth wasted another precious second Drennan might not have.
He was going to drag this out. Wanted Harvey to take whatever bait he spewed to buy himself time.
Which meant…
Harvey’s gaze flickered to the rivulet of liquid spreading down the superintendent’s uniform shirt.
A metallic odor drove into Harvey’s lungs.
Blood. Shelton’s? Or Drennan’s? His knuckles screamed for relief as he fisted both hands.
“Is that why you’re bleeding all over the victim on the table?
The woman you got pregnant then killed to cover the affair? ”
There was a shift in the air between them.
A different kind of unmasking. Charged with intention and an unleashed rawness.
Shelton angled the scalpel in his hand down as he rounded the table.
“Well, I guess there’s no point in pretending any longer, is there?
You know, I was hoping you were smart enough to walk away, but that’s no longer an option.
You’ll just have to go in the freezer with her. ”
The freezer. Harvey’s attention cut to the wall of horizontal freezers meant to preserve remains. Drennan… She was in there. She was dying. His lungs emptied of oxygen.
The distraction cost him.
Shelton charged, the lights glinting off the scalpel in one hand.
Harvey shot his fist straight into the superintendent’s face.
Pain ricocheted through the back of his hand and up his forearm, but he didn’t stop.
Couldn’t stop. A groan bounced off the empty cream-colored walls as Shelton hit the linoleum.
And still, Harvey didn’t relent. One strike.
Two. Three. Blood pumped a hard beat at the base of his throat.
Hot and pounding. The scalpel was lost in the onslaught.
The superintendent brought his forearms up to block the attack.
A boot connected with Harvey’s chest, and he lost the upper hand.
“And here I thought you had a future with NPS, Ranger Knight.” Shelton shot to his feet.
He swiped the blood dripping from his nose and mouth with the back of one hand.
His left eye had started swelling under the spread of red inflammation, but the killer stood as though Harvey hadn’t made a single dent.
“Unfortunately, we’re going to have to let you go. ”
Generations of rage and violence and lack of control flooded down Harvey’s arms. This.
This was what he’d tried to hide from Drennan.
To protect her from. This was why he’d never wanted to be a father and had done so well in the military.
In a matter of seconds, the fire he’d buried under years of denial and shame had been released in the face of losing the one person he’d never wanted to burn.
It was like a physical presence embodied him—his father, his grandfather—as Harvey rocketed his fist toward Shelton’s face.
He would never allow this evil inside him to touch Drennan or their baby, but he’d let it out to save them.
No matter the cost. He missed, swinging wide.
He took another shot. Shelton ducked out of the way.
His third attempt landed home. His growl filled the morgue as the superintendent fell back into the medical examiner’s desk. Office supplies and paperwork shot from the desk and over the floor.
He had to get to the freezer. Had to get Drennan out.
Harvey lunged for the first hip-level door and nearly wrenched it off its hinges.
Empty. He moved to the second. There weren’t many options to choose from.
Shelton would’ve had to have lifted her into the freezer with a seeping wound.
One Drennan had most likely given him. “Hang on, baby. I’m coming. For both of you.”
Again, empty.
“Where are you?” Cotton filled his head, undercut by a slow, steady pulse. As though he could hear her heartbeat through the metal, which wasn’t possible, but every minute he wasted trying to take down Shelton slowed that pulse. She was running out of time.
Movement registered behind him.
Harvey lunged out of the way as the superintendent embedded the tip of a bone saw into the stainless steel freezer door.
The bastard positioned himself between Harvey and the wall of freezers.
Keeping him from Drennan. Shelton’s shoulders rose and fell with exaggerated gasps, his blood pooling on the floor.
“Did you really think it would be that easy, Knight? That you just get to live your happily-ever-after while I lose everything?”
That pulse in his head was getting slower.
Softer. He was losing her. Her and the baby.
Gauging the bladed teeth of the saw, Harvey closed the distance between them.
Locking his hand around the superintendent’s wrist, he vaulted Shelton’s hand and the bone saw overhead and curled the blade back into the man’s torso.
The saw cut straight through. Lodged in Superintendent Pierce Shelton’s gut.
One second. Two. That imaginary pulse had stopped.
Harvey released his hold on the killer, and Shelton hit the floor.
Alive. For now. Stepping over the bastard’s prone body, he jerked the next freezer open. Then the fourth.
Air lodged in his throat as a head of beautiful hair escaped the confines of the freezer.
He dragged the rolling table free and framed her too-cold face.
Her eyes were closed, crystals clinging to her eyelashes as though her tears had frozen in place.
Pressing his fingers to her throat, he almost collapsed in relief as her pulse kicked against his touch.
Harvey pressed his forehead to hers. “I’ve got you, Drennan. I’ve always got you.”