Justice for Willa (Police and Fire: Operation Alpha) (San Antonio First Responders Book 10)

Chapter 1

WILLA

Willa felt sleep rolling over her like a heavy blanket of fog. She shook her head, trying to fight off the memories.

She moaned as she lost the battle, and she heard her friend”s voice speaking to her distractedly from what seemed like miles away.

There was something in her mind, some kind of evil, painful thoughts that didn”t want her to have any possible comfort thinking that this might just be a bad dream.

No.

This was a memory.

Grumbling at her friend Kimmy, Willa hissed at her over the phone. ”But you said he”s like... sixteen.”

”Well, yeah. He”s my age.”

”Then,” Willa squeezed her eyes tight and tried not to let the migraine in her head make things too difficult to think, ”how is he going to help you get jobs in Hollywood when he”s only-”

”Oh. My. God. Willa! He”s an actor! I can get jobs on the shows that he works on.”

”I don”t think that”s how things wo-”

”How the fuck do you know?”

Willa dropped her head into her hands. ”That”s the thing, Kimmy. I don”t. You don”t either! How do you even know that he”s-”

”How do you know he isn”t?” Kimmy”s tone was angry. Cutting. ”It”s like you want me to be stuck yeah in Texas with you!”

”No. I want you to be happy, Kim. Remember when we talked about going to that thing at the mall? The Disney audition? We can still do that!”

There was a lot of noise on the other end of the call. It sounded like fabric was being pushed into something or across the phone”s microphone.

But Willa also thought she heard Kimmy crying.

”Kim?”

The noises got louder, and Willa”s heart was aching in her chest.

”Please, Kimmy... Talk to-”

”He said you”d try to stop me.”

Willa”s eyes opened wide, and she almost dropped the phone that was in her hand. ”What?”

”He said you”d try to stop me. To stop us! He said you just want to be me. That you wanted a cool boyfriend like I have. That you want all the good things that are going to happen to me. That you-”

”Kim. Kimmy! Stop! I don”t know what you”re talking about! I just want to make sure you”re safe. If you want to go meet this guy. That”s fine! Just let me go with-”

”You do want to take him away from me!”

Willa managed to keep her hand around the phone while digging her knuckles into her temple with her other hand, trying to alleviate the pain.

”Kim. Stop-”

”No! You stop, Willa. You want to take everything good that I have. If you want to be me, why don”t you come over here and let Joe try to stick his hand down your panties while your mom”s at work.”

Willa brushed the back of her hand over her eyes. ”Kimmy, please... you”re my best friend. I don”t want to take anything good from you. I just want to make sure that you”re-”

Something was pounding on the other end of the line. It took Willa a moment to realize that the horrible sound was someone pounding on Kimmy”s door.

She sat in silence, listening.

”Damn it, Kimmy! Are you on the goddamn phone again? Do you have any idea how much money it costs for you to talk all the damn time?”

Willa bit into her bottom lip, but then released it again. ”Kimmy. Please. Let me come and get you. I can ask my mom-”

”Go away, Willa. I don”t want you in my life anymore.”

Kimmy”s words cut deeply into Willa”s heart, but she didn”t have time to argue. She heard something brush against the phone and the sound went dead.

Or so she thought.

Moments later she could hear someone talking, but it was muffled, deadened like someone had stuffed something in her ears.

”Fuck you, Joe!”

”Yeah, well, come”re and-”

”Let me go!”

Blinking back tears, Willa grabbed her keys and her purse and slung the long strap of her purse around her neck and across her body.

She was out the door and running around to the garage to grab her bike. If she was fast enough, she might be able to get to Kimmy”s house before she got far enough away that she”d lose her friend forever.

Her own home wasn”t all that great, but it was better than Kimmy”s. It wasn”t how expensive it was. Or if their neighborhood was that much better.

It was about the people inside of it.

Willa”s mom and dad worked so many hours that she rarely saw them unless she stumbled on them in the kitchen late at night, downing a beer.

They were hardly ever there, but they weren”t mean, and she didn”t have to worry that one of them would touch her like... that.

As she pushed open the side door to the garage, she saw her dad under his truck, trying to fix something.

”Hey!”

His voice wasn”t quite as muffled as Joe”s had been, but he wasn”t an ass like Joe was either. They were just busy.

”Sorry, I can”t talk now, Dad. I”ve got to go.”

He moved out from under the truck so quickly, he almost tripped her as she reached for her bike. ”Hey, Will. Wait.”

She shook her head. ”Nope. Sorry, Dad. I”ve gotta go.”

As she pulled her bike away from the wall, there was one moment where she knew that she should stop and tell her dad, but it only lasted for a minute.

”Dad? Is the truck working?”

”This piece of shit? Fuck no, Will. Sorry, it barely crawled into the garage.”

Oh.

”Uh. Sorry, Dad. I”ll... I”ll call you later.”

As she felt the late afternoon sun on her face, she turned back to say something to her dad, but he was back under the truck, and she knew he wouldn”t hear her.

As soon as she got her wheels fully on the sidewalk, she threw a leg over the bike and put her phone to her ear.

LANDON

Across town, Landon Cooper, a Texas Ranger, was sitting at his kitchen table, staring across the polished wooden surface at the empty chair on the other side.

It reminded him of the military tradition of setting an empty chair at unit dinners to honor those that they”d lost.

In his law enforcement career as a deputy and then as a Ranger, he”s seen families lose more than enough. He”d felt that anguish right along with them.

He”d seen the stark grief of loss on their faces.

Heard the rough scratch of it in their shouts.

And felt people shaking in his arms as he held them through their tears.

And then, there had been the one who he held together with his hands so that he wouldn”t lose her too.

The call that came into the Emergency 911 line stirred up a hornet’s nest.

SA911: This is San Antonio 911. What is your emergency?

CALLER: My friend. This guy is beating her!

SA911: Miss? What”s your name?

CALLER: Her name is Kimmy. She said she was meeting this guy, this Hollywood actor, who”s taking her to California to be a star! I followed her and I can hear them inside his hotel room! It”s the... it”s the Road... Roadside Motel-

SA911: The Roadside Motel just off the highway?

CALLER: Yeah. That one. (panting) Sorry, I was on my bike and ”m outta breath.

SA911: How do you know that”s she”s being-

CALLER: I can hear her screaming!

Her voice was a strange mix of whispered-screaming of her own.

Putting the timelines together later, Landon knew that was just about the time that he”d heard the call. He was just finishing up a traffic stop along the side of the highway, just two exits before the Roadside.

Calling in to dispatch, he”d given the driver his ticket, admonished him to drive safely and ran to his cruiser.

SA911: We have officers on the way-

CALLER: Great! I”m going in!

SA911: Miss, no! Don”t do that. Stay where you-

CALLER: No way! This is my friend!

SA911: Miss?

Overheard on the recording in the background

(Knocking on door)

CALLER: Kimmy! Kimmy! The police are coming! The police are-

UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE: Who the fuck are you?

CALLER: You leave her alone!

FEMALE VOICE: Wi- Willa run!

CALLER: Oh. My. God. Kimmy! I-

Everything else was lost in a loud, bellowing, animal-like roar.

The phone died and later it was found smashed just outside the door of the motel room.

When Landon rolledup to the Motel, he was the first unit there. It didn”t take him more than a heartbeat to realize what was happening.

With his window already down, he shouted as he slammed his cruiser into park. ”Get your hands up! Sheriff”s Deputy. Get your hands up!”

As the man did it, Landon got a good hard look at the man”s face. And the look in his eyes.

Cold.

Dead.

Eyes.

As soon as he stepped clear of his door, Landon had his pistol in his hands and pointed at the man, center mass. ”Step away from the girl.”

He did exactly what he was told, but the smile on his lips made Landon feel sick to his stomach.

The man looked down at the woman on the ground and his smile became a full toothy grin. ”You have a choice, deputy.”

The blood on the man”s hands looked gruesome in the last flash of sunlight coming over the highway.

”Catch me. Or try to save her life.”

Landon saw what the man meant.

The woman on the ground had wire pushed against her throat, blood flowing around the metal.

She was clawing at it and about to pull it free.

Fuck.

He did have a choice. Take the man down or maybe stop her blood loss.

There really wasn”t a choice in his head.

He”d joined law enforcement to save lives like the generations before him.

With one last look at the man so he could get a solid description in his head, Landon holstered his weapon and dropped to his knees beside the woman.

”G-ge-”

”Miss, please. Don”t talk.”

Landon tried to move her hands away from her throat, but she fought him.

”Ki- Kimmy-”

”Please, miss.” He felt her blood slipping over his skin, squeezing under it, sending waves of nausea through him. ”The more you try to speak the worse the damage-”

”My fr- friend.” She ground out her words through her teeth and he decided to let her speak, hoping that maybe she might stop fighting him. ”Save. M-my. Fri-end.”

Landon didn”t get up from the ground. He looked over at the open motel room door.

The woman in the room had been on the bed at one time. The blood covering the sheets told its own story.

The fact that she was laying still on the ground, folded haphazardly between the foot of the bed and the dresser unmoving, told him what he needed to know.

She was gone.

”She”ll be... she”ll be okay.”

Yeah. That totally wasn”t the right word or even the right lie, but Landon didn”t know what to say.

He just wanted to help.

Two more cars pulled into the parking lot and there wasn”t time to do much more than hold his hands over the wound in her throat and call out information to the other deputies moving in.

Then wait.

Wait for the EMTs to show up and help.

Until then, he did the only thing he could. Pray.

”Stay with me, Miss. Please. Breathe, okay? Try to breathe, just stay with me.”

The tears in her eyes hurt him physically. They dug into his ribs and stole his breath.

She remained there on the broken asphalt, her hands gripping his instead of fighting, holding onto him as if he was the only thing keeping her there.

Even when her hands went slack and her eyes rolled back sightlessly, he held on.

In a way,he”d never let go.

He”d never called her a victim, even though that was how she had been classified in the incident reports.

No, Willa Ableson wasn”t a victim. She was a force of nature. A woman warrior at sixteen. He”d admired her spirit. Seeing her battered determination to live had shown him a strength that he didn”t think was possible in a person drowning in pain.

There had been times in his life and career when he”d wanted to search for her name in the records computer. He wanted to know where she was. How she was doing.

He wanted to set his eyes on her and reassure himself that she was okay, but conversely, he was worried about what else he might find.

Leaning forward, placing his elbows on the tabletop, he fixed his gaze even more on the empty chair opposite him at the table.

He needed to believe the best.

He needed to believe that she was alive, healthy, and happy.

He needed that.

If she wasn”t.

Well, fuck...

He didn”t know how he”d process things if he was wrong, because he was pretty clear that he”d never processed his memories or feelings for the night when he”d begged God to spare Willa”s life.

He just wanted to know that she was okay.

But, he also knew that if she wasn”t, he might not be able to take that kind of grief.

That”s why he”d never looked her up in the years since her friend died and nearly taken Willa with her.

A soft buzz from the bedroom got him out of the chair.

He picked up his cell phone from the top of the dresser and read the message coming in from his headquarters captain, Alan Watts.

HC Watts: New Task Force. My office. Tomorrow. 10A.

New task force.

Okay then.

His office at ten.