Chapter 36
C allie limped back toward the entrance of the canyon, berating herself every step of the way for taking that fall.
Every inch of her body hurt, and as far as she was concerned, she deserved it.
She wouldn’t have caught the shooter, but maybe she could have identified the boat. Or glimpsed him or his accomplice.
But now she had nothing.
Well, nothing but a familiarity with the hitman’s voice and the knowledge that he either hailed from New York City or spent a great deal of time there. His accent had tipped her off to that.
A volley of footsteps echoed through the canyon, pulling her from her thoughts. Accompanied by huffing and puffing so loud it almost masked the pounding of their feet.
Local law enforcement.
She slid her gun into the pocket of her leggings and raised her hands but paused near an outcropping in case she was wrong.
The first to see her was a woman about her age, her long blond hair in a braid hanging over her shoulder.
She drew to an abrupt halt when she spotted Callie, and two more officers came up behind her.
One appeared to be an older man of Hispanic descent and the other a white man so young that Callie fleetingly wondered if the local department had a high school training program.
But of course, if they did, they wouldn’t be likely to bring a kid on the hunt for a shooter.
“Callie Parks?” the woman asked, clearly the one in charge.
“Yes,” she answered without hesitation. “If you know who I am, then Gabriel Walker sent you this direction, and he would have told you that I’m armed.
It’s in the pocket of my leggings,” she said, turning slightly.
Protocol required they collect her weapon, and she wanted to get it over with quickly so she could get back to Gabriel.
The woman eyed her, then gestured the older man to approach. He holstered his gun and approached with both caution and confidence. She stayed very still as he reached over and slid her Glock out of the cozy pouch.
When he returned to his team, the woman lowered her gun and gestured for the younger man to do the same.
After securing his gun, he unhooked his flashlight and pointed the beam toward the ground.
The light bounced up, reflecting off the canyon walls, creating enough ambient light for the four of them to see.
“I’m Officer Stretsky,” the woman said. “And these are Officers Villabos and Macnamara. The shooter?”
Callie glanced over her shoulder. “The river,” she said, a ball of frustration weighing her stomach down. “He had an accomplice with a boat. It was heading south.” She glanced down at her palms, then lifted them. “But I took a header and didn’t make it in time to see anything.”
The woman’s gaze ran over her. “Looks like you took more than a header.”
“He fired three shots at me. Missed, obviously, but the sandstone debris is like Barbie-sized shrapnel.”
A flicker of a smile touched the woman’s lips. “We’ll find the bullets?”
Callie nodded. “I didn’t pick them up, but not sure if they embedded in the rock or bounced and landed on the ground. There was a fourth, but he aimed up. All shots were taken in the canyon that heads to the river.”
Stretsky turned and looked at the younger man. “You know the one?” He nodded. Again, she gestured with her head, and both men moved forward. When they passed her, the light of the flashlight bouncing eerily against the red sandstone, she looked to Stretsky.
“Is Joseph okay? The victim?” she asked.
“You must be freezing,” she replied, pulling her own flashlight from her utility belt. “Let’s talk as we walk.”
Callie fell into step beside her, and they began the trek back. The officer adjusted her stride to match Callie’s limping one.
“They took him in the ambulance to the local hospital and will airlift him to Las Vegas,” she said.
“He was alive when he left?” Callie clarified. Stretsky nodded. “And is someone treating Gabriel? He was shot, too. Nicked in the calf.”
“He informed us of that when he explained the shooting at your cabin, too, but the teams were focusing on Mr. Nolan when I left. Can you tell me what happened?”
Callie bit back a sigh. She wanted silence, a soak in the huge-ass tub in her and Gabriel’s cabin, and assurance that Gabriel’s leg was tended to. But she knew the drill.
As they walked, she talked, telling Stretsky about Gabriel spotting the shooter through their sliding door, the shot, the ducking behind the bed for cover.
Then she moved on to tell her about following the shooter south, hearing the suppressor, finding Joe, then her subsequent chase through the canyon.
She even mentioned her fall again, as much as it galled her to relive.
“Your fiancé mentioned you’re former FBI?” Stretsky asked as they emerged from the canyon and the resort came into sight. No flashing red and blue lights greeted them, though.
She nodded, not caring if Stretsky saw. She could see Joe’s cabin, and Gabriel would be there. Hopefully getting his leg looked at by the EMTs in charge of the one ambulance still parked on the road.
“And you quit to be with your fiancé?” Stretsky asked.
Despite her fatigue and worry and self-recrimination, a smile tugged at Callie’s lips imagining the yarn Gabriel spun for local cops.
Rather than get defensive, she chuckled and shrugged. “What can I say, the things we do for love. He would have come to DC, but he’s not a city boy.”
“He looks like he could be an anytime-anywhere boy to me,” Stretsky said, then gasped.
“Oh lord, I can’t believe I said that out loud.
” Callie laughed. The woman wasn’t wrong.
“And please don’t think I’m harboring those kinds of thoughts about him.
It was an observation, and he’s clearly head over heels for you. ”
Callie smiled. “Don’t worry about it,” she replied casually, though the young girl still buried inside her perked up at the comment.
She wasn’t blind or clueless. She and Gabriel had grown closer over the past several days, but the chasm between them had been huge, and she wasn’t convinced it could ever be completely healed. Or if she deserved for it to be.
“Callie!”
A figure separated from a group of five or six people and came jogging toward her.
The slight limp in his gait had her frowning, but the hug he gave her, his warm arms wrapping around her and pulling her close, made her want to sink against him.
Made her want to lean into him, physically and emotionally.
Made her want to stand there all night, feeling his heart beating against hers.
He gave her a squeeze but even as gentle as it was, her cheek pressed against his chest, and she sucked in a quick breath as a stinging pain shot through her face.
He jerked back and, with his hands on her shoulders, stared at her. His eyes traveled over her face, then down her dirt-covered clothing, pausing on her bloody palms.
“We need assistance here!” he shouted over his shoulder, startling her back to the situation.
“I’m fine,” she said. “A bit banged up, but fine.”
He ignored her and, grabbing her wrist, towed her toward the EMTs repacking their gear at the rear of the remaining ambulance.
“Your leg, Gabriel,” she said as she followed along. She didn’t need medical care; a good shower would do, but the set of his shoulders told her arguing would be useless. And if she were honest with herself, which she tried to be on occasion, she liked having someone—Gabriel—looking out for her.
“It’s fine,” he answered, not slowing his steps, although he didn’t rush her. “They wanted to take me to the hospital for stitches, but I told them to glue it and call it good.”
“And they agreed?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I wasn’t going to go so they could either glue it or leave it. They agreed to glue it.”
“You’re impossible, you know,” she said, not able to keep the affection out of her voice. He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned but said nothing. “Hey, Darlene, Kevin, this is Callie, and she needs to be looked at.”
The two EMTs turned. Both were older with gray streaked through their hair. Darlene’s was wildly curly, though, and she’d attempted to restrain it with a thick hairband. Kevin’s was straight as an arrow and cut very short.
“I’m fine,” she said again as they both assessed her.
They shared a look, then gestured for her to take a seat on the back of the vehicle.
“It’s either here or we get the gurney out and make you sit there,” Darlene said.
Callie promptly took a seat but glared at Gabriel.
Not that it had any impact. His attention remained fixed on her face, his eyes tracing the marks left by the sandstone.
She’d wiped her cheek a few times, and his gaze narrowed as he took note of the blood smears.
“Want to tell us how this happened?” Kevin asked, taking her chin in his hand and turning her head this way and that.
She bit back another sigh and recounted her fall and the sandstone shrapnel.
When she mentioned the shots fired at her, Gabriel’s eyes narrowed again and his jaw tightened, but he held his tongue.
She wanted to point out that she wasn’t the one who’d actually been shot, but decided not to poke the bear.
Officer Stretsky wandered over with another woman in tow, this one older and clearly in charge.
Stretsky introduced her as Captain Marshal, and once again, Callie retold her version of the events that brought them all together that night.
This time as her official statement. She managed not to jerk away or hiss at the pain Darlene and Kevin inflicted as they tested her joint mobility, cleaned her wounds, and picked stone and dirt from more parts of her body than she expected.
Time passed in a slog as she talked, answered questions, and submitted to Darlene and Kevin’s torture. Then, suddenly, it was over.