51. Dead Ahead
DEAD AHEAD
brAXTON
I stand under the shade of an old oak tree on the property of the Veramendi Conservancy. I hide behind its twisty, gnarled branches and set the barrel of my long gun on a limb for stability.
I can see the sniper in the trees. He’s on the conservancy property, angling his rifle onto our ranch. If he hadn’t scratched his nose, I’d have never seen the movement. This is not his first gig. No one can keep that still for that long without a history of having done it.
His perch allows for uninterrupted views of the ranch and all the buildings—and fuck me, I’m sure, the people—that comprise it.
I view him through the scope. He’s clear as day, his head in the center of my crosshairs. His finger rests on the trigger, but his body isn’t braced to take a shot. He’s watching.
I’m not frantic or anxious. It’s a weird calm that has settled over me. It can only be purpose and knowing the rightness of this decision. Protecting what’s mine.
I’m just about to exhale and steady my nerves when a hand clamps down on my shoulder.
Another taps the barrel, and I whirl, knife at the ready, toward my assailant.
“What the fuck?”
“Drop the weapon.”
“Fuck that. What are you doing here?” I question.
“Same thing as you.”
“I doubt that. You need to step back, Ralph.”
“Not going to let you do this.”
“Not going to let you stop me.”
“I have a badge and a gun.”
“I have a gun too. And a knife. Seven square miles of preserve and you just happen to be in my two-yard radius?”
“Brenner is on the back forty. I’m here because you know this land, and you’d know where I could find him.”
“I didn’t know, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t find him. And—”
I hear it. The sheriff does too.
Ambulance sirens. A-fucking-gain.
I turn, leaving my back vulnerable, trusting that Ralph is the man my father knows him to be.
I lean into the scope and check the reticle.
The sniper is antsy. His finger twitches.
He takes a deep breath and, in the moment before he has the chance to squeeze the trigger, I blow the back of his head through his face.
He goes slack. His gun tumbles. He collapses from the high branch mere moments later. The thump of his body hitting the ground can be heard from our position several hundred yards away.
Ralph looks to the fallen man. His body is at odd angles, not at all a contortion anyone but a circus performer can create. Bones, once solid, must be crushed from the fall.
The sheriff shakes his head, looks me square in the face, and says without flinching, “Dove season is always dangerous. We lose one every year. It’s tragic. Wonder when his party will discover him.”
With those words—ones I’d never expect to hear from the county’s highest law enforcement officer—he turns and begins to pick his way through the high grass back toward the ranch. He takes a path that is not the one I took when I came. He leaves me to the shortest route home and to my family.
As the sirens get louder, I wonder just what the fuck I’m walking into.
Emberleigh
“Ma’am? Which building? And can you open the gates for us?”
I’ve never felt so helpless in my entire life.
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I mean, I do not know which building. And I don’t know how to open the damned gate. I’m working on it.”
“Please hold.”
I do and wish I didn’t know the inner workings of fucking EMS on such an intimate level. I’m pacing. Avoiding the windows. Avoiding becoming Swiss cheese. Avoiding helping my fucking family because I don’t even know how to open the blasted gate.
“Ma’am, we’re in. Thank you. Which building?”
“Start at the office. Dead ahead.” Bad word choice. I cringe at the phrase.
“Stay on the line, please.”
The pacing was bad enough. Watching the clock tick by at its glacial speed about did me in.
But this? Knowing someone is hurt and that I’m slowing down their aid? If I didn’t need help after watching someone killed on my threshold a mere hour ago, I will now.
That wasn’t on me.
This is.
They need me.
And I’m failing them.
“Office is empty, ma’am. Where to?”
The dread that pools in my stomach could choke me.
I push past the razors clawing my throat. “The barn. To the left. Southwest from where the office is.”
And promise or no promise, I’m going to do something.
I have to do something.
So I run. Whoever is out there can see me. I’ve seen the pictures that prove it. I’m not fast enough to outrun a bullet, but sitting here, making my family vulnerable due to my weaknesses isn’t an option either.
I use the house as cover and slip out that same back door, assuming there’s cover from the structure and the roofline. I slide into Braxton’s truck and start it up, putting it in gear and shooting straight to Pop’s.
I drive fast and stay low. The ambulance sirens get louder as I approach the house, seeing the lights dance across the barn.
I can only imagine the horses being agitated by the screaming noises polluting the air.
I park next to a large black SUV I’ve never seen before and bolt up the porch steps and through the front door. When I turn to throw the door closed, I notice I failed to do the same to the pickup truck since I saved every second I could.
“Pop? I couldn’t sit there any longer. Who’s hit—”
The last word dies on my lips when I see him. Pop, in his recliner, blood staining his shirt. Not FedEx blood. Pop’s blood, pooled through his splayed fingers, his phone on his lap, collecting the droplets that fall from his gut.
“POP!?”
I run to him, dropping the gun on the floor at his feet, and shake him.
Nothing.
I check for a pulse.
Nothing.
Open his eyelids.
No recognition.
I slap him. “You promised!” I scream. “You promised.”
I sprint for the door and yank it open, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Here. Here. I need you here.” So useless to scream at an ambulance with its sirens blaring.
I might have gotten the words out if not for two things. One, the stretcher being wheeled from the barn doors. The adult size stretcher is covered in a white sheet. How? How did they get here so quickly? Why would they give up so fast? And who in my family did I just lose?
My knees buckle, and I empty the contents of my stomach on Pop’s front porch when a bullet splinters the doorframe next to me, rendering me deaf on that side of my face.
I turn, staring down the barrel of a gun, before the world goes black.