Chapter Seventeen
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With her heartbeat pounding in her ears, Laney fixed her eyes on the ground, forcing herself to match Harlan’s careful pace.
Every step felt like it might be her last. She tried to watch her footing, tried to keep her breathing even, but her mind betrayed her.
The culvert loomed ahead, and with it came the memories she could never escape.
This was where David had been blown apart.
She had seen what was left of him pulled from this very spot.
The air had been thick with smoke then too, just like now, the sound of explosions echoing in her ears.
Her heart clenched. Whoever was behind this wanted to do more than just scare her. They wanted to recreate that day.
Only this time, she was the target.
But who had done this?
Sherry, with her lies and rage? Billy, desperate and dangerous? Or Brannigan, who never stopped looking guilty even when he smiled? Laney hated it, hated the idea of dying here without knowing whose hand had set all of this in motion.
Harlan dropped into the culvert, signaling for her to follow. She slid in after him, grit biting at her palms as she scrambled to cover. Her chest heaved, her mind screaming with the clash of past and present.
They hit the bottom just as another thud echoed through the smoke-filled air. A grenade.
The SUV erupted in a ball of fire behind them, the blast wave shoving through the culvert. Laney threw her arm up to shield her face, her ears ringing as flaming debris rained down where they had been standing only seconds ago.
Laney froze at the next sound she heard. A moan carried through the smoke and dirt, weak but close. She turned her head sharply and spotted movement beyond the edge of the culvert.
Sherry.
The woman staggered, half crawling, half dragging herself toward them. Her face was smeared with blood and grit, her hands still bound in front of her.
“Help me,” Sherry rasped.
“Drop down,” Harlan barked. His Glock never wavered as he motioned to the culvert.
Sherry obeyed, collapsing into the dirt near them. Her breathing was ragged, and her desperation-filled eyes darted to Laney. “I am not the killer.”
Laney’s jaw tightened. “You ran from the sheriff’s office.”
“I panicked.” Sherry coughed, spitting red into the dirt. “Brannigan was going to point the finger at me. He was going to tell Barnes I bought those parts. I knew what it would look like. That it’d tie me to David’s death too.”
Her words tumbled out fast, almost frantic, and maybe some of it was true.
But as Laney listened, a cold thought crept in.
Sherry might be playing them. Injuries could be faked.
Fear could be faked. And every second they spent listening to her might be exactly the distraction the real killer wanted.
Laney kept her weapon trained, forcing herself to stay sharp. She couldn’t afford to believe Sherry. Not yet.
Sherry’s voice kept tumbling out, a frantic stream of excuses and pleas, but Harlan cut her off with a sharp hush. He angled his head, his body going still.
Laney froze, her senses straining. Then she heard it, too.
Footsteps.
The sound was faint under the ringing in her ears from the last explosion, but steady enough to send her pulse racing. She kept her weapon trained on Sherry, unwilling to take her eyes completely off the woman, yet every nerve in her body urged her to look elsewhere.
Carefully, she shifted her gaze through the haze of smoke and grit. The air was thick, but in it she saw movement. A shape on the road. The outline of a man where no man should be.
Her stomach clenched.
Laney leaned close, her voice a whisper that scraped at her throat. “Could that be Crossfire Ops?”
Harlan’s jaw tightened, and he didn’t take his eyes off the figure. “No. If it were, they would have signaled. That is not one of ours.”
The figure in the smoke shifted again, slow and deliberate. Laney’s pulse hammered in her ears as the haze thinned enough for her to see the wool mask stretched over his face. Not a glimmer of skin, not even eyes she could read. Just a blank, black void.
And then he lifted the weapon.
Her stomach dropped. Not a rifle. But a grenade launcher.
The man turned fully toward them, the long barrel swinging into place like a predator zeroing in. Laney’s breath caught in her chest. He was not searching. He knew exactly where they were.
One squeeze of that trigger and the culvert would become their coffin.
Laney’s heart leapt into her throat as the man leveled the grenade launcher at them. There was no time to think. Only to act.
“Now,” Harlan hissed.
They both rose just enough to get clear shots and opened fire. The man jerked, stumbling to the side. Most of their bullets punched into the dirt and smoke, but one landed solid. He howled, collapsing to one knee, clutching his leg.
The launcher clattered from his hands and hit the road with a dull thud.
Laney squinted through the haze, her pulse slamming in her ears. For a heartbeat, the mask still kept his face hidden. But then the man clawed at it, ripping it away as if the wool suffocated him.
It was Billy.
Laney’s fury burned hotter than the smoke swirling around them. Her voice ripped out of her throat before she could stop it.
“You came after my daughter!” she shouted, every word edged with rage.
Billy laughed, the sound jagged and cruel.
He hit the dirt, dragging himself behind a chunk of broken concrete and twisted rebar.
Blood streaked down his leg, but the wound had not slowed him enough.
The grenade launcher was just a few feet from where he sprawled.
Too close. If he got his hands on it, they might not survive the next blast.
Laney raised her Glock, finger steady on the trigger, but the cover blocked her shot.
Harlan’s low voice cut through the chaos. “I’m going to circle around, come at him from the side. I can take him out before he gets to that launcher.”
Laney’s stomach dropped even more. The thought of him stepping into the open turned her blood to ice. She wanted to tell him no, to stay tucked against the culvert wall, where at least they had some protection.
But she also knew the truth.
They were sitting ducks here. If Billy grabbed that weapon, no amount of cover would save them.
Her chest ached with the weight of the choice. Let Harlan risk everything, or stay and wait to be blown apart.
She met his eyes. There was no fear in his, only the grim determination that she knew would be there.
Harlan’s phone buzzed, the sound almost lost in the ringing in her ears. He glanced at the screen and his jaw tightened.
“Be careful where you shoot,” he warned, his voice low but urgent. “Crossfire Ops just arrived.”
Laney swallowed hard, shifting her grip on the Glock. That made things more complicated. She couldn’t risk a stray bullet hitting one of their own.
Sherry’s moans drifted through the smoke again. “Help me,” she called weakly, her voice ragged. It was enough to keep Laney’s nerves stretched taut. The woman might be bleeding out or she might be setting them up.
Laney forced herself to scan the haze for movement, but Billy was gone from where she had last seen him. The empty stretch of broken pavement and smoke-filled air made her chest tighten.
“Damn it,” she whispered. He could be anywhere now.
Her pulse hammered as she kept her weapon trained on the shifting shadows, knowing he might already be moving in for the next strike. At least Billy didn’t have that damn grenade launcher because she had eyes on that.
Harlan fired off a quick reply to Crossfire Ops, then slipped out of the culvert, low and fast. He angled to the right, moving like a shadow through the haze.
Every nerve in Laney’s body felt raw and tense. Every instinct in her screamed to grab his arm and keep him with her, but she bit it back. If anyone could get close enough to stop Billy, it was Harlan.
“I never planned on hurting the kid.” Billy shouted. His voice carried through the smoke, and every word was tight with rage. “That hair clip was just to rattle you. A joke. Looks like it worked.”
That gave her another shot of rage. This SOB thought that terrorizing her daughter was some kind of game. She clenched her jaw and forced the anger into her voice.
“You call that a joke?” she shouted back, making sure her words cut sharp. “You put your hands on something that belonged to my little girl. That makes you a coward, Billy. And it makes you stupid for leaving your DNA on it, for making the evidence point right back to you.”
Silence pressed for a beat, then a hoarse laugh rang out. He was still close. Too close.
“I wanted the evidence to point to me,” Billy shouted. “Well, not enough evidence to prove I’d done anything. But this way, you were fretting that I’d been set up. Muddy the waters enough, and nobody can see shit.”
Laney kept her Glock steady, straining to track him in the smoke, but her real goal was to hold his focus. Keep him talking. Keep him from noticing Harlan closing in.
“I’m not a coward.” Billy’s voice tore through the smoke, ragged with rage. “David ruined my life, and now I’m going to ruin yours.”
Laney’s heart pounded in her ears. Her hands were steady on her Glock, but inside her fury burned hotter than the fire behind them.
“You killed him,” she forced out, her voice sharp with disgust. “You killed David.”
Billy laughed, the sound broken and twisted. “Yeah, I killed him. That should have been enough. But then my wife left. Took the kids. Said she couldn’t live with what I’d become. You know whose fault that was? David’s. If he hadn’t hauled me in, none of it would have happened.”
Laney’s stomach churned at his words. He wanted to blame everyone but himself. He had murdered a good man, and now he was trying to twist the story so he could cling to his hate.
She kept her voice steady, though the taste of bile rose in her throat. “You destroyed your own family,” she said. “That’s not on David. That’s on you.”
A choked sob broke through the tension. Sherry’s voice, raw and trembling. “You… you killed David? It was you, Billy?”
Billy didn’t answer, but his silence was enough. Sherry’s grief morphed into fury in an instant. Her face twisted, her voice a scream. “You murdered my partner, you worthless piece of shit.”
Before Laney could stop her, Sherry surged to her feet, stumbling but determined, as if her anger alone could carry her to Billy.
“Sherry, no!” Laney shouted, but it was too late.
Billy leaned out from behind the debris, the muzzle of his weapon flashing. A single shot cracked through the chaos.
Sherry jerked back, blood blooming across her side as she crumpled to the ground.
Billy leaned out again, gun lifted, aiming straight at Sherry’s crumpled body. Before he could fire, a sharp crack split the air. Billy howled and twisted, clutching his shoulder as he ducked back behind the cover of debris.
Laney’s breath caught in her chest. That had to be Harlan.
More gunfire rang out, echoing through the smoke and chaos. Some of it was Harlan’s, maybe some from Crossfire Ops now that they had arrived, but there was no mistaking the sharp, furious bursts coming from Billy’s weapon. He was still fighting, still dangerous.
Laney pressed herself lower against the concrete lip of the culvert, heart hammering. Every muscle in her body screamed to move, to run to Harlan, but she forced herself to stay put. She could not blow his chance at flanking Billy.
But the fear dug deep, raw and brutal. Billy had killed David right here. She could still hear the echo of that blast in her nightmares, still see her injured husband. Now Billy was back, and Harlan was out there in his sights.
Laney’s throat clamped shut, fury and terror colliding inside her chest. The thought clawed at her, relentless. What if Billy did it again? What if he killed Harlan the way he had killed David?
She adjusted her grip on her Glock, determined not to let it happen.
Laney’s hands tightened on her Glock. She could not fire blindly into the smoke. She had no way of knowing exactly where Harlan or the Crossfire Ops team were, and one mistake could cost them everything.
So she held. She waited, her pulse hammering, her prayers tumbling out in silence. Please, someone stop him.
Then she saw him.
Billy crawled from behind the broken heap of metal and concrete, dragging himself toward the grenade launcher. His fingers stretched, curling around the weapon as if it were salvation.
Laney’s stomach clenched. She could not wait any longer. If he got that launcher into position, they would all be dead.
She raised her gun, aimed, and fired.
At the same instant, another shot rang out. From the corner of her eye she caught movement, and there was Harlan, across the road, crouched low and steady behind Billy.
Both bullets found their mark.
Billy jerked, shock etched across his face, then he crumpled. His body hit the dirt hard, his hand slipping away from the grenade launcher. He did not move again.
David’s killer was dead.
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