Chapter 29
“This is it,” Cooper said as they turned onto a dirt lane. He pulled the truck off the road as far into the trees as he could. To have the element of surprise on their side, they would walk in.
After they exited the truck, Grayson grabbed the duffel bag he’d brought and went to the back.
He opened the tailgate, set the bag on it and opened it up.
They loaded their bodies up with weapons.
Guns, knives, smoke bombs and flash grenades.
Probably overkill, but better to be prepared for anything over not being prepared for the unexpected.
Then they each put on a Kevlar vest and coms.
They set off into the trees, moving silently as they approached the house…
actually a good-size log cabin. Lights were on inside, and they eased up to a window.
Cooper peeked around the side of the sill.
His blood turned to ice at what he saw. Kendall was face down on the floor, not moving.
Schroder was pacing around the room with a gun in his hand and seemed to be muttering to himself.
“She better be alive, or he’s a dead man,” he said. They didn’t have time to make a plan. “I’m taking the front. You come in through the back.”
Grayson nodded, and they split up. Cooper eased onto the deck, and when he reached the door, he tried the knob. “This one’s locked,” he whispered.
“Back here, too,” Grayson responded.
They both had lock-pick kits and within minutes the two doors were unlocked. “I’m going to go in, gun drawn,” he told Grayson. “With his attention on me, you ease in behind him. We go on my one.”
“Roger.”
Cooper took his Glock from its holster. “Three, two, one!” He eased the door open and stepped inside with his gun raised.
Schroder’s attention was on Kendall, and he was still muttering.
Cooper couldn’t make out the words, but he didn’t have a good feeling about the man.
Schroder was losing it, and it was never a good thing when a man’s mind was twisted.
There was no predicting how he might react.
Suddenly, Schroder pointed the gun at Kendall, still unmoving on the floor. “I wasn’t going to make you an angel, but you had to go and be a bad girl.”
Cooper didn’t want to kill the man, but he would to protect Kendall. He hesitated because if he shot Schroder, there was a risk the man’s finger would jerk on the trigger of the gun he was pointing at her. He needed to get the man to point the gun at him, then if he had to kill Schroder, he would.
Schroder suddenly stopped muttering and turned his gaze toward Cooper. His eyes widened, and a flicker of recognition passed over his face before being replaced by a look of pure malice. “You! I saw you with her, but you can’t have her. She’s mine.”
“I just want to talk to you.” He glanced at Kendall, his relief immense when he saw her back rise and fall.
She was breathing! Grayson was sneaking up behind Schroder, and to keep the man’s attention on him and not what was happening behind him, Cooper said, “Put the gun down on the floor, Mr. Schroder, and you can walk out of the house right now.” Cooper felt no guilt for the lie.
With his weapon still pointed at Kendall, Schroder looked from him to her, then back to him. “I don’t think so. I kill her. You kill me. Then Kendall and I will be angels together in heaven. Perfect ending to this story.”
The man actually believed that and his intention to die today with Kendall was there in the madness shining in his eyes.
“You don’t want to do this,” he said, hoping to keep Schroder’s attention on him and not on Grayson, who was sneaking up behind him.
“Just put the gun down on the floor and let’s talk about how you can walk away from this. ”
A floorboard creaked when Grayson was only a few steps from Schroder. Cooper would never know if Schroder meant to fire the gun or if it was a trigger reaction to the noise behind him.
The gunshot echoed through the cabin, its sound deafening in the quiet room. Kendall’s body jerked as the bullet hit her. A second gunshot sounded from Cooper’s weapon, and Schroder’s eyes widened in surprise as he crumbled to the floor.
Cooper kneeled next to Kendall and set his gun on the floor. She was bleeding from her left shoulder. Not a kill shot, but she wasn’t moving. He gently turned her over, and when he saw the bruises and fingerprints on her neck, he almost picked up his gun to kill Schroder all over again.
“He’s dead,” Grayson said from Schroder’s side.
“Good.” There wasn’t an exit wound, so the bullet was still inside her. “We need to get her to the hospital. We’re too far out to wait for an ambulance.” How he was even speaking coherently, he didn’t know. There was a blood-red rage inside him at seeing what had been done to her.
“He’s not going anywhere, so we can leave him here for now,” Grayson said. “Let’s go. Give me your keys.”
Cooper dug his truck keys from his pocket and handed them over, then he scooped Kendall up.
He followed Grayson to the truck, got in the back and held her across his lap.
“There’s a small first aid kit in the console.
I need something to press over the wound to stop the bleeding.
” It was only because of his years of military training that he was able to stay calm.
Going ballistic—which was appealing right now—wouldn’t help her.
Grayson handed over a pack of gauze. “Here.”
He tore the package open with his teeth, then pressed several squares over the wound. “Kendall, open your eyes. Please, baby.”
“Okay, I’ve got the closest hospital on the GPS. It’s twenty-five minutes from here.”
“Make it in fifteen.”
He kept talking to her while Grayson sped them to the hospital. He also half listened to Grayson’s conversation with their FBI friend Sean Danvers. Grayson gave Sean a rundown of the events leading up to Schroder’s death, then asked him to contact the local police.
“He’s going to notify the police and send one of his agents out of the Atlanta office up here,” Grayson said after disconnecting. “We’ll have to give statements. Kendall will, too, when she’s able.”
“Whatever. All I care about right now is getting her to the hospital.” He lifted the gauze. The wound was still bleeding but not as heavy as it had been. “Kendall. Open your eyes.”
She moaned, and her eyelids fluttered but didn’t open. How long had she been deprived of oxygen? He tried not to think of the damage that might have been done to her brain. She was going to be okay. She had to be.
“I don’t know why she won’t wake up. It’s obvious he tried to strangle her from the marks on her neck, but she should be conscious by now.
” That she wasn’t scared the hell out of him.
“Kendall. Wake up.” He put command in his voice, hoping that would bring her around, but there was no reaction.
“Baby, open your eyes for me.” He trailed his fingers over her face.
“No,” she cried. “No!”
She sounded like someone with an awful cold. Had Schroder damaged her voice box? Suddenly, she was fighting him like an enraged cat, all teeth and claws. The only thing he knew to do was hug her to his body to keep her from hurting herself.
“Hey, hey. You’re safe now, Kendall. You’re safe.”
“I think she’s afraid to wake up,” Grayson said. “She doesn’t realize it’s you holding her.”
She quieted, sinking back down into whatever black hole she was hiding in. He stopped trying to wake her up. If she thought she was safe wherever she’d taken herself, he would let her stay there until they could get to the hospital and doctors.
“Do you think the hospital here has doctors who know how to deal with this?” he said. “Maybe we should arrange a medical flight to an Atlanta hospital.”
“Let’s get her to the hospital here, then decide if we need to do that. We’ll be there in three minutes.”
He also needed to call her father, but he’d wait to do that after they learned what they were dealing with.
He didn’t think the shoulder wound was life-threatening or would even cause long-term damage.
The location where the bullet had entered wasn’t where it would have hit any vital organs.
They’d have to get the bullet out, and maybe she’d need some physical therapy, but it was the possible brain damage from being choked and her mental state that had him worried.
“We’re here.” Grayson stopped the truck at the emergency entrance and jumped out. He opened the back door. “Let me take her until you get out.”
“I’ve got her.” Refusing to let go of her, he slid out of the truck.
“Okay. I’m going to park the truck, then come in.”
Cooper nodded. The door slid open as he approached, and he ran up to the desk. “I need a doctor. Now!”
The woman took one look at Kendall before picking up the phone. “Code Blue. Code Blue. Front Desk.”
A man and a woman appeared, pushing a gurney between them. “Are one of you a doctor?” he asked as he eased Kendall onto it.
“I am,” the woman said. “Dr. Hasting. What happened to her?”
“She was strangled and shot in the shoulder. She’s been unconscious since I found her.”
“You’ll have to wait out here, Mr… .”
“Devlin. Cooper Devlin. Please help her.”
“We will.”
He watched helplessly as they rushed her away. When he couldn’t see her anymore, he closed his eyes and prayed. A hand landed on his shoulder, and he glanced at Grayson. “I need to call her father.” It was a phone call he dreaded. “I promised her I’d keep her safe, and I didn’t.”
“Stop that right now. Only one man is to blame and he’s dead.”
“I wish he wasn’t so I could kill him again.”
“And I’d help you. I’ll go get us some coffee while you call her father.”
He walked outside to make the call.
“Hello,” her father said. “Is this Cooper?”
“Yes. We found her.”
“Is she all right?”
“No. She’s unconscious. He tried to strangle her and then he shot her in the shoulder. She’s in the emergency room with the doctor. They’ll probably take her to surgery to remove the bullet.”
“I’m coming there. What hospital?”
“Why don’t you wait awhile? This is a small hospital, and I’m probably going to arrange a medevac flight to take her to Atlanta where we can get her specialized care.” Someone who understood trauma and probably PTSD. He had a sinking feeling she was suffering from the disorder.
“I want to be with my daughter.”
He inwardly sighed. “I know you do, Frank, and you should be, but you could be halfway here while we’re flying her to Atlanta. I’ll keep you updated as soon as the doctor here tells me something. I’m not leaving her side, okay?”
“I shouldn’t have let her answer the door knowing he was after her.”
He got Frank’s guilt more than the man could imagine.
He shouldn’t have left her unprotected, even though he’d thought she’d be safe at her father’s.
“You couldn’t know he’d be brazen enough to come to your door.
This is on him, not you.” Easy words for him to say to someone else because protecting her had been his job.
“I’ll wait, but not too long,” Frank said. “Call me as soon as you know something.”
Cooper promised he would. After disconnecting, he went back inside. “He wanted to come here now, but I talked him into waiting until we know if we’re going to move her to Atlanta.”
Grayson handed him a cup of coffee. “In his place, I’d want to be with my daughter, too, but it’s best he waits until we know something.” He glanced over Cooper’s shoulder. “Is that the doctor?”
“Yes.” He hurried to Dr. Hasting. “How is she?”