CHAPTER 25
Mac hit the sidewalk, dialing Sam’s number after his shift. Per usual, she didn’t answer. As he made his way around the block to his truck parked on a side street, so the repo man wouldn’t find it, he kept calling and calling. He texted, Call Me Now!!! Urgent!
He drove by the restaurant, but her car wasn’t there. He headed west out of town towards her pot farm. When he turned off the two-lane and onto the desolate gravel road, he thought there were headlights following him, but when he looked again, nothing.
He drove down the long drive and passed the ranch house. Sam’s truck, her Porsche and another vehicle were sitting by the building.
He let himself inside a walk-in door and heard voices in the rear, but couldn’t see them over the foliage. He walked through the rows of plants towards the voices. As he grew closer, he heard a woman sobbing. His heart hit his throat.
“Who the fuck are you?” A twenty-something gangly man with a man-bun raised a handgun at him. Another one, just as lanky but with stringy hair tucked behind his ears, pointed his gun at Mac too.
Mac raised his hands. “Whoa. I work here, the same as you.”
“Sam?” the first one called, and the devil herself stepped out of a side room.
“You,” she sneered. “What do you want?”
“For starters, you can tell your meth chef duo to stop pointing their guns at me?” Mac computed quickly this was Bryce and Devin by their age and trailer trash energy.
“Lower your guns,” she ordered, and they complied.
He stepped to the side and spotted Lainey through the doorway behind Sam. They’d tied her to a chair, and her face was bloodied. She was sniffling back snot from crying.
Heat reddened Mac’s face. “What the hell did you do to her?”
Sam crossed her arms. “I’m asking her some questions. I punched her only once. The rest have been open-hand slaps.” Sam lifted her right hand to examine her manicure. “But I think my nails may have scratched her face,” she smirked.
“No. No.” Mac shook his head. “You can’t do this to her. Not like this.”
“Oh, I get it,” Sam said. “You can take a woman at gunpoint when you think she was your friend’s whore, but not his wife?”
Mac snapped, “She did nothing to deserve this. Jesus!” He pushed Sam aside and entered the room.
As soon as Lainey saw him, her face shone with hope. They’d laid plastic shower curtain liners on the floor beneath her chair. Hopefully, that’d been a tactic to scare Lainey, but he wasn’t sure.
Sam followed him into the room. “Why do you think Mac’s been hanging around your house so much?” She scoffed, “You think it’s been because he wanted to help you?”
Lainey looked at Mac. “What is she talking about?”
He lowered his head. He was ashamed it’d led to this.
Sam went on, “He’s been looking for the coins he helped Geoff steal the night of the fire, you stupid bitch!”
“Hey!” Mac yelled. “This has gotten out of hand.” He knelt down to untie Lainey from the chair.
“Oh no, you don’t,” Sam said, walking up behind him. He felt the barrel of her revolver press against the back of his head. He halted, slowly raising his hands. Lainey frowned at him. The pain of betrayal over her face. Same as it was in the ambulance.
He’d screwed up. His greed and selfishness had put her in harm’s way. Maybe he’d have the chance to apologize if he could save them both.
“Once this bitch tells me where the coins are, I’m not sharing,” Sam said, and he heard the hammer cock.
* * *
Jake pulled his patrol unit behind a tree line at the end of the drive. Robert was out the door before Jake had shifted into park. “Damn it, Robert!” Jake whispered into the chilled air of the dark. “Wait up!”
Robert heard him give their location across the radio, then turn it silent. Jake caught up to him as Robert crept down the drive, keeping to the tree line. Out of town, with no wind blocks, Robert’s ears burned in the frigid air.
As they approached the house, Jake whispered, “We gotta be smart about this. Let me call for backup, and we’ll knock on the door.”
Robert didn’t respond. His mind was busy assessing the situation. Jake had a Glock, and he’d grabbed his Ka-Bar knife from his truck before getting in with Jake.
He counted four vehicles, including Mac’s truck parked by the large outbuilding behind the house. If things went sideways, they would probably be outnumbered.
POP! A gunshot rang out from inside the building.
Like muscle memory, Robert reacted as if he was part of a sanctioned rescue mission Op. He moved quickly, hugging walls, working himself closer to infiltrate the structure. Jake’s voice commanding him to wait was in the distance.
All he could think was that he was too late. Too late to save her. And if that was the case, no one was leaving here alive, not even himself if it came to it. If she were dead, he might as well be too, but he was going to take some motherfuckers with him first.
* * *
Lainey’s ears rang as Mac’s body fell limp beside her. His warm blood had splattered her face. She looked down, and chunks of brain matter stuck to fibers of her sweater.
Sam was speaking to her, but all she heard was a high-pitched ringing since the gun had gone off only inches from her own head.
The pinging began to fade. “See! See! Do you see what will happen to you?” Sam’s voice was coming through now. “Do you see what will happen if you don’t tell me where the coins are?”
Lainey shook her head, choking back a sob. “I don’t know where they are! If I knew, I would have told you.”
“Do I need to get your daughter and bring her here? Is that what you want?” Sam pointed the gun at Lainey’s face.
A flash of Viv’s sweet smile entered Lainey’s mind. She looked down. “No,” she said sheepishly and shook her head.
“Good. Because if I need to, I’ll grab her off the street like I did you.”
Knowing Vivian was in Robert’s care calmed her panic for a moment. He’d never let anything happen to Viv. But she needed to stall. Do something, say something to make it out of this. “I know where they’re buried.”
Sam lowered the gun.
Before Sam could ask. Lainey said, “I’ll take you there.” She was talking out of her ass now, but if they transported her, maybe she’d have a chance to escape.
“No, I’ll get some paper and you can draw me a map.” Sam walked out of the room.
Lainey looked down at Mac’s body. She winced, refocusing her gaze on the shelf with bags of fertilizer on the other side.
BANG! She heard a gunshot right outside the door and scuffling. Sam’s voice, “Who the...” BANG! Another shot cut her voice off.
Lainey’s breath caught, thinking Sam had shot someone else, but she couldn’t see around the doorway.
Robert whooshed into the room. “Are you okay? Were you shot?” he asked.
A flood of emotions came over her. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t believe it. Her throat closed up, so she shook her head and squeaked out “No.”
He was holding a gun, the same one the hooded man who’d forced her into the truck had had. In his other hand was a knife, and a very large knife that was red to the hilt with blood.
Robert tucked the gun into the back of his waistband and cut her bindings with the knife. As soon as he freed her arms, she clung to him. He held her, disregarding the blood and brain tissue covering her.
She buried her head in his chest and felt it give way as he exhaled, “Lain, I thought I’d lost you.”
She smiled, sobbing. She couldn’t loosen her grip on him. This man, whom she’d met four months ago, had fought for her in more ways than only tonight to save her.
* * *
Detective Moore was going over Robert’s statement. “Let me get this straight. You snuck up on assailant number one, who was outside vaping. When he saw you, he pointed his gun at you, but you shoved your knife into his ribs...”
“Yes, I rushed him and swiped away his gun arm before he could get a shot off. Then, I drove the blade between rib numbers five and six. It punctured through the lung and the heart. It incapacitates in close-range combat,” Robert said plainly.
Moore continued, “Then you took his gun and went inside. Assailant number two saw you immediately, and you shot him with the gun you took off number one.”
“Correct,” Robert said. “And I’d do it again,” he said with no remorse. “They hurt Lainey. She’s battered and bruised, but at least she’s still alive.”
Moore nodded. “Yeah, yeah. But then Lieutenant O’Connor came from the other direction and shot Samantha Cosgrove?”
“Yes. He backed me up. When the woman raised her gun at me, Jake ... I mean, Lieutenant O’Connor took her out before she could shoot me,” Robert said.
“But what about Richard MacKenzie? Are you sure you didn’t shoot him too in this whole takedown?” Moore asked.
This was the third time Moore had been over Robert’s written statement. He wasn’t sure if Moore was either upset that no one was alive to arrest, or Moore couldn’t believe Robert, with Jake’s help, had taken out three people in a matter of thirty seconds.
“Like I said,” Robert sighed. “Mac was already dead when I got there. I believe the shot that killed him was the same shot Lieutenant O’Connor and I heard outside.” Robert was done. It was three in the morning, and he wanted to make sure Lainey was okay, plus a shower and sleep would be nice too.
Robert stood up from his chair in the interrogation room. “If you’re going to charge me with a crime, charge me. But I’m done. Take me to a cell, or let me go.”
Moore clenched his jaw, glaring at him. His expression soon softened. “We’re done, Sergeant. I’m only making sure I’m thorough. The crime scene’s a mess, and I have four bodies to account for and a drug operation to investigate.”
Robert found Lainey and Emma sitting in the breakroom at the station with paper coffee cups. Lainey had discarded her sweater for an Abilene PD sweatshirt.
“She refused to leave without you,” Emma told him as Lainey rushed to hug him.
He wrapped his arms tightly around her. The thought he’d almost lost her tonight put a pang in his chest. He never wanted to let her go. Ever. He kissed the top of her head. “Let’s go home.”