Chapter 25 #2
Gabe pressed his hand against the door, and it opened a crack. Gabe glanced at Weir, who had soundlessly crept up behind him. He was just a few feet away now and no longer resembled an old man. Gabe raised his eyebrows and nodded to the slightly open door. Weir motioned for him to step aside.
“Allow me,” he murmured. “This is why I get paid the big bucks.”
A scream of terror shattered the morning quiet. Thrusting a hand underneath the ugly gray sweatshirt he’d borrowed from Knute, Weir pulled out his service weapon.
“Go around back,” he commanded. “Don’t get fucking killed or Klay will literally dismember me and feed me to the orcas.”
Gabe darted around the opposite side of house, away from the driveway.
The side yard was a bit overgrown, and he barely caught himself from tripping.
Someone, maybe Nicole, had planted some kind of berry, but the plants had escaped their bed, sending out spikey tendrils to snag the unwitting.
Fortunately, the house couldn’t have been more than seven hundred square feet.
Gabe managed to stay on his feet and came up on the backyard fast.
His heart was hammering painfully against his ribs.
There’d only been the one scream. Now it was too quiet.
He fucking prayed they were in time and that Nicole and her child were okay.
Pausing next to a rain gutter to catch his breath, Gabe peeked around the corner.
A ground-floor shade was slightly open next to where he stood , and through it he saw shadowy figures grappling in the kitchen.
“Fucking hell. Hell fucking no.”
Gabe raced for the back door, which burst open before he arrived. Foxy had Nicole by the arm—what was it with him grabbing her by her arm?—and was hauling her outside.
“No fucking way.”
Foxy didn’t see him, but Nicole did. She screamed and pulled harder, trying to get away from her captor.
Gabe barreled forward, leveraging his full body weight as he slammed into Foxy.
All three of them hit the ground, hard enough that Gabe felt the top of his head vibrate.
By some miracle that he would definitely be paying for later, Gabe had managed to land on top of the other man while Nicole fell backward, landing on her butt.
The sound of all the oxygen exploding from Foxy’s lungs was audible.
Nicole rolled away from them and rose to her feet, panting.
“A little help, please?” Gabe said as he squashed Foxy, forcing him into the dirt. “Anything out here I can tie him up with?”
“Um.” Nicole looked around and grabbed an extension cord, tossing one end to him as if it were a venomous snake.
Gabe didn’t ask why an electrical cord was randomly outside in her yard; it was and he was making use of it.
“Feels a little Tony Soprano, but it’ll have to do.” Keeping his knee in the man’s back, Gabe quickly wrapped the cord around Foxy’s wrists and ankles.
The Wyoming experience finally coming in handy, Chance.
“Are you okay?” Gabe asked Nicole, rising to his feet and brushing off his jeans. He kept an eye on Foxy, who was getting his breath back and struggling against the plastic cord.
Nicole nodded. Her eyes were huge, she was shaking, and her chest was heaving as she tried to calm down. “Who are you?”
Before Gabe could answer, Agent Weir appeared in the doorway, pushing the other handcuffed goon in front of him. “Special Agent Weir,” he said, flashing his shiny badge toward Nicole.
“Gabriel Karne, Elton Cox’s friend. We met at the diner.” Something niggled at him, something important.
“Where’s your child?” Weir demanded. “Are they safe?”
Nicole darted a glance at Gabe and then back at the agent. Weir’s expression seemed intense to Gabe, even for a feeb. “Um, yes? She’s with my cousin.”
“These two don’t know about your cousin?” Agent Weir had seemed like a bit of a joker, but with Nicole he was all business.
“Well, she’s not really my cousin. Not by blood anyway,” she responded, nervously eyeing the two men who’d invaded her home.
“Can she keep an eye on…?”
“Calliope,” Nicole supplied.
“Calliope for a while longer? We need to secure the scene and have you answer some questions.”
“I’m sure she won’t mind.”
“Nice tie job, Karne,” Weir said.
“Thanks.” He considered Nicole’s pickup truck and decided that, no it wasn’t a coincidence. It was the same truck he’d seen exiting the Heron’s Roost parking lot on Monday.
“How… how are you here?” Nicole asked, looking at Weir and then Gabe.
“You have Karne to thank for that.” Weir said. “But before we talk more about what’s been going on, we need to get the gruesome twosome out of here. Ivan here has hurt feelings, and it looks like big bro has the sads too.”
Slamming doors caught their attention. Gabe looked over his shoulder to see SAC Klay, SA Hernandez, and SA Richardson jogging toward them.
Hernandez peeled off and, Gabe assumed, entered the house through the front door.
He hadn’t heard them arrive, but he’d been busy immobilizing Foxy.
That thought had Gabe’s body chiming in with a list of complaints.
He’d maybe pulled a rib, and both knees absolutely ached.
“Everything under control, Agent Weir?” Klay asked, stopping beside Foxy, the toes of his shiny oxfords mere inches from the prone man.
“Nikolai Petyr, we meet again. I don’t get out of the office much these days, but for the Petyr family, I made an exception.
The family that does crimes together gets arrested together, and I’d hate to miss the reunion. ”
Foxy, aka Nikolai Petyr, kept his mouth shut, but if looks could kill, Klay would have been vaporized on the spot.
“Don’t worry. We know you’re not the brains behind whatever this operation is. We picked up your… uncle? Or is he your brother? Maybe both?”
“Fuck you.”
“Please,” Klay scoffed. “I respect myself. Mikal’s in custody. He claims you and Ivan went rogue and killed the pastor on your own. Even if we don’t get you on attempted kidnapping, murder will stick.”
Gabe exchanged a glance with Weir, who almost imperceptibly shook his head—they didn’t have this Mikal guy.
“But,” Klay continued, “Wilson’s manner of death doesn’t seem like your style. You wanna tell us who really did it?”
Nikolai Petyr did not take the bait. There was something on his mind though, and Gabe would bet it had to do with going down for a murder he and his brother did not commit.
“The thing is, Nik—I can call you Nik? The thing is, you and Ivan are going to go down for a long time for attempted kidnapping and murder. However, you can always make sure that Mikal gets some of the fun of a family reunion in the Big House.”
Klay turned away from Nik Petyr. “Let’s get these two bagged up and really question them.”
“Nice tie job,” Richardson commented after cuffing Nikolai and removing the electric cord. Then he and Hernandez not-so-gently steered the two brothers toward the Escalades.
“Thanks, I guess. Hey, uh, I need to get to the hospital now,” Gabe told SAC Klay’s back as he followed the agents and their prizes around to the front yard.
Klay stopped and turned to face Gabe. “We will get you to the hospital as soon as it is safe and feasible. It is not yet safe.”
“Fucking Christ, can I at least call and talk to Casey, hear his voice? He was fucking airlifted!” Gabe’s hands landed on the top of his head, his fingers digging into his scalp.
Klay briefly shut his eyes, then pinched the bridge of his nose. Weir, who had been behind Gabe, stopped at Gabe’s shoulder. “Boss.”
“Don’t you ‘boss’ me, Agent Weir. Karne, I understand. Believe me when I tell you this; I viscerally understand. But”—his voice went low so only Gabe and Weir could hear him—“with Mikal Petyr still out there, we can’t risk it. As soon as it’s feasible, I promise you, we’ll get you there.”
Gabe nodded. What else could he do? But he stepped aside to put some distance between himself and Adam Klay so he wouldn’t gleefully kick the G-man in the shins.
Minutes later, a second group of persons in black arrived, and Nikolai and Ivan Petyr were quickly and efficiently collected from Nicole’s property to be taken to an unknown location that Gabe frankly hoped they’d never see the outside of.
Then Agents Klay, Hernandez, Weir, and Richardson packed Gabe and Nicole into one of the two remaining shiny black SUVs and whisked them off to Sheriff Eagan’s domain, where their group basically took over the interview rooms.
Gabe was very sympathetic to the scowl that briefly made an appearance on Eagan’s face when they arrived. But the sheriff was gracious and even offered them the use of the breakroom for coffee.
“Thank fuck for small miracles,” said Gabe, splitting off from the group and heading for coffee. “Any donuts in there?”