Last Light (29 page)

TK glanced back the way they’d come. No signs of pursuit and the sun was almost down. Should she haul their canoe over the sandbar and try the next length of river?

Alan made the decision for them, gleefully running through the mud and silt to the ladder and throwing himself at it.

“Wait,” she called, worried it wasn’t safe, but he’d already scrambled halfway up. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about it holding her weight.

As soon as he was at the top, she climbed the rungs. Up top there was a platform anchored into the solid ground, about ten feet square. On either side were trees and brushes, but heading in land was a well-worn path. She jogged down it, catching up with Alan.

“You need to let me go first,” she scolded him. His expression turned from smiling to crushed in an instant. “Stay with me—that’s what your dad wanted. I’m supposed to look after you, so you need to listen to me. Okay?”

He didn’t make eye contact, shifting his weight as he nodded his head earnestly.

“Okay,” she said. She took his hand and placed it on her left shoulder. “Keep your hand there. That way even when it gets dark, we won’t lose each other.”

He squeezed her shoulder and smiled at her. Amazing how quickly he shrugged off any negativity. She sure as hell could use a little of his positive attitude in her own life.

Moving slowly through the deepening shadows, they walked down the path. About twenty yards later, the trees ended and a wide expanse of cleared land opened up before them. In the dim light, TK made out rows of abandoned farm equipment. She recognized a thresher, a disc plow, two portable irrigation sprayers, and a hay baler—the kind that could make six-foot-high round bales.

In addition to the farm equipment were an assortment of junked-out cars, several small tin-roofed sheds, a silo, and a larger metal barn. She shook her head at the waste. Bad news for the taxpayers but good news as far as finding a defensible position. The place reminded her of the abandoned buildings where she ran parkour, a maze of obstacles ready to trip up the unwary.

It was clear from Alan’s confident stride that he knew the area well. She turned to him. “Ever play hide-and-seek here?”

He nodded eagerly. As overprotective as his father was, she doubted Saylor let him play near any of the more dangerous machinery—but that baler, there was plenty of room to hide inside its maw, and the thick steel was as good as bulletproof. She led him over to it. Everything looked stable—last thing she wanted to risk was those heavy steel jaws slamming shut on one of them, but they were locked into place.

“How about here?” she asked. “Is this a good place to hide?”

He nodded and climbed in, avoiding the rollers, squeezing his body into the recess where the hay bale would fit and grinning at her.

“Okay. You wait there and don’t you come out until I tell you to. Deal?”

Another eager nod and he crossed his heart, sealing their bargain. TK left him and walked a spiral path out from the baler, searching for high ground with cover and a good view of the road. If danger was coming, it would be from there.

She climbed to the top of one of the silos and took stock. One semi-automatic pistol, thirty-one rounds of ammo divided in two magazines, and cover of darkness. It would have to do. Then she looked up river, back the way they came. The sky was indigo above and a brilliant crimson streak below. Only instead of dipping below the tree line and disappearing, the red and gold was growing, filling the horizon.

And moving. That wasn’t sunset. That was a wild fire. Raging out of control.

<><><>

DAVID STOPPED TAKING
notes halfway through Carole’s recitation, simply unable to focus on the words on the page. It was unbelievable; she was so damn proud of her son, the monster who’d butchered an entire family in cold blood.

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“Why not?” she countered. “None of it is admissible, much less believable. There’s not a single shred of proof. You can’t even tell anyone. After all, Caleb saved Blackwell County and the people here. Who’d believe you if you tried to tell them he was a cold-hearted killer? No one. Not with your,” she sniffed, “pedigree. Not to mention how obviously self-serving it would appear. If you ever tried to tell anyone, it would hurt your father’s cause more than help it.”

“You kept this knife all these years—”

“To implicate Roscoe. He’s so much more helpful dead and buried than he ever was alive. The knife was a bit of an insurance plan. In case someone like you and your mother started digging.”

He shook his head, his mind swimming with the implications and ramifications of everything she’d told him. “I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?”

“That’s for my son to decide. Unlike his father, Caleb is a big-picture thinker. I’m sure he has a plan for you.” She tilted her chin toward the window. “That’s him now.” There was the sound of the front door opening and a man’s footsteps. “Caleb, dear,” she called out. “We’re in the front parlor. Come say hello to Mr. Ruiz. I was just telling him all about your childhood exploits.”

AS SOON AS
Blackwell was out of sight, Lucy ran across the lawn to Saylor, dodging flames. Saylor lay, not moving, blood oozing in a puddle near where his hands covered his head.

He looked dead. Lucy raced to him, squatting down in the ground, the flames consuming the gasoline spill and drawing dangerously close. Sweat dripped from her face as she examined him for injuries.

“Saylor. You’re hit.” Damn, was it a head shot? His pulse was good. She pulled his arms away from his head and saw the left one was where the blood was coming from. A through-and-through at the fleshy part of the forearm.

Saylor groaned and raised his face out of the dirt. “Ain’t dead yet.”

The wind gusted sparks across to his jeans. Lucy smacked the flames out with her hands. His right leg was twisted mid-thigh—where the Escalade’s bumper hit him when Blackwell ran him down. “Hold tight. This is going to hurt.”

She pulled his arms over his head and dragged him toward the Tahoe TK had left behind. As she moved him, she finally saw why Blackwell had been stalling. The fire here in Saylor’s yard was the least of their problems—the trees and grassland surrounding the property were alight with flames.

He must have started the fire to cut them off and then came here to make sure they didn’t escape before it reached them. Too bad he hadn’t thought of the river. Or maybe he had. Maybe that’s why he ran over Saylor, leaving him too injured to travel by boat.

A dead man could be left behind. A wounded one took time and energy. Time they didn’t have the way the trees were crackling as the drought-parched forest was consumed.

With the fire surrounding them on three sides and coming closer with each second, she had no time to check Saylor for spinal injuries; had to hope for the best. A howl of pain escaped him—she took that as a good sign. If he was feeling pain, his spine was intact.

Blackwell’s final salvo of gunfire had shot out the Tahoe’s windows but she saw no sign that his bullets had hit anything vital. She opened the SUV’s back door, coughing as smoke filled the air. Her vision clouded with tears and she couldn’t see the house or the gate through the haze.

“I can’t lift you by myself. Can you put any weight on your other leg?”

He shook his head, his face ashen, eyes clamped shut with the effort of clutching her arms to keep from falling back into the gravel.

“C’mon, Sheriff,” she coaxed. “Your boy needs you.”

That did the trick. He sucked in his breath, opened his eyes wide, and reached for a handhold. Together they half-dragged, half-pushed his body up and into the SUV. Lucy slammed the door shut, ignoring his groan as the vehicle rocked. No time to make him comfortable, not until they were clear of the flames.

She tossed her weapons into the passenger seat and hopped in, turning the ignition on and fastening her seatbelt with one motion. “Brace yourself. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

Smoke swirled through the broken windows as she turned the SUV around. An immense wall of flames greeted her—the fence was on fire as well as the high prairie grass beyond it. Behind her a roar filled the air as the fire reached the house, rampaging across the porch and up the side to the roof.

“I can’t believe how fast it’s moving.” She aimed the SUV at a slight dip in the flames where she hoped the road and gate lay.

“The drought,” Saylor answered her, although she’d expected none. “Plus the wind picks up when the sun goes down.”

“We can’t stick around here. Hang on.” She gunned the engine and plowed through the flames, bumping over something—the gate? Smoke and heat blinded her as sparks flew through the air, carrying with them cinders and ash. It was difficult to take even a single deep breath.

They passed the fence, but the prairie beyond it was an ocean of flame. Thankfully the trees lining the lane revealed their escape route.

“What was that call Blackwell got before he left?” Between the wind rushing through the blown-out windows and the sound of the fire, she had to shout.

“Dispatch was relaying a message from his mom,” Saylor replied. His words were coming with short gasps between them, but his voice was strong. “He told them he’d thought he’d seen a small fire near here and was getting the helicopter up to check it out.”

She squinted into the smoke. They should be near the road. “Does his helo have FLIR?” The forward-looking infrared imaging was how police helicopters tracked fleeing suspects.

“Yep. It’ll be easy to find TK and Alan—they’ll be the only human heat signatures out this way.”

The fire behind them reflected off a stop sign. They’d reached the main road. “You need a hospital.”

“I need my son safe,” he insisted. “Leave me here and I’ll take my chances.”

She patted her pockets. Two magazines for the pistols in her back pockets, but somewhere along the way she’d lost her phone. “Do you have your cell?”

His breath came in ragged gasps as he stretched an arm around to his back pocket. She reached back between the seats and grabbed it. The screen was hopelessly smashed and had gone black. She tried the power button. Nothing. It was damaged beyond repair.

She scanned both directions on the highway. No signs of traffic from either direction. Flames crested a small rise behind them, heading along the river. She remembered her landmarks from her earlier drive. The fire would hit the ag research center next, from there the river curved and would lead it to the Martin house and eventually Blackwell’s place. Idiot might have condemned his own home by starting the blaze.

But if it saved him from a murder charge, Blackwell obviously thought it was worth a chance. No.
Thinking
wasn’t how he was functioning—his abrupt actions back at Saylor’s showed that. Blackwell was reacting. Letting his emotions and immediate desires guide his actions.

Which might be the only reason why she and Saylor were still alive.

“Where would TK and Alan go?” she asked Saylor.

“The river’s too low, they wouldn’t make it far downstream. The ag station. There are a few old barns there, farm equipment, abandoned vehicles. It’d make a good place to hide. Plus, Alan knows it. He likes to explore all the machinery.”

She turned onto the highway, heading away from the route that would take them toward Abilene and the nearest hospital—and toward the one that paralleled the river and headed downstream.

<><><>

DAVID GLANCED AWAY
from Carole as Caleb Blackwell marched into the room.

“Mother, are you all right?” Caleb planted a solicitous kiss on Carole’s head before turning to glare at David. “What right do you have coming here?”

Carole patted Caleb’s hand as it rested on her shoulder. “It’s perfectly all right, dear. After all, if anyone would be interested in the truth, it would be Mr. Ruiz, don’t you think?”

“Exactly which version of the truth did she tell you?” Caleb asked, moving away from his mother. “The one where Roscoe dealt with a simpering, clingy mistress with blackmail on her mind? Or maybe the one where the Blackwell matron defended her husband’s family honor by taking care of things herself?”

“The one where her psychopathic twelve-year-old son tortured a mother and baby,” David blurted out before he could stop himself. To his surprise, Caleb responded with a chuckle.

“Right. Of course. Mother, your imagination never ceases to amaze me. Especially as we all know the only evidence points to Roscoe.” He raised an eyebrow at David, emphasizing his point. “But Mr. Ruiz and I have more urgent business at hand. You and TK O’Connor seemed rather close when I arrested you last night. What would she do to save your life?”

David startled. “Excuse me?”

“Stand up. Keep your hands where I can see them,” Caleb ordered, his posture one of command. He drew his weapon and aimed it at David as he settled into a shooting stance. David slowly complied, adrenaline colliding with fear as the blood rushed away from his head, making the room spin.

“Turn around, hands on the back of your head.” Within seconds, Caleb had David’s wrists handcuffed behind him.

“Am I under arrest? What for?”

“Caleb, what are you doing?” Carole asked. Her body language was more curious than concerned. Her son wasn’t the only psychopath in the family, David decided.

Caleb pushed David toward the front entrance. “You were right, Mother. I should have taken care of that boy a long, long time ago. Seems like TK found a way to get him to tell her who really was at the Martin house and now they’ve made a run for it. But don’t worry. I’m going to use the helicopter to hunt them down.”

“Just be careful, dear,” she said, taking a sip of her martini. “You don’t want to leave things half done. Again.”

“I’ve already taken care of Drew Saylor and that FBI agent, Guardino. Mr. Ruiz here is going to help me wrap up any other loose ends.”