Officer in Pursuit (35 page)

His boots were pounding the pavement
just a few yards from the vehicle when someone cried out from
inside.

He recognized Kerry’s voice, or at
least, he thought he did. The sound of his own blood rushing in his
ears drowned out everything else as he sprinted.

He was almost to the truck when he saw
a shape rise up from inside – the shape of a person much too large
to be Kerry. A man.

There was a second shape, a second
person – Grey realized that when the man started swinging at the
other one.

The unmistakable sound of a hard punch
came from inside the cab, and Grey yelled, angry beyond
words.

He was ready to literally rip Brad
Sawyer apart. But when he was a few feet from the truck, the
windshield exploded in a deafening rain of glass.

At first, he thought Henry had fired
at the truck. But when he looked at his friend, he realized that
the gunfire had come from within the vehicle.

It kept coming, too, and Henry
couldn’t fire back without risking hitting Kerry.

Grey dove in front of the truck’s
grille, hitting the pavement hard.

It almost got him killed. The truck
lurched forward and he barely rolled to the side in time to avoid
being run over. His cape got caught on a tire and was torn away,
sucked under the vehicle.

The truck made scraping noises as it
went, its tires rubbing against its bent wheel wells. Still, the
sound of Grey’s beating heart was louder, at least to his
ears.

He was seized by the absurd urge to
reach out and grab the truck, stop it in its tracks. Kerry was
inside with the asshole who’d hit her, who’d hurt her, and that
asshole was armed. As the truck’s damaged wheels turned, grinding
broken glass against the pavement, Grey’s heart was torn halfway
out. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – let anyone take her away.

An explosive noise rattled his brain,
even his teeth as he clenched his jaw, steeling himself. He half
expected to look down and see blood welling out of some part of his
body, but no – Henry had fired his gun. Grey could see that now,
could see Henry standing with the weapon raised, firing another
round as the truck barreled toward him.

The scraping sounds coming from the
vehicle got louder, and then came the squeal of metal against
asphalt.

Henry had shot out two of the tires –
the ones on the right side, away from Grey. The truck was
crippled.

It had been a ballsy move. Either of
the bullets could’ve bounced off metal or pavement and come back to
hit Henry or Grey. But they hadn’t.

Grey tasted blood in his mouth but
couldn’t remember biting anything. He was numb to pain, though he
was vaguely aware that his palms and arm were bleeding where they’d
hit the pavement when he’d rolled. It was an infinitesimally small
price to pay for being here, for having the chance to stop this, to
finally make things right for Kerry.

If it wasn’t too late.

Jesus. He didn’t know what her
ex-husband had done to her, how badly she was hurt. That killed
him, filled him with rage that had him flying at the driver’s side
door, pulling it open.

He didn’t know if Bradley Sawyer had
any more bullets left and he didn’t care. He couldn’t let this go
on any longer, not for a single second.

Swearing exploded from the cab as the
dented door swung on its hinges. Grey caught a glimpse of the man
from the photo, a familiar face now marked with scars. There was no
wedding tux now, just black clothing that almost – but not quite –
masked the blood soaking the fabric.

Grey had a fistful of blood-stained
jacket and was pulling Sawyer out of the cab before he even knew
what he was doing. He could see Kerry curled at the far end of the
seat and a part of him wanted to go to her, but he had to do this
first.

Brad fought.

Grey fought harder. He slammed him
against the side of the truck and hit him square on the jaw,
bruising his knuckles and feeding his rage. He couldn’t let himself
look at Kerry because the glimpse he’d caught was enough – she was
bound somehow. She was hurt. And this man had done it to
her.

A thousand images flickered in dark
corners of Grey’s mind: Kerry in her white wedding dress, Kerry in
white bandages, Kerry looking shocked and happy and embarrassed all
at once any time anyone did anything nice for her, anything at
all.

It was too much. Too much to know that
all that had happened to her and that after years of torment, her
abuser had dared to track her down and attempt to drag her away
from her new life. Grey’s horror was as unspeakable as his rage,
and one fed the other.

He’d never hit anyone so hard. He kept
doing it, feeling nothing when Sawyer managed to retaliate with a
few blows of his own.

He thought of his mother, too. The
shame he’d felt when he’d been too young to defend her, the dark
cloud they’d both lived under for so long. The way some people
seemed to exist solely to rain down misery on the ones they were
supposed to love and protect. The way they turned the lives of
those around them into fearful games, ones where any little misstep
would be repaid with permanent scars.

They were the worst kind of people
alive – the man Grey was beating against the side of the truck was
one of the worst people he’d ever laid hands on. He felt sure of
that, and well qualified to judge. His work brought him into
constant contact with toxic people, evil souls. But the kind of
evil that had driven Sawyer to abduct Kerry was the worst of it
all.

Blood stained Grey’s hands and flew
from his fists in droplets as he hit the other man, again and
again. He would’ve liked to think that he was repaying him for the
pain he’d caused Kerry, but he knew that was impossible. She’d
endured years of blows, and then there was the pain deep inside,
the damage caused by lack of love and safety, nights spent fearing
for her life in her own home. This didn’t compare, but it still
felt good to dish out.

Until Sawyer responded with something
more than his fists. The gun had been left among the shattered
glass on the truck seat, Grey realized as Brad hit him hard on the
jaw then grabbed and raised the gun, whipped it down hard across
Grey’s face.

All Grey’s rage couldn’t keep him
conscious. His fury, his single-minded focus, was all snuffed out
like a flame: suddenly, leaving him in darkness.

* * * * *

Kerry had never seen anyone so angry,
even after all her years with Brad. Grey moved like a machine
designed to inflict pain. It was so unlike Brad’s clumsy, drunken
brand of violence that she stared, stunned and left in a strange
sort of awe.

Every blow looked and sounded hard
enough to break bones. He hit Brad in the face, the stomach. He
kept him pinned up against the truck and threw punch after punch.
Brad hit back, but not as often and not as hard. Until he got in a
hard punch, reached back and drew his weapon.

It was a gunmetal blur, and her heart
leapt into her throat. She couldn’t scream, but she was wailing on
the inside, afraid that Grey would be shot, killed or maimed. All
because of her, because he’d dared to show her kindness – and
passion – like she’d only ever imagined before.

She should’ve noticed the gun,
should’ve grabbed it or kicked it out of Brad’s reach. But she’d
been too absorbed in the fight to see it. Whatever was about to
happen to Grey now was because of her carelessness.

The thought was unbearable, but before
she could move, before she could scream, she realized that Brad
wasn’t about to risk trying to shoot Grey. Instead, he acted
instinctively, gripping the gun by the barrel and raising it like a
bludgeon, whipping it through the air before Grey could reach for
it.

That didn’t make it any easier to
watch Grey crumple to the ground, his powerful body collapsing like
someone had hit an off switch.

Brad tried to run but hardly made it a
step before Henry put himself in his path, weapon still
raised.

“Stop,” he said. “Put your hands above
your head.”

Brad didn’t listen. Instead, he
pointed the gun at Henry.

He could – and would – shoot now,
Kerry realized.

Henry fired first.

At such a close range, it was
inconceivable that he could’ve missed, especially after the way
he’d shot out the truck’s tires. Still, for a split second Kerry
worried that that was exactly what had happened.

Then Brad dropped like a
rock.

It wasn’t like in the movies – he
didn’t fall backwards. He didn’t even stumble. He just dropped, and
that was that. She wasn’t even sure where he’d been shot, or if he
was still alive.

A part of her was stunned to have
witnessed a shooting, but the rest of her was so grateful Henry was
there that her heart practically broke at the sight of him standing
with his Glock still held steady.

Finally stopping the man who’d haunted
her for a decade.

Finally treating him like what he was:
a criminal.

When two police cruisers arrived on
the scene, sirens flashing, Jeremy stepped out of one of the cars
and Kerry broke down and cried.

* * * * *

Grey’s time in the hospital was a
blur. There were a lot of jokes from the nurses about his Superman
costume, and a few from Liam too. There were stitches across the
left side of his face – twelve of them, to seal the wound dealt by
the grip of a .45.

The blow had fractured his cheekbone.
At first there had been some talk of surgery, but ultimately the
doctor had decided that it wouldn’t be necessary. There was a crack
in the bone, but it hadn’t caved in. He was glad because surgery
wasn’t something he wanted to deal with. None of it – nothing that
had happened to him – seemed important, compared to
Kerry.

He’d held her at the scene of the
truck wreck, which had turned out to be deliberate, not an
accident. He’d refused to leave without getting his arms around
her, making sure she was, if not okay, at least not
life-threateningly injured.

And she wasn’t. But she was bruised to
hell and back and two of her ribs had been cracked. Her back was
jacked-up too, the muscles badly knotted over her damaged ribs. It
set Grey’s teeth on edge to think of how she’d sustained those
injuries, made him ache to get his hands on her ex-husband
again.

It was too late for that, though.
Bradley Sawyer had died a couple hours ago in surgery at a trauma
center in Wilmington, a result of the bullet he’d taken to the
chest.

Grey knew he should be relieved, and
on a certain level, he was. But he was intensely aware that what
had been done couldn’t be undone. Kerry had been hurt and healing
could never be complete; the scars would always linger, literally
and figuratively. Every time he held her hand, he’d be reminded of
what she’d gone through, what he hadn’t been able to
prevent.

It’d be a bitter pill to swallow,
every time. Because she didn’t just deserve a better future, she
deserved the one thing no one could give her, now: a better past.
He wished he’d been able to protect her before now, that she hadn’t
suffered for so long.

“How’s your face, Superman?” Henry
stood in the room’s open doorway, though Grey hadn’t heard him
approach.

Grey rose from the chair pushed
against the wall opposite the hospital bed. Kerry lay in it,
asleep. Grey had refused to spend the night in a room of his own as
a patient but hadn’t been able to bring himself to leave the
hospital or her side.

“It’s 3:30 am,” Grey said, keeping his
voice low. “Late, but I figured you’d be at the sheriff’s
department all night.”

“I just got out and came straight
here.”

“What for? You look like hell.” There
were dark circles beneath Henry’s eyes, and his expression seemed
more sober than ever.

“If that’s not the pot calling the
kettle black, I don’t know what is. I stopped by because I heard
from Liam that you were stumbling around here in tights with your
face gaping open.” He looked at Grey’s face and then down at what
remained of his spandex costume. “I see they stitched you up. Give
me a key to your house and I’ll rescue your dignity by getting you
some pants and a shirt.”

Grey shook his head, which hurt,
though he tried not to let it show. “I left my keys in Kerry’s
purse.” He pointed down at his costume. “No pockets.”

Henry nodded toward a small handbag
stacked on top of a duffel in the far corner of the room. “That
it?”

“Yeah.” He hadn’t noticed, he’d been
so fixated on Kerry. Sasha and Alicia had brought the bags by an
hour ago, had said that the duffel was full of clean clothes and
toiletries, stuff Kerry would need in the morning. Apparently
they’d left her purse too.

Henry opened it up and pulled out a
set of keys. “These yours?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Give me half an hour and I’ll be back
with some clothes.”

Grey didn’t argue – he was sick of
wearing the costume. “Thanks, man. And thanks for having my back
tonight, too.”