Spiraled (Callahan & McLane Book 3) (28 page)

“She’s smart. She can handle herself,” Ray stated, crossing his arms confidently.

Mason knew that. But it didn’t settle his stomach.

“This is taking too fucking long,” the shooter swore.

Ava jumped as his gun fired, and his hostage screamed. Her screams subsided into gushing sobs, and Ava clenched her teeth, fighting the urge to step out of her hiding place.

“You’re fine,” the shooter said. “Your foot will heal. Stand up, God damn it!”

Ava held her breath.
Now. He’s distracted with his hostage.

Ava stepped out from her alcove, holding her weapon like a bat, and saw them. He stood with his back to her, an arm clasping the woman to his chest as he struggled to keep her on her feet. A pool of blood had formed under the woman’s left shoe. He pointed his weapon at his hostage’s blond head, but Ava focused on her target. His skull.

Brown hair. Tall.
One swing would do it.

She silently danced forward, tightening her grip and readying to put all her strength into one swing.
I’ve got one perfect chance.
She slid to a stop and held her breath as she swung.

He turned.

She met his gaze. In the fraction of a second she saw elation, surprise, and fear. His weapon changed targets, and she saw the end of the gun barrel swing to point at her head. She ducked, affecting her aim, and her swing buried the weapon’s pronged head in his left shoulder. He let go of his hostage, who flung herself to the side.

The sound of his gunshot exploded in her ears as she tripped, her weapon’s impact sending shock waves into her shoulders. She stutter-stepped trying to keep her balance as his roar of pain filled the aisle. Her fingers froze in their grip on her weapon, and she yanked on it, wanting another swing.

It wouldn’t budge out of his flesh. Blood flowed around the prongs.

Her pulls on the weapon made him scream, and he fired wildly. Over and over.

I hear the shots. Therefore I’m not dead.
Sirens clamored in her brain from the roar of the close shots and adrenaline exploded through her nerves.
He will kill me.
Ava steered him in a circle, an awkward deadly dance, trying to dislodge her weapon and avoid being shot. His cap fell off and she got a clear look at the melted left side of his neck.

Burn scars.

She ducked and dived as they spun. His dark eyes flashed with anger and pain as he tried to line up his weapon on her.

“You! You bitch!” he screamed. “You did this!”

She frantically wrestled with her weapon, trying to unhook it so she could swing again. This time she wouldn’t miss. She wanted to see it sink into his skull.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the blond girl dash down the aisle, ducking as she ran.

I’m on my own.

Spit flew from his mouth and she twisted her weapon, wrenching the handle. He shrieked and his eyes seemed to roll back in his head as he fired at the ceiling. She tripped over his foot and clung to the garden tool to keep her body upright, her weight sinking it deeper into his flesh. His scream pierced her ears as his knees buckled, and she knew they were both about to collapse.

I can’t last much longer.

His gun swung wildly, giving her a glimpse down its barrel.

She ducked her head out of the way, imagining a bullet speeding from its depths.

“GET DOWN GET DOWN GET DOWN!”

She let go, flung herself to the floor, and covered her ears. Gunfire filled the store. Pairs of thundering boots sprinted toward her, and she pressed her cheek against the cool concrete, suddenly exhausted.

“SHOOTER DOWN! WE NEED A MEDIC!”

Ava closed her eyes in relief, loving the sound of those words. He wouldn’t hurt anyone else.

“Agent McLane!”
Someone shook her, but she was too tired to open her eyes. “Agent McLane! Can you hear me?”
She wanted to tell him she was fine, but she couldn’t speak.

“Too tired,” she mouthed silently.

Someone rolled her onto her back and pushed a hot hand into her neck at her jaw. “She’s got a pulse!”

Pulse?
She opened her eyes and met the frantic look of an officer she didn’t know. Other officers filled her field of vision, shouting, moving. Their boots causing the concrete to vibrate through her head.

“Her eyes are open! Thank God. You’re going to be okay, Agent. We’ll get the bleeding stopped.”

Abruptly, pain-laced fire raced from a hot spot in her left side and shot into her brain. She tried to touch the spot, but the officer held her arm down. “Am I shot?” she whispered.

“You’re going to be okay,” he repeated, his eyes rapidly scanning her face. “Stay with me.”

Someone applied pressure on her left side, and she nearly screamed as black dots filled her vision. A cowboy hat came into view along with Mason’s terrified eyes. “Ava? Holy fuck!”

It must be bad.
The black spots expanded, filling her vision, and everything went quiet.

41

One month later

Mason glanced out the window at the darkening sky and then at the clock over the stove. Sure enough, Ava had been gone for over an hour. He put a lid on the panic that rose in the back of his throat and headed out the door in the direction of the park. She’d taken Bingo for a walk. Usually they all took walks together, but tonight he’d begged off, citing a pile of paperwork. She’d smiled, nodded, kissed him good-bye, and put on Bingo’s leash. A typical walk lasted thirty minutes.

The days were starting to shorten; the memory of the hot dry summer was slowly fading. He walked faster, shoving his hands in his pockets as a night chill floated by. At the end of their street sat a quiet city park that offered views of Mount Hood. He and Ava had spent hours sitting on a favorite bench over the last few weeks.

Physically she was healed. Travis Meijer’s gunshot had ripped through her left side, miraculously avoiding major organs but tearing an intestine that’d required immediate surgery. After the surgery she’d fought a deadly blood infection that had been worse than the injury. It’d been a long slow road for her to recover her strength after her weeklong war with the infection. She hadn’t returned to work. Yet.

Meijer had turned out to be an FBI profiler’s dream. A quiet man who kept to himself, he was a supervisor at a call center who took orders for several dozen companies. One of those companies sold T-shirts with police department sayings and logos. After a lot of digging, investigators discovered Anna Luther and Gabrielle Gower had both ordered police department fund-raiser T-shirts through the call center.

Records showed they’d both been unhappy with some issue with the shirts and had contacted the call center regarding refunds. Mason had listened to the recordings of both women’s complaint calls, feeling slightly spooked as the women seemed to speak from the grave. Both women had spoken with Meijer and the calls hadn’t gone smoothly; Mason had been surprised that a supervisor wouldn’t follow the “customer is always right” policy. Meijer had sounded extremely agitated during both women’s calls, especially when the women mentioned their previous law enforcement service. How Travis Meijer had decided this act made them worthy of murder, Mason couldn’t comprehend. Had simply the wrong phrase from each woman sealed her fate?

During their search of Meijer’s home, they’d found lists and photos of local female police officers in his computer, making them wonder who else had been targeted. The man clearly had an obsession. Flyers advertising “acting opportunities” for men who were six foot one and of lean build were also found on his computer.

Mason had watched the hours of prank footage on Meijer’s YouTube channel and held back his laughter several times. In college the man had known how to stage perfect pranks. He’d used his skills to bury his hit list of women officers, hiding his targets under the blood of innocent victims. How long could his deceptions have continued?

They were unable to connect Meijer to any other unsolved shootings over the past decade. His history revealed his mother had overdosed on alcohol and sleeping pills when he was eighteen. After reading the extensive list of domestic disturbance calls to Meijer’s childhood home, Mason and Ava had carefully studied the medical examiner’s report, wondering if Travis Meijer could have caused his mother’s death. His father had died while in prison, and neighbors claimed the mother had ruled her son with an iron fist after the father was taken away.

The truth would never be known. All parties were dead, and the questions would haunt Mason and Ava for years.

Especially Ava. Mason didn’t know if she could heal from her encounters with Travis Meijer.

Through the waning light he saw Ava’s silhouette sitting on their bench with Bingo’s beside her, his head in her lap. The slant of her neck and the arch of her shoulders told him she’d been crying. He walked faster. Her moods had been across the board for weeks. Effects from her painkillers and the emotional upheaval of being shot. Again.

And Jayne.

They hadn’t spoken about Jayne in over a week. Her sister had recovered from her damaged wrists and gash to her spleen. Through some stroke of supreme luck, Jayne had ended up in a facility that treated both her mental and drug issues, but part of the treatment was a long stretch of weeks without contact with her family. One silent week was left. Since the first day Jayne had checked in, Mason had dreaded the moment she could regain contact with Ava.

He knew when Ava had spotted him. Her head lifted and her shoulders straightened, her hand sinking into Bingo’s fur after a furtive wipe across her wet cheeks. He stopped in front of her bench. Bingo’s tail wagged madly, and Ava smiled at him, patting the space beside her. He gave the dog a head rub and sat on Ava’s other side, placing one arm around her shoulders as she leaned against him and looked toward the mountain. During the winter months, the mountaintop was white. Over the summer it faded to shades of gray as the snow melted away. Mason could barely make out its outline at the hazy late-evening hour, but seeing it always made him feel grounded. The mountain was solid. Unchanging.

Silence settled over them.

“Were you coming back home?” he asked, his gaze directed toward Mount Hood.

“Eventually. I had to watch the dark blue of the sky emerge around the mountain. I love that color. It’s so deep and rich, I couldn’t walk away.”

“It’ll be back tomorrow. I’d say it’s something you can always rely on to be there.”

He turned to study her in the dim light, knowing he could stare at her for hours, watching the animation in her face as she thought and talked. The distance that’d settled between them since her injury had grown bigger each day. He’d taken two weeks off work, practically living in the hospital as she battled the deadly sepsis. But when her health returned, her inner self had stayed hidden under layers of self-protection. Layers that had started building up since Jayne’s suicide attempt, and he didn’t have the nerve to try to break through them, worried it would set Ava back further. He functioned each day the best he knew how. He was attentive, loving, and understanding, but he wanted his Ava back. This shell of a woman seemed to be growing more distant day after day.

He despised himself for standing by and watching it happen.

“You didn’t tell me about your call with your boss,” Mason said.

Ava shifted against him. “He wanted to know when I was coming back to work.”

“And?”

“I told him I didn’t know.”

The pain in her voice ripped at his heart. “What’s keeping you back?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I know I’m recovered. The surgeon said I’m okay to return to work, but I can’t make a decision. I feel like I’m floating around while my anchor searches for something to snag.”

“You can’t sit around and wait. You have to make it happen.”

“It hurts that I see you waiting for me,” she said slowly, turning to look at him. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

He met her gaze and saw the fear in her eyes. “I’m not going anywhere. I can’t. It nearly killed me to watch you waste away with that infection. All I could think about was that I might have to go home to an empty house—our empty house—and I couldn’t face it. Now I have you there, but part of you hasn’t returned.”

Understanding crossed her gaze. “I know. I can’t find that piece of me, either. And I feel like the hole is getting bigger every day.”

“Is it Jayne?” he forced out. “The disconnection between you two? Is that what’s creating the hole?”

She was silent. “I’ve thought about that for days. I don’t know the answer. Her suicide attempt ripped something out of me.”

“And I’m powerless to fix it.” Mason wanted to hit something. The problem stared him right in the eyes, and he was incapable of finding the answer.

It wasn’t like Travis Meijer. The problem of the shooter had been solved with several rounds from the SWAT team through his chest and head as he tried to shoot Ava. Mason had stepped into her aisle and seen her weapon buried in Travis Meijer’s shoulder, a look of utter desperation and anger on her face as she spun out of the way while Meijer continuously fired his gun. She’d dropped to the floor as the team shouted and then they’d opened fire.

Meijer had died instantly.

Problem solved, Mason had thought.

He’d been wrong.

Instead Ava’s health had been compromised and her emotions severely damaged.

“I don’t expect you to fix me.” She swallowed hard. “That’s up to me.”

The frustrated look on Mason’s face broke her heart—what heart she had left. Small chunks had slowly broken away from her heart in a steady pace since the day she heard about Jayne’s suicide attempt. She lightly touched the healing wound on her left side where Meijer’s bullet had taken a large bite. She’d always carry the scar and reminder of her brief encounters with Travis Meijer. For a man she’d met twice, for less than a minute each time, he’d had a profound impact on her psyche. The police had explained his obsession with women in law enforcement and she’d wondered what she’d done to draw his focus. Had he targeted her simply because she’d seen his face as she sat beside Misty at the Rivertown Mall? How’d he find out she was an agent?

She’d never know.

It shouldn’t matter; she’d survived. But the questions still haunted her. She deserved to know what she’d done. Someday she’d stop jumping at loud noises and relax while shopping.

Someday.

A sharp pain shot from the wound to her left armpit, making her catch her breath, and then vanished just as abruptly. The nerves healing, her doctor had said.

Jayne gashed her own abdomen on the left side.

Something always cropped up and created parallels between their lives. Was that what she was waiting for? The arm of the universe to reach down and strike her the way it’d struck Jayne?

Get busy living or get busy dying.

The old movie line echoed in her brain, and she acknowledged that she’d spent too much time waiting for the universe to deal her Jayne’s hand. Instead it’d blocked her eyes from seeing the wonderful things she’d received. Like the very patient man sitting next to her. She slid her hand in the pocket of her light coat, and wondered if she’d waited too long. Had she put him through hell to see if he’d stay? To see what he could handle?

Idiot.

She’d known from day one he was the strongest man she’d ever met. He’d told her over and over he loved her despite what her twin managed to do to her emotions. He’d lasted through it all. And wasn’t showing any signs of running. What was she waiting for? To test him more? See how much he could take? He’d nursed her through two injuries and several emotional hellholes. How many other men would still be sitting beside her?

“I love you, Mason. You’ve proved over and over that you’re my rock.”

“It’s not hard,” he said sourly.

She laughed. “I’m the hardest person in the world to love. Loving me means you have to put up with my connection to Jayne.”

“She doesn’t affect how I feel about you. I get that there’s”—he paused and searched for words—“a piece of you that will always belong to her and be affected by her. That doesn’t scare me. I’d like to think we’ve made it through the worst it can be.”

“God, I hope so.”

“She’s no good at life,” he stated. “But you’re wonderful at it. She trips you up, but you always come back swinging. A lot of people would have given up by now.”

His words flowed through her heart. He believed in her.
But why?

She took a deep breath. “I’d like to get married if you feel the same way.”

He swung his head toward her. “You don’t think I want to?”

She pulled her hand out of her pocket and showed him the small velvet box she’d found four days ago in his vehicle. Her hand shook as he stared at it. “Why haven’t you given this to me? I found the receipt. You bought it months ago.” Her voice cracked. “Did you change your mind?” Fear washed over her. She’d finally said it, the question that’d been consuming her thoughts for days.

He took the box. “Hell no. The timing was just never right. I’ve known I wanted you permanently in my life since last January.” He flipped open the lid. “I wasn’t sure how you felt. I didn’t want to rush it if you weren’t ready.”

The ring gleamed, catching the faint light from the moon. She’d stared at it for hours, loving that he’d understood her simple elegant taste, but worried as all hell that he’d thought he’d made a mistake. “I’m ready,” she whispered, and a great pressure lifted off her shoulders. For months she’d felt as if she carried the burdens of a dozen people on her back. Suddenly they were gone, cut loose like balloons, and she could breathe.

He took her hand, and she felt a quiver shake his fingers. He slid the cold metal onto her finger and wrapped his hand around it, clenching it tightly. She looked up, his face close to hers. “Now I’m sorry I waited,” he said. “If I’d known how fucking overjoyed I was going to feel at this moment, I would have done it last winter, Special Agent McLane.”

“You’re so smooth with the sentiments, Detective.”