Take a Risk (Risk #1) (27 page)

‘What’s going on in there?’ Colt hollered at Hoburn who stood not too far away on the other side of the cordon.

‘We don’t know yet,’ Hoburn said. ‘No one is answering the phone.’

This was a crazy situation and he’d known the minute he spoke to Lyssa that something wasn’t right. Calling the cops in had been a no-brainer for him; he just hoped that the guy wasn’t now spooked by all of this activity.

‘Who is in there?’ Colt asked. ‘Have your guys got a line of sight—‘

‘We’re still getting set up,’ Hoburn said, marching off.

Colt was frustrated by his ex-colleague’s reluctance to include him in the operation, but for now he had to remain a bystander because there was no way to get any closer to the house while all of the activity was centred here.

‘What’s going on?’ Ruger asked, coming up next to Colt with Flick at his side.

‘I don’t know,’ Colt said. ‘They’re going to try and get a line of sight, but I don’t know where Harding is, that building has a lot of dark corners and hard to see places, from out here anyway.’ Flick nodded and rolled her eyes toward the building, but she did loiter behind Ruger, which made Colt suspicious. ‘Are you worried that someone will see you?’

‘The police?’ Flick asked. ‘No… not around here anyway. Now if we were in New Jersey and all of these cops were here…’ Her attempt at a joke only made him more suspicious.

‘Where’s Rushe?’ he asked.

‘Rushe does have an aversion to cops,’ Ruger said. ‘He’s probably wanted in every state... and maybe Canada too.’

‘He is not,’ Flick said. ‘He’s doing his bit to help. Standing around on the side-lines isn’t Rushe’s style.’

Colt had noticed that Rushe had vanished almost as soon as he gave them the news that Pete was at Lyssa’s. Colt hadn’t finished dialling Hoburn’s phone number when Rushe kissed the face off Flick, turned and took off. But he’d probably never find out what Rushe’s intention was. Flick certainly wasn’t from New Jersey originally, but he assumed that’s where she and her lover were based. Travelling down here to North Carolina meant that they were serious about helping Martin Schifford, who had gone out of his way to conceal his visits with Lyssa by scheduling them when he was down here on business.

‘Where is it Martin lives?’

‘Not far from my parents,’ Flick said.

‘Which is where?’

‘New Hampshire.’

So she wasn’t one for giving too many specific details. ‘Does he know that this is going on?’

‘We don’t talk much,’ Flick said. ‘He only comes down here once a month or so to deal with clients and that’s when he saw Doctor Cutler. He’s at home with my sister right now. We would all rather if this little problem went away without him having to be directly involved.’

Like having to give a statement to the police, or standing up in court against the suspect. Narrowing his eyes, Colt turned to examine the house. What that meant was that they wanted a dead suspect to come out of that house and not one who would be able to plead innocent or insanity in order to go to trial. With that clarity Colt didn’t have to wonder where Rushe was anymore.

Harding was tying Lyssa to the radiator in the living room, which was on the back wall of the space. Suzette was already tied to the other end. Whatever the outcome Pete expected, having the police surrounding the property wasn’t part of it.

‘You have to talk to them,’ Lyssa said, the phone had just stopped ringing for the tenth time or so. ‘They’ll want to know what you want.’

‘You know what I want!’ he snapped.

As much as she didn’t like him to shout, it was an improvement over the stony silence he’d displayed since discovering the police outside. ‘If Brett is what you want then tell them that, they are the police, they should be able to find him.’

Sitting on the floor, behind the back of the couch, which was about ten feet from the radiator, Pete appeared to be considering this. ‘Do you think that they could?’ he asked eventually.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Tell them that you want to talk to him. Maybe he’ll want to come back.’ That could buy them some time for Colt and the police to come up with other options.

‘It will take him time to get here,’ Pete said, shaking his head.

‘What choice do you have?’ she asked. ‘You have to talk to them or we’ll never get out of here and you’ll never see Brett again.’

Again, he took his time to think about this and she saw a range of emotions flicker across his expression. This situation was terrifying, there was no doubt about that, but Pete did offer an interesting professional conundrum. Often those who were this far gone in their psychosis struggled to return to any sort of normal life in the same way that they had lived it before. Pete’s insanity had extended to rationalising murder, which meant he was at the peak of the scale. Now he would spend the rest of his days in an institution. Even if he managed to deal with his issues through medication and counselling, there would be little hope of him returning to society.

‘You talk to them,’ he said, crawling across the floor toward her. He was smart enough to be worried about snipers, and her long windows would provide an excellent view of this room.

He began to loosen her bounds and she glanced at the gun resting beside his thigh, but she wasn’t sure that she was brave enough to grab it. Except she didn’t have to. As she considered her options, Suzette made a sound like a squeak which brought her, and Pete’s, attention around to her. Before she could blink another figure appeared, Pete scrambled for the gun, but it was already gone.

Free of her bonds, Lyssa scrambled toward Suzette, covering her body with her own and trying to loosen her restraints, then there was a bang. Her back had been turned so she hadn’t seen the kill shot, but when she turned to see what had happened there was no doubting that Pete was dead. Gaping at the lifeless corpse that had been threatening her life only moments ago, she took her eyes around to the looming form in the shadow of the hall doorway.

‘Rushe,’ she said, having just enough breath left in her body to form the word.

‘I was never here,’ he said. ‘You guys got the gun yourselves.’

‘I…I…’

Suzette must have been free enough to finish untying herself because she pulled down the gag and got to her feet. Her limbs were shaking and her face tear stained, but there was a determination in her. Suzette passed Lyssa and held up an open palm toward Rushe.

‘Give it to me,’ Suzette said.

‘What?’ Lyssa said.

‘I’ll tell them I did it,’ Suzette said, her eyes fixed on Rushe. ‘Thank you for saving our lives.’

The situation had come to a quicker end than she had thought, but after shock subsided, only relief remained in its place. The phone rang again and after a disbelieving pause, Lyssa got up and ran over to grab the phone.

‘He’s dead,’ she said, whipping around to seek out Suzette, and she saw that Rushe was gone. ‘It’s safe to come in. Pete is dead. Archie is dead too… and I really need to speak to Colt Warner.’

‘We’re coming in,’ Hoburn’s voice came down the line. ‘You did good.’

The line died and she looked at Suzette, who was gazing down at Pete. ‘Honey,’ Lyssa started, moving toward her. ‘Are you ok?’

‘All this time,’ Suzette said.

‘I’m so sorry.’

Noise of police entering the front of the house, echoed up the stairs, but Suzette shook off her confusion to look at Lyssa and whisper. ‘He put the gun down to free you so that you could talk to them, just like what happened. I had managed to loosen my bounds, I grabbed the gun.’

Lyssa nodded once just as the SWAT team came through with their guns raised and both women raised their hands.

No one else tried to shoot at them. The activity was focused first on the two static bodies in the living room, but it was quickly established that they were in fact deceased. Colt had entered after the SWAT team with Hoburn. Before the detective had a chance to ask anything Colt demanded that both women were checked out by the paramedics, who were parked up outside.

Activity remained constant, Lyssa was given the all clear by the EMT’s, just as Suzette was, and then Hoburn started in on his questioning. Her statement was taken down, but she would be called into to the station at a later date to confirm all of the details and sign off on it. As promised neither she nor Suzette mentioned Rushe to the cops. Only after Colt came back to her side did Lyssa have a chance to breathe and absorb the melee of people surrounding them, each with their own purpose.

‘Where is everyone?’ This was her first question to Colt. She knew that when he started in on his own questions she would never get the chance to say anything.

‘Ruger is with Suzette,’ he said. ‘Shooting someone can shake a person up, especially when you kill them, so I asked him to sit with her for a while.

‘And Blaser?’

‘With Bri, her brother was arrested today, so she’s going through a difficult time herself. But I called him to let him know what was going on while you were giving your statement.’

It was good that Blaser was showing Bri he could be there for her in a time of need. But if Bri knew that Gary had shot Blaser she may suspect that his motives were anything except pure.

The crowd of cops and other professionals was thinning, a crime scene team were in her house documenting everything, and so she was left out here on the opposite sidewalk, unable to do anything but watch troupes of people going in and out of her house gathering evidence.

‘Rushe shot him,’ she murmured, still staring at her home.

‘What?’ Colt asked, coming nearer while sliding his hands to the back of her neck to pull her close.

‘Rushe, he appeared from nowhere. Pete was about to let me talk to the police, he was going to let me try to negotiate. Then Rushe came in and boom, Pete was dead… Rushe asked us to say that he wasn’t there and Suzette jumped at the chance to take responsibility.’

Letting her eyes wander to his, Lyssa absorbed his concern and his surprise at her confession. ‘She probably feels responsible… for trusting Pete,’ Colt said.

‘How did you know it was him?’ she asked. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ he said. ‘If I had then there was a chance your actions or body language would have let him in on your knowledge that he was responsible for what was happening to you. I didn’t want you to feel compelled to tell Suzette either, this way you didn’t have to lie to her.’

‘But how did you know?’

‘When I figured out that the pictures were taken from above I knew that the person responsible had to have some tech skills and that narrowed down the list of possible suspects for me. You remember the morning after the shooting? When I called you a genius and ran out on you?’

‘Yes.’

‘That was when I realised that the pictures were taken from above, from the public camera network. Figuring out who had access to that system was harder. Tracking down the details of those who could have illegally accessed the city camera system meant calling in a favour from an old friend.’

‘And that was what told you it was Pete?’

Shaking his head, he took her hand and led her to the furthest point from the house within the cordon, far away from listening ears. ‘Ruger got Pinch onto tracking down who purchased the camera from your bedroom and where the feed was going to. I didn’t know for sure until I cross-referenced both sets of data, once I did I got our guy.’

‘The night you were installing security?’

‘Ruger and I went into Harding’s place and found the last of the confirmation evidence after I’d been in your office,’ Colt said. ‘The only thing I hadn’t got as far as establishing was why he was doing it. I still don’t know what his motives were.’

‘He was gay and in love with one of my patients. When they split he went to a conversion camp that promised to straighten him out. I would say that whatever chemicals they gave him, coupled with the brainwashing and counselling… he just lost it. No doubt there was a pre-existing mental illness, one that probably made it difficult for him to come to terms with who he was. In a lot of ways, he was a victim too.’

‘Yeah?’ Colt said. ‘Please don’t tell me that you feel sorry for the guy?’

Through the crowd came Suzette and Ruger so they hushed their conversation. Her best friend was still teary, but Ruger supported her under his arm and brought her across the sidewalk to Lyssa. As soon as they were close enough, she dropped Colt’s hand and went straight over to give Suzette a hug.

‘Oh honey, how are you doing?’ Lyssa asked. They hadn’t seen each other since they were side by side in the ambulance. The cops had taken their statements separately and there had been no time to offer her support. ‘I’m so sorry about all of this.’

‘I should be apologising to you,’ Suzette said, mustering a smile that was for Lyssa’s benefit when they broke their hug. ‘All of this time, and everything that you went through and… I gave him access to you, I… I told him things that he must have used against you, or to get close to you. I told him about that guy being unhappy, Lee, I was the one who told Pete about Archie ending your session and… now both of those men are dead.’