Frantic, knowing he was going down in flames, Bernsen swore he had nothing to do with the deaths on campus. Then again, he was a lying son of a bitch.
Meeker was with him now, reading him his rights, explaining how this was Zachary Bernsen’s last chance to do the right thing and possibly work some kind of a deal with the DA, though Meeker was making no promises.
Worried sick, Trent couldn’t stand being cooped up. He’d agreed to have his shoulder worked on, but he was anxious about those who were still missing, eager to find them and flush out the other members of Spurrier’s grossly delusional band. Not only was there no trace of Jules, but Nell Cousineau and Shaylee Stillman hadn’t been found.
For a second Trent closed his eyes, fear consuming him. To be this close, to make love to Jules for hours … only to have her stripped away. His fist clenched. He wouldn’t let this happen; not while there was a breath of life in his body.
If those bastards killed Jules, then they would pay. Each and every one of those twisted sickos. Trent had no sympathy. “Troubled teens” were one thing, psychopaths another.
The door to the detox room holding Bernsen opened. Meeker stepped into the hallway, then locked the door behind him.
“Where are they?” Trent demanded.
Meeker, looking tired as hell, shook his head. “Don’t know. Yet.” Meeker’s tired gaze met Trent’s. “Bernsen won’t budge. He’ll only talk, he says, if he gets to walk away scot free. No prison time.”
“Then he needs to be convinced.”
“Won’t be.”
Trent felt his lips twist. “Let me talk to him.” Then to Ayres he said, “We’re done here, right?”
“I’ve given it my best shot,” she said, smoothing tape over his bandage.
“Good.” He climbed off the table and walked across the polished tile floor to the locked detox center.
Meeker apparently read the set of Trent’s jaw, the narrowing of his eyes. “You think this is a good idea?”
“You got a better one?” They both knew they were on their own; communication with the outside world still only a wish and a prayer.
“No.”
“Then stay out,” he warned, ignoring the pain in his shoulder. “And lock the door.”
Shay wanted to scream, but she held her tongue. She couldn’t let that jerk-wad Rolfe see how he’d humiliated her. How had she been so foolish as to fall into his trap? She was smarter than this! Damn it all to hell! Not taking her eyes off the creep, she struggled in her handcuffs, trying to wiggle her fingers free, determined, once she’d slipped out of the manacles, to not only lift the snowmobile’s keys from Missy but to personally deal with Eric Rolfe.
He had no idea who he’d crossed, but he was about to find out. She watched him carefully. Felt the sting on her cheek, where he’d punched her, tasted her own blood. Saw the fear in Nell’s eyes.
Shay met Jules’s gaze. Silently communicated. Neither one of them would go down without one helluva fight.
Bernsen eyed him warily as Trent walked into the detox room, the door clicking loudly behind him.
Puffing up, trying like crazy to look as if he were still in command, Zach stood in a corner, his hands cuffed behind his back, his jaw thrust forward, his lips compressed. Challenge sparked in his eyes.
Trent wasn’t buying the bravado. Not for a second. The kid was scared; putting up a fake front. With his back pressed to the door, Trent waited for a few minutes, not breaking the silence, Bernsen caught in his uncompromising glare.
Finally he pushed off from the door and didn’t wince, though his shoulder ached as the anesthesia was beginning to wear thin. “Look, Zach,” he said evenly. “I’m not messin’ around, you got it? Either you tell me where the rest of your group is, or I’m going to handle you the way I did your goddamned leader.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Like hell. Try me.” Trent stared the kid down with dead calm. “You remember what that leader of yours looks like, right? His face is damn near melted off, his lips peeled back, his eyes slits and he’s still on fire, you know. Wishing that God he keeps talking about will take his wretched, ugly soul.”
“So what?” Bernsen snarled, holding onto his pride, not flinching a bit. Just like some of those fake bad ass cowpokes he’d dealt with during his days riding bulls.
“I’ll tell you what.” Trent didn’t raise his voice. “You see, Frank Meeker, he’s a family man, a paid deputy, sworn to uphold the law and play by the rules.”
Zach paled a little; saw where this was going.
“But I’m not,” Trent said. “I can do anything I want to you.”
For a second, the boy’s eyes flickered with fear.
“And it’s worse than that.” Still standing near the door, a good twelve feet of space between him and the kid, Trent felt a tic in his jaw, knew the kid saw how hard it was for him to hold on to his patience. “Meeker, out there”—Trent cocked his thumb toward the thick panels of the door—“he’s takin’ a break, so I’m in charge. So, that means, we’re going to do things my way.”
Bernsen swallowed hard. He was getting the message.
“So here’s how it’s going to go down. You’re going to tell me what I want to know and if you put up a fight”—Trent shrugged, as if he didn’t care how the kid reacted—“well so be it.” He managed a thin, humorless smile. “If you cry foul and put me up on assault charges, you know, that would be just fine with me. I don’t really give a rat’s ass.”
Bernsen spat on the polished tile. “Big deal!”
That was it. Trent snapped. His cool fled. He sprang, lunging forward, pushing the big kid up against the wall, ignoring the sound of ripping tendons in his shoulder, the anesthetic saving him from serious pain. “It is a big deal. A real big deal.” He breathed hard in the boy’s face, his words spitting through tight lips, his arm over Bernsen’s throat. “I’ve dealt with Brahman bulls and rodeo broncs and cowboys who thought they were tough as old leather. I’ve been in more emergency rooms than you have fingers. So, you don’t scare me a bit, you pansy-assed rich kid.” His nostrils were flared, every muscle tight, ready for a fight. “Go ahead, show me your store-bought martial arts, and I’ll show you how to fight with your fists and fight dirty.” He gave the kid a shake, rattling his teeth.
Bernsen tensed.
Good.
Bring it on, Trent thought, bring it the hell on!
“No one here’s gonna help you, Zach. Your leader, he’s done for. I got you on a charge of attempted murder, so unless you want to play Russian roulette and lose, you’re gonna tell me where your friends are holed up.”
“Nice try,” Bernsen snarled, spitting in Trent’s face. “I think I’ll take my chances.”
“It’s your funeral, kid.” He grabbed the boy’s left arm and twisted both cuffed arms upward, behind his back, inching them toward the ceiling, stretching ligaments, waiting to hear them pop and break free.
Bernsen squealed in agony, then fell to his knees.
Trent backed off, breathing hard. “Think about it,” he warned, shaking inside.
“Hey!” Meeker poked his head in, his expression dark. “We got company,” he said, ignoring Bernsen as the kid climbed to his knees, “And it’s not good.”
Bernsen spit on the floor, blood and spittle splashed against the tiles.
Trent backed out of the room, then locked the door behind him.
“Who?”
“The followers,” Meeker said in frustration, his balding pate glinting under the fluorescent lights. “And they brought hostages.”
CHAPTER 44
Jules shivered in the night as she was marched across the silent campus, the muzzle end of a gun shoved tight against her spine, her captors urging her, Nell, and Shaylee onward. Jules couldn’t let whatever this bunch of deranged, fanatical maniacs had planned happen. She’d heard them talking and knew they’d hoped for some kind of exchange, their lives for the damned Leader’s, whoever the hell he was.
As she trudged through the snow, her hands cuffed behind her back, her boots making fresh tracks, she tried to think of some means of escape. She, Shay, and Nell were walking abreast just far enough apart as to not touch each other, the leader’s rabid followers armed and urging them forward in the moon-washed night, one step behind.
All those tales that Shay had told her, of rogue teachers’ assistants, the worries Shay had voiced and Jules had scoffed at were true. These kids were beyond troubled; they were a tiny army of trained, fearless fanatics, ready to give their lives for their leader and his “cause,” whatever the hell that was.
Think, Jules, think. Don’t give up! There has to be a way to escape; you have to make it happen.
Shivering, her soul numb, they plowed forward in the predawn hours, crossing the white landscape that surrounded the school’s clinic. The moon was still visible, a pale orb, while to the east, the first gray streaks of dawn were beginning to lighten the sky.
A tiny ray of hope, she thought fleetingly.
But deep in her heart she knew, this gray light of morning might be the last sunrise she would ever witness.
Trent’s guts turned to water. In his mind’s eye, he saw a vision of Jules on his bed the night before. “What do you mean, hostages?” he asked Meeker.
The deputy walked him to the darkened front of the clinic. “Take a look.”
Trent peered through the blinds.
His heart became stone.
Sure enough, standing knee-deep in the snow, Eric Rolfe was pointing a rifle right into the middle of Jules’s spine. She stood straight, looking at the door of the clinic. If she was afraid, she didn’t show it, her beautiful face was without emotion.
No! he thought, fear curdling through him, No, no, no!
Shay, her hands behind her back, stood to one side of Jules, Nell Cousineau on the other. Missy Albright was prodding Shay, whose lips were tight, her expression dark and rebellious. Nell was shaking uncontrollably as if she might pass out while Roberto Ortega goaded her with the nose of his weapon.
“Damn,” Trent whispered, his worst nightmare unfolding. Grabbing the pistol Meeker had given him, he didn’t think too hard about what he was going to do; just went into survival mode. Jamming the Glock into the back of his jeans, he started for the door.
Frank Meeker stepped in front of him. “Wait, Trent,” he ordered, his ruddy face dark and worried as he saw what Trent had in mind. “Hold up. You just can’t walk out there.”
“Like hell.”
“I mean it; those kids are more than insurgents, they’re rabid fanatics. For all we know they could be on a suicide mission. They’ll shoot you without thinking twice.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m serious, Trent.”
“So am I. Call Flannagan on the walkie-talkie. Get him and Wade and whoever else out here. Then cover me!” Trent didn’t bother with a coat, just pulled out the tail of his flannel shirt, then, one hand in the air, the other at an angle because of the bandages, he walked outside into the bitter light of coming dawn.
He saw Jules gasp, her calm destroyed in an instant as she saw him. For a second she looked as if she might collapse. Don’t, he said silently. Hang tough. His gaze found Rolfe. “What the hell is going on here?”
“We want Spurrier.” Rolfe was all bluster and pride, menace radiating off of him as he stood behind Jules. A tough man with a gun pressed hard against a woman’s back. The new leader, now that Spurrier was out of commission.
All three of the hostages’ heads snapped at the mention of the pilot’s name. As if they hadn’t known.
“And Bernsen,” Rolfe added, his voice booming across the icy, too-quiet landscape. “In exchange, you get her”—he pushed Jules so hard she stumbled a bit before catching herself—“and the two others.” He nodded at Shay and Nell, including them in the deal.
Missy Albright gave Shay a shove with her rifle. Jules’s sister didn’t so much as flinch.
Roberto Ortega had Nell Cousineau in his crosshairs and Nell looked like she expected to die at any second. When he nudged her, she mewled plaintively.
Trent didn’t flinch, though he was dying inside. Instead, he stared straight at Rolfe, the bully. “You’re making a big mistake, Eric.”
“Oh, right.”
“I mean it.”
“Oh, yeah! And blah, blah, blah.” Rolfe wasn’t buying it and Trent wondered how he, alone, with a single pistol tucked in his jeans, would be able to take out three of the psychos and somehow save all of the hostages. Even with Meeker behind him, no way would this turn into anything but a bloodbath. There could be no good ending and Eric, the brute, smiling despite his cold, murderous eyes, knew it. “Look, man, you’re outnumbered and outgunned,” Rolfe said, getting antsy. “And we’re freezin’ our asses off out here, so let’s cut to the chase. I already said we want an exchange. But since you’re fuckin’ around, I think I’m changing the terms.”
“How?” Trent asked, seeing the situation deteriorating. Still, he had to keep the guy talking, buy more time.
“You give us Bernsen and Spurrier, and you can have this one.” Again he prodded Jules with his gun. “And Cousineau. She’s about to pee all over herself anyway. She’s yours. But we keep Stillman until we’re safe, then we’ll let her go.”
“No!” Jules cried.
“Shut up, bitch,” he growled.
It was all Trent could do not to grab his weapon and take aim at the bastard’s head as he walked toward the group. “I can’t promise that.”
Rolfe wasn’t listening. He was already thinking ahead, past his negotiated exchange of prisoners. “We’ll need the helicopter and the seaplane. That’s part of the deal.”
“And go where? Roseburg? Or Medford? Come on, man, Spurrier’s in no condition to leave, much less fly,” Trent said, trying to reason with a maniac. “Give it up, Eric. It’s over. Spurrier needs medical attention ASAP or he won’t make it, and Zach’s singing like a bird, naming names, giving all of you up.”
Missy shook her head. “No way,” she said. “He … he wouldn’t.” But there was a seed of doubt in her high-pitched voice.
“Way.” Trent was still walking forward, ignoring the slight shake of Jules’s head, the fear in her eyes.
“You know that he’ll do anything to save his own skin. He’s got a father or an uncle or someone in the family who’s a lawyer or a judge. Anyway, he’s already demanding to speak to the DA. Wanting immunity so that you can all rot in prison for the rest of your lives.”
“Trent’s lying!” Missy cried, desperately disbelieving.
“I know.” Eric wasn’t bullied.
“How do you know?” Ortega demanded, sending a worried glance to Rolfe. So Ortega was the crack in the armor. Good. The anxious boy licked his chapped lips and his nerves were evident in his drawn face. “Zach could turn.”
“He wouldn’t!” Missy was insistent as a bit of wind kicked up, ruffling her hair.
“Don’t let this loser rattle you,” Eric advised.
Trent’s eyes found Jules’s, and he saw the terror within, knew she’d read his mind that he was going to take Rolfe out. No, she mouthed.
Rolfe grinned. “I guess we’re at an impasse, aren’t we?” He shifted the barrel of his gun away from Jules and aimed directly at Trent’s head. “Too bad. I kinda liked you, Trent.”
Trent reached for his gun.
Craaaak!
A rifle shot echoed through the canyon.
Jules screamed.
Rolfe’s head spun. Blood sprayed, red spatter on the snow-white ground. Twirling, dropping his weapon, Rolfe fell into the snow, blood and gray matter darkening the pristine ground.
“What? No!” Missy shrieked, her eyes rounding. “Eric! No! Jesus Christ, what have you done?”
Trent jerked his pistol from the back of his pants.
Behind him Deputy Meeker, standing near a skeletal oak, turned the muzzle of his deadly weapon from Eric’s dead body to aim at
Roberto Ortega.
Nell screeched in pure terror. Stumbling, she ran through the snow heading toward the clinic, her hands bound behind her, her hair streaming in the clear night.
With no hostage in front of him, Ortega was an easy target.
“No, oh, God, no!” Missy was out of her mind with panic.
Jules dived into the snow, falling on Eric’s rifle, picking it up behind her, trying with frozen, awkward fingers, to aim the gun at Missy.
Roberto Ortega saw her and lifting his rifle to his shoulder, pointed its deadly barrel directly at Jules.
“Watch out!” Trent yelled, running forward, pistol in hand. Aiming at Ortega, he sailed through the air, landing on Jules and covering her body with his own.
Ortega squeezed the trigger.
Trent fired.
Blam!!!
A shot whizzed past Trent’s head, missing him by a hair’s breadth.
Squealing in pain, Ortega went down.
Out of the corner of his eye, Trent spied Shay, spinning, leg in the air, catching Missy’s chin and sending the blond girl’s weapon twirling, end over end, into the air.
Only wounded, Ortega lifted his head, and with his elbows buried in the snow, aimed his weapon at Trent. “Die, bastard!” he snarled, squeezing the trigger.
Trent rolled, pulling Jules with him into the drifts.
The bullet went sizzling through the snow, missing them by inches. In a second, still covering Jules’s body with his own, Trent lifted his good arm and took aim with his pistol.
Roberto, struggling to stand, pulled the trigger again.
Blam!
Ortega went down in a heap, his shot going wild, his blood oozing dark against the snow.
Meeker was running forward, the sight of his weapon now trained on Missy Albright as she struggled to climb to her feet in the slick snow. Shay, breathing fire, dancing on her toes, hands still uselessly cuffed behind her back, was ready to kick the living hell out of her.
“Don’t even think about it, bitch!” Shay snarled, her eyes bright with hatred.
“No …” Missy started to argue but took one look around, to Roberto gasping for breath and Eric obviously dead. “Oh, God,” she whispered, defeated. Tears slid down her face as she crumpled, disheartened, to the snow. Curling into a fetal position, snow clumping in her hair, she whispered, “This is all wrong. It’s not the way it was supposed to be.”