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“Goddamnit.”
He was driving one of the West Knoll PD Trailblazers rather than his own SUV, and now he turned it around and sped through the city streets toward the hills on the east side of town, where the river made a lazy turn and headed west toward the ocean. The road to the Crassleys was well known. There was always a Crassley in trouble. That was the way of it, mostly penny-ante stuff. He wondered what Ellie’s connection to them was.
When he pulled into the driveway, he saw a blue Ford Escort. A pack of dogs set up howling and barking as he tagged the license number and learned that it was indeed Ellie’s car. It was the one vehicle parked in the front of the house, though sunlight was breaking through the clouds and refracting off the chrome and side mirrors of a couple dozen older vehicles. The hounds threw themselves at the fence where they were penned as he walked by, and McCrae, for all of his love of dogs, was glad he had his Glock.
He walked carefully toward the front door. He’d barely gotten to the bottom step when one of the Crassleys—Gale, he thought, though they all had a similar look: tall, hulking, and jowly with mean eyes—stepped outside. It was Gale, he decided. He was the one closest in age to their class, two grades above. McCrae’s gaze slipped to the rifle under his arm, and Gale, apparently appreciating the finer points of greeting visitors while armed, carefully set the butt on the porch floorboards.
“Where is Ellie O’Brien?” McCrae asked.
“Who?” He put a hand to the back of his ear.
“Owner of that vehicle.” McCrae gestured behind himself, never taking his eyes off the man.
“Don’t know.”
From inside the house, he heard a pounding and muffled shrieking.
“I’d venture to say you do know,” McCrae said. His blood was heating up. If this piece of shit had done anything to her . . .
“Help! Help!” the faint female voice called.
“Shut up, Nia,” he threw over his shoulder.
“Help!” she cried.
“That’s Ellie,” McCrae said grimly. He spread his feet a bit farther apart.
“You can’t come in,” Crassley stated. “Gotta have a search warrant.”
“Not if someone’s calling for help . . .” He pulled his Glock and held it in front of him, highly aware that Crassley could try to flip his rifle up and take a shot. He’d been in a number of tense spots over the years’ incidents, but he’d never had to shoot at anyone. There was always a first time.
Crassley must’ve picked up on his intentions, because he dropped his belligerent stance, carefully propped the rifle against the wall under McCrae’s watchful eye, spread his hands, then held open the screen. “You just caught us in a little fun time,” he said. “Chasin’ each other around. Pretendin’ we need the cops.”
“Help!” Ellie’s voice was louder.
“Where are you?” McCrae asked, his Glock still trained on Crassley, whose hands were up by his ears. The rattle of a locked door tucked beneath the steps to the second floor answered the question even as he was asking it. To Crassley, he said, “Open it.”
r /> “I was just gettin’ there. She was a little quicker to get ’er clothes off than me. Beggin’ for it, y’know? That’s how women are.”
They walked toward the door together. Crassley pulled a key down from above the jamb and unlocked the door. Ellie tumbled out in bra and panties. Before McCrae could react, she launched herself at Crassley and raked his face with her nails, drawing blood. Crassley ripped her and hit her in the face, and McCrae pushed into him, slamming his gun against the man’s head, dropping him to the ground. Crassley writhed in pain and howled and screamed about police brutality.
McCrae kept his gun sighted on him. “Get up and I’ll shoot you,” he ground out.
“Jesus, man . . . ,” Gale sputtered.
“Bastard!” Ellie shrieked. She hauled off and kicked him in the side.
“Did he hurt you?” McCrae demanded.
“No,” she snarled.
Gale started laughing. “Tell ’im, sweetheart. Tell ’im how you went down on me and sucked my cock.”
“Don’t,” McCrae said as Ellie launched herself at him again, kicking for his face.
Crassley grabbed her bare foot, and she went down hard on her butt, and then scrambled to her hands and knees and then her feet, hauling back to kick him again.
Crassley was trying to rise too, but she managed a good one to the groin, though he swiveled to protect himself, and she mostly got him in the hip.
