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No wonder this was off-limits to the cops.
My plan had been to break into the construction trailer and see if I could download copies of the surveillance footage, but this was much better. Sometimes you get lucky. I could hear Rain’s mocking laughter regarding that.
I pulled the goggles up on my head and took out my phone. I hit record and taped the scene, zooming to the max. It wasn’t close enough to make out who was who, or what was what, just figures moving about. Then I put the phone back in the vest pocket and began making my way through the lots that were just foundations or partly built to get closer. Crawling. I got within sixty meters and slithered down into a freshly dug foundation. Which held about two inches of water and bottomed with mud. Because there is always mud.
I took the phone out and filmed, getting better detail.
What they were loading were white packets about six inches long by four wide by two high. Unknown what was in them. but I could make a guess. One of the bikers was done and roared off, passing less than ten meters from me. I couldn’t spot Pete OneTree. Or Cash.
I began what would be called a tactical withdrawal. I noted the five white pickup trucks parked near the construction trailers closer to the river. I shifted direction and headed over there.
I was far enough away and there was enough construction between me and the Wolves’ transient headquarters that I could stand up and make better time. I jogged over and checked the trucks. One of them had a scratch on the right side, at the correct height for Jim Pitts’s mirror and handlebar.
Fuck. But who was driving?
I wanted it to be Cash. But there was no way to prove it. These were company trucks whose keys were in one of the trailers and were used by multiple people during the day. It could even have been one of the Wolves.
Rain would say I had my head up my ass, crouched by the side of the pickup truck, trying to figure out who drove it and killed Jim Pitts. Because right then someone tried looping a garrote over my head, but luck was on my side and it got caught on the night vision goggles on my forehead, jerking them down across my face and getting tangled in them as he jerked the wire back, trying to tighten it down around my neck. What he succeeded in doing was jamming the goggles into my throat and I gasped in pain but the goggles stopped the wire from cutting into my skin.
“Hello, Cooper,” Pete OneTree hissed. “Goodbye, Cooper.”
He must have taken my gasp to mean he’d been successful because he did what you’re supposed to, turning, leaning forward, and lifting me onto his back to let my own body weight finish me off.
He wasn’t killing me like he thought, but it was a clusterfuck as my feet left the ground and my back was on his back. He had all my weight on his back. I grasped with my hand and drew the forty-five, angling it awkwardly, and fired.
It sounded like a snap of thunder, shattering the relative silence.
On the plus side, Pete let go of the ends of the garrote and staggered away. I wasn’t sure if I’d hit him or he’d realized the wire hadn’t gotten my neck. I didn’t wait to find out as I heard yells from the spec house area and several motorcycles start. I ran for the tree line.
Several shots rang out, but they were firing blindly. I was in the woods. I pulled the goggles down and slithered between trees, putting distance between me and the ambush.
I could soon see the Big Chef sign lit up like a lighthouse, beckoning me back. Actually, it was the thought of Liz Danger underneath that sign, waiting for me, that was doing the beckoning.
I got back to the Big Chef faster than it had taken to go the other way. Adrenaline can do that. As I cleared the tree line, I pulled the goggles up, noticing for the first time that they were a little bent, and used my halogen light, aiming it at the diner. I flashed it on and off in the agreed upon pattern.
And the door opened and there was my Liz, rifle to her shoulder, waiting for me. She reminded me of Claudette Colbert with a flintlock in hand waiting for Henry Fonda outside the cabin inDrums Along the Mohawk, but I wasn’t going to tell her that, because then we’d get into a movie discussion and she’d want me to watch some classic of her own and there was a lot of important stuff going on right now.
CHAPTER 39
“Iheard shots, you dumbass,” I said as Vince came up to the doorway. “You told me this was just—”
Then he stepped into the light and I saw the blood, so I shut up, put the rifle down, and reached for him.
“Not my blood.” He looked down at the red stain on his pant leg.
“Whose is it?” I asked. Vince wouldn’t have shot Cash unless he was saving himself, and I would be just fine with that, but—
“Pete OneTree,” Vince said. “He tried to kill me.”
I swallowed hard. Pete OneTree was nobody to mess with. “Is he dead?”
“I don’t know,” Vince said. “I didn’t hang around to find out. But if he isn’t dead, he’s not feeling too good right now.”
“Will they come here after you?” I asked, looking at the rifle.
“I doubt it,” Vince said. “I’d say they’re busy getting their drugs out of the development, expecting the cops to show up at any moment.”
“Except the cops already showed up.” I sat down hard on one of the counter stools, trying not to shake. “Cop. Singular.” He could have been killed, and I’d been standing by that damn door for over an hour trying not to think about that. This waiting back at the ranch for the hero to come home was the worst. “We’re not calling the cavalry, are we?”
