Glenn steps over and tries to calm things down. “Dr. Cray, we’ll take him in for questioning. We’ll see if his story matches up. This is under control.”
I shake my head. “You don’t get it. You don’t know what you’re dealing with. I’ve looked at his patterns. He’s not a man. He’s a monster that’s excellent at pretending he’s one of us, but all he really wants to do is kill. The bodies I found, they’re only part of it. This is only the beginning.”
A police radio crackles in the cool air, and we all freeze as a dispatcher calls out, “Officer down! Backup requested at 239 Valley Pine. I repeat, officer down.”
Whitmyer looks to the nearest Hudson Creek police officer and says, shocked, “That’s Joe’s place.” He runs to his police cruiser and motions for his other cops to follow. “Let’s go!”
“You want backup?” asks Seward.
Whitmyer gestures to a cop and points to me. “Keep track of that asshole!”
“Goddamn fool,” I reply. “He doesn’t understand. None of you do. Joe Vik has been waiting for this day. All these years, killing in secret. Hiding. Now he doesn’t have to. He gets to show you what he really is.”
“What do you mean?” asks Glenn.
“All he wants to do is kill.”
“I think our cops can manage this,” says Seward.
“How long has it been? Ten minutes? You’ve already got one, probably two officers down. Vik was waiting for them. He’s going to kill Whitmyer and the others. Then he’s going to come here.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
PERIMETER DEFENSE
Seward is pacing around the yard, his hands clenched in fists pressed to his hips as he listens to the radio from the remaining Hudson Creek police officer at Jillian’s home.
The reports have been sporadic. A second police unit approached Joe Vik’s home and found one officer sprawled out in the driveway and the other crouched behind his cruiser, bleeding from the neck.
All we’ve heard from Whitmyer is that they are approaching the house and taking positions around the property to try to contain him.
Glenn has been on his phone talking to Filmount County, prepping them on what’s happened so far. I’ve overheard him say “Joe Vik” at least three times. I don’t think he knows him as well as Whitmyer, but he seems to be aware of the man.
The door opens, and Jillian steps out onto the porch and takes a seat next to me.
“Ma’am, we need you to step back inside the house,” says Seward.
“Technically, I think I can ask you to leave my property.”
“Interfering with an arrest is a crime,” he replies.
Jillian nods to my handcuffs. “It looks like you arrested him. What is there left to interfere with?”
Seward turns away to check the radio.
“We’ve formed a perimeter. I’m going to get on the PA and ask Joe to come out,” says Whitmyer over the radio.
“Tell him to hold back and call in a SWAT unit,” I shout.
“Maybe we let Whitmyer do his thing?” says Seward.
Glenn stops talking to listen to the radio. “Maybe Whitmyer should hold off?”
“He and Joe go back. Probably better he deescalates it this way,” says a Hudson Creek deputy.
“What’s going on?” Jillian whispers to me.
“Joe Vik is going ballistic on the police. At least two cops are down.”
“Joe Vik . . . huh.”
“Who is he?”
“Joe runs the tow service, owns a parts yard and some other businesses. Sponsors Little League.”
“Yeah, but who is he?”
“Everybody knows him, but I don’t know if anybody knows him that well. He has a wife and two daughters. I think from her first marriage.”
Damn. I yell to the deputy, “Get someone who knows the wife and kids to call them!”
He waves me off. Seward glares at me.
“You don’t think he’ll hurt them?” asks Jillian.
“They’re probably already dead. They were a disguise. Now that they’re not needed anymore . . .”
People are beyond my understanding, but animals I can grasp.
“Going—” Whitmyer’s voice is stopped by the sound of rapid-fire shooting.
“Was that a TAR-21?” asks the deputy, his face wide with shock. “I need to go to this.”
He runs over to his squad car, turns the lights on, and races off.
“Can you get their channel?” Seward yells to the paramedic, still standing by.
“I’ll check,” he says, then starts flipping through frequencies on his radio.
Seward turns to Glenn. “Jesus Christ. How far out are your people?”
“Twenty minutes.” He points toward me. “Let’s all go inside and find out what we’re dealing with.” Glenn grabs me by my arm, helps me to my feet, and steers me through the door.
“Can’t you take the handcuffs off?” asks Jillian, following us in.
“This man is a suspected felon,” replies Seward. He shuts the door after us. “They stay on.”
“Let’s at least put them in front of him,” says Glenn. He takes out his keys and unlocks one cuff so I can bring them to the front of my body. “Sit down.”
I drop onto Jillian’s couch and realize how sore my arms are. She takes a seat next to me. Seward gives her a look, but she ignores him.
“What does Joe Vik look like?” I ask.
“Big guy,” says Glenn. “Maybe six and a half foot. Built like a linebacker. Red hair and beard. Quiet. Hard to imagine him as some stealthy killer.”
“Well, when he was leaner they used to mistake him for a cougar. Now he pretends he’s a bear.”
“Pretend to be a bear?” Seward is shaking his head. “I’m still not sure I buy your theory.”
“So, do you think an actual grizzly with a machine gun just killed those police officers?”
Glenn cuts me off. “Why do you think he’s coming for you? Revenge?”
“No. I don’t think he feels that the way we do. He said he’d kill Jillian and Gus if I didn’t do as he said. I think he puts a high value on following through on those kinds of threats. But that could be today or ten years from now. As far as I’m concerned, he wants me dead for a very practical reason—once he escapes, he wants to make sure that he can’t be found again.”
“And you’re the only guy that can do that?” Seward says derisively.
I glare at the asshole. “I’m the only guy that knew he existed. Where was the FBI during all this? Where were any of you? I had to literally drag up bodies to drop on your doorstep to prove my point. Even then—”
“Bodies you said you tampered with,” Seward cuts in.
“Jesus Christ. Are you still on that? Look around you! I made that whole thing up so he wouldn’t go after Jillian. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You could have contacted us.”
I groan. “To do what? You think Whitmyer is just playing radio hide-and-seek? The man is dead. I tried to warn him. But no!”
“All right,” says Glenn. “What do we need to know now?”
“Once he gets past the cops, he’ll probably be coming here.”
“Assuming he gets past the backup units,” replies Seward.
“He’s probably already left his house. He shot Whitmyer to draw everyone there.” I motion to the street. “The Hudson Creek cops already took off.”
“And you think he’s coming here?” asks Glenn.
“He’s coming to where he thinks I am. Here or the Hudson Creek police station.”
Seward shakes his head. “He’s not going to attack a police station.”
“How many cops do you think are there right now? One? Two?”
The paramedic steps inside and has a stricken expression on his face. “I just heard on the radio. Five down, possibly dead, including Whitmyer. They went into the house and found Vik’s wife and kids dead, too. Bullets to the head, killed in their bedrooms.”
“He did that before the cops even showed up,” I say, feeling a heaviness at the back of my throat. Guilt. “Vik probably did that the moment he heard my death may have been faked.”
“What about Vik?” Seward asks the paramedic.
“Gone. They’re not sure how. But they say he’s gone.”
“All right, we’re taking my car, the ambulance, and your car to my office,” Glenn says.
“That’s five times as far away as Hudson Creek PD,” says Seward.
“You’re welcome to hang around there when Vik shows up. I’d rather take my chance somewhere we can defend.”
Seward makes a disgusted sound. “He’s just one man.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT