In Safe Hands (Search and Rescue #4)
Katie Ruggle
For everyone at the Rochester Minnesota Police Department
Thank you for all that you taught me, and for your daily acts of courage and selflessness. Fire might get all the glory (and calendars), but cops are still my favorite real-life heroes.
Prologue
Anderson King punched the numbers into the burner phone. As it rang, he resisted the urge to pace. The shadows of the lawn shed hid him, but movement could catch someone’s attention. It rang twice more, and King was starting to think he’d be sent to voice mail, when someone finally answered.
“It’s me,” King said quietly.
There was a pause. “A lot of people are looking for you.”
“That’s why I need to get out of here.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“Because”—he eyed the light seeping out around the edges of the closed blinds in the upstairs window—“to leave, I need money.”
“Again, why are you calling me?”
“I found Price. We had an interesting talk.”
The silence on the other end continued too long, forcing King to speak again.
“He told me some things about you.”
“What do you want?”
“Just to have a chat.” King grinned. The conversation was going exactly as he’d imagined. “Meet me tomorrow at that empty white house on Alpine Lane with the for-sale sign out front. Two a.m. I’ll make sure the back door is open for you.”
He ended the call, still smiling. With a final glance at the window, he turned and disappeared into the shadows.
*
The killer was late.
Anderson King prided himself on his patience, but his stomach had begun to curdle at the thought of his plan going to hell. It was one thing to leave the country with money, and a whole other thing to go on the run broke. No brother, no cash, cops on a county-wide manhunt, sleeping on the hard floor of a vacant house, his body bruised and aching from George Holloway’s fists…how had everything gone so wrong?
Nervous energy forced him to pace the living room until Anderson realized his boots were clomping against the hardwood floor. Appalled, he stopped abruptly. A final echo of the sound reverberated through the empty space. How had he gotten so sloppy? Was he losing his stealth and nerve along with everything else?
“Anderson.”
He whirled toward the voice. Anderson had been so preoccupied that he hadn’t heard anyone else enter the vacant house. The moonlight filtering through the windows wasn’t very bright, but Anderson had no problem making out the handgun and its attached silencer. He reached for his pistol holstered at the small of his back.
“Don’t.” The single word wasn’t loud, but there was an authoritative crack to it. That and the pistol pointed at him made Anderson reconsider drawing his weapon.
“About time you got here,” he blustered. “I was beginning to think you didn’t care if I handed all this evidence over to the state investigators.”
“What evidence?”
As the other voice calmed, growing quieter and more conversational, Anderson found himself getting agitated. Relax, he told himself. You’re holding all the cards here. “Photographs Willard Gray took.”
“Of what?”
Anderson leaned a shoulder against the fireplace mantel. “Pretty, pretty fires.”
“That proves nothing.”
“There are letters, too.”
The silence stretched an uncomfortably long time, and Anderson forced himself not to fidget. During poker games, he’d always been good at bluffing. Now was not the time to develop a tell.
“Letters?”
And there’s the tug on the baited line. Biting back a triumphant grin, Anderson confirmed, “Yep. Gray sent them to that crazy buddy of his, Baxter Price. There’s all sorts of interesting information in those letters. It’s funny. He may be dead, but Gray still can give his eyewitness testimony.”
“Where are they?”
That was the flaw in his plan. With Baxter Price missing, there were no letters or pictures—at least not in Anderson’s possession. No one had to know that, though. “In a safe place.”
That disconcerting silence fell again.
“You don’t have any letters.” He sounded certain.
“Sure I d—”
Time slowed as he saw the gun flash and felt the punch of the bullet entering his chest, cutting off the lie midword. This was it, then. The gun fired once more, and he began to topple face-first toward the floor.
At least he’d get to see his brother again soon.
*
With a sigh, Sheriff Rob Coughlin lowered his gun. He was tired, and it was late. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with yet another body. There wasn’t any alternative, though. He’d made the mess, so he’d clean it up. That’s what responsible people did.
Quietly, methodically, he got to work.
Chapter 1