“Please, help me.”
He put his hand over the kid’s mouth, because he’d almost screamed the words. He waited until Paulson nodded before taking his hand away. Paulson was in uniform, but his gun was gone. So was his baton and mace.
“What happened?” he whispered.
“He killed Nora.” Paulson’s voice cracked on the girl’s name. “I saw it on the security video, and I was going to arrest him, but he—”
He could guess the rest.
A guy like Paulson would need a tank to go up against Double, and even then, he would’ve bet against the beanpole.
He still had the handcuff key that Pritchard had thrown at him. He gave it to Paulson and whispered, “Get back to your car. Radio for help. Not your chief, but the DEA, the GBI, the FBI, the fucking EPA—anybody you can get on the wire. Do you understand?”
Paulson, wide-eyed, could only nod.
He didn’t trust the terror in the young man’s eyes. “I swear to God, Paulson, if you leave us up here on this mountain to die, I’ll find you and put a bullet in your head. Do you understand?”
Paulson nodded in earnest this time.
His hands shook as he fumbled with the handcuff key.
Jeffrey didn’t stick around to help him. Instead, he crept toward the cab of the truck. The wheels were the waffled semitrailer variety. The cab was high off the ground, almost to his waist. Double had left the door open. He swung around, Glock drawn, ready to pull the trigger on anybody inside the truck.
Empty.
Snow covered the driver’s seat.
Double had left the keys in the ignition, which gave him a couple of options. He could turn the headlights back on, which meant he could see, but it would also signal that he was standing at the truck in case Double wanted to shoot him.
Or he could jump into the truck and drive.
Option two seemed likely to yield the biggest surprise. Double wouldn’t be expecting to have his own truck used against him, and the big wheels would cut through the snow a hell of a lot easier than exhausted legs.
He used the back of his sleeve to knock the fresh snow off the windshield. His sleeve got soaked in the process, but he was pretty sure that it wasn’t possible to get any colder than he already was. He moved the Glock to the front of his jeans and climbed into the truck. He put his hand on the key but didn’t turn it. He stared ahead at the dark expanse. Snow had already started to accumulate on the windshield again. He squinted at the Malibu. Had Pritchard seen him get into the truck? Was Perry out there somewhere tracking his movements?
He rested his other hand on the knob to turn on the lights. He turned the key, pulled the knob, and the truck roared to life. The lights came on and he saw several different things at the same time that took about a second too late for his brain to figure out.
Number one was that Antonio Childers had managed to drag his sorry ass and two broken legs into the path directly in front of the truck.
Number two was that Pritchard was no longer behind the Malibu. He was no longer anywhere that could be seen.
Number three was that Perry had managed somehow to sneak up on Double.
The scene was almost like something out of a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. Perry, frozen in the headlights, was standing behind Double with the flashlight raised in the air, ready to bring down the butt on the thug’s head.
Not just a flashlight.
A police-issue Maglite.
Twelve-inch aluminum shaft with four D-cell batteries and enough weight behind it to stop a horse.
Perry didn’t know that Paulson was neutralized, and he wanted to take out Double without making a sound.
Which Perry did.
It was like somebody hit play on a paused movie. Perry’s raised hand got unstuck, and he smashed the flashlight down, and Double fell hard into the snow.
“Christ.”
He jumped and his hand went to his gun.
But it was Pritchard who’d said the word. So much for Perry’s triangle. Pritchard had taken it upon himself to sneak up on the truck, too.
“I think I’ll keep this kid,” Pritchard muttered. “Paulson?”
“Scampered off like a giraffe with its tail between his legs.”
“I thought that might be the case. I saw you give him the key to the cuffs.” Pritchard looked around the truck. “Any reason you don’t have the heat running?”
He turned on the heater but got out of the truck. “I’ll go see if Paulson’s still around. That cruiser looked like it had snow tires.”
Pritchard smiled at the monster wheels. “I think even I can get this thing down the mountain.”
He ignored the “I” because he wasn’t about to get into a dick-measuring contest about who was going to drive.
Perry had already lifted Double, throwing him onto his back like a sack of flour. If the kid wanted to show off, Jeffrey wasn’t going to stop him. He headed toward Antonio Childers. The hostage/fugitive hadn’t gotten the memo that the struggle was over and the good guys had won. Or maybe he’d realized that the good guys winning didn’t necessarily mean he’d get a happy ending. Even as Jeffrey approached, the guy was still pulling himself on his elbows, dragging his way toward the trees like he could make a getaway.
Antonio saw Jeffrey and quickly gave up the struggle.
“Please help me.”
He glanced back over his shoulder. If Double was a sack of flour, Antonio was a sack of sheet metal. No way he was going to blow out his back for this murdering asshole. Besides, now that Antonio wasn’t a hostage anymore, he was again a fugitive. He could wait in the snow while Perry cuffed Double in the back of the pickup.
“Bigger fish to fry,” he said, heading toward the road. “Stay here.”
“Fucksakes,” Antonio said. “Where am I going to go?”
Jeffrey chuckled at his own joke as he walked through the thick snow. Then he stopped chuckling because his adrenaline was ebbing and the cold was rushing back in. His shoes felt frozen to his feet. The legs of his jeans had turned into concrete. His shins ached. His thighs ached. His balls ached. Why in God’s name would somebody actually choose to live in a place where this kind of cold was a seasonal regularity?
He ran his fingers through his wet hair.
Tiny shards of ice came off in his hands.
Paulson was behind the wheel of his cruiser. He reminded Jeffrey of a praying mantis as he leaned down and tried to crank the engine. The engine did not reward the effort. They were going to have to abandon the cruiser with the Malibu if there was any hope of making it back to what passed for civilization.
He knocked on the window and made a rolling motion with his hand.
Paulson leaned down and started pumping the crank. The window squeaked against the frozen rubber gasket. Snow fell into the car.
“I got the GBI on the horn. They said to stay put, but I figger I should go down the mountain, bring them back up here so they know how to find you.”
“I think we’re better off if we all go down in Double’s truck.”