Page 38 of Tears on Her Grave

FORTY-SIX

The sun shone as Jenna walked back from the beauty parlor. They’d left the Beast beside the park and decided to stretch their legs. She’d spent the last half hour with Kane interviewing the hairstylists. She asked them if they had seen anyone hanging around the place over the last week or so or if Lily had mentioned anyone causing her a problem. All of them had given her the same reply. It had been a normal week, but Lily had been upset over Marissa’s murder. She hadn’t mentioned about being concerned for her own well-being. Jenna turned to Kane. “That was a complete waste of time. In fact, everything we’ve done in this case has been a complete waste of time. We can’t interview the suspects again, unless we have a case strong enough to charge them with murder or at least interfering with a corpse. Right now we have nothing and Sam Cross isn’t going to allow us to get near his clients without an arrest warrant.” She sighed. “I hope Rio and Rowley have better luck with Lily’s friends and family.”

“What we need are DNA samples.” Kane stood to one side to allow a mother pushing a stroller to go by. “Maybe we can recruit Susie or Wendy as undercover agents.” He smiled at Jenna. “Ifone of the suspects goes in for a meal, we could ask them to bag their cups and silverware and see if we get a hit.”

Jenna snorted with laughter but the idea wasn’t so farfetched. Susie and Wendy could identify all of the suspects. She could deputize them, if they agreed. “If I get desperate enough, I’ll give that some serious thought but I’m hoping Wolfe will discover evidence from the autopsies on Marissa and Lily.” She stared into the distance. “I know the cases are connected. We just need one tiny break.”

“Hmm, and from what Blackhawk was telling us about the crime scene, Norrell will discover a ton of evidence.” Kane led the way across the road to the park to allow Duke to stretch his legs. “It was good of him and his cousins to watch over the crime scene. Did he tell you they set up trail cams all around it but no one from town risked getting stuck in the mud to go there? The only way to avoid it was to go in through the res and follow the riverbank. Without a guide, they wouldn’t know what Blackhawk calls the sandy trail.”

Tipping her face up to grab the sun’s rays, Jenna nodded. “Yeah, he explained Norrell’s team would need to follow him in a convoy. The mudslides in the forest are causing a ton of problems. I called the mayor and he’ll have crews out to clear the fire roads as soon as possible. It will take time. There’s so much repair work to complete after the floods.”

“We were lucky.” Kane smiled. “No leaks anywhere.”

Relaxing, Jenna sat on a park bench to watch Duke roll in the grass. Yesterday had been a lazy Sunday, and she’d spent quality time with Tauri, which was usually a luxury during homicide cases. They’d taken the horses out for a ride through the woods surrounding the ranch. Kane had checked all the fences and later tinkered with his motorcycles. Right now, she found herself at a loss what to do next. It seemed that the entire new casehinged on autopsy reports and results. The cold case hinged precariously on Norrell’s discoveries at the crime scene.

Her phone buzzed. She held out the caller ID to show Kane and raised both eyebrows. “I hope nothing’s wrong.” She accepted the call and put the phone on speaker. “Hi, Raven, did you meet up with Norrell okay?”

“Yeah, but a silver truck ran her and Emily off the road and into a gully along one of the fire roads just as I arrived. Then some lunatic jumped onto the truck swinging an ax.”Raven was breathing hard.

Horrified, Jenna gasped. “What?! Are they injured?”

“They’re okay. I don’t have time to explain. I need to stay with Norrell and Emily. You need to chase down this maniac. He was driving a Ford F-150.”He gave the license plate. “He kept on going along the fire road, so I figure he’ll take the adjoining one to Bear Peak and get onto the highway from there. It will be slow going because I checked out that route recently and it’s partially blocked by a mudslide. I figure if you left now, you’d probably catch him before he gets too far along the highway. I don’t figure he’s coming back this way.”

As Kane whistled Duke to his side, Jenna stood, already moving toward the Beast. “We’re on our way.” Once inside, she ran the plate. “It’s a fleet vehicle owned by a company out at Blackwater.”

“That’s all we need.” Kane secured Duke and slid behind the wheel. “Why can’t it be simple and give us the killer’s name, so we know who we’re dealing with?” He used the radio to call Maggie. “Send Rio and Rowley to our position as backup, we’re dealing with an unknown quantity here, over.”

“I’m on it, over and out.”Maggie disconnected.

Strapping on her seatbelt as Kane flicked on lights and sirens, they moved at high speed along Main. Vehicles pulled over to give them access and people stopped to stare as theyflew past. Jenna’s fingers closed around the grab handle and one hand went instinctively to her belly as the Beast accelerated along Stanton. The forest flashed by in a sea of green and minutes later they took the on-ramp to the highway. The truck’s powerful engine roared as if in appreciation of showing its power, like a wild stallion given its head. The acceleration pushed Jenna back into her seat. Being accustomed to the old Beast and its power, the G-force from this new vehicle astounded her. She dragged her eyes away from the blacktop to glance at Kane. His face was a mask of concentration, but his stance was relaxed. He’d spent many hours putting the new Beast through its paces and knew exactly how hard he could push it.

Ahead, a line of vehicles wound up the mountain. Oncoming eighteen-wheelers rumbled past, their air brakes huffing and puffing as they tried to slow down on the steep incline. As they rounded a curve on the highway, a vehicle carrier was slowing down the traffic. Jenna sucked in a deep breath as Kane slammed his foot down on the gas and pulled out into the opposite lane. Although she trusted Kane’s driving, fear slammed through her at the sight of another eighteen-wheeler cresting the top of the hill. Biting down hard on her cheek, Jenna gripped white-knuckled to the grab handle as they flashed along the line of vehicles with awhoosh, whoosh, whoosh.

The eighteen-wheeler sounded its air horns and was coming right at them when Kane flicked a switch and a sudden burst of acceleration pressed Jenna hard into the seat. Moments later they slid back onto their side of the road. Speechless, she gaped at Kane. “That was close.”

“Nah, we had plenty of room. You don’t believe I’d risk your life, do you? Not ever, Jenna.” He indicated with his chin as they sped along. “Look. There’s a silver pickup coming onto the highway. It’s covered in mud. That’s our guy.”

FORTY-SEVEN

The driver of the pickup swerved onto the highway at high speed, barely missing a school bus. From his erratic driving it was obvious he’d spotted the Beast bearing down on him. To Jenna’s surprise, the silver truck overtook a line of vehicles, accelerated, and then slammed on its brakes and, skidding around, headed in the other direction. Horns sounded and brakes squealed as the oncoming traffic tried to avoid him. “He’s heading back to town.”

“So I see. Did you get a look at him?” Kane slowed the truck. “Hang on.” He pulled on the hand brake and drifted the Beast around to face the other direction.

In a split second they sped off toward town. Jenna swallowed hard. “I didn’t know the Beast could do that.” She hung on as Kane aimed the truck down the steep incline. “I did see the driver but he’s wearing a ski mask. I have no idea who he is.” She glanced at him. “If he gets into town and makes a run for it, we’ll lose him.”

“He won’t get that far.” Kane zipped past vehicles. “Call Rio. He’ll be able to hole up closer to town in case we lose him.”

Jenna made the call. She turned to Kane. “We’ll need to take this guy in alive. There’re too many murders not to get to the bottom of what happened.”

“If he comes at me with an ax, I’m gonna shoot him.” Kane flicked her a glance. “He’s a psychopath who has been denied his kill, so he’ll be out of control. We have no idea what he’ll try to do. It’s kind of obvious that he attacked Norrell to stop her going to the crime scene, so we know there’s a ton of evidence there against him. Right now he’s got nothing to lose. He can’t risk getting caught, so he’ll do everything in his power to take us down. We might know about the ax, but we don’t know if he’s carrying a gun.”

Nodding slowly, Jenna could understand his concerns. “What do you suggest we do? I know you’d prefer to remove this man from existence after what he’s done. The problem is we’re on this side of the law. We need to discover who else is involved. For all we know, this guy might be falling on his sword to save the others.”

“I doubt it.” Kane was closing in on the silver truck. “Psychopaths don’t give a toss about anyone but themselves.” He looked at her and blew out a long sigh. “I hate it when you put yourself in danger. Can you for once let me handle this? I’ll do everything in my power not to kill him.”

Shaking her head, Jenna reached out a hand and squeezed his arm. “No. I’m the sheriff and I will be standing beside you as always. We’ll take him down together, but I’ll let you do the shooting, if necessary. When I shoot, I aim for center mass. No doubt, if I aimed at his leg, he’d end up bleeding to death before we got him back to the office. Before you say anything, I know I’m very accurate at the shooting range, but when it comes to taking a person down and causing the least amount of damage, I figure I’ll leave that up to you.”

“You got it.” Kane smiled at her.

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