Dead Too Soon: A Thriller (Val Ryker series Book 3) Read online

  “I don’t think Hess gave up. I think he’s heading them off.”

  Chapter

  Nine

  Grace

  Grace gripped Brad’s hand, keeping him on his feet, pulling him after her. The ground was uneven, the blanket of slushy snow making every step a chore.

  Faster. They had to move faster.

  Grace could imagine Hess behind them, his footfalls crunching snow, even though she couldn’t hear anything over the sound of her own breathing, her own pulse, and the residual ringing of her ears.

  “Faster,” she managed to say out loud, jumping over a fallen tree. She knew this woods, knew the pattern of the trails and the patches of wild raspberry that would tear at skin. Knew the flats that were easy to run through, and the hollows where they might be able to hide.

  Aunt Val would be home soon, and when she arrived, she’d call for backup. As long as Grace stayed out of Hess’s grip, she and Brad would make it. They wouldn’t have to die.

  Brad stumbled behind her, fell.

  Grace tugged at his hand, helping him up. She caught a glimpse of Hess’s dark coat through white haze, leafless trunks, and dark bows of evergreen. Or was it Hess? She’d thought he was closer, but since he had not just his gun but hers too, and they had no way to cover their obvious tracks in the snow, she supposed it didn’t matter.

  “Brad, you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  They kept moving. Snowflakes turned the air a hazy white, making it difficult to tell earth from atmosphere. Fields were a void, leaving Grace to navigate from her memories of trees, fences, and the narrow stream. If she hadn’t spent so much time riding through these fields, often in the winter, she might have gotten lost.

  The ringing in her ears cleared, replaced by an aching cold that spread to her throat and jaw. Her whole body was shaking, from the adrenaline ebbing from her system, but also from the elements. Her old Keds squished with each step. Her lower legs ached to the bone, the way they had the summer she and Aunt Val had gone wading in Lake Superior.

  She was dressed to sit around the house and ride for three hours in a truck. A long-sleeved tee and skinny jeans—definitely not clothing designed for a trek through a foot of wet snow. She was lucky she’d decided the outfit was too plain without a scarf.

  She didn’t see Hess behind them any longer. Didn’t hear his footsteps or the puff of his breathing. Not that it mattered. He could be taking his time, and their tracks would still lead him right to them. They needed to find help.

  “There’s an old farm just over the ridge.” Grace pointed in the direction of Rossum Park. “The guy who lives there is weird, but I think he’ll help us. He’s got to help us. But we need to move faster.”

  “I’m trying, but…”

  Grace shook her head. Brad was the star of the basketball team and a far faster runner than she was. That he couldn’t go faster…

  “Brad?”

  His steps faltered. Stopped. He hunched forward at the waist, leaning heavily on his left leg.

  “Brad?” Grace repeated, her mouth dry. “Are you okay?”

  “I think I might’ve been shot.”

  Grace focused on a dark patch spreading down Brad’s right thigh. “Oh, my God. Does it hurt?”

  He stared at his leg, as if he was as shocked as Grace. “I didn’t even notice it at first.”

  “Now?”

  “I’m… I don’t know.”

  Grace couldn’t hear Hess behind them. Not anymore. Slowing down was a risk. But if Brad couldn’t walk, they weren’t going to get very far. “Let me look.”

  Grace crouched beside him. A slice ran across the thigh of Brad’s jeans. She picked at the tear with her fingertips, the denim sticking to his wound.

  “Ahh!”

  “Sorry.” She managed to pry the fabric free. But although she could make out a cut in his flesh, there was too much blood to see much more. Some help she was.

  “Shit, Grace, we’ve got to get going.”

  “Just a second.” She pried at the knot in her scarf, her frozen fingers clumsy. Working it free, she slipped the heavy knit around his leg several times and tied it tight.

  She stood up, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth, eyeing her work. “That will slow down the bleeding until we can get help.”

  “Thanks. You need to take this.” He draped his coat around her damp shoulders.

  “You’re hurt. You could go into shock.”

  “Take the coat, Grace. I haven’t been able to do anything to help you this whole time.”

  “Help me? You got shot jumping Hess back there.”

  “But I didn’t stop him, did I? I didn’t even get the shotgun. Take the coat.”

  Grace glanced back toward the house, toward the screaming sirens, half expecting Hess to be standing there, a smile on his face as he raised Aunt Val’s shotgun to his shoulder.

  She slipped her arms into the sleeves. It felt warm, she had to admit. She tried to raise the zipper but couldn’t make her fingers stop shaking enough to grasp the pull tab.

  “Sorry I don’t have gloves,” Brad said.

  “That’s okay. I can use the pockets.”

  “I always forget gloves. It drives my mom crazy.” Brad’s eyes glossed with tears. He turned his head to the side.

  “Brad, I’m—”

  “Let’s get going.” He starting walking, his right leg hitching with each step.

  Catching up, Grace slipped one arm around his waist. He took several more steps on his own before leaning on her. They crested the hill. Mr. Kasdorf’s barn hulked behind the limbs of leafless trees, chipped red paint still clinging to weathered planks.

  They descended the slope, picking around outcroppings of purple rock and sliding between trees. The snow was still falling, the flakes changing to a mixture of ice and sleet, stinging like sharp needles on Grace’s cheeks.

  Although Brad didn’t complain, his gait grew slower and slower. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his mouth set in a hard line, muscles jerking with shivers.

  They made it to the base of the hill, then to the barn. If Hess was still behind them, there was no sign.

  “We need to get inside, out of this snow.” She grabbed the cracked leather strap that served as a handle and yanked. The runners screeched as they slid.

  One inch.

  Two inches.

  Brad added his strength to the task, forcing the rusty wheels to move. When the space was wide enough, they slipped inside.

  Feeble light streamed through gaps and cracks in the walls, illuminating scraped-out stanchions and swept concrete. Cobwebs and swallows’ nests clung to the walls and beams holding up the floor above. A handful of bales lay at the foot of the ladder reaching to the haymow.

  “Sit,” she told Brad.

  He plopped down heavily on a bale. “Now what?”

  “Now I figure out how to find Mr. Kasdorf.”

  “Hess could have tracked us.”

  “Then I’d better hurry.”

  “And go where? I didn’t see a house around here.”

  “The house burned down.” Grace had overheard Aunt Val and David mention Kasdorf’s bunker. She supposed that meant he was somewhere underground. Somewhere close, she hoped. She cupped her palm against Brad’s cheek. His skin was cold, his eyes pinched. “Don’t worry. I know how to find him.”

  Brad nodded, but whether he accepted her lie or not, she couldn’t tell. Not that it mattered. Lake Loyal was still miles away, through the nature conservancy and Rossum Park. She had to find Mr. Kasdorf. He was their only chance.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  As soon as Grace stepped back outside, the sleet-filled wind cut through her like a cold blade. She hiked Brad’s coat higher on her neck, but it did little good. Every piece of clothing she wore was quickly becoming soaked, magnifying the cold.

  Grace headed for the spot where Kasdorf’s old farmhouse used to stand. Most of the stone cellar was still there, formless lumps under the
thick blanket of snow.

  “Mr. Kasdorf?” Grace yelled to the trees.

  No sound but the tick of sleet on bare branches.

  “Please, Mr. Kasdorf. I need your help.” Her voice quavered. “Please.”

  All this way, they’d come all this way. He had to be here somewhere.

  Her answer came in the sound of the pump action of a shotgun behind her.

  Grace raised her hands, showing they were empty. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and for a moment she wondered if she’d made a mistake coming here, asking this man for help. A horrible mistake. “Mr. Kasdorf?”

  “What you want?”

  “May I turn around?”

  “Guess so.”

  Grace turned. Slowly. Carefully. She’d hate to come all this way only to be shot by the man she believed would save them.

  She’d seen Mr. Kasdorf only once or twice in the time she’d lived in Lake Loyal, but he looked just as she remembered. Shaggy salt-and-pepper hair fell to his shoulders and blended with a shaggy gray beard. His skin was marked with spots from plenty of time in the sun, and his narrowed blue eyes seemed just a touch too close together.

  In stark contrast to his grooming, he wore hunting clothes that even Grace could tell must have been expensive. And not only was he holding the shotgun, a pistol was holstered by his side, and an automatic rifle was slung across his shoulders, the barrel pointing at the ground.

  With firepower like that held by someone who knew how to use it, Grace and Brad might come out of this okay. Provided she could get on Mr. Kasdorf’s good side.

  “So what is it? What are you and that boy doin’ here?”

  “We need your help.”

  He shook his head. “Whatever is goin’ on, I want no part.”

  “Okay. That’s okay. We just need you to call the police.”

  He drew back, as if she’d shouted something profane. “What did you say?”

  “Brad is hurt, and—”

  “No cops on my land.”

  “But it’ll just be for a few minutes.”

  “No such thing. Once you let the cops in, they never leave you alone.” He squinted at her, his look so intense Grace stepped back. “You’re the niece of that police chief, ain’t you?”

  Grace had the urge to turn and run.

  And go where?

  “Please. Brad was shot. He can’t walk.”

  “Are you related to that police chief or not? You look just like her.”

  Grace raised her chin. “My aunt is Chief Ryker. Yes.”

  “Then I want you off my land.”

  “I told you, Brad is hurt. He can’t walk.”

  “Why did you come here, huh? Your aunt put you up to it?”

  “What?”

  “I know she wants to poke around.”

  “Poke around? No, she wouldn’t do that.”

  “Good try, but she already has. And I ain’t giving her a reason to do it again.”

  Grace could feel the tears pressing to get free. Mr. Kasdorf couldn’t do this. He couldn’t just turn them away, let Brad die from the gunshot wound. Or maybe even worse, let Hess catch up to them.

  “We were chased here. It’s not our fault. It’s just you’re my only neighbor, and we had nowhere else to go.”

  Kasdorf grunted, then lowered his weapon. “Chased here?”

  Not sure her voice would work, Grace nodded.

  “By who?”

  The words by whom rose to the tip of Grace’s tongue, but she bit them back, instead focusing on keeping her voice from cracking. “Dixon Hess.”

  “You’re pulling my leg.”

  “He set fire to our house. To Chief Ryker’s house.” Grace nodded, willing Kasdorf to connect with her. “He was the one who burned your house down, didn’t he?”

  “That’s because I got myself tangled up with the cops.”

  “Oh.” The tears again. Grace opened her eyes wide and looked toward the gray sky, determined not to be a weak, crying idiot in front of the only person who could help her.

  “Don’t cry.”

  “What?”

  “I said, don’t cry.”

  Grace met his eyes, and they weren’t squinty or suspicious this time, but concerned.

  And her tears let loose.

  “What did I say?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “If you were sorry, you’d stop.”

  “I can’t.” Grace’s words rode her sobs, jerky and half-unintelligible. “He wants to kill me, and Brad is shot, and Aunt Val doesn’t know where we are, and I tried to shoot him, but I hit Carla instead, and then the fire, and we had to jump off the roof and…”

  “I’ll call.” Kasdorf spun and walked away from her. After several strides, he stopped and turned back. “Did you really try to shoot him?”

  Grace pulled in a shuddering breath and nodded.

  Expression unchanged, the old man turned away and disappeared back into the woods.

  Grace stood there for a few seconds, feet cold in the snow. She was almost afraid to hope, but soon it would all be over. They would be safe. She needed to tell Brad. She needed to check him, make sure he was still okay.

  She wound her way around the ruins of the house and across the yard. The barn door was open as she’d left it, the inside quiet and dark as a hush. She paused inside to let her eyes adjust. Her skin felt cold. The back of her neck prickled.

  She had to get out of here.

  “Get down on your knees, Grace.”

  Eyes adjusting, Grace focused on Brad. He rested in the same spot on the hay bale, just where she’d left him. His face ashen, his arms wrapped around his body.

  Only now, he wasn’t alone.

  Hess stood to the side of the hay, Aunt Val’s shotgun in his hands, the barrel pointing at Brad. Hess grinned, his smile white enough to cut through the shadows like some sort of twisted Cheshire cat. “On your knees.”

  Grace shook her head.

  “You know I’ll kill him.”

  She knew. Hess would kill Brad and her and Aunt Val and David and everyone else he could. He would kill until someone stopped him. Grace had tried to stop him. She’d tried to run. She’d even tried to get help. And none of it had done any good.

  She looked at Brad, wanting him to know how sorry she was.

  “You’re smart, Grace. You know I’ll do what I say. But if you go with me, no one needs to get hurt.”

  Grace shook her head again.

  “I didn’t start any of this. I just want what was taken from me. I just want my son.”

  Grace had spent a couple of tense hours with the toddler. He was a sweet kid. A normal kid. She still didn’t want to accept he was this monster’s son, but she knew it was true. “I don’t know where Ethan is.”

  A muscle twitched along his jaw. “Your aunt does.”

  “You’re wrong. She doesn’t. And she wouldn’t give him to you even if she did.”

  Hess jabbed Brad’s leg with the gun barrel, and a strangled hiss escaped from Brad’s lips.

  Grace stepped toward him—

  “Stop.”

  The edge in Hess’s voice made Grace freeze, not just physically, but in her mind. She wasn’t sure how much time passed before she could speak. “Don’t hurt him.”

  “Then get on your knees.”

  Grace lowered one knee to the concrete, then the other. For the first time, she sensed some kind of movement next to her. She turned to see Carla, only a foot away, a plastic zip tie in her hands.

  No, no, no, no…

  The woman’s face was pinched. Her left arm pressed awkwardly against her side. And her eyes… sharp, hard… “Hands behind your back,” Carla said.

  Grace flinched.

  Carla grabbed Grace’s right wrist, yanked it behind her back, then the other, and bound them tight.

  “Now you’re going to walk out and get in the ambulance, Grace,” Hess said. “And you’re going to do it very quickly.”

  Grace’s brain stuttered, the
n raced, then stuttered again. As soon as she went with him, she was dead. For sure. Brad, too. But Mr. Kasdorf said he would call. Aunt Val would be on her way. All Grace had to do was stall a little longer. “Why do you want Ethan, anyway? It’s really hard to take care of kids. I used to babysit, and…”

  His smile faded. “Don’t push me, Gracie.”

  For a moment, the trembling was so strong Grace had to clench her teeth to keep them from chattering. She didn’t want to die. Not now, not later. Her courage was an act. An empty act.

  But Hess’s threat was an act, too. Grace had been there the last time. She knew what he really wanted.

  “You won’t kill me now.”

  “I won’t?”

  “You’ll kill me, but not until Aunt Val can watch.”

  “Smart girl.” Hess looked down at Brad. When he brought his stare back to Grace, his lips pulled back in a smile. Not pleased, just cold. “What do you love most, Grace?”

  Grace’s throat went dry. She’d heard Hess’s promise to Aunt Val a year and a half ago, when the knife had been to Grace’s throat. He’d sworn he would take away everything Aunt Val loved most. Grace. David. If Aunt Val hadn’t stopped him, he would have done it. If Aunt Val hadn’t stopped him, they would all be dead.

  But Hess didn’t know Grace like he knew Aunt Val. He couldn’t know.

  “What do you love, Grace?”

  “School.”

  Hess chuckled. “Hear that, kid? Women are so goddamn fickle.”

  “He’s just a guy I know from my class.”

  “Just a guy from class, huh?”

  “He doesn’t mean anything. Let him go.”

  “You’re sure, Gracie?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.”

  “Then you shouldn’t mind this.” Hess squeezed the trigger.

  Val

  “You’re right about the kids heading for the Kasdorf place,” Oneida said over the phone. “They’re holed up in the barn.”

  Val had given both her sergeant, Pete Olson, and the county emergency response team commander the CliffsNotes version of events. Now while some officers were following the tracks on foot, Val, Lund, and the armored truck raced down the road that led to Kasdorf’s.

  “How do you know they’re in the barn?” Val asked Oneida.