Thump, whoosh, thump.
He holstered one pistol, slipped off his backpack, aimed, and tossed it in front of the opening.
Thump, whoosh, thump.
Either there was no one there, or he was one cool customer. Puller crouched, tensed, and did a quick turkey peek. In that momentary flash he took in a lot. None of it was good.
He edged around the corner. Following the sound, he looked down. The floor fan was on its side. The whoosh sound was the fan. The thump was the fan oscillating from side to side where the frame made contact with the concrete on each revolution.
But something had turned it on. And now he knew what that was.
Puller glanced up. The man was in uniform. He was hanging from the ceiling. The strap used to hold him there had loosened. His body had dropped down, though it was still suspended. It had hit the fan, knocking it over and turning it on.
Puller had just discovered what had happened to the perimeter guard.
He eyed the man through his optics. Clearly dead. Eyes bugged out and glassy. Body hanging limp. Hands bound. Feet the same. Puller approached, touched the man’s skin. Somewhat warm but rapidly cooling. Hadn’t been dead all that long. He checked for a pulse, just to be sure. There was none. Heart had stopped beating and everything else had stopped working instantly. He was past the point of no return, but not by much.
They had taken his police wheels. Warm oil, warm body.
The dead guy looked young. The low man on the totem pole, he’d drawn the crap post assignment. Guarding stiffs in the nighttime, and now he was a stiff too. Puller eased his gaze over the uniform. Looked to be a deputy sheriff. Drake County, the shoulder badge said. He eyed the holster. No gun. No surprise. Man has a gun he’s not going to let you string him up without a fight. The face was swollen enough from the strangulation to where Puller couldn’t tell if he’d been beaten.
He reached down and turned the fan off.
The thump-whoosh-thump symphony ceased.
Puller drew closer to the body and used his optics to read the nameplate.
Officer Wellman.
That was ballsy, thought Puller. To come back here and kill a cop. To come back to a murder scene once you’d done the deed.
What had they missed? Or left behind?
The next moment Puller was sprinting up the steps.
Someone else was coming.
He glanced at his watch.
It might be Sergeant Samantha Cole.
Or it might not.
CHAPTER
9
THE WOMAN CLIMBED out of her ride. It wasn’t police wheels. It was a plain, decades-old pickup truck with a four-speed stick drive and three transmission antennas drilled in the cab’s roof. It also had a white custom camper with side windows and a flip-top gate on the back with the word “Chevy” stenciled on it. The truck’s pale blue was not the original color.
Samantha Cole was not in uniform. She was dressed in faded jeans, white T-shirt, a WVU Mountaineers windbreaker, and worn-down calf-high boots. The butt of a King Cobra double-action .45 revolver poked from inside her shoulder holster. It was on the left side, meaning she was right-handed. She was a sliver under five-three without the boots, and a wiry one-ten with dirty blonde hair that was long enough to reach her shoulders. Her eyes were blue and wide; the balls of her cheekbones were prominent enough to suggest Native American ancestry. Her face had a scattering of light freckles.
She was an attractive woman but with a hard, cynical look of someone to whom life had not been overly kind.
Cole stared at Puller’s Malibu and then up at the house where the Reynoldses sat dead all in a row. One hand on the butt of her gun, she advanced up the gravel drive. She passed the Lexus when it happened.
The hand was on her before she realized it. Its grip was iron. She had no chance. It pulled her down and then over to the other side of the car.
“Shit!” Her fingers closed around the long, thick fingers. She could not break the grip. She tried to pull her gun with her other hand, but it was blocked by her attacker’s arm pinning hers against her side. Cole was helpless.
“Just stay down, Cole,” the voice said into her ear. “There might be a shooter out there.”
“Puller?” she hissed as she turned to him. Puller released his grip and squatted next to the right front fender of the Lexus. He flipped up his night optics. He had one M11 in hand. The other pistol was parked back in its rear holster.
“Good to meet you.”
“You nearly gave me a heart attack. I never even heard you.”
“That’s sort of the point.”
“You about crushed my arm. What, are you bionic?”
He shrugged. “No, I’m just in the Army.”
“Why did you grab me?”
“Your guy named Wellman?”
“What?”
“The cop on guard duty tonight?”
“Yeah, Larry Wellman. How’d you know that?”
“Somebody strung him up in the basement of the house and then stole his ride.”
Her face collapsed. “Larry’s dead?”
“Afraid so.”
“You said there might be a shooter?”
He touched his optics. “Saw a flash of movement through a window of the house when I heard you pulling up.”
“From where?”
“The woods behind the house.”
“You think they… ?”
“I don’t presume. Why I grabbed you. Already killed one cop, so what’s another to them?”
She gave him a searching glance. “I appreciate that. But I can’t believe Larry’s dead. No wonder he didn’t answer my call.” She paused. “He’s got a wife and a new baby.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You sure he’s dead?”
“If I weren’t I would’ve cut him down and tried to resuscitate him. But trust me, it would’ve been pointless. He hasn’t been dead long, though. Body’s still warm.”
“Shit,” she said again, her voice shaky.
He drew in her scent. Her breath smelled of mints with the tobacco lapping right underneath. No perfume. She hadn’t taken time to wash her hair. He glanced at his watch. She had gotten here two minutes ahead of her own deadline.
He saw her eyes start to glisten; a wobbly tear freed itself and slid down her cheek.
“You want to call it in?” he asked.
She answered in a dull, tired voice, “What? Oh, right.” She hastily wiped her eyes and pulled out her phone. She drilled in the numbers. She spoke fast but clearly, also putting out a BOLO on the missing police cruiser. The woman had gone from emotionally paralyzed to professional in a few seconds. Puller was impressed.