Hunt checked that the back door was locked, then petted Thor’s head. “Are you sure you’ll be okay until Savannah gets here?”
“I’ll be fine.” As she’d assured him about a hundred times already. “Leo took her home to get some things and pick up Pepper, then she’s going to spend the night here. We’ll be fine.”
“All right.” He pulled her close, kissed the top of her head. “And there’s an officer stationed out front. He’ll be there all night, so if you have any problems—”
“I’ll just scream.” She smiled, but sobered almost instantly. “Do you have someone keeping an eye on Cole and Cybil?”
“Yeah. And Jim and Rhonda too, just in case.”
“Did you find Ariyah yet?” She stepped back and looked up at him.
He shook his head, and she could read the worry in his eyes. “You don’t think it was her, though?”
“No.”
“But you’re afraid she might be a victim?”
“Or she was smart enough to go into hiding.” He pursed his lips, scowled. “Either way, I think she knows more than she’s admitted.”
“What are you going to do about Caleb? Question him further?”
“Yeah, we had two officers take him into custody for attacking you.”
She started to bristle, but he held up a hand.
“I know. But we need something to hold him on—it’s the only way we can be sure he continues to cooperate and keep an eye on him.”
“So, he’s at the police station?”
“No. The hospital.”
A smile tugged at her. It was good to know at least if Amanda woke up she wouldn’t be alone. “Thank you.”
“I’m not a total monster, you know.”
“So Savannah keeps telling me.”
He laughed, the sound warm and comforting. “Just be careful, and I’ll let you know if we learn anything new.”
“Thank you.”
He glanced at his watch. “And now I really have to go.”
“Oh, wait. What about Brynleigh? Do you have someone watching her?”
“We don’t have any evidence she’s involved in any way, but we are keeping an eye on her.”
“Because you want to keep her safe, or because you think she’s the killer?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“I suppose not.” Gia walked him to the door, kissed him goodbye, then locked up behind him and turned to Thor and Klondike. “Okay, guys. Savannah told me to pick the movie, so what’s it gonna be? Comedy? Romance? Mystery?”
Thor barked once.
Gia laughed. “Okay, then, mystery it is.”
She went to the kitchen with Thor and Klondike on her heels, both fully aware there would be some kind of food coming.
Klondike flopped onto a chair, her gaze clinging fiercely to Gia lest Thor get a treat she didn’t.
Thor pranced back and forth at Gia’s side while she gathered what she’d need for olive oil and rosemary popcorn.
“You know, if the two of you don’t stop begging, neither of you will get anything.” That was a lie, but she felt the need to at least reprimand them. She pulled out the cast iron pan and set it on the stovetop, then fished her phone from her pocket and set it on the counter next to her. Better to keep it close by. Just in case. “So, what’s it gonna be for you two? Chicken or peanut butter?”
Thor stared lovingly, tongue hanging out.
Klondike feigned disinterest.
“Fine. Peanut butter for Thor and catnip for Klondike.” She filled Thor’s toy with creamy peanut butter, then added catnip to Klondike’s ball, and bounced them both across the kitchen. “Go get ’em, guys.”
For a moment, she just watched them play, enjoying the feel of being home, the sense of love that filled her house. Then she left them to it and walked into the living room. May as well pick a movie first, give Savannah a little more time before starting the popcorn. She didn’t bother sitting down, just picked up the remote, turned on the TV, and started scrolling from where she stood. After the past few days, the last thing she wanted was a nail-biting, edge-of-your-seat action movie. Instead, she settled on a romantic comedy, set it up, and left the remote on the coffee table.
A knock on the door stopped her mid-stride, and she reversed course to open the front door for Savannah. As she reached for the knob, Hunt’s repeated warnings blared through her head. Shifting the curtain aside, she peered out the window.
Officer Erickson stood on her front porch, a worried expression on his face.
Hunt. Something must have happened. She ripped the door open, heart in her throat. “Is everything—”
“Step back inside. Quietly, and no one has to get hurt.” He whipped a gun from where he’d concealed it behind his leg, shoved through the doorway, and fumbled the lock closed behind him without moving his focus from Gia.
Thor scrambled into the foyer, barking, tail wagging, then skidded to a stop—either at the sight of a stranger or Gia’s fear.
Wade shifted the gun toward Thor.
She sidestepped in front of him, caging Thor between her leg and the wall. “No. Stop. Please. He’s not going to hurt you. Just let me put him in the kitchen. Please.”
He wiped the sweat beading his brow with a sleeve, and gestured toward the back of the house with the weapon.
Gia struggled to move Thor toward the kitchen, his gaze volleying back and forth between her and Wade. Clearly confused, he glued himself to Gia’s side, inching back as she did. She prayed he wouldn’t attack and get shot, but moving a dog that weighed in at over a hundred pounds and didn’t want to be moved was no easy task. Instead of trying to wrestle him back and risk agitating him further, she worked to steady her breathing, slow her heart rate. “He’s just confused. If we stand here and converse in normal tones for a few minutes, he’ll calm down. You have nothing to fear from him.”
The sweat pouring down the sides of his face, soaking his uniform shirt, assured Gia that probably wasn’t going to happen. But she had to try. “Please, tell me what’s going on. What do you want from me?”
“Money. And information. You give me both of those, and I’ll tie you up and leave without hurting anyone.” His gaze skittered everywhere, eyeing every corner, every crevice, as if something would jump out from the shadows at any moment and take him down.
If only. Since that wasn’t likely to happen, she’d have to rely on her wits. Or just give him what he wanted and let Hunt chase him down afterward. But she needed to do it quickly, before Savannah and Leo showed up and walked into an ambush. “Okay, look. I’m expecting company any minute.”
“Sure you are,” he sneered.
Maybe better to let him believe that was a lie. She had to think. She maintained a firm grip on Thor’s collar as he squirmed.
Wade leveled the gun at her chest, the same height it would have been at when he’d shot Amanda, but right now, there was no one there to save Gia if she went down. Speaking of . . .
“What happened to the police officer outside?”
“He’ll live. The last thing I need is to add murdering a police officer to my list of offenses.” His hand shook, but he didn’t lower the gun. “As long as you give me exactly what I want, I’ll disappear and begin a new life somewhere else. No one else has to die, Gia.”
That was good to know, especially since she was the one staring down the barrel of his gun. “Okay. Tell me what you want.”
“I need money. Cash. I knew I’d eventually have to flee, but I don’t have enough saved up to get away, and I’m afraid to touch my hidden accounts just yet. I need to buy myself a little time to get out of the country until the drama dies down.” He shrugged a little, his expression tortured. “Really, how long is anyone going to look for Rusty’s killer? Guy was a monster. Who really cares what happened to him? Ask me, he got exactly what he deserved.”
Clearly, Wade Erickson didn’t know Captain Hunter Quinn. He would hunt him to the ends of the earth to get justice for Rusty, for Amanda, for Gia. “Okay, listen. I don’t have any cash here.”
“None?” he whined.
“Maybe about a few hundred dollars in my purse, but that’s it.” Who even used cash anymore? Most people paid for nearly everything with a debit card now. Gia wouldn’t even have any cash in her bag if not for the fact that she hadn’t had time to make it to the bank. “It’s yours, and I can give you my debit card too. I’ll give you the PIN so you can stop at a cash machine and get as much as you can before leaving town.”
Just as long as he left. Maybe Hunt and Leo could trace his movements if he continued to use the card as he fled. Leo! He and Savannah would be there any minute. She had to get Wade out of there before they showed up. “Tell me what information you want.”
“I need to know everything the police know. Your boyfriend . . .” He gritted his teeth, swore. “He must suspect me, because he cut me out of the investigation, won’t even take my calls.”
“Suspect you of what? Killing Rusty?”
“Among other things.”
Keep him talking, or get him out as quickly as possible? She couldn’t think, needed to give Thor time to calm down. “You were blackmailing him.”
He nodded, used his free hand to wipe the back of his neck. “Yeah. But it’s not like he didn’t deserve it. Bribing Brynleigh like he did. And it’s not even like it was the first time. Before I came to Boggy Creek, I worked in law enforcement on the East Coast. Everyone on the force knew Rusty was guilty of bribing officials to get his deals to go through, but no one could prove it. And when I confronted him about it, he just smirked at me. Smirked! With that cocky attitude of his.”
He clenched his teeth together, his breathing heavy and erratic as he struggled for control. “I’m sure you can understand I wasn’t about to just let that go.”
Agitating him further was probably not the smartest idea.
“Anyway, this time I had him cold. And he knew it. Though I will admit, having to remain anonymous when I’d have loved to rub his nose in it . . . Let’s just say I bet he wasn’t smirking anymore then. He had two choices, pay up or go to jail. But Rusty balked, refused to pay, hunted me down and somehow found out who I was. If he hadn’t done that, had just paid his fair share, I never would have had to kill him. It was his own fault. You can’t expect me to have left him alive knowing he could point a finger at me as a blackmailer any time he felt like it.”
No matter how she’d felt about Rusty, he hadn’t deserved to die to protect his blackmailer from being found out. “When he drove into the forest, you were in the passenger seat of his truck.”
He nodded. “Captain Quinn tell you that?”
She ignored the question. “But you were on camera entering the forest at four forty-five.”
“You think I don’t know where those cameras are?” He scoffed. “Please. I went to work, just like I did every other day, then met Rusty at a fire road. I’d planned on framing Jim Kirkman for his murder, but then he went and caused that ruckus at the café, and Cole just landed in my lap. I knew he walked in that area with Cybil, so I lured Rusty out there pretending Cole wanted to meet with him.”
“So, why’d he pick you up?”
He laughed, a cold, cruel sound. “To arrest Cole. He knew he could push him into a fight. I was supposed to be his witness, help him destroy the man he hated so much. See what I’m saying? He had me over a barrel, and it would have stayed that way forever if I hadn’t gotten rid of him. I’d be like his trained dog. Every time he snapped his fingers, he’d have expected me to come running. Until he eventually tired of the game and turned me in. Which brings me back to Captain Quinn. How much does he suspect?”
Even knowing Rusty had planned on destroying Cole, because she did believe Wade about that, she couldn’t condone any of what Wade had done. “I don’t think he suspects you. Not that he shares much of his investigations with me, but he didn’t mention you at all, and if he was afraid you posed a danger to me, he would have. He probably hadn’t called you back because he’s been busy.”
He studied her, shifted his gaze to Thor for a fraction of a second. Something in his expression set off another round of barking.
Gia did her best to soothe him, keeping her grip on his collar despite the pain in her hand from him trying to break free. “How did you get close to the cop out front?”
“I walked right up to the car, told him Hunt sent me to relieve him, and when he opened the window, I tazed him.”
“He’s okay, though?”
“Unconscious in the trunk, but he’ll be fine.”
“Okay, that’s good. You haven’t gone too far.” She started easing backward, fingers twisted in Thor’s collar.
He lifted the gun. “Where are you going?”
“To get my bag, so I can give you the cash and card and you can get out of here before anyone else shows up and someone gets hurt needlessly.”
“Yeah.” He swiped his free hand over his mouth. “Yeah, that’d be good. Let’s go.”
She herded Thor across the living room toward the kitchen, careful to keep herself positioned between him and the gunman. As she shoved through the door into the kitchen, she spotted Leo peering into the window above the sink. She gestured him back, held her breath and glanced over her shoulder to see if Wade had noticed him.
Wade glanced around the room, his gaze never settling in one place. “Where’s the bag?”
She pointed toward the table. Leo’s presence changed things. Or did it? Wasn’t the main goal still to get Wade out the door? At least now she knew if she could get rid of him, he wouldn’t make it far. “It’s hanging on the back of the chair.”
“Get it.”
She hustled Thor toward the table, her hands full of agitated dog. When she reached her bag, she unhooked one handle from the chair and let it fall open, then dug through for the deposit envelope. She pulled it out and tossed it to him without warning. But he caught it with his free hand, gun still level. Dang. As she pulled her wallet out, her fingers brushed the canister of bear spray. If she could just get him to lower the gun for a few seconds. She pulled out her wallet and paused. “I’d need two hands to take out the debit card.”
“Just give me the wallet.” He tucked the deposit envelope into his waistband and held a hand out to her.
She started toward him, wallet held out, and accidentally kicked Klondike’s catnip toy and sent it rolling across the tile floor.
Klondike shot from beneath the table after it, straight under Gia’s feet.
She stumbled, trying not to land on the tiny cat, and went down hard on one knee, losing her grip on Thor.
Thor lunged before Wade could react and sank his teeth into his arm.
Wade swung the gun around, and Gia scrambled back, yanked her bag off the chair and grabbed the pepper spray. “Thor, stop.”
He maintained his hold, shaking his big head back and forth.
Wade fired. Missed. The bullet ricocheted off the floor.
Gia attacked. She put a hand over Thor’s eyes, aimed at Wade’s face as steadily as she could with her hands shaking, and hit the plunger.
He screamed, stumbled backward.
Thor held on.
“Thor, come.” Gia lunged for the gun, had to get it from him. “Let go, Thor.”
The door burst open, and Leo shot through. “Freeze! Police. Drop it, Wade.”
“Get this dog off me!” he screamed.
Thor clung tight, teeth embedded into his arm, growling deep in his throat.
Wade fired again, the bullet piercing the cabinet beneath the sink.
The next shot tore through Wade’s shoulder. As he fell, Thor released his grip and started to pace back and forth in front of him.
Gia fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around his neck, lowered her face into his fur. “It’s okay, boy. It’s okay. Shhh. Good boy. You’re such a good boy.”
He stilled as Hunt rushed in and retrieved the gun Wade still clung to. He petted Thor’s head. “Easy, boy. Are both of you okay?”
“Yes. Terrified, but not hurt.” Gia buried her head in Thor’s side, clinging tightly.
Leaving her and Thor, Hunt handcuffed Wade’s hands, in front of him in deference to the wound in his shoulder, then stepped back for the medics to treat him.
“How did you guys know something was wrong?” She smoothed a hand down Thor’s side.
“When Leo got here to drop Savannah off, he stopped to check in with the patrol officer and found him missing. We both know Carl. He’d never have left his post. When Leo checked the trunk, he found him unconscious and called it in. Savannah stayed with him while Leo went to check on you.”
“Thank you, Leo.”
“Any time.” He stood over the medic, watching him work on Wade, his jaw firmed.
“The bullet went through his shoulder, doesn’t appear to have hit anything major.” The medic turned his attention to Wade’s arm.
Leo sagged with relief.
Gia couldn’t blame him. As angry as she was with Wade for breaking into her home, threatening Thor and her, killing someone then trying to pin it on Cole . . . she wouldn’t have wanted him to die at her hand. Or at all. Let him sit in prison where he belonged.
Klondike crept out from beneath a chair, weaved between Gia’s knees, rubbed against her ankle.
And Gia sucked in a deep breath, scooped her up, and worked to calm herself down. At least he’d been caught, and Amanda would live. That would have to be enough.