“COME ON,” JEREMY SAID, MOVING A FEW STEPS TOWARD HER. “ON your feet. It’s time.”
“Time for what?”
“What do you think? To do what we came here to do.”
As he came nearer, Joanna saw him draw a weapon from the shadowy holster on his hip and point it in her direction. The starlight didn’t offer enough illumination for her to make out exactly what it was, but she guessed he was most likely holding his service weapon—a Beretta. At that point the Taser and the Beretta offered unevenly bad options. A pulse from the stun gun would render her momentarily senseless, while a bullet from the handgun would render her dead. As for her cactus plan? He was still too far away.
“I can’t,” she whimpered.
“You can’t what—you can’t die?”
“I can’t get up. I’ve got a cramp in my leg.”
He came another step or two forward—reaching out to her with his right hand while still holding the pistol grip in his left. Just then, Joanna heard a sudden scrabbling noise that seemed to come from somewhere short of the crest of the peak. Something unseen was out there in the dark, speeding toward them and sending a cascade of rocks and gravel skittering down the mountainside.
Joanna first thought was that their presence on the mountain had most likely alarmed a wandering herd of javelina—boar-like creatures that roam the nighttime desert that tend to scatter in fear when faced with humans.
Joanna didn’t care what kind of animal was out there, but the noisy racket was an audible answer to her fervent prayer for a desperately needed distraction. Jeremy heard the noise, too. He moved closer to the edge, peering into the darkness in an attempt to catch sight of whatever was down there.
Once he drew even with her, Joanna flew into action. She flung herself in his direction, head-butting him in the side of his knees. Arms windmilling in a futile effort to regain his balance, he fired off a single wild shot before tumbling to the ground. He landed just as Joanna had intended him to land—with his right cheek impaled on the spines of the nearest clump of cactus.
Jeremy howled in agony, but Joanna didn’t wait around long enough to see if he had dropped his weapon. She was already on the move, making for the top of the chute. As she scrambled over the edge and started downward, a dark form shot past her. A bobcat maybe? A coyote? Whatever it was, the animal was Jeremy’s problem now, not hers. Joanna hit the top of the chute hard with her backside. The trip down wasn’t as smooth as she remembered, and it wasn’t nearly as fast, either. There were numerous starts and stops. Expecting a bullet to slam into the back of her head at any moment, she maneuvered around the occasional fallen boulder and then pushed off again in order to keep her downward momentum going.
Behind and above her, Joanna heard Jeremy’s scream change from one of agony to one of pure rage. “Get off me, you damn dog!” he yelled. “Get the hell off me.”
Dog? Joanna wondered. What dog?
And then she knew. It had to be Spike. Someone had sent the K9 unit to rescue her, and Spike had arrived just in time.
At last Joanna gained the shelter of the trees and was able to tug the Glock out of its holster. With a weapon in her hand, things were a little more even. If Jeremy came after her now, she’d be ready and waiting.
But then, to her horror, she heard the sound of a gunshot, followed by the shocked yipe of an injured animal. That was followed by a long moment of total silence.
Joanna knew how her K9 unit operated. If Spike was here, Terry Gregovich would be somewhere nearby. That meant in terms of taking Jeremy down, it was now two to one, which made for better odds.
“You’re surrounded, Jeremy,” Joanna called up the mountainside. “Drop your weapon and show us your hands! Now!”
She caught the barest glimpse of him, peering down from above, trying to catch sight of her. But he didn’t follow her order to drop his weapon. Behind and beneath her, she heard the sounds of someone else, another human, laboring up the mountain.
“Hang in there, Spike,” Terry called. “I’m coming to get you.”
Gazing back up toward the mountaintop, Joanna caught sight of something that looked like an enormous night bird taking wing. A second or so later, her mind made sense of what she was seeing. The flying creature wasn’t a bird at all. Jeremy Stock had made good on his threat and had taken a final flying leap off the mountain.
Time stood still. With his arms spread like an eagle, Jeremy seemed to stay airborne for a long time—as though he had been caught up in winds aloft. But then gravity took hold and he tumbled earthward. In utter silence, he did three acrobatic somersaults in the air before plunging headfirst into the ground.
He landed close enough to Joanna’s sheltering grove of trees that she heard the sickening thud as his head smashed into something hard. It was the same sound she had heard earlier in the summer, when Dennis had accidentally dropped their Fourth-of-July watermelon.
There could be no doubt. In that moment, Joanna knew Jeremy Stock was dead.
Good riddance were the first words that came into her head. As for the second ones? May you rot in hell!
Just then Terry, panting with exertion and barely able to speak, stumbled into her protective thicket. “The son of a bitch shot Spike,” he gasped as he rushed up to her. “Are you okay, Sheriff Brady?”
“I’m fine,” she told him. “Go get your dog, Terry. Let’s hope he’s okay.”