When I went to bed that night, I slept so fitfully it was almost a relief when my phone rang, waking me up from a nightmare. In my dream, somebody had been chasing me, but his face was blurry. Every time I thought I got away from him, he’d appear in front of me once more. I had been crying in my sleep, but no one heard or cared.
My phone rang again. I blinked my eyes open. It still felt like my nightmare assailant’s hands were on my breasts, arms, and back. Sweat soaked my pillowcase and sheets. I swallowed hard and stayed still, forcing my racing heart to slow down and my breath to calm. Then I swung my legs off the bed and reached to the end table for my cell.
“Yeah,” I said, rubbing sleep out of my eyes.
“Hey, Detective. This is Nicole Bryant. Sorry to wake you up, but we’ve got an issue.”
Nicole was one of the uniformed officers assigned to the night shift. I didn’t envy her hours, but the night shift came with a pay raise, and she and her husband were saving up to put their kids through college. Nicole worked hard and did her job well. If she’d had the ambition, she could have made sergeant easily, but she didn’t want to become a supervisor. I couldn’t blame her.
“That’s all right. Tell me what’s going on.”
“Sasquatch and I have been following the two men you met earlier. They’ve spent most of the afternoon at a hotel by the interstate, but a few minutes ago they broke into the train yard out on River Road.”
I pictured the area in my head.
“What are they doing at the train yard?”
“We don’t know. They cut the chain on the gate, and then they drove in. Now they’re opening a cargo car. What do you want to do?”
“Watch them for now. If they do anything, use your judgment. Remember these are bad men who will not hesitate to kill you. I’m on my way.”
“See you soon.”
I hung up and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and pulled my hair into a ponytail behind my head before heading out. The night air cooled my skin. Stars stretched from one end of the horizon to the other without even a wisp of cloud cover. On most nights, I liked looking at the stars. Tonight, though, I didn’t have time for reverie. I made sure my pistol had a full magazine and that my badge hung on my belt, and then I hopped in my truck and drove.
The train yard was about twenty minutes away. The railroad owned more property in St. Augustine County than any other business or person, but it employed so few people it didn’t have the political clout commensurate with its investment. I could burn every building it owned to the ground, and the members of the County Council would simply shrug their shoulders. That was how politics worked around here. Cash and campaign contributions were king. Little else mattered.
As I approached the yard, I called Nicole on my cell phone.
“Where are you guys?”
“Base of the billboard on the north edge of the property. It’s dark, and our lights are off so the bad guys can’t see us.”
“I’m on my way.”
From a distance, the rail yard looked like a junkyard, but as I got closer, the individual tracks and cars became clear. Nobody worked there at night, so the company hadn’t even installed overhead lights. A tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire surrounded the property. No night watchmen patrolled that rail yard. If somebody wanted to steal a four-hundred-thousand-pound locomotive, they were welcome to try.
As Nicole had said, she and Sasquatch had parked beneath a billboard near the edge of the property. I parked beside them and joined them at the front of Sasquatch’s cruiser. The north edge of the property had a slight rise, which gave us a clear view inside the property. There must have been a thousand train cars inside the yard, creating a maze of steel and dirt. A four-door sedan had conspicuously parked on its outskirts.
“That car belong to our bad guys?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Sasquatch. “Sorry to wake you up, Joe.”
“Sorry for keeping you up,” I said. “You’ve had a long day.”
“I’m pulling a double and covering for Gary Faulk. He’s got the flu,” said Sasquatch, pointing toward the rail yard. “They’re in the red car, and they’ve got a light.”
I focused on the yard until I found a red train car with a faint glimmer of light spilling beneath its closed door.
“How long have they been in there?”
“Almost an hour,” said Nicole. “Before that, they were at their hotel. What do you think they’re doing?”
“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head.
“Want to let them know we’re here?” said Sasquatch. “We could knock.”
Again, I shook my head. “No. Those train cars are solid steel. If they pull firearms on us, they’ll be in a hardened position with cover, and we’ll be out in the open. Once they’re done inside, they’ll come out. We’ll wait.”
Sasquatch nodded before yawning.
“If you two don’t mind, I’ll take a nap.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “If anybody moves, we’ll let you know.”
He nodded and went to the front seat of his cruiser, while Nicole and I sat on the bumper of hers. We talked for a while. I liked Nicole, but we came from different worlds. She got married when she was seventeen and had her first kid—a girl—six months later. Now that little girl was getting married to her college boyfriend. Nicole’s other kids were in high school. I didn’t have kids or a husband or loved ones to talk about, and I didn’t want to talk about Roger. So I nodded along, smiled, and asked questions until Nicole ran out of things to say.
A little over an hour after I arrived, two men emerged from the railroad car. They looked around, but they didn’t notice us. Nicole crept around Sasquatch’s car and woke him up. I joined the two beside the cruiser.
“Should we follow them or check out the car?” asked Nicole. The two men climbed into their sedan. A second later, their taillights lit up, and they drove toward the gate. They kept their headlights off, making them difficult to follow in the starlight.
“They’re up to something, so follow them,” I said. “I’ll check out the train car. If we need to, we’ll call in backup. Go now before they’re gone. And be careful.”
Sasquatch didn’t hesitate before turning on his car. I took a step back as Nicole hurried to the passenger side. Once the bad guys reached the highway, they turned on their headlights and sped up. This patch of the highway had a few curves and a few hills, so Sasquatch let them drive over a hill before turning on his own headlights. At night, nobody would see their paint job or the unlit light bar on top of their cruiser. They’d be fine.
I let them both disappear around a bend before making sure Nicole had locked her cruiser. Then I got in my truck and headed toward the rail yard. The bad guys had pulled the front gate shut, but they hadn’t locked it. Within moments of pulling into the lot, I opened the rolling door of a freight car and peered into what looked like the set of a horror movie.
Blue plastic tarps covered the car’s walls, ceiling, and floor. Duct tape joined the seams. In the center of the car, they had placed a wooden chair, the kind my teachers had kept behind their desks in elementary school. It was a good place to kill somebody. The train car was remote, but more than that, by the time we realized we had a body, our crime scene would be thousands of miles away.
I ran out of there and ripped my phone from my pocket. Sasquatch’s phone rung three times before he answered.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“In a neighborhood off River Road,” he said. “What did you find in the car?”
“Tarps. They plan to kill somebody. I’ll call the station for backup. Stay on these guys, but don’t engage them unless you have to.”
Sasquatch hesitated.
“They split up. One guy got out of the car about half a mile away. Nicole followed him into some woods. I’m following the guy who’s in the car.”
“Leave the guy in the car. Go back and get Nicole. I’ll send backup to you as soon as I can.”
I hung up on him and threw open my door. It took a moment to find Nicole’s number in my address book, but I punched in her entry as my old truck roared to life.
“Come on, Nicole,” I said. “Pick up. Pick up. Pick up.”
I put the truck in gear and floored the accelerator. Dust flew behind me as the rear tires spun in the loose soil before gaining traction. My truck rocketed forward. Finally, I heard Nicole’s soft breath on the phone.
“Joe,” she said. “I’m following one of ’em on foot.”
“Back off,” I said. “They’ve set up a kill room in the train. You’ve got backup en route, but you’re not safe on your own. Get back to River Road. Sasquatch will pick you up.”
For a few seconds, Nicole said nothing. Then her breath caught in her throat, and she jostled the phone.
“Police officer!” she screamed. “Put your hands in the air.”
“Fuck,” I said. My entire body tingled, and I willed my car to speed up. I hit the asphalt at thirty miles an hour and floored the accelerator. Sasquatch and Nicole couldn’t have driven far.
“Hands in the air. Now.”
Nicole’s voice was strident, almost to the point of breaking. Then somebody fired a gun. It was deeper and louder than Nicole’s pistol. I held my breath and waited for return fire.
“Shoot him, Nicole,” I whispered.
No shots came, so I ended the call and dialed my station’s number with trembling fingers. The moment someone picked up, I shouted orders.
“We’ve got shots fired. Trace Preston Cain’s cruiser and send everybody we’ve got to that area. We have at least two armed suspects and two officers in the area. I am en route right now in my truck. Repeat, we have shots fired. We need EMS and backup.”
Jason Zuckerburg, our night dispatcher, pounded on his keyboard.
“The GPS says Preston is near River Road. Does that sound right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Send everybody on duty. And call the Highway Patrol. We need tactical help and a bird in the air.”
He continued to type. “I’m routing eight officers and an ambulance toward that area. The nearest officer is…” He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was crestfallen. “…seven miles away. We’re going lights and sirens. We’ll get there as soon as we can.”
“Understood.”
I hung up and tossed my phone to the seat beside me as cold anger flooded through my system. Even at this time of night, it would take our cruisers at least five minutes to cross seven miles on the county’s decrepit, narrow roads. If someone had shot Nicole, she didn’t have that kind of time, and Sasquatch was alone against two gunmen who had already taken out one officer.
I had to move.