Pushed Too Far: A Thriller (26 page)

She led him over the slick sidewalk to the station door, hit the buzzer, and looked up into the camera. After ten at night, Oneida had to buzz people in, even officers, for security reasons. It took a few seconds for the lock to click open, and Val pushed the door wide.

“Becca, can you throw some salt down? I’m not sure it does much with the temperatures dropping, but we have to try.”

“Sure thing, Chief.” Becca propped the door open with a shim, grabbed the bucket of salt they kept by the door, and headed back into the night.

Val led Lund into the station, past the holding cell and to the interrogation room. Not her preference, but since her office didn’t have a camera to record the interview, it would have to do. “Why don’t you take a seat? I’ll be right back.”

He stepped up to the doorway and stopped. “You can’t believe I killed her, Val.”

The smell of smoke clung to him, overpowering. He was still wearing his heavy boots and the turnout overalls. The neon yellow reflecting bands encircling his legs glowed in the overhead lights. Dark hair clung to his forehead, and a smudge of soot marked one cheek.

The man had just saved two lives, and now she was supposed to prove he’d taken one? How did that make sense? “It doesn’t matter what I believe.”

“It does to me.”

She let out a shuddering breath. “We’ll talk. Be honest with me, and I’ll try to make this easier.”

He shook his head. “Easier? How can anything be easy when I know you don’t believe me?”

She wanted to tell him she did, but that was ridiculous. She hadn’t asked him about the evidence. She hadn’t given him a chance to respond. A chance to explain. “Have a seat. Please. I have to check with Oneida. I’ll be right back.”

She strode to the door leading into the rest of the station and hit the button signaling Oneida to buzz her in. The monitors above the door showed the interrogation room where Lund was now sitting, tapping his fingers on the small table and jiggling one leg. Antsy. Caged.

Helpless.

She felt sick to her stomach.

Finally the door unlocked, and she pulled it open.

The station always felt quiet at night, but tonight Val couldn’t help an accompanying ache of loneliness. She passed the darkened door to the break room and headed straight for dispatch. She couldn’t wait to see Grace again, to know the one most important to her was all right, to hear all the awesome things Oneida had taught her about the inside workings of the Lake Loyal PD.

The first thing she saw as she rounded the corner was the pool of red on the floor.

Her breath hitched. She reached for her gun, racing forward, and hit nothing but her jean-clad hip.

Oneida lay face down, a plate of her famous sugar cookies scattered around her head. Reindeer, snowmen and Santa Claus soaked with blood.

“God, Oneida.” Val fell to her knees. Hands shaking, she checked for a pulse. It was faint, but there. She had to call for help.

Her next thought was of Grace.

“You care about her.” His voice was soft, like a distant breeze toying with wind chimes.

Val spun around.

He stood in the darkened break room entrance, Grace in front of him, hands cuffed, his arm pinning her back against his chest. He held a knife to her throat, the blade already dull with blood.

“If I’d known how you feel about the fat one, I would have made her death more painful and last much longer. Just like I plan to do with our darling Grace.”

A
hum pulsed in Val’s ears, so loud she couldn’t think.

Oneida wasn’t dead. Not yet.

But Grace.

Her beautiful Grace in the arms of Dixon Hess.

She stared at Val, eyes red, lower lip trembling. Tears streamed down her cheeks and silent sobs wracked her body.

A wound opened inside Val, so painful she couldn’t think. Grace was the only thing that mattered. Not the job, not her duty, only her precious niece.

And she was going to die.

“Let her go, Hess.” Her voice sounded stronger than she felt, steady and in command. She had to pretend Oneida was dead. She had to convince him to let go of Grace. “I know you’re angry. But you don’t care about her. Take it out on me.”

“Oh, Valerie. I’m so disappointed. Don’t you remember the chat we had?”

Of course, she did. But she couldn’t let herself think. Couldn’t let herself put the pieces together. How Tamara the lawyer loved to talk. How Monica loved Derrick. How Kasdorf loved his guns. How Lund loved freedom and hated being helpless.

No.

Lund and Becca were still free. They still had a shot. Becca was even armed with a gun and a radio.

Val struggled to stand, her legs unsteady. If she could get to the keyboard, she could unlock the door to the holding cell. She could let Becca in. If she turned her head, she could see the security cameras’ images, even with her bad eye. She would have to stall until Lund and Becca knew what was going on and could get into place to make their move.

“Do you?”

Her mind stuttered, trying to catch up with whatever he’d been saying that she hadn’t heard. “I’m sorry.”

He gave her a look that made her wonder if he’d already figured out her plan. “Our chat about justice. Do you remember?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“You felt the system wronged you. That your conviction took away everything you loved.”

“Not the system and the conviction, Val. You. You wronged me. You took away everything I loved most. The rest of them wouldn’t have been able to touch me if it weren’t for you. And now I’m going to take away what you love.”

He caressed Grace’s face with the blade, tracing down her cheekbone and up under her chin. Smudges of Oneida’s blood trailed behind, dark against Grace’s pale skin.

Grace let out a whimper so soft it sounded like the mew of a kitten.

“Don’t, Hess … Dixon … Please.”

“Keep it up. I like to hear you beg. It lets me know you’re listening.”

“I’m listening. I was listening all along.”

“No. If you had been, I never would have spent a moment in prison.”

She held up her hands, palms out. “You’re right. But I’ve tried to make it up to you. I know who the woman in the burning barrel was. I know who killed her. Let Grace leave, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“Let Grace leave, huh? That’s all I have to do?”

“Please.”

Hardness descended over his features. “I know who was in that barrel, Valerie. And I know who killed her. You have nothing to bargain with. And soon I’ll make sure you have nothing at all.”

She could feel her hope draining away like the strength from her hand and the sight from her eye. The screen showing the area outside the holding cell was still vacant. If Becca had come back into the building after salting the walkway, she must have done it while Hess was threatening Grace.

Her only hope was to turn on the intercom so at least Lund could hear.

She let her hands fall, but instead of bringing them to her sides, she let them rest on the table that held Oneida’s computers, the intercom panel still inches away. A pewter badger paperweight she’d given her dispatcher for her last birthday sat inches from her hand.

“You never asked how I know who framed me.”

He was setting some sort of trap. She could hear it in the tone of his voice, the lilting sneer of each word. She tried to see the table using her peripheral vision.

“Don’t you care?”

“Of course, I care.”

“Then ask.”

It was a stupid game, one designed only to prove to himself that she could be controlled. But she had little choice but to play. “How do you know who framed you?”

“I know, because I looked him in the eye, and he confessed everything.”

“You killed him.” She’d feared it from the moment she’d seen the upended table, broken clock and blood. The thing that surprised her was the hollow feeling in her stomach, even after all Schneider had done.

“Not yet. He has yet to lose what he loves most.”

“Where is he?”

Hess turned his head to glance toward the front entrance.

Val grabbed the paperweight and placed it on the intercom switch, then followed the trajectory of his gaze. “In my office?”

“Funny. He calls it his office.” Hess smiled. “Go ahead. Say hello.”

She didn’t want to witness what he’d done to Jeff Schneider, how he would take away what Jeff loved most. Especially when she couldn’t do anything to help him.

“Go.” He tightened his grip on Grace, and another whimper escaped her lips.

“Okay. I’m going.” She forced her feet to move, trying to brace herself for what she would see. Her senses were already overwhelmed by the odor of blood, yet somehow she detected more even before she turned the corner.

“Make it quick. You’re prolonging his suffering.”

She crossed the last few feet to the office and peered around the doorjamb.

Schneider was standing in the corner, totally naked.

No, not standing. Hanging.

He met her eyes, his wide and desperate. A gurgling noise came from his throat. The words criminal and liar had been carved in his chest and belly, and blood wept from the wounds.

“Chief Schneider is being punished for his crimes.” Hess said from his spot in the break room. “He’s been sentenced to hang by his neck until he’s dead, like a common criminal. Fitting for someone who killed his wife, passed her off as Kelly Lund, and framed me. Don’t you think?”

Val averted her eyes, unable to see his agony, no matter how true Hess’s accusations were.

“He used you, Valerie. Set you up to take this fall. I want you to remember that when it’s your time to lose what you love. I want you to remember it was your Chief Schneider who caused your pain.”

Nausea made her head feel light.

“Sorry.” Jeff’s voice, not much more than a croak.

She opened her eyes and focused on him. The mentor she trusted. The man who had done everything Hess said. The man who would cost her Grace. And she hated him.

But she didn’t want this. “This isn’t justice.”

“Maybe not. He should have a public trial, like I did. Have to sit there and listen to people say horrible things about him, which in his case would at least be true. He should go to prison and pray every day no one finds out he’s a cop. That would take away what he loves most, force him to deny he’s chief of police every day. But I don’t have time for that. And this might come as a shock to you, but because of what he did, I don’t trust the system. So in a roundabout way, he has himself to thank.”

“You can’t do this.”

“Of course I can. Now would you like to hear what he told me? Would you like to hear all the horrible things he confessed to? You’re not as good as a court of law crawling with TV cameras, but you’re as good as I can get.”

Val shook her head.

“Say yes, Valerie. Remember, I have a knife to your niece’s throat.”

Grace whimpered, and Val whirled around. “Yes. Yes. Go ahead.”

“It seems his wife had an accident many years ago. She ran into something … oh yeah, her husband’s fist. And even though he meant to keep her around to beat up on another day, she hit her head on the kitchen counter. Dead. So sad.”

Val glanced back at Schneider, but he wouldn’t meet her eye.

“And then what did our follow-the-law police chief do? He stuffed her in a freezer and pretended she ran away with another guy.”

Val could take the story from there. She could tell Hess that after a few years, when most of Liz’s family was dead, Schneider had sneaked a death certificate into a pile of papers he needed Harlan Runk to sign. With a stroke of Harlan’s pen, Elizabeth Unger had died in a car wreck. And since the Unger family owned a plot in a cemetery, complete with stone waiting to be filled out, all Schneider had to do was wait until anyone who cared was dead and pretend Liz Unger had been put to rest.

“So after a bunch of years go by and wifey is all shriveled up and freezer burned, Kelly asks the police chief for help, and he sees his opportunity not only to take her and my baby away from me but to clear out his freezer for hunting season. So he torches her in the barrel and calls Valerie Ryker in to figure it all out. Isn’t that right, Chief Schneider?”

Schneider swayed on his feet. He looked horrible, weak, like he couldn’t last much longer.

Val had to do something. She turned back to Hess. “So why kill him? Why not let him live with the world knowing what he did, who he really is?”

“You make a compelling argument. But I think you’re too late. He’s already decided he’s too chicken shit to face real justice.”

She spun back around in time to see Schneider stagger and sag forward, as if he didn’t have the strength to stand one more second. Or maybe he didn’t have the will.

No.

Val raced into the office. Grabbing him around the chest in a bear hug, she tried to hold him upright. The blood from his wounds made his skin slick.