Gundown (22 page)

He’d die before he let them mess with his mind.

A green light beside the polling room door went on and she said, “Mr. Ferris, please reseat the jury.”

The jurors filed in and took their seats. The foreman handed a slip of paper to the clerk, who delivered it to Edith.

She read the words and addressed Hank. “Mr. Soldado, the jury finds that you have committed the wrongs under inquiry and sees no extenuating circumstances calling for reduction of consequences.”

She turned to the foreman. “Is your verdict unanimous?”

“Yes, Your Honor. Uh, we’d like to add something.”

“Go ahead.”

The foreman stood and addressed Hank. “This wasn’t easy. You did save a life, no doubt about that. But what we couldn’t get past was the fact that you could have done it with a nonlethal weapon. Most of us wished we could set you free, but it just wasn’t right.”

Hank risked a glance at the evidence table. His gun and the magazine were only a half dozen feet away. He schooled himself to show no emotion that would alert a guard. He nodded to the foreman.

Judge Edith said to Hank, “Mr. Soldado, you have twenty-four hours to choose which course you wish to pursue, and you will remain in the custody of the police.”

Marion stood, her expression a blaze of fury. Her voice was heated when she said, “That’s it? You call this a trial?”

“We call it an inquiry, Ms. Smith-Taylor. And we have learned the truth. There’s nothing more to do.”

“An appeal. I want to file an appeal.”

Judge Edith shook her head. “That’s your right, but do you doubt that you have heard the truth? You would appeal
truth?
You represent the Department of
Justice
, do you not?”

Marion’s silence was answer enough.

The judge banged her gavel. “Case closed.” She turned to the clerk. “What’s next, Mr. Ferris?”

The guard beside the table moved toward Hank.

Hank leaped from his chair, shoved the investigator into the guard, scooped up his pistol, slammed the magazine home, and yanked the slide to seat a bullet in the chamber. Okay, he was armed, but he was in a building packed with cops. He needed a hostage.

Three long strides to the advocate table—Jewel was closest, and he grabbed her hair. He pulled her out of her chair and pressed the muzzle of the gun into the soft flesh under her jaw. She cried out, a sob filled with pain and fear.

He hated doing this to her, but it was his life at risk, not hers.

The guard at the door slapped his hand on his stopper; Hank turned his prisoner to face him.

“You do anything, she’s dead.”

The guard lifted his hand away from his weapon.

Noah stood. “Please don’t do this.”

“Sorry, sir, but I’m not going to prison for doing nothing wrong, and I will never allow my mind to be destroyed.”

Hank moved, steering Jewel ahead of him by her hair. She grabbed her purse as they left the table.

• • •

It surprised Marion that she trembled. Despite her years in law enforcement, she’d never been so close to the threat she had seen in Hank Soldado’s deadly gaze. She’d felt like a bug about to be squashed.

After Soldado and his hostage left, the crowd surged toward the door. The TV reporter, Bruce Ball, beat them to it.

He opened the door and poked his head out.

A shot boomed and he jerked back in. The crowd backpedaled and settled into making calls and tweeting with cell phones. The investigator and a guard dashed out a rear door. The judge looked pale.

Marion sat. Scenes from the trial flashed through her mind. Hank Soldado denying the reality of what he had been videotaped doing, trying to beat the system just as Noah Stone had said. The way the verifier revealed falsehoods. The lack of swearing in, even though she couldn’t deny that it was functionally useless.

Noah Stone’s words attacked her. “How well does a system serve the people when it permits, no, encourages the flagrant, premeditated freeing of criminals because it is forced by convoluted technicalities to respect lies as if they were truths?”

She’d had no answer because the truth was more than she’d been willing to admit to. The system hadn’t served Suzanne, had it, when it turned her killer loose? Shaking started in her hands, and then a chill took over her body. How many other thousands had been victimized by the system that she served? What could she do about it?

Running

Hank figured he had only minutes before the place boiled with cops, so he was glad to see a pickup pull in just as he forced Jewel toward the parking lot. When the driver saw the Colt’s muzzle in his face, he scrambled out the other side.

Two cops ran toward them from the courthouse, stoppers aimed. One yelled, “Halt!” Hank snapped a shot over their heads, and they ducked behind parked cars. He shoved Jewel in and jumped behind the wheel.

She scrabbled for the opposite door, but stopped when he jammed the pistol barrel into her back.

He said, “I’ve killed one person with this, you don’t want me to kill another.”

She let go of the handle and slumped back, her eyes wide.

He was a bastard for doing this to her, but he shoved the feeling down. “Buckle your seat belt.” That would slow her if she made another attempt.

The cops charged the truck and he rolled up his window. They fired their stoppers, and the rounds bounced off. So much for “stoppers.” He floored the gas pedal and fishtailed out of the parking lot.

In town, he parked in an alley, took Jewel’s arm, and they strolled like tourists to his SUV in the lot behind the Ashland Springs Hotel. A block away, a siren raced past on Main Street.

He drove up-slope toward Mount Ashland, winding through quiet neighborhoods until he connected with Ashland Loop Road, a narrow track into the mountains—his “back door.”

Jewel broke her silence. “Look, just let me out. You’re not going to be needin’ me anymore. I won’t tell where you went.”

“Sure you will, and I don’t know that I don’t need you.” He glanced at her. The fear in her expression reached him. “Listen, I have no intention of hurting you.”

Tears came to her eyes and her voice quivered. “It’s my little girl. She’s only four.”

Damn. He’d forgotten about her child. “Where is she now?”

“At school.”

Okay, so she wasn’t alone. “Somebody’ll take care of her. I get the feeling this is that kind of town.”

“But she’ll be so scared.”

He snapped at her. “So am I, lady.” Then he thought of Chloe crying and hated what he saw. “You have anyone you can call?”

“Franklin.”

“Got a cell phone?”

She nodded. “Okay, call him, but that’s it. Then stay put and enjoy the scenery. I can tie you up, but I’d rather not take the time.”

The road twisted through tall pines into a world of cool silence. The police would block all entrances to Interstate 5 and put another roadblock at the California border, only twenty miles away. Helicopters would likely search other roads into California. No, his way out was to the west, across the Siskiyou Mountains to Gold Beach, a fishing town on the Oregon coast. There he could find a boat to take him to California or Washington.

• • •

After little roads wound past Mount Ashland—Jewel was amazed at how much snow still covered the ground and trees even though it was spring—they hooked up with logging roads that weren’t much wider than the car. On one hairpin curve, Jewel found herself leaning away from the sheer edge, closer to Soldado. She’d never been so scared. He had the nerve to smile at her, so she forced herself to sit straight.

“What happens if a car comes up this road?”

“Somebody has to back up.”

She shuddered and tightened her seat belt. They drove deeper into endless mountains along a network of narrow roads that scored the sides of steep slopes.

After what felt like an eternity of bouncing, dusk came, and Jewel was glad to hear Soldado say it was time to get under cover. He turned onto tire tracks that led up a forested slope. They got lucky—the trail ended at a deserted shack made out of beat-up old planks and tree limbs, but it had four walls, one window, a roof that didn’t look like it’d stop much rain, and two doorless doorways. The snow was sparse here, but it was chilly.

Inside, two battered kitchen chairs and a rickety card table tilted on a dirt floor, and a raggedy canvas cot sagged next to a wall. A rope suspended a kerosene lantern from the low ceiling, and the builders had cut a hole in the roof above a stone pit that held ashes and bits of charred wood.

Soldado lit the lantern and then towed her by the hand to search outside. He had the car keys, so she wondered where he thought she was gonna go. He found a stash of canned food and a baggie of marijuana under a cairn of rocks. Behind the shack, a pine tree shielded a crude latrine. Beyond that was a small patch of cleared ground, likely an old grow operation gone bust when Oregon legalized pot.

Jewel was starved. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and not much then. Too nervous about her first try at being an advocate. It wasn’t going real good so far, either.

Cans of cold corned beef and peaches later, they sat in silence. The quiet was enormous. She couldn’t think of anything to say. But she thought of something to do.

Picking up her purse, she said, “Gotta go potty,” and headed for the rear door.

As smoothly as a cat, Soldado blocked her way and extended a hand for her purse.

She gripped it with both hands. “I need it.”

A wiggle of his fingers insisted.

“It’s my time of the month, and you better let me take it if you don’t want me leaking all over the place.”

He waited, hand out.

She gave the purse over.

He opened it, then raised his gaze to hers as he took out her stopper.

She shrugged and stuck out her hand. “I still need a tampon.”

He tucked the stopper into a pocket, rummaged through the purse, then handed it back and said, “Go ahead.”

Outside, she went to the latrine. She really needed to pee, anyway. As she did, she opened her purse and pulled out the tube of nap reloads for her stopper. As she’d hoped, he hadn’t paid any attention to her spare ammunition. He probably didn’t know what it looked like, and besides, the case really did look a lot like it held a tampon.

A bullet without a gun was no more a threat than a rock. But not with stoppers. She picked at the crimped paper end of the nap cartridge with her fingernail until the beads were exposed. Amazing how such tiny things could knock a grown man out.
The trick was to not knock herself out, too.

She dug through her purse and discovered a foil-wrapped cough drop left over from winter. When she unwrapped it, the inside was sticky. Perfect. Careful not to break any of the little BBs, she emptied them onto the foil. They stuck nicely. She folded the edges of the wrapper into an open cup that contained the beads but let her grip the bottom. She tucked her weapon into her suit coat pocket. If she had a chance, she’d hit him with a nap.

When the sun went down, so did the temperature. Soldado used the marijuana as kindling to start a fire built with wood he tore from a fallen pine. His hands shook just enough to notice, and he inhaled deeply of the smoke from the pot. His hands stilled, and he seemed to relax.

To her surprise, he pulled the cot near the fire and gestured her to it. She’d have liked to ignore it, but she was too cold. She lay on the cot and he sat on a chair, close to the fire.

After staring at the flames for long minutes, she shifted her gaze to Soldado. He seemed lost in the fire. His history and the things she’d seen him do tumbled in her mind.

His dossier said he’d been a top cop in the MPs and then a decorated deputy in Illinois. He had resigned after the tragedy that struck his wife and daughter. He had PTSD.

Yet he had cared enough to save her in Chicago. And Noah Stone, twice. And when he wasn’t taking her hostage, he had been gentle with her and Chloe.

His dark eyes suddenly shifted and his gaze locked with hers. His intensity reminded her of Noah Stone’s penetrating look. He broke the stillness. “I’m sorry about your little girl. I’ll set you free tomorrow afternoon.”

Jewel realized she wasn’t crazy with worry about Chloe. “I think she’s okay. Franklin will look after her.”

He turned back to the fire.

She wanted to hate him, but couldn’t. A memory of Green-Stripe in Chicago flashed; she could see him ripping her blouse open and then falling to the pavement, dead. A corner of her felt gratitude for her rescue.

Her mini-movie of the attack gave way to a replay of Soldado’s gun exploding Earl’s brains all over her; another corner of her hated him.

Then she pictured the sling that supported Noah Stone’s injured arm, and the video of the shooting. Another corner felt indebted for his saving of Noah, because Earl had meant to kill him—she’d seen the look on Earl’s face before half of it had burst into . . . into—

And then Soldado had stuck his gun under her chin just like Green-Stripe had.

Shit, she’d run out of corners at this rate. And, if she was going to escape, she had to get Soldado off guard.