Killer Scents (25 page)

He lay on his side now
,
breathing hard
,
eyes closed. Beads of perspiration covered his face. She quickly
peeled the
tape
from
her legs and righted the chair to finish taking the remaining
adhesive strips
from around her waist.

“Jacob,
the cops are
going to create a diversion
.
”
Becca
hurried to the window and pushed the mattress aside.
She blinked rapidly into the morning sun’s rays.
They were on the second floor, and below the
m
a small roof
hung
over the mudroom.

“If I can get this open, I think we can throw the mattress on the roof below and jump to it easily enough.”

Jacob
moaned
  and briefly closed his eyes
;
exhaustion played on every feature of his tortured face. He’d been through hell and back, and now she wanted him to jump out a
window
.

“Don’t worry, I’ll figure
something
out.
The minute
we hear
anything
, it’s time to make a move. Okay?”

The door suddenly burst open
,
and Danny appeared before them.

“How the hell did you get up here?” Spittle sprayed from his mouth, and he firmed his hold on
a
gun, aiming at Jacob’s head.

“Don’t do it
,
Danny. He was only trying to protect me.” She stood slowly. “You know there’s no escape, but it’s up to you how far this will all go.”

Danny turned the
pistol
on her. “You’re right
.
H
e was only trying to help you.
It’s
always all about you,
D
etective.” He looked down his nose at her. “I should have done this long ago.”

He pulled the trigger.

Gunshot deafened the small room. In the same instant Danny took his shot, Jacob
grabbed her ankles and pulled her to the ground. He quickly
rolled
on top of her just as another shot resounded in the small space.
An explosion rocked the house
,
and Danny bolted from the room. Becca gasped for breath, the weight of Jacob
having
knocked the wind from her
.

“Jacob?” A sickening feeling churned in the pit of her stomach. She
pushed
Jacob off of her, laying him on his back. The rise and fall of his chest she’d come to rely on rose and fell no more. Blood seeped out from beneath him.
Becca inched her way back until she hit the wall and buried her face in her hands
.

A burst of gunfire forced her to set aside her grief and prompted her to act.

Danny will not take my life today. Jacob’s sacrifice will not be in vain.

Becca worked at opening the
window
.
Below, a number of officers in tactical gear ran single file to the back of the house
.

“Argh!”
She
used her pent
-
up anger and frustration to
force
it
open, reward
ing her with
layers of paint cracking until it finally gave way. She
pushed
out the screen and watched it tumble to the ground
.

Becca wrestled with the mattress until she finally had it lain over the windowsill and slid it out, landing on the roof below
like she’d hoped.
She took one last look back at Jacob’s still form.

“Thank you.” The words stuck in her throat
on her way
through the open
ing.
She
jumped.

P
andemonium surrounded the
farmhouse
. Smoke and clouds of dirt and debris made it almost impossible
for Randy
to see what impact the onslaught of
bullets
had ensued.

Chief gave the order to cease
fire
. An eerie silence fell upon the
acreage
as the dust settled, giving them a better look at
the
back of the
house
where the clapboard had been shredded and
the
glass shattered
. However, there was
no sign of Danny.

“Do you think we got him?” Randy’s pulse raced as he scanned the ruins for sign
s
of life.

“Let’s find out.” Chief spoke into his radio
.
“Send a couple of men in full gear to investigate.”

Almost immediately two men ran
forward
in sync.
Out from the rubble staggered Danny with gun in hand, a huge smile plastered on his blackened face
.

“Freeze! Drop you
r
gun!”
The bigger man shouted out.  Both men
went down on one knee and took aim. “
Drop
the gun and
put
your hands up.”

“It’s been fun
,
gentlemen.” Danny spun on his heel and shot into the
house
. An explosion rocked the ground
,
and everyone
ran
for cover.

Randy looked over the hood of Danny’s car to find the entire back engulfed in flames and Danny nowhere in sight.
Surely he didn’t survive that
one
.

“Becca.” Randy jumped to his feet and set off
running
only to be manhandled to his knees.

“
I can’t let you go in there
. We did the best we could, my
friend
.”

Chief’s words did little to console him. After everything they’d been through, to lose her like this...
.
Randy buried his face in his hands and choked on a sob, a gaping hole in his heart.

Chief’s radio sounded
.
“We’ve got her. We need the EMT stat to the east side of the
property
.”
Alan spoke hastily.

Randy ran
with
the EMT to a cluster of men by the tree line
. A
smoking mattress
lay
off to one side. He pushed his way through the growing crowd and stop
ped
sudden
ly
.
A plethora of emotions battled within him to find
Becca
lying
on the ground.
A
few wisps
of her once luxurious red hair clung to
a badly blistered scalp. The rain suit she wore
was
literally melted to her side. Men in white
uniforms worked quickly, bandaging her wounds and monitoring vitals.

An ambulance with its lights flashing crossed the property and stopped a few feet shy of them. The emergency personnel carefully moved her to a stretcher and covered her with
a silver, quilted
blanket
. Randy
forced his way through to where
they lifted her into the back
.
He tried to climb up inside only to be dragged back by fellow officers.

“Get off of me!”  He struggled to break free. “Becca!”

“You got to give them room to do their job.”

The chief’s voice of reason ended his fight. He watched in horror as one of the
attendants inside pressed his hands to Becca’s chest and started pumping.
In the next instant, t
he doors closed and the truck
sped away with lights flashing
.

If there was any doubt in
Randy’s
mind that he loved her, there wasn’t now
. Never in his life had he felt so helpless. Tears slid down his face unchecked as he turned to face the chief. “I can’t lose her.”

His
friend
put an arm across his back and ushered him back through the crowd. “Well then we best get to the hospital and make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Randy’s time in the burn unit had to be the most heart-wrenching experience of his life. He’d seen more than his fair share of trauma, but nothing remotely akin to what he’d witnessed over the past twenty-four hours.

The double doors to his right burst open. The scent of burnt
flesh
assaulted
him.
A child being whisked in cried out for his mother to make the pain stop.
A shiny, insulated pad like they’d covered Becca
with
cocooned the small body.
Within seconds they disappeared through the same set of doors they’d wheeled Becca through what seemed a lifetime ago.

The thought of
her
in that kind of pain was enough to bring him to his knees
.
Thankfully they were keeping her in an induced coma. The fabric of the rain suit
had fused with her skin compounding the severity of her condition.

Dr
.
Swanson walked down the corridor toward him
. The physician
removed
his surgical garments and pass
ed
them to a nurse keeping pace beside him. He sat heavily in the chair next to
Randy
and rubbed his eyes
.
H
is silver hair looked like he’d just gone for a ride on a motorcycle without a helmet
.

“How is she, Doc?” Randy had fully intended on letting him speak first.

“We’re going to keep her induced for now. The dead tissue and fabric has been removed, and I’m pretty sure she
’
ll need skin grafts to her upper arm and thigh. Right now our biggest concerns are infection and dehydration, which is why we’ve put her in an isolation tent and are pumping fluids in her intravenously. She fractured her tibia, but luckily the bone structure isn’t displaced. We’ve got her leg in traction so there’s no chance of anything shifting.” The doctor put a hand to the back of his neck and rolled his
head
around
. “She’s got a long and painful road ahead of her, if she makes it.”

Randy
went rigid
. “What do you mean,
if
she makes it?”

He sighed wearily
.
“Her body has been through severe trauma. We’ll keep a close eye on her tonight and
,
if all goes well, we can eliminate the threat of her going into shock.”

Randy blew out a long breath, blinking his burning eyes. “I want to see her.”

“You won’t be able to go inside the tent. She won’t know you’re there.”

“I don’t care. The last time I saw her someone was pumping
on
her chest, and now you’re telling me she might not make it through the night.” His voice cracked. “I just need to see her, to know she’s really here.”

Dr
.
Swanson nod
ded,
and his nurse led
Randy
to
wash
up. Nobody could pass through the doors without doing so, despite the fact he wasn’t going in the tent. Once
scrubbed
, he put on a gown and followed
the woman
to a small, glass
-
encased room.

“Push that button if you need me or when you’re ready to leave
.
” The nurse left him alone, closing the door firmly behind her.