Down a Dark Road (Kate Burkholder #9)

“It is if you’re married with four kids—and have your eye on running for sheriff. I told him to cut it out, but … you know how it goes. After a few months she started getting serious. I mean, it was like Fatal Attraction meets Amish Mafia.” He laughs at his own joke. “She wanted to leave the Amish. Leave her kids. Her husband. Scared the shit out of Wade. I mean, that would have destroyed him. Ruined his career. His marriage. His future.”

He shrugs. “He tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t listen. Kept pushing.” He pauses. “Kind of like you, Chief Burkholder. I mean, she had this … obsessive personality. Who would have thought? A fucking Amish chick?” Another shrug. “Anyway, Travers knew if he didn’t find a way to stop her, it would cost him his marriage. His children. His future. She was a nobody so … bang, bang, problem solved.”

“He murdered her and framed her husband?” I ask.

Rowlett nods. “King was a fucking idiot and practically laid the framework. He was abusive. He had a temper. Liked his booze. All we had to do was pull him over a few times and plant some weed or meth or maybe just haul him in for a DUI. He made it easy.”

“Bring her in here!” comes Travers’s voice from the living room.

Another punch of adrenaline, tangling with the fear inside me. I’m helpless without the use of my hands, unable to defend myself or get away. I look down at my .38 on the table in front of Rowlett.

He notices and picks it up. “Get up.”

I’m thinking about making a break for the back door, but he grasps my arm, pulls me to my feet, and shoves me toward the living room. Wade Travers is standing a few feet from the recliner where Sidney Tucker is fighting for every breath. It’s such a macabre, surreal scene I can barely process it.

“We need to uncuff her for this?” Travers asks.

“No, just turn her around,” Rowlett says.

Grasping my arms roughly, the two men turn me so that my back is to Tucker. I try to jerk away, but they’re too strong, fingers digging into my biceps and forearms.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask.

No one answers. Travers lifts my cuffed wrists. Rowlett holds the .38 snug against my hands and fires three times in quick succession. The gunshots deafen me. I jolt violently with each. In my peripheral vision, I see Sidney Tucker’s body jerk.

Dear God …

Gunshot residue, I realize. On my jacket. My hands. And now two slugs from my weapon are inside Tucker’s body. These men—these cops—are going to frame me for the murder of Sidney Tucker and then they’re going to kill me. Probably make it look like there was an exchange of gunfire and both of us sustained fatal wounds.

“The throw-down, too,” Travers hisses. “Put one in the wall above him. We need her prints on it. Shells, too. Residue on her hands and jacket.”

A pistol is pressed against my palm. A gloved hand crushes my fingertips against the cold steel in multiple areas, multiple times. Next come the shells; two of them are pressed against my fingertips. Another blast shocks me. My ears are ringing. Terror jangling every nerve in my body. Panic kicks in, mindless and ineffective. I twist, bring up my knee, try to ram it into Travers. He dances back and I only manage to brush it against his hip.

“Cut it out,” he snarls.

I catch a glimpse of Rowlett’s face, teeth clenched, lips peeled back. He comes at me. Twisting, I brace against Travers, bring up my leg, and kick him in the abdomen. He reels backward, and hits wall.

“Watch her feet,” he growls.

“Help me!” I scream the words as loud as I can in the desperate hope that a passerby—a jogger or dog walker or someone out on the lake—will hear me and intervene. But it’s a hopeless last-ditch effort.

“Don’t mark her up,” Rowlett says. “We don’t need any more complications.”

They lower me to the floor, facedown. I bring up my knees, try to get my legs under me, but the men are too strong. With my hands cuffed behind my back, I’m powerless to help myself. I jerk my wrists against the cuffs brutally, hoping they’ll bruise my skin. Evidence, I think, but it only fuels my fear because by the time any bruising is discovered I’ll be dead.

The sound of a car alarm shrills over the cacophony of the struggle. Both men go stone-still, exchange a puzzled look.

“That’s mine,” Travers says.

“Turn that fucking thing off,” Rowlett snarls. “The last thing we need is neighbors sniffing around.”

I look up to see Travers jog to the back door, yank it open, and go through.

“Let me go and I’ll help you,” I say.

“Shut up.”

The car alarm goes silent. I raise my head, look around. A few feet away, Sidney Tucker lies dead. Before they leave here today, they’ll put one or more bullets in me from Tucker’s weapon so it looks as if Sidney Tucker and I got into a firefight. Dear God, I walked right into it.…

I close my eyes against the fear crawling inside me. I think of Tomasetti and what this will do to him. I think of the people I love. The ones I’ll leave behind. The things I’ve left undone. Unsaid. The sense of outrage, of loss and absolute terror overwhelms me.

“Was Sidney Tucker in on it?” I ask.

“Tucker was a stupid old man. Went soft after his old lady bit it. We knew it was just a matter of time before he started talking.”

“He told you I talked to him?”

“Fuckin’ guy had a death wish, I guess.”

He’s waiting for Travers to return. When he does, they’ll kill me, clean up the scene, plant any additional evidence, and go. Wait for someone to find our bodies.

I set my forehead against the hardwood floor and close my eyes. I’m shaking all over. My arms and legs. My teeth are chattering. I’m incredulous that my life will end this way. I’m sorry, Tomasetti.…

Renewed fear surges when I hear the back door open. Rowlett is kneeling beside me, his knee pressed against the small of my back. He’s messing with the throw-down pistol.

“Hurry up,” he says. “We gotta go.”

I raise my head, glance toward the door to see Vicki Cascioli standing just inside the kitchen. She’s assumed a shooter’s stance, a nasty-looking Sig Sauer in her left hand. Is she part of this, too?

“Put the gun down,” she calls out. “Get your hands up. Do not move.”

Rowlett glances over and freezes. I feel a quiver run through his body. The weight of his knee shifts off my back. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the .38 in his hand. His finger making its way inside the trigger guard …

“He’s armed,” I call out.

Her eyes are focused completely on Rowlett. “Don’t do it. You know I’ll make the shot—”

Rowlett throws himself backward, brings up the .38. Gunfire erupts. An endless stream of explosions. A slug tears into the floor inches from my shoulder. Chunks of wood hitting my face and hands. Free of him, I curl, put my face to the floor to protect my eyes.

The gunfire stops. A shocking silence falls. The smell of gunpowder fills the air. I hear a groan, glance right to see Rowlett lying on the floor a few feet away, a red bloom spreading center mass. I swivel my head, look at Cascioli. She’s down on one knee. Sig still up. But her head is angled down. Blood streams from a tear in her cheek.

I roll away from Rowlett, get my knees under me and rise. “Where’s Travers?” I ask her.

“Outside. He’s down…”

The words are garbled. She’s been shot in the face. Her mouth is mangled, filling with blood.