“How’d you get hooked up with Ross?” he asked, trying to distract her.
She seemed to perk up with his query and said clearly, “Known him forever. He needed some help on the inside. He knew about my dad, and my mom. He knew I was kind of desperate. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”
“Alice Martin didn’t know about you, did she?”
She shook her head. “T-to her, I was the nice, good c-cop.”
“What about Green?”
She shook her head again. “Nobody knew about me other than Ross. He had Marty and a bunch of other cops on the payroll. But I was the f-fail-safe. Otherwise, Marty c-could’ve fingered me when you nailed him on Bond’s m-murder.”
“Put the gun down, Donna.”
“Not gonna do that.” She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “Shoot me, Decker.” She pointed to her forehead with her gun muzzle. “Right here. Please. Fellow cop asking a favor. Just do it.”
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”
“Okay, I just thought I’d ask,” she said grimly.
She stuck the pistol in her mouth, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger.
Decker didn’t react to this. In fact, he knew it was the logical outcome. And maybe it was better that way. He stepped over to the body, which had slumped sideways. The wall behind Lassiter was smeared with her blood and brains.
As Decker looked down at the body he closed his eyes as the electric blue color that he normally associated with death flashed across his mind. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he felt slightly nauseous and claustrophobic.
He almost had to smile, and would have if he hadn’t been standing over Lassiter’s corpse. She was a bad cop, for sure. But she was still a cop. And he wasn’t going to celebrate her death.
Yet maybe tomorrow he would be the same old Decker after all, at least the one the blindside hit had created. And in a world that seemed to be nothing except unpredictable, maybe that was as good as it got.
Chapter 74
WHAT WAS THAT?”
Baron, Jamison, and Riley were leading Amber and Zoe back up the road toward the house when Baron had stopped and stiffened. His gaze was pointed down the path that cut through the woods.
“What was what?” asked Jamison.
“I heard a sound down that way.”
“You think it might be Decker?”
“It’s not me,” said Decker.
He had appeared in the road leading from the house.
“Decker, where were you?” asked Jamison.
“At the house, with Lassiter.”
“What happened?” asked Jamison.
Decker glanced at Zoe. The little girl looked exhausted and scared.
“I’ll tell you later. I just got a text from Kemper. She called an ambulance for Amber and Zoe. It’ll meet you in front of the house. Alex, can you and Cindi take them up there and wait with them?”
“Why, where are you going?”
“I think John and I have someplace to check out.”
Baron was still staring down the path.
Jamison glanced at Baron and then back at Decker. “I think I’ll come with you.”
“No, you need to go with your sister and niece. You have a gun and I don’t know who else might be out there. Kemper’s sending some agents to you. Until they get here, you need to stay with them.”
Jamison looked torn.
“Okay, but can you at least tell me where you’re going?”
Decker, his gaze on Baron, said, “Maybe into the past.”
*
As Baron and Decker headed down the path, Baron looked at him. “You know where this leads, right?”
“I do.”
“And do you hear what I’m hearing?”
“I do,” Decker said again.
“But he would have no way of knowing about this. He would never have been here.”
“He would have one way of knowing about it,” replied Decker.
They cleared the trees and in front of them the large pond appeared.
They stopped walking as they both saw it at the same time.
Fred Ross was in his wheelchair at the edge of the water.
“Mr. Ross?” said Decker. “Going somewhere?”
Ross swiveled around in his chair and saw them. His mouth freed from the duct tape, he hurled one curse after another at them.
Baron started marching down toward the old man and Decker followed.
Before they reached him, Ross lurched sideways and turned over his wheelchair. He started clawing his way to the water, his useless legs dragging in the mud.
Baron stepped in front of him and looked down.
Ross looked up at him. “If I had my damn shotgun,” he snarled.
“Only you don’t,” said Decker. “How’d you manage to get loose?”
“You didn’t tape my arms that tight. Had some wiggle room. All I needed. Probably thought because I’m old I’m weak. Well, I’m stronger than I look, fat boy, from working hard all my life and pushing myself around in that metal cage all this time.”
Baron said, “How did you know this pond was even here?”
Ross laughed. “How do you think I know?”
Decker knelt down next to Ross. “Why did you kill his parents?”
Baron shot Decker a stunned look and then stared back at Ross.
“They were Barons. Ain’t that reason enough?”
“Why in the pond?”
“Because I didn’t want to get caught, that’s why, you dumb son of a bitch.”
“Why were you up here in the first place?” asked Decker.
“Looking for it, wasn’t I?”
“The treasure?”
Ross eyed him shrewdly and nodded.
“How’d you even hear about it?” asked Baron.
“When she was younger, my grandmother worked up at your damn mansion as a maid. That fancy-ass butler was an old man then, and he would get drunk and run his mouth in the kitchen. Right before he died, he bragged to my grandmother that he was going to be buried with Baron. He was so giddy about it. Like that made him somebody. And he said that Baron wasn’t going to leave much of anything to his kids. He was just going to hide his money from those spoiled brats because they were nothing to him. Somewhere up on the estate, he said. Well, she told my mom and my mom told me. One night years later, I went up there to look for it, but couldn’t find it. Figured I’d get the damn Barons to tell me.”
“They didn’t know either, you idiot!” roared Baron. “Do you think if they did they wouldn’t have already gotten it?”
Ross ignored him and kept his gaze on Decker. “Only they wouldn’t tell me. I got even more pissed and knocked ’em in the head, put ’em in their fancy car, and drove it over here and rolled it right into the water.”
“But how did you know about the path or the pond?” asked Decker.
“My grandma told my mom.” He looked at Baron. “She said the high-and-mighty Barons used to come here for picnics and shit. I figured I’d give ’em a picnic, all right. Twenty feet under.” Ross eyed the water. “And then I went back to work at the damn textile mill and got paralyzed.” He glared at the wheelchair. “Been trapped in that piece of shit ever since.”
“Well, they say God works in mysterious ways,” said Decker disdainfully. “But what are you doing here now?”
“Hell, I ain’t going to prison. Rather drown my ass.”
Baron pulled his gun and pointed it at Ross. “How about I do the honors?”
The old man grinned maliciously up at him. “Yeah, you go ahead, prick. Pull that trigger.”
Baron cocked the hammer.
“Do it, rich boy, do it. I dare you,” squealed Ross.
Decker said, “He wants you to do it, John, because then he knows I’ll have to arrest you. It would be like he’d be killing you too, just like he did your parents. You gonna let him sucker you like that?”
Baron pressed the barrel against Ross’s forehead and held it there until the old man started to shake with fear and tears spilled out of his eyes.
Then he uncocked the hammer and handed it to Decker with a smile. “You can’t be serious. I’m far too high-and-mighty to fall for that.”
Ross cursed and spit at him, even as Baron righted the wheelchair, lifted the old man up, and placed him back in it.
“Come on, Mr. Ross, I’ll even push you right up to the paddy wagon. You can ride to jail with your son. Two peas in a thoroughly rotten pod.”
Decker leaned down to stare at Ross.
“You were wrong.”
“About what?” snapped Ross.