Acceptable risk, p.14
Acceptable Risk, page 14
“Yeah, sorry. You leaving isn’t going to work out for me after all,” Glen yelled.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tanner’s curse was foul. He wasn’t sure what had just happened out there, but he knew things had gone from bad to not-going-to-get-out-of-here-alive bad.
“Glen, c’mon, man. Don’t do this,” he yelled.
“You weren’t supposed to come here, Dempsey. Not yet. Damn it, I thought I had more time.”
“More time for what?” Tanner yelled. “To help your brother? Do you know who killed Peter Anders and Joshua Newkirk? That’s all we want to talk about. We want to figure out what’s going on.”
“Snitches get stitches, haven’t you heard?” Glen sneered.
“Oh my gosh, did he kill them? Is that what he’s saying?” Bree’s green eyes were big where she crouched behind the tires again.
“I hope not.” Not because Tanner wasn’t ready to close this case and prove his innocence, but because Glen had the tactical advantage right now with them trapped in the shed. If he was admitting to murder, he definitely wasn’t planning on letting them go free to tell the world about it.
“Don’t say anything else, Glen,” Tanner called out. “Let’s just wait and talk things out reasonably.”
“I killed them,” Glen yelled. “I killed Anders, Newkirk and Owen Duquette.”
The words were breathy and quick, like he was relieved to get them off his chest.
Damn it. Tanner ran a hand over his face. He had to get Bree out of this shed. He pulled out his phone. It was time to call in the cavalry.
Proving his innocence wouldn’t do him any good if they were both dead.
“Are you calling 911? How long will it take them to get here?” she whispered.
“A while. But I’m not calling them. If they come in here guns blazing, Glen is just going to open fire on this place. I’m calling Whitaker.”
She made a sour face. “That guy is an ass hat.”
Ass hat or not, Tanner trusted him to have the experience needed for this sort of situation.
Whitaker answered on the first ring. “If it isn’t the man on the top of my personal most wanted list.”
“Yeah, well, maybe we can go out for dinner and dancing sometime,” Tanner quipped. “I need you to get to this address.” He rattled it off.
“Glen Carrico’s place?”
What the hell? “Do I even want to know why you know that?”
“You’re not the only person around here who can do detective work, you know. I’m actually on my way out to talk to him right now.”
Tanner wanted to know exactly how Whitaker had figured it out, but that would have to wait until later. “Good. Because Glen just admitted to killing all three of the victims. He’s got Bree and me trapped in a shed and is firing at us.”
Whitaker let out a curse. At least he was taking this seriously. “I’m probably twenty minutes out.”
“Okay, we’ll hold him off until then. Hurry.” Tanner clicked off the phone.
He looked around. There was stuff piled up everywhere, but only one door. He moved away from the cover the piles of wood provided and eased toward the back of the shed. He wasn’t going to wait for Glen to decide he was done talking and ready to start shooting. They’d be sitting ducks.
“Do you think my brother’s really going to survive in a max security?” Glen yelled. “He can barely hack it at Camp George West. Those guys I killed gave up information on other people in order to get out of jail. They were scum. Criminals who then ratted out others in order to save themselves.”
Tanner shifted a large metal shelf. Was that a small window up near the ceiling at the back? It had been blacked out, but maybe it would still open. It was going to make a lot of noise trying to get to it.
“Try to keep him talking so he can’t hear me.”
Bree nodded, watching him with wide eyes. She moved closer to the door.
“How did you know that they snitched on others?” she called out.
“The precious psychiatrist’s files told me everything I needed to know. All three of them had to be cleared by Michalski before their sentences were reduced.”
“What did you use to hack the files? Doxing? A Trojan horse or what?”
Tanner moved the large cabinet again, wincing as it made a loud scratching noise.
Meanwhile Bree looked like she was actually interested in how Glen had hacked the files. She probably was.
“Neither,” Glen responded. “I did it the old-fashioned way. I bought the information from somebody else who hacked it. Michalski’s own wife sold me the files.”
“Why would she do that?” Bree whispered to Tanner. He had no idea, just continued to move furniture so he could get to the window.
“You want to know what the irony is?” Glen asked. His voice was sounding weary now. “I wrote, emailed and called Dr. Michalski for weeks, trying to get him to come evaluate Darin when we first got word of the transfer. Guy wouldn’t even give me the time of day. You know how I met his wife? Because I was going to ask her if she might be willing to put in a good word with Michalski for us. We worked in the same building, but I didn’t know her. It was my last shot.”
While Glen continued to talk, Tanner finally muscled the furniture so that he could climb up it and reach the window.
Good news, it could be opened.
Bad news, there was no way he was going to fit through that. It was going to be tight, even for Bree.
“Ends up Mrs. Michalski hates her husband,” Glen continued. “Evidently, he’s been known to sleep with a patient a time or two. She couldn’t put in a good word for me with him since she’d kicked him out of the house, but she was willing to give me his files for free so I could blackmail the good doctor into doing whatever I wanted.”
“That would explain why Michalski was in the sheriff’s office at 3:00 a.m. He probably doesn’t have a home to go to right now,” Tanner muttered as he pried open the window as wide as he could. Which still wasn’t going to be large enough for him to fit, no matter how big he got it.
But at least Bree would be getting out.
“And did it work?” Bree yelled out. “Were you able to get Michalski to help you?”
“That bastard cop is just as bad as all the rest of the bastard cops. Didn’t care about me. Didn’t care about my brother or what would happen to him.”
Glen’s voice was clearer. He was getting closer.
“Tanner...” Bree whispered.
“I hear him. He’s coming toward us. Climb up here.”
She nodded but turned back to the door first. “What about the emails? Why would you make your brother look guilty if you were trying to keep him out of the maximum-security prison?”
“I didn’t do that!” Glen scoffed. “I would never do that. It must’ve been Michalski’s way of making sure he didn’t actually have to do what I want.”
Tanner helped Bree climb up to where he was.
“I want you to go out the window.”
She shook her head. “There’s no way you’re going to fit through that thing.”
“I don’t need to fit through. All we have to do is keep Glen talking until Whitaker gets here. He should be here in another ten or fifteen minutes.”
They both knew Glen wasn’t going to wait that long.
“But...”
He kissed her quickly. “Freckles, if there’s going to be a shoot-out, it’s better for me to be here by myself. Knowing you’re undefended makes you vulnerable and splits my focus. By myself, I can keep him pinned. And—”
He stopped talking as a red electronic timer on the workshop table over Bree’s shoulder blinked on. It hadn’t been on a second ago.
And then it started counting down from two minutes.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
He let go of Bree and climbed down to take a closer look. She immediately followed. He traced the cord attached to the timer and lifted a greasy sheet that covered a large table. When he saw what it was attached to, his heart stopped.
The timer didn’t.
“Oh my God,” Bree whispered beside him. “Those are explosives.”
Glen began yelling from outside again, much closer. “You shouldn’t have come here, Dempsey. You weren’t supposed to be here.”
Tanner didn’t waste any time. He grabbed Bree’s arm and propelled her back up toward the window. “You have to get out, right now.”
“But—”
“Situation is still the same. If I have to face Glen guns blazing, doing it by myself gives me a better chance.”
“I don’t want to leave you,” she whispered.
“I know, freckles. But do it anyway.”
She nodded.
Relief flooded his entire body. They didn’t have time to fight this out. Knowing she was safe would allow him to focus. He kissed her hard once more then hoisted her up and through the impossibly small window.
“Get out of the blast range and stay hidden until Whitaker gets here,” he told her as she wiggled her hips through. Once she made it, he winced as she fell forward. It was a long way to fall and no good way to catch herself.
But at least she’d be alive.
He couldn’t see out the window to make sure she was all right, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway—he was running out of time. Only forty-five seconds left on the countdown. If he had more time, he might have tried to call in support and see if there was any way he could disarm it, but there was no way that could happen now.
“Why are you doing this, Glen?” he called out. “It doesn’t need to be this way.”
He didn’t actually expect Carrico to answer, but he did. “This wasn’t what I wanted. Any of it. I just hope it’s worth it in the end.”
Tanner was done with the cryptic statements from this guy. He wasn’t waiting any longer. Bree was safe.
He shot at the front window once to try to get Glen’s attention focused in that direction, and then he stormed the door.
Chapter Twenty-Three
She and Tanner really were going to need to have a long talk about exactly what it meant to be a team. Team did not mean one person stayed in jeopardy while the other ran for her life.
But when the clock was ticking and some sort of bomb was about to blow up the whole building, it wasn’t time for an argument. So she kissed him and wiggled out that tiny window and fell what felt like a thousand feet to the ground.
But she damn well didn’t run to safety. Instead she immediately grabbed the biggest stick she could find and headed around to the front of the shed.
If Tanner was coming out of there guns blazing, then she was going to help him by coming from the back, club swinging.
As she sprinted around the building, Glen’s attention was caught by the front window of the shed shattering. She ran as fast as she could toward the skinny man, even as Tanner came bursting out of the shed door, firing his gun in Glen’s direction.
Glen was hit by one of Tanner’s bullets, but only in the arm, not enough to take him down. And then he was firing, too. Tanner, out of bullets, dived to the side to get away from the shots firing his way.
She knew it wasn’t going to be enough.
“No!” She screamed to get Glen’s attention before he could fire at Tanner again and continued to run at full speed, branch raised.
Glen spun around to face her, and she knew he was going to get the shot off before she could hit him. She prepared herself for the feel of a bullet, but when the shot rang out, no pain came.
Instead, it was Glen who fell from a shot to the head. Bree spun to see what had happened. Did Tanner have another bullet she didn’t know about? He was running toward her, leaping over Glen’s body and pulling her against his chest and behind one of the larger trees.
Not two seconds later, the shed exploded, sending pieces of wood and metal flying out as shrapnel. The tree saved them from it ripping into their bodies.
Tanner held her away from him and looked down at her, fear clouding his brown eyes. “Are you okay?” He began patting her down, looking for wounds.
“I’m fine. How...? Did you shoot him?”
“Excuse me. Can I get a little help over here?” The voice was coming from the other side of where the shed had stood. They both rushed over through the smoke and debris to find Ryan Fletcher leaning up against a tree, gun next to him.
“Fletcher? What the hell are you doing here?” Tanner rushed to his friend’s side and helped ease him to the ground.
“I was on my cell phone with Sheriff Duggan when Whitaker called in what was going on. I was closer, so I rushed over here. Made it just in time to shoot someone I’ve never met then get blown to kingdom come.” He smiled. “Everybody always says an attorney’s job is bloody.”
Tanner smiled. “Well, you don’t have any projectiles sticking out of your body, so I think you’re going to be okay. Maybe a concussion.”
“Pretty sure you’ve punched me harder than this, sparring.”
Bree reached down and squeezed his shoulder. “You saved my life. Thank you.”
“Anytime. I’m glad you guys don’t have to run anymore.” He smiled and leaned back against the tree.
About ten minutes later, Whitaker finally showed up, just in time to be of no real use whatsoever. An ambulance came for Ryan, but he refused to leave, even though he probably needed to get a CT scan.
Tanner stayed glued to Bree’s side, and to be honest, she didn’t want him far anyway. They’d come too close to losing each other.
They waited with Ryan on Glen’s rickety front porch steps as some of the other sheriff’s deputies arrived—including Ronnie Kitchens, who hugged them both—and began searching the house.
Whitaker came out a few minutes later. “Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’re cleared, Dempsey. We found access to a huge stack of Dr. Michalski’s files on Carrico’s computer, cross-referenced with a list of all the people who’d gotten reduced sentences because of giving up info on others. Looks like Carrico planned to take them all out.”
“Unbelievable,” Ryan muttered.
“Would’ve liked to have known why he chose me to set up for the fall,” Tanner said.
Bree pulled him closer. “And how he could possibly think this would help his brother’s case. If anything, this will just make it harder for Darin to stay at the minimum-security facility.”
“Guy had cancer, right?” Ryan asked. “He’s pretty young. That couldn’t have been easy. Maybe he just snapped.”
“I guess so.” Tanner rubbed his eyes then looked up at Whitaker. “You already knew about this place when I called. How’d you figure it out?”
“Michalski. I found him after you broke into the sheriff’s office last night and locked him in that closet.” He shot a sideways look at Bree. “After I figured out that the window alarm was false, of course. Michalski was just spitting mad that you had snuck into the building.”
Tanner raised a dark eyebrow. “Didn’t make you mad that I had snuck into the building?”
Whitaker leaned against the porch rail. “Don’t get me wrong—I would’ve arrested your ass if I had caught you there. But I also couldn’t think of many reasons you would be there at all if you were guilty and on the run.”
Tanner shrugged. “I wasn’t guilty.”
“What I couldn’t easily figure out was why Michalski was there at three in the morning. Started checking building logs, and it seemed he’d been there all night for multiple nights. Started looking further and figured out there was a lot going on with the doctor that he wasn’t telling. I went to the sheriff, and she and I confronted him this morning with our concerns. He admitted his wife was divorcing him and had hacked his files. She’d been selling them to whoever she thought could do the most damage to Michalski’s reputation.”
“He should’ve been up front about that from the beginning,” Bree said. “There were ways to do damage control. Hell, I could’ve tracked down anyone she’d sold the info to and destroyed it.”
Whitaker nodded. “I think Michalski understands that. He’s the one on administrative leave now. I’m sure you’ll be reinstated as soon as the sheriff sees you, between what we found here, Carrico admitting to the killings and Fletcher finding him in the middle of attempted murder.”
Tanner stood. “Good. Then the sheriff can expect to see me first thing tomorrow. Right now, we’re going home.”
Home. That was definitely where she wanted to go. She wanted to check on Star and Corfu and make sure they were doing okay. She wanted to sleep for a hundred hours in Tanner’s big bed.
Beside him.
Bree and Ryan stood with him. Bree’s grin was huge, Ryan’s a little more painful as he rubbed his head. But he slapped Tanner on his back. “Congrats, buddy. I’m glad you’re no longer the hunted. I’m going to help make sure the people who really deserve the blame for this get what’s coming to them.”
Tanner shook his head. “No, nobody in the department is to blame. It was just some unfortunate circumstances. I’m just ready to get back to the job.”
Bree squeezed his hand. “And I know Risk Peak wants you back, too.”
Ryan nodded. “If you say so. I think I’m going to take a few dozen aspirin and call it a day. I’ll catch you guys later.”
Tanner and Bree headed toward their car, too. Tanner still hadn’t let go of her.
She smiled at him. “Looks like you get to go back to being Captain Sexy Li—”
She never finished the sentence as his mouth slammed against hers and he backed her against the car. She moaned, gripping at his hair and clutching him to her, totally not caring that his colleagues might be able to see them.
When they finally broke apart, he leaned his forehead against hers.
“You scared me to death. You’re not great at following directions, you know that? You were supposed to run to safety. Not charge a fully-armed man with just a tree branch.”
