Stunned and shaken, Hewitt reached for the seat-belt latch, but it was wedged tight against the mangled door. He reached for the glove box, found the pocketknife he always kept there, cut through the seat-belt webbing, and was about to scramble out the passenger door when a shadow in the rear window made him reach for his sidearm and duck. Glass shattered with the booming retort of a large-caliber handgun. Hewitt freed his weapon and tried to plaster himself against the floorboard under the steering wheel, which proved impossible.
The sharp sounds of gunfire continued, the rounds tearing into the Plexiglas-and-metal cage behind the seat back. Hewitt opened the passenger door and scrambled out just as something hit him like a sledgehammer in the back of his neck. In an instant, a shock wave of searing pain ran through his body before he passed out.
Still somewhat groggy from the Chevy’s impact with the unmarked police cruiser, Larson threw the empty handgun away when he saw the unconscious cop with a bullet hole just below his neck lying half-in, half-out of the vehicle. He grabbed the cop under the arms, pulled him the rest of the way out of the vehicle, and flipped him over on his back. He looked dead, but even if he wasn’t, it didn’t matter. In fact, nothing much mattered to Larson anymore.
From the corner of his eye he saw an older woman in blue jeans and a Western shirt climb out of a pickup truck parked on the other side of the highway and hurry toward him. From inside the wrecked police vehicle he could hear the dispatcher on the radio talking in “ten”codes.
Larson reached down, grabbed the .45 semiautomatic from the cop’s hand, turned, and from a distance of ten feet, blew the woman away. He snatched the badge clipped to the cop’s belt, paused to pick up the keys the woman had dropped in the dirt, and gave her a quick look. Spurts of blood running out of the hole in her chest told him she was as good as dead.
He could hear the sound of a vehicle approaching a bend in the road a quarter mile distant. He ran to the wrecked Chevy, grabbed his stuff, hurried to the woman’s truck, and drove away before the car showed up in the rearview mirror.
All he could do now, Larson decided, was run and hide, until his luck or the money ran out and he couldn’t go any farther. It wasn’t much of an option, but it was still a hell of a lot better than spending the rest of his life in solitary confinement, or being executed by injection.
Larson eased the truck over to the shoulder of the highway and rolled to a stop when he saw two cop cars racing at him with lights flashing and sirens wailing. They passed by without slowing, and Larson continued on his way, traveling back toward Carrizozo, thinking he needed to find a place to hide out, and soon.
Kevin Kerney arrived in Albuquerque to find Andy Baca at the terminal gate in his state police uniform with his four stars on his collars. They shook hands and started down the long corridor toward the public waiting area behind the security screening checkpoint. Kerney’s plane out of Chicago was the last flight of the night, and except for the footsteps of the passengers hurrying toward baggage claim and the exits, the terminal was quiet and empty.
“How’s Paul Hewitt?” Kerney asked. When he’d last spoken to Clayton, Hewitt was out of surgery, still unconscious, and in critical condition. “Has he pulled through?”
“Barely,” Andy replied.
“Meaning?”
“He’s permanently paralyzed from the neck down.”
Kerney stopped in his tracks as the color drained from his face. “What?”
“He’s conscious, in full possession of his faculties, and a quadriplegic.” Andy gave Kerney a minute to collect himself and said, “Did you check any luggage?”
Kerney shook his head and started moving again. “I’ve got a closet full of everything I need at the ranch. Are Clayton and his family still there?”
“No, they’re back home in Lincoln County. Paul’s number-two man retired two months ago and moved to Arizona. The job has been vacant ever since, but this morning Paul appointed Clayton to be his chief deputy.”
“Good choice,” Kerney said. “Clayton can handle the job. Have you spoken to Paul directly?”
Andy nodded. “I saw him earlier in the evening at University Hospital. He said that with Clayton’s help he’s going to serve out his term in office. He’s trying to be positive, but it isn’t easy on him or Linda. The doctors say he won’t be going home for a while. They want to get him started on a physical therapy program before he’s released.”
“What about Larson? Have you found him? Last I heard, he was the prime suspect in Paul’s shooting.”
Andy shook his head. “We’ve lost his trail again, but we do know for certain that he shot Paul and killed the woman who stopped at the crash site. His fingerprints were on the weapon found at the scene and all over the blue Chevy.”
Andy stepped around two women who’d stopped in front of him to hug and greet each other. “By the way, the semiautomatic he used on Paul is also the weapon he used to kill Riley Burke. He used Hewitt’s gun to kill the woman, Janette Evans, a rancher’s widow, aged sixty-eight.”
“What else can you tell me?” Kerney asked.
“We traced the stolen blue Chevy that Larson crashed into Paul’s unit to a man from Oklahoma named Bertram Roach. The Albuquerque Police Department found his body in a cheap motel room on East Central Avenue. The night clerk at the motel—it’s one of those fleabag establishments used by hookers, pimps, and their johns—gave them a positive ID on Larson as a paying guest.”
They were outside in the dry, cool high desert night where Andy’s unmarked unit was parked at the curb, hazard lights flashing.
Kerney took a deep breath and knew he was back home. He looked at Andy over the roof of the vehicle. “How many people has this guy killed?”
“Four so far that we know about. A couple more of his victims could easily have died.”
“And he just tossed his murder weapon when he ran out of ammo, took Paul’s sidearm, iced a lady who stopped to help, and stole her truck?”
“Affirmative. This dirtbag just doesn’t give a shit.”
Kerney opened the passenger door. “Let’s go.”
“Where to?”
“The ranch. I need to take care of the horses and get some shut-eye before I pay my respects to Riley’s wife and parents in the morning. And then I have to check in with Clayton and Grace, let Sara know what’s happening, and come back down to Albuquerque to see Paul and talk to Linda.”
“And after that?”
“If Larson hasn’t been captured by the time we bury Riley Burke, I want a commission card and a shield.”
Andy opened the driver side door. “I figured as much.”
Chapter Four
Long before dawn, Kerney was back in the horse barn finishing up the chores he’d started the night before after arriving at the ranch. He mucked out stalls, laid down fresh straw, cleaned water troughs, put out feed, shoveled fresh manure from the paddocks, and curried the horses.
Every good cowboy and rancher knew that grooming horses wasn’t done to make them look pretty, but to stimulate a healthy coat and treat any small cuts and sores that would otherwise go unnoticed. The process also included inspecting and cleaning hoofs and checking for thrush, a fungus infection.
Although he enjoyed the pleasure of being close to the animals and the satisfying routine of caring for them, it didn’t keep him from worrying about Riley’s young wife and parents. They had to be devastated at their loss and struggling hard to accept it, and he wondered what he could do to ease their pain and assuage his own sense of guilt about Riley’s murder.