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  “Fuck that asshole, go ahead and kill yourself,” Kate yelled. “Let your family watch you blow your brains all over the front yard, you pussy. But before you do that, tell your wife how you set me up. Tell her how you got a gang banger to follow me, rape me, then kill me in a back alley. Go ahead.”

  Rambone’s wife opened her door and Zane heard her ask, “Honey, what’s going on?”

  “Close the door, Beth, this doesn’t concern you,” he said.

  “I think it does. Kids, get out on that side of the car and get in the house, now!” Beth said.

  Geary yelled, “No, ma’am, no one is going in the house. One at a time, send the kids to me.”

  Rambone screamed, “NO, no one is going anywhere. And Kate, you need to shut the fuck up. You don’t even know what happened that night.”

  “Fuck you. It’s you who has no fucking clue, you lily-livered coward. Let me tell you exactly what happened.” And she did. Later, she told Zane it was exactly what she’d wanted to tell Rambone the day she got out of the hospital.

  The driver’s side back door opened, and a teenage boy got out. He had his hands in the air.

  Beth said, “Run, Peter, run to the cops.”

  Peter ran. Then a girl exited the car. She did exactly as her brother had done, but barefoot.

  From the open hatch in the back of the Rover, Zane saw Beth climb over the console. Before she got out of the car, she said, “Robert, what have you done?”

  Beth opened the driver’s door, put her hands in the air and walked toward the police. Zane ran up to help her, staying between her and Rambone, just in case he decided to take her down with him. He realized too late he should have done the same for the kids.

  “You never were a very good cop, Darby. Too stupid to get out of your own way. Soft,” Rambone yelled, seemingly oblivious to the fact that his family had abandoned him.

  Zane saw Kate pull the Sig from her waistband. She took aim before he could make a move. All Zane could do was scream, “NO!!!!”

  Not fazed by Zane, the FBI agents, or Rambone’s family, Kate took aim and shot Rambone in the upper torso, hitting him in the right shoulder. Rambone’s gun went flying as his body jolted from the impact of the bullet. He stood stunned, with his mouth open for just a second before losing his balance and falling backward. The idiot tried to break his fall with the arm Kate had just shot.

  Handing her gun to Zane, she frowned. “Well, shit, my aim is really off. I was aiming for his heart.”

  Instead of staying down, Rambone tried to stand and grab his gun. Kate sprinted over and tackled his ass to the pavement. Zane couldn’t have been prouder of her at that moment. He also knew it would be a while before she was back on the force. This would be one hell of an investigation.

  “You’re not taking the easy way out, douchebag. I hope that wound hurts like hell.” She leaned in close. “I know you set me up, asshole. It took me all of my recovery time to figure it out, but now I know. And you killed Geo Newton because he knew, too. How long did you think you’d get away with it? I’m going to watch you rot in prison. I’m gonna laugh when I hear about how an inmate butt fucked you raw, then beat the shit out of you, cuz you know how they like cops in prison, especially crooked ones.” She wrestled with him to get his arms behind his back. “You are under arrest for murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to commit rape, and whatever else I can find on you before your case goes to trial. You have the right to remain silent…”

  Before Kate could finish, Rambone screamed in pain.

  With her knee in his back, she reached up to Zane. “Cuffs.”

  Zane took over, knowing Kate shouldn’t be exerting herself. With the help of Geary, they pulled Rambone off the ground.

  The chief screamed like a little girl. “Ouch. Brutality.”

  Kate laughed, and it didn’t sound funny.

  “Don’t worry, Chief, we’ll make sure you get to the hospital for surgery, and get that bullet out. The rehab will be fun from the infirmary.” Kate stepped back, looking at the FBI agents like she just now realized she and Rambone weren’t alone.

  Kate stood close to Zane as the agents explained to Beth the charges against her husband. Somehow, Beth looked relieved. Maybe she knew all along. But getting her to testify would be a whole other fight. She probably liked the money her husband’s connections afforded them, but she wasn’t going to stand by as he wussed out.

  “You’d better have your chest cam or your dash cam on, or I’m gonna be pissed,” Kate said. “Because I have no idea what I just did and I’m gonna want to watch it.”

  Chapter 25

  Kate knew confronting the chief had been a mistake almost as soon as she’d done it. But she hadn’t been thinking about the investigation that would follow, and how her chances of going back to work would be hindered. She’d be on administrative leave for at least the next six months. But that was okay. It was paid leave, and she’d use that time to come back better, faster, smarter, and stronger.

  She also hadn’t thought about how she’d have to face Rambone when the case went to court. She’d only thought about how Tira Dixon would now be the chief and she’d have a new boss. And how Abby Simmons could go outside her house now.

  In the end, it wasn’t only the boot prints, but the fingerprints in Sousa’s house and on Moore’s phone, that gave the grand jury enough to indict. Rambone didn’t think to wipe his prints from Moore’s phone. Who was going to question him about the double murder? A bad guy killed a cop, and the cop got him on the way down. But Rambone must have picked up Moore’s phone at some point, maybe put it back in his pocket. But the prints were clear, and why on earth would the chief’s prints be on Moore’s phone if Moore was lying dead in a parking lot?

  Bryce couldn’t wait to tell Kate the forensics details: how the gun that killed Newton was found at the scene, and that the bullets matched the bullet pulled from Newton’s body. Kate breathed in deep and sighed when Bryce told her.

  “You always have the best tidbits,” she said. “I owe you a drink.”

  Sousa’s real name turned out to be Eric Zander, and it had been true that he didn’t have next of kin to claim his body. The FBI claimed it and were responsible for the retrieval and cremation. Sad, really.

  Even though the Peculiar Police Department had Kate on leave, the FBI had expressed an interest in hiring Kate, due to her shooting skills. She turned them down, deciding to stay in Peculiar, knowing she could never leave the East Texas town.

  Just as Kate expected, her old boss was all talk and no backbone. The case never made it to trial. Rambone pleaded down, which pissed Kate off to no end.

  Rambone sang like a canary, offering up names and cartel connections, thinking it’d get him either immunity or in the witness protection program. But the Feds didn’t take too kindly to a cop who murdered two of their agents, not to mention the murders, or attempts to murder his own officers. The only thing it got him was life instead of the death penalty. And since they were in Texas, execution would have been imminent.

  Kate knew Rambone thought he was untouchable, that he’d end up with a better deal. In the end, he didn’t understand how the cartels worked.

  When you’re in tight with the Mexican cartels that run drugs throughout the United States, you’re a liability when you get nabbed. And even though Rambone admitted to killing Newton, Sousa, Trevino, Moore and Williams, he still thought he was justified in his actions. Defiant to the end.

  Turned out the end came sooner than anyone expected. His throat was slit on the way to the showers. He hadn’t been in the state penitentiary for two months.

  The investigations kept Kate and Zane in close contact, and she liked that. But she had her own agenda. The favorite part of her routine, other than shooting, had been logging miles running through the pecan trees.

  One day, about two weeks after she’d heard the news about Rambone, she came up the road from the west side, dripping sweat and feeling good about the last hundred yards she’d
sprinted. She put her leg up against the wisteria at the end of the driveway and stretched. She turned when she heard footsteps.

  “He’s back, isn’t he? That’s why you run,” Azizi said.

  “Why do you sneak up on me like that?” Kate snapped.

  “You’d think running would make you less edgy, but it makes you more edgy. Does he run with you?” Azizi continued, unfazed.

  “I run alone,” Kate said. “And who exactly is he?”

  Azizi shrugged. “I don’t know who he is, but I know he’s there. And he makes you jumpy. He’s not good.”

  Kate dropped her foot down and lifted the other, ready to stretch, but now feeling so tight, like before a run instead of after. She felt the strong urge to go back out running. “What makes you think someone is with me? Do you see him too?”

  Azizi walked away, saying, “I just see things, that’s all.”

  Kate stood staring after her for a few seconds, then put her foot back on the ground and dashed after Azizi. “Just what exactly do you see?”

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  More Books by Jamie Lee Scott

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  Check Six

  A sneak peek

  Book #3 of the Kate Darby series:

  Chapter 1

  Check Six

  Have you ever been so excited about something, and dreaded it at the same time? Kate Darby wondered the same about herself as she dressed for work that morning. She’d been gone from the Peculiar police force for almost a year. She promised herself there wouldn’t be a one year anniversary party before she was back to work full time. Besides, there wasn’t going to be a party anyway, because seriously, who celebrates getting shot?

  “I’ll be celebrating.”

  Kate turned, but no one was there. No, not again. She was done with that. Moved past it. She’d killed the voices in her head. The voice being gone for good was the reason she was ready to work again. All of those months of therapy, she was so over Silva.

  Pulling a white tank top over her head, she walked over to the bed. She’d placed pieces of her uniform strategically, and as she sat down to put on her socks, she wondered how it would all feel, and if the Kevlar vest would irritate the scar. Then, cold, dead fingers grazed her skin. A chill overcame her. She froze.

  She’d been alone for months. No voices, no fingers touching her skin. How did this happen? How could he be back? Kate shook her head. It couldn’t be, it was only nerves.

  Rubbing the fabric of her tee, over the area of the bullet wound, she’d gotten to where most of the time she didn’t think about it anymore. She didn’t see it when scrubbing her body down in the shower, didn’t feel it rubbing against her clothing. But on this day, it felt as if it stuck out further; irritated, mad, mocking her.

  No two-bit hustling drug dealer was going to mock her, or change her life for good, she thought as she put the scar, and him, out of her mind. She forced herself to concentrate on the day ahead as she continued to dress for work.

  The routine was easy. She’d done it more than a thousand times: bra, panties, socks, T-shirt, vest…this was when she hesitated.

  It was a whisper. “What the hell good did a vest do you that night?”

  What vest? she thought. Kate had been stripped down to a bra and panties, and nothing short of a miracle saved her life. Her pulse quickened as she recalled that night, the miracle, and the great ambulance crew along with incredible surgeons. They were her miracle. She’d been ready kiss her fucked up life goodbye, but those talented professionals pulled her from the abyss. The least she could do now was to keep their streets safe from the types who tried to kill her.

  “It was a fluke, he wasn’t trying to kill me,” Kate said aloud, even though she knew the truth. The same as she’d told the counselors. The chances of something like that happening again were less than slim-to-none. She believed it with all her heart. She’d been offered up as bait. She’d been blindsided like everyone else.

  “Yes, we did. We meant to rape and kill you. Slowly.”

  Kate knew the truth now. She’d been set up big time, put in a position to be killed, only she’d outsmarted the numb nuts. But she hadn’t done it alone. If not for the informant she’d gone to meet, she would surely be dead.

  She walked over to the French doors of her second-floor bedroom in the grand plantation house she now called home. According to her grandfather’s will, the land would continue to grow pecans for the foreseeable future. Harvest season had started, and she didn’t dare open the doors, even though the breeze would feel good. Mosquitoes seemed to be rather thick for this time of the year.

  Azizi Carter, the only other tenant on the land besides Kate and her brother Bryce, had once called East Texas mosquitoes a terrible cross-breeding of fairies and vampires. Kate couldn’t remember what word Azizi had used for vampires. When Kate had laughed, and Azizi didn’t, she realized the old woman was serious.

  As much as she loved looking over the land she now called hers, she was glad her grandfather’s estate lawyer had set up all of the maintenance. The land for the pecans was leased, which helped pay the upkeep on the home and land. This Antebellum home’s needs were beyond her budget and she was sure the property taxes were more than her yearly salary. She often wondered how different her life would have been if she knew she had grandparents nearby. She’d have been happy to know them. Or him, since her grandfather was the only one still around.

  Turning away from the doors, she pulled the sheers over the floor-to-ceiling windows of the doors. She didn
’t understand the mentality of sheers keeping the house cooler, since the heavy damask draperies would do more to keep the light and sun out, but Azizi changed the rugs and draperies with the seasons.

  Finally, Kate picked up the vest and pulled it over her head. Remembering exactly how she liked the Velcro straps placed on her shoulders, she adjusted the others around her chest and back, pulling the side straps into place. It somehow didn’t fit right, as if someone had a hand in the way.

  She’d lost weight during her time off. Not at first, because a gunshot would put a girl down for a bit. But as soon as she had the go ahead, she’d started walking, and weight training. Then she started running. And when that wasn’t enough, she added weight around her hips; starting with ten pounds and working her way to thirty. Sprints were the toughest, so she did them three days a week. She ran six days a week, because her physical therapist insisted she take at least one day a week off. Along with department mandated mental and physical therapy, running became her supplemental therapy. Never again would a man have the upper hand on her, even if she was stripped naked. Though she knew she’d never get to that point again, ever.

  “Shit,” she said, ripping the Velcro apart; trying again. It wasn’t like she’d ever gotten it right the first time before, but for some reason it irritated her today. Then she remembered, she needed to put her pants on first. At least get her legs in them anyway.

  Leaving the vest on, but the sides unstrapped, she pulled a freshly cleaned uniform out of the dry-cleaning bag. The blue stripe down the side leg of the pants looked nice and crisply starched. Sitting on the bed again, moving the vest to a better position, she shoved her foot through the opening of the pants. The heavy starch made this quite a task. Once the pants were on and pulled up to mid-thigh, she stood and pulled them up over her butt, and tucked her T-shirt in. Now she was ready to adjust the side straps on her vest.