Matt Hilton - Slash and burn

It took a lot to open that door.

It was best not to mention the episode yet. The fact that my throat was twice its normal size, I had a lump on my head like a duck egg, and my ribs felt like Rocky Balboa had used me for a punch bag, might give the game away. I'd admit to a run-in with the twins, but not to the outcome. She didn't need to know exactly what I'd done to Trent.

I stepped into the damp warmth of the room. 'Kate. It's only me, Joe.'

Kate wasn't in the living room. The bed was mussed from where she'd been lying on top of the comforter and the TV was switched to a local news channel with the volume down low. The bathroom door was closed, and I could hear a trickle of water from the shower.

Putting down the bag of groceries, I pulled out the chocolate and placed it strategically on the bed like a peace offering. I shrugged out of my jacket. There was a mirror over a chest of drawers. My face wasn't as bruised as I'd thought – Trent had punched me above the hairline – and my neck only felt like it was swollen. I lifted the hem of my shirt and studied my ribs. They were red and tender to the touch but I couldn't detect any abnormality. Thankfully, Larry had been kicking me with his instep and not the toe of his boots, so I'd escaped any broken bones. I dropped my shirt, covering the incriminating evidence.

'Kate?' I didn't want to embarrass her if she happened to come out the bathroom in a state of undress. I rapped on the door. 'Kate. I'm back.'

There was no answer, and I experienced a cold spurt of dread in my gut.

'Kate?'

I tried the door handle and the door swung silently inwards.

The bathroom was empty. Steam hung in the air, and water still trickled from the showerhead. Kate hadn't been absent long.

I wondered where she could be. She was a free spirit and not exactly helpless, so I shouldn't have been as concerned as I was. Maybe she'd gone out to a nearby store to purchase some food – neither of us had eaten since leaving Florida that morning. Even so, something about the emptiness of the room told me I was fooling myself. It was warm and clammy from Kate's shower, but there was something else.

Where was she? What had happened here? For the briefest of moments I wondered if she'd left out of embarrassment because I'd brushed her off. But I discarded that idea. A feeling lingered in the atmosphere, almost like some residual fear had been left over following sudden violence. It pervaded the air like a static charge.

Lifting the mattress with one hand, I found the Magnum where I'd left it. I shoved it down my waistband next to my SIG Sauer. The inclination that I might need the heavy firepower was strong in my mind.

My shoe scuffed against something lying partly hidden by the bed.

Kate's mobile phone.

It was one of those with a flip front and I opened it up.

The screen saver showed Kate standing with her arm round the shoulder of another woman. The second woman was a few years older, fairer of hair and slightly heavier in build. But there was no denying the family resemblance. Kate and her sister, Imogen, were mugging for the camera. They both looked very happy, caught in a snapshot of simpler times.

Ordinarily I'd have closed the phone then. A person's mobile phone is the equivalent of a personal diary these days. It is where people store all their memories. I would have felt like an interloper invading her precious space if not for one thing: Kate had left the phone for me to find it. There was a clue on the phone to who had taken her, and where I would find her.

Wondering if she'd discreetly snapped her abductor, I first scrolled through the photograph files. There were dozens of pictures, many of them of Imogen, some of Kate dressed in her NYPD uniform, smiling proudly at the camera. There were a few of friends and landscapes, one of Imogen's mountaintop home, but none of anyone who'd come uninvited to this room.

Next I went to her call register and to her dialled numbers.

I recognised Rink's number immediately. She'd called him six times over the last four days. But his wasn't the most recent number in the list. There were two above it. The first I quickly ascertained was likely to be Imogen's cell; it was no Sherlock Holmes power-of-deduction moment, the number was logged as SIS. There were a dozen or so calls made to the same number prior to Kate calling Rink and four occasions during the time they'd been in contact. She'd called Rink a little over an hour ago and then tried Imogen's number again immediately after. Twenty minutes after that she'd called the final number on the list. I selected the number and hit the 'view' button. Kate had barely been on the phone for two minutes. It didn't tell me who the call was to or what it had been about, so I hit the green call button.

'Little Fork Sheriff's Department,' announced a woman. 'How may I help you?'

It was all I needed and I hit the red button to end the connection.

'Damn it, Kate,' I sighed. 'Why didn't you do as I asked?'

But the answer was obvious. She was a cop. Duty had prevailed.

I couldn't really blame her.

It was her career at stake, after all. She was evidently concerned about what had happened up on the mountain. It would be the death of her career as a police officer if she didn't call it in. Problem was, she'd just traded her career for her life.

Larry Bolan hadn't told me everything. But he'd told me enough.

Robert Huffman was in charge, but one of his confederates came in the shape of Sheriff Jim Aitken. Aitken had watched while Larry and Trent had battered his predecessor to death with their fists. He hadn't even intervened when Trent had torn an ear from Sheriff Devaney's head to show him the error of not doing as he was told.

I could imagine how it had played out. Kate's call had been put through to the sheriff and he'd promised to deal with things personally. Aitken had come here and Kate had opened the door to him. Aitken had then drawn his gun and taken her away. Kate had had the presence of mind to drop her phone, warning me that I'd very likely walked into a trap.

'Shit,' I said. But that was about as effusive as I felt.

Reaching behind me, I came out with a gun in each hand.

Just as something crashed through the window trailing smoke.

No such a thing as a warning shout for me. The Little Fork Sheriff's Department meant business. The tear-gas canister was only the start of worse things to come.

There were only two options open to me: surrender or resist.

Surrendering isn't normally in my vocabulary.

But how could I resist officers of the law?

Sheriff Aitken was one of the murderous group headed by Robert Huffman, but I couldn't be sure how far his influence extended to the men and women under his command. In all likelihood, the junior officers were simply good people following orders. To them I'd be a gun-toting fugitive who'd brought violence to their town. They'd be determined to bring me to justice, and if I came out with my guns blazing, I could expect them to return fire.

I didn't want any good people to die.

To surrender meant coming out empty-handed. In approximately five seconds, I'd be face down on the sidewalk with my hands cuffed behind me. Then straight to a cell. At Aitken's mercy, I didn't doubt that some tragic accident would come my way while pent up in a cage. Maybe Larry Bolan would be my first visitor. That's if Aitken's trigger finger didn't slip the second I poked my head out of the motel-room door.

There were only seconds to decide.

The tear gas was launched with the intention of forcing me into their arms. If I didn't show quickly, they'd be following the gas into the room to take me down while I was coughing and choking on its effects. Shouted commands from outside drifted to me, but I wasn't listening. They were irrelevant to what would happen next.