Brian Freeman - Goodbye to the Dead (Jonathan Stride Book 7)

Stride gave chase, but the wilderness fought back. Spindly branches scraped his face and drew blood. The water and mud sucked his boots into the ground, clinging to him with each step. His arms hacked through the foliage, forcing a path. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes that he’d been inside the woods, but it felt longer. He no longer saw anyone ahead of him, but he kept low as he pushed forward, in case the man fired blind shots to slow his pursuers. He was glad he did, because four more gunshots echoed wildly around him, swallowed by the woods. He didn’t know how close any of the bullets had come.

Finally, beyond the trees, he saw water and sky. He spilled out of the forest and found himself on the graveled fringe of old railroad tracks, steps from the dappled surface of Spirit Lake. The wooded land mass of Wisconsin was visible a mile across the water. Streaks of rain surged from the low clouds. Almost immediately, as he reached the clearing, gunshots rang out again. He ducked, taking cover.

The man with the gun pulled Cat northward on the railroad tracks. On his left was the impenetrable forest, and on his right was the expanse of the lake. He had nowhere to go, but he ran anyway.

‘Stop!’ Stride shouted. ‘Give it up!’

In answer, the man fired at him again and kept running.

Stride followed. The railroad tracks were overgrown with weeds. The lake beat against the land, and the rain gushed across his body. He jogged, then threw himself flat as the man twisted back and squeezed off another shot.

Behind him, Stride saw Serena emerge from the trees. Six other officers did, too, crouched and ready. They spread out between the woods and the lake, and all of them pushed northward. Stride moved again, closing the gap between himself and the man with the gun. Beyond the man, a quarter-mile away, he spotted Maggie and a team of officers converging from the other direction.

They had him in a squeeze now, police coming from both sides. The man with the gun saw it, too, and he stopped dead on the tracks. He looked ahead. He looked back. There was no escape in any direction.

He put his gun to Cat’s head. ‘Everybody stop!’

Stride held up his hands to freeze those behind him. Up the tracks, Maggie did the same. Nobody moved. The man had a dozen guns trained on him, but he knew they wouldn’t fire with Cat in jeopardy. The man’s face swiveled back and forth, north then south. He tugged Cat tighter against his chest and jabbed the barrel into her hair above her ear. She squirmed in his grasp.

Her eyes met Stride’s. He was only fifty feet away, close enough to fire if he got a clean shot. Which he didn’t have. He tried to will himself into her brain. To tell her to be calm. To tell her that nothing was going to happen to her. To tell her that this would all end with her safely in his arms.

He wanted to believe that.

The stand-off drew out. The rain poured across them from left to right like a wave, carrying a sweet smell of pine. The forest was a lush wall of green, dark on a dark sky, practically dipping its roots in the lake. The railroad tracks made parallel lines that seemed to meet at the horizon. Stride dug his feet in the gravel of the tracks, steadying himself. He pointed the barrel of his gun squarely at the man’s head, but all he saw was Cat’s face. Too close.

His eyes flicked behind him. Serena was twenty feet back, down on one knee, her gun also aimed at the man’s body.

‘Let the girl go!’ Stride shouted at him. ‘Put your gun on the ground, and put your hands up.’

The man gave no sign of surrendering. Trapped in the man’s arms, Cat used the heel of her shoe to hammer his shin, but her kicks did nothing to dislodge him. The man whispered in her ear, then moved the gun from the side of her head to the soft skin of her face, and she stopped struggling.

‘You can come out of this alive,’ Stride called. ‘If you put down your gun, no one’s going to shoot you.’

Stride watched the man’s stony face as he weighed his options. He was trapped, pinned down, with nowhere to run.

‘You want this girl alive,’ the man shouted to Stride.

‘I want everybody alive.’

‘Call off the dogs,’ he demanded. ‘Give me a way out of this.’

‘You have one way out. Put the gun down. Let the girl go.’

‘Are you ready to let this girl die? And her baby?’

Cat flailed again, erupting in fury, but he kept her locked in his grip. As she struggled, Stride noticed one thing that the man with the gun had missed. Cat’s hands were almost free. Their run through the woods had shredded the tape binding her wrists, and if she twisted hard, they’d come apart.

She knew it, too. He could see it in the blackness of her eyes. There was something in her face that he’d never seen before — something determined and violent. This man had threatened her child, and she was ready to fight back.

They were running out of time.

‘I want all of these cops out of here!’ the man shouted.

‘You can get a lawyer. You can do a deal with the feds. But not if you hurt the girl.’

‘As soon as I put down the gun, I’m dead. You think I don’t know that?’

He sounded like an animal backed against a wall, and Stride didn’t like it.

‘If you surrender, you’re safe. You have my word. No one’s going to shoot you.’

But the situation was spiraling out of control, and Stride couldn’t stop it.

Cat’s hands were free. She’d severed the tape and was flexing her fingers. She’d gone limp in the man’s grasp, but the looseness was a ruse. She wanted to go for his gun. And she’d lose.

Serena saw it, too, and she murmured a warning. ‘ Jonny .’

‘Cat, don’t move,’ Stride called to her. ‘We’ll get you out of this. Stay calm.’

A mistake.

He regretted it as the words left his mouth, and the man didn’t miss it. Cat. Stride had admitted that he knew this girl. She wasn’t a stranger. She was more than a hostage.

‘You want to save Cat ?’ the man shouted. ‘Then get these cops out of here! You’ve got ten seconds before I pull the trigger. Kill me if you want, but she’ll be on the ground. Is that what you want?’

‘Stop! Don’t do this! Cat, don’t move, it’s okay.’

‘Ten...’

Cat’s fingers curled like claws. Fragments of torn tape dangled from her slim wrists. Her breathing accelerated.

‘Nine...’

‘Put the gun down!’ Stride shouted at the man.

‘Eight...’

Cat stared at Stride, and he stared back. Don’t , he tried to tell her, but she wasn’t listening; she was too far gone with fear and fury.

‘Seven...’

‘Jonny, he’s going to do it,’ Serena whispered.

‘Six...’

And he was. Stride knew that. The man was insane. When he reached zero, he’d pull the trigger, regardless of the consequences. And before that, Cat would wrestle him for the gun, and he’d overwhelm her in seconds. It all ended the same way. With both of them dead.

‘Five...’

Everything was careening to a finish. One way or another.

‘Four...’

Stride bent down and put his gun beside him on the railroad tracks. He straightened up and put his hands in the air with his fingers spread wide.

‘Look at me!’ Stride shouted. ‘Look! No gun!’

The countdown stopped. The man stared at Stride.

‘Now the others, too,’ he called. ‘All of them. Tell them to drop their weapons.’

‘First, we chat,’ Stride said. He took a step closer to the man.

‘Stay where you are!’ the man shouted. He kept the gun at Cat’s head. ‘She and I are going to walk out of here. Just her and me. And you’re going to let us go.’

Stride shook his head and took another step closer. ‘I can’t let you do that. I just wanted to prove that I’m not going to shoot you.’