Page 32

He hollered back at me, “You ain’t taking me alive. No fuckin way I’m going to jail.” He raised the Glock aiming for my face and I pulled the trigger on my Sig and shot him in the leg.

Down he went and I dove on top of him and jerked the Glock out of his hand. Adrenaline rushing through my veins, I instinctively whipped him across the forehead with the butt of the Glock and knocked him out..

Brittany screamed and Billy took action. No need to watch the door anymore with both of the suspects down. Billy slammed Miss Brittany into the closest armchair and zip tied her ankles.

I rolled Purcell over, stuck a knee in his back and cuffed him. Billy did the same with Foster. With the three suspects under control, I called it in.

Wasn’t more than a minute after the noise died down that the landlords came running down from upstairs and banged on the inside access door.

Billy let them in and held up his badge. “Police. Appreciate it if y’all would stay upstairs until First Response are finished down here.”

“Brittany, who are these men?” screamed the wife. “We trusted you.”

Brittany was sobbing and didn’t answer.

The husband pointed at the two guys bleeding on the floor of his rental unit. Purcell was out cold from the crack on the head I’d given him. “Is that guy dead?”

“Nope. He sure ain’t.” I pointed at the door and they scurried back upstairs.

I turned towards Billy and gave him a nod of approval. He had handled the situation well, and the perps were now under control.

As we waited for the local First Response to arrive, I took a closer look at the suspects. Foster was still groaning on the floor, clutching his wounded leg. Purcell was now coming to, but his eyes were glazed over, and he was disoriented.

Brittany was sitting in the armchair where Billy had secured her, and she was whimpering. I approached her cautiously, not sure what to expect. “What’s wrong, Brittany? You didn’t expect to get caught?”

Tears streamed down her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I didn't know they’d done anything bad. I swear I didn’t. They said they just needed a place to lie low for a while.”

I raised an eyebrow. “And you believed them?”

“Yeah, I believed Burke because I love him.”

She was a pretty decent liar. Must come from practice.

No sign of the locals, so I called Molly and gave her the news. “You go on home, but when you come in tomorrow morning, Burke Foster and Roger Purcell will be in the run along with a girl named Brittany Gibson.”

“I’ll bring them breakfast.”

“Thanks, Molly. I have to take Burke and Purcell for medical first, but I think they’ll be good enough to lock up. I only shot them in the leg.”

When I really wanted to kill them both.

“I’m so happy you and Billy got them.”

“Me too.”

“All of Coyote Creek is waiting for you to bring in the guys who killed Tim Morrison and almost killed Savanna Larson. You’ll be a hero, Travis.”

“Don’t want that, Molly. Nope.”

A long, drawn-out process began once the uniformed officers arrived and began taking our statements. We survived and a couple of hours later we finally had Miss Brittany, Burke Foster and Roger Purcell secured in the back of the squad. The dogs had to be happy riding in the hatch because there was no room for them up front.

Before leaving the city, I stopped at a medical center and had Foster’s and Purcell’s legs looked after. That took another couple of hours.

Both of them were surly and uncooperative patients, but their hands were cuffed behind their backs and neither one of them could do much to the wary doctor who dug the bullets out and sewed up their legs.

I wished them weeks of unbelievable and excruciating pain for what they’d done to Tim and Savanna. They deserved a much deadlier fate.

Back on the road heading home, Burke never shut up for the next hour about me shooting him in the leg. Purcell was a lot quieter and it could’ve been because of the headache I’d given him.