Page 49 of Beyond Her Reach (Bree Taggert #10)

Still overly warm and nauseated from watching Todd plummet into the basement, Bree ran outside and grabbed the battering ram before jogging to the rear yard. She gulped cool night air and welcomed the cold rain on her face.

Focus.

She put aside her worry about her chief deputy and tuned in to the task at hand: finding Claudia. She had to trust Matt to take care of Todd until EMS arrived.

But she cursed Elaine Gibson as she ran.

“Team three, talk to me,” Bree said into her mic.

A deputy responded, “First two sheds are clear. Heading for number three.”

“Roger that.” Bree spotted Zucco and Juarez emerging from behind a tractor and approaching the barn. She joined them. The barn door wasn’t locked and slid open easily. Inside, chickens clucked, and larger animals rustled their bedding. Something screeched, and Bree whirled.

“What was that?” Juarez said in her ear.

Zucco’s voice sounded next. “For all that’s holy ...”

Bree aimed the weapon into the darkness, the beam of light cutting a narrow swath and illuminating ... alpacas nervously pacing the aisle.

One animal lifted its head and emitted the same high-pitched alarm, somewhere between a scream and a bleat.

Bree exhaled, her heart rapping against her breastbone, then said in a low voice, “It was just an animal.”

“Fuck,” muttered Zucco.

Beyond the alpacas, framed wire panels formed spaces the size of large horse stalls.

Chickens fluttered from roosts, clucking in confusion.

Bree and her team moved slowly through the darkness, checking behind every partition.

Zucco opened a door with care. Something crashed to the ground and broke.

Bree spun. In the beam of Zucco’s light, broken pieces of cinder block lay on the floor of a storage room.

Bree remembered a similar concrete block bouncing off the hood of her vehicle.

Elaine Gibson liked her cinder blocks. She’d balanced one on top of the door. Had she known they were coming? Booby traps would slow them down.

Zucco frowned at the pieces of block on the floor. “Good thing I didn’t rush in.” She peered into the room. “Clear.”

“Let’s be extra careful. We don’t know what other surprises she left for us,” Bree said.

Zucco provided cover as Juarez scaled a ladder, testing each rung before transferring his weight. At the top, he scanned the loft, climbed down, jumping the last few feet. “Clear.”

“Let’s check the garage.” Outside the barn, Bree picked up the battering ram from the ground and handed it to Juarez. The ram required some heft to swing. If using it proved necessary, he could do the job more efficiently.

She checked the knob. Locked. She stood aside.

Juarez moved into place and used two swings to open the door.

When it burst inward, Bree gestured for the team to wait.

Normally, she’d send in the K-9, but after the booby trap in the house, they needed to be wary.

She didn’t want Greta to trigger a trap that could endanger them all.

Bree searched for a light switch but didn’t find one.

She played her gun light across the space.

Discarded household items filled the expanse, roughly placed into rows with little apparent organization.

Though she couldn’t see over the rows of junk, by following the high ceiling, she estimated the building was large enough to house five cars.

The clutter made for too many hiding places and a building-clearing nightmare.

Signaling for Zucco and Juarez to take their positions behind her, Bree checked above the door for a cinder block—or worse—before stepping inside.

Zucco and Juarez filed in behind her, covering the corners and staying low.

She slipped around two rusty lawn mowers, a fence-post digger, rolls of chicken wire, and sacks of animal feed stacked on pallets.

A workbench and pegboard full of tools occupied one bay.

In the next, Elaine’s pickup sat, the truck bed partially loaded with gear.

The license plates were out of state. Had Elaine swapped her own for stolen ones?

She was planning to run.

Zucco and Juarez approached two closed doors. Bree headed between two rows of junk piled head high, old feed tubs, discarded chicken roosts, random pieces of furniture, and a broken sink.

“Clear,” said Zucco.

A few seconds later, Juarez echoed her statement.

Bree stepped around a highboy draped in cobwebs.

Something tapped the side of her head. She flinched and whirled, brushing at her head with one hand.

Her fingers encountered a string dangling from the ceiling.

She pointed her light upward, looking for a booby trap.

The string hung from a light bulb. Bree pulled it, and the bulb cast a puddle of light for six feet in each direction.

Zucco cursed from Bree’s right.

“What happened?” she asked, shining her light in the direction of her deputy.

Zucco came around the corner, blood dripping from her hand. “Brushed against some skinny knives jammed through a board.”

“How bad?” Bree asked.

“I can keep going,” Zucco said.

Adrenaline would block the pain for a while.

Bree took another step. The toe of her boot caught, and she almost fell. She glanced down to see a trip wire extending across the aisle between two pallets piled with straw bales. Dread curled up in her belly as she poised to run.

“Look out!” Zucco yelled as she dived forward, taking Bree down.

The impact with the ground knocked the air from her lungs and sent waves of white-hot pain through her broken nose.

Her deputy landed on top of her. An elbow caught her in the ribs.

Pain zinged through her midsection. Their guns skittered across the floor, the beam from the mounted lights playing in crazy arcs over the room.

Bree caught movement in her peripheral vision and turned her head.

A sledgehammer swung from a rope, passed a few feet above their heads, and smashed into the garage wall, leaving a three-inch hole in the drywall.

Had Elaine set all these traps today? Or was this the normal state of the Gibson farm?

Sprawled on the dirt floor, Bree nudged her deputy off her.

“Sorry,” Zucco said, scrambling to her feet and turning in a circle, clearly looking for her gun. She moved toward the straw bales with purpose.

“Don’t apologize. You saved me from getting bashed in the head,” Bree whispered back. Her palms and knees burned as she got to her feet. She spotted her own weapon six feet away, just a few feet from Zucco’s. She took a step toward it.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Elaine Gibson stepped out from between an armoire and a bookcase. She held a pump shotgun aimed at Bree’s chest. “Hands up.”

Bree froze, her heart hammering. Fuck. She slowly lifted her hands, palms out. Zucco did the same. Elaine had already killed two women and kidnapped a third. She clearly wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

“Where’s the other one? The man?” Elaine moved sideways. She kicked their guns farther under the pallet.

Bree didn’t respond.

“Where are you, Deputy?” Elaine called out. “Come out with your hands raised or I’ll shoot your sheriff. Maybe I won’t shoot the deputy, though.” She laughed at her own joke. “Who am I kidding? I’d kill both of them in a heartbeat.”

Bree didn’t know exactly where Juarez was, but if she distracted Elaine, maybe he could get into position. “Where’s Claudia?”

“Don’t you wish you knew,” Elaine said in a mocking voice. “I’m not going to make it easy for you.”

“Drop the shotgun!” Juarez aimed his AR-15 at Elaine from behind a stack of hay bales.

Elaine laughed. “I guess you got me.” Her tone didn’t sound scared or even angry as she tipped the gun barrel toward the ground with a my bad vibe.

Bree’s instincts went on alert. Elaine was too calm.

Did she have another booby trap set up? Bree scanned the space, looking for potential risks.

Zucco stepped forward and disarmed Elaine.

Bree walked toward the spot where she’d last seen her gun and Zucco’s.

Crouching, she looked under the pallet, but the weapons had slid out of reach.

She looked around for a stick to retrieve them and spotted a broken broomstick. She grabbed it.

A gunshot went off.

A bullet struck a hay bale next to Juarez. He dived behind it. Bree dropped to the ground and crawled behind the highboy. Zucco scrambled behind the hay bales.

Who was shooting at them? Harrison? His sports car was parked outside. He’d grown up on a farm. He could probably handle a weapon.

Elaine darted between the armoire and bookcase, disappearing the way she’d come.

Damn it.

Bree picked up the broomstick, put her hat on it, and stuck it out from behind the highboy. Another shot sounded, and a bullet slammed into the furniture, sending chunks of wood flying. Zucco returned fire with Elaine’s shotgun, blowing a hole in the wall.

Footsteps retreated. Bree thought it sounded like more than one person running.

A door opened and slammed shut. Shots rang in the night outside.

Bree waved her hat on the stick again. Nothing.

She peered around the furniture but didn’t see a shooter.

Her heart skipped as she crept out from behind the furniture.

No one shot at her. Bree swept the broomstick under the hay and pulled out her gun and Zucco’s.

Collins’s voice sounded in her ear. “Two people just exited the garage. They shot at me and missed. I returned fire, but they ran across the field.”

“We’re on the way out. Wait for us to pursue.” Bree, Juarez, and Zucco raced out the door.

Collins was struggling to hold on to Greta, who strained at the end of her leash. Collins pointed out over the meadow behind the barn. “They went that way.”

Bree checked the map app on her phone. Then she called dispatch to notify the backup officers en route of which way the suspects were headed.

Maybe they could cut them off by vehicle.

Then she assigned three deputies to secure the house for the arrival of EMS. They thought Elaine and her accomplice had run out into the meadow, but they didn’t know if one or both of them had circled back to the house. There could be additional shooters.

“Let’s go.” She started forward with Zucco and Juarez at her side.

Collins gave the dog her command.

Greta didn’t need her nose to the ground. She had the suspects’ scents in her nose, and the trail was fresh. Bree heard sirens approaching.

She used her radio to contact dispatch. EMS could not enter the house until law enforcement deemed the premises safe.

She could not risk EMTs being injured. As much as she hated to do so, she told them the house wasn’t secured, and that they’d encountered booby traps all over the property.

Two suspects had fled into the woods, but they didn’t know if there could be more.

A responding state trooper responded that they’d assist with clearing the house for EMS.

EMS will get in. Todd will be Ok .

He has to be.