Page 39 of Final Approach (Lake City Heroes #4)

“To know you’d come running if they were in trouble.”

“You broke into their store?”

“I did. And like I figured, you came running.”

Which enabled him to follow Andrew to Corey’s place. He’d fallen right into a trap he’d never seen coming. “What’s your name?”

The man rose. The gun never wavered. “You can call me Ty.”

Ty. Ty. Ty...?

Nothing in Andrew’s memory database pinged recognition. “Ty what?”

“Like I said, you’ll figure it out. Go out the front door and walk up the hill. There’s a path, you can’t miss it. Don’t try any funny business. Hands tied up or not, I don’t trust you.”

Andrew held his hands up like any good captive. “I need a coat.”

“It’s not going to matter in the end. Go.”

So he planned to kill him. Shocking. He walked toward the door. As soon as Andrew stepped outside, he was hit by the isolation—and the biting cold. Snow drifted down from the gray sky and had been for a while, according to the white ground.

Did his captor plan to put a bullet in him or leave him out in the cold to freeze to death?

Neither option was particularly appealing, but for the moment, Andrew did as the man said.

The temps here were fifteen to twenty degrees cooler than where he’d started his day yesterday, which meant they were far up in the mountains.

He just wasn’t quite sure where, but he had a feeling even if he had his phone on him, he wouldn’t have a signal.

Thankful for the heavy sweatshirt layered over a long-sleeved shirt, his jeans, and Bureau-issued boots, he might have a chance if he wound up stuck in the elements. Assuming he could get his hands free. Because he sure didn’t plan on sticking around to let this guy kill him.

For now, he walked up the hill with self-defense moves rolling through his mind. He could turn and kick the gun away and take the guy down, but at the moment, he wanted answers. And the only way to get those was to let this scene play out.

“First grave on the right,” Ty said from behind him.

Grave?

Andrew walked up to it, his boots crunching snow and the gravel beneath it, and read the name on the upright headstone. Isaac Mason. Beloved brother and best friend. Taken too soon. Rest easy and know that you will be avenged.

Isaac Mason. The Realtor who’d died in the cell on Andrew’s watch.

“You’ve been after me?”

“Yep. Shot at you, chased you through the pouring rain and forced you off the road—along with that dude who was in the way—blew up your house, and so on.”

“That was you. After me.” He had to repeat it just to make sure.

“You deaf? I said yes.”

A pause as he fought to keep his balance on the uneven ground. “So, all this time, you weren’t after Hank?”

“Who’s Hank?”

The air left Andrew’s lungs as the light bulb turned on and everything became clear. They’d never considered Andrew was the actual target. “Why’d you shoot up Marcus Brown’s house? What’s your relationship to him?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ty aimed the weapon at Andrew. “Get the rope.”

Andrew didn’t have time to ponder the denial of shooting up the Brown home. “What?”

“In front of the headstone. Brush the snow off and get the rope.”

So that’s why his hands were tied in front of him and not behind his back. Ty wanted him to hold the weapon that was supposed to kill him.

Without taking his eyes from Ty, he had to use both hands to swipe. He refused to flinch at the icy chill that came with putting his bare hands in the snow, but when his fingers came into contact with a frozen coil of rope, the ice spread to his blood.

He pulled it up from its snowy grave. A noose. “What am I supposed to do with this?” He was determined to keep the man talking while he figured a way out. His hands were blocks of ice at that point and shivers had set in.

Ty smiled. A smile as cold as the snow. “My brother had his neck snapped like a twig. You’re going to experience the same thing. That tree right there is going to be your final resting place.”

Andrew didn’t bother to look. “You could have killed me when you had me unconscious and unable to fight back. Why not just string me up then?”

The man snorted. “Where’s the enjoyment in that?

” His eyes narrowed. “I want you to know what’s coming.

The feel of the noose in your hands, the walk to the tree, watching me as I kick the ladder out from under you.

Feel the terror that my poor brother felt that day.

In the end, you’ll die the same way he did. ”

Andrew’s stomach twisted. Did he really think Andrew would make it that easy for him? “Ty, I had no way to know Isaac wasn’t part of that gang. He had on a jacket that was almost an exact match.”

“Did he tell you he wasn’t involved?”

“Of course he did. So did half the people we arrested that night.”

“I watched the footage of what happened to him,” Ty said. “I saw him begging for help, for someone to get him out of there. And everyone just ignored him.”

He wasn’t completely wrong. Andrew had ignored him and all the others shouting for release.

But something in the man’s voice had finally registered.

A tone. The terror. Something. And he’d started to go to him when the other gang member had grabbed him.

“I tried to get to him. I didn’t have a key. I couldn’t get in.”

“You were there. Standing at the door. Just watching.”

“I was yelling at the guy to let your brother go.”

“Liar. You were egging him on.”

“No, I wasn’t. I tried to save him.”

“All your protests amount for nothing. You testified to the same thing. And while no one else could see your lies, I can.”

“So that’s why you singled me out? Picked me out of all the agents involved in that sting that day?”

“You were the one who put him in that cell. I saw that footage too. When you put someone in a cell where they can’t protect themselves, it’s your job to do so.”

Again, he wasn’t wrong.

And Andrew needed to figure out a way to escape. Fast. “How do you plan to get that noose around my neck? Or me up swinging from the tree?” A glimmer of an idea for escape was forming.

“Easy,” Ty said. “I shoot you somewhere that doesn’t kill you, then hang you.”

He lifted the weapon and Andrew dove. The bullet whistled past his ear and Ty yelled when he realized he’d missed.

Using both hands, Andrew picked up a handful of gravel and whipped it toward Ty.

The man screamed again when the little missiles pelted his face.

Using his hands as one unit, Andrew slammed them against the man’s arm and the gun tumbled to the ground.

The injured Ty recovered faster than Andrew had calculated, and a hard fist slammed into Andrew’s gut, knocking the wind out of him.

He stumbled back, gasped for air, and dodged Ty’s attempt to grab him.

“You’re not getting out of this alive,” the man said.

“We’ll see about that,” Andrew finally managed to croak out and swung his leg in a roundhouse kick that caught Ty in the knee. He howled and went down.

Andrew scanned the ground for the gun but couldn’t spot it. Ty pulled a knife and Andrew decided it was time to run.