Page 26

TWENTY-SIX

GABE

Friday

Gabe didn’t like what was happening with Gordon, not one iota. Not one tiny weeny bit.

Something was off, but he couldn’t put his finger on exactly what. He was good at reading body language, taught by a master— at least, at reading everyone but Ranger Man. Lundin remained an illegible tome. Gabe found solace in the idea that Heidi probably wouldn’t have been able to figure him out, either.

Ranger Man aside, Deputy Nolan was giving off seriously conflicting vibes. While he was acting confident, Gabe got the impression that the man was uneasy. Jittery. In a hurry. Small town or not, there needed to be sign-offs and paperwork, and more paperwork, before releasing Gordon Mac Donald from the hospital.

Gabe started walking faster, not wanting Gordon out of his sight. He moved past Elton and stepped around Lundin.

“Hey! ”

“If there was ever a time to hurry the fuck up, it is right now,” Gabe said, not slowing down.

Gabe caught up to the deputy and Gordon just outside the hospital’s urgent care entrance. Elton and Lundin arrived seconds behind him. He noted that a patrol car was parked in the nearby loading zone, and Nolan was guiding Gordon quickly across the wide sidewalk. When he reached the cruiser, Nolan pushed Gordon’s head down onto the trunk.

Gabriel heard Nolan say, “Don’t even think about moving.”

When Gordon nodded that he understood, the deputy moved to open the back door.

“Why is he alone?” Gabe asked Lundin. “I mean, yeah, Gordon’s no threat, but it seems to me there’s usually two cops for this sort of thing. I gotta say, I really don’t want Gordon getting in the back of that car. Something feels wrong.”

“I agree,” Lundin said. “But I don’t know what we can do.”

“We stick as close to Gordon as we are allowed to,” muttered Elton. “We witness.”

Nolan’s car radio crackled, but he didn’t move to answer it. Instead, now that the back door was open, he grabbed Gordon by the scruff of his neck and started to pull him toward the back seat. Gordon cried out as, presumably, Nolan jostled his injured arm.

“Hey! Gordon just got his arm stitched up,” Elton yelled, stepping toward the deputy and his prisoner as if he was going to try and get in between Gordon and the door.

Gabe understood the sentiment.

“We’ll follow them to the station. It’s the only thing we can do at this point,” Lundin said out the side of his mouth.

“But why does this have to happen so quickly?” Gabe wanted to know. “Why is this Nolan asshole the only deputy here? The sheriff can’t be that shorthan—ah.”

A second TCSO cruiser raced into the lot and screeched to a halt next to where Nolan and Gordon stood. As that car’s door opened, Nolan jerked Gordon by the arm again and Gordon cried out. To Gabe, it seemed like Nolan intended to place Gordon in front of him. Why?

Gabe hadn’t seen or met Sheriff Rizzi in the few days he’d been on Heartstone, but he instantly knew this was who emerged from the new vehicle. It wasn’t so much the shiny star pinned to his uniform as the air of extreme confidence that bordered on arrogance. And the man hadn’t even opened his mouth yet.

Who was he fooling, the man was as arrogant as Larry Colavito.

Nolan’s Adam’s apple moved up and down, and from where Gabe stood, he could tell the man’s eyes were darting around. Gabe knew that look. Trapped.

He shoved Gordon away from him, causing the injured man to stumble and fall to the asphalt. In slow motion, Nolan reached for his sidearm. If Gabe hadn’t been watching the sheriff out of the corner of his eye, he would have missed Rizzi whipping out and discharging his own weapon. Unlike Nolan’s shot, Rizzi’s did not miss its target. The sound was deafening.

Nolan crumpled to the ground. Gabe would remember the event in slow motion, but the truth was the amount of time that passed between the sheriff exiting his vehicle and Nolan collapsing was less than twenty seconds. Maybe ten.

Once Rizzi pulled the trigger, what followed was an elongated second of absolute silence. A soundless vacuum of uneasy quiet that promised chaos when the world restarted. They were all frozen in place, staring at the fallen deputy.

Sound rushed back.

Gabe glanced over and met the sheriff’s deadly stare. Some strong emotion flickered at the back of his icy gray eyes, but he tamped it down too quickly for Gabe to interpret it. It hadn’t been fear. Then, together, they crossed to where Nolan lay on the cold, wet ground.

“What the fuck?” Gabe whispered, at least the fifth time in the past hour. “Why did he go for his weapon?”

Rizzi didn’t have an answer for Gabe. Or not one he wanted to share with a stranger. Instead, he knelt on the pavement next to where his deputy lay and pressed his fingers against Nolan’s neck. “He’s got a pulse.”

“For now, anyway.” The way blood was exiting his body, Gabe doubted Nolan would have a pulse for long.

The sheriff rose to his feet again and activated his chest radio. “10-53, Medical Center parking lot.” Someone, presumably dispatch, answered, and Rizzi turned his back on the dying deputy to respond.

Ignoring Rizzi, Gabe kneeled down on the wet pavement and asked the dying deputy, “Why did you go for your weapon?” There were so many questions, but that seemed like the most important for some reason.

Nolan’s head moved back and forth. A bit of blood leaked out the side of his mouth when his lips parted and dribbled down the side of his face and neck to the blacktop, where it mingled with the rest of the fluid leaving his body. Cold fingers fumbled at Gabe’s ankle. Gabe frowned but didn’t look away from Nolan. The pleading expression in the dying man’s eyes had him leaning closer.

“Not me.” His voice was weak and faint, “I?—”

Even before he had finished, the light extinguished from Deputy Nolan’s eyes. Then Gabe was being pushed to the side by the medical staff who would try and save him. But in his heart, Gabe knew it was too late for the deputy.

“Why did he draw on you?” Gabe asked Rizzi, who’d moved to stand next to him.

They watched the responders do their work. A separate group of staff were checking on Gordon MacDonald, and Elton and Casey were hovering off to one side.

“Can we get a wheelchair over here?” one of them called out.

“Nolan was a bad apple,” Rizzi said, frowning. “We’ve had other reasons to investigate him recently and dammit, it led us to finding out he was the one who’d killed Dwayne Perkins. MacDonald possibly witnessed the killing—or Nolan thought he did. The station was notified that MacDonald was being treated for a GSW here at the medical center. I figured we’d question MacDonald tomorrow, but Nolan found out and decided to take things into his own hands.”

“Huh.” Gabe thought it sounded all very pat and didn’t explain much.

Maybe he was suspicious because Lundin and Elton didn’t like the man.

Or maybe you’re suspicious because something smells rotten, Chance.

Because now there was no one to tell Deter Nolan’s side of the story.

Even though the day was drawing to a close, they all had to give statements about what they’d seen and heard in the hospital room and then in the parking lot. The Chief Deputy, Emmett Spurring, questioned each of them personally. Presumably, Sheriff Rizzi had excused himself from the investigation into his officer’s shooting and death, especially since his had been the bullet that hadn’t missed. Nolan hadn’t fired his weapon as far as Gabe knew.

“Thanks for coming to the station,” Spurring said, standing up from the table and holding his hand out.

Gabe hesitated and then shook the man’s hand. “Sure, of course. ”

“We’ll reach out if we have any more questions, but frankly, it’s pretty clear what happened.”

As mud, maybe.

Nolan may have been a bad apple, but it was Gabe’s life experience that when there was one bad apple in the barrel, there were a whole lot more yet to be found.

“Sure, Elton will know where to find me.”

It was after midnight by the time Lundin dropped Elton and Gabe off at Elton’s place.

Gordon MacDonald was back in the hospital for twenty-four hours, with the expectation of release the next evening. His gunshot wound had needed to be restitched, but, as Gordon had said, “At least I’m not dead.” Clearly, the pain meds had kicked in again by that point.

The big question Gabe continued to grapple with was why Nolan had gone for his gun so quickly. The decision had been made before Rizzi exited his vehicle. And why had Rizzi seem prepared for his reaction? There’d been no hesitation from Nolan once he’d pushed Gordon to the ground. And no attempt to calm the situation on Rizzi’s part. Admittedly Gabe got most of his information from TV shows but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a hint of truth to the plots.

During the car ride from the hospital to the station to give their statements, the three of them had talked it over. They agreed they’d all seen the same thing and all of them had similar questions They’d also all decided not to share their thoughts about illegal mushroom harvesting and possibly sketchy investment groups. Or ask why Rizzi had been so prepared to take the life of his deputy.

“The important thing tonight is that Gordon is safe and will recover,” said Elton. “But this isn’t over, I don’t think. Not by a long shot.”