Chapter 26

Twenty-Six

W alter

From my vantage point, I couldn't see a damn thing. I stood crouched behind the rear driver's-side quarter panel of my truck in the fading light, and I couldn't see or hear Denny. I knew I'd hit at least one of the gunmen, but who the hell knew how many more guys were out here? There were at least two drivers, as one had caused the accident and the other had driven us off the road.

I heard the unmistakable sound of a magazine ejecting and a slide pulling back.

"Den," I whispered—and a bullet went whizzing by my cheek, so close I felt a sting. We were sitting ducks out here. I made for the front of the truck and peeked around the side to see Denny was reloading. I called out to him a little louder, and his head whipped around.

"I'll cover you. Get him out of here."

"To where? We're out in the open."

"Into the fucking field. Move!"

Denny stood up and used the hood of the truck as cover and he laid down a few shots as I ran back around to grab Dane from the truck. I opened the back door?—

No.

"Move it, Muse!"

"He's gone!"

I pulled the blanket off the floor, and no, he was gone. So was the board. He couldn't have opened the other back door without Denny knowing. No one could have snuck up in front of him and taken Dane.

Holy shit. Had Dane been… transported with the board? Was it possible?

Another bullet pinged off the top of the truck door, narrowly missing my head.

Think . What had I seen in the vision? I'd known we needed to go to the northbound rest area and not the southbound one, where all of the previous activity had taken place. I'd seen the buildings of the old rest area. It hadn't had a makeover in a long time, unlike some of the others. The trees, the cornfield.

Two squad cars pulled in and pinned down the shooters, giving Denny a window to move. He would be in the clear.

"Den, I'm going after him." I spotted an opening in the chain-link fence separating the rest area property from the next-door farm. The dense corn would be tough to navigate, but Holland couldn't be too far.

"Shit, you're bleeding," Denny said, reaching for my cheek. "You got grazed."

"I'm fine. I'm going?—"

"Hang on. I've got no way to communicate with these patrolmen. I'm coming with you." He pulled out his phone and hit the voice-text button. "Detectives Muse and Hamilton are headed into the corn-field after the suspect." He gave our descriptions as we crawled through the hole in the fence and then proceeded to get beat to shit by cornstalks.

"How the fuck did he get out of the truck?" Denny groused, and then cussed as a cornstalk hit him in the forehead.

"I don't know, but you would have seen if someone grabbed him, right?"

"Yeah," Denny said, shaking his head. He grabbed my arm and pulled me down, holding a finger to his lips.

At first, all I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears… but then I heard it.

Laughter.

It made my hair stand on end. Denny's eyes were wide as he slowly cast his gaze toward the north end of the property.

"The trees," I said, seeing the tops of the eucalyptus in the distance. We took off at as much of a run as we could, between the fence and the stalks. I saw the blue and red lights of the patrol cars that were blocking the exit reflecting off of the buildings. We were going in the right direction.

"Stop!"

That was Dane.

More laughter.

We stopped at the sound and began to creep forward, hoping to make less of a disturbance in the stalks.

"You came. I hoped we'd have this time together. He wanted me to bring you to him, to take your life in front of him, but I want you for myself. This is my triumph, not his, and I won't have him in my head trying to control me anymore. I wanted to make you bleed, but he wasn't going to let me have you, so now I ain't gonna do his dirty work no more. I found you, that's what he wanted. I had my taste of blood. I won— do you hear me, old man ?"

We broke through the stalks to find Dane standing before Hunter Holland, pleading with him to stop as the madman screamed at the sky. Holland held a bloodied victim by the scruff of his collar, and in the other hand was a huge cleaver pressed against the victim's throat. Hunter caught sight of us, and his smile widened impossibly.

"Drop your weapon." Denny's commanding voice boomed out, and the two of us moved forward with our weapons to flank him.

"Oh, man. We're out of time, Mr. Troubadour. I hoped to take my time with you."

He looked down at the bloody man at his feet. Then he looked up at Denny. "The pretty man was a nice surprise. He got here a while ago, was taking pictures of the place when I moseyed on up and introduced him to my knives. We had some fun. I'm sorry I wasn't able to watch your pain as I spilled this one's blood, Detective." He jerked the collar of the man he'd wounded, and the man moaned. "This'll have to be enough. Sorry we didn't get to share more time, Dee Dee. I'll see you again. Next time around." He laughed, those teeth barely fitting in his mouth.

"Drop it!"

Holland raised the cleaver, and even as Denny and I both opened fire, he slid the sharp blade across his own throat, opening a bloody maw in the same shape as his gruesome mouth above.

He dropped the wounded man, who let out a grunt, and then he fell to his knees. Blood gushed from his throat, and he continued to smile in Dane's direction as the life bled out of his eyes.

"I'm… free," he spoke in a garbled whisper.

He fell face down and blood continued to pool around him.

Denny moved forward and kicked the cleaver away as I darted to Dane's side.

"How… are you hurt?"

Dane turned on me, and his face was ghost white. "I wanted it to stop."

I pulled him into my arms, but he didn't grab me back. He held the board in one hand and the planchette in the other and his frame remained stiff, trembling.

I cupped his jaw with my hands. "Honey, talk to me. Are you hurt?"

He shook his head. "I came here… it brought me here."

"Walter! Get an ambulance! Oh God!"

Denny's voice was just short of hysterical. I turned to find him cradling the wounded man in his grip.

And then I noticed the shoes. The Italian loafers were scuffed and marred with dark stains. The clothes were cut to pieces and covered in crimson splashes. His hair, which had been perfectly coiffed this afternoon, was matted with blood.

I used my phone to call it in as I pulled Dane in close, hiding his view of the carnage before us.

"It's that reporter, isn't it? I was too late, Walter. I didn't stop him in time, and he hurt that nice man."

Dane buried his face in my shirt, and all I could do was hold him as I identified myself, gave our coordinates, and agreed to stay on the phone until an ambulance could make its way through the blockage on the highway.

"He doesn't have time. He needs Life Flight. I don't care what you have to do, the victim is losing blood rapidly, he's been—Thank you."

Denny was speaking to Cooper and holding him to his chest. Tears ran down his face. "Walter, I need help," he called to me softly.

"Dane, honey, please. Turn away. Don't look at him, okay?"

"I'm okay," he whispered. "Let me help."

The fiercely calm expression on his face startled me, but I didn't have time to worry about his change of demeanor. I led him over to Denny and ripped off my sweater and then my t-shirt, tearing it into bandages so we could try to stop the bleeding. Dane took direction and we ripped at Cooper's pants to find the cuts. Dane took off his sweatshirt and used it to press against a deep cut on Cooper's inner thigh.

"Denny," Cooper moaned, and then his body went limp.

"Where's that fucking helicopter!"

Within moments, light appeared in the sky before the sound hit us, and soon it was landing in the parking lot of the rest area.

"Stay here," I said to Dane. "I'll direct them over here."

He nodded, and I ran toward the lot, my brain filled with questions. What was Cooper doing here? And why was Denny fawning over him like a lover? My best friend was crying over a man I had no idea he even knew.

I waved my arms, shivering now that the adrenaline was wearing off. It was nighttime, December, and damned cold. I had a split second to worry about Dane before two paramedics with a stretcher and kits came jogging my way.

"Victim is male, mid-thirties, multiple lacerations, significant blood loss."

"Got it, boss," the EMT said. They set their items down when we reached Cooper and Dane moved out of the way.

Denny wouldn't let go.

"Sir, we've got this," the lead EMT said.

Denny kept rocking Cooper.

"Hey," I said, kneeling next to him. "You gotta let them take over, Den. Come on."

Denny turned his head slowly, and the haunted expression on his face took my breath away.

"I can't leave him like this." His broken, cracked voice was the worst thing I'd ever heard from my best friend.

"Den, come on. We can meet them at the hospital."

Den's wide eyes were desperate, but he loosened his grip. He eased Cooper's limp body into the hands of the EMTs and he knelt behind them, watching their every move.

"His blood type is A negative. It's rare. Call ahead to make sure they have enough."

How the fuck did Denny know Cooper's blood type?

"Thank you," he said to them. He took my extended hand and let me pull him up.

"Den, man," I said, placing my hands on his shoulders. "You okay?"

He planted his hands on his hips, blew out a long breath, and nodded. "I'll tell you. But not now."

"Whatever you need, man. I'm here."

Denny nodded, but he wouldn't make eye contact.

"Walter."

I turned to Dane.

His face was afire with the setting sun. The breeze blew his hair back off his shoulders. The fear was gone, and in its place that dogged determination to do what he'd set out to do.

"We can get to Virgil. We can find him."

Denny and I exchanged looks.

"Dane, the others went after him. They'll catch him."

Denny pulled out his phone and started scrolling through the group text. "No word."

"How did you get out of the truck?" I asked him, afraid to hear the truth.

"It's like she said. I'm only limited by my limitations. The ones in my head."

"What happened, Dane?"

I was beyond the mental capacity to figure out riddles and bone-deep exhausted. I didn't want to lose patience with him, despite the fact that he was acting bizarre, but this had to stop.

"I told the board to take me to him." He gazed at me with those green eyes and instead of fear and wariness, like I'd been seeing ever since I'd met him, he seemed… supernaturally charged. Shadows fell on his face, giving him an otherworldly appearance, and his eyes nearly glowed. There was no tremble in his hands. No quiver to his chin.

"Dane," I pleaded. "We picked our spot. We stopped him—well, he stopped himself. Dax and Gene will get Evans if he's there. If not, at least the immediate threat has passed. You did what you set out to do." I wanted him to let it go now, let the police handle Virgil, but I could tell from the set of his jaw that he'd made up his mind.

"We just saw how much power he has. If he's psychically linked to Hunter, and all the others who helped him, he'll send someone else after me."

"How far are you going to take this?" I was ready to beg. "If you go to him, he wins. You don't know what you're walking into."

He smiled, but it was with sadness, not joy. Not the loving way he'd looked at me earlier when we'd talked about where we hoped we would go together when this was all over. He was about to slip from my grasp—and I had no way to convince him not to let go.

Kal's words echoed in my head . Don't stand in his way of trying to make things right.

But how was I supposed to let him go into danger?

"I'm sorry, Walter. I have to." He held the board in front of him with one hand, placed the planchette on top, closed his eyes…

And he was gone.

"Dane!" It felt as though a cold hand had reached into my chest and ripped my heart out the moment he disappeared. I'd promised him I wouldn't let go, but he hadn't given me a choice, not even a split second to react.

"What the fuck ? Walter, what just happened?"

"It's the board. He went after Evans."

I stared at the empty spot where he'd stood seconds before.

Denny shoved me.

"Then fucking go after him! I got this. I'm going to get one of the patrol officers to take me to the hospital. You go after him, and dammit, don't lose him."

"Denny—"

He tossed me the keys. "Go! He thinks he's got this, but he needs you."

"You sure you're?—"

"Fucking. Go!"

He took off at sprint toward the parking lot, and I did the same toward my truck, my chest tight the whole time.

My hesitation may have cost me the most important person in my life, and I didn't think I would recover if I lost him.

Then there would be two Muse men destroyed by Dane Donovan.