“Ten-thirty-three.” My voice is little more than a whisper.
T.J.’s voice crackles, but I don’t reply. Unconsciousness beckons, a big dark hole tugging me down.
I hit the speed dial for Tomasetti. I hear his voice, but I’m not sure if it’s in my head or if he’s really there. “I got him.” The weakness of my own voice surprises me. “I got the motherfucker.”
“Kate, where are you?”
“Zook . . . farm.”
“How bad are you hurt?”
“I’m not sure.” My voice cracks. “Hurry. I need you . . .”
Her words rang inside his head like the echo of a lover’s scream. Tomasetti could tell by the sound of her voice she was injured. That she didn’t know the extent of her injuries told him it was bad. The thought sent a bare- fisted punch of terror right through the center of him.
His hands shook so violently, he nearly dropped his cell as he dialed the Painters Mill PD. The night-shift operator picked up on the first ring. He quickly identified himself. “I need an ambulance out at the Zook farm. We’ve got an officer down out there.”
Keys clicked. “En route.” The line hissed for a second. “T.J. called a moment ago. He can’t get Skid or Kate on their radios.”
“Goddamnit.” Tomasetti cranked the speedometer up to sixty as he sped through town. He blew the stoplight at Main and headed toward the Zook farm. “Get the sheriff’s office out there, too.”
“Roger that.”
Snapping his phone closed, Tomasetti floored the accelerator, burying the speedometer along a straight stretch of highway, then dropped it down at the turn that would take him to Hogpath Road. The Tahoe skidded on the wet pavement as he hauled the wheel right. His headlights flashed over yellow corn to the left and the tall trees of a greenbelt beyond. Somehow he maintained control, pointed the Tahoe north, pushed the accelerator to the floor.
He tried to quiet the little voice inside his head. He remembered all too well that awful night in Cleveland. He’d arrived to find his house engulfed in flames, found his wife and little girls dead inside. It wasn’t until after the autopsy days later that he’d learned they’d been tortured and burned alive.
“Shut up,” he muttered. “Shut the fuck up!”
A person could bleed to death in a matter of minutes. The thought shook him so completely, he nearly ran off the road. He could feel the fear climbing over him, an ugly lumbering beast that tore him up from the inside out.
The Tahoe fishtailed on the wet asphalt as he turned into the gravel lane of the Zook farm. The SUV kicked up stones and bounced over ruts. The farmhouse loomed into view. The place was pitch black. No vehicles. No lights on inside.
Where the hell was her backup?
Tomasetti drove over a sapling tree and through the grass, over the sidewalk. Ten feet from the back door, he hit the brakes hard, and the Tahoe’s tires dug ruts into the soft ground, skidded to a halt.
Throwing open the door, he pulled his weapon and hit the ground running. He knew better than to enter the place alone. He knew he could be walking into a trap. He kicked in the door without knocking. “Police!” he shouted. “Police! Put your fucking hands up now!”
In the dim light slanting through the window, he saw three bodies. A lake-size puddle of blood. The black silhouette of a gun. His heart slammed hard against his ribs when a flicker of lightning revealed Kate. She was lying on her back, stone still. Her eyes were open and for a horrifying moment, he thought she was dead.
The little voice taunted him. He stumbled toward her. Choking sobs squeezed from his throat. A scream of denial rang in his head.
“Kate!” He dropped to his knees beside her.
Her eyes shifted to his. “Jesus Christ, Tomasetti, it took you long enough. A girl could bleed to death.”
The relief came with such force that for a moment, he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t stop looking at her. Couldn’t stop touching her. He could hear his breaths rushing in and out. His heart hammering in his ears. Too many emotions knocking at his door. All he could think was that she was alive. He hadn’t been too late.
“I ought to wring your neck,” he growled after a moment.
“Now would be a prime opportunity,” she whispered. “I’m in no condition to stop you.”
“Ambulance is on the way.” There was too much blood. Too much pain in her face. It worried him that she wasn’t moving. “You shot?”
“Twice. Vest protected me, but he got me in the arm.” Wincing, she tried to sit up. “I think they shot Skid. He was in the barn.”
Tomasetti eased her back down. She felt weak. Cool to the touch. Where the hell was the ambulance? “We’ll take care of him. Just be still for now, will you?”
She closed her eyes, and he felt her body relax. “Are they dead?”
He glanced at the other two bodies. The staring eyes and lack of color told him they were DOA. “Nice job, Chief.”
“I’m going to ask for a raise,” she whispered. “Hazard pay.”
“Kate, you’re bleeding. You need to stop talking. Okay?”
“You’re a moody bastard, you know that?”
“That’s what everyone says.” But he smiled.
She smiled back. “Thanks for coming.”
Fighting emotions he didn’t want to feel, John Tomasetti bowed his head and thanked the God he had forsaken for the last two and a half years.
CHAPTER 29
The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or so I tell myself, anyway. I’m in the Explorer, idling down Main Street the way I have a thousand times before. Light rain patters the windshield, keeping time with a moody Everlast song about saving grace on the radio. To my right, two women in suits and heels stand outside the City Building, huddled against the rain, smoking cigarettes and making small talk. The aromas of warm yeast and cinnamon from the Butterhorn Bakery waft through my open window. I slow down as I pass the Carriage Stop Country Store on the traffic circle. In the display window, a dozen or more colorful Amish quilts hang, and for the hundredth time I find myself thinking of the Plank family.
Four days have passed since the night I shot Scott Barbereaux and Jack Warner at the Zook farmhouse. I want to think a sort of final justice was served that night. I want to believe I gave the sons of bitches what they had coming. But as is usually the case, things aren’t always that cut and dried.
Because both perpetrators were killed at the scene, questions about what happened to the Planks will never be fully answered. What linked Scott Barbereaux, Jack Warner and Todd Long? The only connection I could find was that they went to high school together. I can tie Barbereaux and Warner to the Carriage Stop Country Store. But I’m left wondering: Is that where they met Mary? Did her natural beauty and innocence bring out some dark and primal hunger in them? Did they think her naivete would make her an easy target? Did her being Amish make her easy to exploit? I’ll probably never have definitive answers, but we did uncover evidence that helped fill in some of the blanks.
Several law enforcement agencies, including the Painters Mill PD, the sheriff’s office, and BCI, conducted a search that produced dozens of disks, drives, computers, a laptop and hundreds of photographs. I’ve seen a lot in the nine years I’ve been a cop, but the outrages inflicted upon Mary Plank top all of it.
