Callie came around the corner at a full sprint on a straight line to the truck. She was closer. Derek reached the pickup first. He tore the door open and threw himself inside. The engine turned over on the first try. Callie reached the driver's side just as Hollis dropped it into reverse. She grabbed the door handle. Locked. She smashed the window with the butt of her weapon, glass spraying across the cab, and reached in.
"Shut it off, Derek!"
He didn't. The pickup lurched backward, tires spinning in the dirt, throwing gravel and mud. Callie held on, her boots dragging, her arm through the broken window, fighting for the steering wheel or the keys or anything she could reach.
Noah jumped onto the hood, both hands flat on the metal, his weapon in his right fist. He slammed the butt of it against the windshield.
"Stop the vehicle! Now!"
Hollis kept going. The pickup swung in a wide arc, the rear end fishtailing through the clearing. Callie lost her grip and fell, hitting the ground hard and rolling. Noah slid across the hood as the vehicle swerved, his fingers clawing at the base of the windshield. Hollis was still accelerating backward, wild-eyed through the glass, one hand on the wheel, the other swatting at the broken window where Callie had been.
Callie was on her feet. Blood on her forearms where the glass had caught her. A cut across her cheekbone.
Noah peeled off the hood as the pickup changed direction. Hollis jammed it into drive and the vehicle lurched forward.Noah rolled clear, came up on one knee, and raised his weapon. "Stop!"
The pickup accelerated toward the dirt road. Noah fired. The first round punched through the tailgate. The second hit metal somewhere under the bed. The third caught the rear left tire. The rubber blew and the pickup yawed sideways, the rim biting into the dirt, and Hollis fought the wheel but the physics were already decided. The truck slid broadside into a pine at the edge of the clearing with a sound that was part crunch and part snap, the tree shuddering from root to crown.
Hollis tumbled out of the driver's side door, staggering, and tried to run. Callie hit him from behind at full speed. They went down together in the dirt and pine needles, Callie on top, her knee in his back, her hands on his wrists.
"Stop resisting!"
He bucked once. She drove her knee harder. Noah reached them and dropped beside her, pressing Hollis's face into the ground while Callie cuffed him. Both of them were breathing hard. Callie's arms were slicked with blood from the glass cuts. Noah had gravel embedded in his palms and a bruise forming across his ribs where the hood had caught him.
Hollis lay in the dirt with his cheek pressed against the pine needles and said nothing. His eyes were open and they were looking at the trees with a flat stare.
30
The clearing filled with vehicles within the hour. Three cruisers. An EMT van. A forensics unit. Officers strung yellow tape between the trees and began working the cabin and the surrounding property in a grid pattern.
They were checking for a second dump site.
Noah sat on the rear bumper of the EMT van while a paramedic cleaned the cuts on his hands and wrapped his left palm. The bruise on his ribs ached when he breathed but he'd had worse. Across the clearing, Callie was getting her arms treated, the glass cuts shallow but numerous, a butterfly bandage across the cut on her cheekbone.
Ray arrived in his SUV, climbed out, and made his way over. He looked at Noah, then at the wrapped hands, then at the scene.
"I told you he would eventually screw up. You okay?"
"I'll live," Noah said.
"What charges have you laid?"
"Beyond what he just did?" Noah asked.
Ray groaned. "We are..."
"Sergeant!" An officer called from the cabin. Ray looked over and crossed the clearing. The officer met him halfway and handed over a clear evidence bag. Ray looked inside.
"Found it in the house," the officer said.
"What is it?" Noah asked, standing.
Ray brought it over and held it up. Inside the bag was a bundle of plastic cards. College IDs. Ray counted seven. The names on the faces matched the names on the board back at the station. The six girls from the bog. And Brooke Danvers.
"That's not all," the officer said. "We found rags. A bag of them in the closet. Same material as those placed in the exhaust pipes of the vehicles."
The radio on Noah's belt crackled. Callie's voice came through, tight and focused. She was inside the cabin with the search team.
"Sutherland. You get those IDs?"
