This Uber Has Sirens

The hangar doors burst open.

Boots pounded across concrete. Flashlights cut through the lingering ash.

“Sheriff’s Department! Hands where we can see them!”

Deputies flooded the building with weapons raised.

Every one of them stopped.

The hangar looked as though a war had passed through it.

Broken tables.

Splintered crates.

Twisted metal.

Ash covering everything like gray snow.

Men lay scattered across the floor. Some groaned. Others crawled toward abandoned weapons until deputies forced them down.

At the center of it all sat Tomas.

Soot covered his face and clothes. Blood soaked the makeshift bandage around his shoulder. Kay held him upright while Courtney knelt beside them with Red.

Sheriff Rook entered last.

He didn’t run or shout. He walked into the ruined hangar as though he had expected to find exactly this.

His gaze traveled across the wreckage.

Kincaid lay near the military transport truck. His eyes remained open and unblinking. Soren Varga lay several yards away in the same condition.

Pale.

Motionless.

Empty.

Rook stopped.

He recognized both men immediately.

An EMT knelt beside Kincaid and pressed two fingers against his throat.

“Pulse,” he called. “Weak.”

Another medic examined Soren.

“Same here. Both breathing, but neither is responding.”

“Get them stabilized,” Rook ordered.

The EMT waved a penlight across Kincaid’s eyes.

No reaction.

“What happened to them?”

No one answered.

Rook looked around the hangar again.

Whatever had happened, two men he had spent years fearing were now incapable of standing.

That made tonight an opportunity.

“Sheriff,” a deputy called. “We’ve got multiple armed suspects.”

“Start sorting them.”

Deputies moved through the building, kicking weapons aside and fastening cuffs around wrists.

An EMT approached Tomas.

“Let me see that shoulder.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve been shot.”

“Grazed.”

“Shot sounds more impressive,” Bryce said.

The medic cut away the blood-soaked cloth. Tomas hissed as antiseptic struck the wound.

“Bullet passed through the outside of the shoulder,” the EMT said. “No bone. You’re lucky.”

“Been hearing that a lot.”

The medic wrapped the shoulder in a pressure bandage.

“You need stitches and X-rays.”

Kay’s expression hardened. “He’s going to a hospital.”

“He will,” the medic assured her. “As soon as we stabilize the critical patients.”

Rook’s attention moved to Kay.

Their eyes met.

Old history passed between them.

Arguments.

Threats.

Years spent pretending they didn’t know exactly what the other one was.

“Kay.”

“Sheriff.”

Rook nodded toward the far end of the hangar.

“Walk with me.”

Kay looked at Tomas.

“I’m okay,” he said.

She stood and followed Rook.

They stopped near the ruined office, far enough from the deputies that their voices wouldn’t carry.

Rook glanced at Kincaid and Soren.

“You want to tell me why two of the most wanted men on the East Coast are dying on my floor?”

“Lucky day for your career.”

“You planning to explain any of it?”

“I could.” Kay looked around the ruined hangar. “But you might like the story better if you take credit.”

Rook’s eyes narrowed.

“There’s another hangar across the runway,” she continued. “Weapons. Shipping records. Names. Routes. Enough evidence to connect Kincaid to operations across half the country.”

“You’re sure?”

“You can connect everything to Kincaid if you want.”

“What about the things that connect back to you?”

Kay shrugged. “Paper burns.”

Rook studied her.

“Funny thing about criminals,” he said. “They confess to all kinds of things after they’re caught.”

“And men in comas don’t contradict the official report.”

Rook glanced at Kincaid.

“No. They don’t.”

Kay understood the exchange.

Rook would become the sheriff who brought down Kincaid.

Kay’s operation would disappear beneath Kincaid’s crimes.

For the moment, they both benefited from the same lie.

“What else?” Rook asked.

Kay looked toward Courtney.

“The girls.”

Rook followed her gaze. “What girls?”

Courtney stepped closer.

“The twelve Kincaid was trafficking.”

Every trace of satisfaction left Rook’s face.

“Where are they?”

“Gone.”

His eyes sharpened. “Gone where?”

Kay looked at Courtney too.

Courtney wiped rainwater and mud from her face.

“There’s a drainage road behind the fuel sheds. Kay had emergency transportation waiting beyond it.”

Kay’s eyebrows lifted slightly.

Courtney continued.

“I took the girls through the woods. Two vans met us on the county road.”

“Who was driving?”

“People who don’t work for Kincaid.”

Rook looked at Kay.

She offered nothing.

“Where did they take them?”

“Safe houses,” Courtney said. “They’ll be given food, medical care, and a chance to contact their families without Kincaid’s people finding them first.”

“You removed twelve witnesses from my crime scene.”

“I removed twelve children from men who wanted to sell them.”

“They need to be interviewed.”

“When they’re safe.”

“I decide when that is.”

Courtney shook her head.

“No. You don’t.”

Rook stared at her.

Courtney didn’t look away.

Kay watched the exchange.

Perhaps she had judged Courtney too quickly.

Or perhaps she had recognized something dangerous without understanding that it was also good.

Rook rubbed one hand over his face.

“You people are going to make the paperwork impossible.”

Kay looked at the destruction around them.

“You’ll manage.”

Across the hangar, deputies lifted Soren onto a stretcher.

His skin had turned the color of old paper. His eyes remained open, but nothing inside them reacted as the paramedics secured him.

Kincaid followed.

Even motionless, his face seemed twisted with contempt.

A medic checked his pulse again.

“Still there.”

“Barely,” another answered.

They wheeled both men into the night.

Rook watched them go.

For the first time in years, Kincaid could no longer reach him.

That satisfaction showed only briefly.

Then something else caught his attention.

Bryce stood near the wall, trying to become invisible.

Rook pointed.

“Bryce Hale?”

Bryce froze.

Rook approached him.

“Son, what are you doing here?”

Bryce opened his mouth.

Nothing came out.

Tomas stepped between them.

“I had his phone.”

Rook looked at him.

“He came to get it back,” Tomas continued. “Then everything happened.”

Bryce stared at Tomas.

Rook had spent thirty years listening to lies.

He knew one when he heard it.

He also recognized when one boy was protecting another.

His attention moved to the bulge in Tomas’s pocket.

“The phone.”

Tomas removed Bryce’s burner.

For several seconds, he looked at it.

Messages on that phone could destroy Bryce’s life.

A few days earlier, Tomas would have handed it over without hesitation. He would have called it justice.

Now Kincaid and Soren were being carried away with almost nothing left inside them. Sagen lay handcuffed on the floor. Armed men who had terrified entire towns were begging deputies not to leave them alone.

Bryce had seen what real monsters looked like.

Tomas held out the phone.

Bryce didn’t take it.

“You’re giving it back?”

“After what you just saw, I don’t think I need it anymore.”

Bryce looked toward the doors through which Kincaid and Soren had disappeared.

“No,” he said quietly. “You really don’t.”

He accepted the phone.

Rook studied both boys.

“You got what you came for?”

Bryce nodded.

“Then go home.”

“Yessir.”

Bryce took several steps toward the doors, then stopped.

He looked back at Tomas.

“Hey, Calder.”

“What?”

Bryce searched for something to say.

Nothing seemed adequate.

Finally, he nodded.

Tomas nodded back.

Bryce walked into the night.

Fast.

Not running.

Close.

A flashlight swept across the grass beyond the hangar.

One of the deputies frowned.

“Sheriff?”

Rook turned.

Something large bounced through the weeds.

Once.

Twice.

It vanished and then reappeared when another flashlight found it.

Merrill.

His hands remained tied behind his back. Rope bound his ankles together. He hopped frantically across the field, landed badly, rolled down a shallow embankment, and disappeared into the tall grass.

The deputy stared.

“Should I go after him?”

Rook watched the grass move.

“Give him a minute. He’s not getting far.”

Merrill’s head appeared above the weeds.

He hopped twice more and fell again.

Rook turned away.

Deputies continued securing the hangar. Cuffs clicked. Men cursed. EMTs moved stretchers across the concrete.

Tomas sat on the edge of the transport truck while another medic checked his pupils.

Sheriff Rook approached.

“Your turn.”

Tomas looked at him.

“What happened here tonight?”

Tomas glanced at the ash covering the floor.

“It’s too crazy to believe.”

“Try me.”

“Remember when you didn’t believe me about the bonfire?”

Rook’s mouth tightened.

“It’s that kind of crazy,” Tomas continued. “I could tell you everything, but you’d think I belonged in a mental hospital.”

Rook studied him for a long moment.

Something shifted behind the sheriff’s eyes.

A thought.

An opportunity.

“You know what?” he said. “You might be right.”

Tomas frowned.

Rook turned away.

Behind him, Tomas stopped listening.

Courtney was walking toward the hangar doors.

Red rested on her shoulder.

They moved quickly, staying beyond the strongest lights. Deputies were everywhere now. Radios crackled. Cameras flashed as crime-scene personnel entered.

Red’s surviving strap lifted slightly.

Toward Tomas.

Then Courtney carried him into the darkness.

Tomas stared.

The stones were whole.

They could return to their world.

He had known that.

Still, he hadn’t expected Red to leave without saying goodbye.

“Red?”

Courtney kept walking.

Tomas stood.

The medic reached for him. “Sit down.”

He ignored the man.

“Red.”

He took one step.

Then another.

His walk became a jog.

Rook caught his uninjured arm and pulled him around.

“Hang on.”

Tomas tried to wrench free.

“Let go.”

“There’s something we haven’t settled.”

Kay heard the change in Rook’s voice.

She crossed the hangar.

José, Eljen, Marleen, and Berezina moved with her.

Rook’s deputies noticed.

Weapons came up.

Kay’s crew responded instantly.

The hangar froze for the second time that night.

Rook held Tomas by the arm.

“I appreciate the information,” he told Kay. “And I appreciate what tonight could do for my career.”

“Then let him go.”

“But I can’t forget what happened to my wife.”

Tomas stopped fighting long enough to look at him.

Kay’s expression hardened.

“What about your wife?”

“Two broken ribs. Concussion. Months of recovery. Probably years of therapy.”

Berezina stared at him.

“I never touched your wife.”

Rook glanced at her.

“That isn’t how she remembers it.”

“She was not hurt.”

“Who do you think a judge will believe?”

Berezina stepped forward.

José caught her arm.

Kay looked at Rook.

She understood.

The injuries weren’t real.

They didn’t need to be.

Rook had deputies willing to repeat his version. Doctors who owed favors. A wife who would say whatever he told her to say.

This wasn’t justice.

It was an opening.

And Rook intended to use it.

“You want money?” Kay asked.

“Not this time.”

“Names?”

“You already gave me Kincaid.”

“Take me.”

Rook smiled.

“No.”

Kay went still.

“You behind bars would be too easy. You’d sit there believing you won because Tomas was free.”

He tightened his hold on Tomas.

“You hurt one of mine. I take one of yours.”

“Mom?”

Kay looked at Tomas.

Blood had soaked through part of his fresh bandage. Ash streaked his face. He was surrounded by deputies, EMTs, evidence, and enough witnesses to turn the airport into a national story by sunrise.

Her farm was gone.

Kincaid was finished.

Half her routes had been exposed.

Sagen had betrayed her.

The life she had built in Twin River had ended whether she admitted it or not.

She could start shooting.

Maybe she could get Tomas out.

Maybe three of her people would die before they reached the parking lot.

Maybe Tomas would take another bullet.

Or she could give Rook the victory he wanted.

For now.

Her gaze moved to the sheriff.

“Blackridge?”

Tomas looked at her. “What?”

Rook’s smile deepened.

“Blackridge Behavioral Institute.”

“Not jail?”

“He’s a confused juvenile who claims his bookbag talks. With the right recommendations, they can hold him for observation.”

“For how long?”

“Until someone decides he’s no longer a danger to himself or anyone else.”

“You mean until he’s eighteen.”

“If that’s what the doctors recommend.”

Kay considered him.

Not defeated.

Calculating.

Rook saw surrender because that was what he wanted to see.

“Mom,” Tomas said. “What are you doing?”

Kay’s eyes remained on Rook.

“Blackridge,” she repeated, as though committing the name to memory.

“Payment enough,” Rook said.

Kay exhaled.

“Fair enough.”

Tomas stared at her.

“No.”

Eljen stepped forward. “Kay—”

She raised one hand.

The crew stopped.

“Stand down.”

José looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

Berezina’s face twisted with fury.

Kay didn’t explain.

Not here.

Not with Rook watching.

“What’s done is done,” she said. “Pack what we can and clear out.”

“Mom.”

She pointed toward Sagen.

“You should arrest that one. He was trying to take Kincaid’s position.”

Two deputies hauled Sagen upright.

He struggled against them.

“Where’s Merrill?”

Outside, something crashed through the tall grass.

“Where the hell is Merrill?”

The deputies dragged him away.

Kay looked at Rook.

“I take it we’re free to leave.”

“You gave me what I needed.”

A small nod.

“We’ve got it from here.”

Kay turned toward the doors.

Tomas pulled against Rook.

“Mom!”

She didn’t look back.

If she looked at him, Rook might see everything she was refusing to show.

The fear.

The rage.

The promise.

Tomas couldn’t see any of that.

All he saw was his mother walking away.

Deputies closed around him.

He kicked and twisted, ignoring the pain in his shoulder.

“Mom!”

One deputy caught his arms.

Another opened the rear door of a patrol car.

“Calm down.”

“Don’t leave me!”

Kay disappeared into the darkness.

The deputies forced Tomas into the back seat.

His injured shoulder struck the cage divider. Pain flashed through him.

Rook climbed behind the wheel.

“The institute has a medical unit,” he said. “They’ll take care of that shoulder.”

Tomas pressed his forehead against the metal partition.

“Let me go.”

“Can’t do that.”

“You’re punishing me for something I didn’t do.”

Rook started the engine.

“That’s the trouble with people like your mother. They never understand consequences until someone else pays them.”

The patrol car rolled away from the airport.

Tomas looked through the rear window.

The hangar shrank behind them.

No Kay.

No Courtney.

No Red.

He had brought everyone together.

He had defeated the Collector.

He had saved his mother.

And somehow, he was alone again.

“Red,” he whispered.

The city lights blurred against the glass.

“You told me stories have heroes.”

Tomas closed his eyes.

“Who’s the hero in this one?”

The patrol car carried him toward Blackridge.