Without Mercy - Lisa Jackson [184]
Again he prodded Jules with his gun. “And Cousineau. She’s about to pee all over herself anyway. She’s yours. But we keep Stillman until we’re safe, then we’ll let her go.”
“No!” Jules cried.
“Shut up, bitch,” he growled.
It was all Trent could do not to grab his weapon and take aim at the bastard’s head as he walked toward the group. “I can’t promise that.”
Rolfe wasn’t listening. He was already thinking ahead, past his negotiated exchange of prisoners. “We’ll need the helicopter and the seaplane. That’s part of the deal.”
“And go where? Roseburg? Or Medford? Come on, man, Spurrier’s in no condition to leave, much less fly,” Trent said, trying to reason with a maniac. “Give it up, Eric. It’s over. Spurrier needs medical attention ASAP or he won’t make it, and Zach’s singing like a bird, naming names, giving all of you up.”
Missy shook her head. “No way,” she said. “He…he wouldn’t.” But there was a seed of doubt in her high-pitched voice.
“Way.” Trent was still walking forward, ignoring the slight shake of Jules’s head, the fear in her eyes.
“You know that he’ll do anything to save his own skin. He’s got a father or an uncle or someone in the family who’s a lawyer or a judge. Anyway, he’s already demanding to speak to the DA. Wanting immunity so that you can all rot in prison for the rest of your lives.”
“Trent’s lying!” Missy cried, desperately disbelieving.
“I know.” Eric wasn’t bullied.
“How do you know?” Ortega demanded, sending a worried glance to Rolfe. So Ortega was the crack in the armor. Good. The anxious boy licked his chapped lips and his nerves were evident in his drawn face. “Zach could turn.”
“He wouldn’t!” Missy was insistent as a bit of wind kicked up, ruffling her hair.
“Don’t let this loser rattle you,” Eric advised.
Trent’s eyes found Jules’s, and he saw the terror within, knew she’d read his mind that he was going to take Rolfe out. No, she mouthed.
Rolfe grinned. “I guess we’re at an impasse, aren’t we?” He shifted the barrel of his gun away from Jules and aimed directly at Trent’s head. “Too bad. I kinda liked you, Trent.”
Trent reached for his gun!
Craaaak!
A rifle shot echoed through the canyon.
Jules screamed.
Rolfe’s head spun. Blood sprayed, red spatter on the snow-white ground. Twirling, dropping his weapon, Rolfe fell into the snow, blood and gray matter darkening the pristine ground.
“What? No!” Missy shrieked, her eyes rounding. “Eric! No! Jesus Christ, what have you done?”
Trent jerked his pistol from the back of his pants.
Behind him Deputy Meeker, standing near a skeletal oak, turned the muzzle of his deadly weapon from Eric’s dead body to aim at Roberto Ortega.
Nell screeched in pure terror. Stumbling, she ran through the snow heading toward the clinic, her hands bound behind her, her hair streaming in the clear night.
With no hostage in front of him, Ortega was an easy target.
“No, oh, God, no!” Missy was out of her mind with panic.
Jules dived into the snow, falling on Eric’s rifle, picking it up be hind her, trying with frozen, awkward fingers, to aim the gun at Missy.
Roberto Ortega saw her and lifting his rifle to his shoulder, pointed its deadly barrel directly at Jules.
“Watch out!” Trent yelled, running forward, pistol in hand. Aiming at Ortega, he sailed through the air, landing on Jules and covering her body with his own Ortega squeezed the trigger.
Trent fired.
Blam!!!
A shot whizzed past Trent’s head, missing him by a hair’s breadth.
Squealing in pain, Ortega went down.
Out of the corner of his eye, Trent spied Shay, spinning, leg in the air, catching Missy’s chin and sending the blond girl’s weapon twirling, end over end, into the air.
Only wounded, Ortega lifted his head, and with his elbows buried in the snow, aimed his weapon at Trent. “Die, bastard!” he snarled, squeezing the trigger.
Trent rolled, pulling Jules with him into the drifts.
The bullet went sizzling through the snow, missing them by inches. In a second, still covering Jules’s body with his own, Trent lifted his good arm