Juicy Secrets Forbidden Tales of Lesbian Love

A quick recap of the Story Thus Far: Rural paramedic Nettie Hastings finds herself in the middle of a flurry of unexplained overdose calls and, with the help of her best friend and former lover, Terry Wilder, has begun putting clues together linking the source to her own hometown. Some suspect Terry’s involvement, as his ex-wife is a convicted drug trafficker. A DEA agent named Bridgette Ramscone is brought in to work the case, and she takes a special interest in Nettie who, in the meantime, has entered into a clandestine affair with Terry’s preteen daughter Halee. On this particular evening, Nettie hosts a sleepover with Halee, Halee’s ten-year-old sister Naomi, and the sisters’ good friend Chelsey. Nettie and the girls play a game Truth or Dare that gets very wild. Later, while Nettie is asleep, Halee accidentally discovers that her mother Kathryn (Terry’s ex, the drug trafficker) is in the area, and clearly connected to the recent overdoses. Furious, Halee sets off on her own to confront her mom before Nettie awakens. A horrified Nettie attempts to pursue the girl, but Halee has a good head start.

For a more detailed breakdown of this story’s chapters, please consult the Chapter Links.

by Rachael Yukey

Terry answered the phone on the first ring. “Morning, Nettie,” he said, as my Kia’s engine purred to life, “I was about to call you. Did something go down with Halee this morning?”

“Has she been there?” I asked, backing out of the driveway and onto the street.

“Yeah, about twenty minutes or so ago. She said everything was fine, you guys would be along shortly, and she was going for a bike ride. But everything wasn’t fine. She was about ready to swallow nails and shit a barbwire fence. Who pissed in her…”

“Terry, shut up,” I broke in desperately. “Listen, I’m coming to pick you up. Call my mom and ask her to come watch the kids for you. Tell her from me it’s an emergency.”

“Whoa, Nettie, what’s…”

“Just do it, Terry. I have to make another phone call, and right now.”

I killed the connection. “Hey Siri,” I said, “call Ramscone.”

“Agent Ramscone, DEA.”

“Bridgett,” I said, as I turned onto Terry’s street. “Kathryn Wilder is in the area, and she’s staying at a house on Shadow Lake Road. I can’t remember the fire number off the top of my head. Halee Wilder found out and took off on her bike; I’m pretty sure she’s heading that way now. I’m just now picking up Terry. Can you get some of your people and…”

“No, I can’t,” she said, as I pulled up to the curb. Terry was standing on the porch with an ominous expression, and less than a block away I could see my mom approaching on foot with that hoity-toity walk of hers, like she’s the fucking queen of England or something.

“We were ordered out last night,” Bridgett went on, “and I’m doing an exit debrief with the county sheriff’s department in Johnstown, with all of my agents.”

Terry got into my car, already beginning to speak. I urgently held up a finger.

“Fronse is here too,” she was saying. “Look, I’ll tell the sheriff’s department to dispatch some people, but they probably won’t be there right away. Meanwhile I’ll get moving in that direction. Nettie, listen to me: do NOT approach that property. Do you understand? Those people are dangerous. I have to hang up now and get units moving.” The line went dead.

“Goddamn it,” I growled, dropping the phone into my lap..

“Okay, Nettie, what the hell?” said Terry.

“Your fucking ex,” I said. “Remember that old blue farmhouse just off of Shadow Lake Road where Crabby Drunk Guy used to live, with all the machinery and crap all over the yard? She’s staying there. Chelsey’s mom and aunt are mixed up with her somehow. Halee found out while I was still asleep, and I think she’s heading out there now.”

Terry’s face drained of color. “I assume you were just on the phone with Ramscone?”

“Yeah, but she was ordered out, and she’s got all of her agents in Johnstown for some debrief right now. Fronse, too. She’s going to come, and get the sheriff’s department moving. She said we should stay away until they get there.”

Terry was shaking his head. “The moment Halee gets there, Kathryn will realize she’s been found out. She’ll crawl into a hole, probably never to be seen again, and she might just take Halee with her. Our only shot is to catch up with Halee before any of these things happen. If you want to stay here, that’s fine.” He reached for the door handle.

My gut clenched at the thought of Halee being taken away. “Fuck that,” I told him, shoving the gearshift into drive. I slammed the accelerator to the floor, my gimpy-ass Kia actually laying rubber as we pulled away from the curb.

“How fast do you think Halee could get there on her bike?” I asked him.

“In the mood she’s in? Halee does everything at double speed when she’s pissed, and she’s been working out on the elliptical all winter. Besides, that place is very close to town as the crow flies. She can cut through on the bike trails, assuming she knows the route, and that’ll knock five miles off. If she’s pushing it, she could be almost there by now.”

I punched the accelerator as we headed out of town, kicking it up to ninety on the heavily patched blacktop of County 225. It was mostly cropland, punctuated by old homesteads flashing by on either side. Collapsing barns and outbuildings stood incongruously within fifty yards of modern homes, mostly occupied by people commuting to jobs in town. The remnants of dairyland.

Just a few miles south, I braked hard, forcing Terry to snatch at the OS bar above his window. Tires screeched as I turned onto Shadow Lake Road, almost skating right the fuck into the ditch as asphalt suddenly gave way to macadam. Significantly, Terry didn’t tell me to take it easy, or slow down. Gravel sprayed as I laid into the gas again.

“Grab my phone,” I told Terry, “and pull up Bridgett’s number. It’s in there as Ramscone. Once we have the mailbox in sight, text her the fire number so she knows where to send people.” I felt his hand scrabbling around in my lap, plucking the phone from between my thighs. At the speed I was going, I didn’t dare take my eyes off the road.

After what felt like hours but was really only a few minutes, I was forced to dump some velocity as the road became twisty and hilly. We were almost there. I braked as the driveway came into view, the old mailbox a little worse for wear than the last time I had been here. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Terry stabbing at the screen of my phone.

The rutted driveway was almost a quarter mile long, and in appalling condition, which didn’t jibe with the theory that someone was living out here. Pine trees pressed in on either side. I dimly recalled that there was another entrance to the property from County Twelve, mostly used by the grain farmer who had been renting the cropland for years. I supposed any new residents might be using that.

“Nettie, watch it!” Terry yelled.

Even as he spoke, I was slamming on the brakes, my front bumper coming up just short of a tree that had fallen across the driveway.

“Fuck!” Terry exploded. Both of us were pushing our doors open, scrambling out of the car.

“The homestead is only maybe a hundred yards up,” Terry was saying, neatly vaulting the lower part of the trunk. “Come on.”

I got over it with somewhat less grace, but right on his heels. As he ran, Terry was texting on my phone. “I’m telling Special Agent Perfume Factory to use the County Twelve entrance,” he tossed over his shoulder.

In spite of everything, I smiled. Leave it to Terry to keep his wits about him, doing his best to take the edge off of a tense situation.

As the woods gave way, we slowed to a trot, looking around. The farmyard was the same war zone it had been ever since I’d first responded here, six years gone. Rusted hulks of farm machinery, dead lawnmowers, piles of rotted wood, scrap metal, and general debris. Bizarrely, a water tower reservoir rested on its side on the ground, brought here for some purpose long forgotten. The old hip barn was half-collapsed, as were several other outbuildings. A long, rectangular poultry barn appeared more or less intact, and a few old sheds were still standing. A house stood in the rough center of it all, it’s blue paint chipped and weathered. As we neared the house, we could hear a voice shouting. A familiar voice.

“Mom!” Halee yelled furiously as we approached, rounding the corner of the house into our view. She banged her fist on a windowframe. “Mom! Come out, goddamn it! Mom!”

“Halee!” Terry called out, taking off in her direction at a dead run with me close behind. Halee’s head whipped around. She stood there waiting for us with hands on hips and feet apart. We slowed as we neared her. Halee’s face was red.

“The whole place is locked,” she spat out. “I was just about to break a fucking window.”

Terry hauled up short next to his daughter, pulling her into his arms. I piled in, hugging her from the other side. Terry pressed my phone into my hand.

“You’ll do no such thing, young lady,” he got out,breathless from running. “We’re getting the hell out of here, and right now. Law enforcement is on its way.”

“Are they?” said a female voice from behind us. “Good to know. That means we’ll need you with us to clear out an escape path.”

Disentangling ourselves from Halee, we turned around. Emerging from the open garage door of the old poultry barn was the curly-locked blonde woman, and four men with guns in their hands. Don’t ask me what kind of guns. I grew up rural and can tell you all about deer rifles and shotguns, but one handgun looks like another to me. All I can tell you is that they looked enormous.

I instantly understood how Kathryn Wilder could weave a spell over a person, even a man as bright and self-aware as Terry. From thirty yards away, she had a presence. Fashionable slacks protruded below a long, elegant coat. A scarf that was more an accessory than a neck-warmer looped around her neck. All these things enhanced her appeal, but I knew immediately that this woman would command your attention were she wearing sackcloth.

The five of them approached deliberately, the four men fanning out as they moved forward.

Terry’s face was pure venom. “You unimaginable wretched bitch,” he said.

“Nice to see you, too, Terry. It’s been, what, almost five years?”

Her head turned towards me. “Is this who you’re shacking up with lately? She’s pretty, but Jesus, she’s almost as tall as you are. That must be really strange in the sack.”

She stopped about ten yards from us, and held out her arms. “Halee. My God, I didn’t even recognize you at first. Come to Momma, sweetheart.”

Halee’s face got even redder. The veins in her neck stood out. “People are dead, Mom,” she said. Her voice was low, but vicious. “Kids have been overdosing. Nettie’s dad was killed.” The voice was trembling now, rising in both pitch and volume. “And I heard about what happened at the meat locker. Seven kids tied up in there, and they all would have died if things had gone just a little bit different. You did that!” She was yelling now, tears streaming down her cheeks. “You killed people, Mom! And you tried to kill more than you actually got. Kids I go to school with. Go fuck yourself. Go fuck yourself, you bitch!”

Kathryn’s arms were back at her sides, her appearance still utterly composed. “I never tried to kill anybody,” she said. “We didn’t anticipate the withdrawal symptoms until they actually started to happen, and then we did what we could to ameliorate the effects. When we realized that people were getting too close… and you have your dad’s girly-friend there to thank for that, by the way… we were bringing the kids in to give them some stuff that our chem guy said would help wean them off before we pulled out. Then a couple of them got lippy and threatened to go to the cops. The guy I left in charge panicked, doped them up, and put them in that room. If I’d been there, that wouldn’t have happened.”

“So what about the explosion?” Terry demanded to know.

“I have no idea,” she said, “and I probably never will, because we’ll never get near the place again. Now look.” She glanced one way, and then the other, as if suddenly on the lookout for something.“I don’t have time to play Twenty Questions. We need to move, and the three of you are going to be our safe passage. We have vehicles just over that hill there.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder, indicating a rise. “Start walking in that direction, and don’t do anything cute.”

As we got moving, I found my voice for the first time. “What kind of person uses her daughter as a hostage?” I spat out.

She gave me a sour smile. “Aren’t you adorable. Ever been to prison, honey? It sucks worse than just about anything you can imagine. I’m going back there for decades if I’m caught, and I lost my kids a long time ago, anyway. Don’t worry… I intend to fuck right off the continent as soon as we’re clear of Minnesota. Once we’re there, we’ll let you go.”

As we crested the rise, I could see three Ford Explorers parked at the bottom of a ravine, in what looked for all the world like a graveyard for antique farm equipment. The four men had closed in on us, and were only about ten feet behind, Kathryn bringing up the rear.

“Why here?” Terry asked as we descended the hill. “Why the fuck did you have to bring it out here, where your goddamn kids go to school?”

“Oh, Terry,” she said in a sweet, almost singsong voice. “You gave me the idea. I still can’t figure out what possessed you to move to a nowhere place like this, but I realized it was a perfect location to develop the new product. It’s too out of the way for anyone to notice, and the only active police presence was that moron Fronse. That, and there are certain raw materials we needed that happen to be abundant in the area.”

She let out a bark of laughter. “Then there was you, Terry. You’ve been watched ever since they started investigating me. It wouldn’t be hard to shunt any suspicion your way, maybe even set you up to take the fall if things went wrong. Unfortunately it all went south before I had a chance to arrange that. Too bad, really – I’d love to see how you like being behind bars, lover boy.” That sweetness in Kathryn’s voice now dripped with venom.

We’d reached the bottom of the hill and the waiting SUVs. Kathryn seemed to consider options for a moment.

“Okay,” she said with an air of decision. “We’ll leave one truck behind. Let’s have…”

“DEA! Stay right where you are!” boomed a woman’s voice through a bullhorn. Bridgett. I looked around frantically, trying to make out where the voice was coming from. Before  I could orient myself, rough hands pulled me behind the rusty shell of a combine, a gun suddenly at my temple. We were quickly joined by Kathryn and the remaining three gunmen, two of whom were holding guns on Halee and Terry. Bridgett was still speaking into the bullhorn.

“You are directed to place your weapons on the ground and your hands on your head! You are surrounded by greatly superior numbers. I repeat, weapons on the ground, hands on heads. You have two minutes to comply before we start moving in.”

“Dammit,” muttered the man who was covering Terry. “I knew we shoulda cleared out the moment the fuckin’ locker got hit.”

“And you also understood perfectly well why we couldn’t do that,” Kathryn replied calmly, then raised her voice. “Listen up, DEA. In case you somehow didn’t notice, I’ve got hostages. I want a clear path, and safe passage out of here. We’re going to be driving out in two of these SUVs, and if you interfere in any way, there’ll be one less hostage. Any questions?”

Silence. Kathryn smiled grimly. “I guess they don’t have questions. All right, let’s go. Hostages out front.”

I felt the pistol nudge me in the back, and somehow got my feet moving. I hadn’t realized until this precise moment just how scared I was. Every step was like trudging through quicksand. Terry, Halee, and I walked roughly abreast, me in the middle, guns to our backs. Halee looked pale and afraid; Terry’s face a mask of purest hatred.

Suddenly from my left came a yelp and a curse. My head jerked around in that direction, and I saw Halee’s captor pitching forward, pinwheeling his arms. The lower third of his right leg had disappeared into a hole in the ground. As he passed the fulcrum point there was a snapping sound, he screamed, and the gun in his hand went flying. All of this happened in the barest fraction of a second.

The man hit the ground whimpering, then screaming again as he withdrew his leg from the hole. I saw Halee dive for the ground, coming up with the gun. She turned towards us, handling the weapon gingerly, fear written into every facet of her expression.

“Okay,” she said, her voice trembling with pure terror. “Okay…” she seemed at a loss as to how to proceed. She was slowly backing away, trying and mostly failing to steady the firearm.

One of Kathryn’s men, the one who wasn’t covering Terry or myself, stepped towards her. “Listen here, kid,” he said. “Quit wavin’ that thing around, okay? You’re just as likely to shoot your dad as one of us. You don’t want that, do you? Just put it on the ground, nice and easy.”

The man was still moving, having detached himself a bit from the main group. Halee swung the gun towards him. He made a flinching motion, raised his gun, and fired.

Halee dropped the gun with a hideous scream, a hand flying up to clutch the right side of her chest. Another shot, and the girl fell to her knees, still screaming. Then she pitched forward. It was all happening in a macabre sort of slow-motion before my eyes. Terry yelled “Halee! No, goddamn it!” and was rushing towards her, heedless of the weapons arrayed against him.

“Stop shooting, you idiot!” Kathryn was yelling, all vestiges of her former composure lost. And then my paralysis broke.

“No!” I screamed, breaking into a run. It was only maybe a dozen steps to where Halee lay, and I fell to my knees next to her, Terry at my side. “Oh no; no no no no,” I heard myself saying, but another part of my mind was clinically considering the two exit wounds in her back. One was in the upper right, the blood foamy and pink, a sure sign the bullet had gone straight through a lung. The other was through the right lower side of the abdomen and bleeding profusely.

“Let’s get her on her side,” I said. The voice seemed hardly my own, as if I was merely a spectator. Terry helped me roll her onto her left side, with another pair of hands assisting. Kathryn.

“Get away from her,” Terry spat out at her through clenched teeth.

Kathryn ignored him, her face once again the picture of utter calm. A quick glance up told me that the three of Kathryn’s men who were still functional were standing over us, weapons trained on myself and Terry. Clearly Kathryn had no intention of giving up her hostages.

I tried to move Halee’s clothing aside as best I could, inspecting the entrance wounds. The chest injury presented in almost identical fashion to its counterpart in the rear. The abdominal wound was oozing red blood, but I had some hope that it hadn’t hit anything too important. Halee’s eyes cast around frantically, coming to rest on Terry.

“Daddy,” she moaned. Her breath hitched and gasped, and I watched the foamy pink stuff being sucked into the chest wound, then expelled again.

“Don’t try to talk, Halee,” I said. “Just rest; we’re taking care of you.”

Her eyes flicked to me. She seemed to be having trouble focusing. “Nettie,” she whispered. “Love…”

“Shhh,” I said, putting a finger to her lips. I shrugged out of my jacket, reached around behind her, and pressed the fabric to the exit hole from the abdominal wound. I looked up at Kathryn. “Give Terry your scarf,” I said, “so he can hold pressure on the entrance wound.”

She pulled it free of her neck and handed it to him.

“What about the sucking chest?” Terry asked me as he pressed the scarf against his daughter’s abdomen. His voice was raw and harsh with emotion.

“Is medical attention required?” a voice called out from above. I looked up, and Bridgett was standing just uphill from us on the opposite side of the ravine, not far from the treeline.

“If we don’t get an ambulance out here, she’s going to die,” I called back.

“No ambulance!” one of the gunmen snarled at me.

“I have one of the Bronning rigs staged just over the ridge,” Bridgett called back.

“Kathryn, listen to me,” I said, putting as much urgency into my voice as I could muster. “She has a punctured lung. Hear how she’s breathing? That’s only going to get worse.”

Halee shifted a little on the ground, and suddenly she screamed, hands clutching at her wounded abdomen. The initial shock had worn off, and the pain had arrived. The scream choked off into a fit of agonized hacking. My heart was hammering in my chest. Kathryn Wilder was simply staring at her daughter, face a mask of impassivity.

“Kathryn, please,” I begged. “She needs to go to the hospital, and I need to go with her.”

That, at least, got a reaction. Kathryn flicked her eyes towards me, a sardonic grin curling her lips. “Nice try,” she said. “You’re not the only ambulance driver around here. The crew that came with that truck can take her just fine.”

“No, they can’t,” I shot back. “Without me it’s a basic life support crew, and she needs more than that. She needs a paramedic on the way to the hospital, and I’m the only one within thirty miles. The EMTs on that truck are good, but they can’t do the things that’ll keep her alive.”

“She’s telling the truth, Kathryn,” Terry put in.

I looked down at Halee. Her face was twisted in agony, her breathing increasingly labored. I was starting to get mad.

“Look,” I spat out. “I’m taking Halee to the hospital. And if you have any love left for your daughter, you’ll let us both go.”

I gathered Halee up in my arms, freezing as I heard the sound of a safety being flicked off behind my head. I very nearly lost control of my bladder.

“Just stay still, missy,” one of the men said.

I turned my eyes to Kathryn. Fear warred with determination. “Is this really what you want?” I whispered.

Bridgett’s bullhorn-assisted voice boomed forth. “EMS has been apprised of the situation and is requesting permission to extract the patient. Will you allow it?”

My mind rebelled at the idea of allowing EMS personnel in a hot zone, but I knew that Kathryn would never allow agents or cops to get near, and Halee was dying by inches. Even if I wasn’t permitted to go with her, they could get an intercept coming with an ALS rig from another agency, and there would maybe be a chance. I held eye contact with Kathryn, daring her to look away.

“Fine, send them in,” Kathryn called out suddenly.

“Can I go with her? I really am the only provider nearby that’s qualified for this.”

She threw up her hands. “All right then, go. But Terry stays.”

One of her men rounded on her. “What, are you fucking kidding…”

“Let her go!” Kathryn turned steely eyes on him. He held it for a long moment, then dropped his gaze. “Just keep your guns on Terry. One hostage will be enough. If the cops try anything cute, we shoot him in the leg to prove we mean business.” She gave Terry a thin-lipped smile. “I’ll take care of that myself.”

An ambulance crested the rise, jouncing badly on the rutted path that had been beaten into the long grass by the SUVs. As it neared, I could make out the occupants of the cab: Nate Hauss was driving, with Lori Hendersen in the shotgun seat. Both were volunteers of long standing, and knew what they were doing.

The rig pulled up alongside. Lori slid out of the cab, eyeing the armed men warily. I could see Nate getting out on the other side. Lori’s eyes shifted down to Halee, widening slightly.

“Lori, grab me the ALS bag and the first-in bag, right now,” I said. Frightened for my own life and dying with anguish over Halee though I was, years of habit kicked in, and I took command instantly. Lori spoke not a word, just popped the side door, and trundled her dumpy yet somehow graceful body up the two steps into the box. She emerged a moment later with both bags, dropped them on the ground beside me, and went back for the monitor. Nate was at the back doors, pulling out the cot.

Terry and I tore into the bags. “Occlusive dressings?” he inquired, even as he was ripping one out of its packaging.

“Both front and back on the chest wound,” I replied. I had extracted a set of trauma shears, and was slicing away the jacket and sweater. Terry mopped blood from his daughter’s chest and adhered one of the dressings to the skin, valve over the wound, and then looked in the bag again.

“Fuck,” he spat out, “there’s only one of them. We’ll have to make one.”

“Already on it,” said Nate, who was using shears to cut out a neat square of plastic from the packaging Terry had just ripped open. As the two men worked to secure it to Halee’s back, Terry holding the plastic and Nate taping it down on three sides, Lori was applying large dressings to the still-bleeding abdominal wounds. Me, I was frantically searching for an IV site. Fortunately Halee had good vasculature, and a vein was easy to find.

I fought a momentary battle with myself over the use of a clotting agent. My horseback estimate of Halee’s weight left her right on the cusp of being big enough for it. Then I looked back down at the rapidly-soaking dressings over her abdomen, eerily reminding me of Sam Jensen’s injury only a week ago, and decided to chance it. There wasn’t much hope otherwise. At least with the occlusive dressings preventing her from sucking air into the chest cavity, Halee’s breathing was starting to ease.

“Load her up,” I said. As several pairs of hands lifted Halee from ground to cot, I feverishly dug the clotting agent out of the ALS bag and drew it up. Halee screamed with pain as she was lifted, the first sound she’d uttered in several minutes. Her eyes fell on Terry.

“Daddy, help me,” she moaned. Her voice was phlegmy, and I wondered how much moisture there was in her pipes. Terry tried to move towards the cot she was being strapped to, but a gun to his temple and a muttered, “Uh-uh, buddy boy,” from one of the gunmen brought him up short.

Carrying my loaded syringe, I made for the rig as the cot was shoved into it. “Tell your hired goons to help with the bags,” I tossed over my shoulder to Kathryn.

“What about him?” Lori wanted to know, indicating the man who had broken his leg. I glanced in his direction. He was lying on the ground, clutching his deformed calf, and weeping.

“Fuck him,” I said shortly. “Let’s go.”

The last thing I saw before slamming the side door behind me was Terry. He stood staring at the rig into which his daughter had disappeared, mouth a little slack, tears coursing down his stricken face. It’s an image that’s burned itself into my brain forever.

***

“Just what the hell were you thinking, Nettie?”

I was in the passenger’s seat of Bridgett’s black DEA suburban, situated in the visitor’s parking lot at the Pinewood Memorial Hospital in Johnstown. Halee was at that moment undergoing emergency surgery to get the hemorrhaging under control, after which she’d be transferred to Children’s in Minneapolis. Unless the weather improved, she’d be making the journey by ground with Thormleton. I’d already been on the phone with my boss, asking if I could be allowed to personally oversee the transfer, and Greg Wahlberg had politely but firmly told me to go the fuck home.

Bridgett was eyeballing me over a steaming cup of Starbucks coffee, the question still hanging in the air between us. I took a sip of the coffee she had bought me, mulling over the crazy, fucked-up sequence of events. Kathryn Wilder and her men were currently en route to the Canadian border, Terry still their captive. They were being shadowed, but the hostage situation prevented any direct action.

“We were hoping to get to Halee before she got to Kathryn,” I said at last. “Terry was afraid that she’d disappear and take Halee with her, long before your people made it to the scene.”

Bridgett pursed her lips. “He probably wasn’t wrong about that, but nevertheless you’ve immensely complicated things. Now we have a girl in critical condition, and they still have a hostage.” Her expression softened. “To be fair, it doesn’t sound like she got shot because of anything you or Wilder did. It was just rotten luck.”

I felt a sour smile take hold of my face. “Poor Halee,” I said. “She thought really fast and got hold of the guy’s gun when he dropped it, but then once she had it she didn’t quite seem to know what to do.”

“We can hardly blame her for that,” said Bridgett. “Most adults would have done no better. Nobody is ever really prepared for the reality of having a loaded weapon pointed at them.”

Tears stung my eyelids. “I was so goddamn scared,” I admitted, focusing my gaze on the steam issuing from the drinking orifice in the lid of my coffee cup. “I almost pissed myself at one point.”

Bridgett laid a hand on my forearm. “I got shot at once, during a sting,” she said. “I shit my pants. There’s no shame.”

I sipped more coffee, fighting to keep my emotions in check. Once I was sure I wasn’t about to explode in a fury of weeping, I spoke again. “So what’s the plan now? How are they getting Terry back? Come to think of it, why aren’t you out there directing traffic?”

“Because they’re not even within my regional jurisdiction at this point. I’m still in the loop and part of the operation, but my job is the situation on the ground here. There are still a lot of unanswered questions. According to what you’ve told me, Kathryn stated that there was a reason they stuck around after the locker operation got hit. It might tie into whatever the hell Darren Sanders was doing on that ATV out on Merlin Creek Drive. And the one good thing about this whole shitty turn of events is that I’ve been given some extra time and resources to look for those answers.”

She sipped more coffee. “As for Mr. Wilder, for the moment we just hope Kathryn makes good on her promise to let him go. We don’t have the slightest clue what her exit strategy is, so all we can do is hope that once there’s no longer a hostage, there’ll be a weakness we can see and exploit to prevent her from getting away.”

“Have you questioned Judy and Lisa Milne?”

“They’re both in custody, and they both instantly lawyered up. We’ll probably have to offer them a very good plea deal to get any information. Of course, that also brings up another question. Mr. Wilder’s three younger girls and Chelsey Milne are now at Mr. Wilder’s residence, under the care of your mother. Do we bring the state in for short-term care arrangements, or is there a better option?”

“Chelsey has some other family in the area who might be able to help,” I said. “If not, I can take her for a little while. Terry’s girls, too. There’s no need to get the state involved.”

“I was hoping you’d say that,” said Bridgett. “There’ll be a little bit of red tape, but nothing my people can’t handle. Look, I need to get back to Bronning and coordinate a few things. Why don’t you ride back with me?”

“I should be here when Halee comes out of surgery,” I said.

“What for? My understanding is that she’ll be kept under sedation, and transferred to Minneapolis on a vent.”

I sighed, knowing she was right. “Fine,” I said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

On to Chapter Eighteen!