“That’s where we’re headed,” Nate told Liv. “The tallest building in Wyoming.”
“You’re kidding!” she said with a whoop.
“Please,” Joe said sharply.
There were no other aircraft in the sky.
“We’re going to be the first people to get a visual of the roof,” Joe said to Nate. “Let’s not buzz him too close on the first pass. Let’s see what we can see.”
“If the little bastard shoots at us, he’s history,” Nate said, leveling on the approach.
White Hall seemed to be rushing toward them now, filling the cockpit windshield.
• • •
“THERE HE IS,” Nate said, tilting the Cessna so Joe could see clearly through the pilot’s-side window over Nate.
Erik Young was wearing the long, dark coat Joe recognized from before, and he was stalking across the top of the gravel-covered roof with a long rifle. The top of the building was flat except for large utility boxes and a cinder-block structure in the corner with a door in it, where Young had obviously accessed the roof. Young was moving from box to box and peering around them as if looking for adversaries.
What he wasn’t doing was aiming at students below over the short wall abutment along the sides of the roof.
“What in the hell is he up to?” Nate asked.
“I don’t know,” Joe said, confused. “He looks like he’s hunting imaginary bad guys.”
“Does he even know we’re up here?” Brannan asked from her seat directly behind them.
“Doesn’t look like it,” Joe said.
“He better not raise that rifle,” Nate hissed.
“I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Joe said.
• • •
AFTER THEY’D ZOOMED by the campus, Nate began a long, sweeping bank in the sky to return.
“Lower this time, right?” Nate asked.
“Yes,” Joe said. “If nothing else, we can help keep him distracted until the SWAT team is on the roof.”
The radio in the Cessna crackled with bits of dialogue. National Guard choppers were on the way from Cheyenne and would be there momentarily. The officer in charge on the ground asked the chopper pilots if the single-engine aircraft in the sky over Laramie was with them, and the pilots responded that it wasn’t.
“So who is flying that plane?” the officer asked.
“Air Romanowski!” Nate shouted in response. But he hadn’t used the radio.
Joe grabbed the mic.
“This is Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett in the single-engine aircraft.”
There was a long pause.
The officer asked, “What are you doing up there?”
Joe said, “My daughter is in the building,” and signed off.
“Do you have a visual on the suspect?”
“Yes.”
“What can you tell us?”
“I’m not sure what to say,” Joe said. “He looks . . . confused.”
• • •
AS THEY APPROACHED THE DORMITORY from the south, Nate pointed out the black-clad SWAT officers running into the ground-floor lobby from several white vans. The streets on all sides of the building were filled with police cars, sheriff’s department vehicles, and campus police with lights flashing.
“I’ve seen enough storm troopers today to last me awhile,” Nate grumbled.
• • •
THEY NEARED THE ROOF AGAIN at lower elevation. Joe could see Young even more clearly than before. He was still moving from box to box, hunkering down, peering around corners. He seemed blithely unaware not only of the Cessna but also of the police presence twelve stories below.
There was no way, Joe thought, Young could not know about the dozens of SWAT officers thundering up the stairwell.
Young raised his rifle. Whatever he was aiming at was on the roof itself. And he wasn’t pointing toward the access door where SWAT would emerge but directly away from it.
What looked like confetti rose from the corner of the roof where Young had been aiming. Joe was momentarily confused, until he realized it wasn’t confetti but a big flock of pigeons.
“Oh no,” Joe said, his stomach clenching.
“What?” Nate asked.
Joe grabbed the mic: “Stand down, stand down! He’s not shooting at students. He’s hunting pigeons.”
“Oh shit,” Nate said, as the access door blew open and a swarm of officers emerged on the roof with their weapons raised. Young apparently heard them and swung around, his weapon up. A dozen orange stars burst from the muzzles of automatic weapons.
Joe saw Young’s long coat flutter up behind him as dozens of rounds passed through his body. Erik Young crumpled to the roof with his gun beside him.
The officer on the ground said, “Come again?”
“Too late,” Joe moaned, and slumped against the side window.
Saddlestring, Wyoming
“It seems like a month since I’ve seen you,” Joe said to Marybeth. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.”
“It does seem like a month,” she said from behind the wheel of her minivan, “but it’s only been a few days.”
“Still,” he said.
“I agree.”
“That poor boy on the roof,” she said. “I feel sick just thinking about it. I wish we could have saved him somehow, or connected with him. Was he really just hunting pigeons?”
“Yes,” Joe said. “He never stole the missing guns—their so-called friends did it to punk them. No, Young bought the pellet gun that morning at Walmart.”
“If his mother would have taken my call, maybe . . .”
“It’s not your fault what happened,” Joe said. “You did what you could to prevent anyone getting hurt. Don’t beat yourself up.”
“I can’t help it,” she said. “It was such a huge overreaction.”
“By everyone,” Joe said. “Including us.”
“Sheridan is doing a lot of soul-searching and second-guessing herself right now. She’s devastated. I told her she’d done nothing wrong, but still . . .”
“She’s not the only one,” Joe said.
• • •
SHE’D PICKED HIM UP IN GILLETTE after his truck broke down on the way home. Shrapnel from the explosion at the Black Forest Inn had apparently penetrated the engine and had poked tiny pinprick holes in the coolant and hydraulic hoses. He hadn’t noticed the damage until he was halfway to Saddlestring, although he’d have to admit later that his gauges were trying to tell him about it. His only excuse for not realizing what was happening was exhaustion from lack of sleep and the fact that he was overwhelmed by what had happened both in Medicine Wheel County and Laramie.
Joe left his vehicle at the state highway shop outside of Gillette, where Marybeth had agreed to pick him up. The vehicle maintenance man looked at Joe’s pickup and simply shook his head.
“Another one,” the man had said.
“Another one,” Joe echoed.
• • •
JOE PLANNED TO SPEND THE TIME filling her in on their drive back to Saddlestring, when he was interrupted by his cell phone.
He looked at the screen. “Rulon,” he said.
“It sounds like you did it,” the governor said, “but you weren’t supposed to leave so many bodies behind.”
“That wasn’t all my doing,” Joe said.
“Tell me everything,” Rulon said. “I’ve got a press briefing in half an hour. They might ask me some questions about what happened up there, but I have a feeling the only thing they care about is what happened in Laramie this morning. There are already idiots calling for gun control. Ha! That poor bastard had a pellet gun!
“Anyway,” Rulon said, cooling down. “Tell me what happened up there from the beginning. It sounds like a pretty wide-ranging criminal enterpris
e—even bigger than our federal government. And don’t leave anything out—especially any details that might come back to bite me later.”
Joe did. Marybeth listened as she drove, sometimes shaking her head. Finally, Rulon told Joe the “hounds were baying in the next room for his head” and hung up.
“You just can’t do it, can you, Joe?” she asked when he was through.
“What?”
“Keep your distance. You just feel compelled to get into the middle of things, don’t you?”
“They came after me,” Joe said defensively. “Remember the part about the bomb under my truck?”
“And they forced you to put it in the wall of that building, too,” she said.
He conceded the point by not responding. He was too exhausted to mount much of an argument. He envied Daisy, who was sleeping the sleep of the dead in the backseat.
“Is he going to be okay?” she asked after a few moments of silence.
“Nate?” Of course she meant Nate, he thought. “I don’t know. If he plays it right and gives them enough information, he should get a good deal. But you know how the Feds are.”
“They can be vindictive,” she said. “He might have to go back to federal prison. But at least we’d know where he was and we can work on getting him out again. You working for the governor has its perks.”
“Maybe,” Joe said. Then: “I was proud of Nate today. He stepped back over the line and did the right thing. He’s likely to have plenty of time to think about the direction he took.”
“Will they allow visitors?” she asked.
• • •
THEY WERE DISCUSSING the horrifying return of Missy when Marybeth pulled up in front of their house.
“That’s odd,” she said, nodding toward April’s Cherokee, which was parked near the detached garage. “She shouldn’t be home now. School isn’t out.”
Joe wearily swung out of the van. He would take his weapons inside but leave his gear bag for later. All he could think about was taking a shower and getting into his bed. He hoped that when he closed his eyes he wouldn’t see the last moments of Erik Young play on the inside of his eyelids on a continuous loop.
• • •
BEFORE JOE COULD ENTER the house with his holster and shotgun, Marybeth burst out of it. Her eyes were wide and panicked.
“She’s gone, Joe. April packed up and left while I was driving you back.”
He stopped, stunned at the news. “But her Jeep is here,” he said.
“She didn’t leave in her truck,” Marybeth said, suddenly angry. “She left with him. They’ve been planning this and waiting for the right time.”
Joe was bone-tired but he reached up and clamped his hat on tight as if he were about to climb aboard a bucking horse in the chute. He said, “This rodeo just never stops, does it?”
• • •
For a complete list of this author’s books click here or visit www.penguin.com/boxchecklist
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author thanks first readers Laurie Box, Molly Box Donnell, and Mark Nelson.
Thanks also to the support team of Jennifer Fonnesbeck (Facebook, Twitter, merchandise), Don Hajicek (website), Molly Donnell (graphics and images), and Templeton Rye.
It’s an author’s dream to work with terrific and sincere professionals in publishing at Penguin/Putnam in New York, including publisher Ivan Held, Michael (Cowboy) Barson, Kate Stark, Tom Colgan, and my legendary and brilliant editor, Neil Nyren.
Kudos, always, to my amazing agent and friend Ann Rittenberg.
C. J. Box, Stone Cold
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends