Page 99 of Tough Justice

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess this is good b—”

T-Lo raised a metal pipe high over his shoulder.

“Wil, look out!”

Wil spun and held up his hands, but he wasn’t fast enough. The metal bar crashed down on the side of Wil’s head. He staggered a few feet from the gate, then crumpled to the dirt, landing face down next to the ladder sticking up from the hole. Blood seeped from a gash on the side of his head. He didn’t move.

Tori jerked on the bars, knowing her efforts were useless. The old metal gate had to be made of solid wrought iron and would probably remain intact for the next two hundred years.

T-Lo rushed the gate, and she jumped back. The look he sent her was so ugly, so filled with malevolence it made her stomach lurch.

“Aren’t you going to kill her?” one of T-Lo’s buddies asked as he came up behind him.

“Oh, yeah.” He turned and sneered at the other men. “We’ll burn this place out. She won’t last five minutes.”

Laughing, all three of them returned to the lab.

Tori’s heart leaped into her throat. If they set everything on fire, the oxygen would be eaten up within minutes. On a scale of one to ten, one being the worst, her situation had just plummeted into negative numbers.

She backed away from the gate until her legs hit the cot. The springs squeaked as she all but fell onto the mattress. She tugged the edges of her coat as tightly around her body as possible, as if it could actually keep her safe.

Outside the gate, Wil remained motionless. Despite everything he’d done, the doctor in her wanted to help him and tend to his injuries. The woman in her wanted to bash his head in again. It was because of him that she was in this mess in the first place. She never imagined her life would end this way, but she had to face facts.

She was going to die down here.

All the mistakes she’d ever made in her life came rushing back in a useless tidal wave of regret. Starting and ending with Deck.

If he were standing in front of her right now…if this was her final chance to tell him how she really felt, she wouldn’t hesitate.

I’d tell him I love him.

She lay down on the cot, hugging her knees to her chest. Tears slid down her cheeks. She’d never get the chance to say it to his face, so she might as well say it now. Before it was too late.

Knowing he would never hear the words, she whispered them anyway. “Deck, I love you.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Cut your lights,” Deck said into the mic.

Three sets of headlights went dark as they turned off Poudre Canyon Road into the abandoned co-op property. Deck led the way, with Brett and Evan’s SUVs not far behind. The only illumination came from what was left of the quarter moon glowing in the sky overhead.

Dark shadows loomed in front of them, the skeletons of old outbuildings and sheds, most of which had either collapsed or looked about to any second. During the drive north, Sammie had researched the place for Deck. The co-op was comprised of over thirty acres, with many of the structures along the furthest edges of the property.

Long before Deck braked to a stop, Thor was prancing agitatedly in the kennel. His dog had already picked up on something. Drugs, most likely, considering that was his expertise. He parked and got out, meeting Brett and Evan at the hood of his SUV.

“There’s something in the air here.” Brett pointed to his ATF vehicle. “Blaze is going nuts back there.” The truck rocked as Brett’s big Chesapeake Bay Retriever stalked back and forth in his kennel. “You said this was an old ag-mining co-op, right? Could be explosive residue. Nitro, maybe.”

“Great,” Deck muttered. As if deadly opioids weren’t enough. “Grab your dogs, respirators, and long guns.”

“Do you have anything of Tori’s for Blue to catch a scent from?” Evan asked.

He nodded. Evan’s German shepherd was one of the top SAR dogs in the state. “Thor knows her scent, too. If she’s here, they’ll find her.”

He unlocked his shotgun from the carrier between the seats then leashed up Thor. After hooking a flashlight and a respirator on his belt, he racked the slide on the shotgun, charging the weapon and making it battle-ready.

Deck held Tori’s sweater out for Thor and Blue to sniff, then they moved out.

Neither dog seemed to be on a track, so they headed for the largest building still standing and that had probably been the main storefront at one time. They circled the building, with neither Blue nor Thor hitting on anything.