Killer Heat (Dept 6 Hired Guns 3)

His cell vibrated. Hoping she was returning one of his many calls, he answered without even glancing at the screen. “Jonah Young.”

“It’s Finch. We’ve got Butch here. We picked him up twenty minutes ago, not far from Kelly’s house. He won’t say why he was sitting there, watching her place. Won’t say much of anything at all, which has me worried. I just spoke with Wanda’s former neighbor. She said Butch’s truck was parked at Wanda’s house on several occasions, and yet he told Hunsacker he’d never heard of her. Are you sure it’s Paris we want?”

“I’m sure,” Jonah said. “Ask Butch if he thinks his wife might’ve gone after Francesca.”

Jonah heard Finch repeat the question but he couldn’t make out Butch’s response.

“He says you can go to hell,” Finch said.

Pivoting, Jonah headed back across Francesca’s living room. “What do you think? Paris wouldn’t go after Francesca, would she?” he said. “She hasn’t slept with Butch.” But she’d been a threat to Paris and her family. If not for Francesca’s appearance at the salvage yard, and her dogged pursuit of Butch as the probable killer, the spotlight of this investigation might never have turned their way.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Finch said.

“Tell Butch he’d better start talking. Because if Paris kills Francesca, or anyone else, I’ll do everything I can—hire investigators or consulting attorneys, whatever is necessary—to make sure she gets the death penalty. And he’ll go to prison as an accomplice. Then who’ll take care of Champ?”

“We tried that—”

“Tell him again!” Jonah shouted. “Tell him I’ll make it my life’s mission to destroy him and everyone he loves if he doesn’t do what he can to help me now!”

“You’ve really pissed him off,” he heard Finch say to Butch. “You’d better consider what’s best for your son and help us stop your psycho wife. There’s no way to save her now, Butch. It’s time to think of Champ. Hunsacker’s right here, backing me up. And you know he wouldn’t lie to you. You might as well do all you can for your son.”

“But I don’t know anything!” Butch screamed. There was no need for Finch to repeat it. Jonah had heard every word—and every word made him sicker. “I have no idea where she is,” he went on. “If I knew, I wouldn’t have been sitting out on the street, hoping to spot her!”

“What about the Wheelers?” Jonah asked Finch. “Maybe they—”

“I’ve talked to them. They don’t know any more than Butch does.”

Jonah had to find her. But how? “She’s got a cell phone,” he said. “Use triangulation. Now!”

“But we’re not even sure Francesca’s in danger.”

“Paris is missing. So is Francesca. That means chances are good she is in danger. Just figure out where the hell she is, and do it as fast as possible,” he snapped. Then he hung up and did the only thing he could—he dialed Francesca’s cell yet again.

When her cell phone rang, Francesca moved to answer it. Jonah had been trying to reach her all morning. She’d purposely ignored his calls because she hadn’t been willing to talk to him, hadn’t wanted to explain what was going through her head last night. But now that she’d seen this bat, she couldn’t wait to tell him they had physical evidence. She wasn’t sure if they could actually prove Dean had killed someone with it—Butch or someone else could’ve been responsible for the blood—but that could be established later. This might be their first link to one of the other victims, someone besides Julia, which meant she hadn’t been so wrong in believing these killings were tied in some way to the salvage yard.

But she didn’t get the chance to tell him anything. Just as her hand moved, Paris hit her with what felt like a two-by-four.

She went blind for a second as every muscle in her body locked. Falling onto the seat, she struggled just to breathe. But it didn’t take long to figure out what had happened. Paris hadn’t hit her with a board. She’d used a Taser. Francesca knew because it wasn’t her first time being shocked. She’d experienced a similar jolt while in the police academy—routine training for all cops—and remembered the immediate soreness of her body, the disorientation. Had she not reached back when she did, and unknowingly knocked the device, she probably would’ve sustained an even longer charge.

The reason for this attack was more difficult to figure out. “Why” required logic. And that part of her brain was slower in recovering. Paris was trying to force her hands into a pair of handcuffs before Francesca put the obvious together—that Paris had incapacitated her for a very deadly reason—and she only realized that because Paris was swearing at her.

“You stupid bitch! You’re dead now. You think you can take me away from my family? You think you can sic the police on my husband? I’ll show you what happens to people who mess with us!”

Francesca wished she’d opened the door on the other side of the car, facing the highway. There wasn’t much traffic on the road, but an occasional car or truck rumbled by. She heard the motor of one now, wished the driver would be able to see more than a woman standing on the desert side of an Impala with a flat tire—but she knew that was unlikely.

Afraid Paris would shock her again if she didn’t seem to be in sufficient pain, she jerked and writhed as if she couldn’t gain control of her body. Depending on size and muscle mass, as well as the length of the jolt, reactions to Tasers varied widely. She used that knowledge to her advantage as she rolled her eyes and flopped around.

“You didn’t like that, did you?” Paris said, laughing. “Hold still and let me cuff you or I’ll shock you again.”

Francesca couldn’t allow Paris to cuff her hands. If she did, she’d have no chance of defending herself. But she was headfirst in the backseat of a car, on her stomach. She had nothing to fight with, not even her fists.

A second later, she heard the sickening catch of the cuffs snapping into place. Then Paris dragged her out of the car and, threatening her with the Taser, told her to walk toward her BMW. And when Paris paused to get the bat out of the backseat, Francesca knew what was coming.

“You don’t feel bad?” she asked as she stumbled across the uneven ground. “About all the women you’ve killed?”