Dakota’s Delight Read online

  Levi’s hard voice filled the truck. “We just heard. Yes, it’s him. We can’t get Mannford on the phone either. Can you run to the Houston police station and see if he’s around? If you can’t find him, determine when he was last seen.”

  Dakota pulled the truck back into traffic and made a U-turn. Still on the phone, he asked, “Are we thinking Mannford’s involved?”

  “Or missing,” Levi snapped. “Ice didn’t speak with him directly, but she had a message on her machine. She’s been trying to get a hold of him since then, but there’s been no response at all.”

  “Give me his home address, and we’ll head there first.”

  Levi rattled off the number and the street.

  “I’ve got it. I know where that is.” Dakota turned the truck to the left, then back right. “We’ll call you after we arrive.”

  He put the phone down on the seat beside him. “We need to see if Mannford’s around. Levi’s afraid he’s gone missing.”

  “With the assailant or dead because of the assailant?”

  “We can’t go there yet.”

  With nothing else to do, she sat back and watched, waiting. Inside, her nerves were knotted down tight. This was not what she needed to hear. They picked up one assailant and were looking for the guy who supposedly had shot the mayor. What she didn’t need to hear was that both men were on the loose.

  *

  Dakota pulled up in front of a series of brownstone townhomes. The detective’s was the end unit. With Bailey at his side, he walked up the steps to the front door and knocked. He followed that up with a ringing of the doorbell. They stood and listened. Nothing. He motioned down the stairs and said, “Let’s go around to the back.” There he repeated the knocking.

  With no answer, he tried to peer through the kitchen window. Bailey did the same on the other side of the door.

  “I can’t see anything,” she exclaimed.

  He studied the layout and then his gaze recognized something he knew all too well. “I do,” he snapped. He reached into his pocket, pulling out the tool he wanted. He’d picked the lock on the back door in seconds.

  “Can we do this?”

  He pushed open the door and bolted inside. As he went around the corner of the kitchen he stopped and fell to his knees. Detective Mannford was on his back, blood under his shoulders and neck. Dakota reached down to check for a pulse, his phone automatically in his hand. He dialed emergency and said, “We have a police officer down.”

  He stared grimly at the man who’d just been at their place only hours earlier. While still on the phone, he said, “Two bullets, one high at the base of his neck.” He got off the call and placed a second call to Levi. “Mannford has been shot in his townhouse. He’s still alive, but he’s in bad shape. Emergency services are on the way, but I don’t feel he’ll make it.” He glanced over at Bailey and said, “I’ve got Bailey here. I would like to get her home and out of this situation as soon as possible.”

  “Wait there until the ambulance and the police arrive. Deal with the police, and then we’ll look at what’s next. Are the premises secured?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to check,” he answered. “I’m holding pressure on one of the wounds. Although it’s probably too late to be worried about it.”

  “Watch your six. You know this is bad news.”

  Chapter 15

  So much death. Bailey stood over Detective Mannford, staring at the badly injured man.

  “Bailey? Bailey?”

  She shook her head, coming out of her daze, and turned to stare at Dakota. “What?” she asked.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in a sharp tone.

  She realized she’d been standing with her hand over her mouth, focused on the poor man. She dropped to her knees at his side and whispered, “Yes, I’m fine. But he’s not. There’s just been so much death. So much killing.”

  “Well, he’s not dead yet, so we can’t write him off.”

  She nodded. “Is it possible to survive with so much blood loss?”

  “I hope so,” he said firmly. “I have a bigger concern. I don’t know if this place is safe. I don’t want you to go anywhere. Just stay here with me.”

  She stared at him in shock and then quickly spun around, looking into the living room and dining room areas. “Do you think he could be upstairs? His attacker, I mean? Why would he stick around?”

  “It’s certainly happened before. We’ve seen break-ins where people killed the owners and then just lived in their house with the dead bodies rotting in the kitchen while the intruders did laundry and cooked a meal. There is no rhyme or reason. In this case, we can’t be sure who shot the detective either.”

  She wrapped her arms around her chest and sat down on the floor against the wall. “How can you live like this?” she whispered. She felt his gaze but didn’t dare look at him. “After my husband died, it just seemed like everything was over in my world. There was so much illness, and yet, at the end, death was a release. This isn’t like that. This is so much the opposite. It’s violence. Anger. Not release and relief.”

  “We’re doing our best to make sure nobody else gets killed.”

  She nodded. “I understand that. It’s just … difficult.”

  “I know. I’m so sorry you have to see this, to deal with this.”

  She rolled her head to the side and looked at him. “It’s not your fault. You did everything right.”

  He reached over and gently clasped her hand with his. “You’ve done nothing wrong either.”

  “Sure feels like nothing’s been right either. For the longest time, I wanted to die with my husband. I knew how much that attitude angered him. He wanted me to live. But just because that’s how he felt, he didn’t make it easy for me to feel that way.”

  “Of course your life is about you being you. It’s not about being what other people want you to be. One of the hardest things kids have to do when growing up these days is finding out who they are inside. Not irrationally listening to their peers or being pushed into the wrong things by the masses or otherwise persuaded against their will by the Internet. It’s a matter of looking inside and seeing what’s right and wrong for you.”

  “Easy to say …”

  “But not easy to do,” he finished. He nodded. “And it took me a long time to get there myself. Thankfully I have.”

  “I’m not there yet. I’m not sure how far off I am. Rick told me not to wallow. I wallowed. He told me not to cry. I cried. Grief is a funny thing. It’s a hard taskmaster. No matter how much you try to hide from it, it doesn’t make any difference. It still comes, grabs you by the throat and makes you deal with it.”

  “Life is like that too.” He grinned. “Besides, you’re not alone with dealing with hardship. Most of us here have lost someone. No, not in the same way but it’s hard no matter what way.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “I have to keep remembering that I’ve come through a lot already.”

  He nodded. “Absolutely. So don’t ever knock yourself. Don’t feel less than or way worse than anybody else. You’ve done a damn fine job so far.”

  She leaned her head against the wall. “Shouldn’t the ambulance be here by now?”

  The words weren’t fully out of her mouth when the sirens could be heard in the distance.

  She slowly got to her feet. “I’ll open the front door for them.”

  She walked toward the door and pulled it open just as the police and ambulance arrived. She motioned for them to come straight in. And then she stepped out of the way. She’d forgotten how well-oiled-machine-like emergency calls were. It was amazing to watch how efficient and professional each of them was as they came in to deal with the detective.

  A policeman asked her to step to one side. “Can you tell me what happened?”

  Bailey motioned toward the kitchen where the detective lay on the floor beside Dakota. “You should probably ask him. We came looking for the detective after we heard the prisoner had escaped. La
st we saw him was when he picked up the prisoner from our home.”

  The policeman turned to Dakota, caught his eye and motioned for him to join them. Dakota walked over, his hands covered in blood. She couldn’t stop staring at them. While the two men talked, she went into the kitchen, found paper towels on the counter, soaked several sheets with water from the tap and took several dry sheets, holding them out for Dakota. He looked down and quickly wiped his hand free of the mess. She took the dirty towels away and put them in the garbage, then washed her hands.

  For a long moment, she stood over the sink, hearing the sounds and the noises, but it was the smell of the blood that caught her. Every time she’d had to go in and deal with the bandages and the sores that had developed on Rick’s body, she was assaulted with just this sickness, this metallic smell around her husband. It had been hard. As her heart was breaking, his body was decomposing. It had been a massive lesson on life, the fragility of the organic body. Seeing the detective with his blood dripping away had been a brutal reminder.

  She heard the orders as he was lifted and carried out. When she figured it was safe, she walked around the kitchen and watched, her breath shaky in her throat.

  “Bailey?”

  She looked at Dakota as he walked over and wrapped an arm around her, tucking her close. She couldn’t help but snuggle in. She wrapped an arm around his back and looped it with her other one. “I hope he’ll be okay,” she whispered.

  He squeezed her gently. “They’ll take good care of him. It’s a miracle we got here when we did.”

  “Now I feel guilty about going shopping,” she cried.

  “No. Don’t. You didn’t have a clue. We didn’t know until we heard the announcement on the radio.”

  She nodded. “Still, it doesn’t change the fact that, if we’d gotten here earlier, he might have a better chance.”

  “Don’t write him off. Just because he’s down does not mean he’s out. And, if we hadn’t come to town to shop, we wouldn’t have come by his place at all. This is not your husband all over again. Just because your husband died does not mean Mannford will.”

  “A completely different scenario,” she muttered. “I know that intellectually, but …”

  “Exactly.

  “Can we go home now?”

  “I have to check in with Levi and see if he wants us to do anything else. But, as far as the police are concerned, we can leave.”

  He pulled out his phone, called Levi and updated him. Still being held in Dakota’s arms, Bailey was close enough to hear the bulk of their conversation. He ended the conversation with, “If there is nothing else, then we’ll head home.”

  “Nothing more you can do,” Levi said. “I’d rather have you home safe and sound before anybody else gets hurt.”

  Dakota pocketed his phone. With his arm still around her, he led her to the truck.

  Inside he turned on the heater, instinctively understanding how chilled she was inside. A light rain started. She looked out at the slight drops coming down, hitting the windshield. “It looks like the world knows my mood.”

  He started up the engine, checked his watch and said, “We don’t want to miss dinner, so let’s get a move on.”

  She looked at the time and shook her head. “Brisket should be done. Alfred would’ve finished the vegetables. We’ll get leftovers.”

  “Good. I love leftovers.”

  She settled back for the trip home. Forty five minutes later, as they came into the gates, she was surprised to see they were locked. He stopped, waited for a few minutes, then the gates opened automatically, and they drove in. “They can see us?”

  “Absolutely. From the control room.”

  “So nobody can get in unless someone lets them?”

  “Not from this direction.”

  She nodded and settled back. “Yet a man made it inside. Was that because he knew about the tunnel?”

  “That means he had some idea from somebody about the blueprints of this place. He also knew where the blind spot was. He took the camera out there. All in all, like I said, he was a pro. The chances of us meeting up with too many pros like him are pretty rare.”

  “Maybe he is angry you captured him. What are the chances he’s looking for payback?”

  “I doubt payback is the issue. Although that doesn’t mean he won’t try again,” Dakota admitted.

  “Are we safe here?”

  “I won’t lie. It’s pretty damn hard to stay safe when you’ve got a professional killer after you. But you’re safer here than you would possibly be elsewhere.”

  She sighed. “I could have gone to a hotel. He wouldn’t have known where I was.”

  “What makes you think he wouldn’t follow you? What makes you think he isn’t still following us now?”

  She spun to look in the direction they’d come, almost crying out at the immediate wrenching of her back. “Is he?”

  “No. Nobody followed us out of town.”

  “But you were watching for that, weren’t you?”

  He nodded. “Absolutely.”

  They walked inside to find everybody sitting down and eating. She took her place, smiled at Alfred and said, “I’m so sorry for not getting back in time to help with the vegetables.”

  “Much better you helped Mannford get to the hospital.”

  She ate, even though she wasn’t hungry. She understood the value of food, but it was hard when Mannford was in the hospital, fighting for his life. “I hate waiting for updates. I hate waiting for doctors to contact you with test results. I hate waiting in the hospital for somebody to talk to you.” Her sudden words out of context startled the group.

  Dakota reached across and gently stroked her shoulder. “We’ll get an update on him tonight.”

  Slightly embarrassed, she lowered her face and kept eating.

  Levi spoke up. “Dakota, you want to tell us what you saw?”

  *

  “After we heard the news on the radio, I called you, diverted toward Mannford’s place. It’s actually a condo. The front door was locked, so we went around to the back. The kitchen door was locked. We both looked in the windows on either side of the door. I could see his foot, lying on the floor. I picked the lock, went in and found him on the floor with two bullet holes, one in the neck, one in the chest. I placed my fingers on the bullet hole in his chest. The severe bleeding slowed, then his pulse slowed and grew weak, and blood came from the neck wound.”

  “Not arterial?” Ice asked.

  Dakota shook his head. “But I don’t know how long he was there. I don’t know how severe the blood loss was.”

  She nodded. “If they can stem the flow and get him stabilized, infusions will help him to recover. All depends on how extensive the damage was.”

  “It didn’t look like either hit a vital organ,” Bailey said quietly. “Also I saw no damage to the living room. No furniture was tossed. No drawers in the kitchen had been left opened, and there was no sign of a disturbance. It’s as if someone just walked in and shot him.”

  “Except,” Ice said, “the door was locked.”

  Bailey stopped and stared at her. “Yes,” she said slowly, “it was.”

  “Someone had keys to the place or took his and locked the doors behind him.”

  Dakota, his voice hard, said, “Or one other alternative—he was still inside.”

  Bailey swallowed hard. “I did tell the officer we didn’t have a chance to do a search of the house. I think one of the EMTs said he’d been shot at least an hour before we arrived.”

  “The blood was already starting to congeal,” Dakota added quietly.

  Ice nodded. “Depending on a lot of different factors, that could’ve happened at various times.”

  Bailey turned toward Dakota. “That’s why you didn’t want me to leave your side? In case the shooter was still in the house?”

  He nodded. “If he remained in the detective’s house, the shooter had to know someone would show up sometime.”

  Ther
e was silence around the table, everyone taking in what Dakota said.

  “He could have gotten out any number of ways, including windows on the second floor. We’ve done something similar many times,” Levi said quietly. “Let’s not get hung up on how he may have been inside still. I highly doubt he was still there otherwise he’d have taken you both out, needing to make sure he left no witnesses behind. Particularly after having shot a detective.”

  After a few minutes Dakota finished off his plate, pushed it to one side and said, “What about us going after this guy?”

  “Is it one guy or two guys?” Ice countered.

  “Two guys,” Bailey said. “The one who shot the man in the alley, and the man you captured here.” She turned to look at Levi. “Do we know if the mayor survived?”

  “He’ll be fine. He’s expected to be released from the hospital today.”

  Just then a figure appeared in the doorway. Dakota looked up and grinned. “Merk, you’ve got a hell of a hard head.”

  Merk took several steps slowly toward the table and sat down. “Maybe not hard enough.” He growled. “Who the hell hit me?”

  “An intruder. He came through the tunnel. You opened the door and went out, but he was already there. He didn’t know you were coming out, but he caught you right at the edge.”

  “Asshole. My head still hurts.”

  Katina came in behind him and sat down, her hand gripping Merk’s. “He was too stubborn. He wouldn’t stay in bed.”

  “You wouldn’t stay with me,” he said. “No way in hell I’m staying down there alone.”

  She shook her head. “Like I said, stubborn.”

  Dakota watched the two of them, seeing how she hovered over him, but she let him do his own thing. Lots to be said for that attitude.

  Merk straightened up and said, “Please tell me that you caught him.”

  Levi nodded. “We caught him. Had him picked up by Detective Mannford. He was transferred to the local jail. And he escaped. On top of that, Mannford has been shot twice in his own home.”

  Merk’s jaw dropped. “I’ve been knocked over the head, and the world goes to shit.”

  “Also the mayor was shot,” Bailey added. “Just to add to the confusion.”