When they heard the sirens outside on the street, she looked over at Simon and nodded. “Go get them and bring them up here, will you? Make sure that ambulance gets here fast.”
He hesitated.
She smiled and said, “Don’t worry. The next shot will take out his testicles.”
Simon winced at that, but he believed her. He raced down the ramp and motioned at the cops and told them to bring the ambulance crew straight up because they had a critical victim. As he raced back, his gaze immediately went to Kate. But she was still standing there, holding her gun on the man on the ground. “At least he’s still alive,” he noted.
“Yeah, he is,” she replied. “It’s just so strange to have the case actually over.” She looked over at Chelice. “Are you doing okay?”
“I am now,” the woman whispered. “I just hurt so damn much.”
“The ambulance is here,” Kate told her. “Hang on a little longer, and we’ll get you out of this hellhole.”
Just a few minutes later, the woman was surrounded by the EMTs, and it didn’t take long before she was quickly removed from the ropes and whatever support system he had strung her up in. Soon she was cut down and taken away, Kate realized that Simon had been busy taking photos.
She walked over and stated, “I’ll need those.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I figured somebody needed to take photos of how he had her strung up.”
She nodded. “I know, and I couldn’t do anything until somebody else had him. Thank you.” She looked back to see the killer also being loaded onto a gurney. “He goes into a separate ambulance,” she ordered.
The EMTs looked at her in surprise, but she shook her head. “This woman has been tortured by him long enough. He can wait until another ambulance gets here. She gets priority, and the last thing she needs is to be around this asshole another second. He doesn’t deserve any medical treatment. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t mind if you dropped him a couple times on the way out of here.”
The still-bleeding man started to laugh. “See? There’s that killer part of you talking right now,” he said. “Now if only you’d had the guts to do the job.”
“Nah,” she replied. “I figure you’ll suffer far more in prison for the rest of your life.”
“I won’t suffer.”
“Yeah, you will. You’ll end up in solitary most of the time,” she stated, “because nobody can stand you. And the prisoners will beat the crap out of you when you’re in the general population, just as a matter of course.”
“I’ll kill myself instead,” he said, with a casual shrug.
“I couldn’t care less, but you won’t do it on my watch.”
And, with that, she stepped back, and the EMTs loaded him onto a gurney and strapped him down, as another cop handcuffed him in place. She turned to look at Simon. “I’ll be here for a while.”
“Yeah, you think?” he asked. “Probably all night again, huh?”
“Yeah,” she said, with half a smile. “Like all night again. So, if you don’t mind making a trip to the car before you go—”
“You want your stuff?”
“Yeah, I’ll need my bag. I want my coffee, and some of those cold burgers would be fine too.”
He shook his head. “How can you eat after this?”
“Because I’ll have a long night ahead,” she repeated, with a smile. “Besides, we won this one.”
He looked at her and nodded. “You know something? You’re right. This is a big win.”
“It is, indeed,” she agreed. “So maybe you can get some sleep tonight. She’s safe. You did everything you could, and we found her.”
He smiled. “I wanted to show you something.”
She frowned and looked at him in surprise.
He nodded. “Take a look at this.”