Dremmel got a partial shock on the arm of the guy in the closet, then didn’t waste any time racing for freedom. He leaped the fallen, stunned man, zoomed through the room, and aimed for the open door. Without breaking stride he passed through the doorway, then slammed into someone coming inside, colliding with terrific force. He didn’t hesitate and brought the stun gun up to the man’s chest and squeezed the trigger.
The shock sent them in opposite directions. When he landed, Dremmel looked across the cement walkway and realized he had just sent the motel clerk into a violent convulsion on the ground.
Dremmel had started to rise to his feet when he heard someone from the motel doorway say, “Move and you’re a dead man.”
William Dremmel looked up into the barrel of a semiautomatic pistol held by a tough-looking man with a badge clipped to his belt.
Dremmel paused and said, “Who are you?”
“John Stallings, JSO.”
Then Dremmel made his last pitch at freedom.
Stallings had this creep at gunpoint and he’d identified himself. But instead of considering the best way to hold him until backup arrived he found himself assessing his chances of shooting this stinking pile of shit and getting away with it. He edged closer, his pistol still up.
Dremmel surprised him by driving up on powerful legs like a nose tackle coming into the offensive line. His arms up in front of his face, he struck Stallings hard, shoving him back into the room, knocking the pistol loose.
Stallings tumbled backward onto the hard floor with Dremmel landing on top of him. He braced for another jolt from the stun gun. Nothing. Just the younger man trying to stabilize himself to land a punch.
Stallings drove his knee into Dremmel’s groin. He heard the gasp and yelp so familiar to any male ever hit below the belt. He slid away from Dremmel and felt his pistol on the floor as he did. He grabbed it and jumped into a crouch, raising the gun at the same time.
He yelled, “Don’t move.”
Dremmel froze, gasping for air.
Slowly Stallings backed away, giving himself more room and respecting Dremmel’s athletic ability. He stood and looked down at his prisoner.
Dremmel seemed to recover from the blow to his groin and looked up at Stallings with defiance in his eyes.
Stallings glanced out the door and saw the clerk was still on the ground, virtually unconscious. This was the exact situation he wanted. Just the two of them, isolated, with no witnesses. He thought about Lee Ann Moffitt, Tawny Wallace, and Trina Ester. That old anger started welling up in him. He let himself wonder about his own daughter as he looked at this predator who had tried to claim two more victims, one of them his own partner, Patty. He thought about her in the hospital, then raised the pistol. He wished it was a revolver so he could cock it and let this asshole think about what was coming. It wasn’t even murder. It was justice.
Dremmel stared up silently.
Maybe this is what he wanted? Then Stallings hesitated just long enough to think about Patty and her desire for him to think through his violent tendencies. Now was not the time to be indecisive. He kneeled down so he was the same height as Dremmel. He didn’t want an ambitious crime scene tech to figure out the trajectory of the bullet made it look like an execution. He already had a stun gun burn on his arm and a lump on his head from being knocked back by Dremmel. No one would ask questions unless he got stupid.
Dremmel’s expression never changed as Stallings went down on his left knee, keeping the front sights of the pistol in the center of the killer’s face.
Stallings had to ask. “What pushed you to do it?”
Dremmel shrugged, showing no concern. “You tell me. Looks like we’re not that different.”
“Yes, we are.”