Pushed Too Far: A Thriller by Ann Voss Peterson, Blake Crouch Page B

reports?”
    She thought about the reports, the transcripts of the trial. “Her father.”
    Hess smiled. “What is the point of revenge if the person you want to hurt isn’t around to enjoy the pain? At least for a little while.”
    “You tortured a girl to death to get back at her father?”
    He tapped his chest with his fingertips. “Not guilty, remember?”
    “What did he do to you?”
    He crossed his arms over his chest.
    “At trial, the prosecutor argued that the girl refused to date you.”
    “If by date you mean open her legs, she dated anything that moved.”
    “I could ask the father. His number is in the police report.”
    “He wasn’t a good man, Chief Val. Whatever happened to him, he deserved it.”
    “Okay, I’ll ask him to explain.”
    “Do that. And while you’re at it, ask what he did to Rascal.”
    “Rascal?”
    “A kid’s best friend is his dog.”
    His dog. The neighbor had done something to his dog, so Hess had tortured and killed the man’s daughter. Dixon Hess’s version of justice.
    “It was nice meeting the kids at school today. All those fresh faces, bright futures. Especially this blond beauty. I think her name was Grace.”
    Val leaned close. “You touch her, you’re dead.”
    The intercom gave a light buzz. “Chief?” Oneida said over the speaker.
    “Go ahead. Answer.” Hess smiled. “I think we’re done here anyway.”

Chapter
Thirteen
    V al completed the details of Hess’s release as quickly as she could, and when she got back to dispatch, she was still shaking.
    Oneida, too, looked more pale than usual. “Mr. Haselow has called an emergency meeting.”
    It had to be about what had happened at the high school. Typical for the village president to hold an emergency meeting after the emergency was over. “In the conference room?”
    “He and The Chief are waiting for you in your office.”
    “Thanks, Oneida. Why don’t you go home now? Your shift was done hours ago.”
    The big woman shook her head hard enough to send her earrings jangling. “No chance. Not until everything’s back to normal around here.”
    Val had the sense that things wouldn’t return to normal until Hess either killed again and was caught or moved on. Unwilling to lay that kind of pessimism on poor Oneida, she resigned herself to a lame nod. “Then you probably won’t be getting home for quite a while.”
    “I have tomorrow off. I can sleep then.”
    “Working all the time, not getting proper rest, you’re as bad as I am.”
    Oneida gave her a wink. “But I smell sweeter.”
    She probably had a point.
    And when Val entered her office and was almost knocked over by a wave of cologne that reeked as if it had passed some kind of expiration date and soured like milk, her first thought was to make sure the odor wasn’t coming from her.
    The village president, a skinny little balding man named Haselow who never seemed to like Val very much, gave her a screamingly phony smile. “So glad you’re finally here. I guess we can start the meeting then.”
    Lounging in one of the chairs in front of her desk, Jeff Schneider pressed his lips together. Not a smile exactly, but a show of support, subtle as it may be.
    She circled to the power side of the desk and sat. “Sorry for keeping you waiting. It’s been busy.”
    “So we’ve heard.” Haselow perched on the edge of his chair. The man was nervous, always moving, a jiggling leg, shifting eyes, hand fiddling with his suit jacket.
    Just watching him exhausted her. How he’d convinced people to vote for him, she’d never know.
    “All the news outlets are covering it,” he rattled on. “It’s very unfortunate. We are very concerned.”
    Val laid out the facts of the afternoon, trying to keep her voice even and reassuring; Hess’s gun that turned out to be paper, the way he’d wheedled a speaking invitation in her niece’s class, the fact that they’d secured the building without anyone getting hurt.
    Schneider nodded