Pushed Too Far: A Thriller Read Free

protect the people of Lake Loyal. You think letting a monster loose is the way to go about that?”
    “We’re officers of the law. We have to follow the law.”
    “And if we aren’t able to come up with a new case against him, he goes free. Just like he did in Omaha.”
    She shook her head, remembering the horror of the Omaha case, the poor girl he tortured, the case that should have been a slam dunk. “If the Omaha police had played everything by the book, he would have been convicted.”
    “You don’t know that.” Olson twisted his stocking cap in his hands, and Val had to wonder if it was a stand in for her throat. “There was a lot of evidence against him. It should have been enough, even with the illegal search of his car.”
    She couldn’t disagree. Even now she could hear echoes of the Omaha PD Lieutenant’s anguish when she’d called about the case.
    “He was the worst I’ve ever known,”
said the thirty-five year veteran.
“The cruelest man I’ve ever seen.”
    “We’ll stop him.” Her voice sounded weaker than she’d wanted, and she straightened her spine to compensate.
    Lips in a hard line, Olson looked past her and focused on the shoreline. “You better be right.”
    She followed his gaze.
    A white van drove through the parking lot and past the playground equipment, the logo of a local television station emblazoned on its side.
    Great.
    Once the media sank their teeth into this, there was no going back. Hess’s attorney would file a habeas corpus motion and the clock would start ticking.
    Forty eight hours.
    It was all the time she had, and it wasn’t enough.
    Not nearly enough.

Chapter
Three
    D ale Kasdorf wasn’t surprised when he saw police and fire trucks and ambulances stream into the park. If anything, he wondered why it took them so long.
    He trudged down the ridge in the adjacent forest preserve. Dressed in snow camo, he couldn’t be seen today any more than he had been last night, and that was good with him. Nothing came of talking to cops. Nothing but harassment.
    He’d learned his lesson the first time.
    Approaching his traps, he spotted the news truck. For a while he just stood and watched them unload the camera, set up the reporter, get ready to intercept the pretty blond police chief when she reached shore. Apparently they’d tell the story on the news tonight—or at least they’d try—but he wouldn’t watch.
    He knew the story better than they did.
    He continued, checking each of his four traps. Two rabbits. One for freezing one for eating. A good day. Maybe he’d use the fur to make a hat. Get real Native American and use all the parts of the kill.
    He liked that idea.
    After bagging his game, he reset the traps in different spots, far from the smells of blood and struggle that would surely scare off the next round of game. In summer, it was hard to utilize the forest preserve without some kid or dog stumbling on the steel jaws and ripping their damn fool legs apart. But after deer season ended, people left the woods to the rabbits and squirrels, foxes and coyotes.
    And to him.
    The way he liked it.
    Ready to head back to his place and cook up some stew, he took one last glance at the lake below. His eyes skimmed over the young female cop collecting trash along water’s edge and found the bright orange raft, the body strapped to it barely visible in the long grass reaching through ice.
    He’d seen a woman die early this morning. That had to be marked.
    But he wasn’t going to tell this time. Not a goddamn word. Because the only thing worse than being a victim in this world was being a witness.
    And he would never make that mistake again.

     
    Lund had lived through a lot of bad days, but this one might be the worst.
    He’d barely moved since he’d pulled Kelly to stable ice. Hadn’t been able to face taking off the thermal suit, as if the clinging rubber was the only thing keeping him from shattering into a million pieces.
    She’d died two years ago, and his