QR Code Killer Read online

  by

  Shanna Hatfield

  QR Code Killer

  Copyright 2012

  by Shanna Hatfield

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  For permission requests, please contact the author, with a subject line of "permission request” at the email address below or through her website.

  Shanna Hatfield

  [email protected]

  shannahatfield.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. Although this is an ebook, it remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be reproduced, copied and distributed for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy at Smashwords.com, where they can also discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

  Books by Shanna Hatfield

  FICTION

  QR Code Killer

  Learnin’ The Ropes

  Grass Valley Cowboys Series

  The Cowboy’s Christmas Plan

  The Cowboy’s Spring Romance

  The Cowboy’s Summer Love

  The Women of Tenacity Series

  The Women of Tenacity - A Prelude

  Heart of Clay

  Country Boy vs. City Girl

  Not His Type

  NON-FICTION

  Savvy Holiday Entertaining

  Savvy Spring Entertaining

  Savvy Summer Entertaining

  To the wonderful women who proofread by ramblings.

  You can’t begin to know how much I appreciate your help, encouragement and support!

  You are the best!

  Chapter One

  "You in position, Mad Dog?"

  "Affirmative."

  "You ready to do this?"

  "Bring it on."

  Mad Dog Weber was one of Seattle's finest detectives in the narcotics division. A cop for ten years, Mad Dog was well respected, on top of the game, and seemingly fearless.

  Now, sitting on the curb outside a seedy dive near the waterfront, watching the back door and waiting for the signal to move, no one would know they were looking at someone who offered firearm training to many of Seattle's newest police force members. Face smeared with dirt and clothes covered in filth, Mad Dog reeked with the stench of sweat and booze. A grimy hand held the 9mm Glock handgun under a rumpled newspaper while an ear piece remained hidden beneath stringy hair and a moth-eaten stocking cap.

  "You can still back out," a deep voice badgered over the connection.

  Mad Dog muffled a snort. "Right. Cause that's how things roll with me."

  Devin, Mad Dog's partner of four years, laughed quietly, "Don't I know it."

  "Just shut up and get ready," Mad Dog whispered, keeping both eyes hooded but alert as a drunk wandered by.

  Once the drunk staggered around the corner, Mad Dog got up and pushed the rickety shopping cart filled with a homeless man's treasures closer toward the back entrance, keeping the newspaper covered hand on top of the cart.

  This stake out was more than just an opportunity to nab another bad guy. Zeus was a thief, drug lord and murderer. Mad Dog wanted nothing more than to see him brought to his knees begging for mercy. Dreams of pulling the trigger and driving home the bullet that would end his miserable life had been a constant, haunting companion since Zeus had made things personal. Six months ago, he shot down Mad Dog's own mother in cold blood.

  Mad Dog was ready to return the favor.

  Zeus had been on their radar for almost a year, but no one seemed to be able to identify him, let alone catch him. His name traveled in the circles of drug runners, crack houses, meth labs and hit men. If it was dirty and illegal, Zeus was probably involved in it. Mad Dog nearly caught him eight months ago. Tipped off by a dealer who wanted to barter a shorter sentence, Mad Dog discovered Zeus set up an appointment to talk about a large shipment of drugs out of Seattle. The stake-out collapsed when one of Zeus’ bodyguards caught on to the scheme and Mad Dog went running after the elusive figure known as Zeus, getting close enough to smell the fear surrounding him as he fled.

  With no idea what his face looked like, Mad Dog had the department's artist create a sketch featuring a tall, fit man with dark hair and skin.

  Shortly after the encounter, Mad Dog received a QR Code in the mail. Arriving in a plain brown envelope, the code was printed on a piece of white cardstock. Scanning it, the code landed on a page that simply said "Back off!"

  Mad Dog had all their techie experts try to find where and how the website was built, to pull an IP address, but the page was impenetrable.

  Furious beyond belief, Mad Dog doubled the efforts being put into hunting down Zeus. Three weeks later, Zeus shot Elaine Weber in her car on her way home from the grocery store. Shortly after the killing, Mad Dog received another QR code that scanned into a video showing Elaine being shot along with the words, "I told you to back off. Now maybe you'll listen."

  Rousing from the vicious memories, Mad Dog listened to the conversation going on between their undercover cop and one of the men who worked for Zeus.

  Hearing the phrase, "right on time," Mad Dog recognized the signal to get into position.

  With a tightened grip on the Glock, Mad Dog took a careful look around. Something didn't feel right. Something was off. Muscles tense, Mad Dog waited.

  "You're a cop! You're wearing a wire!" buzzed through the earpiece.

  Knowing there was another cop in the shadows of the alley who would watch the back door, Mad Dog took off at a dead run. Clearing the corner of the building, Devin and two other officers, Glen and Danny, were already chasing down Zeus' man. Heading toward the pier, he kept right on running. Devin was gaining on him and Mad Dog wasn’t far behind.

  Devin took a shot and missed, but the runner stopped and drew a gun.

  "Unless you want your pretty boy face blown to oblivion, turn around and leave."

  "I don't think so," Devin said, standing a few feet away. "Drop your weapon or I'll shoot you."

  "Not happening, pretty boy."

  "I said, drop your weapon." Devin's voice sounded rough and harsh, a sharp contrast to his blue eyes, blond hair and guy-next-door looks.

  Mad Dog stood with the other two officers, guns drawn, hoping they wouldn't have to shoot. They needed this guy alive so they could pump him for information about Zeus.

  "No can do," the man said and fired. Devin took the bullet as he propelled himself into the gunman, carrying them both off the pier. Two more gun shots rang out as Mad Dog and the officers ran to the edge.

  "No, Devin. No!" Mad Dog frantically tugged off the stained coat, the moth-eaten hat and ripped at the bullet proof vest covering her chest. She could hear Danny and Glen both yelling into their mics requesting back up and equipment.

  This would happen on a night as dark as the soul of the man they hunted. The lights on the pier did nothing to penetrate the blackness of the lapping water below.

  Knowing what she was planning to do, Danny held her back while his partner dove into the darkened waters. Struggling to free herself from his grasp, she glared at Danny. "He's my partner."

  "
I know he is, Maddie, but there is no way you could haul him out of the water. Glen will find him."

  The pounding of footsteps and the tell-tale sound of sirens flooded around them as more of their team arrived on the scene. Soon floodlights were searching the water for both Devin and Glen. Divers in full scuba gear jumped off the pier in hopes of recovering three bodies.

  Mad Dog, known to her friends and family as Maddie, stood and watched the water, willing Devin and Glen to surface. If something happened to Devin, she didn't know how she would live through it.

  Although she knew better, knew it was against policy, she had fallen in love with her partner. She couldn’t even tell when the admiration and friendship she shared with Devin turned into something more, but it had. Now, the thought of never seeing him again was ripping apart what little was left of her heart.

  From all she had learned about Zeus, it fit his profile to make his targets suffer. If she was on his list, he was certainly doing a good job of plunging the knife deep and twisting it.

  An hour later, the scuba team dragged the limp body of Glen to the edge of the pier, but nothing was found of Zeus' man or Devin.

  Putting a hand on Danny's arm, Maddie gave it a squeeze. "I'm sorry, Danny. So sorry. You should have let me go in."

  "Maddie, don't. Please don't. Not now," Danny said, fighting to talk around the lump in his throat as he watched the sheet-covered body of his own partner be wheeled away. Before this awful night was through, he would drive to Glen's home and break the news to his wife.

  "Do you want me to come with you?" Maddie asked, watching the divers pull in their gear.

  "No. I need to do this alone," Danny said, taking a deep breath and straightening his shoulders. Glen was a good man, a good partner, a good friend. Now he was one more casualty in the war to capture Zeus.

  Maddie nodded.

  Giving Danny one last look filled with sorrow and regret she watched him cross the street and get in a car. Turning, she walked to the end of the pier to stand alone and let her tears drop into the brackish water.

  She would bring Zeus to justice if it took the last breath in her body to do it.

  <><><>

  Erik Moore took a deep breath of the hay-scented air and raised his golden eyes heavenward.

  Watching a fluffy white cloud float across the cerulean blue sky, he removed his John Deere ball cap, wiped the sweat from his brow, and tugged the hat back in place.

  "This won't get the work done any faster, will it, Boone?" Erik addressed the question to his bird dog and faithful companion.

  His answer was a happy bark as the dog rubbed against his leg.

  Giving the dog an affectionate thump on the side, Erik returned to his task of moving irrigation tubes. He knew a lot of the local farmers were upgrading to new methods of irrigation, but this particular field was small and hard to get wet from one end to the other. He still used irrigation tubes, which had to be hand set one at a time. He didn't really mind though. He loved the outdoors, loved the land, and loved every speck of rich soil on his farm.

  In his family for generations, he was the last of a long line of Moores to work this farm. The land had been passed from father to son since his great-great-grandfather moved to Ontario, Oregon, more than a century ago. He worked hard to break the ground, taking the land out of sagebrush, as he built a legacy that would be handed down from one generation to the next. The Moore men were doers and dreamers.

  Dreaming big dreams, Erik hoped to one day pass this farm on to his son.

  Smiling to himself, he couldn't believe he was finally going to be a father.

  Erik and Sheila, his wife of a decade, had wanted a baby for years. Just when they decided to give up trying, Sheila became pregnant. Two weeks ago, they found out the baby was going to be a boy and Erik had a hard time keeping his thoughts on anything but the fact that they were having a son.

  He and Sheila discussed names, nursery colors, and baby announcements. He knew he shouldn't be so interested in all the trappings that went along with a baby’s arrival, but he wanted to relish every detail of this pregnancy. It was nothing short of a miracle, and he didn't want to miss out on anything.

  Nearly finished setting the tubes, the sound of brakes squealing followed by the eerie grinding of metal pummeling metal filled the morning air.

  Jerking his head up, he could see a cloud of dust down the road. Running for his four-wheeler, he jumped on and started it up; racing for what he was sure was a wreck.

  At the place where their lane made a "Y" with the main road, there had been many near-accidents over the years. He'd warned Sheila repeatedly to slow down and carefully go around the blind turn onto the road, but she tended to take it too fast and hope for the best.

  A sick feeling of dread settled over him as he bounced across corrugates and sped down the lane toward the road. Sweat trickled down his back and he suddenly felt chilled to the bone.

  From the rise in the road, he could see a car smashed into a feed truck. Driving faster, dust flew out behind him as he hurried to something he knew he never wanted to see, even in his worst nightmares.

  Screeching to a stop, he jumped off the four-wheeler and raced to what was left of Sheila's car, protruding from beneath the side of the truck. Their neighbor and good friend, Mike Griffith, was already trying to pry the top away from the flattened body. The front of the car was smashed in. The driver’s side was beneath the truck and so compacted, there was no way Sheila could have survived.

  "Erik, I'm so sorry. She came out of nowhere and slammed into the truck. I didn't see her, honest, I didn't."

  "It's not your fault, Mike," Erik said, wanting to yell and scream. Instead he asked, "Did you call 9-1-1?"

  "As soon as it happened," Mike said returning to his efforts of prying open a space at the back passenger side door. "I've got another crowbar in the truck. Do you want me to get it?"

  Erik nodded.

  Mike opened the truck door and dug around a few minutes, finally finding the crow bar.

  Running back around the little bit of the car not stuck under the truck, Erik grabbed it from him and wedged it against the bar Mike had been using.

  "On three," Erik said. "One, two, three!"

  Grunting and straining, they both threw all their weight and strength into it but nothing budged.

  “I’m going to climb under the truck and see if I can get to her,” Erik said, running around to the driver’s side of the truck and sliding underneath. The car looked even worse from this view than it did from the back.

  Twisted metal, glass and shredded plastic ground into the bottom of the truck bed. What he could see of the driver’s side didn’t look promising. The top of the roof had collapsed down on the rest of the car. He prayed for a miracle. It was going to take one to get Sheila out alive.

  He crawled up next to the driver’s side door and put his hand against it, willing his wife to be breathing.

  “Sheila, baby, I’m here. Everything is going to be fine.” Eric sat in the dirt and talked to Sheila just like he would have if she was sitting next to him, telling her how much he loved her, how much he appreciated her, how glad he was that they had spent the last ten years together.

  “I love you, baby,” he said, his voice growing raw with emotion.

  The scream of ambulance sirens could now be heard in the distance, growing louder with every passing second. Erik climbed out from beneath the truck and stood next to Mike.

  “I called and let them know they need to bring out the Jaws of Life. They said the truck is already on the way.”

  Erik couldn’t speak, just nodded his head.

  By the time the truck arrived and the firemen pried open the back of the car, Erik could see blood pooling at the side of the door into the dust where he had been sitting.

  “Please hurry,” he whispered, then felt Mike’s hand rest on his shoulder and give it a squeeze. Looking over, he noticed his friend stood with his head bowed as he sent up his own set of prayer
s.

  A few other neighbors stopped to see if they could help, but there was nothing they could do at this point other than offer Erik encouragement.

  Metal screaming in protest, the roof of the car peeled back enough one of the firemen could crawl inside. He cut away the seat belt and tried to move Sheila, but she was still pinned in by the steering wheel. Working with the seat lever and pulling for all he was worth, he finally got the seat to move a few inches, giving him just enough room to tug Sheila free and drag her back to the opening. Hands gently lifted her out onto the awaiting gurney.

  Erik stepped up next to her, unprepared for the grisly sight that met him. Blanching white as a sheet, he choked, tears stinging his eyes.

  "Baby?" he whispered. "Please be alive."

  A large gash on her forehead was bleeding profusely, the steering wheel had been pushed back into her so far, her stomach looked flattened and a ragged piece of metal protruded from her collarbone. Her face was covered in slivers of glass and there was blood everywhere.

  "Oh, baby," Erik rasped, grasping her cold hand in his.

  “We’ve got a weak pulse,” the EMT said. “Let’s get her loaded and on the road. We’ll need to life flight her to Boise.”

  Climbing in the ambulance beside the gurney, Erik held her hand that was not being punctured with needles to hook up to life-sustaining tubes.

  Mike hollered in the door, that he would have someone meet Erik at the hospital.

  Erik continued to talk to Sheila, repeating what he said before, telling her again how much he loved her and needed her.

  Her eyes fluttered open. Glazed with pain, Erik saw in their depths that this would be goodbye.

  “Just hang on, baby, you’ll be fine.” He tried to sound reassuring, but knew he was falling short of the mark.