Page 114 of Solid as Steele
His foot hit a patch of gravel. The rocks grated, the crunch sounding like an explosion.
Leach spun, his rifle rising as he moved.
“Don’t move!” Owen shouted, gun trained on Leach.
The man didn’t listen. He kept his rifle raised. Owen had every right to shoot him.
Instead, with a mighty roar, Owen launched himself at Leach. Shoved the suspect’s arm to the side. Leach’s rifle flew free and down the hillside.
Owen dropped his own weapon, and Leach grabbed for it. Owen knocked it out of reach and wrestled the man. They scrapped, rolling side-over-side. Arms flailing, growing closer to a sharp ledge on the hill that would plummet them down to serious harm.
Hands grabbed. Legs kicked. Inching closer. Closer to the precipice. The fall precariously close now.
“Owen, the edge!” she shouted as she moved toward them. “You’re too close.”
Owen roared and flipped Leach onto his stomach. Owen emerged like a mighty predator and whipped Leach’s arms behind his back, shoving them up. Leach cried out.
Mackenzie reached the pair and trained her gun on them, praying her wounded arm or beaten hand wouldn’t give out on her from the strain of her swim, and she couldn’t correctly brace her weapon.
“Don’t move, Leach.” She filled her tone with a confidence she didn’t feel right now. “I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”
He ceased struggling and lay like a statue. Breathing hard, Owen retrieved the handcuffs from his belt and fastened them to Leach’s wrists.
“That hurts,” Leach complained.
“Not as much as it’s gonna hurt to spend the rest of your life in prison for killing my sister and leaving me to die in the desert.”
“Sister?” Leach asked.
“Cassie Collins. I plan to see you get the maximum penalty allowed for her death.” Owen jerked Leach to his feet. He searched him and removed a cell phone, wallet, keys, and knife from his cargo pockets and shoved them into his own pockets.
He then forced Leach to march away from the sharp ledge. He settled Leach on the ground near a boulder. Owen read the man his rights.
Mackenzie took the moment to retrieve Owen’s gun and a SAT phone that had fallen from Leach’s pocket. They could check the call log to see who Leach had been talking to. She clipped it on the rope holding up her pants and handed the gun to Owen.
The Maddox brothers joined them.
Owen faced Ryan. “Your truck nearby?”
“Just up the hill.”
Owen looked at Mackenzie. “Let’s get this murderer secured in the truck.”
“I…didn’t…kill…your…sister.” Leach ended with a snarl. “I don’t even know a woman named Cassie Collins.”
Ignoring his statement—as did the guys—Mackenzie followed them up the incline, her boots squishing from the dunk in the river.
“You look like a drowned rat.” Ryan took her arm and helped her navigate a large boulder.
“I feel like one.”
“We’ll get the heat on in the truck and see if we can’t put an end to your shivering.”
Owen glanced back, a thundercloud in his eyes. It was as if having the cuffs on Leach allowed him to let go of that focus and see everything else around him, and he wasn’t happy that she was cold.
They climbed in silence the rest of the way, darting in and out of tall and baby evergreen trees. At seeing Ryan’s truck, she let out a long sigh. It was a sight for sore eyes, but it would be a tight fit for all of them. She sure didn’t want to sit next to Leach, but she suspected Owen did—to make sure his sister’s killer didn’t escape.
He got out his cell phone, brought Wheeler up to speed in a quick conversation then faced Mackenzie. “We’ll pick up my truck, get you some dry clothes, and then haul this guy to the jail in Canyon City.”
