Expired End: Last Chance County #10 Read online

  EXPIRED END

  LAST CHANCE COUNTY

  BOOK 10

  LISA PHILLIPS

  Copyright 2021 Lisa Phillips

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  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  eBook ISBN: 979-8-88552-070-6

  Paperback ISBN: 979-8-88552-071-3

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  Published by Two Dogs Publishing, LLC. Idaho, USA

  Cover design by Ryan Schwarz

  Edited by Christy Callahan, Professional Publishing Services

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Epilogue

  Last Taste of Freedom

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Other Books by Lisa Phillips

  About the Author

  1

  Kamryn Marshall gripped the wheel as her car crested the hill. Her foot slipped off the gas, and she gaped at the sight in the valley below.

  A police officer sat in a white SUV as if nothing was wrong. The vehicle was parked beside a beige truck at the entrance to what had once been a bustling local airport—years ago now, before her world had exploded in fire and blood.

  It was real. That scene from her nightmares. It was all real.

  Beyond the vehicles was nothing but a wasteland. Buildings that had once been the museum and offices, and smaller structures had been destroyed by fire. Or explosion. Something had wrecked them, and it had happened recently.

  Scattered across the secondary runway lay the remnants of a white plane, a Learjet if she wasn’t mistaken. Not something she’d flown before considering the nonprofit she piloted for transported missionaries and supplies around the world.

  She’d been nearly everywhere. And now she was back where it all started. In the place her world had been destroyed when a plane crashed in the middle of an airshow.

  Mama is gone, Katherine. She’s dead.

  When Kamryn closed her eyes, she could still hear people screaming, even after all this time.

  She could still see the whisp of her mother’s hair as she ran.

  And ran.

  Escape. It was in her blood. But she’d had to come back here if she was going to finally find out what really happened.

  Kamryn eased her car down the incline. She was halfway tempted to turn around and drive anywhere else. Fitz had told her this was a bad idea, and she was going to have to admit to her boss that he was right. Nothing good ever came of returning home. But she needed to see it. One last time.

  The occupants of the vehicles spoke to each other through open windows. In the truck, the guy turned her way and then got out. She noticed right away he only had one arm—and she recognized him from years ago. He’d gone into the military. Army, she thought. Jeff Filks. Older brother to her best friend in the world.

  Kamryn shut that thought off and watched him instead. No point dwelling on how her life had turned out. It was what she made it now—or, it had been up until they’d told her she was free to come back. This one-armed man, Jeff Filks, seemed to be doing the same, considering his gait was sure even with the missing arm. He looked fit and healthy. Determined to live, despite what life had taken from him.

  She felt that resonate to the deepest part of her core. So much that she almost didn’t notice the other man. Then he was right on top of her, knocking on her window. She choked back a short squeal and pulled on the door handle, then remembered she hadn’t turned off the car.

  She twisted the key, but left it in as she climbed out. Some cars beeped an alarm when you did that. Hers was so old it didn’t have that function. Then she slammed the door, making the hinge creak.

  The suited man frowned at the car. “I’m surprised that thing made it up the mountain to get here.”

  She spotted the police shield on his belt. “Conroy Barnes?” The man had aged well. All that dark hair gelled back off his forehead, gray above his ears. He was still faint-worthy.

  “That’s right.” He stuck his hand out. “I’m the chief of police in Last Chance County. And I apologize for my comment about your car. My wife is eight months pregnant, and neither of us are sleeping at this point. It was uncalled for.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He doesn’t recognize me. That realization got her stuck until she managed to shake his hand. “Kamryn Marshall,” she said, using the name she’d been going by since she left town. “Nice to meet you.” She offered her hand to the other man.

  “Jeff.” He used that voice. The one she remembered. His brother’s voice had sounded the same once it broke. And why could she still hear it in her memories when it had been years?

  Because she was a disaster, that was why.

  Kamryn needed to get back up in the air where she didn’t have to worry about any of this.

  “Not sure what there is to do right now,” Conroy began. “As you can see, the place is a catastrophe.” He took a few steps, and she went with him, Jeff kind of standing guard as they moved. “Recently there was a situation here. None of that has been cleaned up, and as you can see from the secondary runway the original disaster is largely still there. Though, the wind and trespassers have shifted some of it.” He shrugged. “It has been twenty years.”

  “I’d like to look around.” She stepped forward.

  Conroy held out a hand to stop her. “I’m afraid that’s going to prove difficult.”

  “It’s what I’m here for.” He wasn’t going to stop her, was he? Kamryn had a shot at finally finding out the truth of what’d happened to her mother. They couldn’t think she would let that slip by just because of a little danger.

  He had to have read the tone in her voice. “I’ll explain so you can understand the full picture.”

  “I understand that legally I’m at liberty to peruse property that I’m in control of as administrator of the corporation that now owns this land and everything that sits on it.” She even folded her arms, so they’d know she wasn’t going to be railroaded.

  It had taken a lot of legal red tape to hide her identity behind that corporation. Not to mention orchestrate the sale from her birth name to the company so no one would know she still owned it. Kamryn thought they might recognize her, but God had chosen to do something for her. She wasn’t sure what she’d done that warranted it. Given the situation, she wasn’t going to object.

  She said, “I’ll be going through everything.”

  Except for the white building. If it was still intact.

  Conroy glanced at Jeff. She spotted when it happened, that shared moment they collectively decided she wasn’t going to get what she wanted. They would railr
oad her for whatever reason they had.

  She nodded to the men. “Thank you for meeting me. I’ll take it from here.” She hadn’t even wanted them to be here. She’d preferred to do this privately.

  “Ms. Marshall, the previous occupant set booby traps.” Jeff waved his one arm toward the main building, now really just rubble. “There are no doubt some that are still active here. It would be unwise to go through what remains of the airport without some kind of safety inspection.”

  There was more, but she’d gotten stuck on something he said. Previous occupant.

  Jeff swallowed.

  Conroy was the one who said, “A man named Lenny Marks. He was—”

  “A psychopath.” She managed to hold herself together long enough to say, “I’ve seen the news reports. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  Hold it together. They didn’t need to know exactly how closely she was connected to this airport.

  “Yes,” Jeff said. “I was there. Which is how I came to know he placed traps everywhere. Who knows how much time he had here, setting up all kinds of things.”

  “I’ll be careful.” She squared off with the chief. “As I said, I will be looking around. And I appreciate you coming out here.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “I understand perfectly fine, Mr. Filks.”

  “I never told you my last name.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “Uh…” What did she say?

  Instead of putting her foot farther in her mouth, Kamryn strode between them. Past the wreckage of the Learjet, between buildings, to what had once been the main runway. Until one day, the year she’d turned four, a plane had crashed into spectators at the Last Chance annual air show.

  No one had ever come up here after that. The accident was written off as a tragedy, any evidence to the contrary was buried. Everyone left.

  Packed up.

  Drove away.

  Leaving her completely alone.

  Jeff frowned. “Please be careful, Ms. Marshall. It could genuinely be dangerous.”

  “It looks like a ghost town.” She turned, pushing away the cold specter of her memories. “Or a nightmare.”

  “I feel the same way.” Jeff ran his hand through his hair. “My girlfriend and I were tortured here.” He winced. “I’m actually the one who blew up that white plane. So they wouldn’t take her with them.”

  “You—”

  “Speaking of Toni, I should head out.” He didn’t move, though. “How did you know my last name?”

  “Someone must have told me. Or it was written down somewhere.”

  The skin around his eyes flexed.

  She wouldn’t believe her, either. That was why she had to turn away again, this time in shame. It was for the best, though. Kamryn didn’t want anyone to know exactly how tied she was to this place.

  “What are you going to do with the airport?”

  She shrugged in answer to Conroy’s question. “I’m not sure yet. Though I’m leaning closely toward flying overhead, dropping some kind of explosive ordinance and just vaporizing everything.”

  That was what most people would want to do with a place where so many had died, right? It was what they needed to believe so they could put this place to rest as a town. Move on. But Kamryn had her own truth, and it had never mattered what anyone else said. Not when it counted.

  “I’m not sure you can buy a bomb at the military surplus store.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at Jeff. “Shame.”

  His lips twitched. “It is.”

  Kamryn spotted something by one of the buildings, coming around the corner. She frowned as a man came closer, stumbling. Covered in something. “What is—”

  Jeff spun. “Hey!”

  She raced past Conroy. “He looks hurt!”

  The two men didn’t waste time following. Both kept pace with her as she sprinted to the man who’d lurched around the building carrying something. An older guy, maybe fifty. He had white hair that shone in the afternoon light, but marred by something.

  “Careful.” Conroy touched her elbow. She saw he had his gun out.

  Kamryn looked at the man again. His clothes were covered in blood, along with his shirt and pants. It was even smeared on his face. “Is that a dog?” Lying in the man’s arms was a black animal. “It looks like a dog.”

  The man saw them. Relief had him collapse against the outside of a building. He slid down the wall, leaving a smear of blood from him or the dog. She couldn’t tell. They were covered.

  Jeff steadied the man with one hand. Conroy helped him to sit down.

  Kamryn crouched. “What happened to you?”

  Man and dog didn’t look good. Both panted, and the man said, “He was mauled by a bear. I barely escaped.” He panted again. “Our hunting guide tried to shoot the bear, and it ran through our camp. It crashed into everything. It killed…” He didn’t finish.

  “How far from here?” Conroy pulled out his phone.

  The man’s eyes glazed over. “I walked miles.”

  The chief of police gritted his teeth. “Forgot there’s no cell signal here. We’ll have to take you with us to the hospital.”

  “What about the dog?” They weren’t just going to leave him in favor of saving the man, were they?

  Conroy lifted the dog and gave him to Jeff, placing the animal over one shoulder so he could hold the dog around its waist. “Take him to the vet.”

  “You know he won’t see me.”

  “Tell him there’s a rogue bear in the woods. I’ll need your help finding those people.”

  Jeff watched as Conroy lifted the injured man to his feet and started walking. Kamryn got under the man’s other arm and helped hold him up all the way to Conroy’s car. Until her legs were shaking and she wished she was one of those athletic type people who could probably do this for more than a mile.

  Conroy got him into the passenger seat of his car. She nearly sagged like the man had, but spotted Jeff. And he wasn’t heading to his car. He walked to hers and tugged open the back seat. Legs bent. Body angled back so the dog didn’t slide off.

  “Hey, what—”

  Jeff settled the animal on her back seat.

  “—are you doing!”

  He slammed her back door shut. “Take him to the vet in town. His name is Brett, and he’ll make sure this dog is taken care of.”

  Brett. She couldn’t think about that now.

  “I’m not… I can’t…” She needed to solve the mystery of this airport, not get involved. But a man was hurt, and a dog needed help. She bit back the frustration building. This was not going according to plan.

  “I have to help find whoever’s still up there.” He touched her shoulder. “Drop the cleaning bill for your car at the police station. They’ll get it to me.” He rushed to his truck.

  Conroy was already pulling out, lights and sirens going even though no one was around to get out of the way.

  Jeff sprayed gravel and accelerated to catch up.

  Kamryn blinked. Then she hauled her door open.

  The dog lay unmoving on the back seat. His chest rose and fell only a tiny amount. Shallow breathing wasn’t good, was it? She climbed in and turned the car around before she followed in the same direction. Toward everything she’d said she never wanted.

  Kamryn was going to make sure the dog was taken care of, but that was it. No way did she want to see Brett.

  She had a mystery to solve.

  2

  Last Chance County veterinarian Brett Filks strode out the front door of his office building eating a PB&J. After three bites, he realized he was hungrier than he’d thought, but since he’d been in surgery with a poodle for the last six hours, it was probably not surprising to anyone else.

  He figured he looked like a hot mess too. He hadn’t shaved in almost a week, and the air-conditioning in the office was intermittent at best. He needed a shower and a Netflix nap. But considering he’d just sent his day nurse ass
istant, Pepper, home for the afternoon, that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

  He was just deciding whether or not to eat the crust when a green-blue compact shuddered right out of his memories and into the parking lot. What was it—ten years? She was still driving the same car.

  The driver’s door flung open, and the occupant jumped out, moving to the back door and swinging that open. “I need help,” she called out to him.

  It was probably the scrubs he wore.

  She muttered to herself as he approached.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “You’re not going to believe this, but I think he was mauled by a”—she looked at him—“bear.” Her face fell, registering disappointment for a second. “It really is you.”

  He put her out of her misery, moving around her and shifting her out of the way. “Let me see.” He crouched in the open door and looked at the dog on her back seat. “Is this your animal?” He glanced at her, but it didn’t seem as though she had suffered a bear attack. And why would she have brought her pet here?

  “It’s a long story.”

  “It would have to be, considering you’re back when you told me you wanted nothing to do with this town. Or me.” He tried not to let the old wound seep into his tone. He really tried.

  He didn’t look at her. The dog was in a bad way and needed to get inside. Brett always found it better to do his job and not worry about his own feelings. There were enough emotions tied up between people and their pets that he didn’t need to get caught up in it. Or project.