Lone Survivor

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  “If you’re going to shoot me, do it,” she ground out. “But if not yet then I intend to cuddle this child while I have the opportunity.”

  “Very well,” the voice conceded. “You needn’t worry. He’s been fed and changed, just not spoiled by carrying him around.”

  Karissa succeeded in releasing Kyle from his seat straps and wrapped him close in her arms. He ceased fussing and rubbed his little face on her shoulder with a snuffly sigh. Clearly, the little guy craved some comfort and love—things these monsters were ill-equipped mentally or emotionally to give him.

  She whirled on her adversaries. If her fury were any hotter, she’d burst into flame—either that or incinerate every being caught beneath her glare. She recognized Scar Lip and Bald Guy. She’d dealt with them before, and they were the ones who had brought her here. They looked a bit worse for wear from the various encounters with Hunter and her. Scar Lip wore a bandage around the arm Hunter had stuck with his knife. The two of them returned her glare with more than a little heat of their own. A couple of other obvious hired thugs, one of them the blond man who had driven the pickup during the abduction attempt in the forest, stood with crossed arms near the far wall. Then there was a middle-aged woman seated regally on the cream-colored sofa near the center of the room.

  “Mrs. Hancock,” Karissa said, instantly recognizing the pseudo-guide from the Golden Days Care Center, the one who had injected her with something that put her to sleep.

  “My maiden name.” The woman glared at her, all false perkiness gone.

  A faint bruise marred the woman’s cheek. Karissa suppressed an unworthy spurt of glee that her defensive fist had likely been the source of the bruise.

  A masculine chuckle drew her attention to a portly man of upper middle age and medium height who exuded an air of confidence through gleaming dark eyes and an urbane smile.

  “Yes, my wife employed her maiden name during your brief encounter at Golden Days,” the man said in silken tones. “Do you recognize me also?”

  “Not even a little bit,” Karissa responded.

  He shrugged his shoulders, creating a small ripple in his tailored suit. “I shouldn’t have expected it. It must have been your twin sister who handed me the keys to this place.”

  Karissa swallowed against knotted throat muscles. “Yes, Anissa handled the liquidation of any family real estate. I arranged the sale of all other assets. We had debts to pay.”

  “Are you surprised that our game ends here?”

  “At this point, little that you could do would surprise me. Clearly, you’re capable of any depth of cruelty. I grew up in this house. Your question was intended purely to hurt me. Haven’t you done enough of that already? Did you arrange for the truck to T-bone my parents’ car? That seems to be a favorite tactic of yours. Did you burn down my sister’s house with her in it and ensure she wouldn’t be rescued? And I don’t even need to ask if you ordered my cousin’s death.”

  The man’s smug expression answered her fully.

  “But why?” Those two words emerged as an anguished whisper.

  “Haven’t you yet guessed who I am? I know you must have dropped by the old homestead to pack up before the sale of this place went through and saw something to give you a clue.”

  A mental picture formed in her imagination: a Realtor’s sign in the yard of this property with a slogan on it. Her breath caught as one memory unlocked another—the sight of a realty flyer on the floor of Nikki’s cabin near her dead body. The slogan and logo on the flyer was the same as the one on the sign. Buying or Selling, You Need Marshall Siebender and Associates on Your Team. Nikki’s killer must have posed as a Realtor, and spinning his spiel got him through the front door. Even though Nikki hadn’t sounded interested in selling her mountain home when Karissa talked to her, the carrot of enough money would have gotten a pretend Realtor a hearing. No break-in necessary.

  Her heart ached at all the loss, not least of all the loss of any hope of exploring her growing feelings for a brave firefighter, especially since he was in no way to blame for Anissa’s death. But Hunter was no doubt lying slain, his body not even discovered yet, at the bottom of a skateboarding pit. Her heart tore, and she cuddled the baby closer. This little man she held in her arms was the last person remaining in the world with a familial claim on her heart. Would either of them survive until dawn?

  Certainty filled her about her adversary’s identity. “You’re Marshall Siebender. Anissa told me the Realtor ended up buying our house as an investment. You’re...you’re...words fail me for how despicable you are!”

  Siebender’s eyes narrowed to vicious slits. “You should save those words for your father. His actions cost me my daughter and grandson. It’s only justice that I should eliminate his DNA from humanity’s gene pool.”

  Karissa’s insides curdled. “What in the world could my father have done that was so horrible?”

  “For him it was just business.” Siebender stalked forward and leaned close to Karissa.

  The man’s face had gone beet red, and his breath was hot and sour. She gulped and fought the instinct to step backward. No way would she give this evil man the satisfaction, regardless of the way her skin crawled under the fanatical hatred in his eyes.

  “For my son-in-law, success or failure in his business was life itself. He tried so hard to prove himself to me—show himself worthy of my daughter. Your father cheated him, ruined him, destroyed him. Three years ago, my son-in-law loaded his family—my daughter and little grandson—into their Lincoln SUV, drove to the Burnside Bridge and—”

  “Drove through the guardrail and plunged them all to their deaths,” Karissa finished in a small voice.

  Siebender drew himself up to his full height and puffed out his chest. “You understood that clue, did you?”

  “But I had no idea my father’s business practices played any part in that tragedy.”

  “Of course not, but you’re still his flesh and blood that cannot be tolerated on this earth any longer.”

  “What about Kyle?” Karissa patted the infant’s back as he began to fuss again.

  Siebender gave that suit-ruffling shrug again. “Still the tainted DNA. I’m afraid you’ll both have to go. Don’t worry. It will be painless—or nearly so. A neat shot to the head for each of you. So fitting that you should die in each other’s arms. Then I’m going to burn this place down over your dead bodies. Here is where it needs to end. Then and only then will justice be fully served.”

  “But you’re wrong about Kyle’s DNA.” Karissa continued patting the baby’s back. “It’s my father you blame for your tragic losses, not my mother. Nikki was my mother’s sister’s daughter. Kyle isn’t related by blood to my father’s side at all. Surely, you can spare him.”

  Siebender scowled. “I don’t think—”

  “I agree with Ms. Landon.” The cold-faced woman rose from the sofa. “The final ironic revenge of this tragedy will be that you and I shall claim and raise this child as our own. Restitution for the loss of our grandson.”

  Siebender’s brow puckered. “But sweetheart—”

  “No buts, Marshall. I want the child. Give him to me.”

  The woman reached for Kyle, but Karissa backed away from her, earning glaring attention from the thugs in the room who suddenly went on alert.

  “I don’t know how you expect to get away with this,” Karissa spat out. “Too many people are in on the investigation now.”

  Siebender grinned. “My dear, I already have enough members of law enforcement in my pocket to ensure the investigation stalls out. It will be one of those tragic cases that go cold and all the evidence gets packed into a box and placed in storage.”

  “Let me shoot her right now,” the woman said. “Then let’s take that baby and go somewhere we can enjoy starting a new family in peace.”

  “Fair enough.” Siebender shrugged
, capitulating to the woman’s demands. “My wife doted on our grandson. I guess her solution makes sense.” He sent a shark grin toward Karissa.

  Smirking, Mrs. Siebender reached out a hand, and one of the thugs placed a pistol into it. “Now, put the baby in his seat and then hold very still.” She motioned toward Karissa with the muzzle of the gun. “I’m not going to miss at this range.”

  Quaking in every muscle, Karissa took a step toward the car seat even as an enormous crash rang through the room. Karissa flinched.

  A battered skateboard rolled across the floor and came to rest in the midst of shards of glass from one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. Every eye riveted on the intrusive board. A large figure leaped through the gap where the window had been and charged like a linebacker into the openmouthed woman with the gun, knocking her flat. The pistol went skittering across the polished hardwood floorboards.

  “Run, Karissa!” Hunter hollered as he whirled toward the thugs, fists swinging, even as they grabbed for their weapons.

  Clutching Kyle close, Karissa ran.

  * * *

  Hunter’s fist connected with a thug’s ugly mug, sending a satisfying jolt up his arm. The guy staggered backward and slammed against the wall, then slid down it with his eyes rolling up in his head. What do you know? He’d scored on a glass jaw. One hired goon down. Three to go.

  He went into a whirling crouch as a pair of bullets whizzed through the space where his head had been. He’d had enough of that scar-lipped thug trying to shoot him. Hunter launched himself into a tackle that hit the guy at his knees and brought him down. Hard. But the hired killer was far from out. The man swung at Hunter with the butt of his gun. Bright lights flashed in Hunter’s head as the heavy metal bounced off his skull.

  Dazed, he rolled away from his quarry—in the nick of time to avoid being shot in the back by the bald goon. Scar Lip didn’t fare so well. His leg caught the bullet intended for Hunter, and the guy screamed, dropped his gun and clutched at his thigh.

  In a split instant, Hunter’s gaze took in the room. No sign of Mr. or Mrs. Siebender, and Karissa and Kyle were gone. That meant he was free to use his own firearm. Grabbing for it, tucked in the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back, he rolled sideways as Baldy took another shot. This one plugged the floor millimeters from Hunter’s neck. He returned fire. His bullet didn’t miss the beefy shoulder it was aimed at. The quick reflexes of a firefighter and many hours of target practice in the woods were paying off when it counted.

  Hunter bounded to his feet as the bald goon went down, releasing his gun, crying out and grabbing at his wound. The fourth hired gunman was darting out the broken window and taking off across the lawn in a dead run. Apparently, the guy wasn’t being paid enough to stick around when the going got rough.

  Were Marshall Siebender and his wife fleeing the scene or tracking Karissa and Kyle? Hunter had to assume the latter. That pair had gone to too much trouble and risked too much already to fail in their objective now.

  Karissa, which way did you go?

  He stepped out through the broken window onto the deck. The night breeze ruffled his hair and cooled his skin but carried no sound of fight or flight. He went back inside to find Baldy and Scar Lip attempting to stanch the bleeding of each other’s wounds. They glared at him.

  “Cops will be here soon,” he told them as he scooped up their guns. “And I don’t think they’re all on your boss’s payroll.”

  The pair exchanged worried looks.

  Hunter left the room and began to soft-foot through the house. It was frustrating not to be able to call out to Karissa, but that would betray his location and hers, too, if she answered.

  In the spacious gourmet kitchen, he found the lights were on, and he came across a landline phone with the receiver off the hook. Karissa wouldn’t have known he’d called the authorities before he burst in, so it made sense she would try to call for help. He put the receiver to his ear. The line was utterly dead, probably not even in service. Karissa must have been so frustrated.

  Soundlessly, Hunter left the room and crossed the tiles of a darkened formal dining room. Moonlight through a picture window allowed him to avoid the shadowy outlines of the furniture. If only he had some clue which direction in this sprawling home she’d taken after passing through the kitchen. For all he knew, he was moving away from Karissa and Kyle, not toward them, but he couldn’t stand still and do nothing.

  God, help us. The mental prayer sounded feeble to his internal ear.

  At least, if he’d overheard correctly from his position outside the great room window while she talked with Siebender, this had been Karissa’s home at one time. If anyone would know the best hiding places in this dwelling, she’d be the one. Any slight advantage would be golden in this life-or-death situation. Kyle was the big variable. Would he keep quiet and not give away his and Karissa’s location? Highly unlikely. He was a baby doing what babies did.

  Even as the thought crossed his mind, an infant’s wail reached his ears, faint but unmistakable. If Hunter heard the cry, their enemies had heard it, too. It sounded as if it had come from beneath his feet. The basement!

  Hunter whirled and headed back toward the kitchen, one of the most common areas in a house to contain access into a basement. Standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining area, his cautious scan of the room’s interior showed it empty. He began to step across the threshold, but from the shadows behind him a solid object slammed across his back, felling him face forward.

  The sharp heel of Siebender’s wife’s shoe dug into his hand as she relieved him of his gun. Someone else—Siebender, no doubt—removed from his waistband the two other firearms he’d taken from the thugs he’d wounded.

  “Up!” Siebender ordered.

  Ribs aching, Hunter struggled to his feet. The black muzzles of a pair of guns—one held by each adversary—stared back at him. Hunter lifted his hands. The gesture of surrender was unlikely to change his fate, but it was the only option he had right now. He mentally prepared himself for the hammer of bullets into his body.

  A grinning Siebender tossed away the sturdy chair he’d used to bash Hunter. “Let’s adjourn to the basement, shall we?” the man said with mock pleasantness.

  Siebender’s wife went ahead of them and opened the basement door located on the far side of the kitchen. The sound of a baby fussing drifted clearly up the darkened steps. The wife flipped on a light and motioned for Hunter to precede her downward. Heart hollow and aching, Hunter complied. No matter what they did, it seemed like they lost to these insidiously evil people. That couldn’t be right. Yet, here they were, once again in the power of the enemy.

  The first area they came to in the basement was large and contained an exercise area on one side, featuring high-end equipment, and a game area on the other, showcasing a pool table, a Ping-Pong table and an air hockey setup. The baby’s fussing came from behind the right-hand door of one of two parallel rooms beyond the gaming area. At the prodding of his captors, Hunter forced his feet to carry him in that direction.

  He entered the next room and found himself in a plush personal movie theater, complete with cushy leather chairs and an enormous screen that filled an entire wall. Not bothering to pointlessly hide any longer, Karissa scurried out from the half-walled projection booth and ran to him with a squalling Kyle. Hunter wrapped his arms around them, putting his body between theirs and the people with the guns. This was the family he’d always dreamed of having, but their time together promised to be all too short.

  “Touching,” Siebender mocked.

  “At least you’ll go together.” The wife snickered.

  A sound from outside the house arrested everyone’s attention. The growing wail of sirens underscored the sudden silence in the room.

  Siebender cursed. “My people on the force or the DA’s office won’t be able to protect us if we’re caught anywh
ere near here.”

  “It only takes a few seconds to fill these two with holes then we’re gone,” the wife answered. “Give me the baby.” She reached out her arms, gaze implacable.

  With a whimper, Karissa surrendered the child and then backed up to stand by Hunter. She lifted her head and gazed up at him. Her eyes conveyed such a wealth of feeling that Hunter’s breath left him. Was she regretting as he was that it wasn’t likely they’d get the chance to develop their feelings for each other?

  “Fall to your right,” she whispered.

  He complied instantly, taking them down behind the cover of a set of fat theater chairs...but not before a red-hot poker drew a long crease across his back. Several bullets smacked into the wall where they’d been standing.

  “Come on!” Siebender cried. “We don’t have time to play hide-and-seek. We’ll set off the incendiary devices on the way out.”

  “Right,” the wife said. “Are you listening, Mr. Firefighter? Not even you will be able to get out of this one. We’ve got it rigged so the whole house will be engulfed in minutes.”

  Footsteps hurried away, and the theater room door slammed shut.

  Hunter staggered to his feet, hot wetness seeping down his back. Only a bullet graze—he hoped. Reaching down, he helped Karissa up. Steel filled Hunter’s core. This was not going to end in their deaths. Not on his watch.

  “Come on.” He grabbed Karissa’s arm and pulled her toward the door. Incendiary devices? His gut clenched. “We’ve got to clear out fast.”

  Thankfully, the door wasn’t locked, since the locking mechanism was on the inside, not the outside. He inched the door open and peered out into the gaming area. All clear. He stepped out, motioning Karissa after him.

  In that moment, the pool table exploded, sending burning debris laced with accelerant in all directions. Flaming bits landed at Hunter’s feet, and a few stung his bare arms. Nearly simultaneous explosions sounded from various points all over the house. The whole place rocked as if in the grip of a minor earthquake.