“Jesus Christ.” Brian had stepped to the side when Chase and Adam had arrived, but he’d taken hold of her hand. He used her hand to pull her into his arms.
“Son of a bitch.” Chase closed in on her other side. She felt totally surrounded by their love and their caring, but it really didn’t take away the fear or the panic.
“You listen to me, Carrie Rhodes.” Adam got right in her face, so that she had no choice but to meet his gaze. She saw anger, and determination, and just then she completely understood why it was the people of Lusty had made this man their sheriff.
“I’m listening.”
“He may have incapacitated your sister, but he won’t have killed her. He’s playing with your head, maybe figuring he’s punishing you—but definitely trying to manipulate you. He needs Chloe to ensure your cooperation, because it’s you he wants above all else.”
“He can do other things to her besides kill her. He can be brutal. You don’t know. You just don’t know what he’s like.” Carrie couldn’t help the images from the past that attacked her. Suddenly it felt as if she was thirteen all over again. A part of her was at that place, and the other part of her was getting really pissed off that she was acting like such a baby, that she was letting that bastard have power over her once more.
“Carrie. You get back here right now.”
Chase had used a hard tone, but it cut through her emotional turmoil. She blinked, forcing herself back to the present, back to the moment. She heard soft crying and knew her friends had taken that tiny unwelcome trip with her.
Ginny and Kelsey, more than most, had been able to slip into the terror and helplessness with her.
I’m not alone.
She had these good women, and these good men, and by God, she was not going to let that bastard have even one more piece of her soul. She would not let him win.
They would not let him win.
“Okay, fuck this. That’s it. Carrie?”
She jerked her gaze back to Adam. She didn’t for one minute think his anger—no, his fury—was directed at her. His black eyes had gone to pure obsidian, the glass-like quality bone-chilling in its intensity. His chiseled features could have been fashioned from the hardest marble. Not one bit of the gentle, compassionate man she’d come to know as her friend was visible.
“Adam?” Ginny’s soft question, a thousand questions in one word, drew his gaze and softened it, for just a heartbeat. Then he focused once more on Carrie.
“I’m going to go and get your sister. Right now. Matt? Chase?”
He spun on his heel and literally stormed from the kitchen. Matt raised one eyebrow, then without saying a word, followed his boss. Chase ran a hand down her back, and followed.
They all three had left so suddenly Carrie was left feeling completely off-balance. She looked at Brian. “What is he going to do?”
Brian didn’t seem to have an answer for her, and neither did he look very happy with the sudden departure of those men.
Then Carrie’s gaze landed on Ginny. She stood there, her gaze fixed on the door that still shivered with the echo of their departure. Her expression looked a little confused, and a lot worried.
“Take us there.” She reached her hand out, and Ginny clasped it. She looked at Kelsey who nodded. Then she turned her gaze to Brian. “Take us there. Now, please.”
“Darlin’…”
“Don’t you ‘darlin’’ me. I’m not going to go barging into that apartment. I’m not going to interfere. But certainly you can get us close enough that we can be there, we can know what the hell is going on.” Carrie’s mind raced. “Look, my unit is in the center of the building, facing the back. I know from trying that, looking outside, I can just barely see as far as each corner of the building, from any of the windows.” There were windows only in the bedroom and bathroom. The bedroom casement was a large, picture window with two sliders on either end of it. “Surely you can get us close enough to be able to know what’s going on, without us being in the way.”
Brian held her gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded, slowly. “Let me call Chase. I’m pretty sure I know where we can wait.” He looked over at Ginny. “I’ll call Jake, too.”
Ginny nodded. “Thank you, but I’ll do that.” She seemed to gather her wits, and her grit. She inhaled deeply. “I’ll just grab my phone out of my bag.” Then she turned to look at Kelsey.
“Just go, the both you. And let me know the minute Chloe is safe and that bastard is in cuffs.”
Carrie hugged Kelsey. “From your lips to God’s ears.”
It really didn’t register with Carrie until much later that she wasn’t the only one who had someone she loved in the line of fire.
But by then it was too late to do anything about it.
* * * *
Chloe hurt.
She’d snapped back to consciousness to find that her jaw throbbed, as did the back of her head. She felt nauseous, weak, and just a little disoriented.
She also felt grateful, and mad as hell. Grateful that she, and not Carrie, had opened the door to find that bastard had broken in and was lying in wait. And mad as hell because he’d been here when she came back from Waco and had gotten the drop on her.
She sensed his presence and that he was watching her, and so she played possum.
Chloe bit back a moan and hoped she hadn’t made any sounds before she’d become awake and aware. She heard a noise and realized Lockwood was mumbling to himself, sounds that didn’t seem to have meaning, so maybe if she had moaned, he hadn’t heard her.
She kept her eyes closed as she took stock of her situation. Breathing deeply, she worked at keeping her bile down, gathering her bearings, and listening.
It sounded as if he’d moved off. The bedroom door opened into the living room. To the right of the bedroom was a short hall that led to the kitchen and the bathroom. The apartment wasn’t very big, and there was only one door out. She’d have to run clean across the living room to escape.
Before her plan fully formed, she recalled the moment when his fist had sailed toward her after she’d let herself into the place. She saw the moment with crystal clarity.
His other hand had been clutching a gun.
Well that makes this situation just a bit worse. Worse took another turn when she became aware of her bindings.
The moment she sensed he wasn’t looking at her she opened her eyes to just a tiny slit. She looked toward where her captor had been, and found the doorway empty. She was on the bed, half on her back, half twisted on her side. Her feet and hands were indeed bound. He’d used nylon cord, and he’d tied it just tight enough that she couldn’t easily get free.
That kind of puts an end to the “run away screaming” plan of action. She supposed she should be thankful her hands were tied together at the wrists in front of her and not behind her back.
Chloe focused her hearing, needing to know where that bastard was and what he was doing.
From the sound of things, Lockwood was muttering to himself. She heard a click, click, click that reminded her of someone working a keyboard. He wasn’t talking very loudly, so she had to strain to hear anything.
“Yeah…I knew there would be a list of bank repos. Whole fucking country’s being foreclosed on. Now, where to go, where to go…someplace remote. Remote won’t sell. We can live there a good long time. Long enough for me to teach Carolyn the errors of her ways.” Lockwood giggled. “I’ll have to punish her. She ran away, after all. I don’t want her to run away again, so I’ll have to be harsh. Don’t want anyone to interfere, try to stop me from exercising my God-given rights. No, no, no indeed. They’re all mine. She’s all mine. Soon now. Just minutes, really.”
Oh, God. Was Carrie there already? What time was it? Chloe swallowed down her panic even as the soreness on the back of her head seemed to get worse.
My jaw’s sore because he punched me. Why’s the back of my head sore? Did I fall and hit it on something? Am I bleeding?
Chloe moved her h
ead to see if she could sense any stickiness, any sign that she’d bled—and felt hope and joy explode in her heart.
Her head hurt because she was lying on the pillow that lay over her Beretta! How many times had she kicked herself for not storing the weapon safely in the bedside table? But this morning she’d been so pissed off about those firefighters, she had barely pulled the covers up on the bed before she’d stormed off to bitch at Carrie about them.
At the moment she felt so damn grateful she just might give them each a big, sloppy kiss. If she got out of this mess alive, that was.
No, not if. When I get out of this mess.
Heart pounding, Chloe continued to work at coming fully alert. The nausea had eased off, but still hovered. Her jaw really did hurt like hell, and she wondered if that asshole had broken it. Later. She’d worry about it later. Right now, she had to figure out what she was going to do. She’d be damned if she was just going to lie here and take whatever that son of a bitch had in mind for her. Neither was she going to worry about what he might do.
Terror skittered down her back and across her consciousness. She knew what he’d done to Carrie, what he’d done to two other women besides. Rape. The threat held a special fear for females. No man can possibly understand the sick dread that lives down deep inside every woman, the vulnerability that each of us knows so well. It was a vulnerability that only trust could disarm, and each woman, the first time she bared herself to a lover, understood it.
She shoved her terror down, ordered it away, and ruthlessly seized upon her will.
The bastard in the next room was no woman’s lover. He was a predator, an animal. And, by God, he’d hurt his last woman.
Moving cautiously, she turned all the way onto her left side and slid her hands up along the mattress, passed her face, slowly, slowly toward the edge of her pillow. She edged over, subtly moving and nearly sighed with relief when her head eased off the lump that was the gun.
She moved her hands up just a bit more and nearly wept with joy when her fingers brushed the cold metal. The weapon lay on its side, the barrel pointed up and to the right, toward the headboard and the wall opposite the window. The same wall the door was on.
Chloe sighed as her hands were able to open just enough so she could get hold of the gun.
“You’re awake, I see.”
Chloe froze, then forced a whimper past her lips. No sense in letting him know she was nearly ready to take his sorry ass down.
“I suppose that’s for the best. No sense in Carolyn harboring undue resentment toward her husband for killing her sister.” He chuckled. “I told her I thought you’d never open your eyes again. Yeah, maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t kill you. I still can, of course, if she gives me a hard time. But she won’t. Carolyn is sweet. She won’t want you to suffer. That’s why she’s coming to me right now.”
“What…what happened? Who are you?” She hated to sound like a weak female, but considered it all in a just cause.
Huh. Andrew Jessop was right. I am devious.
The pictures she’d seen of him had depicted a mousy-looking man with blond hair, his body not very buff. Of course, that picture had been taken at his trial, more than ten years before. He was older, with a little more meat on his bones. He’d dyed his hair, by the looks of him, and not very well, either.
Then she met his gaze and shivered. She’d just learned what crazy looked like.
“Why, I’m your brother-in-law, of course. Didn’t Carolyn tell you about me?”
Oh, fuck this. No way in hell she was going to lead this son of a bitch on in his sick delusions. “You’re not Carrie’s husband.”
“Her name is Carolyn, and I am, too! Just ask Pastor Jack.” Lockwood snickered. “He kept me reading the bible most of the whole time I was inside.” He stood tall, cleared his throat, and held up his left hand, held it flat as if pantomiming holding a book. “‘And he went in unto her and made her is wife.’ That’s what I did to Carolyn. I certainly went in unto her every way I could. I made her my wife over and over and over again.”
Slowly, she used the thumb of her right hand to slip her pistol’s safety to the “off” position.
Movement in her peripheral vision to her right thudded her heart and made her want to look straight on, but she didn’t dare. The bedroom curtain was only slightly open, because Chloe hadn’t liked the fact that, with the apartment being on the ground floor, anyone could just walk right up and peer in at her. She guessed there still was a lot of the big-city girl left in her.
She understood what she’d seen even as she fought to keep the elation she felt from showing. Matt Benedict had been edging close to the window, gun drawn, a look of determination on his face.
Chloe swung her gaze back to Lockwood. “You’re not her husband, you sick piece of shit. You’re a monster, a monster that preyed on a child. That was my baby sister you hurt, you prick.”
“You’re not much of a lady, are you? Not like my Carolyn. No wonder no man has claimed you. Maybe I should do you a favor and give you a mercy fuck. It’s all you whores are good for, anyway.”
He took one step toward her and Chloe braced herself. “Come near me, bastard, and I’ll fucking kill you.”
Grant Jessop’s question of the night before echoed in her mind, and she pushed it away. Chloe didn’t think. She just braced and got ready. She’d give him one more step forward—
Someone shouted and pounded on the door to the apartment at the same time the window exploded. Something, or someone had hurtled through that portal, shattering the glass and landing on the carpet, out of sight. The sound pulled her focus away from Lockwood, toward the window. Nearly too late she realized she wasn’t the only one looking toward the man who was rolling, as if in slow motion, gun drawn, rising from the carpet.
Lockwood had spun toward the sound, too, his arm just a second behind his body as he brought it around, and brought his left hand up to steady his weapon.
Chloe didn’t think. She just pulled her pistol from beneath the pillow, aimed, and fired.
She knew with a sick kind of certainty that hers had been the second gun to discharge.
Chapter 21
Brian made them stay a half block behind and to the left of the apartment building—which was where Adam had told him they could wait. When they’d arrived, she’d spotted Chase, Adam, Matt, and Jake, their heads together in conference. It looked as if Jake handed something to Adam. Chase had nodded, checked his watch—hell they all checked their watches—then he jogged off toward the front of the building.
He’d carried a pistol in his hand.
Carrie easily picked out her bedroom window—the purple curtains were impossible to miss. Those drapes weren’t completely closed, leaving a narrow strip open—not really enough, she thought, to look into the room. She had no idea what was going on, or what Adam had on his mind. She could only go by his body language. If she had to define his mood, she’d say he was wound tight and about ready to snap.
This is worse than watching a movie with the sound turned down.
Jake touched Adam’s shoulder and nodded in their direction, at Ginny, Carrie knew. Adam turned and Carrie would bet everything she owned that he’d been able to meet his wife’s gaze, even from that distance. Adam said something to Jake, who nodded once and then left his brother, headed for their wife.
They couldn’t tell what was happening, not really. They could only watch. Now it seemed as if Matt and Adam were arguing. Matt followed Adam around to the trunk of his car. She knew there was no way anyone in her apartment—if that was where that bastard was holed up, and she had to believe he was—could see the cop car, or the cops.
Carrie recalled what Adam had said when he’d first come to her, that the building was surrounded. Now that she looked, she could pick out different people that she knew—to all appearances, just ordinary folks who were outside, tending to their yards. Except of course those weren’t their yards. She saw Colt Evans and Ryder Magee, Richard Bene
dict with his brothers Trevor and Kevin, Morgan Kendall, Henry Kendall, Alex Benedict, and Joe Grant. She damn near screamed when she spotted Tracy’s husband, Jordan. He was perched in a tree, about fifty feet to her right, a rifle in his hands. It looked as if he was getting ready to shoot. She kept her eyes on him, wondering what he was doing. He held himself steady for a long time. Then he lowered the gun and spoke into his phone.
Carrie switched her gaze to Adam who held his cell phone to his ear, and she knew immediately whom Jordan was speaking to, but not why.
“He’s got a high-powered scope on that rifle of his. Likely, he was using it to get eyes into your apartment.”
Carrie turned in response to the voice. Ginny, who’d been standing tight and quiet beside her, her gaze on the man as he approached, nearly burst into tears and leapt into her husband Jake’s, arms.
“Shh, baby. It’s going to be all right. You know Adam knows what he’s doing.”
“I do, you know I do. Normally. But you didn’t see him when he left the restaurant earlier, Jake. He was so mad.”
Jake gave her what could only be called a tender smile, and used a thumb to wipe away her tears. “Now, I find it one of life’s little jokes that those words would frighten you.”
Despite her fear, she gave him a bit of a smile. He hugged her tight, and then kept his arm around her as he led her back to where Carrie and Brian stood hand in hand, watching and waiting.
“See, baby, he’s taking every precaution.”
Jake’s assurance to Ginny compelled Carrie’s gaze back to Lusty’s sheriff. Adam had taken something out of the trunk of his car. She saw almost at once that it was a flak jacket. He put it on, and then reached into the trunk again and pulled out a rifle, which he gave to Matt, and a coil of rope that he put over his left shoulder. Then he nodded, and headed off, appearing to be following Chase’s path. In just a few seconds, he was out of sight.
Love Under Two Cowboys [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 22