Shattered

by Cynthia Eden

  “You aren’t getting away!”

  And Mitch was there. Appearing out of that smoke. Blocking their path. And he still had that trigger in his hand. “That was just the start . . .” He laughed. “That one sealed off the exit downstairs . . . there’s more . . . more . . .” He was about to press that trigger again.

  Her father appeared behind him. Murphy had a knife in his hand and he just slipped that knife right up to Mitch’s throat. In a flash, he’d cut Mitch’s throat. From ear to ear.

  Mitch gurgled . . . then fell. The trigger dropped from his hands.

  And her father started humming again.

  Jax pushed Sarah behind him. “Stay away . . . from her . . .”

  Murphy shook his head. “You’re a dead man walking. You won’t get out. You’ll just slow my daughter down.”

  That humming . . . such a familiar song . . .

  She could almost hear him sing . . .

  Hush little Sarah, don’t say a word. Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.

  If that mockingbird won’t sing . . . Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.

  He’d sung his slightly altered version of that song to her for years . . . then he’d started humming it, humming it whenever he seemed stressed. Humming it . . .

  Hush little Sarah, don’t say a word. Papa’s gonna teach you to hunt and kill.

  By the time we’re done, the bodies will be still.

  The lyrics had twisted over the years, just as he’d become twisted and evil. He’d stopped being her father and become . . .

  The Monster.

  And I’m like him.

  “Will you . . . let Sarah pass?” Jax asked.

  Mitch was still moving, grabbing at his throat. With all the smoke, she couldn’t tell how deeply her father had cut him.

  “I’m here to save Sarah,” Murphy said. “I love her.”

  The fire crackled louder.

  “So . . . do I . . .” And Jax stepped aside. “Go . . . Sarah . . .” He pushed her toward the door. Toward Murphy.

  Sarah grabbed Jax. “I’m not leaving you!” The smoke thickened even more. She coughed, but clutched tightly to him. “I won’t!” There was no way she’d leave him to the fire.

  Her father locked his hand around her arm. “There’s no time, Sarah! Go out the window! Climb down—” He coughed, too. “Go!”

  She shoved him away. Held tighter to Jax. “I love him!”

  Jax kissed her. “You were . . . the best thing . . . to ever happen to me . . .”

  He felt so cold against her. In a room that was burning hot, Jax shouldn’t be cold, but he was.

  “Don’t do this,” Sarah begged. For him, she’d beg. For him, she’d kill. For him, she’d do anything.

  I just can’t leave him.

  “Go . . .” He pushed her. Her father was pulling her and . . .

  Mitch was reaching for the trigger he’d dropped. Her father hadn’t cut him deeply enough!

  “No!” Sarah lunged for the trigger. She knocked it out of Mitch’s reach.

  Her father grabbed Mitch, jerking him up. “Stay away from her!”

  Then the gun went off.

  Even in the midst of the fire, Sarah froze. She looked over. Mitch was in front of her father . . . and he had a gun in his hand. She didn’t know where he’d gotten the weapon. But he’d just shot her dad. And that shot—it had been fired point-blank into her father.

  Murphy looked down at the wound. Then he . . . laughed. And he drove his knife into Mitch. Mitch staggered back and fell.

  So did Murphy.

  Her father . . . her father fell.

  Sarah dropped to her knees beside him. “Daddy?” And for that one instant, he was just . . . her daddy again.

  He turned toward her. “Sweetheart . . .”

  Sarah felt a scream building in her throat. He was dying, she knew it. Jax—Jax had slumped against the wall. The fire was spreading and she was trapped there.

  “Go . . . out the window . . .” her dad said.

  Sarah shook her head. “You . . . you’re here and Jax . . .”

  “Go . . .” And his eyes closed. His breath sighed out.

  No. Not like that. He couldn’t just die that fast. He couldn’t . . .

  Jax needs me.

  “Sleep tight,” Sarah heard herself whisper. You’re safe tonight. She pressed a kiss to her father’s forehead.

  She pushed to her feet. Mitch was still not moving. Her father had finished him. She put her arm under Jax’s shoulder once more. They couldn’t go through the door. The fire was too strong. Her father had been right. She steered Jax toward the window. They were on the second floor, but they would have to take that jump. Broken bones—fine. They’d be alive.

  She kicked out the old window. Fresh air blew inside and she gulped it in greedily.

  “Sarah!”

  Dean was down below, waving to her.

  “Jump, Sarah,” Jax said, his voice low and rough. “Go . . .”

  Her father had been trying to push her, too. Trying to make her leave, but she hadn’t. Didn’t Jax get it?

  “Not without you.” She wasn’t going anyplace without Jax.

  He shook his head. “I’m . . . already . . . d—”

  “No!” She locked her fingers with his. “This is how—” She choked on the stupid smoke. “It works. Either we both go . . .” Another cough. “ . . . or we both stay.”

  Because she wasn’t leaving him to the fire.

  Jax stared into her eyes. “You . . . love me?”

  “Yes.” She kissed him. Fast and hard. “Now let’s go, let’s—”

  Something was moving in the fire. Mitch? Still not dead. No, no that wasn’t possible! Why wouldn’t he just stay down! And he had the gun . . . he was lifting it. Aiming it—

  Jax wrapped his arms around Sarah, shielding her with his body.

  And they jumped.

  HE FUCKING HURT.

  There wasn’t a single part of Jax that didn’t ache or burn, but that was okay with him. If he hurt, then it meant he was still alive.

  “S-Sarah . . .” Talking was one hell of a lot harder than it should have been. Jax felt like he’d swallowed glass.

  Or been trapped in a fire.

  “I’m here.” Soft fingers brushed over his cheek. He felt his body being lifted. He should open his eyes, but that seemed to require a whole lot of effort.

  “H-Hurt?” Jax managed to ask. Had Sarah been hurt when they jumped? Mitch had been firing and Jax had tried to protect Sarah with his body. He thought he might have been shot again, but as long as Sarah was safe . . .

  “You saved me,” she told him.

  Jax shook his head. No, he hadn’t. Sarah had saved him, from the very beginning. “Love . . .”

  “I love you, too,” Sarah whispered. Her lips pressed to his.

  “Ma’am, we have to take him to the hospital,” Jax heard a voice say. “He’s losing blood too fast.”

  “I’m coming with you, Jax,” Sarah told him. “From now on, I’ll always be with you.”

  And he smiled.

  The pain didn’t matter.

  Sarah was safe. Sarah mattered.

  GABE SPENCER STARED at the burning house. He’d just been pulling up to the scene when Jax and Sarah had burst out of the window. Jax had broken his leg when he hit the ground. Broken his arm. But Sarah . . . Jax had held tight to her. She’d been safe.

  “They were the only ones to come out,” Victoria said from beside him. Her gaze was on the house. On the wreckage. Firefighters were battling the flames. The house was so old, the wood so rotten, that the fire had spread too quickly for them to easily control it.

  “Sarah said Mitch was still alive when they jumped,” she added.

  Gabe kept his gaze on the fire. “He’s not alive now.” Not Mitch. Not Murphy. They were gone. “No one’s alive in there now.”

  Victoria was silent. Then, after a long moment, she asked, “Why did Murphy come down here?”

&nb
sp; “Because he knew the man who was after Sarah. He had to stop him.”

  “Why? He killed so many people . . . Sarah’s said herself that he’s a psychopath.” There was confusion in Victoria’s voice, and Gabe knew she wasn’t just thinking of Sarah’s father, she was thinking of her own.

  Victoria’s father hadn’t killed dozens of people. He hadn’t been a slick serial killer who’d eluded capture for years.

  Instead, Victoria’s father had struck out at the people closest to him. He’d killed Victoria’s mother. No one had believed Victoria when she tried to tell the cops . . . not at first.

  That’s why Viki always speaks for the dead.

  “Did he . . . love her?”

  The smoke blended with the darkness of the night.

  “I figure he did, as much as he could love anyone.”

  Gabe turned away. Victoria kept watching the fire. He’d taken two steps when she said, “Do you hear that?”

  Gabe looked back. Victoria was still staring at the fire.

  “I could have sworn,” she murmured, “that I heard someone humming.”

  JAX OPENED HIS eyes. He wasn’t particularly surprised to find himself in a hospital room. He remembered doctors peering at him. Men and women in green masks. There had been lots of bright lights and pain. Surgery.

  He’d kept asking for Sarah. She hadn’t been there then and now—

  He turned his head.

  Brent stared back at him.

  “Aw, fuck,” Jax muttered. Yeah, it still felt as if he’d swallowed glass when he spoke.

  Brent’s lips quirked. “Expecting someone else?”

  “Sarah.” He needed to see her.

  “She’s been at your side for the last twenty-four hours. While the docs were saving your sorry ass in surgery, she got herself stitched up. She hasn’t left since then.”

  She wasn’t there now. And he needed to see her. To make sure she was all right. He started to push up from the bed.

  “If I weren’t dragging around an IV bag and feeling like shit, I’d shove you back into the bed myself,” Brent told him gruffly. “But since you’ve got a broken leg . . .”

  Hell, he did have a broken leg. The cast was stretched up and hanging in the air.

  “I figure you can’t go far.” Brent rolled back his shoulders. The guy was wearing a white hospital gown. So was Jax. “Relax. Sarah just stepped out to talk with your docs. She’s literally on the other side of that door.”

  The room’s door opened. Sarah was there. Shadows were under her beautiful eyes. Scratches were on her cheeks.

  She was perfect.

  When she saw him, her lips curled—a fast, brilliant, beautiful smile. She ran across the room. “Are you with me this time?” Her fingers slid carefully over his face. “Truly with me?”

  He lifted his hand. His damn fingers were shaking. He touched her. Real. Sarah was in front of him. Real and safe and alive.

  “I should go get your doctors,” she said. “They were briefing me and I need to let them know you’re back—”

  He caught her hand. “Don’t go.” He needed her close.

  Sarah’s face softened as she stared at him.

  “Don’t ever go, Sarah.” He knew they had a ton of shit to work through. Her past. His. But the past . . . the past didn’t matter right then. He wanted the present, with her. The future . . . with her. Anything that she could give to him, he wanted. “Stay with me.”

  Sarah leaned forward and kissed him. Light and sweet. The best kiss of his entire life. “Always,” Sarah promised him. When she looked up at him, Jax saw the truth in her eyes. Sarah loved him. Him.

  He knew he was the luckiest bastard on earth.

  Jax pulled Sarah closer—with his left hand because his right arm was in a cast, too. And he just . . . held her.

  He’d found what had been missing from his life for all of those long years. The other part of his soul. And, yeah, he knew that probably would sound corny as shit if he ever told anyone but . . .

  “I love you,” Sarah whispered.

  But it’s the truth.

  He kissed her cheek. “Forever, Sarah. Forever.”

  EPILOGUE

  Victoria hurried out of the morgue. She was practically running, but she didn’t care. She had to get to Gabe. Fast. She rushed up the stairs and then threw open the door to his makeshift office.

  Gabe spun around. Wade glanced over at her, frowning.

  “Viki?” Gabe stepped toward her. “Is everything all right?”

  No, no, things were definitely not all right.

  They’d stayed in New Orleans for a few extra days. Everyone had needed time to recover, and since Viki was one of the few who’d actually remained injury free on this particular case, she’d volunteered her services to the PD.

  She’d been working in the morgue, going over the remains recovered from the fire at Tibideaux Street. But the news she had . . . it wasn’t good.

  Not good at all.

  “He wasn’t there,” Viki said. Her words quavered.

  “Who wasn’t?” Wade asked as he, too, crept closer.

  “They brought the bodies in. Three bodies,” Viki said.

  Gabe nodded. “Right. Carlos, Mitch Fontaine, and Murphy Jacobs—”

  “No.” That was the problem. “Carlos.” She nodded. “Mitch Fontaine.” They’d identified them both very quickly. “Not Murphy Jacobs.”

  Gabe’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “The remains for the third victim . . . we just identified them. They didn’t belong to Murphy. They belonged to a guy named Nate Tremaine. He—he worked for Jax. I don’t know how he wound up there . . . maybe he was selling Jax out, too, just like Carlos. Or maybe Mitch was torturing the guy to get information, but his body was there. It was recovered. Him, not Murphy.”

  Wade’s face had gone slack with shock. “So where is Murphy Jacobs?”

  Victoria shook her head. “I don’t know. Sarah said that he’d been shot, but the firefighters didn’t find his remains.”

  “Maybe there just weren’t enough remains left.” Gabe’s voice was grim.

  “No. There should have been something.”

  “They just haven’t found him yet.” Wade straightened. “That’s all. They got the three bodies, so they slowed down the search. We’ll call them and let them know another body has to be there. Remains, something—”

  He broke off and they all looked at one another.

  “Murphy Jacobs is dead,” Wade said.

  Victoria wasn’t so sure.

  “He is,” Wade said again, but he sounded as if . . . as if he were trying to convince himself.

  And Victoria remembered the faint humming she’d heard, the sound blending with the fire . . .

  That humming had been oddly familiar, a tune that she’d heard before . . .

  Hush little baby, don’t say a word . . .

  Have you read the first two sexy and suspenseful novels

  featuring the LOST team

  from New York Times best-selling author

  CYNTHIA EDEN?

  Don’t miss

  BROKEN

  and

  TWISTED

  Available now from Avon Books!

  Read on for excerpts . . .

  PROLOGUE

  SHE COULD SMELL THE OCEAN AND HEAR THE pounding of the surf. She could see the sky above her, so very blue and clear, but she couldn’t move at all.

  Her body had gone numb hours ago. At first the numbness had been a blessing. She’d just wanted the pain to stop, and it had. She didn’t even scream any longer. What would be the point? There was no one around to hear her. No one was coming to help her.

  Seagulls cried out, circling above her. She didn’t want them to fly down. What if they started to peck at her? Please, leave me alone.

  Her mouth was dry, filled with bits of sand. Tears had dried on her cheeks.

  “Why are you still alive?” The curious voice came from beside her because he was there,
watching, as he’d watched for hours. “Why don’t you give in? You know you want to just close your eyes and let go.”

  She did. She wanted to close her eyes and pretend that she was just having a bad dream. A nightmare. When her eyes opened again, she’d be someplace different. Someplace without monsters.

  He came closer to her, and she felt something sharp slide into the sand with her. A knife. He liked to use his knife. It pricked her skin, but then he lifted the knife and pressed the blade against her throat.

  “I can end this for you. Do it now. Just tell me . . .” His words were dark. Tempting. “Tell me that you want to die.”

  The surf was so close. She’d always loved the ocean. But she’d never expected to die like this. She didn’t want to die like this. She realized the tears weren’t dry on her face.

  She was still crying. Her cheeks were wet with tears and blood.

  “Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me that you want to die.”

  She shook her head. Because death wasn’t what she wanted. Even after all he’d done, she didn’t want to stop living.

  She didn’t want to give up.

  The knife sliced against her neck. A hoarse moan came from her lips. Her voice had broken when she screamed and screamed. She should have known better than to scream.

  That was what he’d told her. You should know better, sweetheart. It’s just you and me. Until your last breath.

  Her blood mixed with the sand. He was angry again. Or . . . no, he’d always been angry. She just hadn’t seen the rage, not until it was too late. Now she couldn’t look at him at all. No matter what he did to her, she wouldn’t look at him.

  She didn’t want to remember him this way. Actually, she didn’t want to remember him at all.

  Her gaze lifted to the blue sky. To those circling seagulls.

  I want to fly, Daddy. She’d been six the first time she’d come to the island and seen the gulls. I want to fly like them.

  Her father had laughed and told her that it looked like she’d lost her wings.

  She’d lost more than that.

  “I want to fly,” she whispered.

  “Too bad, because you’re not flying anywhere. You’re going to die here.”

  But there was no death for her yet, and she wasn’t begging.

  The gulls were blurry now, because of her tears.