by Lora Leigh
“Why are you helping me?” She needed to know. What made a monster suddenly pretend to have an iota of mercy?
He sighed heavily. “The major reason is the fact that you remind me so much of my own daughter. You would like her, Anna. She’s outspoken and full of spirit, just as you are. And, like you, she has a heart and a soul. Not all of us have such things, you know.”
“And,” he continued, “sometimes such addictions such as mine are simply a part of who and what you are.” He shrugged, glancing up at her once again with a somber look. “But even such addictions can be handled. Managed, to a point.” His gaze was still cold, but the expression on his face seemed a little less merciless now. “But only if you adhere to your own rules. Mr. Sorenson has broken far too many of those.”
“Such bloodletting should have limits. I don’t care much for what he would do to a young woman he knows as well as he knows you. One of such innocence and integrity.” He stopped.
Anna heard the sound that had him pausing, had his expression tightening again into one of icy, murderous intent. A slight, distinct click, almost that of a lock easing open.
“They’re early,” he murmured, moving away from her, his expression suddenly imperative as he bent and jerked open a trapdoor in the floor before turning back to her. “Tell them I helped you, Anna. If it hadn’t been for me, you’d be dead. You’d just be another loose end for him to tie up if I hadn’t found the clause that stated you had to be twenty-five for your death to benefit him. Remember that. Remember, I repaid your father’s kindnesses and more.”
CHAPTER 20
It happened so quickly.
Amory threw himself into the opening the trapdoor made in the floor.
Weak, struggling, Anna threw herself to the floor.
Glass shattered as a harsh, acrid scent began to roll through the room in heavy columns of lung-searing smoke. Raised voices, shouted commands, and blinding lights lit up the smoke-filled interior of the cabin as darkened shadows rushed through the door.
Smoke attacked her lungs, tightened them, and made it harder to breath.
As close to the floor as she could get, Anna fought to breathe and to control the instinct to cough against the harsh smoke filling the room.
“Archer,” she cried out. “Archer, where are you?”
She knew he was there. She had known he would come for her. The sound of sirens began to fill the night, along with the harsh male voices raised from the darkness outside. Anna could hear orders being shouted from outside the cabin.
Shards of splinters rained through the room as the back wall and door seemed to explode into tiny fragments. Chaos exploded around her.
The prick of a splinter being forced into her arm, then her hip, had her crying out, her head jerking to the side. Geez, she was getting tired of losing her own blood. She liked keeping it inside her body, if that was okay?
The stitches in her thigh had torn as Amory dragged her from Archer’s house through the night. There went Archer’s hope that it wouldn’t scar.
“Dammit, Archer, make it stop,” she cried out as she heard another of the smoke canisters explode in the house. “I can’t see.” Her voice was so weak, ineffective as she fought against the smoke that made breathing difficult.
The sense of powerlessness that tore through her as she tried to crawl for the door was the most horrifying thing she had ever known. Surely she hadn’t escaped death by the Slasher’s hand only to die at the hands of her rescuers?
That would just suck. Panic welled inside her. Her heart began to pound harder, a cold chill racing over her body as the shadows began to converge on her. A shirt was quickly whipped over her head, filtering some of the smoke and easing the searing burn in her lungs.
The instinct to cough was finally mastered, though it wasn’t easy.
Powerful arms pushed beneath her knees and shoulders, pulling her against a hard, muscular chest where she was held securely.
“Where is he?” One voice yelled over the din. “There’s too much damned smoke here, Archer! I can’t see him!” Crowe called out.
The Callahans were with Archer and what sounded like an army.
“We have movement in the trees, Archer. He’s on the run! Night vision shows a vehicle moving fast.” Another harsh, male voice rang through the area as fresh night air filtered through the shirt covering her face. “Fuck me! Hell no, that bastard’s not getting away!”
Amory was on the run, but he wouldn’t get far if the Callahans had anything to do with it.
“Make sure no one else is in that building,” Archer ordered, his voice furious. “Then start gathering evidence. I want those fuckers to fry when we find them.”
Archer was snarling, his voice furious as he shouted out orders while he held her against his chest, carrying her away from the hell other young women hadn’t survived.
“Sheriff, we have two sets of tracks here! They were both here,” Deputy Caine called out.
“I want photos and cement castings, Caine. Make sure everything matches up with what we already have,” Archer called out as Anna felt herself being lowered on something much softer than the floor of that cabin.
He had come for her.
No more than two or three hours could have passed. Dawn was only just beginning to lighten the night sky.
Her throat was tight with tears, with the knowledge that she could have died. That she could have lost any chance to tell him how she felt.
God, she should have told him before now. It didn’t matter that he might never love her. That he might not want to love her. She loved him.
A sob escaped her lips as he removed his shirt from her head, his hands cupping her face as those wonderful golden brown eyes stared down at her.
“It’s okay, sweetheart.” His voice was softer now, gentleness replacing fury, though she could still feel that rage pulsing just beneath the surface. “It’s okay, I have you. I have you, baby.”
“Don’t let me go,” she whispered, her arms tightening around his neck as she fought to hold onto him. “Please, Archer, don’t let me go.”
“Never, Anna,” he swore, holding her closer, the heat of his body sinking into her skin, into the chill that had been wrapping around her soul. “I’ll never let you go, Anna.”
*
“Don’t leave me.” She tried to make her fingers fist in the material of his shirt, but without much success. “Don’t leave me, Archer.”
“I’m not going anywhere, darlin’,” he promised. “And neither are you. Never again, Anna. I won’t let this happen ever again.”
She was so tired.
“Amory drugged me,” she told him. “I’m still so weak, but I have to tell you—Amory and Wayne—”
“I know, Anna,” he breathed out roughly. “We know who it was, and officers are waiting for both of them at their homes. We’ll get them, I promise.”
“I have to tell you so much.” And she was so tired.
“You can tell me when you’re ready, baby.” One large, broad hand caressed up and down her back, and she could swear it felt as though Archer was trembling.
“Make sure I wake up.” She couldn’t hold her eyes open much longer. “Swear it, Archer. Make sure I wake up.”
“I swear it, Anna,” he swore, his large hand cupping the side of her face gently as he pulled back to look at her once again. “I promise, I’ll make sure you wake up.”
It was all she had to hold on to. That promise, the assurance from the man she loved—
Because she couldn’t stay awake any longer.
Her lashes drifted closed one last time, the sedative pulling her under, but relief eased her into peace.
She was safe.
Archer had come for her. He would have been there if Wayne Sorenson had actually decided to rape and torture her. He would have saved her, and he would have protected her.
*
Archer rubbed his hand wearily over his face, the sense of relief that assailed him almost weakening hi
s knees.
God help him, he’d thought he’d lose his mind when he realized she had been taken.
For the first time since he’d realized the mistake he had made in leaving her behind, he could finally breathe comfortably again.
That tight knot of pain was slowly easing away, but it was being replaced by a core-deep fury and a need to kill that hardened inside him to the point that he wondered if he’d ever be the same again.
No, he would never be the same again. He’d almost lost the most important thing in the world to him. No man came back from that without changing.
“We’re ready to transport, Sheriff,” the young medic Sanja Fallon informed him somberly. “You’ll be able to find her at the Emergency Care Clinic, and Doctor Mayan told me to assure you she was in charge.”
Archer had to force himself to lay her on the gurney, then to step back from it and not jump inside the ambulance as they lifted her inside and secured the small bed.
She was asleep now, but all he could remember were those frightened green eyes as she stared up at him. Locked inside her gaze, Archer had felt things he’d sworn all his life didn’t exist.
Tipping his hat back on his head, Archer propped his hands on his hips as he turned and stared around the secluded area silently.
Two County deputies and three deputized Callahans were searching the area, along with the sheriff and two deputies from a neighboring county.
No doubt the FBI would be showing up soon.
Archer had received a searing objection regarding the Callahans’ participation from the director of the Aspen FBI office, though it had been on voice mail.
That was one phone call Archer had known better than to answer.
“Not much has been left, Sheriff.” Deputy Caine moved toward him, his expression tight and dark with anger as his turquoise gaze narrowed against the bright lights of the vehicles pointed toward the cabin.
“Did you get those tracks?” Snapping his hat from his head, Archer wiped the perspiration from his brow with the sleeve of his shirt.
“Casting and photo.” The deputy nodded. “Those boys must not have known about the rain that hit up here the other night. The ground directly beneath the trees where the other vehicle parked was still soft. Only those areas that the sun could actually hit were completely dry. I still have to run the tests, but I’m ninety percent certain the tracks under the tree will match Sorenson’s. The others definitely match the truck parked behind your house.
Yeah, a lot of folks, even the old-timers, sometimes forget that just because the weather’s nice in Sweetrock doesn’t mean the mountains are going to be hospitable.
The valley that housed Sweetrock was far enough below the mountains that it was often weeks to a month later before they saw the snow that fell ass deep this far up.
It was already cold here.
A chilly breeze ruffled the trees and slid through the threads of the shirt he wore.
“I’m finished here, Sheriff. There’s simply nothing left to gather.” Nash moved across the small clearing, his strides long, powerful.
“Caine, start rounding everyone up,” Archer sighed as he turned and headed for the Yukon the investigator was loading. “Let’s get back to town.”
“I have an APB out on Wyatt and Sorenson,” the deputy informed him, following Archer to the investigator’s County vehicle. “Sheriff Dillen from Montrose sent his deputies to the bastards’ houses.”
“That’s where I’m heading as well.” Nash turned from storing his supplies and the sealed tote of evidence in the back of the vehicle.
“I’m heading to the clinic.” Archer jerked open the door to his vehicle as he turned to the deputy. “Have the Callahans wait for me at the ranch. I’ll bring Anna there.”
She wouldn’t like it. Hell, she would hate it. But maybe once she learned he was taking Rafe and Resnova up on the offer to stay as well, then she would be okay with it.
He couldn’t risk this again, ever.
Starting the SUV, he threw it into drive and tore out of the area, racing for the clinic and for Anna.
He didn’t bother to call the Corbins. They would find out soon enough, if they hadn’t already begun getting calls. He knew how gossip worked in this town.
If they didn’t know yet, he’d tell them later, after Anna was safe, after he could stand to breathe without the remembered fear rushing through him.
Just as soon as he had a chance to tell her he loved her.
CHAPTER 21
She was fine.
She was so fine that by the time Archer arrived at the clinic, Anna was waiting behind the nurses’ station rather than in the waiting room, obviously amusing herself on the computer.
“I see you’re ready to go,” he stated as he leaned against the nurses’ station she was sitting behind, her gaze locked on the computer screen.
“Archer.” Her head jerked up, the dark pain in her eyes not exactly something he was expecting.
“Are you okay, Anna?” He started to move behind the counter.
Anna quickly rose to her feet and tugged at the T-shirt she wore.
“I’m ready to go home,” she told him as she quickly moved around to meet him. “Let’s go.”
She didn’t pause and she didn’t wait for him.
As she swept past him and headed for the main entrance, her limp more pronounced now, indicating that the healing wound at the side of her thigh was bothering her, Anna still made quick progress to the Emergency entrance.
“This isn’t a race, Anna,” he reminded her as he caught up with her.
“Good thing,” she rounded mockingly. “I’d so lose. I couldn’t even run fast enough to escape Amory last night.”
“Well, we couldn’t run fast enough to catch him either,” Archer relayed quietly. “Him or Sorenson.”
She came to a slow stop. “Did you find Amelia?” she asked, fear apparent in her voice.
“She was unconscious in the bedroom she used as a child,” he told her. “Drugged. Evidently, he’d had her there for several days after he caught her poking around in his basement. From what she told Logan and Nash, she’s suspected for some time that he was connected somehow to the Callahans. Something he let slip the year he jerked her from college. She’s been trying to prove it ever since.”
“That was why she wanted me to leave,” Anna guessed as he hit the auto open feature for the doors.
“That’s why.” Archer nodded, leading her through the exit. “She’s been playing a very deadly game, Anna, and judging by the letter Sorenson left on my truck while I was in his house, it’s just gotten deadlier for her.”
Head down, her hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, Anna hunched her shoulders almost defensively.
“He’s evil,” she whispered.
“Well, that’s a good word for him,” Archer agreed.
Hitting the remote door release, Archer followed her to his SUV, opened the passenger side door, then gently lifted her to the seat.
Helping her swing her legs around and latch her seat belt, Archer waited for Anna to say more. When she didn’t, he closed her door and loped around the vehicle before stepping into the driver’s side.
Damn, they had to talk. He had to explain her birthmark to her, make the most sense out of what little he knew and still didn’t fully understand.
“You said you want to go home—”
“Your home,” she finished for him, uncertainty flashing in her gaze.
Archer nodded, started the vehicle, then slid it into drive and pulled out of the parking spot.
“Was Wayne just crazy?” she asked him.
“Not from what I’ve seen, Amelia.” He glanced over at her quickly. “Driven. Arrogant and bloodthirsty, but I don’t think he’s crazy at all. Just certain he could have his hobby, keep it a secret, and acquire the Callahans’ land in the process.”
“No one can acquire the Callahans’ land,” she stated. “He should have read the fine print.”
&
nbsp; She had read the fine print, but even more, she understood it. Wayne Sorenson hadn’t taken the time to really believe her grandfather and the other Barons would so blatantly fuck the terms with all the clauses that had been added. It was written to be misleading, and it had been just that.
“Why can’t anyone acquire the Callahans’ land?” he asked as he pulled into the driveway of his home and turned to look at her. “The Barons tried for years.”
“The terms of the estate,” she said as she stared down at her hands. “John Corbin and Wayne Sorenson both knew there was no way to acquire that land until I turn twenty-five.”
She could almost feel Archer tense, confusion raking the air around him.
“What do you have to do with the estate, Anna?” he asked. “Only Crowe Callahan stood to inherit that portion of the estate.”
She shook her head slowly. “So did his sister.”
Anna lifted her gaze and stared up at him, expecting to see shock or surprise. Confusion perhaps. What she saw instead was bleak suspicion.
“You know who I am, don’t you, Archer?” Had he always known?
“I remembered where I saw the birthmark last night,” he finally answered, his voice soft, filled with regret. “Sorenson told you, didn’t he?”
Anna could only shake her head as she took a ragged breath and reach for the door latch.
Once again, Archer beat her in exiting the truck. He was around it and standing at the open door to help her out before she could navigate getting out herself.
She turned to face him as he closed the kitchen door behind them, then turned to face her. “Anna?” he questioned her, reminding her of the conversation.
She didn’t need a reminder.
“He told Amory,” she admitted. “He had no intentions of doing anything but frightening me out of town last night. He just wanted me to leave. He needs me alive until I turn twenty-five. The judge ruled, based on my grandfather’s suggestion, of course, that the portion Sarah Ann Callahan would have inherited be held in trust until the end of the year that she would have turned twenty-five. Sarah Ann Callahan would have turned twenty-five three weeks before Anna Callahan. I turn twenty-five at the end of August.”