by A. R. Shaw
“Baby, I just don’t want you to have any regrets about this one,” he whispered, but he also noticed his first word made the kneeling bastard shoot a curious glance his way.
She took in a deep breath and a steely resolve came over her, reminding him of the woman he was drawn to, to begin with. “Start talking.”
Matthew watched as the little weasel looked right at her and said, “I don’t know what she said, but I swear, I didn’t kill him.”
69
Paul
Dane’s friend, whoever he was, had walked over by her side. He was a big guy and Paul supposed in the end that was a good thing. He liked knowing someone was there to protect her if she needed it. And though she was about to kill him, he still loved her and resented the guy even if he was thankful for him.
“Seriously, I didn’t kill him. I was there. I’d planned to get in quickly, to take screen shots of your dad’s work that he kept in the safe and then get out. He wasn’t supposed to be there. Dane, you have to believe that part. Kim planned it all out. That was always her job when she and Sammy pulled small heists. Sammy drove the car. I brought Kim along with me as a lookout and a lock pick for the back door. I don’t know how to pick locks.”
The guy named Matthew broke in with a hard tone. “She said you made her go with you because she owed you money. Is that true?”
“No, that is not true. The fact is, she’s always been a thief, among other things. She came along because I needed to know how to pick the lock on the door. I watched your dad and knew how to get into the safe. She talked me into it. Stepped me through what I needed to do. I’m no criminal. I just wanted to prove to your dad that fighting the regulations was possible. The only thing I was after was pictures of his notes. I never took anything else. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Dane. I never meant for what happened next...”
“Just keep going with the story.”
He swallowed hard. He no longer allowed himself to look back. He only forged ahead in life as he tried to build a legacy for Dane out of her father’s ashes. Only she didn’t know that part yet. No one did but him.
“He came out of nowhere and caught me. We argued for a time but then Kim…” He began shaking because remembering those events and his own inaction always brought him to tears. “…She picked up that big cast iron candlestick. The one your dad kept by the fireplace, and she whacked him over the head with it. I…I couldn’t do anything. It happened so fast. He fell to his knees right in front of me. Blood went everywhere. I didn’t know what to do. He just…looked confused and then he was on the ground and I was trying to help him but then Kim ran into the lab and the next thing I knew, she was pulling me out of the house and smoke was everywhere.”
“What? You’re saying that woman, Kim, killed my father?”
“I swear to you, that’s what happened. I was wrong…I should have listened to your dad, but I didn’t kill him, Dane. I swear to God.”
Dane looked at Matthew and nodded. Something had transpired between them with that little nod because he was walking toward the truck she pointed to and suddenly, because of Dane’s glance in that direction earlier, he knew they had Kim in there.
After a shuffling commotion, he saw that his hunch was right. Dane’s friend brought Kim out. She was alive…why the hell didn’t he kill her when he had the chance? She had a bloody bandage tied around the wound. Matthew sat her on the ground with a good distance between them. She at least was gagged and bound. Paul took some satisfaction out of that, though if looks could kill, Paul knew he was dead warmed over.
“Please be careful with her. She’s deadly.”
“Now we’ll get to the bottom of this. Why? Didn’t you call the police? Why did you leave him there?”
He shook his head. He didn’t understand his own actions that night either. He had plenty of time to replay them over and over again. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I was confused. Kim took over. We left and a few streets over I sort of came to and fought her and then I ran back. I saw you arrive in the car. By then the whole house was up in flames and you ran inside. So I did too and got you out of there. It was too late after that to get your dad out. You were fighting me. I couldn’t let go of you.”
Dane let out a sob and wiped her face on her sleeve but the tone in her voice told Paul she was going to power through this. “Then what happened?”
He swallowed down the bile that rose in his throat. “You were um, in bad shape after that. You were in some kind of shock. I don’t know how much you remember. The fire crews came. They took you away in the ambulance. I um, lied to the police and said that I’d heard about the sirens and when I went to check it out, I saw you arrive and run into the house. That was all they asked me.”
“That’s not what I mean. What I want to know is when did you think it was okay to use my father’s formula to create your empire?”
Again, a deep breath. “You left, Dane. I didn’t know where you’d gone. I looked everywhere. As a firefighter, you can work anyplace…so I had no clue where you lit off to. I thought you probably just needed time and then you’d return, so that’s why. I wanted you to have something to return to. Something your dad would have wanted you to have.”
“You liar. You took that formula for yourself and filed the patent under your own name, probably. How can you sleep at night?”
He shook his head and cut his eyes over to Kim. He didn’t want her to know any of this because it would endanger Dane, but he was left with no choice. “No, that’s not true. The corporation’s all under your name, Dane. It’s all set up in a trust for you. I’m just the administrator. I pay myself a modest salary that pays for the rent on the building and my condo, but that’s all. Dane, I swear to you, that’s the truth.”
Kim continued to make disgruntled noises below the gag, shaking her head and moving.
“Do you have something to add?” Dane asked.
Dane went to Kim, before the man or Paul could stop her.
“Dane, wait!”
70
Matthew
Sometimes time stands still and though you know you should act, you’re incapable of even the slightest movement and often, your first move is a fraction in the reverse of where you want to go before the momentum changes. That’s what happened.
In a flash, that needling warning shot up Matthew’s spine, but it was a second too late. She had her. He knew Dane wanted to remove the gag from Kim’s mouth so she could hear the rest of the story or just to see what the hell the psycho wanted to add. For the most part, what this Paul guy had to say made more sense than the woman that tried to kill Dane in the backseat of the truck earlier. After listening to everything, Matthew didn’t care. He wanted to kill the both of them. But that wasn’t Dane, despite what she’d have you think.
Kim, having worked her binds loose, jumped up into Dane and yanked the gun away from her and before Matthew could pull her back, two things happened. Paul jumped in between them and then the gun that Kim held exploded.
“Who’s shot?” Matthew yelled but no one answered right away. When Matthew looked over, there was a red bloom spreading out on Paul’s side.
Despite the gun in Kim’s hands, Dane tackled her on the ground and somehow got the weapon away from her.
Two more shots went off and then a third echoed in the parking garage. And that’s when Matthew realized it was Dane who stood over Kim’s body. It was over. She was through.
“Dane.”
She still aimed down at the woman who so easily took her father’s life. Her elbows were nearly locked. Her back right leg stuttered but she couldn’t take her eyes off the woman she’d just killed.
“Dane?” he said again and eased into her, put his left hand under her left elbow and took the gun from her right. “She’s dead. Come on. We need to get out of here before someone comes to look.”
She turned around and went to Paul first.
“Put pressure on it. Matthew, call an ambulance.”
“Dane, no on
e’s going to come.”
But the guy on the ground was in a really bad way. He grabbed Dane’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Dane. It wasn’t what I meant to happen. You have to believe me. I would take it back any day. I’d give my life for you.”
“Shut up. You nearly did. She was aiming at me before you stepped in. Come on. You’re not dying here. Help me, Matthew.”
They lifted him even though Matthew thought he was a dead man already. The blood loss alone told him so. But he couldn’t tell her that. They got him into the truck. Dane sat with him and kept pressure on the wound. They drove back to the hospital as quickly as they could. Matthew did the talking in the emergency room. They said they found him that way on the street but didn’t know who he was. Dane never took her eyes off Paul.
Once they put him on a gurney, Paul grabbed a handful of Matthew’s shirt. “Take care of her,” he said and then passed out.
Dane walked a few more steps as the doctors rushed the gurney through double doors. Matthew had to pull her back. She didn’t cry but he knew it was all right there under the surface. What concerned him more was that she didn’t talk, either. He put her in the truck. Blood covered their hands, both of them. She never said a word, just looked down somewhere far away.
Later, somewhere keeping to the backroads east of Chicago, when the blood dried to the sticky point, he couldn’t take it anymore and pulled off the side of the road. It was getting dark then. He opened a bottle of water and washed his hands the best he could and wiped down the steering wheel. And then went around to the other side of the truck and made Dane hold her hands out over the ground as cars rushed by. He washed her hands of the tacky blood too. And then took a clean part of his shirt and with the water dabbed off a bloody smudge from the side of her jaw.
“He probably didn’t make it,” she finally said.
He didn’t want to confirm his thoughts. He shook his head because her statement sounded more like a question. “I doubt it. I’m sorry, Dane.”
She nodded.
Because he thought if anyone needed a drink right now, it was Dane Talbot, he said, “Do you…want one of these?”
To his surprise she shook her head and gave him a slight glance. “I don’t…need that now.”
He didn’t understand but he wasn’t going to question her.
They checked into a hotel later that night, off the side of the highway. She was still miles away. He helped her take her clothes off and he put them both in the shower and scrubbed her down with hotel soap in hopes he could take away some of the recent memories and the pain from both the present and the past.
After that, he dressed her in one of his big shirts, put socks on her feet and then put her in bed and held her back close to his chest all night.
At the break of dawn, he was surprised to see her eyes were already open as she watched the first pale light of day through the windows, the birds just beginning to sing.
“Dane, are you, all right?” The back of his hand caressed the soft skin of her arm as a comfort. “You should sleep a little more.”
She shook her head. “We should get going.”
“Yeah. It’ll take a few days to get back to Montana.”
She turned over to look at him, and away from the rising sun.
“We’re not going to Montana.”
“What do you mean?”
She didn’t say right away, but then she stared at the empty space next to him and said, “One down…one to go.”
Continue the Journey
Remember the Ruin
Rebel Blaze
Wayward State
Grand Gesture
Also by A. R. Shaw
Graham’s Resolution
The China Pandemic
The Cascade Preppers
The Last Infidels
The Malefic Nation
The Bitter Earth
The Wild West
The Last Goodbye
Surrender the Sun
Bishop’s Honor
Sanctuary
Point of No Return
Dawn of Deception
Unbound
Undone
Unbeaten
Remember the Ruin
Rebel Blaze
Wayward State
Grand Gesture
The French Wardrobe
About the Author
A. R. Shaw is a USA Today Bestselling Author. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A. R. Sʜᴀᴡ, sᴇʀᴠᴇᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ Uɴɪᴛᴇᴅ Sᴛᴀᴛᴇs Aɪʀ Fᴏʀᴄᴇ Rᴇsᴇʀᴠᴇs ᴀs ᴀ Cᴏᴍᴍᴜɴɪᴄᴀᴛɪᴏɴs Rᴀᴅɪᴏ Oᴘᴇʀᴀᴛᴏʀ. Sʜᴇ ʙᴇɢᴀɴ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜɪɴɢ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ғᴀʟʟ ᴏғ 2013 ᴡɪᴛʜ ʜᴇʀ ᴅᴇʙᴜᴛ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ, Tʜᴇ Cʜɪɴᴀ Pᴀɴᴅᴇᴍɪᴄ.