by Eve Gaddy
Cam nodded grimly. “I just hope they’re able to get proof he killed his first wife.” That would be far and away the best thing for Delilah. So he’d be locked up and never able to hurt her again. “I need to get back home. Hopefully Delilah will have reached the lawyer and she can see him today.”
“I’ll go get your grandmother’s ring. This would make her very happy.”
“Thanks. And Mom?” She looked at him over her shoulder. “Tell John if he doesn’t treat you right Gabe and I will kick his ass.”
She laughed. “I’ll warn him. But you don’t have to worry. He’s a wonderful man.”
DELILAH WOKE UP SLOWLY and stretched. Opened her eyes to a single pale pink rose on the pillow beside her. She sat up and held it to her nose, smiling. She couldn’t imagine where Cam had gotten it at that time of the morning. Unless he’d raided someone’s garden. The gesture was so sweet it brought tears to her eyes.
Then she remembered she had to leave him and that nearly did her in. But she had decided the night before that she wasn’t going to have a defeatist attitude. She would believe that Avery would be arrested. He would be charged with murder and then she and Cam could start their lives together.
A few minutes later she stumbled into the kitchen in search of coffee. She halted on the threshold. Instead of Cam, Gabe sat at the table, reading the paper and drinking a cup of coffee.
He doesn’t hate you anymore, she reminded herself. Probably. Cam didn’t think so, anyway. But she still didn’t feel quite comfortable around him.
“Hi,” she said cautiously on her way to the coffeemaker. “Where’s Cam?”
“I don’t know. Said he had to run an errand and asked me to come stay with you.”
“I don’t need babysitting.”
He flashed her a grin and she thought he was pretty cute when he wasn’t being a jerk.
“Tell that to Cam.”
She took her coffee and sat at the table. “I’m sorry he got you over here. I’m sure you have better things to do than babysit me.”
“I don’t mind.” She lifted an eyebrow. “I figure I owe you.”
“Why?
“I was kind of hard on you. Before…well, before.”
She smiled at his phrasing. “You were looking out for Cam. I don’t blame you for that.” She waited a moment, then added, “Besides, you were right. I lied to him.”
“You made a mistake. Happens to everybody.” He folded the paper and laid it on the table. “It wasn’t you exactly. I used to know a woman…” He shrugged. “You reminded me of her.”
“Who was she?”
He smiled wryly. “You know those mistakes we just talked about? I’ve made a lot of them. She was the worst.”
Delilah started to say something but someone knocked on the back door.
“I’ll get it,” Gabe said.
“Hey, Maggie,” she heard him say as he let her in. “Hey, Gabe. Delilah.”
“Want some coffee?” Gabe asked her.
“Thanks.” While Gabe got a coffee cup down and filled it, she spoke to Delilah. “The warrant has been issued for Avery Freeman’s arrest for violating the family violence laws. I should be hearing that they picked him up before long.”
At least that was something. “What about the other?” Delilah asked hopefully. “Have you found out anything about the murder?”
Accepting the cup from Gabe, Maggie shook her head. “No, nothing. It might take my friend a while to check into it. Plus, she can’t ask for help since she isn’t sure of Freeman’s contacts. Added to that, she’s doing everything on the q.t. I don’t think it’s going to be a fast process.”
Delilah tried for a smile but wasn’t very successful. “Too much to hope for.”
“Did Cam give you the number of that shelter?”
“I haven’t seen him this morning.”
“He left it by the phone,” Gabe said. “Along with the lawyer’s number. He said you should try to make the appointment for today.”
“All right. I’ll call him right now.”
Maggie started to say something but static from her two-way radio cut in. “Barnes,” she answered.
A disembodied, nasal voice said, “Ten-fifty-four in progress at Main and Redbird. Do you copy?”
She rolled her eyes. “Ten-four. Have someone else take it. I’m tied up right now.”
“Negative. Officer Barnes, you’re to proceed immediately to the location.”
“It’s a damn cow in the road,” Maggie said. “The same cow that’s been in the road every day this week. What’s the rush? It’s not an emergency.”
“Since no one else was around the chief had to go over there to handle it,” the dispatcher said with a distinct tremor in her voice. “The cow did its business on his foot. Then it stepped on the other foot. He’s not happy.”
Maggie winced. “Ten-four. Over and out.” She looked at Delilah. “Great. He’s going to be in one hell of a mood. I better go. I’ll let you know as soon as I’m notified they have Freeman in custody.”
“Thank you.” When Maggie left, Delilah went to the phone and picked up the paper Cam had left her. “I’m going to make those calls and then shower.”
“Okay. Anything need doing down in the restaurant?”
“The tea maker wasn’t working very well last night. It kept spitting every time you’d fill a glass. Think you could fix it?”
“Depends. I can try. Sometimes I think that thing’s possessed.”
Half an hour later she went downstairs. As she walked through the kitchen and toward the doorway to the main room, she heard the murmur of voices. Thinking Cam must have returned, she started to go in but Gabe’s raised voice stopped her.
“Sorry, we don’t open until eleven.”
“That’s unfortunate,” a man said.
Delilah’s heart began to pound. She clung to the doorjamb and strained to hear more. It couldn’t be him. She was imagining things.
“Hey, I said we were clo—” Gabe broke off with a queer groan.
Delilah didn’t wait. She dashed across the kitchen and grabbed the phone, punching in numbers with trembling hands. Let me be wrong, she prayed. Don’t let it be Avery. Let me feel like a fool for calling 9-1-1 for nothing.
“I wouldn’t,” he said from the doorway. “Not unless you’d like me to finish off your friend. I believe he’s alive but that can easily change.”
She turned around slowly, holding the phone against her chest. Tall, good-looking. Mid-forties with a glint of silver in his carefully cut brown hair. He looked like exactly what he was. A successful, powerful man.
A murderer.
“Hello, Anne,” Avery Freeman said, the gun in his hand pointing at her heart. “Surprised to see me, darling?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DELILAH STOOD frozen.
“Hang up the phone, Anne,” Avery said, gesturing at her with his free hand. “Do it or he’s a dead man.”
She finally found her voice. “What did you do to him, you bastard?”
“The phone, darling. Really, I must insist.”
She hung up.
“Wise choice,” Avery said approvingly. “We’ve discussed obedience before. There’s something else we should have discussed. Come, into the other room so I can keep an eye on your friend as well.”
She did as he said, feeling as if she were moving in quicksand. Gabe lay crumpled on the floor beside the bar, unmoving. She couldn’t tell if he was alive. “You bastard,” she said.
“You’re repeating yourself. Who is he? Another man you’ve been whoring with?”
“I haven’t—” She faltered at his snarl of rage.
He backhanded her across the mouth with his left hand. “Not only a whore but a lying whore.”
Pain exploded, radiating up her cheek. Tears stung her eyes and she tasted blood. She watched Avery pull something from his coat pocket and toss it on the bar.
“Look at them. Pictures of you and another man,” he said, his
voice thick with barely contained rage. “The man who owns this place. Cameron Randolph. You let him put his hands on you. Let him kiss you. Let him f—”
“Stop it!”
He kept going, his words a hail of malice. “You betrayed me. Betrayed your marriage vows. I could kill you for that.”
“I betrayed nothing. What we have isn’t a marriage. It’s a mockery. Of everything decent.”
He laughed. “You’re one to talk about decency, my dear, cheating wife.”
Gabe groaned, drawing Avery’s attention. He shoved at him with his foot. “Waking up, are you?”
Gabe’s eyes flickered open. A moment later Delilah saw awareness dawn. “Leave him alone. He works here. He’s nothing to me. You don’t have any reason to hurt him.”
“I hate to point this out, my darling Anne, but I can’t trust your word. How do I know you haven’t slept with him as well?”
“I haven’t. I swear I haven’t.”
“What about this one?” He gestured at the pictures. “Are you saying you didn’t have sex with Cameron Randolph? Think carefully before you deny it.” He swung the gun toward Gabe. Smiled at her and said, “Lie to me and he dies.”
Delilah met Gabe’s gaze. He shook his head, as if to say, don’t do it. But she had no choice. She couldn’t let Gabe die because of her. Not if she could possibly stop it. And Cam… She prayed harder than she’d ever prayed that he wouldn’t walk in that door.
“Yes. I did.”
“Say it. Say it!” he snarled.
“I slept with another man.”
He slapped her again, even harder than the first time. She staggered, stifled a cry. A cruel smile stretched his mouth. “Before I’m finished with you, you’ll wish you’d never been born. I hope he was worth it.”
“He was.” She raised her head and looked him in the eye. If she was going to die, she wouldn’t do it sniveling. “I’m divorcing you, Avery. I filed charges against you. The police know you’re here. They’re on their way,” she lied.
He shook his head. “A pitiful attempt. Well, we won’t be here long. Just long enough to kill your lover. I’ll enjoy watching you when I do. I’ll think of something particularly painful for your…entertainment. Then we’ll go to Mexico. I hear there are some very remote places. No one to hear you scream. Except me, of course.”
She blocked his words, knowing if she thought about them she’d be paralyzed with fear. “The police know about Anita. I told them you killed her.”
That shook his calm, but only for an instant. “No one will believe that. You’re nothing. Less than nothing. A liar and a whore. Why would they believe you over me?”
She cast a sharp glance at Gabe, saw him watching Avery, waiting to make a move. He must know as well as she did that he wouldn’t get more than one chance. “I found her diary and I gave it to the police. She was allergic to alcohol. She wasn’t driving drunk. I know it,” she said softly. “You know it. And now the police know it, too.”
“Delilah, what’s going—” Rachel came through the front door of the restaurant, halting when she saw the scene before her.
“Rachel, get out!” Delilah shouted, as Avery swung the gun toward the girl.
Rachel stood frozen, her mouth open and gaping in shock. Avery fired at her, but Gabe rushed him and spoiled his aim. The shot went wide, shattering the glass in the door. And the two men were locked in a desperate struggle for the gun.
“Call the police,” Delilah shouted to Rachel. “Get out of here!”
Delilah didn’t think she was going. She stood stock-still, her eyes wide open and terrified, and then long seconds later, she turned and fled.
Delilah pulled the bat from beneath the bar, with some wild idea of hitting Avery with it and somehow saving Gabe. But even as she ran toward them, the gun went off and Gabe fell back, a hand to his side. Avery brought the gun crashing down on his head. Gabe slumped to the floor just as she reached them.
She swung the bat at him but Avery jumped back. He pointed the gun at her. Panting, bleeding, he snarled, “Drop the bat or I’ll kill you.”
She laughed and held on to it. “Go ahead and try. You don’t want me dead. Not yet.”
His smile was pure malevolence. “That’s true.” He swung the weapon to point it at Gabe’s back. “I want you alive. But I can kill him.”
Gabe lay unmoving. Dying… Because of her. If Cam had been here, it would be him, dying on the floor of his restaurant. It still could be. He could walk in, unaware, at any moment. She could be the cause of his death, as well as his brother’s.
“Don’t kill him.” She dropped the bat. It clattered onto the floor and rolled away.
His smile widened. “How do you plan to stop me, darling Anne?”
Her stomach pitched but she answered steadily. “If you let him live, I’ll go with you willingly. I’ll leave the country with you. I won’t fight you.”
“And if I kill him?”
Shrugging, she bargained for a man’s life with the only thing she had. Her own life. “You’ll have to kill me, too. Now. And lose out on your fun.”
CAM TURNED INTO the parking lot of the Scarlet Parrot. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw Maggie’s police car drive up behind him. He felt a tingle of unease crawl up his spine, but dismissed it. She had to be coming to tell them Freeman was in police custody. And about damn time, too. He parked the truck, then got out and went to meet her by the outside stairs to the restaurant.
When he saw her face, he knew something was wrong. “What happened, Maggie?”
“Freeman’s missing,” she said without preamble. “He disappeared before the Houston police could take him into custody.”
He stared at her blankly for a minute, trying to take it in. “He’s gone? When?”
“They don’t know.” She looked away, then back at him. He started up the stairs but Maggie grabbed his arm to stop him. “Cam, wait. We need—”
A sharp crack split the air, the sound of a car backfiring, but they both knew it was no car. It was a gunshot and it had come from inside the restaurant upstairs.
“Goddamn it!” He looked at Maggie. “That’s him. He’s got Delilah. And Gabe.” Cam had his foot on the stairs when Rachel came tumbling down. She saw the two of them at the bottom and flung herself sobbing into Cam’s arms.
“What happened?”
“She—he—oh, God. Oh, God, oh, God.”
She was totally hysterical, almost gibbering. He shook her, hard, and she stopped and hiccuped, her eyes gazing into his, dilated with horror.
“Tell me. Calm down and tell me what you saw. Right now, Rachel.”
“A man. He’s got a gun.” She sucked in more air. “I think—oh, God, I think he shot Gabe. He tried to shoot me but Gabe grabbed him.”
“Where’s Delilah?” he asked harshly. “Did he shoot her, too?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel wailed, putting her face in her hands. “I don’t think so. She yelled at me to get out. But Gabe was bleeding and fighting him.”
“The bastard has both of them,” he said to Maggie, putting Rachel aside. She collapsed on the pavement, sobbing hysterically again.
Maggie wasn’t listening. She had already pulled her two-way radio out of her pocket and was urgently requesting backup and medical assistance. She signed off and pulled her gun out of the holster. “You should call the clinic in case the EMTs don’t get here. Ask one of the doctors to come.”
“Rachel can do it. I’m going with you,” Cam said.
She checked her weapon and gave him a furious glance. “The hell you are. You stay right here and call for help. I’m a cop. I’m trained for this and you’re not.”
“I don’t give a shit who’s trained and who’s not. If you think I’m going to stand here and do nothing while that maniac is holding Delilah and Gabe at gunpoint, you’re even crazier than he is.”
“I’m not going to argue this with you. You could get killed.”
“So could they.” If they we
ren’t already dead. He looked up the stairs, then back at Maggie. “We’re wasting time. I’ll go in the back way, up through the restaurant kitchen and draw his attention. You come through the front.”
“You’re a civilian. I could lose my job for letting you do this.”
“Better your job than their lives.”
She hesitated for a moment.
“Maggie, I’m going. Accept it.”
She swore, then nodded. “All right. Stay out of my line of fire.”
“If he’s killed them—” Cam began.
“Don’t think about it,” she interrupted. “Fear makes you freeze. Just go up there and get his attention. I’ll do the rest.”
“If he’s killed either of them he’s a dead man, Maggie.” He didn’t wait for a response. He was going to save his brother and the woman he loved or die trying.
“YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH IT, you know,” Delilah told him. “Even if the police weren’t already on their way they will be now. They’ll be here before you can get away.”
Keep talking, she thought. Babble, it doesn’t matter. The longer she kept him talking, the better her chances. If she left the restaurant with him, she might as well sign her own death warrant.
“You think so? I haven’t heard any sirens.” He smiled widely, still pointing the gun at Gabe. “Besides, I’ll have a hostage. Don’t forget, you offered to go with me. They’ll have to let me go.”
“Don’t count on it,” Cam said from the kitchen doorway.
Both of them turned at the sound of his voice. Avery jerked up the gun, pointing it at him, but before he could shoot, Cam was on him. It was a horrifying replay of the scene minutes before when Gabe had been shot. Delilah watched the struggle with a hideous sense of déjà vu.
“Freeze! Police!” Maggie stood at the front door, arms outstretched, the gun in her hands pointed unwaveringly at the two men. They ignored her, each still struggling desperately for control of the gun.
“Delilah, get down,” Maggie shouted and advanced toward them.