Vow to Protect

by Ann Voss Peterson

  “I see what you mean. My situation looks pretty dire, doesn’t it?” He gave her a shove, pushing her into the car and facedown on the console between the bucket seats. He shoved his knee into her back and leaned on her with all his weight.

  Pain shot up her spine. She sucked in a breath and tensed her abdominal muscles, trying to compensate for the downward pressure.

  “The people in this town are so damn dumb. They don’t think anything can hurt them. They’re looking at us now and thinking that we’re playing some sort of sex game. And you know what? They’re right.” He rummaged at her waist and pulled out her handcuffs. Wrenching each arm behind her back, he tightened them down.

  Pain rocketed through her broken wrist and up her arm. She breathed hard through her mouth, in and out like a woman in heavy labor.

  “It’s not just the people who are so damn dumb. You cops think you can fool me? You think you can dangle a little meat in front of me and I’ll bite like some kind of animal?”

  The trap Reed and Cord Turner had set. He must be talking about the trap.

  “You cops are so predictable. Always trying to get something for nothing. I name a location, and you all jump. But McCaskey can’t bring himself to take a risk. He can’t bring himself to bait his trap with something I really want.”

  He let up on the knee. Grabbing a handful of hair, he pulled, lifting Nikki up and forcing her into the passenger seat. He climbed behind the wheel. “I knew he wouldn’t risk letting Cordell bring Diana to me. I knew he would try to outsmart me. Idiot. Hasn’t he figured out anything?”

  Her scalp stung. Her wrist throbbed, pinched behind her against the seat. Pain rushed hot and real into her shoulder.

  “All I had to do was watch. All I had to do was wait for someone to make a move. McCaskey. You.”

  So he’d targeted her. He’d been following her from the very beginning.

  “All I had to do was keep my eye on the ball. Or should I say, the boat?” He looked out at the lake, calm and black in the dusk. “Who are you meeting here, Detective Valducci?”

  She clamped her mouth shut. She wouldn’t tell him even if she knew.

  “I know it’s not Cordell. He’s setting his pitiful trap. Could it be my grandson? Could it be Sylvie or her husband the counselor?” He smacked his lips. “Or is it Diana? Daddy’s little girl.”

  Nikki thought she might throw up. “You are one sick bastard.”

  He gave her hair a yank.

  A groan escaped from her lips despite her efforts to choke it back.

  “Does that hurt?” The glow of excitement lit his face, though his eyes were dead and cold as ever.

  He was trying to scare her. Hurt her. Fear and pain and domination. That’s what he got off on. She set her chin. He wasn’t going to get off on her. “It just takes my mind off the other pain. I hope you’re not waiting for a scream. I hate to disappoint.”

  He leaned close to her ear, as if ready to whisper an intimate secret. “Try this.” He took her lobe between his teeth and bit down.

  She could hear the layers of skin pop. Heat trickled sticky down her neck.

  He pulled back and watched her face as if soaking in her expression. Her blood glistened on his lips. “Who are you meeting? Diana? Sylvie? The boy and his hot little mother?”

  Pain screamed through her nerves, so loud it made her numb. He could do whatever he wanted, but she wasn’t going to tell him a thing. She’d already helped him when she hadn’t intended to. She wasn’t going to help him knowingly, not even to save her own skin. “Go to hell, you miserable, inadequate worm.”

  A vein throbbed on the side of his neck, but his expression still didn’t change.

  It didn’t matter. She knew she’d hit bone. She’d lived and breathed this bastard for too long not to know how to hurt him. And if she hurt him badly enough, maybe he would forget to wonder why she was here. Maybe he would drive her to some remote location to prove his manliness before Diana or Sylvie or Melanie and the kid arrived for the car.

  Maybe she could do something to make up for the mistakes she made.

  Gun still on her, he retrieved the knife from the backseat floor. He held it up in the parking lot lights, the blood from her shoulder still wet on the blade. “Should I kill you right now? Let you bleed out all over the interior of your rental car?”

  She forced calm into her screaming mind. “That seems kind of easy.”

  “Easy, huh? When I cut you, your heart will keep beating. Your mind will keep working. You’ll feel every bit of pain. You’ll be able to look down and see me as I work.”

  She choked back her revulsion and focused on what she had to do. “The stress really is getting to you, isn’t it? You’re decompensating. You’re losing it. I thought you liked the hunt, Kane. I thought you liked to prove you were dominant. Or are you afraid to hunt a cop? A woman cop? Are you afraid I’ll kick your ass and prove what a sorry, inadequate piece of shit you really are?”

  His fist lashed out, hitting her square in the face.

  Her head snapped back. The sting ripped through her skull and rang in her ears. Everything around her flickered, and the world went black.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Cord stepped out of his car, carrying cake in one hand and a box of rose and baby’s breath corsages in the other. The parking lot of Olbrich Gardens was empty. The building housing the indoor garden and other facilities was dark. Balancing both boxes in one arm, he tried the glass doors. Locked.

  He didn’t have to open the lid of the sheet cake and compare to know that he’d come to the right place. The picture on the top of the cake, a garden wedding recreated in icing and sprayed color was a direct replica of the Olbrich gates and gardens beyond.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe he needed to enter through the gate.

  It was a nice trick, loading him down with cake and flowers, keeping his hands full. But what Kane couldn’t see was the gun he held beneath the sheet cake. The knife he’d stashed among the corsages.

  From his brief discussion with his sisters last night, he’d gathered that Sylvie and Bryce Walker had been married here in the gardens. No doubt that was part of the reason Kane had picked this location. Diana and Reed had been married on the beach. Too public. But as long as the gardens were closed, they could be a lonely, isolated place. A place where Kane could have his way.

  Cord pushed the gate with his shoulder. It swung open easily. Every nerve on alert, he slipped inside and scanned the manicured lawn and early fall flowers for signs of movement, signs of anything.

  Growing up in the city, he’d never spent much time in gardens. But one look at this place, and he knew Melanie would love it. The meandering paths. The pointed roof of a gazebo peeking out from a rose garden. The perfect setting for a wedding.

  But he couldn’t think about Melanie now. About the last words she’d said. About the plane that would be taking off soon, whisking her and Ethan to Florida.

  He loved her with all his heart. For him, there had never been anyone else. But as much as he’d like to believe in that bright future together that she’d talked about, he couldn’t manage it. Not yet. Not until the shadow of Dryden Kane was no longer blocking the sun.

  MELANIE PUT HER ARM around Ethan as the boat cruised toward shore. Up ahead, the lights of the Memorial Union Terrace glowed through the dusk. Next door the fat turrets of the Red Gym jutted dark into the air, an old castle in the middle of the University of Wisconsin campus.

  Reed had called to say a rental sedan would be waiting in the parking lot between the Red Gym and the Union, the keys under the seat. After they picked up the car, just a short drive to the airport and they’d be boarding a plane to Disney World and far away from Dryden Kane.

  And Cord.

  Melanie had tried not to think about him, tried not to wonder where he was, what danger he was facing, but it was no use. Even prayer hadn’t helped the way it had in the past. Nothing had helped but thinking of Ethan. His safety. His happiness. As long a
s Ethan was all right, she could survive anything. She had to survive anything. Even losing Cord.

  She smiled at the excitement in her son’s face as they neared the shore and their trip to Disney. She hadn’t told him about Cord yet. She hadn’t said a word. And she kept hoping that maybe she wouldn’t have to. Maybe the police would catch Kane and everything would turn out okay.

  The easy, laid-back rhythm of a reggae band echoed across the water from the Terrace, growing louder the closer they got to shore. It was unusual for the Terrace to be hosting a Sunday evening band, but she had to admit it was nice. As if a festive send off would make for a happy trip.

  “Have a good time at Disney.” Diana smiled at Ethan.

  Sylvie’s eyebrow ring twinkled in the light from the city. “I hope we can see you when you get back.”

  Melanie pushed back another surge of tears. They hadn’t had much of a chance to get to know Cord’s sisters, but what she’d learned about them made her want to know more. They and their husbands seemed like good people. People who had been through hell and had survived. People who’d once been lonely but had forged family ties stronger than just the blood the sisters shared.

  “I’d like that.” She offered the twins a smile, then glanced at Ethan. “We sure wouldn’t want to miss seeing the baby when it’s born.”

  Ethan nodded. “Where’s Cord? I mean, Dad?”

  Melanie knelt down in front of him. “Your dad had to help Reed.”

  He eyed her as if he’d picked up wind of her unease.

  “We’ll talk more on the plane, okay, honey?”

  Ethan nodded. “Okay.”

  Bryce cut the engine. The boat drifted toward a pier flanked with sailboats and rental canoes. Its forward momentum had almost stopped when it bumped against the rubber on the pier’s edge.

  Emerging from behind the controls. Bryce gave Melanie and Ethan a smile. “I can’t tell you how glad we are that our little guy is going to have a cousin like you.”

  “Girl. Our little girl,” Sylvie teased.

  Bryce chuckled. “Right. Now, have a great time at Disney. Check out the haunted house for me, will you?”

  Ethan grinned. “You bet.”

  Bryce made his way to the ladder and climbed down to the pier to secure the boat.

  Melanie traded hugs with Diana and Sylvie. Putting her arm back around her son’s shoulders, she ushered him to the ladder and peered over the edge.

  Bryce lay facedown on the pier. Red covered the back of his shirt, was smeared over the white boards.

  Was he hurt? Had he fallen?

  Or was he—

  A hand jutted up from the ladder and grabbed her wrist.

  She looked down into the barrel of a gun—and the eyes of Dryden Kane.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Cord walked along the cobblestone garden paths for what had to be the fortieth time. He’d covered much of the sixteen acres of outdoor gardens, the Thai Pavilion, the rose garden, the formal English garden. And while his appreciation for plants and gardening had taken a great leap forward, his patience had disappeared. Kane wasn’t here. And Cord had the feeling the serial killer wasn’t planning to be.

  Approaching the gate and turnstile, he dipped his chin to the microphone clamped to the inside of his shirt collar. “I’m at Olbrich Gardens. Either Kane is playing some game I’m missing, or he’s a no-show.”

  He made his way back to the gate, arriving just as a green sedan pulled into the parking lot. He reached the car before Reed McCaskey climbed out. “So much for our trap.”

  McCaskey’s eyebrows dipped and worry lines dug into his forehead. “Diana was right. If she was here, Kane wouldn’t have the choice. He’d have to come.”

  “You still have the SWAT team on standby?”

  He nodded. “They’re searching the surrounding buildings and perimeter. There’s one thing that worries me.”

  He raised his brows and waited for McCaskey to continue.

  “If Kane isn’t here, where is he?”

  “That’s a damn good question.” He looked at his watch. He had something to do first. Something that couldn’t wait. “I’m going to the airport. I want to make sure Mel and Ethan are on that plane.”

  McCaskey nodded. “Nikki dropped a blue late model Taurus at the Memorial Union over an hour ago. They should have picked it up and arrived at the airport by now. If something happened, Bryce would have called me.”

  “Maybe so, but I’m not going to assume anything. I have to know for sure.”

  “The plane takes off in fifteen minutes. You won’t make it in time. I’ll call.”

  “Go ahead. But I’ll probably get my answer before you get off hold.”

  “FLIGHT 1165? I’m sorry, it already departed.”

  Cord looked at the older woman behind the airport baggage-check-in counter. After waiting in line for what seemed like an eternity, he was ready to crawl out of his skin and down her throat. Not her fault. This had to be the most popular night to fly out of Madison in history. Why? He had no clue. He probably should have waited for McCaskey to call, although he might be having the same luck. “I know the plane took off. I just need to know if two passengers were on it.”

  She looked up over the line of people waiting to check their suitcases. “Well, I’m afraid we’re really busy. If you come back in—”

  “I’m not waiting.” His voice boomed out, harsher than he intended.

  Penciled eyebrows arched in surprise.

  He held his hands in front of him, palms out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. But this is very urgent. I have to know if Melanie and Ethan Frist were aboard that flight. And I have to know now.”

  Blowing a sigh through her pointed nose, she slipped on a pair of reading glasses that were dangling on a chain around her neck. “Melanie what?”

  “Frist. And her son Ethan.”

  She squinted at the computer monitor. Pushing keys as if in slow motion, she hummed under her breath.

  “Were they on the flight?”

  “Well…”

  “Well, what? Please.”

  She peered at him over her glasses. “It seems they never checked in.”

  “A FORMER FRIEND of mine recently pointed out how I’ve been in such a hurry, I haven’t stopped to smell the roses. You know, I haven’t really taken the time to enjoy the things I love to do. I think it’s good advice. We should all stop and smell the roses from time to time, don’t you think?”

  Melanie choked back the thick, tinny taste of fear clogging her throat and forced herself to stay calm. She, Ethan, Diana and Sylvie lay propped on the bed where Sylvie and Bryce had slept last night. Ropes bit into her wrists and bruised her ankles. But she’d guess the pain of her ligatures was nothing compared with the handcuffs Kane had used to secure Diana.

  Judging from the red-purple color of her fingers, Kane had tightened them to the point of cutting off her circulation, steel cutting into flesh. And the bruise along her cheek and eye where Kane had clubbed her to gain her cooperation was turning a similar color.

  On the other side of Diana, Kane finished securing Sylvie’s hands and moved to her legs. She’d already been sick, the poor woman. And now she looked as pale as death.

  Melanie shifted closer to Ethan who huddled between her and Diana. He hadn’t said a word, hadn’t made a sound, but she could feel him shaking. The evidence of his fear and her inability to soothe it away ate into her like acid.

  Kane tightened the rope around Sylvie’s ankles and continued his taunting drone. “It was so nice of your husband to lend me his boat, don’t you think? Out here on the water, I have time. Time to relax. Time to enjoy my family.”

  “Family. Family is about more than blood. You’re not family. You’re a monster.” Sylvie jerked her feet to the side, pulling them from Kane’s grasp.

  He lashed out with a hand, slapping her.

  Sylvie’s head jerked to the side. The sound cracked in the cabin as loud as a gunshot. Blood bloomed re
d in the corner of her mouth. She stared straight ahead, stunned. Tears streaked over her reddening cheek.

  “It seems it would serve you well to know your place, Sylvia. To obey your father.”

  “You’re no father of mine.”

  He hit her again.

  Sylvie reeled to the side, the force sending her off the edge of the bed. She hit the floor with a thump.

  “Believe me, that hurt me far more than it hurt you. You can stay down there until you learn some manners. Or until I’m tired of having you around.”

  “Let them go, Kane. It’s me you want.” Diana’s voice boomed strong, as if she hadn’t noticed she was bruised and battered and tied hand and foot.

  “Didn’t I tell you to call me Daddy?” His lips pulled back from his perfect teeth in a smile. “You are my favorite, of course. But what about your sister? If I give you all the attention, she’s bound to get jealous. And sibling jealousy can be so nasty.”

  “Then just take us,” Sylvie’s muffled voice rose from the floor.

  Melanie let out a breath. At least she was okay. For now.

  “Take you? And not my grandson?” He rounded the bed, eyeing Ethan with the wide-eyed focus of a psychopath.

  Despite Melanie’s best effort to keep quiet, a sound vibrated in her throat, low and guttural.

  Kane stepped to Melanie’s side of the bed. He pulled his knife from the sheath on his belt. Dried blood dulled the blade.

  She choked back a scream, pressing it down, compressing the fear until it hardened into anger inside her. He wasn’t going to touch Ethan. She didn’t know how she’d stop him, but she’d find a way. “Touch my son and you’re dead.”

  Kane’s lips thinned. One corner quirked into a smile. “I’m not going to hurt my grandson. What kind of a monster do you think I am?”

  She’d warned Cord not to kill Kane, not unless he had to, not unless he was under imminent attack. But if she had a gun right this minute, she knew in her heart she could shoot. More than that. If he escaped she would chase after him, hunt him down and kill him in cold blood.