by BJ Daniels
Tanner watched her hand sink into the pocket of the jacket again. He let out a silent groan, then said under his breath, “What are you doing, Billie Rae?” as he crawled up and onto the bridge behind Duane.
BILLIE RAE LOOKED DOWN the stretch of bridge swaying in the wind, estimating how many feet lay between her and Duane. He had stopped and now stood as if petrified and unable to move.
Unfortunately he hadn’t come far enough out onto the bridge. She needed him to come at least another ten feet toward her—and the middle of the bridge.
Even from here she could see that his face was flushed, the large vessel in his neck bulging with fury and no doubt fear. It was a wonder he didn’t give himself a heart attack, she thought.
“Get your ass back here, Billie Rae,” he yelled, but his bellow had lost a lot of its bravado.
He didn’t want to come out on the bridge. He was scared.
She saw how easily her plan could fail if he suddenly turned tail and rushed back toward the safety of the mountainside.
Worse, she realized with a start, Tanner had gotten out of the trunk of the Lincoln. A moment before he’d been behind her car, but now he had mounted the bridge and was coming up behind Duane.
If Duane turned now, he would see Tanner. She could see that Duane had on his shoulder holster. That meant he’d brought his Glock. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he would shoot Tanner in a heartbeat.
“Duane,” she called trying to sound as pathetic as he thought she was. She had to get him to come toward her another ten feet—six at the minimum. “I can’t move…” Her voice broke. “I’m…scared.”
He glared at her as if he thought she was mocking him. He stood with his feet spread apart as he tried to keep his balance, his hands gripping the ropes.
“Please,” she cried. “You’re going to have to help me.”
“If I have to come out there, only one of us will be coming back,” Duane yelled.
“You don’t mean that.”
“The hell I don’t. It ends here, Billie Rae. I can’t have a wife like you, don’t you get it?”
She got it. “And I can’t have a husband like you,” she said under her breath. “Then just leave me here,” she called back. “Divorce me.”
He smiled, then let out a laugh. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” The laugh died on his lips as they twisted into a snarl. “Over your dead body.”
Her heart pounded as Duane took another step toward her, then another.
Come on, Duane. Just keep coming.
He stumbled on probably the same board she had and almost fell. He grabbed hold of the ropes, clinging to them. His face was livid with fury and fear. She could see the white of his knuckles on the rope and knew he was thinking about wrapping those fingers around her throat.
“We can stop this right now,” she called to him. “You realize I’m not going to be your wife any longer—one way or the other.”
“You got that right.”
“Duane, I’m not going to let you hurt me again.”
He laughed. “Then I suggest you jump.”
He took another step toward her.
Billie Rae didn’t dare look past him to where Tanner was cautiously moving along the bridge as to not let Duane know he was back there. She knew that she couldn’t change her mind now. She’d come this far and if she wanted this to end, she knew there was no other way out.
That night after the day she’d stopped by the police station to report the abuse, Duane had almost killed her. She should have known Duane’s boss would tell him that she had come down to the police station. She’d realized then that there was no restraining order or locked door that could protect her from the man she’d married.
And that was how they had ended up on this bridge, she thought. It had all come down to this moment.
Duane took another step toward her. She gauged the distance and reached into her other pocket and carefully closed her hand around the grip of the gun.
“It will be extremely effective at from four to seven feet. Seven to ten feet is optimum,” the sales clerk had told her.
Billie Rae knew she couldn’t let Duane get too close. If he lunged for her—
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” she called to him. “There is no shame in divorce.”
The word shame seemed to strike a nerve. Duane swore and took another step toward her and another. Billie Rae watched him, gauging the distance.
She could see that he was perspiring heavily. He was fighting looking down, gripping the ropes. Each step was costing him dearly.
“The hell you will shame me, you stupid bitch,” he spat as he lurched toward her.
Billie Rae felt a tremor inside her. Duane was closing the distance between them quicker than she’d thought he would—or could.
Had she really believed he would let her go, agree to a divorce, stop this craziness?
He had left her no choice, she told herself as he advanced. As if she’d ever had a choice from the day she’d married him.
Duane lumbered forward, grabbing the rope in his big fists, lurching on the wildly swinging footbridge. His anger had trumped his fear. He was too blind with rage to even realize he was suspended fifty feet over a rocky gorge on nothing more than a few boards beneath his feet.
Now. She had to act now or… Billie Rae told herself she could do this. Only a few more feet and if she didn’t do something…
The warning signs had been there. She’d noticed even before they’d married that Duane always had to have his way. When she’d tried to assert herself, they’d argued. He had a temper and said hurtful things, but he was always sorry.
She found giving in to him was easier. She hated fighting with him. She overlooked his moodiness and believed if she tried harder to make him happy, everything would be fine. She loved him. And he loved her.
She shuddered as she saw the pattern their lives had taken, her walking around on eggshells, Duane getting furious over nothing at all. Her trying to pacify him. Him needing to be pacified more and more.
And finally Duane taking out all that anger inside him on her.
Billie Rae suddenly thought of the boy her husband had shot soon after they’d moved to Williston. There’d been an investigation, which had put Duane in one of his moods. She’d tried to stay out of his way, but he’d finally come looking for her as if he’d needed to work off some steam by picking a fight with her and slapping her around.
But she remembered what he’d said about the killing.
“The boy was asking for it, so it was self-defense.”
“I thought he didn’t have a weapon?” she’d foolishly pointed out.
He’d given her one of his dirty looks and raised his fists. “See these? They’re a weapon. So that makes it self-defense. Even if my weapon that day was a lot bigger and a hell of a lot more lethal.”
Fifteen feet, twelve, ten.
Billie Rae thought of that boy as she pulled the gun from her jacket pocket and said, “That’s far enough, Duane.”
Chapter Thirteen
Duane froze in mid-step as he saw her pull a gun from the pocket of the oversized jacket she wore. He’d wondered where she’d gotten the jacket since she’d left home without one, didn’t have her purse so shouldn’t have had money to buy one and this one was too large for her. The cowboy. She must have gotten it from him.
“What do you think you’re doing, Billie Rae?” His voice sounded amused even to him. Then he remembered the day he’d taught Billie Rae to shoot.
At first she’d been afraid of the gun, which really made him angry. Then she’d finally taken it and seemed to draw on some inner strength because when she’d fired the automatic pistol she hadn’t stopped firing until she’d completely obliterated the bull’s eye of the target.
He’d been astounded. “Are you sure you haven’t fired a gun before?” he’d demanded.
“I told you, I don’t like guns.”
Duane realized now that she hadn’t
answered his question about whether or not she’d fired a gun before. Clearly she had.
“Billie Rae, I thought you didn’t like guns,” he called to her.
“I don’t,” she called back. “But you’ve really given me no choice, have you, Duane?”
“You can’t shoot your own husband. Come on, put the gun away before you shoot yourself.”
In the years he’d been a cop, he’d faced his share of fools with weapons. He’d learned the telltale nervous gestures that could signal if the hand holding the gun was going to pull the trigger.
He stared at his wife now as if looking at a stranger. Her expression was one of calm, cold and calculating. Her eyes were on him, the gun aimed at his chest, her feet spread as she balanced on the moving bridge.
“You can’t be serious,” he said, even though he knew she was. It went against everything he believed about his wife. Even after that humiliating experience at the gun range, if anyone had asked him if Billie Rae could fire a gun at a human being, he would have guffawed and said the woman didn’t have the killer instinct. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Could she shoot her own husband?
A few days ago he would have thought the question ridiculous.
Right now, though, he had a bad feeling not only could she, she would.
The only question was whether or not he could draw and shoot her before she got off a shot.
He squinted his eyes against the afternoon sun as he tried to see what kind of gun she held in her hands. “What the hell?” he said when he saw that it was a pistol-shaped taser.
As part of his law enforcement training, he’d been hit with a taser and he’d nailed more than a few suspects with one. He was well aware of what happened when fifty-thousand volts traveling in two small darts struck a body.
His gaze shot to the vertical rope supports every four to five feet along the footbridge and knew that if she pulled the trigger before he reached one, he was in for a long fall—and certain death in the river and rocks below.
Just as Billie Rae had obviously planned it, he realized with a start. The woman had brought him here to kill him.
“You better hope to hell you miss,” Duane screamed and lunged forward.
BILLIE RAE WATCHED IN horror as Duane threw himself forward as if he planned to run down the bridge and take the taser from her.
She pulled the trigger. The fifty-thousand volts shot out in two darts that penetrated his shirt to prick his skin.
Her heart in her throat, she saw him instantly lose all muscle control and drop, just like the clerk who’d sold her the taser said would happen.
Duane landed hard on the bridge and would have fallen over the side except for one of the vertical ropes between the footbridge base and the rope handrails.
She only had an instant to stuff the taser into her pocket again and grab the rope before the bridge swung crazily with his fallen weight. Beyond him, she saw Tanner do the same. He was still yards from Duane.
He had stopped and was looking at her as if he couldn’t believe what she’d just done. She couldn’t, either. Worse, her plan hadn’t worked.
Billie Rae clung to the ropes as a gust of wind rocked the bridge and she realized what Duane had done. He’d seen that she had a taser, he’d known what it would do and he’d managed to get to a spot on the bridge so the rope uprights kept him from falling off and dropping to the river below.
A sob rose in her throat as she watched him lying there. A part of her couldn’t believe she’d shot him—even with only a taser. Worse, that her plan had been for him to fall from the bridge.
She closed her eyes against the image of him lying bloody and broken in the rocks below. Even though she knew it was him or her in the end, she felt sick to her stomach. How had it come down to this?
With a jolt she realized that she had only a few minutes before he regained control of his body. He would be even more furious. There was no doubt now that he would kill her, that she had chosen the spot she would die today.
Her gaze went to Tanner. They would both die here today. Another sob rose in her throat. She was about to get them both killed.
“Stay back!” she called to Tanner, but he either didn’t hear or refused to heed her warning as he began moving toward the spot where Duane had fallen to the bridge slats. Tanner had something in his hand. Something that gleamed in the sunlight. A tire iron?
Duane began to move. Billie Rae saw him trying to get his Glock out of his shoulder holster. He fumbled the gun out, lost his grip. The gun skittered across the planes of the footbridge to drop over the edge. Duane made a guttural sound, then reached for the gun butt sticking out of the waistband of his slacks.
Billie Rae let go of the rope rail with one hand and dug in her pocket for the taser and another cartridge. The wind seemed stronger now. Her eyes burned from it and balancing on the moving bridge was becoming harder, especially as she hurriedly tried to reload the taser.
With shaking fingers she took out the spent cartridge and fumbled to get the new one loaded into the butt-end of the taser, while out of the corner of her eye she watched Duane rise up, the gun in his hand.
A gust of wind swung the bridge. She dropped the cartridge. Like the cell phone, it hit at her feet, bounced and disappeared over the side of the footbridge.
Billie Rae let out a cry of frustration and fear as Duane managed to get to his feet. He pointed the gun at her. They were now no more than eight feet apart. She could see the gleam in his eyes, feel the hatred and anger coming off him in waves.
“This isn’t the way I wanted to end it,” Duane said from between clenched teeth.
The wind was whistling through the footbridge. That, Billie Rae realized, was why Duane was unaware of Tanner moving stealthily along the bridge behind him. When she’d called, “Stay back,” Duane had thought she was warning him.
She fumbled in her pocket for the last cartridge.
Duane was watching her almost in amusement. He would never let her load the taser before he shot her and they both knew it.
He took a step forward. She could tell he didn’t want to pull the trigger and end it so quickly. He wanted to hurt her. Worse, if he shot her, how would he explain it? But she knew when push came to shove, he would shoot her before he’d let her taser him again—and that could be as much justice as she could get.
“I gave you everything,” he said, pain in his voice. “You were my wife. I treated you like a princess.”
“A princess you slapped around when you had a bad day,” she snapped unable to hold her tongue as she was forced to hang on to the rope with one hand and frantically try to load the taser with the other.
He stopped now only a few feet from her. “I used to watch my old man slap my mother around. I hated him for doing it. But I didn’t realize that women push you to hurt them.”
“We ask for it, right?”
“Make fun, but Billie Rae, if you had tried harder not to set me off—”
“Stop lying to yourself, Duane. You liked beating up a defenseless woman,” she pushed. “It made you feel like you were somebody.”
His face twisted in anger. He raised the gun so she was looking down the dark hole of the barrel. “I’m sorry it has to end like this. I really am.”
Just pull the trigger. Let’s get this over with because I can’t live like this anymore. “Yeah, too bad you didn’t get to slap me around some more, huh, Duane?”
The face she’d once found handsome twisted into the monster he was. “Goodbye, Billie Rae.” He grabbed for her with his free hand, his intent in his eyes. She was going off the bridge. Alone.
TANNER HEARD WHAT DUANE SAID as he came up behind him. As he swung the tire iron, the cop must have felt the movement behind him or sensed his presence. He half turned, catching the blow on his shoulder.
The sound of the report from the handgun echoed in the narrow canyon, but all Tanner heard was Billie Rae cry out. Duane fell back against the rope rail and almost toppled over, but caught
himself.
He’d managed to still hang on to the gun as he half turned, knocking the tire iron out of Tanner’s hand. It fell to the bridge and Tanner lost sight of it.
As Duane turned the gun on him, Tanner grabbed for it and they wrestled on the bridge, making it rock crazily. Tanner’s gaze shot past Duane to the spot where he’d last seen Billie Rae.
She was gone.
THE CARTRIDGE LOCKED IN the taser just an instant before Duane grabbed for her. He got a handful of her jacket in his big fist before she could raise the weapon and fire.
She saw his expression and knew that he had sensed Tanner coming up behind him because he only had time to shove her through the ropes of the bridge railing before he was turning to fire again.
Billie Rae saw it all in those few heart-dropping moments. As she fell off the edge of the bridge through one of the spaces between the ropes, she stuffed the taser back into the jacket pocket and closed her eyes.
She could feel the fear contort her face as she fell—not at all sure she would stop before she hit the river fifty feet below. The drop was no more than a few yards, but when the climbing rope attached to her harness caught and she stopped falling, the impact was more jarring that she’d thought it would be. It knocked the air out of her.
She dangled from the bridge cable high above the gorge and fought to breathe. She didn’t dare look down. Above her through the bridge slats, she could see Duane and Tanner wrestling for the gun. Still gasping for breath, she reached up and began to ratchet herself back up toward the bridge like the clerk at the climbing store had showed her.
He had made it look so easy on the store climbing wall. It took all her effort to rise the few feet to the level of the bridge, the effort more difficult because of the growing wind. But all she could think about was Tanner. She had desperately needed him the night of the rodeo. Now he desperately needed her.
Just before Duane had thrown her off the bridge, she’d heard the report of his gun. But she hadn’t realized he’d shot her until she looked down and saw that the jacket was soaked with blood.