He was calling Jax out. But why? Why did they want Jax dead?
Maybe they didn’t.
Perhaps the plan was to separate Jax from her. Either way, he could be hurt or killed, and Paige wasn’t going to stay put and let that happen.
“What do you want?” she called out.
That earned her a glare from Jax. “Just stay quiet. Jericho should be close enough soon to unlock the cruiser.”
Paige had no idea when that would happen. At least one of the gunmen was still shooting at Jericho, and while his cruiser would be bullet-resistant as well, it wasn’t bulletproof, and some of those shots would eventually tear through the cruiser and get through.
Jericho and whoever was inside could be shot.
And all that could happen while Buddy was bleeding out.
“I have to do something to end this fast,” Paige told Jax, and even though he was cursing at her, Paige repeated her shouted question. “What do you want?”
Paige had expected the thug holding Belinda to start doling out their demands. Demands that would almost certainly involve her surrender. Not exactly a surprise since they’d already demanded it when she’d been inside the house.
“What do I want?” a man shouted back. “I want you.”
Not the guy behind Belinda. This voice came from the van, and it was a voice she had no trouble recognizing.
Leland.
Chapter Eighteen
Jax wasn’t surprised that Leland was behind these attacks, but he wouldn’t have been taken aback if it’d been Darrin, either. Of course, maybe the two were working together.
After all, Darrin could be the one shooting at Jericho. Or even the one calling the shots.
“I’m so sorry,” Paige whispered.
“Don’t,” Jax snapped, and he hated that she even felt the need to apologize. Hated his harsh tone even more.
She probably thought he was blaming her for this, too. The way he’d blamed her for nearly getting killed by the Moonlight Strangler.
But he wasn’t.
Jax was blaming himself. He had seen the anger in Leland. Had felt it. And he hadn’t been able to do a damn thing to stop it.
“Stop shooting at Jericho,” Paige called out to Leland. “And tell me what you want from me.”
Jax doubted the shots would stop. But they did. Good. Maybe that meant he could reason with Leland, after all. Or perhaps it would give Jericho a chance to shoot both Leland and the other gunman in the van. Either way, Jax would take it.
“I want you to come out from hiding,” Leland said, his voice a little closer now. Jax glanced around the cruiser and saw why.
Leland was out of the van and had made his way to the front of it. Not out in the open, exactly. He was using the van for cover, but it might make him an easier shot for Jericho or even Hank.
Wherever he was.
Jax hadn’t heard a peep from the ranch hand since he’d managed to shoot one of the hired guns.
“I love you, Paige. I never wanted you dead,” Leland added, sounding as unhinged as Jax figured he was. He’d always known that Leland was wrapped too tight, and the man had obviously lost it.
“Really? You never wanted me dead?” Paige answered, her voice filled with fear and some sarcasm. “Because it doesn’t seem that way. Your hired thugs tried to kill us—twice.”
“That wasn’t the plan. The plan was only to kill Jax.”
So he’d been the target. That felt like a punch to Jax. He was the reason Paige had nearly died. Of course, that reasoning was coming from the mind of a sick man. One in a rage because he was jealous.
“Were you working with the Moonlight Strangler?” Jax tossed out there.
“Hell, no.” Leland didn’t hesitate even a second, and judging from the venom in his voice, he hated the serial killer as much as Jax did. Something they actually had in common.
Well, along with his feelings for Paige.
But Jax pushed those feelings aside right now. Later, he’d deal with them and what’d happened between them in the kitchen. For now, he couldn’t let those thoughts and emotions get in the way.
“Is Belinda part of this?” Jax asked.
“Are you kidding me? She’s in love with you, you fool. That bitch has fought me every step of the way, though I’m betting she wouldn’t mind if Paige died tonight. That’s not gonna happen, though.”
“I don’t want anyone dead,” Belinda shouted. “Please, just stop all of this.”
“For once, I agree with her,” Leland spat out. “I’ve done everything I could to win Paige, and it didn’t work.”
“Did you put that camera there?” Belinda, again. “Because they were trying to accuse me of doing it. I only touched it.”
“Yeah, yeah. I put it there so I could hear and see what was going on. I waited until you took the kid out to see the horses, and I just waltzed right in and did it. I figured if anyone found it, they’d blame the Moonlight Strangler.”
They had. At first. And with Belinda’s print on there, it had definitely put her under suspicion.
“Did you send me the texts, too?” Paige asked.
Jax hated that she’d even spoken to the man. He could practically feel the rage coming off him.
“Yes,” Leland finally answered. “I sent those texts to set up a meeting. I thought if I could just get you alone, someplace private, I could talk some sense into you. That’s why I had my men set the fire near the road, too. It was all about getting you away from him.” The volume of his voice got louder with each word. “I didn’t know the real Moonlight Strangler was going to get involved. And not just involved with contacting Paige, but going after Belinda, too.”
Jax believed him, about that, anyway. There was no reason for Leland to have the Moonlight Strangler mark Belinda as his next victim. And if Leland really wanted Paige for himself, he wouldn’t have put her in the path of a serial killer. But that’s exactly what he’d done, because his attacks had alerted the Moonlight Strangler that Paige was still alive.
“Enough of this. We have a grenade launcher,” Leland went on. “And my man’s got it aimed at Jericho. Tell your brother to stop moving that cruiser forward, or we’ll blast him and his deputy to smithereens. The same will happen if he even tries to shoot us.”
Damn.
Jax wanted to believe that was a bluff, but he seriously doubted it. No, Leland would have come prepared, and this was almost certainly the way he planned to escape with Paige.
But Jax wasn’t going to let that happen.
She’d nearly died once from an encounter with a violent killer, and Jax hadn’t been able to stop it. Somehow, he would stop this one.
“Or maybe you’d rather we aim the grenade launcher at the main house?” Leland went on. “It’s not what I want to do, Paige, but I will if you don’t cooperate.”
Jax had no idea of the range on the launcher, but he doubted it could deliver a grenade all the way to the main house. Still, he didn’t want to risk it.
“Since you want me dead,” Jax shouted to the man, “why don’t I come out instead of Paige. You want to punish her, right? Punish her for coming back to me. Well, here’s your chance. You can punish her by killing me and then keeping her alive so she’ll have to live with it.”
Now it was Paige who glared at him. “You’re not sacrificing yourself.”
That wasn’t what he had in mind, but whatever he did at this point would carry that risk. A risk that would be worth it.
“I just want to do something to get Leland out of cover so I can shoot him,” Jax told her.
That was true. For the most part. He did want to shoot Leland, but Leland was a cop, too, and no doubt had just as good of an aim as Jax.
“I want you dead, all right,” Leland answered. “But no deal. Paige is coming with me.”
Jax didn’t see that with a happy ending. Leland might not kill Paige right off, but it would eventually happen.
“You really think you can just leave here and have a
life with Paige?” Jax fired back. “The law would be looking for you.”
“Maybe. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.” Leland cursed. “I was supposed to be out of here without anyone seeing me, and then Darrin would take the fall.”
“Darrin?” Paige and Jax asked at the same time.
“Is he with you right now?” Jax pressed.
“No. He’s not here. He’s at his place in San Antonio. Darrin’s committing suicide right about now from a drug overdose. He has a history of drug abuse, and his medical records will prove it. But I guess he’ll be dying for nothing. Still, the world won’t miss a pig like that.”
That was a serous example of the pot calling the kettle black. Yeah, Darrin was a pig, but Leland was a killer. Darrin, maybe Buddy, too, and heaven knew how many others would be dead before this was over.
Unless Jax ended it now.
Jax still didn’t have a clean shot, not even close, but it would have to do. He levered himself up just enough so he could see over the trunk of the cruiser. And he took aim.
But before Jax could even pull the trigger, the shot blasted through the air.
* * *
PAIGE COULDN’T SEE what was happening, but she had no trouble hearing the shot. Or the one that followed.
Not ones that Jax or Leland had fired, either.
These bullets had come from the direction where that hired gun had hold of Belinda.
Belinda screamed, a blood-curdling sound that cut through even the blasts of gunfire. And for several horrifying moments, Paige thought the thug had shot the woman.
He hadn’t.
Someone had shot the thug.
The man dropped like a stone, his gun splatting onto the soggy ground beside him.
That’s when Paige saw someone. Jericho. He came out from the side of the detached garage, his gun still aimed at the fallen man. Jericho hooked his other arm around Belinda and dragged her back behind the garage.
But how had Jericho gotten there? No one had come out of the cruiser. No one that she’d seen, anyway. Of course, it was dark and raining, and it was hard to see much of anything.
Or maybe he’d never even been in the cruiser.
He could have sneaked out at the end of the road and had the deputy drive it closer. If so, it was a smart plan, and it had likely saved Belinda’s life.
However, Leland clearly wasn’t happy about it.
“No!” Leland shouted. “You can’t do this to me. Launch the grenade now.”
Oh, God. Paige hadn’t forgotten about that particular threat, but she hadn’t realized Leland would use it so quickly. She didn’t even have time to say a word, not that it would have stopped Leland anyway, before the cracking sound came from the opened back doors of the van.
Followed by the blast.
Much, much louder than a gunshot, and the cruiser exploded into a fireball. It lit up the night sky and sent fiery debris falling down all over the road and yard.
Paige’s heart stopped. Whoever was inside there had to be dead. And Leland wasn’t finished.
Yelling at the top of his lungs, Leland turned, taking aim at Belinda and Jericho. He fired four shots, nonstop. Just as Jericho pulled Belinda to the ground.
Paige had no idea if Jericho had gotten Belinda, or himself, out of the path of those bullets in time, but it was possible there were four injured or dead people: Buddy, Jericho, Belinda and the deputy in the cruiser.
“Stay down,” Jax warned her when she moved to try to see Jericho.
Jax came up again and fired his Glock right at Leland. Judging from the profanity that Jax mumbled, he missed.
But Leland kept shooting, and so did the hired gun who had launched that grenade into the cruiser.
“Wait here,” Jax said. “And I mean it. I need to get a better angle so I can stop Leland.”
She caught on to his arm when he started to move. Paige wanted to beg him not to go out there, but time wasn’t on their side here. They needed to end this fast so the ambulance could get onto the grounds. Still, it crushed her to think that Jax might be hurt or worse.
“Be careful,” was all she managed to say.
That was it. And Jax was gone.
He lowered himself to the ground, crawling toward the front porch. Away from cover and directly toward Leland. Leland had finally stopped firing at Jericho, but a few seconds later, she realized that was probably because he was reloading. The shots soon picked up again.
“We’ve got one more grenade,” Leland shouted. “Paige, this is your last chance. I know you’re behind the police car by the house. And that’s exactly where the next grenade would go. It’ll take out both Jax and you.”
Her breath stalled in her throat, and the panic started to rise again. The grenade could do that. As big as that other blast had been, it’d take out them and the house, and maybe hurt Jericho and Belinda, too.
But maybe she could save Jax.
Maybe.
She wasn’t just going to give up. She’d done that once when the Moonlight Strangler had left her for dead, and she wasn’t doing that again. If she had to die, she wanted to at least die fighting.
Paige came up off the ground, ready to try to shoot Leland. But there was another shot. Not one that Jax had fired, either. She saw Jericho, and he was no longer by the garage with Belinda. He was closer to the road where the cruiser was still blazing. And Jericho had shot into the van.
Hopefully, he’d killed the man about to launch that grenade at them.
But there was no time for Paige to figure that out now. Leland was alive, and he could still do plenty of damage.
Paige took aim at Leland, but Leland saw her and pivoted in her direction. Ready to kill her.
And Paige pulled the trigger first.
She missed.
But Jax didn’t.
Jax was already in place, and he sent two shots straight into Leland’s chest. Everything seemed to stop. Including Leland. He stood there, frozen, his blank gaze connecting with hers for what seemed an eternity before he collapsed.
“Stay here,” Jax warned her.
Not that she could move, anyway. Paige wasn’t sure she had enough breath for that, and her legs were shaking. The rest of her body, too.
Jax hurried to Leland, kicking aside the man’s gun and checking for any signs of life. “He’s dead,” Jax called out.
On the back side of the van, Jericho did the same thing to the thug he’d shot. “This one, too.”
Jax didn’t stay near Leland. He ran to Buddy’s truck and looked inside. “Get an ambulance here now!”
Chapter Nineteen
Lucky.
That was the one word that kept going through Jax’s mind.
They’d gotten damn lucky tonight. And while he hated to rely on something as fragile as luck, he’d take it. Things had gotten bad, but they could have been a whole lot worse.
The proof of that was right in front of him.
Paige was sitting on the floor of the playroom at the main house, and she was holding Matthew. Their son was sacked out, but Paige kept holding him, anyway. Probably because it helped settle her nerves. Well, as much as anything could settle them after the ordeal they’d been through.
Jax looked up the hall when he heard the footsteps. Jericho was making his way toward him, and his brother was finishing up yet another phone call. Something that Jax had been doing on and off as well for the past two hours since all hell had broken loose. Those two hours hadn’t done much to take that stark look out of Paige’s eyes, but maybe nothing could do that.
Paige and Matthew weren’t alone in the room. Alexa and his mom were still there. Both were pretending to watch a movie they’d put on before Matthew fell asleep. Before the other kids dozed off, too. But Alexa and his mother looked more shell-shocked than anything else.
There’d been several good things that had come out of this mess. Good things other than just them all being in one piece. Leland and his hired guns were dead.
Al
l of them.
And as Jax had learned later, there’d been no one in the cruiser that Leland’s thug had blown up. Jericho had gotten out at the end of the road and walked up. Before the explostion, Dexter had slipped out through the back and into a ditch. Hank was all right, as well. Not a scratch on him.
Jax couldn’t say the same for Buddy, though.
“Anything from the hospital yet?” Jax asked when Jericho was closer.
Jericho nodded. “Buddy’s out of surgery. The bullet collapsed his lung, and he’ll be out of commission for a couple of weeks. Buddy said to let you know that it’ll only be a couple of days.”
It would be weeks. Jax would make sure of it, though it would be hard to make the ranch hand stick to resting.
“What about Belinda?” Jericho asked.
“She’s shaken up but on the way to her sister’s in San Antonio. She’ll come back tomorrow to give her statement, but she said Leland kidnapped her.”
Jericho made a sound of agreement. “That’s what she told me, too, when I had her by the side of the garage. I figure Leland was using her as a decoy, but he would have killed Belinda if he’d managed to get his hands on Paige.”
Definitely.
They’d gotten lucky all right.
“I don’t think Belinda will be coming back to the ranch, or even to her house for that matter,” Jax added a moment later. And he couldn’t blame her. Besides, Belinda had to know that Paige would be staying around.
At least Jax hoped that was Paige’s plan.
He frowned.
What was her plan, anyway?
“I asked about Cord when I was talking to the doctor,” Jericho went on, snaring Jax’s attention. “No change, but Cord’s already complaining about having to stay in the hospital. I figure he’ll sneak out first chance he gets.”
Cord wouldn’t if Addie had anything to say about it. And she would. It was obvious that she loved Cord like a brother. Because he was just that. Still, it stung a little, and Jax wasn’t even sure why. It wasn’t as if he’d had his only sister to himself over the years. He’d always shared her with his other brothers. Adding one more to the mix didn’t seem like a big deal, but it was.
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