by J. M. Madden
“Come on, Jay,” Cage silently pleaded. “Keep it together for me.”
She stared up at the man. Nick moved toward her from the couch and then stopped suddenly, jaw clenched. Was the man pointing the gun at him?
Jaymee said something Cage couldn’t hear, her mouth moving quickly. Her hands smoothed the woman’s hair, patting her back as the woman’s body quaked with sobs. She had to be in excruciating pain. Jaymee shook her head, her chin set in a defiant position Cage had seen a thousand times growing up.
He anticipated the gunshot before he heard it, but the sound ripped him in two.
FOUR
Cage’s ragged breath fogged up the window. He ducked down for a minute, trying to slow down. He didn’t know if the man had deliberately misfired or if Jaymee had gotten extremely lucky. The shot went over her head and slammed into the east wall. She’d thrown herself down, covering her head, and Nick had leapt from the couch. Feeling a slim thread of control, Cage returned the window.
Jaymee had gone back to her seat, her eyes shifting between the woman still curled on the floor and the unseen assailant. Nick sat on the couch, his body taut and ready to spring.
Cage’s phone vibrated with a text. Gina. “Casualty?”
“Warning shot,” he texted back. “Still waiting to see him.”
“Location?”
“Front parlor, east side. Stay back.” Their presence may no longer be a secret, but allowing the man to feel he had some space could save lives.
Another text vibrated through.
“We need a visual on him. Might have a shop owner who can give an ID.”
What the hell was he supposed to do? Knock on the window?
Jaymee stared ahead again, her defiance now tainted with fear. Cage saw the bare feet first, shuffling over the rug. Muscled legs. Khaki shorts. No shirt, a slight beer belly but defined arms. Cage lasered in on the face. Blond hair slicked back, a big nose. Hollow cheekbones, as if the face didn’t match the body. A sandy-colored goatee Cage figured was meant to hide a weak chin.
The gun looked like a nine millimeter, meaning it wasn’t Jaymee’s. He’d probably brought it with him. Now he stuck it beneath Jaymee’s chin, his face dipped into hers. Cage’s entire body coiled. He went for his own weapon, but he’d have to shoot through the thick glass and would probably miss. Nick lunged; Jaymee’s arm shot out to ward him off. Tears now dotted her cheeks, and she nodded. The man stepped back, and Jaymee stood up.
Cage tasted blood, indecision assaulting him. Taking the shot could make things worse. Not taking it might cost Jaymee’s life.
Suddenly, as if she’d somehow sensed his presence, Jaymee’s eyes flickered in his direction. Did her shoulders tighten? Did she see him? The moment whipped by, and then she walked to the corner, sliding down the wall until she was sitting on the floor.
The man with the gun nodded and then looked down at his wife. Cage wished he could understand what was being said. But the kick to her ribs and the subsequent pacing told him enough. Cage’s fists dug into the wood siding. Standing by while a woman was beaten went against everything he stood for.
The man’s head jerked up, his gaze on Jaymee. She didn’t look away, her chin jutting out the way it always did when she was about to lay into someone. Cage’s hopes sank into the damp boards beneath him. She was pissed now, and if she did see Cage outside the window, her confidence–and her mouth–would be bolstered.
Think about it first, Jay. Please.
A long, crooked finger jabbed toward Jaymee. She didn’t flinch, her lips still moving.
Shut up, Jay.
The crooked finger clenched into a fist that slammed into Jaymee’s chin, jerking her back. Nick jumped to his feet, but the gun flashed out, the muzzle less than three inches from Nick’s face. Even the worst shot wouldn’t miss from that angle.
As Jaymee crouched in the corner, her head in her hands, Cage’s mind raced. He couldn’t stand by and let this happen. Jaymee’s festering anger from her own abuse had obviously taken over her common sense. If she kept talking, she’d get herself and Nick killed.
Cage belly-crawled toward the back door. He had a fully loaded clip in his gun. He was a good shot. That would have to be enough. His muscles straining from the effort of keeping silent, he pulled himself to a sitting position, his back against the house and partially hidden by the big hibiscus.
Slowly, he stretched his long fingers toward the doorknob.
Locked. “Sonofabitch.”
More white columns supported the second floor balcony. Thinner than the front show stoppers, they were still plenty strong enough to hold Cage. He could get to the far end column and shimmy up. Easy as climbing the tree in his parents’ backyard.
He’d figure out how to get inside the house once he got onto the balcony.
His phone vibrated. Another text.
“Report back.”
Gina would rail at him later, but he couldn’t just slink back while his friends’ lives were in danger. The hostage negotiation unit out of Jackson would take nearly two hours to get here. No way could Cage wait that long.
He stowed the phone back into his pocket and headed for the corner of the house, his legs feeling like one giant cramp. The rectangular bases of the pillars were stacked, each piece smaller than the one below and wide enough for Cage to wedge his foot onto. If he could get a foothold at the top of the base, his arms were long enough to pull himself up. As long as he stayed hidden.
Cage used his T-shirt to wipe his face again, but it was too damp to help. Pressure mounting in his ears, he looked behind him, checking each window one by one. No sign of the angry man or his gun.
His leg muscles popped with the effort of standing. His shoulders ached from tension.
Please don’t let me fall and break my back. Or my ass.
Keeping one eye toward the back door, Cage dug his right boot into the edge of the base. The chalky texture of the pillar made gooseflesh erupt on his arms. He hated the feel of powdery material. His nails scraped across the column’s back, and Cage’s entire body convulsed.
But he kept climbing, getting purchase with his left foot and then edging his way up the base. His pulse drummed in his ears. His rapid breathing made him lightheaded. He kept his gaze over his right shoulder, the safety off his gun, although he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to grab it without falling. Wrapped around the old pillar like an overgrown weed determined to swallow everything in its path, Cage stretched and pulled, sliding up inch by inch.
His fingertips grazed the intricate scrollwork decorating the balcony. He needed to find an opening large enough to get his hand through. White dust from the pillar streaked over his arms, while more flecks invaded his eyes. Wriggling on the column, he searched for a spot large enough to give him the leverage to haul his body up and over.
He didn’t have time to keep hanging like a fool. Jaymee could yell at him later. Cage grabbed a big chunk of the decorative scrollwork and ripped it off. The wood tore away with a sickening crack, some of it crumbling in his hands. He barely registered destroying an original piece of the house because an enraged face suddenly appeared over the railing.
A mad dog, Cage thought. Eyes yellowed from bad health, spittle dripping from its curled teeth. The snarl lifted into a smile that raised every hair on Cage’s body.
He let go of the pillar just as the silver muzzle of the gun replaced the man’s face.
Cage slammed into the ground, every ounce of breath rushing from his body. Pain rocketed across his skull and down his back, but instinct sent him scrambling for cover barely a second before the first shot rang out. The bullet flew south down the hill, shattering a window in the carriage house on Magnolia Estate, the part of the property that had been willed to the historical foundation decades before.
Flat against the house, Cage tried to catch his breath. His head grazed against something rough. A shutter, which meant a window. He ducked into the bushes, thorns scratching him. Angry mud wasps flew out
from behind the black shutter, pissed off their nest had been disturbed.
“Don’t try to be a hero.” The hard voice he’d spoken to before came from somewhere above Cage’s head. The man had to be at the corner of the balcony, meaning he’d need some truly amazing aim to hit Cage during a dead sprint toward the front of the house.
“That’ll just get someone killed. Probably you.”
He didn’t have time to think about it. Cage darted forward, hurrying past the massive western side of Magnolia House. For once he hated the place’s sheer size. Even with his long legs, making it to the front of the house seemed to take way too long. He hopped the railing to the front porch and skidded to a stop at the front door. Locked.
But Cage had a key. He fumbled in his pocket for the mess of keys he carried on a rusting key ring. Magnolia’s was easy to spot; Jaymee had put bright pink duct tape on the top of his copy just to piss him off.
He wasn’t fast enough, a gunshot whizzing past him, exploding through the windowpanes in the door. This time it grazed Cage’s shoulder, sending him stumbling backward. He managed to catch onto the railing before he tumbled down the steps, diving to the left as the front door opened and another shot screamed into the front lawn.
“You leave right now, and I might not kill everyone in here.” A grating laugh, loaded with desperation and anger. “Then again, I might. But what other choice ya got?”
His shoulder burned. Frustration made Cage dizzy. He wanted to charge the man, rip the gun from his grip, and make him taste the fear he was causing everyone else.
And then he thought about his tiny daughter waiting at home.
“I’m leaving. Please, don’t hurt anyone.” Cage backed away, using the magnolia trees as a shield.
Time for plan B, whatever the hell that was.
FIVE
Gina might really kill him this time. She grabbed the arm that wasn’t dripping with fresh blood and dragged him to her Jeep, shoving him down into the open back hatch. “I ought to write your ass up. I told you to report back twenty minutes ago.” She yanked up his shirt sleeve without bothering to be gentle, and Cage swore he caught a ghost of a smile when he hissed in pain.
“The guy’s unstable, and my family’s in there. I thought if I could get inside…”
“And then what?” Gina dug antiseptic out of the first-aid kit she’d opened. “You think you’re going to sneak up on him from upstairs? I’ve only been inside Magnolia House once, but if it’s anything like every other old house in the world, the floors make noise when a person walks on them.”
“I know that,” Cage said. “I was going to come down from the servants’ area. It’s on the other side of the house, and those steps are new. Penn Gereau replaced them shortly before Jaymee inherited the place. They’re quiet.”
She rubbed the cleaner hard across his bleeding arm and then applied pressure. “You’re still stupid and disobeyed a direct order.”
“Gina, that is my family.” His voice cracked on the word. After the last few years, with his sister’s murder and his mother’s rapidly declining health, he couldn’t risk losing Jaymee or Nick. Especially when he was just a few feet away.
“That’s why you need to step back.” Gina started wrapping a bandage around his bicep. “You can’t be objective.”
“Yes, I can,” Cage said. “I screwed up, but it won’t happen again. And you need me.”
She ground her teeth. He had her, and she knew it. “Sometimes you make a rash decision and it pays off. Sometimes people die.”
“I just want to get everyone out of there safe.” He’d screwed up. But he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. They just needed a new plan.
“Then you need to stop acting like an impulsive child.” Before Gina could say anything else, a Roselea police sergeant stomped to the Jeep, followed by two rookie sheriff’s deputies.
“Great,” Gina muttered. “You sit here and stay quiet. Think about how you’re going to stop making dumb decisions.”
She met the sergeant halfway from the Jeep, standing toe-to-toe with the man who towered over her by several inches. The disadvantage didn’t faze her.
“This is our jurisdiction,” the sergeant said. “Your people can’t just come in and take over.”
“First off,” Gina said, “this is a hostage situation. Jurisdictional crap is the last thing I care about.” She paused, glaring up at him. Cage knew she was gathering her argument. Gina never made a point without having something to back it up. “Secondly, my dispatch informed me you were supposed to send an officer out here. I’m assuming he either never arrived or is incompetent. The injured dog wasn’t that hard to see. And there are no reports of an officer knocking on the door.”
The sergeant turned the color of the canned beets Cage’s mother used to make him eat. “We had a traffic situation. I’m going to find out why no one came but in the meantime–”
“A traffic situation? Really? We got here first, and I outrank you. You wanna keep up the argument, then get your superior off his ass and out here. In the meantime, I have lives to save.” She stalked back to Cage and handed him a bottle of water. “Please tell me you saw the guy’s face.”
The sergeant, obviously flustered, stomped off, muttering something about calling his own captain. Let him. Gina wouldn’t give this up now.
Cage grimaced, trying to ignore the pain in his shoulder, which still felt like someone had jammed a red-hot poker into it. “Tall, blond hair, wears it slicked back. Ugly goatee. Weird head, too small for his body.”
“That’s him.” A man Cage recognized as Niles Ramsey from Roselea’s largest antique shop ducked beneath the police tape on the other side of the Jeep. His short, round body resembled a beer keg. He had an extra chin that wobbled like a turkey neck. “He and his wife came into the store yesterday.”
“Did she have long, dark hair?” Cage asked.
Ramsey’s head bobbed. “Very lovely. I didn’t get the impression there was any trouble between them.”
Gina glanced at Cage. “Mr. Ramsey’s brought yesterday’s credit receipts. Thankfully there are only four of them, and we’re running background now. Mr. Ramsey, do you happen to remember the couple’s name?”
“Of course.” Ramsey’s small yet meaty chest puffed out, his chin up. “John Ward III, emphasis on the third. He seemed particularly proud of that. I remember because we joked that he might be related to the John Ward from Roselea who’d fought in the Civil War. He’s buried in the old cemetery, and his family history during Reconstruction is fascinating.”
“Thank you.” Gina cut off the shopkeeper’s rambling and pulled her radio off her belt. “Marla, focus the background checks on John Ward, III.” She looked at the credit card receipt. “He used a Visa, and I have the last four digits, but that’s about all I can tell you.”
“I have his address.” Ramsey beamed, pulling out a small, leather-bound book. “He needed the item shipped to his home. A beautiful mahogany wardrobe that’s well over 100 years old. Just gorgeous. I hated to see it go, to be honest.” Cage snapped his teeth shut, knowing anything he said would be a hateful insult. Ramsey had obviously been holding onto the information until the most theatrical moment came. The shop owner made a show of flipping to the right page in his grubby notebook, his sausage fingers struggling with the thin paper. “Here we go. 12 Center Circle, Jackson. So our boy is fairly local.”
Gina rolled her eyes at the cop show cliché, repeating the address back to Marla. “Thank you for finally sharing all the information, Mr. Ramsey. We’ll need you to leave the scene now.”
The man’s shoulders sagged, but he dutifully walked back down the drive to the Volkswagen Beetle that somehow perfectly matched him. Cage opened his mouth to tell Gina more about what he’d seen, but the vibration of his phone stopped him. He expected it to be a nervous Dani, but Jaymee’s number flashed.
Butterflies danced in his gut. “The guy’s calling from Jaymee’s phone again.”
“Put
it on speaker,” Gina said.
“Hello?” Cage waited.
John Ward’s throat cleared. “You’re lucky I wasn’t aiming to kill. I assume you’re having a party, and the police are special guests. Am I right?”
He doesn’t know I’m a cop.
Cage might be able to use that to his advantage. “Yeah. They’re here.”
“You need to tell them to back off. Into the street.”
“I’m not sure they’re going to take orders from me.”
“They will if they don’t want someone else to get hurt,” Ward snapped. “After your little stunt, you’re lucky I don’t empty this gun.”
“I’ll tell them,” Cage tried to remember the few things he’d learned at the hostage training. “But those are my friends in there with you. How can I help you end this?”
Gina nodded in approval.
“I just want to take my wife and leave. But we’re not going to do that until I’m damned good and ready. So everyone else is going to have to wait.” Ward's arrogant tone held a challenge.
“Can’t you let Jaymee and Nick go?” Cage asked. “Stay in the house as long as you want. Just let them leave.”
Ward laughed. “Can’t do that. What’s to stop the police from coming in after me? They don’t care about tourists’ lives. But their locals? They’ll do the right thing.”
Ward wasn’t going to be talked out of it. He’d gone too far into the deep end of the crazy pool. His wife needed medical attention, and the situation could escalate at any moment. “Can I talk to Jaymee then? Just so I can tell her to be good and let you have your time? I know she can get mouthy.”
Too many seconds passed, and Cage lost hope. Finally Ward grunted. “Make it quick.”
“Cage?” Jaymee’s voice only shook slightly. He could tell from the way she sounded like she’d gone into a tunnel that Ward had put the phone on speaker. “Mutt got shot. He tried to protect me from–”
“Don’t say my name!” The shout came from somewhere near Jaymee.