“Because it’s a mother’s job to protect her children,” he cried, and his voice broke in the middle of the sentence.
At that moment Lana realized who stood before her, his eyes glittering wildly behind the mask as he wielded the evil-looking knife.
“Ricky,” she said in shock. “Ricky, listen to me.
Riley isn’t my husband. We aren’t married. He’s an FBI agent who moved in here to watch your uncle.”
The words tumbled out of her as she slid another step closer to the back door. “I don’t fit your profile, Ricky. I haven’t brought a stepfather into Haley’s life.”
He froze for a moment and tilted his head as if in confusion. “Shut up,” he said, and snapped rigid. “I don’t want to hear your lies.”
Drawing a deep breath, Lana released a sob and sprang for the back door. There was a roar in her ears as she fumbled with the doorknob, but the roar silenced as he stabbed her in the back of her shoulder.
She reeled backward, the excruciating pain stealing her breath, and he sliced her arm. As he came toward her again she kicked him and managed to get the table between them. She could feel the blood pouring both from her arm and down her back, felt a nauseating weakness begin to take over as the pain pulsed through her.
“Ricky, please,” she sobbed. “Please stop this now.”
“I can’t. He told us that you were next. It’s my mission.” Ricky shoved the table aside as if it were a stick of firewood.
“It’s not a mission. It’s murder,” she cried.
She wanted to yell, desperately wanted to scream, but she was afraid, so afraid that Haley might stumble onto the scene.
Even though Riley had told her that so far they had never hurt a child, she couldn’t take the chance that Haley might be their first.
“It’s my duty,” he hissed as he surged forward to attack her once again. Instinctively she raised her leg to kick him. She missed.
Blood smeared across the top of the table as she stumbled against it. She felt weak, and with each second that passed she was getting more light-headed.
Summoning all the strength she had left, she kicked him once again, this time connecting solidly to his midsection. As he stumbled backward she ran in the only direction she could, toward the laundry room and pantry.
She was almost to the door when he tackled her from behind. The pain in her back once again threatened to consume her, but she rolled over and kicked at him as she scrabbled across the floor on her back like a frightened crab.
Tears blurred her vision, and she’d never felt so cold in her life. And tired. She was so very tired. But her will to live was too great to give up.
Ricky roared with anger as he moved in, the knife held high overhead. With a whimper, Lana managed to scoot into the laundry room. She slammed the door and leaned heavily against it as he banged on it from the other side.
Seated on the floor, she used all her weight to keep him from pushing open the door, but she knew it was only a matter of minutes before her weakness overwhelmed her, before the darkness that flirted at the edge of her consciousness swept in.
She began to quietly sob as visions of Haley filled her brain. Haley, who loved everyone and everything that life had to offer. Haley, who loved tea parties and teddy bears and her mommy—and Riley.
Riley. A picture of his strong, handsome face exploded in her head. Had she been a fool to turn away from his love? It didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered.
As she felt the door crack open an inch and heard Ricky’s grunts of exertion, the darkness that had threatened stole in and she knew no more.
Chapter Twelve
Lana.
Her name echoed in Riley’s head as he ran down the sidewalk toward her house. His heart felt as if it was going to explode out of his chest. His stress level was so high he felt as if he might vomit.
Randy and Ricky.
They’d flown under the radar because of their youth, because they’d never been in trouble before and were honor students. Dammit, they hadn’t even been on the suspect list as far as Riley knew.
Lightning ripped apart the sky followed by a low rumble of thunder. He felt the storm in his veins, and a wild cacophony of screaming emotion filled his head with a jumble of thoughts.
Not Lana, he pleaded. For God’s sake don’t let him hurt her. Haley would be lost without her mother, and somehow Riley felt as if he’d be completely lost if Lana were no longer on this earth.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t want to be with him. He didn’t care that she obviously didn’t love him as deeply as he did her. The very fact that he did love her had given him a kind of hope for himself and for his future that had been lacking in the past.
He thought it might be raining, but he realized the mist in his vision was tears. Tears of rage and of an icy fear he’d never felt before.
When he reached the house he was grateful to see a patrol car pulling up in Greg’s driveway. Good, at least he didn’t have to worry about Greg getting in his way.
He raced to Lana’s front door and tried to get in, but the door was locked. He fought back a scream of impotent rage, aware that every second counted.
With a trembling hand he yanked his set of keys from his pocket and stabbed the appropriate one into the lock. With a strangled gasp, he unlocked the door and shoved inside, his gun held tight in his hand.
Silence.
It was the kind of silence that raised the hairs on the nape of his neck, the kind of tomblike silence that created a cold wash of fear over him.
“Lana?” He called her name softly as he moved from the entryway to the living room.
There was no reply. He paused at the mouth of the hallway, unsure in which direction to go. He knew she wouldn’t have gone back to bed after Randy tried to break in that window. The fact that she hadn’t been standing at the front door waiting for Riley to return twisted his gut.
Something was wrong.
The silence was too profound.
“Lana?” he called again, and moved cautiously down the hallway. He came to the bathroom first and whirled inside, his gun clutched in both his hands, ready to defend himself as he searched for Lana.
Nothing.
He next came to Haley’s room, and as he saw the little girl sleeping soundly on her back, her little chest rising and falling with each deep breath, he nearly fell to his knees in relief.
But where was Lana?
The guest room and her master suite were also empty, with no signs of a struggle, no sign that any thing dire had occurred.
He walked back down the hallway silently, his pulse pounding in his head as he walked through the living room toward the kitchen.
The lingering scent of baked cupcakes hung in the air and set off a crazy sense of déjà vu for him.
His stomach clenched and his feet suddenly felt as if they weighed a million pounds.
He saw the blood first, smeared across the kitchen table and across the floor. The sight of it froze him in his tracks.
Just like before.
It was history repeating itself. The gun nearly slipped from his sweaty hand as he took a step for ward. More blood on the floor.
He was fifteen years old once again and looking for his mother. He stared at the kitchen island before him, afraid to look on the other side, afraid of what he might find there on the floor.
But it wouldn’t be his mother. His mother had been gone for years. Lana. If it was Lana’s blood then she had been hurt. He had to find her, and he prayed that for a second time in his life he wasn’t too late.
He tightened his grip on his gun and saw that the back door was open. Had Ricky somehow managed to drag Lana out of the house?
Drawing a deep breath, he stepped around the island, a whoosh of relief escaping him as he saw nobody crumpled on the floor.
He whirled around as he heard somebody behind him.
Agent Bill McDonald froze as Riley leveled his gun at him.
“You nearly got shot,
” Riley said as he lowered the gun. “Ricky Newsom. He was here, but he must have run out the back door.”
“Frank radioed it in. Greg and Randy are in custody, and we have agents already looking for Ricky.” Bill looked around, his features taut with tension. “Have you found Lana?”
Riley shook his head, a hollow emptiness filling his chest. He followed Bill’s gaze and noticed the smear of blood that appeared to lead to the laundry room.
The closed door called to him, whispering in tones that were a combination of hope and horror. He ex changed a quick glance with Bill and on wooden legs moved to the door.
He turned the knob and pushed, but something kept the door from opening more than an inch. But in that inch he saw a splash of sandy-blond hair and his heart seemed to stop as he realized it was the weight of her body keeping the door from opening.
“Lana,” he screamed her name at the same time he was aware of Bill calling for an ambulance. Using as much caution as possible he pushed again on the door, horrified to realize she was either dead or un conscious as her body slowly moved with the weight of the door.
Blood.
It was everywhere in the small room. Too much blood, he thought. Deep sobs swelled up inside him as he finally managed to get the door open wide enough for him to slide inside.
Instantly he crouched down next to her, just as one of the sobs he’d held in so tightly escaped from him.
He felt a weak, reedy pulse in her wrist.
“She’s alive,” he yelled to Bill. “Lana, stay with me,” he said as he held tightly to her hand. He was afraid to move her, afraid that he might cause the bleeding to get worse.
She was on her back and he could see the slice on her arm but couldn’t tell where else she’d been hurt.
The wound on her arm didn’t appear to be serious enough to have caused all the blood loss. He didn’t see any other wounds on her but feared what might be on her back.
He continued to hold her cold hand and talk to her as he waited for the ambulance to arrive. It seemed to take an eternity, but finally the emergency responders arrived and moved Riley out of the way.
As they worked to load her on a gurney, a loud clap of thunder shook the house and he heard a faint cry from Haley’s bedroom.
Knowing there was nothing more he could do for the woman he loved, he elbowed his way through the FBI agents who had arrived on the scene and ran down the hallway.
Haley met him in the doorway, her eyes as big as saucers. “Thunder!” she exclaimed in the same tone she would use to say “monster.” “I want my mommy.”
Riley lifted her up in his arms. “Mommy is sick right now and some nice men are going to take her to the hospital.”
“Will she be all right?” Haley tightened her arms around his neck.
Riley hesitated. At this moment in time he had no idea if Lana was going to be okay or not. He didn’t want to lie to Haley, yet he didn’t want to frighten her anymore than she already was.
“We hope she’s going to be fine,” he finally re plied. He fought against the swelling emotion in his chest.
“Who is going to take care of me?” Haley asked in a little voice.
“Daddy Riley is,” he replied and hugged the little girl closer against his chest.
She laid her head on his shoulder and relaxed. “I love you, Daddy Riley,” she said against the crook of his neck.
It took all the willpower he had not to break down into tears. “I love you, too,” he whispered hoarsely.
Now all they could do was wait to see if the woman they both loved had managed to survive the vicious attack.
Lana awoke in the early morning. The sun was just rising outside her hospital-room window. The back of her shoulder ached and her bandaged arm stung, but they were good hurts, the kind that let her know she had survived the night of terror.
Her first real thought was of Haley, but oddly enough the thought brought with it no real concern. There was no doubt in her mind that Riley was taking care of her daughter.
Funny that she trusted him completely with the most precious thing in her life and yet wouldn’t trust him with her heart.
She felt fuzzy and suspected that the IV drip she was hooked to contained some kind of pain medicine. The events of the night seemed very far away.
She closed her eyes and must have fallen asleep again, because when she next awakened the sun was full up and Riley was sitting in a chair next to her bed.
He was asleep, and she remained still and allowed herself to drink in his features. She loved the length of his dark eyelashes and the straight line of his nose. She loved the strength in his features and the soft, gentle curve of his lips.
She loved him. She loved him more than she’d ever loved her husband, more than she’d ever believed possible. And that love frightened her.
His eyes opened and she found herself staring into those gorgeous evergreen-colored depths. For a moment he said nothing but instead released a sigh she instantly recognized as relief.
She punched the button to raise the head of her bed. “I guess I’m going to survive?”
He smiled and scooted his chair closer to the bed. He looked tired. Lines of stress cut deep across his forehead, and his dark hair looked as if he’d raked his hands through it a hundred times. “You took a little mending and a blood transfusion, but the doctors have all assured me you will have a swift and complete recovery.”
His smile crumpled. “I can’t believe how close I came to losing you.” His voice trembled with his emotion. “When I walked into that kitchen and saw all that blood, knew that you’d been hurt, I nearly died.”
Lana’s heart crunched as she saw the depth of his emotion. She didn’t want to acknowledge it. It hurt to even think about it.
“Haley?” she asked.
“I dropped her off at Kerry’s about an hour ago. She told me to tell you that she loves you and you make better French toast than I do.”
Lana smiled, but the smile lasted only a moment as she thought of the night before. “You know it was Ricky Newsom.”
Riley nodded. “He was picked up two blocks from your house still wearing the ski mask and with enough of your blood on him to assure his arrest. Randy and Greg have also been arrested. Ricky and Randy are saying that the murders were all Greg’s idea and Greg is maintaining that he had nothing to do with any of it.”
Lana looked at him worriedly. “Does that mean there’s a chance that Greg will be freed?”
“Not a chance in hell,” he assured her. “It seems your neighborhood serial killer liked to keep little mementos from his kills—a hair barrette, a half-eaten granola bar and several other odd things from the victims. Ricky told our agents where Greg kept those things in his house, and it’s only a matter of time before the lab confirms that those items be longed to the victims. We’ve got him, Lana. We’ve got them all.”
“Thank God,” she replied. “But isn’t it odd, that three men would be working together to murder so many women?”
“Extremely odd,” he agreed. “From what Ricky has been telling our men, Greg was badly abused by a man who came into his mother’s life when he was young. The two boys also have the same kind of problem with the man their mother moved into the house. Greg managed to manipulate and tap into their anger.”
He hesitated, and she could see there was more. “What? What else?”
“They think he killed your husband, Lana. They believe that there were two murders a couple of years ago and that it’s possible Joe had gotten suspicious and Greg thought him to be a threat. I’m sorry, Lana. I know how much you loved your husband.” Riley’s eyes held a wealth of sympathy. “He must have been one hell of a man to keep you bound to him even after his death.”
She sighed wearily. It didn’t seem fair for her to send Riley away without him knowing the truth. “I did love Joe…in the beginning, but by the time of his murder I was preparing to divorce him.”
Riley looked at her in surprise. “What? But why?�
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She gazed at him and then looked down at the pale white sheet that covered her. “You remind me of him, Riley. He was handsome as sin and the kind of man who couldn’t help himself from flirting. It came to him as naturally as breathing.”
She paused a moment as old, painful memories rushed in, memories she’d tried for almost two years to forget. “We’d been married a little over a year when he had the first affair.”
She looked up at Riley, glad she didn’t see pity shining from his eyes. That’s the last thing she wanted from him, had been the last thing she’d ever wanted from anyone.
“That first time, he said all the right things. It had been a slip, he was sorry, and more than any thing he wanted me and our marriage to work.” She gave a mirthless laugh. “And being the fool I was, I believed him. He cheated again while I was in the hospital having Haley, and again he made all kinds of promises and I forgave him.”
She felt stupid that she’d clung onto Joe for as long as she had despite his lies and cheating. She’d been so naive to believe him each and every time he’d cried and begged her to give him another chance.
“I wanted to make the marriage work, but by the time of his death I knew it was time for me to move on. He was a weak man and he thought I was a weak woman who would continue to overlook his infidelity. He’d ruined my hopes, destroyed any dream I might have had for a happy future with him. By the time of his murder I was ready to walk away from him.”
“And nobody knew about these affairs? You never told your sister or any of your friends?” He leaned forward, close enough now that she could smell him, that scent that would always remind her of tender passion and warm safety.
“Everyone loved Joe, and I didn’t want to ruin his reputation. I just figured when the time came I’d tell everyone we’d grown apart. And then he was dead and I didn’t tell anyone anything.”
She sighed. “And as much as I was sorry that he’d been killed and that Haley had lost her father, I was ready to move on.”
He leaned back in his chair and studied her features, his own impossible for her to read. “So it isn’t grief that’s keeping you from loving me. You just really don’t love me.”
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