by Cynthia Eden
Or a person could die.
Chapter Eleven
Jennifer screamed when the blade sliced down her arm.
“That was my first wound in prison. A guy knifed me because he didn’t like the way I looked.” Stephen leaned toward Jennifer. “Guess what I don’t like about you?”
She clamped her lips together. He’d moved so fast with that first attack, lunging forward and driving that knife into her. She’d be prepared next time. Jennifer braced herself.
He smiled and lifted the knife.
“Your SEAL didn’t realize we turned off the main road. He’s probably still driving hell fast, so sure that he’ll find you and save the day.” He tapped the bloody knife beneath his chin. “What do you think he’ll do when he finds your body? Will he break? I mean, the guy already walks on an edge, from what I’ve heard about him. He likes violence, the rush from adrenaline, the thrill of the hunt. Your death might just push him too far.”
Jennifer shook her head. “Brodie isn’t like that.”
“Oh, really? You think you know him because you had sex with the guy?”
She did know him. She stared up at Stephen. “He’s not evil. He’s not like you.”
He lunged toward her. The knife sliced down her shoulder. She didn’t scream this time.
How much time has passed? The bullet wound still bled, her whole body shuddered and, when she glanced down, Jennifer saw that her blood had dripped onto the floor.
“How the mighty have fallen,” he murmured. “No fancy ball gowns for you now. Just a cape of blood.”
“I was...never one for fancy ball gowns anyway.”
He lifted the knife.
“Why did Detective Townsend help you?”
Stephen’s lips curled.
“Nate...you said he helped you for money. Why did Shayne do it? He...he’s the one who told you I was at the safe house, right?” If she could keep him talking, then she might be able to think of some way to escape.
Or at least she’d buy herself a few more precious moments of life. Because she didn’t know if he was still planning for a long, slow end for her. With Brodie hunting him, Stephen could snap at any moment. And kill me.
“I found the detective’s weak spot.” He sounded pleased with himself. “Though, really, I guess I owe that to you.”
Jennifer shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I told you already...I had a few people who were still loyal to me. One was watching you. He’d told me about your little—ah—incident in the Middle East.”
She stiffened. “You did that.” Now she understood just how her cover had been blown on that case.
He inclined his head as if accepting a compliment. “My associate did. He let the right people know that you needed to be eliminated. Though he assured me you’d suffer before your end.” His face hardened. “Then you got away.”
Thanks to Brodie.
“That associate followed you. It seemed so strange for a woman like you to rush all the way back to a little ranch in Austin, Texas. When he told me about your visit, I thought perhaps I’d found your weak point. A family, nestled away all safe and sound.”
“They weren’t my family,” she whispered. Dear God, is that why they died? Stephen had thought they were her parents?
“He kept watching. Saw you make the cash drop to them...saw the cop.” He laughed. “My guy got curious, so he hung around. He wanted to know why that little ranch was getting so much action.”
She stopped struggling in the chair. “You didn’t kill the McGuires?”
“That one isn’t on me. Haven’t you realized yet? I like for my prey to suffer. You cross me, you pay. But the McGuires—”
“They were shot. Killed quickly.”
Not by his hand.
“My associate got pictures of the cop. He saw him taking the money. Saw him use that cash with some rather unsavory characters.”
Seriously? Like he could judge unsavory.
“I found out about the body Shayne Townsend wanted to keep buried. I used that. Told the guy I’d turn all those photos over to the media...to the McGuires...if he didn’t give me what I wanted.”
So Shayne had traded his life for her own.
“That cop had gotten trigger-happy. Shot a kid that he thought had a weapon, but it turned out the kid wasn’t armed. He hid that kill. Fool should have known the dead would come back to haunt him.”
She heaved in the chair. Was the right chair leg loose? It felt that way. “Do the dead haunt you? Because they should.”
The knife’s blade pressed onto her cheek, but he didn’t slice deep, not yet. Stephen’s left hand rose and traced over the wound on his cheek. “I got this scar from a Ukrainian who wanted my food.”
He was going to cut open her face. She shoved back against the chair. It toppled, sending her crashing to the floor.
Stephen snarled and jumped toward her with his knife.
“Stop!” a voice thundered. “Stop or I will shoot you.”
Stephen halted, that knife of his inches away from her. “The cop! You’re the one who dared to come here?”
Her head turned. She could see Shayne, standing a few feet away, his weapon drawn.
Stephen rose, and his laughter echoed in the garage. “You’re the one here to save the day? You’re the killer. You don’t get to play hero!”
“I’m not playing anything. Drop the knife. Now.”
Stephen dropped the knife. It clattered to the floor. “I have those photographs. They’re in a very safe place, but that place won’t stay safe...not if you don’t get out of here!”
Shayne shook his head. “I won’t let you kill her.”
She heaved with her legs. The chair had shattered beneath her, and the ropes around her feet had loosened. Her hands were still handcuffed, but she was fighting fiercely to escape her bonds. “He has a gun, Shayne!”
“And I also have your life in my hands, Detective,” Stephen ground out. “That wonderful life of yours...your accommodations, your reputation, your job...I can destroy it all.”
Shayne took a step toward him. “I can’t let you kill her.”
“Why?” Stephen snarled back. “Because you’re such an upstanding citizen? I know your secrets.”
Shayne raised his gun. “Step away from her. Move back, now!”
Stephen retreated, a small movement. “You’re making a mistake here, Detective. One that you will regret.”
“No.” Shayne gave a hard shake of his head. “I’m finally doing something right. I’ve got enough to regret in my life already. I won’t add more.” He bent near Jennifer. “It’s going to be all right,” he whispered to her. “I’ll get you out of here.”
A gunshot blasted. Shayne jerked against her.
“No,” Stephen said softly as Shayne slumped beside Jennifer. “You won’t.”
* * *
BRODIE COULDN’T GET to Jennifer fast enough. His hands were pounding on the dashboard. “Hurry, Davis—hurry the hell up!”
The car screeched around the corner, and Davis slammed hard on his brakes in front of what looked like an old garage. Brodie rushed out of the car—
And heard a gunshot.
His heart stopped then. Just stopped in his chest even as his legs pistoned and he raced toward the building.
He heard Davis yelling after him. Telling him to be careful, to go in slow, but he couldn’t slow down. Jennifer was in there, and that gunshot blast still thundered through his mind.
Don’t be dead. Don’t be—
He kicked the door open. Brodie knew the sight before him would haunt his nightmares for the rest of his life.
Shayne was on the floor. Blood soaked the area around him, and his friend wasn’t moving. A gun was a few inches from his open palm.
Stephen Brushard was there. The guy had changed one hell of a lot from the picture that Brodie had seen, but he still recognized him. His eyes were the same—even if his face was a haggard shell of the man he’d been.
Brushard had his gun aimed at Jennifer. Jennifer...bleeding, hurt, her face so pale and her eyes so desperate as she looked at Brodie with hope and horror plain to see on her beautiful face. She was struggling against her binds, and he saw her kick free of the ropes around her legs.
“Stay away from her!” Brodie yelled.
Stephen laughed. “I don’t have to get closer. She can die right here.”
The hell she could. “Drop your weapon!”
“That’s what the dirty cop said, too,” Stephen taunted him. “Guess how that ended?”
The guy’s weapon was pointed right at Jennifer.
“Are you trying to decide,” Stephen asked, “if you can kill me before I kill her? I mean, even if you get the shot off at me first...won’t my finger just spasm around the trigger and I’ll still wind up killing her? Are you thinking about that? Are you realizing that you can’t do any—”
“Roll!” Brodie roared.
Jennifer rolled her body.
Brodie fired. The bullet sank into Stephen’s chest. The man fired then, his bullet exploding from the weapon as his finger jerked on the trigger.
But Jennifer was still rolling away from Shayne’s still form. Stephen’s bullets just blasted into the cement floor, missing her.
Davis rushed in behind Brodie—even as Stephen fell to his knees.
Carefully, Brodie closed in on his prey. A big circle of blood was blooming on Stephen’s chest, but the guy was still alive. And he still had his weapon.
“Drop your gun,” Brodie said again.
Stephen’s head tilted back. His eyes were wide, blazing. “She...dies...” He tried to lift his gun again.
Brodie fired.
This time, Stephen’s body hit the floor.
“No,” Brodie said softly. “She doesn’t.”
Davis ran around him and kicked the guy’s gun away.
Brodie knew Brushard wasn’t a threat to anyone, not anymore. He turned his back on him and ran toward Jennifer. “Sweetheart?” He caught her shoulders and lifted her up. She was bleeding and shaking, and the terror he felt seemed to claw him apart.
“Just like...before...” Jennifer whispered. “Rushed in...to find me...”
Her hands were cuffed behind her. Where were the keys? “What did he do?”
“Knife...” Her lips trembled. Tears leaked from her eyes. “Didn’t think I’d...see you again...”
“He’s dead,” Davis said flatly, and Brodie heard his footsteps shuffle closer.
Brodie pressed a hard, frantic kiss to Jennifer’s quivering lips. “Like I would have let you go.” Never. He shoved the gun into the back of his waistband. Then his hands slid over her. There was so much blood on Jennifer. Too much. He lifted her into his arms, holding her close against his chest, his heart. She’s alive. She’s alive. She’s alive.
He put his forehead to hers and tried to breathe.
“Sorry...” A hoarse whisper.
With Jennifer in his arms, he turned and saw that Davis was now bent over Shayne. His friend’s eyes were cracked open. Davis had his hands on Shayne’s chest, and he was trying to halt the terrible blood flow.
“Didn’t mean...for them to die...” Shayne managed. “Not...them...”
Brodie saw Davis’s body tense. “Did Stephen Brushard kill our parents?”
“N-no...”
“Did you kill our parents?” Davis asked, voice hoarse as he kept applying pressure on the wound. Kept trying to save the man who’d been a friend to them both for so long.
Who they’d thought had been a friend.
“No...”
“Do you know who did?” Davis demanded. “Damn it, tell us!”
Sirens screeched outside. Doors slammed. Footsteps pounded toward them.
Shayne whispered something to Davis.
“What?” Davis demanded. “What?”
But Shayne wasn’t saying anymore. Davis kept pushing on his chest, ordering the man to talk.
Cops burst into the garage. Brodie just held Jennifer tighter. To him, she was the thing that mattered most right then. Not finding his parents’ killer.
“I can’t lose you,” he said.
He turned away as the EMTs rushed in to work on Shayne. He carried Jennifer out of that garage. Hands reached for her, but he was the one who put her in the ambulance. He couldn’t let her go.
He laid her on the stretcher. Pushed her hair away from her cheek. A young EMT with blond hair and nervous hands quickly started inspecting Jennifer’s wounds.
“You keep saving me...” Jennifer whispered as she looked up at Brodie. “That’s a...habit you have.”
He bent, pressed a kiss to her lips. That bastard Brushard had shot her and used his knife on her. He could see the injuries now as the EMT tried to assess her. In that instant, Brodie wanted to kill the man all over again.
“Didn’t I tell you before?” he whispered back to her. “You can always count me on.”
She tried to smile for him, and that sight broke his heart.
The heart that was hers. Did she know it was?
The ambulance’s siren echoed around them.
“I love you, Jenny,” he said.
Her eyes widened. She shook her head.
“I. Love. You.”
His fingers twined with hers. “And I’ll say it over and over, for the rest of my life.” A life that wouldn’t have mattered much at all if he’d gotten into that garage too late. If he’d lost her...
No.
“Sir, are you coming with us to the hospital?” the EMT asked. “Or are you staying at the scene?”
He didn’t look away from Jennifer. She needed him. And I need her. It didn’t matter if the secrets he wanted were in that garage. The woman he loved was right in front of him. “I’m coming with you.”
The ambulance started moving.
“I love you,” he told Jennifer again, and his hold tightened on her.
* * *
DAVIS WATCHED AS Detective Shayne Townsend was loaded into the back of an ambulance. The EMTs were working frantically on him, but he wasn’t responding to them.
Davis knew a killing wound when he saw one—hell, he’d seen plenty during the field as a SEAL. Shayne wasn’t going to survive. The friend he’d known for years... Hell, Shayne was already gone.
And he took his secrets with him.
“Davis!”
He turned at the shout, and Davis saw his brother Grant running toward him. But the cops had just put up a band of yellow police tape, and they tried to keep Grant back.
Grant’s gaze fell on the body that was being wheeled out. A body that was carefully covered. Pain flashed on Grant’s face right before he shoved at the cops and snarled, “My brothers were in there! My—”
Davis hurried toward him. “That’s not Brodie. He’s fine.”
Grant sucked in a sharp gulp of air. “Where is he?”
“He went to the hospital with Jennifer.” His twin’s face had been so terrified as he held Jennifer, clutching her tightly against his chest.
“Is she...is she going to make it?” Grant asked carefully. Grant would understand just how terrified Brodie felt. Davis had watched Grant go through a similar hell when the woman Grant loved, Scarlett, had been attacked months before.
“I think so.” She’d better survive. He wasn’t sure what Brodie would do without her.
I don’t want to find out.
Guilt already ate at him. It was his fault that Jennifer had been taken. He’d known how important she was to his twin, but when the threat had been at hand, he hadn’t protected her.
Instead, Jennifer had saved him. He owed her now, more than he could ever repay.
“Shayne is the one who won’t make it.” Davis fought to keep the emotion from his voice. “I think the shot... It was too close to his heart.” The ambulance was racing away, but Davis knew the doctors wouldn’t be much good.
He glanced down at his hands and saw Shayne’s blood covering his fingers.
* * *
SHE HURT. THE PAIN rolled through Jennifer in waves that just wouldn’t stop. She could see Stephen, coming right at her with his knife. He’d put the blade to her face and—
Her scream woke her.
“Easy.”
And he was there, catching her hand. Bringing it to his lips and kissing her fingers.
“You’re safe, sweetheart,” Brodie told her softly. “I’ve got you. No one can hurt you. Not ever again.”
The machines around her beeped frantically, a loud chorus that made her head ache. “My face...”
Brodie frowned at her.
“He was cutting me...to match his wounds.”
His jaw hardened.
“He was cutting my face... He was going to kill me.”
He caught her chin and stared deeply into her eyes. “He’s dead. You don’t have to worry about him ever again.”
She swallowed and tried to calm her racing heartbeat. Despite the frantic drumming of her heart, Jennifer’s body felt sluggish. She felt the pull of an IV on her wrist. “You killed him?”
He nodded. It was wrong to be glad a man was dead. Wasn’t it? But she didn’t feel bad. She just felt relief. She wasn’t being hunted by him. She was free.
The pain medicine they’d given her was pulling Jennifer under, but she managed to ask, “Shayne?”
“He’s dead.”
She swallowed. “Saved me...not all bad.” She felt Brodie brush back her hair. “Sorry...you lost him...”
Her eyes closed. He pressed a kiss to her cheek.
“I wouldn’t have made it,” he whispered, his words following her, “if I’d lost you.”
Chapter Twelve
She was finally out of the hospital. No more miserable hospital food and people poking at her all during the day and night.
Jennifer stood on the bluff at the McGuire ranch. The lake was still and beautiful. Perfect. She pulled in a deep gulp of fresh air as she tried to calm her nerves.
The doctors had told her that she was free to go, and Jennifer knew that it was, indeed, time for her to go...time to leave Austin. Time to leave Brodie.
Stephen found me. He tracked me down. Hurt so many people.
But Stephen wasn’t the only man she’d helped to put away. What if others came after her? What if they did something to hurt Brodie? His family?