‘Are you serious?’ Molly spat over her shoulder at the woman who still restrained her by the throat. ‘I’m a bar maid. Joel is an alcoholic… Who would pay half a million for us?’
‘They have an hour to find out!’ Shona hissed. ‘Do it!’
‘Come out with your hands on your heads!’ the megaphone sounded again.
Shona shifted her grip onto Molly’s forearm so that she could hold onto her, and hold the gun on her, but still push her into view of the brightly lit doorway.
Molly couldn’t see anything except the dazzling searchlight that flooded the porch. She had no idea who was out there, how many of them there were, or indeed what they were planning to do. Shielding her eyes from the blinding, harsh light, she tried to pick out details, but all she could see were fuzzy shapes.
‘Blake!’ she shouted, with no idea if he was out there or not.
‘I’m here, Sugar!’ he called back to her.
She exhaled and for the first time all day a smile flashed to her lips for a fleeting second. ‘Stay where you are,’ Molly requested.
‘What are you doing?’ Shona hissed at her from behind the doorframe, while digging her fingernails into Molly’s forearm and pushing the gun deeper into her ribs.
‘You want me to do this?’ Molly snarled back at Shona. ‘Let me do it my way.’
‘Are you hurt?’ Blake’s voice broke through the light.
She still couldn’t see him, but just knowing he was there was enough to give her that boost of energy and confidence she needed.
‘Nothing a few alcohol wipes won’t cure,’ she said.
‘What’s happening in there?’ Blake asked.
‘There’s five of us!’ Molly told him.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘Enough chatter,’ Shona spat. ‘Tell him to let us go.’
‘She wants you to let her go, she wants safe passage and money!’
‘How much—‘
‘Don’t you dare give her a dime!’ Molly cut him off. ‘I mean it!’
‘What the fuck?’ Harry screamed from behind her.
‘If it’s time, it’s time!’ Molly managed to scream before Shona snatched her back into the hut. Harry ran over and slammed the door from behind it.
‘You bitch!’ Shona screamed.
Molly didn’t have a chance to turn before a fist was brought across her cheek. She stumbled back and hit the wall of a chest. She knew it was Harry’s. He grabbed her arms and spun her around.
‘What the fuck did you do that for?’ he barked.
Molly didn’t have any opportunity to open her mouth. Shona took a handful of her hair and ripped her away from Harry’s clutches to throw her onto the floor. Shona came down upon her, and the murderess’s harsh grip burned around Molly’s throat.
Shona growled down into Molly’s face. ‘You’ve ruined everything! Every time! You bitch! I fucking hate you! Die!’
Molly kicked out. The pressure on her throat blocked her airway and made her chest constrict. Her neck burned and her lungs struggled fruitlessly for life.
‘Stop!’ Harry shouted. ‘We need her!’
‘We don’t need her! No one needs her! She’s evil! She’s poison!’
Molly gasped for life when Shona was plucked from her. She rolled onto her side and wheezed for breath. Her searing throat scratched against the air it fought to consume.
‘I’ll go!’ Harry’s voice rang out. ‘They think I’m a victim! They’ll believe me!’
‘No!’ Shona protested. ‘We don’t know how they found us! We don’t know what they know! They could know about you! And Melissa! She was the only card we had to play!’
‘We’re sending someone in to negotiate your terms!’ the megaphone boomed into life again. ‘He is unarmed! If you agree, open the door!’
Molly forced herself onto her back to see Harry and Shona standing by her feet. He had hold of Shona who glared venom into him.
‘It might be our only chance,’ Harry said. ‘We have to let him in! Better one in than all of us dead.’ He grabbed her hand and held up the gun. ‘We have the advantage.’
‘You’ll regret this,’ Shona snarled. ‘We’ll all regret this. I’ll make sure of it…’ She went toward the door. ‘Secure her,’ Shona said to Harry.
Harry stood over Molly and reached down to take her by the shoulders. He dragged her weight across the floor, and before she could protest he had her locked back to the pipe at the wall.
‘Take her, too,’ Shona said, indicating Melissa’s still lolling form. ‘Tie her to the chair over there.’
Harry went to Shona’s bag and retrieved a flurry of scarves, then threw Melissa over his shoulder to carry her over to the chair he proceeded to dump her down onto. Molly closed her eyes and tried to cough her senses back. Her body ached all over. It tingled like the prickle of a thousand needles. The weight on her chest wouldn’t move; it was as though ten men sat upon her.
But she wanted to have her senses about her, and so she fought to centre herself back in the room. Shona observed the room once more and then pulled open the door. She stayed behind it, and they all waited. Tense, baited breaths were all that she could hear. Her own pants dominated the air around her, and when she heard the heavy footsteps on the porch she knew exactly who was coming to their aid. She just prayed that he would be ready. Shona was unstable, and if she hurt Blake now Molly would lose any desire she still had to fight.
She tried to lift her head just in time to see his intimidating, dark silhouette fill the doorway. He took another step forward, and Shona slammed the door behind him.
‘Come to join the party?’ she muttered from behind him.
Blake didn’t move. ‘We just want this to be over,’ he said.
Molly saw his hands come slowly up at his sides to show that he was unarmed. ‘Over?’ Shona said. ‘It will never be over.’
‘She has a gun,’ Molly croaked with what was left of her energy.
‘You!’ Shona snapped. She marched straight past Blake toward Molly in her corner. ‘I have had enough of you! You and your smart mouth! You and your blind confidence! You and your wholly misplaced righteousness! You’re nothing but a whore and a liar! Just like your mother!’
Shona cocked the gun and lowered it to Molly’s temple. The ice cold barrel dug into her tender flesh. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ Blake said.
Molly was numb to most of the situation now, but Blake, he was cool as a cucumber. She envied him in this moment.
‘Oh no?’ Shona said, and spun to look at Blake who still stood just inside the doorway. ‘I would love to hear why.’
‘There’s more than fifty cops outside. You need hostages. Without them, there is nothing stopping us from blowing this place to kingdom come.’
‘I have Harry, I have Melissa, and our friend in the bedroom.’
‘Funny that Harry would be the only one not restrained,’ Blake said. ‘If he really was a hostage… Strange also that he is the only one who appears completely unhurt.’
‘Implying what?’ Shona barked.
‘Implying nothing,’ Blake said. ‘I was making an observation.’
‘Harry and I go back a long way,’ Shona said.
‘So I heard,’ Blake said. ‘What was the plan here? Frame Mol? Make us believe that she was going to kill Joel?’
‘Joel would have been dead by the time you got here,’ Shona growled. ‘If something, or someone, hadn’t interfered with our plans.’
‘Melissa would have been dead too, wouldn’t she? You wouldn’t have left her here. You were done with her… So what was Harry? Your eyewitness? He was going to tell us how crazy Molly was… Tell us how scared he was for his life?’
‘How did you find us?’ Shona snarled. ‘How did you figure it out?’
A dark smile cast itself across Blake’s face. ‘You’ll have a long time to think about that where you’re going.’
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Shona said. ‘I have the power here. Y
ou give me what I want, or your girlfriend and her pal go the way of the dinosaur.’
Blake exhaled a laugh. ‘Clichés don’t impress me, honey. I’ve been doing this for a long time.’
‘We’re in a stalemate then,’ Shona said. ‘You won’t relent, and neither will I.’ She sauntered toward Blake with the gun dangling in her hand. ‘It’s a shame,’ she muttered. ‘You would have been fun.’
‘You think that you could have gotten to me?’ Blake said, and his lips spread further to his cheeks. ‘You think I would have been so devastated that Molly was behind bars that I’d have succumbed to your…’ his eyes slid across her, ‘charms?’
‘Deny it all you want… I know the truth of what is behind those dark, hooded eyes of yours. You’re impressed. I took those men for nothing more than they deserved. Women will always have power over men. I’m just one of the few that use that power the way it was intended.’
‘Is that so?’ Blake asked.
‘Men like you want a woman who can take control. A woman who sees what she wants and isn’t afraid to take it,’ Shona murmured.
‘The kink in your plan, though, is that if you had killed me when Molly was behind bars everyone would know she wasn’t guilty.’
‘Oh I wouldn’t have killed you,’ Shona said. She cast her attention back over her shoulder to Molly before she brought her attention back to Blake. ‘But she’d have known… We all would have known.’
‘Known what?’ Blake said.
‘That I can still take her most prized possessions from right under her nose.’
‘So I’d have been a trophy?’
Shona leaned ever closer, and Molly was consumed by disgust. Blake’s shoulders fell and she recognised the way he tilted his head lower. It was what he did for her. Shona only had an inch in height on Molly. Could it be? For all the madness in this situation the one thing she had been sure of was Blake’s loyalty to her. But as he stood there losing himself in the trance of the serial killer Molly had to wonder. Was he really tempted?
‘Time and time again,’ Shona whispered, and pushed herself upward.
Molly yelped when she saw how close their lips got. Shona’s startled gaze came around to her. The surprise soon melted to anger, but it was too late. Blake snatched Shona’s wrist and twisted the gun from her hand. Molly shrieked when he flipped it into his palm and pulled Shona around and against his chest.
‘Funny how quickly power changes hands,’ Blake said. ‘Untie the women,’ he said to Harry. Harry stood frozen. Blake pushed the gun up under Shona’s throat. ‘You want me to ask you again?’
Harry’s head shook. He ran to Melissa and loosened her restraints. Shona tried to struggle but Blake had her wrists in one hand against her chest. He backed toward the door. Harry got to Molly and fumbled with the key to undo her chains. When she was free she pulled herself to her feet. On the floor she had believed that there wasn’t an ounce of fight left in her. To even her own surprise, she pulled back her fist and smacked Harry a whopper between the eyes. He fell back and collapsed to the ground. She had never decked anyone in her life, but there he was in the middle of the floor, blinking and trying to shake back his senses.
‘Good shot, Sugar,’ Blake said. Molly gaped round at Blake, who still held Shona at his chest. ‘Couldn’t help me out with the door could you, babe?’
He nodded behind him and Molly darted across the room. He turned Shona away from her as she threw open the door.
‘Keane!’ Blake hollered, dragging a now screaming Shona onto the porch.
A flurry of footsteps pounded up the stairs, and Molly’s shoulders fell. It was over. Scanning the room, she saw Melissa in a heap on the floor, only this time it wasn’t unconsciousness that kept her down, it was her own heaving sobs that pinned her to the floor. Harry was now on his hands and knees, trying to bring himself upright. A squad of people ran in from behind her, they passed, and she turned toward the stereo in the corner.
Heaving one foot in front of the other, she hauled her tired body toward it. She stopped in front of it and listened to the final words of the song. Then, closing her eyes, she pointed her finger and pressed the square button – stop. Silence overwhelmed the thunderous noise pervading this cabin. That in itself brought a smile to her lips. It could only grow wider when she felt the smoulder of his stare on her.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she murmured. Her heavy lids were still closed and she had her back to the door, but she knew he was there.
‘I can’t help myself,’ he muttered.
A second later it was more than his stare she felt. His presence hung behind her and she let herself fall back against his chest.
‘They got Mason,’ she whispered.
Blake’s hands slid up the outside of this arms. ‘No, they didn’t,’ he said. ‘They thought they did, but he was still alive when we found him.’
Molly spun to seek his gaze. ‘Really?’
‘He’s in the hospital,’ Blake said. ‘But he’ll be fine.’
‘Oh my God! That’s… that’s…’ Her exuberance seemed to cost her, she swayed on her feet.
‘Exactly where you’re going,’ he said.
‘Blake,’ she whispered. ‘How did you find us?’
‘That’ll wait,’ he said. ‘Let me get you to safety first.’
Her eyes drifted shut, and she swayed again. When he hooked her arms around his neck and swept her feet from under her, she didn’t complain. She buried her face in his neck and enjoyed the scent of him. Soap, man, blood and just a hint of cologne. Just as she remembered.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
When Molly next opened her eyes, she was flooded with the morning sunshine. In trying to raise her hand, she felt the IV needle sticking from it, and that clarity told her that she was in hospital.
‘Try not to move,’ the voice came from beside her.
Rolling her head on her pillow, she saw Jason seated at the side of her bed. ‘What are you doing here?’ she croaked.
He lifted a cup from the side table and brought it to her mouth, then directed the straw between her lips.
‘I’m on watch,’ he said. ‘Blake is snowed under with paperwork. He stayed all day yesterday and slept here last night. He’ll be pissed as hell when he finds out you woke up with me and not him.’
‘I’ll fake it,’ Molly said and pushed a smile to her lips. ‘Just don’t tell him I woke up now, and when he comes in I’ll pretend to be sleep.’
Jason exhaled a laugh. ‘I like the way you think.’ Molly appreciated his comment but noted how quickly his eyes fell from hers. ‘I owe you something.’
‘You do?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I believe we had an agreement.’
A laugh escaped her. ‘Oh, that’s right… I’d forgotten all about that.’
‘Sure you had,’ he said and found her gaze again. ‘I’m sorry, Molly. Really.’
‘It’s ok,’ she said, and took his hands in hers. ‘You had no reason to trust me. You were only doing your job. If I can forgive Blake for doing his, then I can forgive you for doing yours.’
‘Thanks,’ he said.
Molly forced herself up from her half sitting position and put her arms around his neck. It was nice to have some kind of positive contact with another human being after everything that she had experienced.
‘Damn,’ Blake’s voice came from behind them. ‘And I was hoping I wouldn’t have to punch anyone today.’
Jason withdrew from Molly’s embrace. ‘Busted,’ he whispered.
Molly’s smile widened again. ‘I hugged him,’ she said to Blake. ‘I initiated it, not him.’
‘That’s ok then,’ Blake said, and closed the door to her private room. ‘You’re probably pretty high on drugs right now. I’m sure you’ll regret it by tonight.’
‘I’ll let you guys talk,’ Jason said, and squeezed Molly’s hand. He and Blake did a hand smack thing before Jason reached the door and opened it.
‘Jason,’ Moll
y said, and brought his attention back to her. ‘Thank you. I do appreciate it.’
‘You deserved it. I was a dick.’
‘I don’t imagine this experience will change that in you,’ Molly said, catching her tongue between her teeth and bracing for his response.
All he did was switch focus to Blake. ‘She’s perfect for you, man,’ he said and closed the door behind him.
‘How are you doing, Sugar?’ Blake asked.
He sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand in his to feather kisses across her bruised knuckles.
‘I feel like I’ve gone ten rounds with Tyson… probably look like it too.’
‘You’re breathing, babe,’ he said. ‘I don’t think you’ve ever looked more beautiful.’
‘How did you find us?’ she asked.
‘Belinda gave us the idea of calling Mason’s mom,’ he said.
Molly inched over on the bed, giving him room to sit beside her. When he was relaxed, he settled her on his chest, and pressed his lips into her hair.
‘His mom?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Parents remember everything, and putting together what she said with what you had, and Belinda too. The rest was just detective work. Belinda reported that Melissa and Shona had been spending a lot of time together, that they were secretive, and when we found a long red hair on Mason’s pillow it was all but confirmed. From there it was just putting the pieces together. Jason spoke to Mason’s parents about the stories… about your mom and her affair.’
‘You know about that?’ Molly asked, trying to lift herself away from him, but he urged her back down.
‘We found out the names of Shona’s mother and father from Mason’s parents. When we ran them for property in the area her father’s name popped up. It was her father’s shack.’
‘She said that you would never track her,’ Molly said. ‘She said who she was before doesn’t exist anymore.’
‘She doesn’t,’ Blake said. ‘But you can’t under-estimate the power of memory. Mason’s mother was amazing with the detail she gave us.’
‘Did she tell you that my dad…’ Molly slipped her hands under the sheet covering her. ‘Wasn’t my dad?’
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