Amy chanced a glance down and immediately wished she hadn’t. Her side was one large black and purple bruise.
“I will tend to your injury, then we’re going to talk. You have something to tell me.” Shane didn’t wait for her response, and she honestly didn’t know what to say. He lifted her into his arms and cradled her against his chest. Every movement hurt. Shane had carried her like this before, when they’d gotten married. She’d thought him so romantic.
Now her skin crawled with revulsion.
Breathe. Just breathe. She had to stay calm. Diffuse the situation. But when they walked past the kitchen counter, her hand gravitated toward the meat tenderizer hanging on the wall. The old timey kitchen utensil was shaped like a mallet and heavier than a hammer.
“Where is my box from overseas?”
Shane’s question startled her from her plan for a moment. She sure as heck couldn’t tell him the truth. She’d trashed the box and burned the letters. The only thing she’d kept had been the picture frames. She figured one day, when she’d moved past his betrayal, she might give them to Chloe. “In the U-Store-It in town. After the news of your death, I couldn’t handle having it in the house.”
His arms tightened around her momentarily. “We’ll go there after I tend to you.”
Amy nodded and squeezed the tenderizer behind his back.
“Are you ready to tell me about Chloe?”
Her throat closed off. No. She would never tell him about his daughter. He might kidnap her and disappear overseas. Force them to live like savages at his mercy in some desert dwelling. Or worse, he might decide he didn’t need Amy anymore and take Chloe.
Amy clenched her teeth and forced herself to breathe past the fear. Over her dead body.
“Are you ready to tell me about Hayden.” She raised the hammer high behind his head.
“She told you?”
“I found the letters. I confronted her. How could you?”
Shane shrugged. “I didn’t love her. You are my wife. She was just entertainment.”
“You don’t care in the least? I never cheated on you. I never even touched another man.” Amy trembled.
“Except Ranger.” He tightened his hold and she cried out. “Now, who is Chloe?”
“You’ll never know.” Amy brought the hammer down with all her strength. Shane sensed her movement at the last minute and turned his head. The tenderizer slammed into his temple.
Amy watched in horror as his eyes rolled back. Unconscious, he dropped to the floor and she followed him down. She tensed and tried to twist away from her bad side, but she was trapped in his arms. She landed directly on her injured ribs. Pain. Incredible torturous pain.
She couldn’t move. Couldn’t suck in a breath. Stars sprinkled across her vision.
Fight. Have to stay awake. Get to Chloe.
Somehow, Amy managed to combat the darkness. She made it to the back door.
Have to escape.
44
Chapter 44
Amy clutched her side and ran to her truck. She slid into the driver side and reached for the keys. Empty. She flipped down the sun visor. Checked under the seat. On the floorboard. Her keys were gone.
Her head fell forward, and she let it rest there on the steering wheel. Shane must have taken her keys. If she took off walking down the highway, she might be able to flag down a vehicle. Or he might wake up and drive right to her.
Her phone. Stupid. Why hadn’t she grabbed her phone? Amy steeled herself and slowly sat upright. She had to go back in the house. The truck door seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, so she left the door open and limped back to the house. The kitchen door stood ajar, just as she’d left it minutes before. Amy peered around the corner, Shane lay passed out on the floor, blood seeping from the wound on his head.
Her entire body shook with fear. He’d tucked her cell in his pocket. She’d have to touch him. Amy crept forward on leaden feet, each step an agonizing shot of pain and terror. Shane twitched and she froze, waiting on him to wake up, but he stayed out cold. Phone. Focus. She got down on a knee and dug in his pocket. Dang it. Wrong side. She would have to reach across him. Her skin crawled. Her heart pounded so hard she thought she might pass out.
She leaned over and dug into the other pocket, her fingertip brushed her phone. Shane moaned. Oh Lord. Amy forgot about being careful and shoved her hand in as deep as it would go, grabbed her phone and ripped it out of his pocket.
“Amy…” Shane’s gravelly voice drew her attention. He was waking, his eyelids fluttering.
With her heart shoved up into her throat, Amy rose and ran from the house. Directly ahead of her was the old barn, a hundred yards beyond that was the hangar, with nothing but open ground between. No trees or bushes to hide behind. A soy bean field spread out to her left, a corn field to her right. Amy made a split second decision and darted right, running into the maze of fourteen foot tall corn stalks. Leaves crackled and crunched, her breaths sawed loud and heavy in and out of her chest. If she could keep a straight path through the next two fields, she’d be at her neighbor’s house.
If only she weren’t running perpendicular to the rows. Amy angled her body to slice between the stalks, her journey a valley of up and down over the hills of the rows.
“Amy!”
She stopped. He’d sounded like he was right behind her. Amy struggled to listen, but all she could hear was her breathing. Focus. Listen. The full moon provided too much light. He’d see her if he got close enough.
He crashed into the field and Amy took off running, unable to stand there any longer. Now she ran without thought or direction, just the need to get away. The crashing got louder, like he was gaining on her. Amy held onto her side and kept going. Huge green leaves slapped her in the face and cut her arms as she ran through the razor sharp blades. She held up her hand to protect her face. After what seemed like hours, and had to be only minutes, she chanced a look over her shoulder. Her foot caught the dirt and she tripped, slamming into the ground with enough force to paralyze her.
The pain from her ribs stole her ability to think. To breathe. So she lay there, her face in the dirt, listening as Shane’s footfalls got closer and closer.
He moved slow, she knew, listening for her. Stalking her.
Amy tried to calm her racing heart, but her fight or flight response had gone into hyper drive.
“I know you’re out here. How far do you think you’ll get injured like you are? Did I ever tell you what I did overseas? I led our reconnaissance for the team. They called me in to hunt down the men no one else could find.” He paused and Amy held her breath.
“You have no hope of escape. If you come back now, I promise, I won’t punish you for this.” He was closer now. His voice growing louder. She heard his clothes rustle through the leaves. A whisper of sound, really, but if she could hear that, he was close. Too close.
The towering stalks disoriented her and she couldn’t tell where he was. She let her head fall back to the dirt, a trickle of blood hit the ground, reminding her of his brutality and what he would do if he got his hands on her again.
“Come on honey, give up. You know I will find you. And I promise you won’t like what happens when I do.” His voice was so smooth, so sincere. Like he was talking sweet nothings.
She heard a whoosh as he brushed against the stiff cornstalks to her left.
“You can hide all you want, but I will find you.” His voice changed back into the deranged monster. Amy buried herself further into the dirt, as if she could burrow and hide from his evil.
Please, please don’t let him hear me.
Then she heard it.
A stalk crackled right next to her. A heavy footfall in the row beside hers.
Ever so slowly, she turned her head in the direction of the sound. A dark figure eased down the row not one foot away.
Her breathing hitched, the sound too loud. She couldn’t get it under control, her heart raced. Shane was six inches away now, separated by one r
ow of stalks.
Amy stopped. Stopped breathing. Stopped thinking. Her eyes were glued to his feet. If he turned, he would step right on top of her.
“Amy!” Shane roared and she nearly screamed in response. She bit her lips to keep from crying out.
Something crashed through the field in the distance and he took off running. Amy jumped to her feet, ignoring the stitch in her side, and ran in the opposite direction. She had no idea which way she was going, but she ran nonetheless. She ran, mindless, the corn stalks seeming to grow taller. More menacing.
She was going to die out here. She knew it.
Chloe would never know her mother.
Hell no. She wasn’t giving up. Amy intended to fight for her life. She burst out of the corn field and stared in horror at her front yard. She’d come full circle from her back yard. A movement to her right drew her attention. Shane stepped from the field and disappeared behind her house.
Amy covered her face with her hands. What was she going to do? She was exhausted and her battered body couldn’t move another inch, let alone run back into the field.
“You can stay in there all night long if you want. But I’ll find you.” Shane’s voice carried across the area.
Could she make it to the highway? Maybe she’d get lucky and someone would drive by.
But before she could take a step in that direction, Shane’s voice rang out again, stopping her in her tracks. “If you don’t come out of that cornfield right now, I’m going to call Ranger and tell him we need to talk, all of us. I saw the way he looked at you. He’s in love with you. The fool has been in love with you since high school. You know he’ll come.”
Amy stopped moving all together. Ranger had always loved her? Why the hell had he broke up with her all those years ago?
“Five,” Shane paused.
Ranger could take Shane, she had no doubt about it, but he couldn’t do anything if Shane shot him. She wouldn’t survive without Ranger. He held her heart. The only future she wanted was with him and now that they’d finally found each other, she couldn’t let him go.
“Four.” His nonchalant tone belied his true purpose.
Could she do it? Could she surrender herself into the hands of a monster to save the man she loved?
“Three.”
Would Ranger sense that something was wrong? Would you be able to escape? Thoughts raced through her mind at light speed, her blood pounding through her veins at the same rate.
“Two.”
She stepped in his direction, her numb feet carrying her toward her husband. She made it to the corner of the house, just out of sight, and halted. If she took another step, it was over.
“You want to know what else I did for the military? I was a sniper. One of the best. I’ll put a bullet between Ranger’s eyes as soon as he turns down our driveway.”
The truth of his words smashed through her like a wrecking ball. She’d survived Shane’s supposed death. She wouldn’t survive Rangers.
Amy stepped out of the shadow of her house. Shane stood at her back door, waiting patiently for her to come to him. His satisfied smile nearly made her turn and run, but she kept going until she stood right in front of him.
“I knew that would do the trick. The way you two looked at each other this morning was sickening.”
“I love him.” Amy lifted her chin. She was dead anyway.
His slap didn’t surprise her this time. She touched the corner of her mouth where a fresh trickle of blood started and stood proudly before him. He could hurt her all he wanted, but Ranger would protect Chloe. And in the end, Shane would die.
“You’re going to die.” Amy smiled, knowing she was half-crazy for taunting him.
Shane grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. “No, wife. Not me.”
Shane drug her into the kitchen and pushed her into a chair. She watched him, no longer as scared as before. She was willing to die if it meant saving her family. He stopped and started every few seconds, as if his brain was shorting out and restarting.
Without a word, he grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him. She didn’t try to fight this time. She followed, stooped over and holding her ribs, through her living room and down the hall. He stopped before Chloe’s door.
“I was here that night. You were locked in there weren’t you?”
His statement rocked her. “You? That was you that broke into the house?”
“I didn’t have a key anymore.” Shane answered as if that should explain why he battered down her kitchen door.
“Are you kidding me? You scared me to death. Why didn’t you just knock? Or come home like a normal person - in the light of day?”
“I didn’t know that you were home that night.” He shrugged, like oh-freaking-well, and turned to open the nursery door.
“Why would you break into my house anyway?” She dodged his heels, sick and tired of his blithe responses.
Shane was on her in a flash, reminding her why she should learn to keep her mouth shut. “My house. Remember that.”
Amy nodded, she couldn’t talk. His hand squeezed her throat, strangling any attempt at speech. He held her like that, suspended on her toes. After a few seconds, Amy’s bravado deserted her and she clawed at his hands. Tearing his skin beneath her nails.
He gave her a look that would make a grown man pale.
Shane used his hold to maneuver her around him, until she was in the center of the room. He forced her to her knees on Chloe’s white faux fur rug, right beneath the tiny white chandelier she’d had installed after Chloe’s birth.
Shane brought a picture from her hutch cabinet and held it in Amy’s face. “Is this Chloe? Is she my daughter?”
Amy clawed frantically at Shane’s hands. She went along willingly enough, but if he didn’t let go soon, she’d lose consciousness. She tried to get a sound out, but nothing would make it past his grip.
Shane’s face turned red, his green eyes glowing with insanity. When she was on the edge of passing out, he let go. Amy fell to her hands, choking and coughing, her throat a raw mass of burning fire. The picture he’d held was of Amy holding Chloe in the hospital, a few hours after her birth.
She remembered that day like it was yesterday. The torture of child birth and the sweet, sweet baby that followed. Amy had denied the epidural, thinking she should suffer through the pain as punishment for sending her husband off to war with a fight. Punishment, because, deep down she felt responsible for his death.
Not anymore.
“Screw you.”
Amy braced for the next slap, ready this time, but he held back. Instead, he paced the room, doing that short-circuit thing again. Then he started talking, only it wasn’t in English. Amy paled when she realized where she’d heard that before. On TV. The news show airing Shane’s murder. The men standing behind him, with black hoods covering their faces. They’d been speaking in Arabic.
A new kind of terror traced down her spine.
“Shane…”
He roared, “Not Shane!”
Amy cringed back. “I’m sorry. I-forgot. Abdullah, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
What now? What to do? Could she calm him? “When you left, I tried to contact you.”
Shane’s nostrils flared. He clutched the picture in his hand. The glass crinkled and cracked and he didn’t notice. “Um, your hand.” Amy pointed as blood dripped down onto the pure white carpet.
Shane followed her finger, staring at his hand as if he didn’t recognize it. Amy approached, on her knees, and gently extracted the photo, laying it to the side. “You’re bleeding. I should clean your wound.”
Please, please she wanted out of this room.
“I have a child?”
Amy stared at him. His voice had been almost reverent. The wild look dissipating. Was her husband returning? “Yes.”
Shane fell to his knees before her. “I didn’t know.”
“I tried to call, but you’d gone black. I had no way to tell
you. I kept waiting on you to contact me.” Could she coax him back to normal? Make him realize he’d been brainwashed by the enemy?
“We fought.” Shane spoke slowly, like an amnesiac starting to recall his past.
“Yes. We fought. You left on deployment. I found out I was pregnant soon after.” A little lie. She’d known before, but had withheld the info after their argument. She didn’t want to tell him her joyous news in such a bad situation. A fact she’d regretted-until now.
“The team. Al Seriq. The compound. We went in after Mr. J.” Shane stared past her shoulder.
“Who is Mr. J?”
“He was dead. Or I thought he was dead. I was shot, taken hostage. They left me behind.”
“What are you saying, honey?” Amy kept her voice soothing and calm, fearing any sudden sound or movement might set off the bomb that was Shane Abdullah Carter, and she might not be able to diffuse him again.
“Al Seriq. We went after him. To capture him for the government. But I didn’t make it out.”
“Where were you? Did he take you?” She had to know what happened to him. What had kept him from his family so long, and why he’d come back with a new identity.
“He did. He nursed me back to health. He showed me the true way. The path to Allah.”
“Allah? Shane-“
He grabbed her throat so fast she couldn’t finish the sentence. “Abdullah.”
Amy gave a hysterical nod and he let go. “I’m sorry. Abdullah. You have to understand, I have always known you as your previous name.”
“Not allowed to say that word. He’ll punish me.” Shane’s words became distant, almost childlike, and Amy realized this Al Seriq had done a number on her husband’s mind.
“I’m sorry I interrupted you. If Al Seriq nursed you back to health, what happened to your hand?”
“He needed it.” His sentences were becoming shorter now, and she had the feeling she was losing him.
“For what?”
“For our true purpose. To destroy the infidel.”
Resurrection River: Men of Mercy, Book 2 Page 26