Marissa squeaked as air pushed from her core, and Blake’s arms wound around her on instinct to cushion their collision with a cave wall. A massive branch clattered at their feet.
Joy filled his chest and lightened his heart. She wasn’t dead, and Nash didn’t have her. He cradled her to him as fat tears fell over her red cheeks. She sobbed into his shirt, and the moment of happiness was quickly replaced with fear. Her skin was like ice, covered in gooseflesh and red from the beating rain. “You’re freezing.” He stepped back and unzipped his jacket.
She teetered against the wall, balanced precariously on one foot.
“You’re hurt.” He squatted for a better look at her right leg. Blood had soaked through the material of her pants, down to her sock and into the top of her shoe.
Marissa gripped his shoulders and pulled him upright. “It’s fine.” Her teeth chattered. “Nothing’s broken. My ankle is twisted. I can’t put weight on it, and my shin is banged up from the fall. Something cut into my leg when I landed in the pile. My right calf is scratched pretty bad, but I’ll live.” She looked into his eyes with the saddest smile he’d ever seen. Another attempt to be strong and compartmentalize the horrors, he guessed. “Let’s get out of here.”
Blake helped her into his wet jacket and hugged her tight, willing his warmth over her. “It’s not much, but it’s dryer than you.”
She zipped the offering up to her neck with trembling fingers. The chattering of her teeth increased, and her lips seemed to grow whiter. “I saw the fires on the news. Nash did that.”
“I know.” Blake rubbed his palms over her thin arms, hoping to create some heat from friction. “Smart girl.”
“No,” she sniffled. “No. I opened the door to invite the deputy inside, but Nash was already there. He forced his way inside. I fought back, but I had nowhere to go.”
“It’s okay. You got away again. That’s all that matters.” And getting her off this mountain. Blake assessed the cave for bats and bears. He couldn’t see either, but he didn’t want to stick around and press his luck. Marissa needed medical attention. “Is Nash hurt? Was he with you when you fell?”
“Yes, but I don’t know if he was hurt.” Marissa curled in on herself, measuring her breaths and breathing puffs of steam into the frigid air. “He’s got a hunting jacket on. It’s baggy and falls past his hips. I couldn’t see any wounds. He might’ve been a little slower today.” The inflection in her voice indicated further that she really wasn’t sure. She was traumatized. Frightened and bleeding. “But he’s mad,” she whispered, “really mad.”
“Okay.” Time to go. “Help’s on the way. We just need to hold down the fort.” A small smile formed on his mouth. “I told West you’d be hiding in a cave.” This woman was so much more than he could ask for. He needed to get her home safely so he could tell her exactly how true that was.
She wobbled for balance on her good leg. “I was in the larger cave about fifty yards up but I blew it,” Marissa said. “I heard West’s voice coming from a radio, and I thought you were right outside. I ran straight into Nash.”
Blake hugged her closer. “He took the deputy’s radio.”
Marissa nodded.
“That’s when I fell over the hill,” she said. “He got a hold on me, and I did everything I could to shake him loose. He tried to hang on, but I went over the mountain. I figured the fall was the lesser of two evils, so I took my chances with the hill.”
“I saw you fall,” Blake said. “Where’s Nash now?”
“I haven’t seen him again.”
Blake struggled for the right plan of action. West was scrambling the troops, but thanks to the stolen walkie-talkie, Nash would know that. Unless West had somehow found time to instruct his men otherwise. Nash had had them all in a tailspin today. So, what was his grand plan?
Blake couldn’t wait around to find out. He needed to get Marissa off the mountain. Now.
But how? She couldn’t walk on a busted ankle, and he couldn’t carry her and keep her safe. His reflexes would be staunched, and his attention divided. Not to mention, one swift shove could send them both down the mountain.
Marissa swayed in his arms.
“Hey.” He pressed one palm to her icy cheek. “Marissa?”
Her knees buckled, and her head rolled back.
Panic beat through Blake’s head. He lowered her to the ground and checked her vitals. What was happening? Another head injury? Something internal? Her tiny puffs of breath were barely visible in the dank cave. The rise and fall of her chest was small and shallow. He checked her pulse and prayed. The tiny thrum barely registered against the pad of his fingers, but it was there.
There was also a new pool of blood by her foot.
Blake rolled the cuff of her pants for a look at the wound on Marissa’s leg. The cuts were bad, much worse than she’d let on, and the blood flow hadn’t stopped.
He shredded the hem of his shirt and wrapped her calf below the knee to encourage a clot. “Stay with me,” he told her.
Where was his team? Where was West?
The snapping of twigs brought his scattered thoughts into focus. He tied the bandage and moved Marissa more deeply into the shadows, before slipping through the cave’s mouth once more.
Another snap pulled Blake westward. Senses on alert and gun drawn, he moved silently through the burgeoning storm. Icy drops pelted his bare arms and stung his skin as he followed the sounds upward. Every moment Marissa suffered was another knife to his chest.
He circled the cave, climbing carefully higher for the broadest view of his surroundings. A team of agents came into sight below, roughly halfway between Marissa’s cave and the hotel, and all were headed in the wrong direction.
He hurried back to the cave’s entrance, using the limbs of reaching trees to keep himself upright. Once Marissa was safe, he could hunt Nash until they both died of old age if he had to. Right now, he needed to get her to those men. “I see the team,” he announced, unsure if she’d woken in his absence. He scooped a baseball-sized stone from the cave floor, ready to throw it at the rescue squad marching away from him.
“No.” Marissa’s sweet voice warbled in fear.
He dropped the stone on instinct. Marissa was awake and frightened. The sudden realization that they weren’t alone sent his right hand to his sidearm, flicking away the safety strap and blinking for focus in the dim cave light.
“Ah, ah, ah,” the familiar voice taunted.
“Nash.” Blake ground the word through clenched teeth.
The woman he loved moved slowly out of the shadows. A drip of her blood flowed over the hunting knife Nash had pressed securely to her jaw.
Chapter Seventeen
Marissa’s heart hammered painfully, her breaths too short and swift to straighten her muddled thoughts. Her body ached and her teeth chattered, but the confusion was worst of all. She’d closed her eyes in comfort, tucked lovingly into Blake’s arms, and a moment later, she’d awoken in the rough hands of a serial killer.
He’d yanked her carelessly upright, forcing a scream of pain from her lips. “Hello, darling,” he’d snarled. “It’s not nice of you to keep running away. You must know how hard I’ve worked for this reunion of ours. Setting fires. Distracting lawmen. Anything for you.”
Marissa struggled to make sense of the change. Blake had been there, hadn’t he? If he had, then where was he now? A new flash of panic coursed through her aching limbs. Her gaze dropped to the cave floor in search of him. Had Nash hurt Blake, or worse? “Where’s Blake?” she cried. “What did you do to him?”
Nash gripped her harder, forcing her back against his chest like he had twice before. “Stop talking about him!” Unlike their previous encounters, Nash only needed his left arm to still her this time. Marissa was weak and hurt, and he knew it. He’d seen her fall, watched her crash, struggle upright and hobble awa
y. The distance between them had bought her time, but not enough. She’d stopped running, and he’d found her. Again.
“Aren’t you going to thank me?” he whispered hotly against her cheek. “For giving your baby sister a ride home last night? It’s dangerous to walk alone these days, you know.”
“Thank you.” The nonsensical words arrived with deep sincerity. Despite everything Nash had done, Marissa was thankful he hadn’t hurt Kara. That he’d chosen her instead of her little sister for his wicked game.
Nash petted her soggy hair, then wrapped ice cold fingers over her forehead, smashing her tighter to his chest. “First I had to siphon the gas from her car,” he complained, “but in the end everything worked out as I’d planned. Things usually do.”
Lightning flashed outside the cave, illuminating her world and glinting brightly off the stainless-steel blade of a four-inch hunting knife in Nash’s right hand.
“We’re going to be together now.” He rested his chin against the top of her head. The scruff of his unshaven face caught in her tangled hair with each wag of his jaw. The stink of cigarettes filled her senses, reminding her of his other attempts to kill her. “You’re mine. Not his. However, he and I have a game going, so I’m going to need you to do something for me.” He raised the knife to her throat and used it to push wads of leaf-encrusted hair away from her neck and shoulder. He angled his mouth near the bare, frozen skin of her jaw. “Call for him,” he whispered. His hot, rancid breath sent a flood of vomit into her mouth.
Marissa recoiled, squirming uselessly for fresh air and freedom. “No.”
Nash lifted the silver hunting blade to eye level. He twisted it inches away from her nose. “Call for him, or I’ll cut you.” His tongue darted out and licked the length of her jaw.
Her muscles knotted in disgust. She pressed her lips together and jerked her chin away. “No.”
“Do it!” he growled. He released her head in favor of knotting calloused fingers in her hair. He shook until she lost her balance. “Don’t be stupid.” He pushed the tip of his blade into the soft flesh of her jaw. “You don’t need to die for him. You die for me.”
“Let her go, Nash.” Blake’s voice echoed through the cave. His hazy silhouette nearly filled the jagged opening. Rain sheeted behind him, forming puddles on the rocky floor.
Marissa’s heart sputtered in a tide of mixed emotions. Blake had come to save her, but Nash only planned to let him watch her die.
Nash yanked upright, returning Marissa to her previous position, mashed against his chest by the pressure of one forearm. “There you are. The knight in shining armor. Come to steal my wife.”
Blake moved slowly in their direction, eyes pinned on Nash and the knife. “She’s not your wife. I’ve already taken all of those.”
Marissa struggled for air as Nash clutched her tighter. She pried uselessly at his arm with weak and frozen fingers. She didn’t want to die in a cave.
Blake raised his gun and pointed it over her head, presumably at Nash’s. “You don’t have to die today,” he said in a tone that seemed to disagree, “but if you hurt her again, I promise you won’t leave this cave without a body bag.”
Nash laughed. He stepped back, opposing Blake’s advance and dragging Marissa with him. His grip loosened slightly, and Marissa sucked air, clinging to his arm now, for balance on her good foot. “Won’t it be poetic for Miss Lane and I to die together? One final romantic gesture. A grand finale, if you will.” He floated the knife near her throat. “Here’s what I have in mind. I kill her, then you kill me, and then later you kill yourself because how could you live with that?” He exaggerated each word of the sick proposal. “It’s the perfect show of our commitment to one another, really.”
Marissa whimpered. Hopefully Blake had a plan because she had nothing left, and the finale Nash had in mind was the stuff of her nightmares.
Nash danced the knife closer to her face.
Blake’s steady cop expression didn’t waver. Nash’s words had bounced uselessly off him.
“You don’t mind?” Nash taunted. “No skin off your nose?” He tapped the tip of Marissa’s nose with the blade for emphasis before lowering the blade to beneath her jaw, He slid it carefully along the length of her throat, and she flinched when the steel nicked her collarbone, just above the zipper of her borrowed jacket. “Oops,” he said carelessly, no doubt enjoying the madness racing over Blake’s face. “Still think you have the upper hand?” Nash asked, gloating over the response he’d driven from Blake. He dragged the blade’s tip into the groove between Marissa’s breasts, then stopped it above her heart.
Blake swung his hands up, palms forward. “Stop. Don’t hurt her.” He released his offensive stance and allowed the gun to hang from the crook of one thumb. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and his gaze slid from Nash’s eyes to Marissa’s for the first time. “What do you want, Nash?”
“What do I want?” he parroted in a mocking whine. “Don’t you recognize a cry for help when you see one? I want to finish our game.”
“What game?” Venom and hatred coated Blake’s words.
Nash rubbed his cheek against Marissa’s. “Has he told you our story?”
She shook her head quickly. Tears formed in her eyes, and her shoulders crept nearer her ears, attempting to put space between herself and the madman.
“Why don’t you tell it?” Nash asked Blake.
“Why don’t you let her go and we can finish this alone.”
Nash made a show of twisting the knife against her breastbone. “First, put your gun down.”
Blake lowered his weapon to the cave floor and released it, then straightened slowly, palms in plain sight. “Your turn. Let her go.”
Marissa’s eyelids fell shut. Blake had given in to Nash’s demand, and nothing good could come from that.
Nash lifted the knife from Marissa’s heart, and her head went light with relief. “First,” he said, “tell the story. I like our story.”
* * *
BLAKE’S MIND QUAKED with five years of awful memories. Their story, as Nash called it, was Blake’s personal hell. He could recite the lengthy list of leads he’d followed to their inevitable dead ends in detail, but what good would that do? He locked his jaw, refusing to entertain Nash or his whims any longer.
Blake had plenty of old failures engraved on his heart, but he wouldn’t add losing Marissa to them. He kept his chest carefully squared with Nash, concealing the spare firearm nestled in his waistband at the middle of his back. That gun was his last chance at fulfilling his promises. He’d vowed to keep Marissa safe, whatever the cost, and he would proudly fit Nash for a shiny new body bag.
“What are you waiting for?” Nash shifted Marissa in his grip, repositioning the knife at her side, just below her rib cage. “I’ll get you started.” He cleared his throat. “It’s a tragic story of loves lost. Every time I find my perfect mate, she dies. First my mom, then my fiancée, then all the rest.”
Blake forced himself not to lunge for the knife. It was a calculated risk he’d gladly take if it was only him who could get hurt. “You stalk innocent women. You attack them. Murder them. Which part of that sounds like love to you?”
“I marry them,” Nash barked. “I give them the perfect gown, and the perfect ending. Then, I preserve them in the perfect moment. Forever.” He ground his teeth and made a feral sound. “I created a legacy, and you ruined it!” A line of spittle landed on Marissa’s soft cheek.
Blake winced. His stomach churned. Marissa was paler than before. She barely moved. The fight was gone from her, and that was scarier than anything Nash could say. Blake needed to speed this up and get her off this mountain. “The first one you took to the chapel was your fiancée.”
“That’s what I said.”
Blake shook his head. The obvious finally clicked into place. “She’s the one I didn’t recognize.” Nash hadn�
��t begun killing immediately after her death, he’d taken her body to the chapel for her preservation in his “perfect moment.” When that didn’t satisfy him, he did it again, and again. “How did you do it? Steal her from the funeral home?”
“I made a donation to the grave digger’s college fund.”
Marissa’s small mouth bowed down.
Blake inched closer, keeping the distraction going. Enticing Nash to stay focused on him instead of his captive. “Why are you doing this now? You’d stopped for so long.”
Nash heaved an angry sigh. “First, you promised to kill me. Then, you chased me for five years. Five. Years. I couldn’t stop moving. Couldn’t settle in or make a place for myself anywhere, then one day you just quit. You moved on. What did you think would happen when you did that? Did you think I’d get a new hobby? Collect trains? Build ships in bottles?”
So, it was Blake’s fault that Nash was at it again. He’d had a hand in the jogger’s murder and Marissa’s continued agony. His heart ached at the helplessness. At his utter inability to go back and change anything. He couldn’t make those things right. But he could end this. “If this is between us, then let her go.”
Nash shook his head. “No. You gave me time, and I got to know her. We fell in love.” He spread his fingers wider across Marissa’s ribs, skimming the pad of his thumb over her breast until Blake longed to break the digit off. “I knew the first moment I saw her that she had been worth waiting for,” Nash said. “I got a little overzealous and took a subpar substitute last month when this one changed her routine.” He made a droll face. “Plus, I was a little rusty, but again, that was your fault. Not mine.”
Blake’s fingers twitched with the need to pull his hidden weapon and fire. “You’re not getting out of this alive, Nash. Backup is on the way. It’s only a matter of time.”
“I don’t expect to get out alive,” he said flatly. Nash lowered the knife and used dirty fingers to part his jacket at the zipper, freeing the material from between his body and Marissa’s. A blood-soaked patch clung to his side. Nash raised his eyebrows.
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