Renegade's Pride

by B. J Daniels

  “I know these two. They’ll hurt her just for the fun of it if they see you. You have to let me handle this.”

  The sheriff shook his head. “Lillie is my sister and I’m the damned sheriff.”

  Trask met his gaze and held it. “Lillie is the only woman I’ve ever loved. I will die for her if it comes to that.” The two men stood staring at each other for a few moments.

  “Then let’s go,” Flint said.

  Clouds hung low over the city as Trask drove his pickup out of town. The sheriff sat in the passenger seat. Neither spoke, each no doubt praying as they fought to keep faith that Lillie would be all right, Trask thought.

  “You shouldn’t have run,” Flint said, sounding angry.

  “I know. But I was scared I’d get railroaded if I stayed. I knew how you felt about me.” Flint looked over at him. “I thought you’d do anything to keep me away from your sister.”

  “I’m not that kind of sheriff. But I’ll admit I wasn’t sure you were the right man for her. I might have been blinded by that.”

  Trask nodded without looking at him. “I wasn’t the right man for her back then. I am now.”

  “We’ll see.”

  The pond was on an old homestead five miles out of town. He and Emery had swum in it a few times on hot summer days. It was surrounded by pine trees and just far enough off the road that it was isolated.

  Trask slowed to a stop as he reached the turnoff. “Let me go in and see what the situation is. I’ll take care of it, if I can. Give me time.”

  Flint nodded and opened his door. They could see the pine trees around the pond in the distance. “Be careful.”

  “You too.”

  Flint closed the door. Trask took a breath and drove toward the pond. He hadn’t gone far when his headlights flickered over the dark pines, picking up the dusty gleam of an old van’s taillights.

  Emery had parked in the trees, where it was impossible to see who was in the van.

  Trask brought the truck to a stop a good distance from the van, shut off the engine and lights, and sat for a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Also to calm down. He needed to be cool. He couldn’t let Emery get to him. Mostly, he couldn’t be the old Trask who went into things with his head down at full speed like a damned bull.

  Moonlight painted a silver path across the pond but quickly disappeared as the clouds shrouded it again. He saw nothing move along the shore. Heard nothing beyond the pounding of his heart. Emery had Lillie and Emery couldn’t be trusted.

  Trask opened his pickup door, wondering where Flint was now as he got out. He closed the door with a soft click.

  “Emery?”

  No answer.

  He called a little louder, still using the pickup as a shield. Emery wanted money, but he also wanted revenge for every injustice he felt someone owed him. That someone right now was Trask.

  Still no answer. He had no choice. Walking slowly, he moved toward the trees and the van sitting silently in them.

  “Lillie?” he called, just as afraid she wouldn’t answer.

  He heard a sound like a groan and felt his blood quicken. If Emery hurt her... Trask moved with more purpose. If Emery wanted a fight, he was about to get one. But not until Lillie was safe.

  He’d almost reached the van when he saw something on the ground on the other side of the van. He could make out what looked like boots and part of a leg.

  For a moment, his heart seemed to stop. His breath caught in his throat and his feet refused to move.

  He heard movement on the other side of the van. Stepping quickly, he reached the van, keeping low as he edged along the side to the back.

  He recognized the boots first. Emery’s and then Vernon’s. Both were still attached to their feet. Neither man moved. In a sudden splash of moonlight from between the clouds, he saw the blood and dark neat cuts at their throats.

  He heard the shuffle of boots in the grass near the front of the van. Bending down, he looked under the vehicle, but it was too dark to see anything more than shadows.

  Rising, he moved toward the front and stopped. “Let me see, Lillie, or I’m out of here.”

  The laugh he heard froze his blood even before Patrick Quinn stepped from the side of the van. He held a bloody knife to Lillie’s throat.

  * * *

  LILLIE TOOK SHALLOW breaths and tried not to panic. She’d awakened when they’d jostled her into the back of the van. The weave of the burlap bag wasn’t enough to keep out light. She sat up enough to look out the back window of the van and see headlights behind them.

  Her thoughts had rushed past like a freight train on a runaway track. When they arrived at the pond, Emery had said he was going for a swim while they waited.

  “Get her out, but make sure she doesn’t run off,” Emery said as he climbed out from behind the wheel and started toward the open water of the pond.

  Vernon opened his door and, taking her arm, pulled her from the van and tugged off the burlap bag. They both looked after Emery, who’d stripped down. He waded out into the pond, the water silvery gray in the cloudy night. There was a splash and a few moments later he came out.

  Emery pulled on his jeans and boots and walked bare-chested back toward them. “We should have some fun while we’re waitin’, don’t ya think?”

  She’d heard a vehicle engine in the distance earlier when Emery had been in the water. Then she’d thought she’d heard a twig snap nearby. Once they’d turned onto the pond road, the headlights she’d seen behind them had disappeared.

  She’d given up hope. But at Emery’s words a cold horror filled her. She’d fight him to the death before she’d let him rape her.

  He started toward them when a figure materialized out of the darkness.

  The attack had happened so quickly that Emery hadn’t seen it coming. The figure grabbed Emery and cut his throat in one quick motion as if it was something the killer did every day.

  Blood gushed from the cut and ran down his chest. His eyes widened in alarm and shock, but he’d been unable to do a thing but fall to his knees, then keel over face-first into the dirt and dried pine needles.

  The figure then turned toward her and Vernon, and in a slice of moonlight, Lillie saw his blond hair under the dark hood. She hadn’t realized that she’d been holding her breath until she’d heard the whoosh of air escape her mouth.

  Vernon took a step back, bumping against her as he’d tried to run. But he hadn’t gone but a few steps when the man leaped onto his back and drove the knife blade into Vernon’s neck.

  Lillie finally found her feet and stumbled back a step, then another toward the pond, her mind screaming run, but her legs felt like deep stumps beneath her.

  She hadn’t gone but a few yards when Brittany stepped out, the moonlight gleaming off the shotgun in her hands. “Go ahead and run. Wanna bet I’ll shoot you?”

  Before Lillie could react, Patrick tackled her from behind and put the knife to her throat. Realization had sunk in slowly because few people could imagine a sixteen-year-old and an eleven-year-old murdering anyone—let alone a parent.

  “Why did you do it?” Lillie cried. “He was your father.”

  Patrick laughed. “That was enough reason. We used to watch him beat our mother until she couldn’t take it anymore and left. She wanted to take us with her, but he wasn’t having any of that.”

  “Stop,” Brittany ordered. “It’s none of her business.”

  Her brother shrugged. “It isn’t like she’s going to tell anyone. She’ll be dead.”

  “Still.”

  Lillie felt their shame. The story she’d heard was that their mother had died before they moved to town, before Gordon married Caroline.

  “But why that day?” Lillie pushed. She was stalling for time—not that it would do an
y good. Trask thought she’d been taken by Emery and Vernon. She was on her own with two psychopaths, one with a bloody knife and the other with a shotgun. Lillie could see no way this would have a happy ending.

  She thought of Trask. They deserved a second chance. They’d already been through so much. Didn’t they deserve to be together?

  “Your boyfriend made it too easy,” Brittany said, as if needing to finally tell someone. “We overheard the argument. When Trask hit him and knocked him down, it was all we could do not to cheer.”

  “But he got up and was worse than even before,” Patrick said. “We knew he would kill our horse before the night was over.”

  “So you killed him first.” It made a kind of sense that two kids from an abusive home would understand.

  “It wasn’t that easy,” Brittany said. “I thought one good blow with a shovel, but it only dazed him. He took it away from me, swung at my head, then tossed it aside. He would have killed me, but I managed to duck out of the way and grab the shovel up again. He was going after Patrick. I swung the shovel, harder this time, and caught him in the back of the head. He went down and Patrick grabbed the pitchfork and finished him off.”

  Lillie felt sick. “Why didn’t you tell the sheriff that? You were just trying to protect yourselves.”

  Brittany laughed. “You seem to have forgotten the part where I hit him first with the shovel.”

  “You were afraid of him. Your mother would have testified that he was dangerous. You wouldn’t have gone to jail,” Lillie said, as if she could rewrite history.

  “And the whole world would have known about our family,” Brittany said with a shake of her head. “I’d think you of all people would know what it’s like to have that kind of shame attached to your name. Your father thinks he was abducted by aliens.”

  “My father was,” Lillie said stubbornly and remembered she still had a knife to her throat.

  Brittany and Patrick both laughed.

  “Still,” Brittany said, “it’s not the same. People look at us funny. They want to know if he beat us or, worse, if he molested us. They think just because he’s a bully he’s probably a pervert. Even if we tell them he never tried anything with us, they don’t believe us. Even if they believe that our father is abusive, they don’t do anything but give us a card and tell us to call the next time we need help, and then they have a talk with our father.” She wagged her head. “You think that won’t get me the beating of my life? So we rip up the card and keep our mouths shut.”

  Lillie heard the pain in her voice. Brittany had cried out for help only for the system to make her situation worse. “How old were you when you first tried to get help?”

  “Ten,” Patrick said. “I was five.” He pulled the pressure of the knife away from her throat to rub his arm for a second. She saw the long gash of an old scar and felt sick to her stomach.

  “You won’t get away with killing me,” Lillie said.

  “Of course we will,” Patrick said. “We got away with killing our father.”

  “You should have stayed out of it,” Brittany said. “But you believed your lover and look where it’s gotten you. Everyone will believe that he killed you along with your friends.”

  That’s when they heard Trask’s pickup coming up the road.

  Now Lillie watched heartbroken as Trask walked toward her. He’d come out there thinking he would be dealing with two blackmailers, not two cold-blooded killers.

  * * *

  TRASK FELT HIS insides turn to mush. Patrick had the knife to her throat. But what was even more terrifying was the smile on his face and the look in his eye. The bloodlust hadn’t been satisfied by killing Emery and Vernon. Trask could tell that Patrick couldn’t wait to feel the knife slice across Lillie’s throat. To feel the hot gush of blood run onto his hand. To smell death.

  He’d been eleven when his father had been murdered in the stables—run through with a pitchfork. No one had suspected him, not an angelic strong boy with watery-green eyes. If anything, they felt sorry for him and his sister. Brittany was sixteen the night Gordon died. A wisp of a girl, pretty, but definitely not sweet, Trask knew from experience.

  Still he hadn’t thought either of them was capable of murder. His mistake.

  “Let Lillie go. Your argument is with me.”

  Brittany laughed. “You think this is about you turning me down for a date? Really, Trask, get over yourself.”

  “I think you framed me for murder and now you plan to kill me before the truth comes out,” Trask said.

  “You shouldn’t have come back,” Patrick said in a singsong voice that sent a chill creeping up Trask’s spine.

  “I keep hearing that.” He was surprised how calm, how rational he sounded when all he could think about was getting Lillie away from that madman.

  “Caroline told us that Lillie was asking all kinds of questions about that night, including where the two of us were,” Patrick said. “With you gone, everyone had forgotten about our father’s death.”

  “Not everyone,” Trask said. “I hadn’t forgotten and I doubt the sheriff had.”

  “You coming back here stirring things up is a problem,” Patrick continued as if Trask hadn’t spoken. “Now we have to take care of the mess you made.” He didn’t sound that sorry about killing people.

  “You won’t get away with this,” Trask said.

  “Why do people say that?” Brittany demanded. “We’ve gotten away with it for nine years. No one suspected us, the unfortunate children of Gordon Quinn, the most reviled man in the county. No one would have cared if you had left well enough alone. Now your friends are dead.” She tsked. “All your fault.”

  “They weren’t my friends,” Trask said.

  “Well, they’re dead and you and Lillie are going to join them.”

  “So you can both spend the rest of your lives in prison?” he asked, stalling for an opening. As long as Patrick had a knife to Lillie’s throat, there was nothing he could do. Patrick would love nothing better than for him to make a move.

  “Prison?” Brittany laughed again. “We’ll be heroes. Imagine the publicity we’ll get for finding all of you dead out here. First you killed your friends. I would imagine they called you to come out here, so the call will be on your phone. From what I gathered, they were blackmailing you, using your girlfriend as bait. You kill them, but now you have a problem. Lillie, sweet girl that she is, is shocked and horrified by what you’ve done. She tries to get away, but you chase her down and cut her throat, as well. We show up and fortunately I have a gun.”

  Brittany leveled the shotgun at him. “I shoot you, but not before you’ve killed three people. It was so gruesome,” she said, sounding close to tears, as if before a television camera. She brightened. “I’m just bummed that we couldn’t have gotten here sooner and at least saved Lillie. Poor Lillie. I would imagine your brothers will hold some kind of reception for you at your crummy bar. Right now I’m dating Junior Wainwright, but when I’m through with him, I’m going after Darby. I figure he’s easy pickings.”

  Trask saw Lillie’s eyes flash with anger and terror. He shot her a look to stay calm as he wondered again where Flint was. Like him, the sheriff didn’t dare make a move. He hated to think that if he hadn’t gone to the sheriff, these two might have pulled off their plan. Now he had to give himself and Flint both an opening.

  “Not a bad plan, Brittany. I’m assuming it was yours,” he said. “Unfortunately, Lillie doesn’t look like she made a run for it,” he pointed out as he saw Patrick getting itchy to cut her throat.

  “Good point,” Brittany acknowledged with a nod of her head. “Let her go, Patrick. You should be able to catch her without any trouble. Let her run toward the lake. You can kill her when you catch her.”

  At first Trask thought Patrick was going to argue, but then he laughe
d, apparently realizing that the idea appealed to him. Trask gave Lillie a nod. Her gray eyes were wide in the moonlight, but he saw determination in them.

  “Run, Lillie!” Trask said, giving her a knowing look.

  Patrick laughed. “Good luck, Lillie.” He released her, giving her a shove toward the pond.

  “Run, Lillie!” Trask cried. “Run!”

  She did. Patrick gave her a head start, sporting young man that he was. Then he took off after her in the moonlight.

  Trask prayed the sheriff had heard all of that and was ready. Brittany held the shotgun on him, but she didn’t want to miss the fun, so she was watching her brother out of the corner of her eye. He knew she wasn’t inattentive. He had to time this right or...

  Patrick seemed to stumble after a half-dozen yards, as if one of his legs had gone out from under him. He heard Patrick swear. Lillie was faster than Patrick had thought and it was dark.

  The sound of the gunshot startled them all, even Trask, who’d been praying for it. The first shot made Patrick stumble again. The second sent him sprawling. He fell awkwardly, the knife still in his hand. He let out an animal cry as he fell on the blade.

  Brittany screamed and instinctively took a step toward her brother. Trask made his move, closing the space between them and grabbing the shotgun. She was strong. He’d heard that crazy people were often abnormally strong. She fought hard, but he was bigger, stronger and even more determined. He finally tore the gun from her fingers.

  She rushed at him, all nails and wild eyes, and he dropped her with one punch.

  * * *

  WHEN LILLIE HEARD the gunshots, she stopped running to cry out, thinking that Brittany had shot Trask. She spun around, terrified she would see Brittany standing over Trask lying dead on the ground. Terrified that Patrick would be right behind her with the knife.

  What she saw shocked her. She looked back in confusion. Trask had taken the shotgun from Brittany and was standing over her on the ground. Her brother Flint was leaning over Patrick, who was screaming in pain on the ground only yards behind her. She saw at once that if her brother hadn’t shot him, he would have caught her, he would have...