by J. A. Dennam
“My God. You’re insane, aren’t you? Only it’s not a behavioral problem like I thought when we were kids. You are literally. Clinically. Insane.”
“Don’t say that! I was good to you! I was everything you wanted!”
“But how much of it was real?”
Hurt mixed with rage. “You don’t understand. You will never understand what it’s like to live like this, Austin, never knowing when the darkness will take you.”
“You never gave me a chance. If you were unstable, I had a right to know. I would have tried to help you!”
In some ways Danny felt likenny felt an outsider. She swallowed as she watched them. They were a striking couple. The man she loved was positioned over his beautiful fiancé, holding her down, face-to-face, exchanging looks and passionately spoken words. Did they even remember she was there?
“No. You would have left me to rot in some mental institution like my parents did. But I couldn’t go back. Not again. I worked far too hard to make myself perfect for you, someone you couldn’t resist.”
“You succeeded.” His eyes scoured her face. The pressure of his hands on her wrists eased up slightly. “I was completely fooled. Everyone was. We were so...right together. I never suspected a thing.”
“Yes you did. At the end.”
Danny wasn’t sure how much more of this she could take. “That’s where you’re wrong,” she broke in, not gaining a single glance from Rena or Austin as they continued to gaze at each other. She felt every bit the third wheel. “Every time he talked about you a blind person could see how much he loved you. How much he missed you. How affected he was by your death. If you thought his feelings were fading, it was because of your illness.” Was Rena’s pull on him still so effective? The question weighed heavily at her center core.
Rena’s body seemed to melt under his weight. Her face softened, eyes glazed over with crazy love. “Is that true, baby? Did you miss me so terribly?”
Something in his countenance changed. Austin nodded once. “I did.” Then his mouth thinned into a grim line. “Until Danny came along.” Her adoring look froze. “If it weren’t for her, I’d still be grieving your loss.”
Now that her name had been thrown out there, Danny released a pent up breath. Rena screeched with rage.
“I was going to come back to you! I was finally ready, but what do I find when I do? This common hooker lounging in our bed!”
Well, that explains my missing clothes, Danny thought malevolently.
“You were dead!” Austin roared, springing into a sitting position. Rena rubbed her aching wrists and sizzled under his accusations. “If you wanted me to wait for you, faking your death wasn’t the way to do it!”
“As far as I knew, once the cat was out of the bag, I’d be hauled off to the asylum, so I had some remains tagged as mine! I didn’t know that whore wouldn’t finger me!” Rena lifted up on her elbows, sneered at Danny. “What happened, dime-dish? Did your little heddie-weddie get fried when I hit you with my little zapper? Or was it the river that rendered you a brainless idiot?”
Bad things sliced through Danny’s body, tensing her entire muscular structure in a need for battle.
Austin noticed her volatile state and held her off with a stern look. “Don’t start,” he warned gently. “She’ll get hers, believe me, but I don’t think you could live with assaulting a mentally handicapped woman.”
Rena laughed, an eerie wicked sound, and fell back to the earth. “See? I knew you still loved me, baby. You’ll always be mine. You can say you love her, that you want to marry her, but you will always be mine, Austin. Mine alone.”
The cops needed to come, Danny thought. Now. Before she did just what Austin feared. “Did you really think you could hang on to a guy by forcing yourself on another, Rena?” she purred nastily. If this bitch wanted to provoke, she could give as good as she got. Slowly, she dropped to her hands, crawled closer, unabashed, unafraid. “Even if I weren’t there, Derek would have stopped you somehow. He was faster than me,
stronger than me, and he definitely wasn’t hard up. He would have smelled your ploy from a mile away and the only thing you would have had between your legs that night is your tucked little tail.”
Provoked? Oh, yeah. The woman was boiling. Austin took a surprising blow to the solar plexus and Rena gained enough freedom to spring to her own hands and knees, snarl face-to-face with her hated opponent. “Yeah?” she spat with intense loathing. “Well, where is your beloved Derek now you whore?”
“Whoa!” Taking his life into his own hands, Austin dove between the two women as they simultaneously attacked. He was able to retake control of Rena with little effort, but Danny proved a much bigger challenge as she repeatedly reached around him to go at his captive.
“I’ll tear you apart, you murdering bitch!”
“Not before you join your brother, home-wrecker!”
“Danny!” Austin thundered when her elbow connected with his wound. “I’m only able to handle one lunatic at a time!”
“And you!” Rena raged, fighting his iron hold around her waist, “You fell for her, you cheating bastard! You should have died in that factory!”
A deafening shotgun blast put an end to the fray. Rena stilled, Austin ducked, Danny crouched with her hands flattened against her eardrums.
Chapter 32
“Can you hear me now?” Herb barked not ten feet away in his bathrobe and slippers.
Austin closed his eyes, thanked God for Herb. The help was much needed. “Can you take your daughter inside, please?” he asked, breathless and hurting.
Rena knew her man well, could hear the strain in his voice that indicated deep physical pain. She looked down, saw the red stain spreading across his shirt. “Oh, baby, you were shot!”
Danny snapped to attention, noted the same red stain just as Austin’s eyes pinched closed in a concentrated effort to keep up his strength.
“It wasn’t by me,” Herb blustered under the weight of his daughter’s accusing look.
“I wasn’t shot,” Austin growled, wincing again when Danny pulled up his shirt for a better look.
“Get your filthy hands off of him!” Rena screamed, kicking violently.
Under close scrutiny, Danny saw that Austin hadn’t bothered to bandage the long row of staples holding his side closed. The skin had torn free in a particularly angry area and, though small, it was open, bleeding, twisting with the violent movement. Realizing she may have played a part in Austin’s suffering, Danny grew particularly cantankerous when the man grunted again under the strain of Rena’s constant thrashing.
If the men weren’t willing to put the woman out of her misery, she’d just have to assume the job herself.
“Sorry, honey, but I’m about to throw something again.” Stepping around, she braced her feet apart, drew back her fist and put her shoulder behind the swing. Rena’s head snapped. Eyes crossed, a drunken weave...and the woman slumped bonelessly out of Austin’s hold.
Standing over her victim, Danny couldn’t even feel the aching throb in her hand, she was too glad to see the woman finally down. Her father made a noise akin to shock and awe while Austin slumped back against a tree for support.
“Amazon,” he muttered, though his eyes held a look of admiration...and genuine appreciation.
“You should have let me do that the first time,” she scolded, moving to lift his shirt again.
“It goes against the grain to hold a woman down for an ass kicking.”
Herb kept the shotgun trained on the unconscious woman while his daughter lovingly tended to the Cahill, getting way too familiar with the man’s naked torso. Then he spotted the gun. “I’ll take that firearm while you’re here, Cahill,” he grumbled sourly.
A siren was heard in the far distance. To show good faith, Austin complied and put the weapon in Herb’s outstretched palm.
Since Austin’s shirt was already ruined, Danny prompted him to remove it as the sun began to rise over the Eastern landsca
pe.
“Not the time,” Austin remarked, glancing shadily at her father.
“It’s either yours or mine, Cahill.”
She’d been in that bulldog mode since goading Rena on her hands and knees. Unwilling to try her, he reached up and over, pulled the T-shirt off his back while Herb harrumphed from his position behind the shotgun.
“Before you lose focus, Pop,” Danny threw over her shoulder as she wadded up the cloth and applied pressure to the blood flow, “that is the woman who is responsible for Derek’s death.”
The pathetic creature stirring on the ground looked far from lethal. “Who is she?” Herb asked none to gently.
“She was my fiancé,” Austin volunteered, taking charge of his wound. “Not so dead.”
“But very deadly.” Danny missed Austin’s cringe as she bent to find the source of a very familiar noise on Rena’s person. “Did you hear that?” she asked, rummaging through pockets. “It sounded like a phone. Like my phone.”
It was then Austin realized he’d been too bushwhacked to remember to shake Rena down. “Check her bra. She used to hide things in there.”
Really? Danny thought. Jeez. “Why, so you could go fishing for it?” Her comment came out nasty, jealous.
“Danielle, watch your tongue.”
“Sorry, Pop.”
Danny took her bottom lip between her teeth and pushed up her sleeve before taking the plunge. Rena stirred while Danny probed inside the woman’s unmentionables. Sure enough, much to her disgust, she produced her cell phone from between the two large, warm, sweaty lobes. Holding it out as if swarming in cooties, Danny glanced up at Austin with a look of distaste. “Way overrated, if you ask me.”
It was definitely not the time for humor, so Austin bit back his laugh, sparing Herb the added trauma. All amusement faded, however, when he noticed Danny go pale. “What is it?”
Rena’s eyes blinked open. Herb tensed, but kept his finger from the trigger housing as long as his daughter was in range. “Get back, sweetheart. She’s coming around.”
Instead of backing away, Danny twisted and looked at Rena, her face coloring with rage. “What did you do?” The woman’s expression was filled with juvenile satisfaction. “What did you do?”
“Danny!” When Austin had her attention, he spoke slowly, clearly. “Talk. To. Me.”
Danny stumbled to her feet, clutched the phone in her hand as she read the texted conversation convers that filled the screen. I’m here. Where are you and what was that gunshot? Her eyes flew up to meet his, panic in them as she explained. “It’s Melanie. She’s at the tree house.” Frantic now. “Rena texted her from my phone telling her to meet me at the tree house!”
Austin read her mind. Brett had warned them that Rena might give Danny a nudge toward the unsuspected death trap. “Don’t!” he barked when her body language told him she was going to run. “Call her. Tell her not to go near the bed and to get out of there.”
Shaking, Danny recognized the wisdom of his words behind her building wall of dread.
“Step away from the woman, Danny,” Herb warned, ever watchful. He didn’t know what was going on, but he sensed the need to keep his focus on the psycho who slashed his daughter’s back with imaginary daggers. “She’s got her sights on you.”
Confident her father had her back, Danny stepped away and thumbed Melanie’s number. But before she could complete it, the woods erupted in a distant sound of cracking wood, falling boards, crashing tin panels...
Danny turned toward the sound in shocked horror. Her heart slammed against her backbone. “No! Oh, God, no!”
Austin looked at Herb just as he moved to follow Danny who had already disappeared into the woods. “You got her?”
The sirens were loud now. Police were here. Herb was ready. “She’s not going anywhere! Go!”
Hell bent. By the time he broke through the tree line, Danny was already halfway across the field. Damn, but the girl could run despite her small size.
Toward the pond, a repercussive dust cloud was made dramatic by early morning rays. Below it, a devastating pile of rough sawn boards, twisted roofing tin, crushed furniture and mangled interior littered the ground at the base of the black walnut tree. From above, a few remaining support boards hung cockeyed and confused from the trunk, the older tower left perched alone in the tall branches, though loose and teetering from the sudden lack of support. Austin could hear Danny’s panicked cries as he caught up with her, calling out Melanie’s name. But the rubble had settled into devastating silence.
“Melanie!”
“Be careful!” Austin warned from behind her as he joined her search. She was driven by her emotions again, tackling the pile of debris without caution. But it wasn’t long before a small voice reached them from somewhere up high.
Both heads shot back, eyes searching. Austin was beside her, Danny knew, shirtless, bleeding and breathless in the morning sun...and every bit as alert as she.
He’d heard it too.
“Melanie!” she shouted again.
After a few more stagnant seconds, a blond head slowly appeared over the skewed rail of the tower. “D-Danny?”
Relief weakened her knees. Melanie was alive. But the stability of the tower was severely compromised.
“Stay where you are and don’t move!”
Austin knew better than to ask if she knew what she was doing. Danny was already halfway up the nearby oak tree before the question would have formed anyway. The effortless way she moved, defying gravity in the maze of branches, bespoke of a woman who could have performed the task blindfolded.
Danny jumped for the rope, swung from oak to walnut and grabbed hold of a remaining support board with her leg. The board creaked under her weight, wouldn’t hold. But it gave her just enough leverage to vault into a crotch and clamp on with her arms before the board gave way.
“Head’s up!” she yelled over her shoulder in case Austin was in the path of the falling board. A solid thunk met her ears, followed by another and another as the board seesawed from the impact with the ground.
“You’re going to get yourself killed!” Austin bellowed from below, fury underlining each word.
It was clear, Danny thought with a shake of her head, she would need to deliver the mortality lecture as soon as she made it back to the ground.
The rest was easy. Rope in mouth, Danny clawed her way to the tower and put her weight in the corner that was most securely nestled in the branches. Melanie had already found her way to that place and Danny held out a hand.
Bark splintered beside her head just before a sharp crack reached her ears. The two women instinctively ducked and Danny heard Austin yell from the ground. What the hell?
Rena’s wild laughter floated around them. Another impact, closer this time as splinters flew.
The bitch was shooting at them? But how? Where was her father? The police? So many questions swam in her brain, but Danny had no time to ponder them. And forget the rope idea. “Change of plans, Mel,” she stated boldly and took the woman’s terrified face in her hands. “Do you trust me?”
“Uh...” In an apparent tug-of-war between faith and fear, Melanie’s brow creased helplessly.
“Good.”
A heartbeat later, Melanie’s petrified scream followed her from the top of the branches, all the way down to the crystal clear water thirty feet below.
As soon as Danny heard the subsequent splash, she looked back just in time to see two cops hustle out of the forest, and Austin tackle Rena to the ground. But not before the lunatic was able to fire off another shot. Terrified for him, she moved too fast over the unstable tower floor in an attempt to jump for the pond. Boards gave way.
A sickening crack kening cbeneath her bare feet. Then there was nothing.
Her own yelp followed her down from the top of the branches.
Rena took Austin’s shoulder in the chest and she hit the ground hard. As the breath left her lungs, the woman’s evil laughter ended on a struggled
gasp.
Having prepared himself for impact, Austin leveled her with ease then rolled cleanly into a crouch behind her. Two uniformed officers were running toward them, one with weapon drawn, the other weaponless. He knew they were there, but he’d heard Danny’s distressed yell and watched in horror as the woman he loved plummeted out of the lofty branches, fell awkwardly toward the earth. Tower debris followed her all the way indicating a flagrant loss of control.
The air in his lungs turned to leaden weight. It was the backhoe incident all over again. Cops shouted warnings, Herb yelled from somewhere, but Austin ran.
“Danny!”
Melanie crawled to shore just as he reached the rubble. With a different perspective of things, she was able to watch in wonderment as the man’s frantic search leveled everything in his path. Nothing seemed too heavy, too cumbersome, too awkward. It all went flying.
Now, the two times Melanie had laid eyes on Austin Cahill was when the man had gotten in her face about one thing or another. Having been the recipient of such wrath, all she could do was watch...it didn’t occur to her to put his worries at ease.
Near blind in his frenzy, Austin barely caught the sound of coughing coming from somewhere just ahead. A board moved. More coughing.
“Danny!” Austin stumbled out of the quagmire and onto grass when another board was pushed upward. He caught it, flung it aside.
Deadly blenders, flying bullets, murdering psychopaths, failing brakes...bring them on. But when his frantic eyes first caught sight of her, he knew...Danny Bennett would one day be the death of him.
She was lying in bed staring up at the morning sky. Dirty, tousled, choking on dust, but otherwise, in her torn sweater and PJ’s, she could have just awakened from a deep sleep amid a pile of debris.
Austin couldn’t speak, he was so relieved. But he did sink to his knees when she finally sat up, swung her legs to the ground.
“That was pretty good, huh?” she said matter-of-factly, brushing dirt off the messy coverlet. “Can you believe this thing just settled here in one piece?”