My gun was in the house. I had nothing on me but the clothes on my back.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I ran to the side of the house, but those doors were locked, too. And the front doors. It was all glass. I could break them open…I searched around for a large enough rock, but then a voice called out to me.
“Get in your car and get the fuck out of here!”
“I don’t have the keys.”
“You stole that car. Hotwire it like you did all the others.”
It was a female voice. A woman? A woman was trying to kill Cadence?
“I won’t leave without her. Let her go.”
“She’s already dead, sweetheart. And if you don’t want to be dead, too, you’d better get the fuck out of here”
My heart leapt into my throat. I wanted to wrap my hands around the throat of whoever was on the other side of the door. But I needed to stay calm, needed to work this out logically.
“Okay. I’ll go.”
I backed away, my hands raised. I didn’t hear another sound.
I started the car and pulled out of the short drive, racing it down the street. The nearest house was over a mile away. There was only one way in and out, just like Cadence had said. I didn’t see another car, a motorcycle…nothing. How did she get there?
I parked the car a mile up the road, and then quickly ran back. A peek through the bedroom window and I could see Cadence passed out on the bed, the woman pacing a few feet away, talking to herself. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I couldn’t imagine it would be hard to guess. She was working up the courage to kill Cadence at close range. Taking shots from a distance was one thing, but doing it up close? That was a whole other ball of wax.
But Cadence was still alive. I could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest. I still had a chance to save her.
I walked back to the French doors outside the living room. They were locked tight, but a good smash to the handle and I could probably break in. The sound would alert the shooter, but I was twice her size. I could overpower her easily.
I found a rock and I was about to slam it down when a hand suddenly snatched out and grabbed my wrist.
Vincent. He held a finger to his lips and gestured for me to follow him.
Hayden was standing a few feet away, waiting behind a small shed set off to the side of the bungalow.
“What are you doing here?”
“Is that really what you want to know?” Hayden demanded. “Your girlfriend’s being held by some maniac and you want to know how we got here?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” He lowered the weapon he’d had fixed on the bungalow and turned to me. “You used your real names on the airline tickets. And then someone reported a missing Jeep from the long-term parking at the airport. It didn’t take much to put two and two together. Then Sam did a property search and found this place.” He fixed his glare on me. “Any more questions?”
“How are we going to get her out of there?”
Hayden glanced at Vincent who, in turn, held up a smoke grenade.
“We made a little visit to the Army supply store. You’d be surprised what they have in the backroom that they’re willing to sell when you show off your Marine tattoos.”
“Do you know who she is?”
“Cadence? Of course. But it’s the shooter I’m more interested in. Shot the hell out of my SUV.”
“No, the shooter.”
Hayden’s eyebrow rose. “It’s a woman?”
“Yeah.”
“That changes things a little,” he said, glancing at Vincent. Vincent simply shrugged.
“You take this side,” Hayden said, pointing toward the bungalow. “Vincent will take the far side. And I’ll be in the back. Vincent will throw the grenade through the bedroom window and I’ll break open the back door. You and Vincent will enter at the same time. We’ll converge on the bedroom and take the perp down. Got it?”
I nodded, but as I did, we heard a weapon discharge. I didn’t stop to think. I started running.
“Oh, hell,” Hayden groaned, his footsteps close behind mine.
I burst through the side doors, smashing them with the sheer weight of my body. I ran through the house, jumping over furniture, so determined to get to Cadence that I wasn’t thinking. I just needed to get to Cadence. My imagination was showing me images of her, showing me her body bloody and lifeless in the center of the bed we’d shared until an hour ago. And my heart couldn’t take it. It would quite literally kill me if my vision became a reality.
But then I burst around the corner of the doorway, Hayden grabbing at my shoulder, trying to pull me out of harm’s way. But it wasn’t Cadence’s body on the bed.
It was Annie Zimmerman.
Chapter 23
Cadence
I was watching Marcus walk toward me on the beach, a smile on his face. It was late in the evening, nearly time for the sun to go down. My stomach was growling and the infection had abated enough that my appetite was finally coming back. The thought of steaks and baked potatoes was more exciting than I cared to admit. And there was this wonderful charcoal grill right here on the deck.
But then there was a hand over my face, a bitter taste in my mouth, burning my nostrils. I was being dragged backward, Marcus no longer in my line of vision. I felt my hip bounce on the floor, my shoulder wrenched the wrong way, my stitches pulling. It hurt and I think it was the pain that kept the chloroform from working properly.
I went limp, pretending that I was unconscious and that, too, helped reduce the effect as she took the rag away too soon. She dragged me onto the bed, brushing the hood off of her head as she did. I’d known…I hadn’t wanted to believe it, but when I saw her in the hangar yesterday, I knew—Annie Zimmerman.
I watched her move around the room, searching. She found Marcus’ gun hanging over the back of a chair. She took it from the holster, and then she left the room. I heard her call to him, tell him to leave. And I heard the Jeep start up. But I knew he wasn’t leaving me. He wouldn’t leave me.
It was a minute before she came back. She was muttering to herself.
“Accident,” she said. “It should look like an accident. Murder is okay, but an accident is better. It’s a double payout.”
It was as if she was repeating something someone had said to her.
“She has to die. But an accident is better, Annie. More money.”
She kept pacing, talking to herself, moving faster and faster. I watched her, not sure what to do. I wasn’t sure she’d looked at me since she came back or knew that I was awake.
I had to get out of there. I had to find Marcus.
I shifted and waited to see if she would notice. She didn’t. I waited again; I knew I had to be patient. She had the gun, but she was holding it loosely in her hands. If I could get it away from her… Guns made me nervous, but it was my only chance.
I rolled off the bed in one quick movement. Before she even noticed, I rushed her and grabbed her around her knees. She fell over, a great humph! coming from between her lips. She leaned forward and tried to hit me over the head with the butt of the gun. I shifted, landing a good punch to her side. She tried again but made contact with her own thigh instead. She was stunned for a long moment. I reached over and grabbed the gun. She held on. We struggled. But then it came free.
I turned and crawled toward the door. She grabbed my ankle. I twisted and hit her on the side of the head with my fist. I crawled again, but she fought me again. We struggled. I managed to get free and I climbed to my feet, thinking it would be so much faster to run out the door. She tried to grab me again. I twisted. The gun somehow got between our bodies. I felt her scratching to get her finger against the trigger. I couldn’t let her. I fought her; all my concentration was on the gun. She kicked me, stepped on my toes. I fought. And then…the gun fired.
I wasn’t sure what was happening at first. I thought that maybe I was hit. But then she slowly fell back, landing across the bed. Blood
poured from the center of her chest, right between her full breasts.
From her heart. Her damaged heart.
The gun fell from my hand. There was blood on my hands and on my chest. A scream, a keening scream that was the most terrible sound I’d ever heard, slipped from between my lips. And then Marcus was there, holding me, whispering that everything was going to be all right.
I’d just killed someone. It wasn’t going to be all right.
Chapter 24
Megan
“How is she?” I asked, gesturing to Cadence Price. She was on the couch beside Marcus, her head resting on his shoulder as she gave her statement to the local police. She shuddered as they brought the body out of the bedroom, hidden in a black body bag. Marcus whispered something in her ear and she turned her attention back to the detectives, but what little color that had been left in her cheeks was gone now.
“She had no choice,” Hayden said, as though that explained it all.
I nodded, wishing there was something I could do or say to help her understand that. But there was no getting around the fact that she’d taken a life. And Cadence was a nurse. It must have been horrifying for her, given that she dedicated her life to helping people. She’d volunteered to be that woman’s surrogate, for goodness sakes!
“Do we know what the motive was?”
“No. She didn’t say anything, apparently.”
I turned away. “Get them to a hotel as quickly as possible. Then bring in a team to clean up the mess. We don’t want to leave her too many reminders.”
“Where will you be?”
“Blake Zimmerman is waiting at the morgue to identify his wife’s body. I have a couple of questions for him.”
The moment I’d gotten the call about the shooting, I’d flown down on my father’s other jet—the bigger jet was already here because it’d brought Vincent and Hayden—with Blake Zimmerman at my side. I hadn’t told him everything. He didn’t learn of his wife’s death until we arrived. I’d let the cops tell him, hoping to catch something on his face that would offer more by way of explanation. He was clearly devastated, but there was more than that there. And I wanted to know what was behind it.
I drove my rental to the morgue. Blake was alone, sitting on a low bench outside the viewing room.
“They’re preparing her body.”
I sat beside him. “Did you have any idea that your wife had followed Cadence here?”
“No. I thought she was with friends.”
“Did you know she was in Abilene before this?”
“No.” He looked at me. “She told me that she was going to Austin to be with friends. I had no idea.”
“And the night at the restaurant?”
“Annie was home with me. That wasn’t her.”
I studied his face. He looked me in the eye when he said it. I believed him.
“What about the cabin?”
He looked away again.
“Do you own an AK-47 assault rifle?”
“Is this an interrogation?” He stood, turning on me, anger snapping in his eyes. “My wife was just murdered. Do you really think now is the time?”
“I think it’s the best time.”
He glared at me before turning to face the wall so that he didn’t have to look at me.
“I own an assault rifle. But I own a lot of guns. It’s my legal right.”
“I’m aware.”
“But that doesn’t mean I knew my wife was going to do this.”
“Did you know there was an insurance policy on Cadence?”
“I did.”
“Did you know you and your wife were the beneficiaries?”
“Do you really think we needed the money?” He looked at me then. “I was very successful in the NFL, Ms. Bradford. You’ve seen my home.”
“I’ve also seen your bank records. You spend more every month than you have coming in.”
He frowned. “Isn’t there some law against that?”
I smiled softly. “The cops are going to see the same thing. They’re going to have the same questions.”
“Those accounts belong to my wife, and she had a spending problem. I have other accounts that are in the black. I didn’t need the money.”
“But your wife did?”
“Look, Ms. Bradford, my wife had problems. She had this heart condition and it left her depressed most of the time. She treated her depression with shopping. I was okay with that, I could afford that. I let her do her thing, she let me do mine.”
“Having a baby. Whose thing was that?”
“Mine. Annie…she never wanted kids. She didn’t want anything to do with it. But she promised to behave whenever Cadence was around so that she would think that we were both wholeheartedly in on it. But the baby was to be mine. Annie wanted nothing to do with it.”
“Was she jealous?”
He snorted. There was pain in his eyes as he met mine.
“I was never a good guy, especially when it came to women. I used and discarded more women than I’m proud to admit. Until Annie. Until I met the love of my life. But it was all just a cosmic joke.” He ran his hands over his head. “Annie was cut from the same cloth as I am. She used and discarded men like I did women. And I was one of those men. The only reason she married me was the money. When I put her on a budget, all the rules went out the window. She and I…we hadn’t shared a bed in months. Couldn’t even be in the same room without fighting. The only reason she didn’t leave me was because I continued to fill her accounts every month.”
I stood and went to him. He crumbled when he felt my touch.
I held this huge, hulking man as he sobbed for the love he could never truly have. His pain reminded me of my own. I knew what it was like to continue loving someone who no longer loved you.
He never moved on. But I could.
I should.
Chapter 25
Cadence
I woke in the hospital, groggy as I came to from the sedative the doctor had insisted on administering the night before. The sun was shining brightly through white blinds, filling the room with an opaque sort of light. I could see the IV in my hand and feel the heavy bandages on my shoulder. I had a headache and knew it was a side effect of what little chloroform I’d breathed in. My body ached everywhere due to the bruises and muscle aches from the last few days’ adventures.
It was over. Despite the nightmare that I would always have to live with, I was relieved to know it was over. The cops had explained that Annie was cheating on Blake and she’d hoped that my death would allow her enough money to escape him, thanks to the life insurance policy I had foolishly allowed them to take out on me.
It was over. I was afraid to wonder what that really meant.
I reached up to touch my forehead, to wipe away the thin sheet of sweat that hung out there. But someone took my hand, catching it before it was more than a few inches from the mattress.
“Cadence?”
Marcus, his face gray with worry and exhaustion, stood and leaned over me.
“You’re here.”
“Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?”
He kissed me gently, his lips the best medicine I could ever need.
I touched his face, my finger brushing against a butterfly bandage holding a small section of his skin together.
“I guess I cut myself breaking through the doors at the bungalow.”
“I’m sorry.”
He chuckled. “I’ve been shot at for days and this is the only wound I got. I think I’m pretty lucky.”
“Maybe your luck will wear off on me.”
“Maybe.”
He kissed me again. “So, the doctors say that you’re free to go this afternoon. I thought we’d rent a car, take a leisurely route back to Texas. Get to know each other a little better without the whole bullets flying and everything.”
“Yeah? And then what?”
He studied my face for a long moment. “I don’t have a lot to offer you, Cadence. I li
ve out of a crappy hotel that has a weekly rate. I don’t have many belongings. I make good money, but I’m not worth anything like what you are.”
“Money doesn’t matter.”
He brushed a piece of hair out of my face. “I want to see where this might go… if you’re up for it.”
I hesitated, watching the emotion dance in his eyes. “Are you sure? I mean, I’m not really easy to live with. I like to steal all the covers and I like my kitchen organized in a particular way. And I don’t really like dogs. Are you a cat person?”
Amusement came into his eyes. “I can give it a try.”
“My apartment is kind of small, but we can look for a house. I’ve always wanted a backyard.”
He groaned. “Are you asking me to move in with you?”
“If you’re sure you want to put up with me. I can be a little difficult.”
“Very difficult. But I think it might be worth it.”
I drew him close to me, nibbled on his bottom lip a little. “I love you,” I whispered. “I know it’s only been a few days, but I know in my heart that I love you and you’re the family I was meant to have.”
“I love you.”
He kissed me roughly. I think I heard the door open, but whoever it was backed quietly away as we clung to each other, a few tears spilling between us.
But they were happy tears.
Chapter 26
Megan
“More names,” Sam said, setting a couple of pieces of paper in front of me. Listed alphabetically were lists of many names, some were French in origin, some not. They were names associated with a terrorist cell that was active in France two years ago when my asset, Dominic Gil, was working with a CIA operative in Paris. Emily Greene was killed several weeks ago for a set of files she kept on her computer, files that were her attempt to reveal the hierarchy of that terrorist cell. We think she was successful, but before we could see all the files, a computer virus corrupted them. Sam was working to fix that.
DRAGON SECURITY: The Complete 6 Books Series Page 60