“We’re going to walk to my car.” His breath touched her cheek, and she caught a whiff of alcohol and garlic. Apparently he had enjoyed a nice meal before he came out to the house to kick the shit out of her. “Then we’ll drive to wherever you’re staying. You’re going to give me everything, and we’ll wipe your email account and your computer, and I’ll leave. We’ll be done, and we’ll never have to see each other again. You understand?”
“Got it,” she croaked.
He frog-marched her through the backyard to the side street that bordered the property. A grinding red agony flared with every step. He had cracked a few of her ribs. As they went, she tried to look around, squinting through a stinging wetness in one eye.
Half the neighboring houses were dark. It was Saturday night, and many people would have gone out. He was abducting her, and there wasn’t anybody around to witness it.
Austin had tucked his BMW unobtrusively in the shadow of a large maple, around the corner from the house. When she saw the shadowed car, something happened to her blurred vision.
The outline of the car faded. She distinctly saw red plastic gasoline containers and coils of rope in the trunk.
Gasoline and rope.
What a shock. He had no intention of letting her go after destroying all the copies of the bank statement and wiping her email.
Well, fair enough. She had no intention of meekly climbing into his car.
It wasn’t hard to pretend to stumble. She went down, biting back a groan as her throat and her twisted arm took the full weight of her body where Austin restrained her.
For a moment she choked at the tight band of his arm around her windpipe while the socket in her shoulder popped. Then with a muffled curse, he released her. She dropped to the ground and rolled onto her back.
He was already moving to restrain her again, kneeling on one of her arms while he leaned hard on one elbow at the base of her throat.
She barely paid attention. The moon cast his features and the bulk of his shoulders in shadow, but she could see him well enough.
This time the lightning did not just flicker at the edges of her gaze. Instead, it filled her vision entirely. Power illuminated her body from within. Tucking in her chin, she focused on his chest and released.
Power blew out of every pore in her skin. When it punched into him point-blank, it lifted him into the air and threw him several feet away. He landed heavily, with an audible thump.
For a moment neither one of them moved.
Get up, she told her body fiercely. Move.
Easier said than done. She rocked onto her side, letting the spike of renewed pain out in a hiss as she dragged first one knee underneath her torso, then the other, balancing her weight on one hand while the arm that Austin had twisted hung uselessly at her side.
Austin groaned from where he had landed. He was stirring too.
She beat him upright, just barely. Fighting to stay on her feet, she waited until he straightened. He stared, his expression full of uncomprehending shock.
“What the fuck was that—”
There was so much lightning she could barely see through it. Her body couldn’t contain it all. It blew out of her, and she hit him again.
This time the blow spun him around. He twisted and fell as hard and gracelessly as he had before.
That gave her the chance to secure her balance. Sucking air, she took her first real breath since he had hit her. Something ground in her chest as her lungs expanded, but the oxygen helped to clear her head.
She swiped at the wetness obscuring her left eye, watching warily as Austin coughed and moaned. Her phone was in the house, resting on the kitchen counter. She couldn’t call for help until she got inside. She couldn’t run to get to it, nor could she run away.
She might be able to hobble. And it seemed like too much damn effort to suck in a deep enough breath to scream for help—if any of her neighbors were around to hear it. Her ribs were giving her hell.
Meanwhile Austin struggled to get up again.
Sometimes you have to go with what you’ve got.
“Earlier I was feeling like there was something lacking from this divorce,” she croaked as she limped toward him. “Some kind of final conversation, a mutual acknowledgment that this is the end.”
As he lifted his head, he gave her a look filled with wide-eyed dread. She hit him again with magic, hard.
She told him, “I’m not some piece of property to get under control. I’m not obligated to spread my legs just because you happen to want sex. So you had to earn every fuck you got out of me. Cry me a river, asshole.”
The Power was so lovely and light. Wielding it was like wrapping her fingers around the sun. She poured it down her arm and held it in one hand, relishing its warm, radiant glow. When she flung it at his face, it struck him with an audible slap that knocked his head back.
“I’m not someone you can cheat on whenever it suits you while you ignore every promise and vow you ever made to me.”
She struck him again. This time she knocked him onto the street, and as he stumbled and went down, he cried out, a high, thin sound that barely caused a ripple in the air. Collapsing, he lay sprawled on the pavement and didn’t move.
Had she killed him? She hadn’t meant to, but she wasn’t sure.
You don’t want to hurt someone by accident. Everything you do, you want to do with intention.
She should probably stop pounding on him, but she still had so much rage left. The Power told her Austin had tucked a cigarette lighter in his front pocket. Carefully, she bent over to fish it out. Then she turned to regard his beloved BMW. He had always taken take care of that car like it was his own baby.
This time the blast that blew out of her was like a ground-to-air missile, taking with it the last of her strength. The car flipped into the air. With a booming crash that splintered the peaceful night, the BMW landed on its roof and rolled three times before it came to a halt. The smell of spilled gasoline wafted over to her.
She told Austin’s immobile form, “I’m not some possession you can destroy just because I’m no longer convenient.”
In the distance, she heard a shout. Then another. People would be arriving on the scene very soon, but she had one final thing left to do.
Limping over to a wet, spreading stain on the pavement, she squatted, flicked the cigarette lighter, and held the small flame to the liquid. It caught, and a blue flame streaked along the path the liquid had taken, back to the car. Within moments, the BMW was engulfed in flames.
Straightening, she walked away. She made it halfway back across the lawn before the car exploded. The concussion slapped her in the back, followed by a warmth like a spread of fiery wings, and boiling heat and light turned the night into day.
She glanced over her shoulder. Austin hadn’t been caught in the explosion, not that she had stopped to calculate one way or another. He lay prone and unmoving while, several yards away, his car burned in the fireball from the ignited gasoline.
She nodded. There was the closure she’d been looking for.
* * *
She made it back to the house, locked the back door, and turned off the lights. Then she scooped up her phone. Leaning against the counter for support, she punched Josiah’s name with a shaking finger. She listened to it ring. And ring.
Well, shit. Her knees wobbled, and she sank to a sitting position on the floor.
Just when she was about to tap Off, he picked up. “Molly.” His voice was cool and guarded. “I’m surprised to hear from you. What do you want?”
“I might have killed Austin,” she croaked. “Oopsie?”
His coolness vaporized. “What happened,” he demanded. “Did he hurt you? Where are you?”
“At the house. His car’s on fire. The neighbors are disturbed.” Leaning her head back against the cabinet, she said tiredly, “I might know only one magic trick, but it turns out I can do a lot with it. I can’t stay here.”
“You didn’t answer
my question. Did he hurt you?”
“Yeah.”
“How bad is it?”
“Do doctors still tape broken ribs?”
He swore, and her thoughts scattered like buckshot. If she went to the hospital, they would ask her questions she didn’t want to answer. Meanwhile, when Austin’s car stopped burning, some bright expert would inspect it.
There were no skid marks on the road, no other signs of impact. What about the extra gasoline? Cars carried a lot of gasoline anyway, so maybe that wouldn’t matter, but the BMW was in park, and that was decidedly incongruent with an accident.
It was going to look exactly like what it was—arson.
“I can hear the approaching sirens.” Josiah’s voice brought her from her mental wandering.
How could he hear the sirens from where he was? Belatedly, she realized she could hear approaching sirens too. He must have caught the sound over the phone. Shock was turning her stupid.
“I could come pick you up, but it would take time for me to get there. It would be better if you could leave before they get organized at the scene. Can you drive?”
She sighed. “Only way to know is if I try.”
His voice gentled. “All you need to do is get a quarter mile away and you’ll be out of the activity. Do that, and I’ll meet you wherever you are.”
“Got it.”
“Stay on the line.”
“Can’t,” she grunted. “Need both hands to get up.”
He swore again, a quiet whiplash of profanity. “Call me back as soon you can.”
“I’m not going to call you back right away. I’m going to try to make it back to my apartment.”
“Fine, dammit. Give me the address and I’ll meet you there.”
She told him, hung up, and concentrated on getting upright, finding her purse and keys, and slipping out the back door.
To her left, the edge of the scene was barely visible. She couldn’t see the car itself, which was around the corner, but she could see the glow from the fire along with a few people who had gathered. Their attention was on the unfolding drama.
She didn’t think anybody noticed as she slipped around the garage to where her car was parked in the driveway.
Climbing in made every injury flare with such intense pain she almost passed out. Hunched over and panting shallowly, she started the ignition, reversed, and eased down the street in the opposite direction from the fire.
Once she was stationary and had the Jeep in motion, driving became easier. Her body decided it was a good time to start shaking, so she took her time. When she finally turned into the driveway by her apartment, a dark, powerful, low-slung car waited down the street, lit by a nearby streetlight.
She put the Jeep in park. Her door was yanked open, and Josiah’s big body filled the open space. When he saw her, he hesitated, and his face tightened.
“Okay,” he said carefully while a muscle bunched in his lean jaw. “You’re going to be okay.”
She gave him a thumbs-up. “Piece of cake.”
Something happened to his tight features. She was too preoccupied with her own problems to figure out what it was.
Gently, he cupped long fingers around her hand, upraised thumb and all. “Can you swing your legs out?”
She thought that over. It was a surprisingly complicated maneuver that would mean shifting her ribs and using abdominal muscles. “Sure. Give me a few minutes.”
“You don’t have to,” he told her. “I can move you, but that’s going to hurt too. Are you ready?”
She nodded. He slipped a hard, muscled arm underneath her knees. When he eased her legs out, the broken ribs ground together. A cry tore out of her, and stars flashed against her eyelids.
Then a black hole swallowed her whole, pain and all.
Chapter Eight
Josiah had been spending the weekend reviewing the last of the open case files his office inherited from the previous DA. Working extra hours didn’t bother him in the slightest. The sooner he got through the backlog, the sooner he could concentrate more on his own agenda.
He had taken two portable office files “home” with him. With ample food-delivery options, he’d had no plans for leaving the city apartment. That way he could kill two birds with one stone—he could process old case files while putting in an appearance at the address of his official life.
At least that was the plan until he received Molly’s phone call.
When his phone rang and her name appeared, he had to wrestle with an unruly surge of pride as he considered whether he would answer.
She’d ripped him a new one in their previous conversation, and he was honest enough to admit he had deserved it. But when he’d tried to extend a new olive branch, she had shut him down so hard he still heard the ice in her voice when he looked at her name on the screen.
He refused to be at the beck and call of any woman, no matter how intriguing, gifted—or right—she might be. But then curiosity got the better of him. It had been blazingly clear Molly had meant their previous conversation to be their last, so why was she reaching out again?
He picked up… and her first words galvanized him into action. He was already racing out to the parking garage and leaping into his car before they had even hung up. Casting a cloaking spell over his vehicle, he broke speed limits to reach her rental, only to be forced to sit in place until she arrived.
While he waited, he called Anson. “Austin Sullivan attacked Molly at their house, and she put him down hard. She doesn’t know if she killed him. I need you to monitor police channels and go to their house to check things out.”
“I’m on it. What am I looking for specifically?”
“For one thing, I want to know if he’s alive or dead, because that will impact her legal situation.” He fell silent, his thoughts racing as he kept a sharp eye on the quiet street.
Maria had sensed violence surrounding the Seychelles file, but they had assumed any violence would be connected to their investigation. Everyone in his coven had already accepted they walked a dangerous path as they stalked their quarry.
It had never occurred to them that Molly might become the target of violence. Maybe it should have, but she’d been smart and sensible when she’d taken precautions and rented her new place.
Then she negated all of it when she went back to her old house.
“Josiah, you still there?”
Anson’s voice snapped him back into focus. “Yes. Sorry. For another thing, we don’t know if this is purely a domestic dispute or if it’s related to the intel she gave me. Be careful, Anson. We don’t know who’s involved.”
“Understood. I’ll be in touch when I know something.” The other man disconnected.
A few minutes later, an unfamiliar Jeep Cherokee turned into the neighborhood street and approached too slowly. Josiah readied for possible battle until the SUV turned into the driveway for the rental and light from a nearby streetlamp fell on the driver.
It was Molly.
He didn’t remember leaving his car. The next thing he knew, he had muscled into the open space left by her open car door and was staring down at her.
He’d seen dead bodies and victims of violence before, both in crime photos and in real life. He was no stranger to the pallid complexions, the bruising and contusions, the lurid appearance of blood. He’d witnessed dismemberments and the gruesome results of what happened when coyotes and other wildlife feasted on a body.
But there was always an extra punch when violence hit someone he knew. His gut tightened as he looked at what Sullivan had done to his beautiful wife.
She looked dead pale, with dark hollows like bruises ringing her eyes. Blood had dripped from a scalp wound into one eye, and the opposite cheekbone was swollen and discolored. She held herself like every movement, every breath, was an agony. He’d had broken ribs before and knew just how bad she felt. God only knew what other damage she had sustained.
But he was jolted to see that somehow none of the visib
le wounds detracted from her beauty. She held herself with such fierce stoicism that, if anything, she looked even more beautiful than ever.
She looked like a warrior. Like a survivor.
Something powerful and unrecognized welled up. He didn’t understand it, and when his eyes dampened, that shocked him more than anything.
It was a relief when she passed out. His brain rebooted, and he could think again. Scooping her up, he carried her to his car and buckled her into the front passenger seat. Then he grabbed her purse, phone, and car keys and raced back to his Audi, climbed in, and drove to the safe house.
This time he followed more safety precautions than usual and drove a circuitous route. That meant the journey took twice as long, and all the while he whispered deflection spells until they were as safe as he knew how to make them. Only then did he pull behind the country house. Easing Molly’s lax form back into his arms, he tucked her possessions on her abdomen and carried her down to the basement.
Once he’d laid her on the bed, he cast a spell of divination. The areas of damage lit in his mind like flares. She had a concussion, two broken ribs, and some hellish contusions. Her left shoulder was strained badly, but there was no real damage to the joint.
She also had some internal bleeding, but it wasn’t life threatening and had almost stopped. And she should probably get stitches for her head wound.
Sullivan had used some kind of club, because the bruising and contusions striped her body in livid bars. The beating spoke of rage and cruelty. If Sullivan’s goal had been to knock her senseless, a simple blow to the head would have sufficed. He had wanted to inflict maximum pain and damage.
Josiah balled his hands into fists. He despised men who beat those who were not as physically strong as they were. “If she didn’t already kill you, I will,” he whispered to the absent man. “And I won’t just murder you—I’ll crucify you.”
He could be patient. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was how to wait for the right opportunity.
American Witch Page 10