by Bella Andre
She wanted to launch herself at Jenny and wrap her hands around her throat, but a moment's satisfaction wasn't worth a bullet in her chest. She wanted to be alive to witness Jenny's life sentence, to watch the handcuffs clip into place over her bony wrists.
Jenny didn't reply as she shoved the gun into Maya's breastbone. "Get to it, already. I'm working the afternoon shift and I don't want to be late." She shoved Maya back to work with the gun's cold metal barrel.
After everything she'd done--after everything she was about to do--Jenny was worried about clocking in late to work? But then, hadn't she served them their sandwiches yesterday, knowing that Robbie was in critical condition in the hospital, knowing she'd likely killed him with the explosion?
Maya's hands were numb as she picked up a heavy gas can and hefted it over to the far corner of the house.
"Don't try to run," Jenny warned. "I'm a great shot."
After everything Jenny had done so far, Maya didn't doubt it. She possessed a strange group of talents for a waitress, and clearly could have done so much more with her life if she weren't so deranged.
Maya's heart clenched as she uncapped the can and started pouring fuel onto the redwood decking and shrubs surrounding Joseph's cabin. Logan had grown to manhood here, had started his life anew in this house. It wasn't enough for him to lose one home today, Jenny had to take everything from him in one fell swoop.
"Feels good, doesn't it?" Jenny's words were carefree and happy as she watched Maya do her sick bidding, liberally sprinkling fertilizer pellets in her wake.
"No," Maya said. "This is a horrible thing to do."
"Actually, if anyone ever asks, I'm going to tell them that I tried to stop you from setting dear Joseph's house on fire. He was such a sweet man, after all."
Maya was this close to throwing the empty red gas can at her. Silently, she completed the atrocious task, her shoulder and arm muscles burning from picking up so many cans of gas. All that mattered now was staying alive as long as possible. She prayed Logan was on his way back.
"Now for the really fun part," Jenny said when Maya was done. "Here's a box of matches. Start lighting."
Maya's eyes widened. With this much fuel on the dry grass, and with the wind blowing a gale, even one match could instantly combust and burn her. "You're crazy."
Jenny raised an eyebrow. "Guys sometimes say that, but it's just because they can't handle a girl like me." She jammed the gun into Maya's skull, making her wince. "Start lighting."
Maya's hands trembled as she lit the first match. Silently asking for forgiveness, she threw the match against the house. A path of fire lifted off the grass and goose bumps of horror covered her flesh, head to toe.
"I can't do this," she said, backing away from the house.
She heard Jenny cock the gun. "Sure you can. Especially since it doesn't look like lover boy's coming back any time soon to save you. He and Joseph are probably already dead."
No, Jenny was wrong. Logan was alive. She'd know if he was dead, would feel it deep in her bones, in the center of her heart.
Temporarily out of options, she dropped one lit match after another against Joseph's cabin, and then, suddenly, Jenny's cold hands were on Maya's wrists and she was duct-taping them together behind her back.
Maya clasped the half-full box of matches tightly in her palm. They were all she had, her only potential weapon.
"Good job," Jenny praised. "Now let's go for a hike." Jenny pushed her forward with the gun, then picked up a chainsaw. "Move it."
Maya felt her eyes go wide as she looked at the machine and forced herself to speak calmly. "You don't want to do this, Jenny."
"Sure I do. I couldn't believe how lucky I was when you showed up to investigate. Here I thought I was only going to fuck with Logan's life by lighting the wildfire and calling the tip line, but now I get to take you down too. This is going to be superfun."
Fumbling with the matchbox at Jenny's straightforward admission of guilt, Maya forced herself to calm down so that she could slide it open and slip out a match. She let it fall to the ground for Logan to find.
"If you get caught for starting a wildfire and burning buildings, you won't be in jail too long," she lied. "But if you murder people--"
"Too late," Jenny said cheerfully. "That young hotshot is already dead. Which is really too bad, because he was kind of cute. You know what's really sad, though? I hadn't gotten around to fucking him yet. The young ones are always so energetic and eager to please."
Maya stumbled over a rock, stunned by the woman's cruelty. She dropped another match to the ground, praying her trail of bread crumbs wouldn't catch fire and disappear before Logan found them.
"How many hotshots have you slept with?"
She'd need to know these things when she got away, when she was testifying against Jenny in court, even though she couldn't stand the thought of Logan or any of his men in bed with this horrible woman.
"Not as many hotshots as I'd like. It's a pain that they're gone for so many months every year. But most of the guys in town."
Maya's skin went cold and clammy, even though they moved closer to the heat of the fire with every step up the trail. Ignoring the push of metal against her ribs, she spun around.
"Did you know Tony Jackson?"
Jenny's lips curved up. "Oh yeah, I knew Tony."
Her words snaked around Maya's heart like a huge, deadly anaconda. "Did you sleep with him?"
"Of course I did. He was one of the best I ever had. Too bad he had to die." Jenny poked her head closer to Maya's and asked, "Why, did you know him or something?"
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HOLY SHIT."
Logan nearly barreled into Joseph, who'd cursed and then gone dead silent as he stood in the center of the trail. What now? Logan moved out of the shade of a baby oak and that's when he saw that Joseph's cabin was engulfed in flames. His heart stopped cold.
"Maya's inside."
Joseph grabbed Logan's shoulders as if he were still seventeen years old. "Goddamn it, go save her!"
Logan sprinted downhill. All he'd been doing for the past two days was running up and down this goddamned mountain. First to save Connor. Then Joseph. And now Maya.
His house was gone. Joseph's cabin would be nothing but ashes very soon. But Robbie was dead. Dead.
Someone had killed him. And if it turned out to be Jenny, Logan hoped she'd burn in hell for what she'd done.
He was long past the point of pain as he sprinted onto Joseph's property. Flames leapt ten feet in the air and the stench of gasoline filled his lungs.
"Maya," he roared into the smoke-filled sky, yelling her name over and over, praying she'd answer.
A quick check of the property's perimeter confirmed what he'd already guessed: Maya was gone. She'd promised to be here waiting for him, but she hadn't bet on Jenny. Neither of them had.
Logan had never been this scared and knew it would be nearly impossible to treat this situation like any one of the hundreds of emergencies he'd worked. But he wouldn't be worth shit if he didn't calm down. He unclenched his fists and forcibly slowed his heart rate.
Maya was one of the smartest women he knew. She wasn't going to let someone haul her off without leaving a clue as to her whereabouts. And Jenny's truck was parked between two pine trees. Which meant they couldn't have gone far.
He quickly ruled out the driveway. If they'd been headed to the road, Jenny would have taken her truck. Which meant they had to be back up in the mountains, on a different fork of the trail than he and Joseph had taken.
He looked down and saw a match on the ground, and then another, heading toward the trailhead. Logan sprinted back toward the mountain, passing Joseph, who was on his way down.
"You didn't find her?"
"No. But I will. She left me a trail of matches."
"Smart girl." Joseph stripped off his fire-resistant jacket. "Put this on. It'll buy you some time if you need it. I'll run out to the freeway and get some help."
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Joseph didn't tell him to be careful. Not when he already seemed to know that Logan would do whatever it took--and risk everything--to ensure Maya's safety.
Logan put the jacket on as he ran uphill, not giving the burning cabin another glance. It was just another building, wood and nails, not flesh and blood.
Maya was all that mattered now.
"Did I know him?" Intense, unending rage raced through Maya, from head to toe and back again as she launched herself at Jenny, swinging her bound arms around in an arc, knocking the woman into the mountain, screaming "You fucking bitch, he was my brother!"
She spun around, wanting to hit Jenny harder, faster this time. But before she could make contact, a sharp blade whacked against her skull and knocked her back into a tree trunk. She felt something warm and wet trickle through her hair.
Jenny threw the bloodstained chainsaw down into the dirt. Taking advantage of Maya's momentary shock, she quickly rolled duct tape around her body. Maya kicked and yelled, but without the use of her hands, she was soon imprisoned against the tree.
"I was planning on killing you," Jenny said viciously, "but now I'm thinking I should just leave you here to burn. It'll hurt so much more that way, take so much longer for you to die."
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Maya registered Jenny's crazy threats. But she needed to know for certain what happened to her brother.
"Did you light that apartment on fire?"
Jenny put the roll of duct tape next to the chainsaw and her gun. "Oh, you mean the fire that killed Tony?" She almost looked bored, as if one rookie firefighter mattered so little. She fluffed her sweat-dampened hair. "Um, yeah. But he'd really pissed me off."
"How?" The word left Maya's lips like a bullet. Like the one she wanted to put between Jenny's eyebrows.
"Do you really want to know?" Jenny rolled her eyes. "I mean, he's been dead for months. Don't you think you should get over it already?"
Maya tried to wrench herself away from the tree, but the duct tape around her chest and legs held her firmly in place.
"Tell me why."
Jenny continued taping her up as she said, "We went out a couple of times. And then he told me I was acting all weird and he thought we should cool it. Piece of shit rookie was lucky to score me in the first place. He hadn't seen weird yet. The things I could have made him do." Her eyes went slightly unfocused. Glazed. "I knew his shifts. Thought it would be fun to see how he did in a big fire. It was just pure luck that he died. Served the bastard right."
"Bitch!"
Maya's scream reverberated through her entire body and still it wasn't enough. She wanted to rip Jenny limb from limb for taking her brother away without even the slightest bit of remorse.
Jenny's face contorted in anger and she grabbed the chainsaw from the dirt and forced the blade up under Maya's chin.
"No, you're the bitch. The shady bitch who stole my man."
Maya's eyes teared from the saw's jagged teeth and chain digging into her neck and jaw, but she refused to show any fear. There was no point in playing nice anymore, no reason to keep her mouth shut.
"You're disgusting. No wonder Logan wouldn't go near you."
Jenny jammed the chainsaw harder into Maya's neck. "You're wrong. He would have fallen in love with me, and I'd be carrying his baby instead of Dennis's, if it weren't for you."
Maya was amazed she could register one more shock at this point. "You're pregnant?"
"Aren't you going to congratulate me? Because I'm going to tell everyone Logan's the father."
Jenny's sick words lanced Maya's heart like knives. Oh God, even after they were all dead, it wouldn't end. A child would have to live with this insanity every single day.
"No one will believe you," she choked out from beneath the pressure of the chainsaw. "They'll all know what filth you are. They'll all know you're lying."
Jenny snarled and pulled the chainsaw away from her neck, looking for the start cord, then pulling it hard. Maya gasped in a breath, one that looked like it was going to be her last.
Her nemesis lifted the grinding chainsaw, aiming right for Maya's heart. "I've changed my mind. I think I'll kill you instead of letting you burn. And I know exactly what I'm going to cut off first. Your precious tits. Logan would be so sad if he knew what I was about to do to your boobies. Tell me, how did it feel when Logan sucked them? When he squeezed them?"
Maya shot a quick barb at her killer: "Amazing."
Jenny's cheeks went red, as if Maya had slapped them. "I wish he could find you like this, see your charred tits on the ground. But if he's not already dead, I'm going to have to take care of him too. I hope you fucked him good and hard this morning, because it was good-bye."
Maya pinched her eyes shut as Jenny moved closer. Back when she'd lost her father and brother, she'd wanted to die. But now she wanted to live, if only to see Logan's face one more time, to feel his heart beating steady and strong beneath her cheek.
A roar sounded to her left and she opened her eyes just in time to see Logan flying through the air, his hands clamping around Jenny's waist as he dragged her to the ground.
Maya's heart was in her throat as she watched the man she loved knock the roaring chainsaw off the side of the trail and wrestle Jenny into a prone position beneath him.
"Stop it, Logan. I love you," Jenny cried.
He shifted his weight slightly in shock. "Did you start this wildfire to get back at me for not going out with you?"
Maya watched a tear seep out from beneath Jenny's lashes as she said, "Dennis told me about Joseph's problems. I knew you'd think he lit the fires. And I knew someone would see you putting them out." Her tears stopped falling and she smiled a sick, twisted smile. "It was so easy to set you up. But I wasn't going to kill you, Logan. I was going to comfort you." Her smile turned to a scowl. "If she hadn't shown up, that's what I would have done." She craned her neck up from the dirt to yell, "But you did, you stupid cunt. Because you wanted to fuck him too bad, couldn't wait to drop to your knees and suck his dick, could you? That's when I knew I needed to kill both of you."
Logan's low, hard voice interrupted the woman's angry ramblings. "I could kill you for touching her."
Spit flew from her mouth and slid down his cheek. "Fuck you, asshole."
His hand went around Jenny's throat and even though Maya hated her more than anyone on earth, she couldn't let Logan kill her. Not for her. Or Robbie. Or Tony. Or Connor.
No matter how much Jenny deserved it, Logan would be haunted by her death for the rest of his life. Maya couldn't let it be one more thing Jenny took from him.
"Logan, please. Don't. Let go of her." She wasn't sure if he could hear her, but she kept talking anyway. "I know she deserves to die, but not like this. She'll get what she deserves. I promise. She'll rot in prison for the rest of her life."
She held her breath as she waited for him to decide. And then she realized he must have let up his grip, because Jenny started coughing.
He didn't turn his face away from his unwilling hostage. "Are you all right? Did she hurt you?"
Maya'd certainly felt better, but she was alive. Thank God.
"I'm fine."
She was about to tell him the duct tape was by his left foot so that he could restrain Jenny, when her shoulders and her hair suddenly felt like they were about to ignite. She looked up into the branches above her head and worked to contain her fear.
"Logan, this tree is on fire."
He shifted his weight to look at her, and Jenny took advantage of his split-second distraction to wriggle away. She ran up the hill, as fast and nimble as a rabbit.
Logan squatted at her feet, ripping at Maya's duct tape with his teeth and hands.
Seconds later he'd removed enough tape to set her free. Grabbing her hand, he pulled her out from beneath the tree, just before a loud crack sounded and it split in half.
"The fire will take care of her," he said, and even as the fire threatened to overtake Maya, she shivered
at the picture his words painted.
He pulled her down the trail; the smoke was so thick she couldn't see farther than her elbow. She tripped and fell to her knees, and the next thing she knew, Logan's arms were around her and he was carrying her through the smoke. She clung to his neck, knowing if she let go and they were separated, she'd be toast. She tried to take a breath, and choked on the thick haze of smoke.
"We're going to get out of this," he promised her in a low voice, and she believed him, even though all signs pointed to the opposite outcome.
Suddenly, another blaze appeared, a fireball rolling up the hill, straight toward them. Maya heard a squeak of fear emerge from her lips as the blaze illuminated their circle of hell. She tried to get closer to Logan, her heart racing.
"Hold on tight."
He dropped down and pressed her into an indentation in the rock, pulling his fire-resistant jacket over his head and fanning it out to cover them both completely. It would buy them fifteen seconds, maybe twenty, in a flame front.
Her nose was jammed into his breastbone, and even though she could hardly breathe, even though she'd nearly been massacred by a madwoman with a chainsaw, she felt strangely safe.
Flames rolled over the trail and he said, "Scream," so she started yelling. It was the only way to keep the fiery gases from scorching her lungs, but she would have screamed anyway, as she felt a sphere of fire roll straight toward them.
She braced for impact, tried to somehow prepare herself to be burned alive, when the fireball rammed into the rock and exploded. She didn't know how long Logan held her as her entire body shook. Of everything that had happened so far, this was by far the scariest. Jenny's bombs and house fires were crazy, but nature was wholly unpredictable.
Logan pulled her against him and she'd never been happier to feel his strong arms circle her body. She scrunched his sweat-soaked shirt in her hands, burrowed her face into the hard wall of his chest.
"Thank you," she finally said, the words "I love you" still stuck on the tip of her tongue.
God, why couldn't she just say it already? He was the man she'd been waiting for all her life. And yet, in the circle of his arms, she was more scared than she'd ever been.
He cupped her jaw in his hand and covered her mouth with his, sweeping his tongue inside to mate with hers. Without words, his kiss told her how afraid he'd been of losing her, how much he loved her.