by Lisa Jackson
It smelled rotten.
From the corner of his eye, he caught a movement, something shifting in the umbra. His eyes narrowed and his pulse jumped.
Nikki! His heart tightened.
It had to be Nikki.
What the hell was she doing?
But no—the shape was all wrong. He knew his wife backward and forward, recognized how she walked, how she ran, how she carried herself. But this person? He squinted, his focus narrowing on the movement. The muscles in the back of his neck tightened. This person was definitely a woman, he could see that much, but a shorter, more petite woman than his wife.
A woman he recognized.
A small knot formed in his gut.
What the hell was Delacroix doing here?
And why didn’t the sight of her give him a sense of relief?
* * *
Hardly daring to breathe, Nikki grabbed her phone from the sill and backed up.
A floorboard groaned against her weight.
“You hear that?” Tyson demanded sharply.
Ashley asked, “What?”
“Something.” Through the window, Nikki saw him place a finger to his lips and appear to listen.
Nikki’s lungs constricted. She shrank back from the grimy window. Pressed against the siding next to the panes, she heard Tyson’s footsteps, thought she felt the ancient floor vibrate as he strode closer to the window.
She held her breath, sensed him behind the glass, a thin wall separating them.
She swallowed back her fear, but she knew he was squinting into the darkness, could almost feel the hatred palpitating from him.
As he, intent on taking her life, searched for her.
Her insides turned to jelly and she had to fight back the fear. If she could just noiselessly slide away, creep down the side of the building, toward the river and—
A text came in. Though silent, the phone screen lit.
“What the fuck?” Tyson said, staring out as she pressed the phone to her body, smothering the screen. A pause. Obviously he didn’t know what he’d seen out of the corner of his eye. He said, “Something’s not right.” She closed her eyes, hoping not to cause any reflection if he angled for a better view of the porch.
Please, God, don’t let him see me. She willed herself into the wall and held her breath, not moving an inch as he continued to stare into the darkness.
Nikki’s mind screamed: Run! Run to the river! It’s your only way out.
But it wasn’t much of a chance and against her screaming brain, she held back, her back flat against the siding. He had a gun, no, two guns, now Ashley had one, and other weapons and night-vision goggles. If she took off now, he’d find her in a second. He was still uncertain about what he’d seen. So she had to be careful, not tip him off.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ashley said, and there was movement inside, lighter footsteps.
“I’m not sure it’s a good time. I think someone’s out there. Waiting for us to make a move.”
“Again: paranoid.”
“Shut up!”
“Okay, fine,” Ashley said angrily. “You stay, but I’m leaving.”
Yes, just go. I have everything recorded!
Ashley added, “I can’t stay any longer anyway. Ryan will get suspicious. He probably already is.”
“Ash, c’mon. You can handle him. Just wait . . .” More footsteps. And the creak of a door opening. The French doors just ten feet away. The ones between her and her escape route to the river. Her throat went dry as sand. In a second he would step onto the porch and then it would be all over. He’d find her and put his damned gun to her head.
Without thinking, she crouched low, beneath the slightly open window, and started creeping along the side wall, moving away from the river and closer to the forest. If she could just vault over the rail.
She caught a glimpse of Tyson, backlit by the lantern as he stepped outside, only a thin panel of glass panes separating them. He snapped his night-vision goggles over his eyes with one hand, while in the other he clutched his pistol.
Oh. Dear. God.
She slipped silently along the wall, rounding the corner of the porch.
“Hey!”
Oh, shit!
Footsteps followed.
“Ash!” he ordered, yelling so loudly his voice echoed through the surrounding forest. “She’s out here! Damn it! Cut her off! Go out the front!”
No! Oh, no!
She moved more quickly and then heard the front door moan as it opened.
No!
She was trapped!
She eyed the railing.
There was no time!
Tyson rounded the corner just as she tucked herself into the alcove on the far side of the chimney, the stones pressing hard against her back.
“Shit!” Tyson growled. Stopping. The footsteps no longer clambering. He must think she propelled herself off the porch!
Nikki shrank inside, willing herself to be smaller.
“Tyson?” Ashley called from the front of the house. Oh, God, she was heading this way. When she turned the corner Nikki would be visible against the old stones!
Just leave, Ashley. For God’s sake, get in your car and take off! Please, please, please!
“Shhhh!” he hissed back. Tyson was moving again, the floorboards creaking with each of his approaching footsteps. He was at the corner.
Close. He was so damned close. Nikki’s heart thundered, nervous sweat slathered her body. She bit her lip and willed herself to remain still. Unmoving. Pressed tight to the rocks.
But she could hear his breath, could feel him nearby.
She was trapped!
Cowering against the stone wall, Nikki slid her phone into her pocket and reached for the box cutter, a pathetic weapon against a taser, night-vision goggles and a gun. Two guns, she reminded herself, two damned guns and two shooters!
Crap!
Think, Nikki, think!
You’ve been in tight places before!
With trembling fingers she reached into her pocket and withdrew the church key. No match for a gun. But . . .
She hefted the bottle opener’s weight and then, hidden from Tyson’s view by the chimney stack, flung it as she had Mikado’s frisbee, skating the key through the air, whizzing it away from the lodge until it landed with a sharp thud on a tree in the surrounding forest.
“What the . . . ?” Tyson moved. The floorboards groaned.
Go! Go!
But he didn’t take the bait. Didn’t jump off the porch. Didn’t race after the sound, was still only inches from Nikki. She heard his uneven breathing, sensed his indecision.
Go! Chase after it! Fetch, damn you!
“What the fuck?” he whispered under his breath.
Now what?
“Ty?” Ashley called.
“Shh!” he hissed.
Nikki didn’t dare breathe. In just a second or two, Ashley would discover her and then she’d be a sitting duck. She had to risk leaping over the rail. It was the only way that she had the slimmest of chances! Oh, Lord. She looked across the railing to the forest not twenty yards beyond. Could she risk it? If she could spring over the rail, drop to the area beneath the deck, then if he was looking for her bolt across the open way into that border of—
As her eyes scanned the woods, she thought she saw something shift. Movement in the dense, dark foliage.
Her heart stilled.
Reed!
He was here! She felt a second’s elation, then sudden, horrifying dread.
Tyson had night vision. With his goggles, he could detect not only movement but see images. Oh, God, no.
Reed would be an unwitting target!
That couldn’t happen!
She wouldn’t let her husband pay for her damned mistakes! Tyson was shifting again.
Looking into the forest?
Spying Reed?
Even now, taking aim?
“Who the fuck are you?” Tyson whispered under his breath.
>
He’d seen Reed. Even now was probably locking Reed into his sights. In a nanosecond, Nikki reached into her pocket, her fingers clamping around the box cutter. Noiselessly, she slipped the cutter from her pocket and slid the blade from its sheath. A shallow, but razor-sharp weapon.
Used the right way?
Deadly.
Give me strength.
Pulse pounding in her ears, she dared peek around the corner of the chimney.
Tyson Beaumont was there. Inches from her.
Staring not into the forest, but straight at her!
His gun was level with her head, his night goggles a dark mask on his white face.
“I knew it!” he spat.
She couldn’t get around him! Not with the building to her back and him blocking her path. Beneath his goggles, he gave her a dark, evil grin. Gloating. He’d won and he reveled in it. Fear curled her insides. He was going to kill her. Like he’d done with all the others. She knew it.
In that instant Nikki dropped and threw herself at his legs.
“Hey!” Tyson yelled, startled, backing up, juggling his gun.
A deep female voice ordered, “Police! Tyson Beaumont, drop your weapon!”
“What the fuck?” he cried, momentarily distracted as he looked sharply into the woods.
Nikki grabbed hold of one of his thick calves, nearly knocking him over. The gun flew out of his hand and skittered across the decking, dropping between the rails.
“You crazy bitch!”
She sliced upward.
Threw all of her weight into the jab that tore through his pants and buried deep in his groin.
Doubling over, flailing, he squealed in pain. “Eeeeeoooow!”
She let go. Fingers sticky with his warm blood, she threw herself away from him, scrambled to her feet and, placing two hands on the rail, vaulted to the ground. Landing, she swept the area for the gun.
“You bitch. You goddamned fuckin’ bitch!” he roared from the decking. “Ash! Shoot her! Shoot her!”
The sound of a gunshot cracked, splitting the night.
* * *
Every muscle tense, every sense heightened, Reed sprinted across the parking lot. His gun was drawn, his eyes centered on the lodge, when the front door flew open.
Ashley Jefferson stood in the doorway, backlit by the eerie light from a lantern when a squeal erupted from the porch near the chimney stack. A male in agony, yelling and screaming, “Ash! Shoot her! Shoot her!”
Nikki!
He was too late! Though Reed hadn’t noticed her vehicle. She was here. And in trouble.
Weapon drawn, he sprinted toward the lodge, running between the parked cars, and was about to announce himself when he heard Delacroix’s voice ordering Tyson Beaumont to stand down.
So she was here?
A shot rang out.
His body jolted.
His gun flew from his hand.
Hot pain scorched his shoulder.
Thud! His head bounced off the passenger door of Ashley Jefferson’s Bentley.
White light flashed behind his eyes.
Intense pain blasted through his brain.
He blinked. Trying to grasp on to consciousness. Aware of blood flowing from his arm and the stars in the night sky above him appearing to circle and spin.
A second later, the blackness prevailed.
* * *
Another shot.
A bullet zinged past Nikki’s head.
Too close!
How?
Where had the blast come from?
Tyson? Ashley?
Or her husband?
God, where was Reed?
But a woman’s voice had rung out, demanding Tyson drop his weapon. Delacroix? But why was she here? How did she know? Had Reed contacted her?
It doesn’t matter. Just run!!!
Frantic, Nikki raced deep into the woods, trying to get some distance from the lodge. Despite being injured, Tyson was still equipped with night goggles, could follow her tracks. She ran wildly, dashing and darting, stubbing her toes, thrashing through the undergrowth that tried to trip her. She couldn’t fall. Wouldn’t make it easy for him!
“Ty?” Ashley screamed from somewhere near the lodge. “Where are you . . . Oh, Jesus!” She’d reached him, Nikki assumed, but she didn’t look over her shoulder, just ran. Fast. Cobwebs and branches slapping her, brush tangling her legs.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
The blasts thundered as he shot wildly, bullets zipping all around Nikki, striking and splintering wood from saplings too close for comfort.
For a split second she wondered about Reed.
Hadn’t she seen him? Somewhere out here in the forest?
“Shoot her!” Tyson yelled at her, gasping. “That bitch . . . that . . . fuckin’ bitch . . . she tried to cut off my balls!”
“I-I already . . . There was someone . . .”
“For God’s sake, Ash! Just fuckin’ blow her away!”
Blam!
Tyson yowled again.
“What the fuck?” Ashley screamed. “Who’s that? Who the . . . ?”
Another blast. Tyson yowled again. “Run!” he yelled, not at Nikki, but she took off anyway, running headlong to the river.
Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God!
Nikki tripped over an exposed root and went down hard, her chin bouncing on the ground, hard. Jarring her.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
“Who the fuck is shooting?” Ashley screamed just as Nikki reached the river and the sagging pier. At the last moment, she thought of her phone. If she lost it or it became waterlogged it would prove useless. At the last second, she crammed it into the open hull of a canoe.
Something sharp sliced into her palm and she gasped.
God, what?
Too late she realized she’d sliced her hand on a gaff, a long pole that curved into a huge hook and was used to haul big fish into a boat. Obviously it had been forgotten and left to rust in the rotting canoe. Blood bloomed between her fingers. Pain burned in her palm.
Could she use it?
As a weapon?
If she needed to?
Shoot her!
Tyson would stop at nothing to kill her.
She grabbed hold of the hook, swinging it from the boat and deciding if she needed to, she could drop it at any second. But just in case . . .
Why the hell not? She plunged into the cool water, splashing loudly, finding deeper water, then diving.
The gaff wasn’t much of a weapon, she thought, slipping into the current.
But it was something.
And all she had.
CHAPTER 34
A drenaline burned through Delacroix.
Her finger was tight over the trigger as she took aim and fired off several quick shots.
From her hiding place behind a split trunk of a maple, she had watched the horrific tableau unfold, with that prick Tyson Beaumont with his night goggles, taser and gun. He’d come after Nikki Gillette and as Delacroix got her first shot off, he’d attacked. Somehow Gillette had gotten the upper hand, if just temporarily. The reporter had cut him with something, then vaulted over the rail to leave him bellowing like a stuck pig while firing wildly, bleeding and calling for his girlfriend to help him run Gillette to the ground.
But Ashley had hesitated, stopping on the front porch, turning and pointing to shoot at someone or something in the shadows. A man . . . Oh, God . . . it looked like Reed. Of course. His wife had contacted him.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Incensed, sick at the thought that Reed had given his life for this shit show, Delacroix had tried to put Tyson down, but her own shot had missed and now she was hiding in the shadows, knowing that he’d seen her in his night vision.
Too bad.
Come on, you son of a bitch, I’m ready.
He was the killer? Tyson Beaumont? Why?
She tried to remember, forcing the jagged memories that had propelled her back to Savannah, to this very spot, to make sense.
Tyson Beaumont. Son of Baxter.
For a split second she closed her eyes and ears, cutting off the harsh shouts, the distant wail of a siren, trying to force the distorted pictures in her mind into clarity. But there wasn’t time, and the partial memories refused to meld into anything that made sense.
Move! There’s no time for this. Not now. You can piece it together once you’ve settled the score.
Delacroix took a deep breath and, mind racing, darted through the underbrush. She’d figured that Nikki Gillette was onto something, and had thought by following the reporter, she’d get a new insight into the mystery, but she hadn’t expected this. Not a showdown with the killers.
Blam! Blam! Blam!
She threw herself onto the forest floor. Tasted dirt. Felt the shudder of trees as bark splintered off from the shots. Tyson was on to her. She rolled quickly, settled behind a pile of rocks and chunks of rotting wood.
She felt more than a twinge of guilt that she’d gone behind Reed’s back, but she’d known he wouldn’t approve of tracking his wife. Delacroix had intended on following her and facing off with her, forcing her to tell what she knew, but she hadn’t been prepared for this shit show.
Damn that Gillette.
If she’d only backed off.
Delacroix had tried to run her to the ground first and deter the pushy journalist however she could. The idea had been to catch her trespassing, handcuff her, find out what she knew, then, if Gillette was onto something, she would be neutralized and Delacroix would take down the killer herself.
Because she had her own reasons for dealing with the maniac. Personal reasons.
But she hadn’t known that Tyson Beaumont was the murderer.
If only she had.
Maybe they wouldn’t be in this no-win, deadly situation.
And now Pierce Reed was down.
Possibly bleeding out.
No way.
Not on Delacroix’s watch.
She got her feet beneath her and lifted her head to spy Ashley and Tyson moving to the front of the building. No doubt to finish Reed off. Well, it wasn’t going to happen.
Delacroix aimed.
Tyson, backlit by the window, turned.
Too bad. Delacroix was ready to fire into the cocksucker’s back, her finger on the trigger.
He twisted his head and looked over his shoulder.