“Why are you here, Simpson?” Cassidy’s entire body remained tense as she faced off with this man. One wrong move could mean tragedy for all of them. She had to play this just right.
He let out a laugh, a string of slobber flinging from his mouth and drizzling on his chin. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care because the spit stayed there as a gross reminder of how off-balance this situation was.
“So you figured out my name,” he muttered. “Good job, Chief.”
Cassidy palmed the air, trying to get Danny to simmer, though she knew it would take much more than a motion to do so. “You killed your friend, Danny. People are afraid you’re going off the deep end.”
He snarled. “Clint was weak. He gave me no reason to keep him alive.”
Cassidy glanced at Moriah again, trying to get a read on her. Her eyes were still wide. Her motions stiff. Her hands grasped Danny’s arm as it snaked around her neck.
“What about your girlfriend?” Cassidy asked. “Is she weak also?”
“Leave her out of this,” Danny growled.
There was no way Cassidy could do that. “Look, there’s got to be a better solution than this. You just need to put the gun down and let Moriah go.”
“I told you! You’re not calling the shots here!”
Moriah let out a scream. Danny’s grip must be hurting her.
She had to get the woman away from him.
“Okay, then, what do you want to do? Call the shots.” Cassidy paced closer.
“I want you to say you’re sorry.” His gaze held challenge and resentment.
Cassidy blinked, unsure where the man was going with this. “Say I’m sorry? For what?”
“For what happened at the general store. For ruining my plan and humiliating me.”
Certainly Cassidy wasn’t hearing him correctly. “You were going to kill me. What was I supposed to do?”
“I said, apologize!” His gun fired.
Cassidy gasped and swung her gaze around.
The ceiling.
The bullet had hit the ceiling.
That was all.
Moriah let out a scream, which only caused Danny to grip her more tightly.
“Enough talking!” he yelled.
This situation . . . there were very few happy endings that Cassidy would envision. She was placing all her bets on Kaleb right now, and she hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed.
The bullet would alarm Ty and Mac. But the door was slightly ajar. They should be able to see that everyone inside was okay.
“You have me here.” Cassidy stepped closer to Danny and kept her gaze locked with his. “Now, what do you want?”
Danny’s eyes narrowed as the vengeance there continued to simmer. “I’m going to leave here with you.”
Cassidy swallowed hard. She didn’t like the sound of that. “What about Moriah? You said you’d let her go, right?”
“I’m still thinking! I need you to quit yammering.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“You embarrassed me. And no one embarrasses me. Do you understand that?” Danny’s nostrils flared. He was on the verge of totally and completely losing it.
Cassidy had to get the situation under control before he blew up. “Of course. But what is leaving with me going to prove?”
“I’m going to make you an example.” His voice came out a hiss.
“How?” She hardly wanted to ask the question. Part of her didn’t want to know what he was planning.
The first smile of the evening crossed Danny’s lips. “Oh, you’ll see. Everyone will see. And no one will want to mess with me again.”
Ty sprinted toward the Meeting Place, his thoughts still racing.
He sucked in a breath when he arrived and saw Anthony Gilead standing there with . . . Kaleb? Gilead’s hand encircled Kaleb’s arm, almost like he was a prisoner.
“Why am I out here?” Kaleb snapped, jerking himself out of Gilead’s grasp.
“You tell me.” Ty narrowed his eyes at the man as he remembered Cassidy’s text message. I need your help at the Meeting Place ASAP. You’ll understand when you get here. Everything—and everyone—is connected. “Why don’t you share how you are linked with this?”
“Linked with what? I’m not linked with anything.”
“I’m not so sure that’s true. There’s a gunman in that building holding two women hostage. Now you need to start talking.”
As Ty said the words, Kaleb’s face paled.
He knew something.
“Look, I’m really sorry this is happening, but I can’t help,” Kaleb rushed, his words nearly frantic.
Ty stepped closer, his voice deepening. “No, you should look. My wife is in there. And her life is on the line as she’s trying to help an innocent woman not be killed. If you know something, you need to spill it.”
Kaleb glanced to the left then right. He was searching for a way out. Not physically. But he was looking for an excuse, Ty realized.
Ty wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Cassidy thinks you’re connected to this,” Ty continued. “Tell me why. I’m not going to ask again. Things are escalating in there, and we don’t have any time to waste.”
Kaleb raised his hands. “It’s . . . it’s my sister.”
“What about her?” What did Lela Walker have to do with this situation?
Kaleb stepped away from Gilead and shifted uncomfortably. “She’s . . . look, she’s lost. She’s made a lot of bad decisions. That doesn’t mean she’s a bad person.”
“What are you getting at, Kaleb?” Ty paused as something clicked in his mind. “Wait . . . your sister. She’s this guy’s girlfriend, isn’t she?”
Kaleb didn’t say anything.
“That third man who’s been with this group . . . he’s not a man at all. It’s your sister.” Why hadn’t Ty seen it earlier?
“She never meant to get wrapped up in all of this. She wanted out, but Danny wouldn’t let her. He . . . he has this weird control on her. She’s been messed up since . . .” Kaleb glanced at Gilead. “You know, since she left here.”
Gilead said nothing, but his gaze looked tumultuous.
“Is she with you now, Kaleb?” Ty asked.
Kaleb remained quiet.
“Kaleb?”
Finally, he nodded. “Yeah, she came into my RV. She’d been shot in the shoulder. She’s a mess. Said that Danny had gone off the deep end. She managed to get away, but he was determined to make Cassidy pay for humiliating him.”
A bitter cold chill spread over him like a polar vortex over the Arctic. “I need you to get Lela for me, Kaleb.”
“I can’t do that.” He swung his head back and forth. “She’s not in the right mental state.”
That wasn’t an option. “She’s our only hope of talking this guy down from the ledge,” Ty said. “You have to understand that. We won’t let anything happen to her.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“Kaleb . . . you know that this is the right thing. You don’t want someone else dying because of the poor choices Lela has made. And now you’re helping her make those very choices. Get her. Bring her here. Let her help make things right.”
Just as he said the words, Mac appeared.
Ty exchanged a glance with him, and it was clear Cassidy had sent him the same text.
Finally Kaleb nodded and glanced at Gilead. “Okay . . . I’ll get her. See what she says.”
“I’ll go with you,” Mac said. “Just to make sure you don’t change your mind.”
Ty only hoped this would work.
Chapter Twenty-Five
As Danny stretched his arm out, his gun pointed toward Cassidy, a tattoo on his wrist peeked out from beneath his long-sleeved shirt.
Cassidy sucked in a quick breath, her theory confirmed.
His tattoo looked like a comma with a hole at the top.
Just like the symbol from the bracelet they’d found at the house where Lela had been staying.
If you put them together, the symbols would form Ying Yang. Good and evil.
It was just as Cassidy had thought.
Danny and Lela were in this together.
The facts had begun clicking in her mind earlier tonight. The reports that Danny had a girlfriend up in Nags Head who seemed unsure of herself. Lela leaving Gilead and fleeing up north. Then she’d disappeared.
Besides, that third man—the Quiet One, as Cassidy had called him—had moved with more delicate motions. Had never spoken a word.
Cassidy had realized that he could actually be a she.
Lela had just been wearing some type of vest or something beneath her clothing to conceal her figure.
These two cases had been connected this whole time.
And it wasn’t surprising that Lela had run into the arms of someone like Danny after fleeing from Gilead. Both men were control freaks. And, as much as the woman might want to think she was doing her own thing, she was actually desperately seeking a strong male figure in her life.
The problem was she’d been seeking the wrong figures.
“Why don’t you take me and let Moriah stay?” Cassidy asked.
“Because I need leverage.”
“I’m leverage enough, right? Moriah is innocent. You just happened to wander into her RV tonight. But she has nothing to do with this.”
“Neither did that man at the gas station. The one I shot. But he still had to die.”
Moriah let out a desperate, breathy cry.
This man was crazy. This was going to be a long night, Cassidy feared. Because there didn’t appear to be any reasoning with him.
“I’m going to need a vehicle. I’m leaving. With both of you. And, if anyone tries anything, this girl is dead. No questions asked. Understand?”
Cassidy’s heart thudded in her chest, but she nodded. “I understand.”
He shoved his phone across the floor to Cassidy. “Good. Start making some calls.”
Ty’s pulse quickened when he saw Mac and Kaleb approaching . . . with Lela beside them.
He heard Gilead suck in a quick breath also.
This was a surprise to him as well, it appeared.
The photos of Lela hadn’t shown how big-boned she was or how tall and athletic-looking. With the right clothing . . . it was easy to see how she could pass for a smaller-statured man.
Lela’s tearstained eyes looked up at Ty’s. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I thought Danny was a nice guy when we met . . . I was wrong. But then it was too late. He took me on a date, and I ended up in the middle of an armed robbery with him. I knew I couldn’t get out then.”
“None of this is her fault,” Kaleb said.
“We can worry about that later. Right now, you’re the only one who can talk Danny down from the ledge before he kills someone else.”
“I . . . I don’t know if he’ll listen to me,” Lela’s voice quivered, almost as if there was an earthquake shattering her insides.
“Where does he think you are right now?”
“He went crazy after I got shot. Said he was going to make the police chief pay. He left me in the car and came here . . . but I knew I had to get away. So I found Kaleb.” Lela glanced at Gilead and swallowed hard.
“You know you’re always welcome here,” Gilead said. But there was a hard edge to his voice and an even more sinister look in his eyes.
Ty didn’t have time to address that right now.
“He brought me back here to Lantern Beach to do another robbery. I didn’t want to come. We were jumping out from rental houses so no one would find us. Danny . . . he’s brilliant. He really is. If only he would use that for good.”
It sounded like Gilead and Danny had something in common.
“Listen, is there another entrance to this place?” Mac asked.
Gilead nodded. “Yes, there’s a back entrance that leads to my apartment. Once you get inside, there’s a stairway leading to the bottom level.”
Mac nodded. “I’m going in. Lela, we could really use your help right now.”
“I don’t want to put her in danger.” Kaleb edged himself in front of his sister.
“Danny . . . he wouldn’t hurt me,” Lela said. “Not like that. I think in his own way, he really does love me. I’ll . . . I’ll go talk to him. It’s the least I can do to make things right.”
“Are you sure?” Kaleb leaned forward, locking gazes with his sister. “You don’t have to do this.”
Lela nodded. “I want to.”
Her gaze shifted to Gilead, and she stiffened again.
The history between the two . . . they’d only touched on the surface, hadn’t they?
As Mac disappeared to the backside of the building, Ty turned toward Lela, prepping her on how to act and checking her over for weapons. Though she appeared to be sincerely frightened, Ty couldn’t take the chance that she would turn on them and put Cassidy in an even worse situation.
When he felt confident she wasn’t a threat, Ty nodded toward her. “You can do this.”
With a hesitant but tense smile, Lela stepped toward the door. “I know.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
A knock sounded behind Cassidy.
“Who’s that?” Danny growled.
Before Cassidy could respond, Lela stepped inside. Her hands were raised. Her eyes strained. Her limbs shaking.
She wore all black, but the shoulder of her sweater was torn, revealing pale skin—and blood. Her cheeks were flushed and her nose red, as if she’d been crying.
“Danny, don’t do this again.” Lela’s voice cracked yet she still crept closer. “Please. Let that woman go. She didn’t do anything to you.”
“What are you doing here?” Danny growled, still holding onto Moriah. “I told you to hide until I gave you the signal.”
“I can’t let you do this.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
Lela pleaded with him with her gaze. “You need help, Danny.”
Cassidy held her breath, waiting to see how all of this would play out. She prayed no one would get hurt. But she also knew that Lela was the best person to reach Danny, to get through to him.
“I don’t need help!” Danny spat the words out. “I just need respect. That’s the problem here. No one respects anyone else.”
“I respect you.” Lela stepped closer, her actions meek and timid. “Will you do this for me?”
“Everyone needs to learn a lesson! They can’t just go around treating people however they want.”
What did that mean? Cassidy wondered. Where was all of this coming from?
“Just because that cop got you fired doesn’t mean all police officers are bad,” Lela said.
“A cop got you fired?” Cassidy asked, seeing an opening, a way to take some pressure off Lela while learning more about this situation.
Danny scowled. “He came sniffing around about a hit-and-run in the area. I had nothing to do with it. But he saw my history and thought I might be involved—just because I happened to be in the same area that night.”
“What happened?”
“He came around talking to me at work. At work! My boss was so ticked that he fired me. Said it was for something else, but I knew the truth. My good name had been tarnished.”
“I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“None of you cops care about justice. You just want pats on the back.”
So he’d had a bad experience with the police, and now he hated all cops and thought every officer was corrupt. That was a shame.
“I do care, Danny.” Cassidy kept her voice as soothing as possible. “All I want is justice.”
“You couldn’t prove it by me! All cops have ever been are trouble in my life.”
“He’s just saying that because he’s had numerous bad experiences,” Lela said. “His dad got arrested when Danny was in high school. He still claims he’s innocent. Please, everyone. Danny’s not a bad guy. He’s just been given a hard hand. Haven’t we all?”
>
“I don’t want any trouble here,” Cassidy said. “I just want him to let Moriah go. I don’t want to see anyone else get hurt.”
“Don’t pretend like you care if people get hurt!” Danny yelled.
“But I do care,” Cassidy said.
“Cops don’t care. No one cares. You all just want to humiliate me.”
Cassidy raised her hands, feeling the situation escalating. “That’s not true. We just don’t want innocent people being harmed.”
“I was an innocent person! My dad was innocent! What about us? What about our lives that were ruined?”
“Calm down, Danny,” Lela said. “You just need to calm down. You can’t go on like this.”
“I don’t have any choice. Someone’s got to pay!” Danny yelled. He raised his gun toward Moriah. “This is a good place to start!”
Moriah screamed.
Danny’s nostrils flared.
Lela let out a gasp.
Cassidy reached forward.
A bullet fired through the air.
Cassidy froze.
Waited.
Anticipated.
And then Danny crumpled to the ground.
Mac stepped out of the shadows of the stairway.
He’d probably been there, just waiting for the right opportunity, Cassidy realized.
Cassidy rushed forward and kicked the gun away from a moaning Danny Simpson. She pulled out her cuffs and restrained his arms behind him, despite his protests.
She looked back in time to see Ty and Gilead rush inside.
“We need to call Abbott,” Cassidy told Ty. “And call an ambulance.”
“But—” Gilead stepped forward, looking ready to argue.
“There are no buts here.” Cassidy stood and tucked Danny’s gun into her waistband. “This man needs medical attention. So does Moriah, for that matter. And nothing you say is going to change my mind on that.”
Abbott, amidst dirty looks and scowls, arrived at Gilead’s Cove to both arrest Danny Simpson and to ensure he had medical attention.
While he was overseeing that situation, Cassidy pulled Moriah aside. The woman was still shaking like a wet canine in the cold, and fresh blood stained her shoulder.
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