Authors: Kathy Ivan
A shadow moved into the open doorway, Remy's tall dark frame filling the space. His hands were held aloft, showing them free of any weapons.
“That's a good boy, Remy. Welcome to the party.” Connor watched Remy take in the situation at a glance—Alyssa's bound and bloody body, Bethany with her damn gun pointed at his head ready to blow his brains all over the concrete walls—and knew he read the insanity behind her cold, dead eyes.
“Take out your gun and kick it toward the back wall, Remy. Now!”
Remy kept one hand raised while the other slowly reached behind his back, bringing his .38 forward, held between his thumb and index finger, his grip nowhere near the trigger.
“Place it on the floor. Slow and easy.” Bethany's tone rang with a smug satisfaction. Once Remy complied and his gun rested on the floor, she continued. “Now slide it toward the back wall with your foot. Nuh-uh, careful.” Her gun dug harder into Connor's cheek and he winced. Damn, that hurt.
Remy's gun spun across the floor, past Connor and Bethany, coming to rest under the table against the far wall. He raised his hand back up, away from his body. Connor tried to read his face, but couldn't figure out anything. Remy's expression gave nothing away.
“Good boy.” Bethany's stance relaxed, pulling the gun back. Her other arm still rested against Connor's throat, although her grip had loosened. She ran her tongue along the line of his jaw and nausea curled in Connor's stomach. He jerked his head away from her, disgusted by her touch. Alyssa's muffled sob penetrated the air, and he cut his eyes to look toward her, trying to keep his head still and facing Remy. Bethany rubbed the barrel of the pistol up and down his cheek in a bizarre caress, her breathing a soft hum in his ear.
“Continue being a good boy, Remy, and take out your cell phone and place it on the floor.”
Remy grimaced but did what she asked, again using two fingers to pull his cell out of the pocket of his jeans and knelt to place it on the floor before straightening back to his full height.
“Excellent,” Bethany cooed. “Smash it!”
With a sigh of resignation, Remy shot Connor a look of apology before bringing his foot down hard on the phone, the crunch of his boot meeting plastic audible and distinct. Connor's eyes widened as he realized Bethany hadn't asked him for his phone when he'd come into the room. Damn, had he left it turned on? Wait, he'd turned it on vibrate mode in the car, silencing the ringer. Maybe if they could distract her, he could get a nine-one-one call out.
“Come in the rest of the way and close the door. It's bloody freezing out there.” Bethany leaned her body closer into Connor's, rubbing her breasts against his back and she nuzzled her chin into his nape.
“Isn't this romantic, Remy? The ex-husband riding to the rescue of his former wife like a knight in shining armor, bringing another champion along with him to save the day. Rescue the damsel in distress. Just one big happy fairy tale.” Bethany sniggered. “Well, guess what, gentleman. This fairy tale doesn't have a happy ending. The fair damsel isn't going to be rescued by the white knight. Nobody here gets their happy ending—except me.”
Releasing her stranglehold on Connor's throat, Bethany took a step back, shoving Connor forward with a push. “Get over there next to your cousin, Connor.”
Connor backed away from Bethany, glancing again toward Alyssa's still form. Her head hung forward again, like it had when he'd first come into the room.
Had she lost consciousness?
“Well, boys, fun and games are over. Sorry our little reunion has to be cut short. It's been so much fun tormenting you, Connor. You made it so easy.” Bethany took another couple of steps toward Alyssa, the gun never wavering in her grasp, her eyes still blanked of emotion, hollow and empty.
“Both of you, on your knees.” When they hesitated, she grabbed a handful of Alyssa's hair, yanking her head back with a rough pull. “Now!”
There was no other choice. Connor nodded and both he and Remy knelt on the cold, blood-spattered concrete floor, their hands raised in surrender. Alyssa's eyes remained closed and Connor prayed they stayed that way. The agony, the guilt ate away at him. He hadn't kept her safe. He'd failed her in every way. First in their marriage and now he'd placed her in the hands of a madwoman.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sunday
A
lyssa forced herself to keep her eyes closed when her head was jerked back, struggling to mask her emotions behind a blank face above the layers of duct tape across her mouth. The hard yank on her hair hurt, her scalp felt like it was on fire, but hell, it was nothing in comparison to the pain shooting through the rest of her. There wasn't a place on her body that didn't hurt, not a place where she hadn't been pinched or slapped or stabbed. Her nose finally stopped bleeding, but the stab wound in her shoulder still oozed blood, the slow trickle warm against her cold skin.
Think, dammit. I have to do something
.
Bethany's voice screeched from behind her, high-pitched and desperate. From the few minutes of conversation she'd been able to piece together, Connor and Remy were here! They'd come for her—putting themselves directly into the heart of madness constructed and orchestrated by Bethany Banks or Julie Jamison, or whatever she wanted to call herself.
She cringed inwardly at the realization that she'd believed all Bethany's carefully constructed lies. From the very beginning she'd allowed herself to be manipulated, choreographed like a puppet on a string. Connor loved her—he'd always loved her. He'd never lied or cheated, never done any of the despicable things she accused him of—things that ended their marriage.
She was to blame. Had she not loved him enough? In the time they'd separated and divorced, she'd missed him. Missed his smiles. Missed his laughter and teasing. Missed the feel of his warm body pressed up against hers on the long cold nights. She'd thrown away everything on the lies of the manipulative bitch standing behind her.
Bethany's hand wrapped tighter in her hair, fingers threading through and gripping hard enough to yank clumps from her head. Her scalp burned from the tension she exerted, pain knifing through her. Alyssa tried moving her feet and ankles, but the duct tape held firm, secured in layer upon layer to the metal legs of the chair. She tried again with her hands. She wriggled her fingers, but her wrists held, solidly banded together. There was no freedom of movement, no way to release herself from her captivity.
Duct tape, the kidnapper's best kept secret!
Shuffling noises came from across the room. She squinted one eye open. Remy and Connor had complied with Bethany's demands, kneeling on the cold stone floor. What would she do next? Would she kill them for coming to rescue her?
“Very good, gentleman. Keep those hands up where I can see them.” Bethany's voice had an edge to it Alyssa hadn't heard before. A finality that struck right at her heart, her core. Bethany would kill them all—and get away with it. They were all going to die in a rundown one-room building in the swamps outside Baton Rogue. And Bethany would flee. Probably never be caught. She'd already proven she knew how to disappear, change her identity. Build a whole new life.
No. Alyssa wasn't about to let this happen. No way in hell was this psychotic bimbo killing the man she loved!
“Who first, hmm? The loving husband? His best friend, the boy scout? Or poor, pitiful deceived wifey here? Yeah, I need to see your face, Connor. Watch you suffer as the life oozes from the woman you love. I want you to suffer, to feel the anguish I felt when you killed Cap.”
“Bethany, I didn't kill Cap. The fire, the building . . . nothing that night happened like it should have. I remember it; hell, I still have nightmares about it.” Connor's voice was pitched low. Alyssa felt the truth behind his words. She remembered holding him in her arms when the nightmares plagued him, his muffled screams filling her ears.
“We'd put the fire out, though it raged and burned hotter than expected. Took longer to put out, but we fought to save every inch of that building. There was evidence of accelerant all over the damn place. Everything was contained, the rest of the crew started pulling back, just me and Cap left inside, doing the final check.” Connor paused, the only sounds audible the breathing of four people.
“Cap heard the sound first. A creaking moan above us. I didn't even have time to look up before he shoved me, hard. I landed a couple of feet away. Before I could even get up, everything above us collapsed. The sounds, the rushing whirling of wind gusting past, the sight of blackened shadows falling all around. Pain slashing through as ceiling joists hit my spine and legs, pinning me to the floor. More fell on Cap—blocked my view of him.”
Bethany's inhaled breath behind Alyssa forced her to concentrate on her instead of Connor's words. Wait for her moment, find a way to stop her.
“Smoke and dust, great billowing clouds of it, swamped everything. The crashing roof and the falling timbers had us both pinned down. I called out to Cap, saw his finger's move in his right hand. Just a little wave but it gave me hope.”
“He was still alive? After the roof collapsed? They told me he was killed instantly.” Anguish and sorrow laced Bethany's words, barely above a whisper.
“Yeah, that was the official report. The crew didn't want you to think he suffered, felt it was better to tell you he'd died instantly.”
“I deserved the truth.”
“Bethany, you were sixteen years old. You'd lost your father, the only person close to you. They wanted to spare you more heartache and grief.”
Alyssa felt the fingers gripping her hair loosen slightly, not yanking as hard as before, and breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
Good going, Connor. Keep her distracted.
She heard a sniffle behind her before Bethany continued. “Go on, Connor. Tell me some more of your lies.”
“You know deep down they're not lies, Bethany—Julie, or you wouldn't be listening. You need to know what really happened the night your father died. I'm the only one who was there, in the room, the only one who can tell you.”
Bethany's fingers slipped completely from Alyssa's hair, freeing her and she leaned forward as much as she could, away from Bethany's grasp. If she could just get a little momentum, she might be able to . . .
“I tried crawling toward Cap, but my back and legs were pinned under all the debris from the fallen roof. My hand couldn't even reach my radio. The rest of the team scrambled in, digging. It was chaos; an organized chaos. The team tried freeing Cap first. He was closest to the door and had more of the rubble from the roof on top him than I did.” Connor's voice broke as he recounted the horrific tale of one of the worst nights of his life and Alyssa's heart ached at the pain reflected in his words. He'd told her some of this when they'd been married, but she never knew the full story of what happened the night his captain died. She'd just seen the proof of it in the lines and scars he carried, inside and out.
“He ordered them to get me out first. I remember yelling no, they needed to get him out, he was the captain, the chief.
My friend
. He gave the order and his men obeyed, pulling beams off me. They lifted me out. Started to carry me past him. I reached for him. Couldn't reach from the team's hold on me.” Connor's sharp intake of breath stopped his words, and Alyssa had no choice, she had to open her eyes, look at him even if it let Bethany know she was awake.
“He haunts me too, Bethany. I remember his last words to me, hear them every single day. As the crew carried me through the rubble, debris, and charred remains of the roof, Cap's words still reached me: 'You did good, kid; you did good.' Until the day I die, I will always remember. He helped make me who I am, the man I've become. Cap showed me how to be a good firefighter, a team player, and how to be an upright and honest person.”
“He was a good man. A good father.” Bethany's voice quivered like a lost little girl, someone who'd lost her father and wasn't sure which way to turn. She straightened, her back ramrod stiff as she confronted him. “He still died and you're here. You should have been the one to die and I'm going to fix that. Right now!”
Beside her head, Alyssa watched the gun rise in Bethany's shaking hand, the barrel pointing directly toward Connor.
I have to do something right now!
Bracing her feet against the floor, Alyssa rocked back, pushing her body and the chair with all her remaining strength. The momentum propelled her backward and she felt the front legs of the chair leave the ground. The chair tilted, listing backward and to the side as she rocked hard, throwing herself against Bethany's body. The hard impact jarred her as it knocked her body back and the metal chair slammed into a startled Bethany.
The gun shot reverberated in Alyssa's ears as both women collapsed onto the floor, Bethany's tangled limbs beneath Alyssa. As the outside world crashed in with the flashing strobe of red and blue lights and the wail of distant sirens, darkness descended on Alyssa and swept her under, in a wash of blessed blackness.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Early Monday morning
A
lyssa struggled up from the depths, blinking to adjust to the bright lights assaulting her vision. Only one eye opened though. The other stayed closed no matter how hard she tried prying it open. Gingerly she reached up, fingers touching the cotton pad, bandage and adhesive tape covering her eye and the side of her face. Soft mewling sounds reached her ears, scared and filled with fear.
What's happening? Where am I
? It dawned on her that the keening wail she heard came from her own lips.
Movement appeared at the corner of her vision and she whipped her head around, fist raised.