Dangerous Flirt (22 page)

For most of her life, that voice had been a part of her world. She'd sat silent and sweaty under
the oak kitchen table to eavesdrop while her abuelita and Sarah Jane drank iced tea and gossiped on hot summer days. When she’d joined Webster and Carter, Sarah Jane had given her the welcome-aboard tour, eased her nerves and warned her about Ed Webster's wandering hands. At the conference in Vegas, they'd chatted about scrapbooking and Sin City's inherent tackiness.

Now, that same voice announced
she and Hank were about to die with no more inflection than if she'd said it looked like rain tonight.

Determination to survive stiffened Beth's spine and gave her the courage to face her enemy. Pressing her hands to the cool, hard-packed dirt, she stood up and came eye-to-eye with Sarah Jane's fury.

“How could you let it happen to him?” Her steel-gray bob gleamed in the moonlight and hate blazed
from her eyes.

This wasn't what Beth had expected. “What are you talking about? I haven't done anything to anyone.”

“Do you know how long it took me to find him? How many hours I stayed in the office searching for him?” Anger shook her voice, took it an octave higher. “Computer records. Personnel files. Wills. Trusts. Looking for clues, any nugget of information. I knew his father wouldn't have
let him go far, even after he stole him from my arms.”

“Sarah Jane, you need to put the gun down.” Hank stood up, his weight heavy on his left leg. “We'll sit down and get everything worked out.”

Fear tickled the back of Beth's neck, adding to the frenzied turmoil insider her like a cool breeze on a freezing night. Hank was hurt. He must have twisted his ankle in the fall.

On the verge of freaking
out when he sent her a reassuring smile, Beth focused her mind on the immediate danger.

As if he'd never spoken, Sarah Jane went on with her rant, gun trained on Beth. “How could you let him get murdered? It was supposed to be
you
. Wasn’t becoming his father’s favorite enough for you? Did you have to take his life too?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Shut up and get down on your knees.”

Going
after the gun wasn't an option. She'd never get close enough before Sarah Jane got off a shot. Scanning the ground out of the corner of her eye, she looked for weapons. A rock. Big stick. Anything. But the most dangerous thing she found was a trio of dark mushrooms growing at the base of a pine tree. Fuck.

Hands outstretched and right foot barely touching the uneven ground, Hank hobbled forward.
“I can only imagine what you've been through. I'm sure once you tell us everything we'll understand. But please, lower the gun.”

Sarah Jane's gaze flicked over to him for half a second. Then, with as much care and thought as a person gave to swatting a fly, she fired.

The crack boomed through the trees.

A flurry of beating wings exploded around them while birds took to the sky, escaping the
death and fear palpable in the underbrush.

Hank crumbled, blood soaking through his pants near his right knee.

Adrenaline rocketed Beth toward Hank. Forgetting Sarah Jane, the gun and everything except for him, she rushed to his side. The dry October leaves crunched under her knees as she dropped down, taking his head onto her lap.

“Hank.” His name tore from her lips, more a desperate cry than
anything else.

“Don't worry.” He gritted out the words through clenched teeth. “She got my bum knee.”

A joke. Her heart was lodged in her throat and he had the gall to make a joke about getting shot. Relief soaked into her bones. “Hank Layton, you're such a pain in the ass.”

He smirked up at her. “Is that your way of saying you love me?”

Looking down at the man she'd dreamed about for years,
she stopped fighting and opened herself up to the truth. “Yeah, it is.”

“You two really make me sick.” Bitterness thickened Sarah Jane's voice. “It's not real. Love never is. You know what is though? Revenge. Taking your time, planning everything down to the last bit and then breaking someone into teeny, tiny, jagged pieces.”

Heat raced through Beth and she ripped her attention from the man
she loved to the woman who threatened him. “How could you do this? Ruin lives for what? Petty revenge?”

“Petty?” She raised her face to the sky and cackled. “No, when someone kills the woman you were and steals your child, petty is not the word for it.”

Hank squeezed her hand, slid his cellphone from his back pocket and pushed it into her hand. “Voice record memo,” he whispered and struggled
into a sitting position against a tree trunk.

Not wanting to draw attention to the phone, she fumbled with it in the shadow until her thumb found the record button on the side. Pay dirt.

“You're under arrest, Sarah Jane Hunihan. You have the right to remain silent…”

As he gave the Miranda warning, understanding blossomed. Backup would be here soon, they needed to keep Sarah Jane talking until
then. Recording her confession could be a boon for the prosecution, if the judge ruled it admissible.

“Do you understand these rights?”

“I love your optimism, Sheriff, but I'm not going to jail. Not until I break that bastard.”

“Who?” Beth prodded.

“Imagine a young secretary at a big law firm, in love with one of the partners, who's promised to leave his country club wife for her. She becomes
pregnant. He swears that if the secretary gives up the baby for adoption, he'll leave his wife. The stupid, naive secretary does it. So what's he do? Ed Webster scrapes her from his life like a piece of gum from the bottom of his shoe.”

“That's horrible. I'm so sorry.” Hank said.

“I don't need your pity. I didn't then and I don't now. I waited. Watched him. Looked for weakness, all the time
searching for my boy. A year ago I found him right here in Dry Creek, an attorney just like his father. Phil had always wondered about his birth parents.”

“Phil? Phil Harris was your son?” Shock rippled across her skin.

“I know, not the man I imagined my son would grow up into, but I blame myself. If I hadn't given him up, he would have been stronger, less concerned with revealing himself to
his father sooner rather than later. It took me months to convince him that his father wasn't ready and that if he'd just wait a little longer, the timing would be perfect. That timing would have been after I'd crushed him. I didn't have the same outcome when persuading Phil not to worry so much about
your
safety.” She leveled the gun at Beth's head. “Poor little Beth Martinez. You were all that
stood between me and my revenge. I'd waited so long. I couldn't let someone as insignificant as you stand in my way.”

Beth couldn't look away from the gun's barrel as cold fear snaked around her spine. “But I never did anything to you.”

“Yes, you did. You wouldn't sell. You took the spotlight from Phil at work. You fucked-up everything.” She hurled the words like projectiles. “The plan came
to me after I'd found Phil. He let slip that Ed had inside information that the casino would be built on the north end of the Lakota Reservation, near Lake Alice. He'd put up every cent he had to buy the land. I couldn't let him succeed. This was my chance.” She paused as if relishing the moment all over again.

“I worked out a very lucrative deal with the Lakota tribe to relocate their new casino
off Highway 28 instead. I had every piece of property leading to the reservation tied up. Every one but yours. I had to have yours! I couldn't allow the chance of him even getting one piece!” Her voice had risen to a manic scream. “I wanted him to lose everything. His money. His standing in Dry Creek. I'd make him understand, really understand, what it was like to have an entire community look
down on you as ruined goods!”

Off in the distance, the high-pitched blare of police sirens sounded. Just a little longer and help would arrive. Sneaking a peak at Hank's leg, Beth’s stomach sank. The splotch of blood soaking through his jeans had grown to encompass his lower thigh, turning his jeans nearly black. His face had paled and his eyelids were nearly closed.

Unaware or unconcerned about
Hank's precarious situation, Sarah Jane continued her demented monologue. “I hired those idiots to drug you and kill you. Really, how difficult should it have been? But you managed to survive. And then you got Phil killed. That thug killed him to get to you. Do you know what it's like to lose a son not once, but twice? Do you know what that does to a mother?”

Something inside Beth snapped. “No,
I don't—but neither do you. Being a mother isn't about giving birth, it's about caring for someone more than you care about yourself. It's sacrifice. It's love. You're not a mother. You're a monster.”

Sarah Jane cocked her head thoughtfully and lowered the gun to her side. “I suppose you're right. I can admit that. But don't you see, Ed Webster is the one who made me into this…monster. He will
be punished.” She took a step forward. “And so will you.”

Beth's stomach twisted and bile rose in her throat. It couldn't end this way, not now. “Please.”

“Shut up, girl. First you'll die, and then, after I've ruined him, so will Ed.”

Frozen to her spot by indecision, Beth tried to think of an escape as the sirens grew louder. Almost here.

“Fine, if not you then your dear love.” Sarah Jane
swung the gun toward Hank's slumped figure. “On your knees, or I kill him first.”

“No!” She scrambled to her knees, blocking Sarah Jane's shot with her body.

“Ah, the stupid sacrifices we women make for the men we love. Too bad you won't live long enough to learn that they're all out for themselves. Then again, at least you don't have to worry about him leaving you for a newer model.”

Flashing
red lights lit up the pine trees as patrol cars screeched to a stop on the highway above them.

Doors slammed shut and a deputy shouted clipped orders to the others. The Calvary had arrived, too late for her but hopefully in time for Hank.

Closing her eyes, Beth began to murmur the words she'd heard every day at four p.m. from her abuelita. Her grandmother had dutifully rubbed the worn, dark-blue
rosary beads between her arthritic fingers and prayed for the souls of Beth's parents and the unknown drunk driver who'd killed them.

As her dry lips formed the words, a presence warmed the crisp air and she heard abuelita's voice murmur in her ear.

“Hail Mary, full of grace…”

A gunshot silenced her prayer.

H
ank ignored the explosive pain throbbing in his knee and fought to remain conscious. His injury wasn't important. Only keeping Beth safe mattered.

Sarah Jane lowered her gun until the angle of the bullet would hit Beth between the eyes. A shot of adrenaline careened through his veins, slammed into his heart and shocked him into full alertness.

Gathering every last bit
of energy, he launched himself at Beth.

He wrapped his arms around her kneeling form and flattened her to the ground, morphing himself into a protective shield around her.

A millisecond later a gun fired. His muscles tensed in preparation for impact as everything slowed to a near stop.

A slideshow rolled through his mind. Not of his big accomplishments but of the little things that made life
special and whole. The first time he went fishing with his father. His mom's baked macaroni served with a side of lovingly administered nagging. Tossing the football around with his brothers in the empty University of Nebraska football stadium. Teaching Claire to ride a bike.

And when it came to Beth, there were so many memories and, at the same time, not enough. Inhaling, he took in one last
whiff of her vanilla perfume that he wished he could enjoy forever. Even if they’d had twelve lifetimes together, it wouldn't have been enough.

It wasn't the children he'd never had that he regretted now. No. In his final moments, Hank mourned the time he could have had with Beth.

But instead of the expected burning lead tearing into his flesh, there was a quiet “umph” and the thump of a body
hitting the ground.

Hank looked over his shoulder and the world wobbled as he let go of the air trapped in his lungs.

Sarah Jane lay on her back, her chest jerking up and down in a spastic rhythm. Blood bloomed like a morbid flower on her chest, expanding with each wet, gasping gurgle of breath.

He didn't know which deputy had made the shot, but whoever he or she was, they were about to get
a promotion.

Rolling off of Beth, he landed with a thunk on his back. The agony in his leg punched through his adrenaline high.

“Oh my God, Hank!” Beth yanked off her fleece jacket, balled it up and pressed it to his wound.

The pressure made him gasp, but he'd be damned before he'd pass out now. Going for an action-hero vibe, he smirked. “I'll live.”

“Is she…” Beth left the word “dead” unsaid,
but it hung in the air between them like a sticky spiderweb.

“Not yet.” He paused and listened to Sarah Jane's struggle to breathe. “But it doesn't sound good.”

The scene in front of Sarah Jane wavered, darkness creeping in on the edges as she fought to stay alive.