He Can Fall: She Can Series (3 page)

Amanda stood. Panic pounded through her veins. These men hadn’t bothered to conceal their faces. They didn’t care about being identified, which meant they had every intention of killing their hostages. They’d already murdered the liquor store manager and shot the chef. They were going to kill them all and run.

Sean was their only hope.

Amanda’s gaze passed over the windows that looked over the backyard. Through the glass panes, she could see the lake to the left and the forest to the right. A hundred feet of snowy lawn separated the inn from the trail Sean had set out on earlier. Where was he? Would he know something was wrong or would he walk in, surprise one of the gunmen, and end up getting shot?

Footsteps pounded overhead.

Carl’s attention shifted to the hall again. The rear door opened and a rush of cold air flooded the room. Mia bolted out into the snow. Without looking back, she veered right, away from the lake and toward the woods.

Shocked at the child’s abrupt escape, Amanda briefly contemplated following her, but the sound of boots scraping on tile stopped her.
Oh no
.
Carl.
She had to keep him from chasing after Mia. She lunged forward and slammed the door closed. She pressed her back into the cold steel and looked for a weapon as Carl closed in on her, shotgun in hand. His eyes radiated pure fury. “Get out of the way, bitch!”

He raised the gun over his shoulder and swung the butt end toward her. Amanda ducked, grabbing a frying pan and swinging it at him. He jerked his head out of the way. The gun came toward her again, and even as she weaved to avoid it, she knew she couldn’t evade the blow. The stock of the shotgun glanced off her cheek, spinning her around. Pain exploded in her face, and her legs sagged. As she slid to her knees, she caught a glimpse out the window. Mia’s tiny form crossed the last few feet of snowy yard between the inn and the trees. The child disappeared into the forest.

Mia had a chance, a slim one at best, but better than nothing.

Amanda’s knees hit the tile. She turned and braced herself for another blow—or worse.

Fury darkened Carl’s features as he closed in on her. “Fuck.”

Glenn tackled him around the legs. They hit the tile in a jumble of limbs. Carl dropped the shotgun. It slid across the floor. Footsteps sounded in the hall. Ignoring the ringing in her ears, Amanda crawled toward the weapon. The door burst open. Win and Dennis ran into the kitchen. Win headed for the two men grappling on the floor. He kicked Glenn in the ribs. The innkeeper collapsed.

“Stop!” Dennis pointed a handgun at Amanda. She froze, preparing herself for the bullet, wondering if she’d ever see her daughters or her husband again. “What happened?”

“The kid got away.” Carl nodded toward the back door. “Where the hell is Lincoln?”

“I’ll go after her.” Dennis volunteered and headed for the door.

“I don’t care if you kill her or not, but we can’t leave any witnesses,” Carl said over his shoulder.

“Got it.” Wind gusted through the kitchen as Dennis went outside. The door slammed shut behind him.

Win raised the handgun to point at Amanda’s face. “I’ll teach you to behave.”

She closed her eyes and prayed that Mia would run into Sean before Dennis found her.

The dry snow offered little resistance to Sean’s boots as he jogged through the quiet woods back toward the inn. With a hard run behind him, he kept his pace slow now, letting his body cool. The air was dry, last night’s fresh fall powdery. The air, laced with pine and wood smoke, was cold enough to sting his lungs when he took a deep breath. His breath steamed out in front of his face.

He slowed to a walk as the trail widened. The inn was just ahead. Was Amanda still in bed?

The noise—and the feeling that he wasn’t alone—stopped him. He stepped behind a fat oak and listened. He might be a small businessman now, but ten years ago he’d been behind enemy lines as an army Ranger. Survival instincts stuck with a man.

Something was off that Sean couldn’t ignore.

Footsteps. Two different people. One light and quick and close to him. Slightly more distant, heavy footfalls indicated a larger person. The sound of labored breathing carried over the otherwise still forest.

Sean peered around the tree. A child raced on the path toward him, her face turned backward to look over her shoulder. She faced front again.
Mia.
Her eyes were wide with fright, and Sean caught the faint sound of whimpering as she ran.

The heavier footsteps came closer. Through the winter-bare forest, Sean could see the dark figure of a man moving through the tree trunks. He closed in on Mia. Clad in jeans and a sweatshirt, the guy was not dressed for outdoor activity. He crashed through some dried underbrush, and his clumsy gait told Sean he wasn’t used to the woods. Sunlight glistened on a metal object in his hand. A gun. He stopped and took aim. A shot rang out over the forest. Startled birds burst from a nearby tree.

What the fuck?

Why was this stranger chasing Mia through the woods with a gun? What kind of animal would try to shoot a child?

Sean didn’t pause to find out.

He struck out on a line to intercept Mia. Running with more grace but less speed than her pursuer, Mia darted off the trail like a rabbit. Smart kid. She couldn’t outpace his longer legs and had the best chance of losing him off the path, where his inexperience and larger size would slow him.

Sean reached out from behind a tree trunk, cupping one hand over the little girl’s mouth to stifle any surprised scream. She kicked hard and sank her teeth into his palm.

“Shh,” Sean whispered in her ear. “It’s Sean. I won’t let him hurt you.”

Mia went still. Shaking his bruised hand, Sean set her down and put a forefinger to his lips.

She leaned close to his ear and breathed, “Some men broke into the inn. They shot Tanner. I ran away.”

Amanda.

Rage and fear charged through Sean’s body. If one of them touched his wife…
You are not helping her.

He’d seen plenty of men die, some women and children too, but nothing had ever threatened to render him useless with sheer panic like the thought of a man hurting Amanda. He couldn’t contemplate worse happening. He willed the rage to cool. Ice is what he needed in his veins.

“How many men?”

Mia held up four fingers.

Sean pointed to a stand of evergreens. The first few feet aboveground were clear. Above that, branches interlocked in a thick shield of pine needles. “Run that way, into the thicket.”

She took off, her Uggs sending tufts of powder flying as she disappeared into the foliage. He brushed her tracks from the snow with a dead branch, then turned his attention back to the city guy crashing through the trees. Sean circled around, his boots silenced by the snow.

Soft cursing and the snap of twigs underfoot signaled the approach of her pursuer. Sean hunkered down behind a fat tree trunk and waited. The man passed the tree. Sean hurled a rock into the trees fifty feet away. A cardinal flew out of the underbrush. The thug ran toward the shrubs the bird vacated.

As the guy passed him, Sean jumped out of his cover. He slipped one arm around the man’s neck and snaked his forearm under the guy’s chin. Yanking the shooter to his chest, Sean locked him in a choke hold. “Drop the gun.”

He didn’t. Instead, the idiot twisted. He struggled to raise the barrel high enough to shoot Sean in the head. Sean blocked the motion with an elbow. Then he applied pressure to the guy’s windpipe. His body weight sagged.

“OK, you win.” Wheezing, the man dropped the gun. It hit the ground with a muffled thud, disappearing into the snow.

Sean removed his forearm from the side of his neck. The man swayed. Still at his back, Sean held him upright by the collar. With a slight movement, the man’s hand slipped to his pocket. He pulled a knife and tried to whirl into an attack. Sean snapped his neck before he could spin around. The soft crack echoed in the thin, dry air.

The body sank to the snow, and Sean let it drop without remorse. Had Mia seen?

Of course, it might have been preferable to question the scumbag before killing him, but the death wouldn’t keep Sean up at night. Adrenaline used to give him a reflex-sharpening buzz, but ten years out of the military and two children later, it overloaded his civilian veins and turned his stomach.

After years of dangerous missions, he’d started to crave the rush that accompanied high risk. Amanda had been only one of the reasons he’d left the military. The other had been the fear that he wouldn’t be able to return to a normal life, that the urge to seek that adrenaline high would follow him home. When he started anticipating dangerous missions like a ten-year-old looked forward to Christmas, he started to worry in earnest. Like any addiction, quitting cold turkey had seemed like the best option. He wasn’t a wishy-washy man. Do it or don’t do it was more his speed. He’d met Amanda the day after he’d left the army, as if destiny had slapped him on the back for making the right decision.

Sean looked down at the first man he’d killed in ten years. As he thought about the child hiding in the underbrush, instead of the expected adrenaline high, nausea coated the back of his throat. Obviously, he wasn’t the same man he’d been all those years ago, which was a good thing. Killing could be necessary, but it should never be easy.

He relieved the gunman of a .38 semiautomatic. Checking the load, Sean held back a curse. The magazine was empty, and so were the scumbag’s pockets. There was one bullet in the chamber. At least the switchblade was sharp. Sean pocketed the weapons.

Grabbing the shoulders, he dragged the body toward a low, dense evergreen. With his foot, he rolled the limp form into the underbrush. Then he picked up the fallen bough and smoothed out the snow in front of the burial place. When he was satisfied that the disturbance wasn’t easy to spot, Sean scanned the woods for the little girl.

“Mia?” he called in a quiet voice. Belatedly, he checked his clothes for blood and rubbed a spot on his sleeve with a handful of snow.

Foliage rustled. A small head poked out. Big eyes locked on Sean. “Is he dead?”

Good, she hadn’t seen. But her abrupt question was too blunt. Little Mia wasn’t as simple as she appeared. No doubt her former life with her father had accustomed her to violence. Her direct question deserved a direct answer.

“Yes,” he said, watching her for a reaction.

“Good.” She crawled out from under the pine boughs. “Then he can’t hurt us.”

“No, he can’t,” Sean agreed. He held a hand out to her, the same hand that had just killed a man with no hesitation. He reminded himself that a hesitation could have cost both him and Mia their lives. He sent a silent prayer that he could also save his wife and the other people being held hostage.

“Put the gun down, Win.”

Amanda cringed on the floor as Carl called off Win. Would the younger man obey or defy his partner?

Carl climbed to his feet and retrieved his shotgun from the tile.

“Why?” Win’s eyes glittered. “We still have a couple of hostages. We don’t need her.”

“Maybe.” Cradling the gun in the crook of his arm, Carl rubbed his elbow. “But what if we do? You can’t unkill her later if we need her.”

Win lowered the gun. “Maybe you’re right. I might find a
need
for her later.”

“See if you can find some rope or something to tie her up.” Carl opened and closed drawers.

Win grinned, shoving his gun into the waistband of his jeans. “I like the sound of that.” He pulled a ball of cooking twine from a nearby drawer. “I can make this work.” He walked over to Amanda. “Turn around. Put your hands behind your back.”

Ears ringing, thighs trembling, she climbed to her feet and obeyed. Her head spun, nausea churned through her belly, and dread spurred adrenaline through her bloodstream, urging all her pain and fear to new heights.

Win wrapped the twine around her wrists a half-dozen times, then yanked tight. The binds dug into her skin, but the agony ricocheting around inside her skull dulled her other senses. She tested her binds. The thin string was surprisingly strong, though it would be easy to cut if she could rub it on something sharp.

“You just wait.” He pressed his lips to her ear and caressed her arms. “We are going to have a real party.”

Amanda’s legs shook as dread raced through her body. Win slipped a hand around her waist to squeeze her breast hard to leave a bruise. A tear leaked out of her eye and rolled down her cheek.

“Mmm.” His hot breath wafted across her neck. “You are ripe. I can almost taste you already.”

Win stepped away, pulling her with him by the bicep. She stumbled. He kept her upright with a sharp jerk that wrenched her shoulder. When they’d reached the long stainless-steel prep table that spanned the center of the kitchen, he shoved her down onto the floor and tied her securely to one of its legs. He reached down to cup between her legs. She pushed her thighs together. Laughing, he kneed her legs apart and pushed harder. “I can do anything I want to you. There ain’t nothing you can do about it.”

Amanda recoiled as pain radiated through her center.

He straightened and rubbed his own crotch. “Soon, baby. Soon.”

Amanda took a few deep breaths to settle her stomach and slow her runaway heart. The table weighed a ton. Amanda wasn’t going to be able to budge it. She began to twist the twine. It was a natural fiber. She might be able to stretch it a little. She moved her hands, shifting the position of her wrists to apply tension on the string, but it refused to yield.

Carl surveyed the room and nodded, seemingly satisfied that everything was under control. He set his shotgun down and picked up his coffee. With a grimace, he dumped the contents into the sink and poured fresh. Satisfaction crossed his face as he sipped the steaming liquid.

“What about Grandpa?” Win asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder.

Carl chuckled. “I don’t think he’s much of a threat now, but you have a point.”

Amanda tracked his line of sight to Glenn, his body curled in a fetal position on the floor a few feet away. Open-eyed, he lay still, his body stiff as if afraid—or unable—to move. Air wheezed in and out of his mouth in hollow, shallow breaths. How badly was he injured? Broken ribs? Internal injuries?

Carl grabbed the twine and tied Glenn’s wrists and ankles. Glenn groaned as the gunman forced his body into position. Carl went back to his coffee.

The room went silent, except for Glenn’s rough breathing and an occasional soft sob from the redhead. Amanda squinted at the gunshot man, trying to assess his rate of bleeding, but her vision kept tunneling, darkness encroaching from all sides. Not a good sign.

She tallied the score. Four gunmen, zero injuries. Four, no, five hostages. She kept forgetting the black-haired clerk, paralyzed with shock in the corner of the room.

Anyway, of the five prisoners, they now sported one gunshot wound, likely broken ribs, and a probable concussion. Of the two physically sound hostages, the clerk was too traumatized to be of much use, and the redhead was busy trying to keep her husband from bleeding to death. It didn’t look like she was having much luck. The stack of bloody dishtowels was growing into a Jenga tower.

Carl set down his mug and lifted a towel off a basket of fresh scones. “Want some?”

“Sure, but where the fuck is Uncle Dennis?” Win caught the pastry Carl tossed to him. The back door opened, but it wasn’t Dennis, the man who’d gone after Mia. It was the fourth man who’d been outside checking the grounds.

His bald head gleamed with moisture. “What’s going on?”

“Where’ve you been, Lincoln?” Carl asked.

Lincoln grabbed a scone from the basket. “Checking the outbuildings.”

“The kid got away. Dennis went after her,” Win said. “He should be back any minute.”

“How long’s he been gone? I know he’s out of shape, but how long can it take to catch a little kid?” Carl stopped midchew and stared at Amanda. “And where is her husband?”

“Shit. With all the commotion, I forgot about him,” Win said.

Carl washed his mouthful down with a swig of coffee. “You searched his room, right?”

“Yeah, no sign of him.” Win broke off a chunk of biscuit.

“When Dennis gets back here with the kid, we have to find him.” Carl refilled his mug from the coffeepot. “We can’t have any loose ends.”

Win walked to the window. “We should take that sweet SUV out there.”

“That was my thinking,” Carl agreed. He glanced back toward Amanda. “Which one of you owns it?”

There was no point lying. It would only make them angry.

“The SUV is ours,” she said.

“The keys will be in their room.” Carl wrapped his hands around his mug.

Win turned to Lincoln. “You want to go out and look for Uncle Dennis or do you want me to do it?”

“The last thing I want to do is go out in the fucking snow again.” Lincoln’s eyes hardened.

“Somebody’s going to have to find them.” Carl didn’t look like he wanted it to be him. “I’m done fucking around. The first person who moves gets a load of buckshot in the gut.”

“I’ll do it.” Win touched his wet jacket and frowned. Without putting it on, he opened the back door. Cold wind whipped a cloud of swirling snow powder into the doorway. “Be right back.”

“Keep a lookout for that missing guy while you’re out there,” Carl called after him.

Win checked the magazine on his gun. “I will.”