No Ordinary Billionaire (The Sinclairs) (R) (24 page)

Two more minutes.

As usual, Dante was fighting an inner war between his desire to protect Sarah and his desire to make her happy. One look into those fathomless violet eyes of hers had nailed him. Oh yeah, they were really dark blue, but they damn well looked violet to him, and they’d been pleading with him to give her some space to get back to a normal life. When she gave him
that look
he was completely destroyed. He wondered if she knew that. Probably not. Still, it made him want to give her anything and everything she wanted to make her happy. Problem was, he needed to protect her, too, and he was discovering that it was damn difficult to make her happy and keep her safe at the same time.

One more minute.

God, she was beautiful. Dante’s eyes caressed her lovingly as she continued to play like an angel, her face almost glowing with pleasure. Truth was, he already knew he was all-in with this woman and probably had been soon after they’d met. He was looking at his future, and he was surprisingly serene about that fact. This complex, amazingly intelligent, beautiful, sexy female had turned his life and his emotions upside down, but she belonged with him. There was no way in hell he could live without her anymore, and he didn’t plan to.

Time’s up. Thank fuck!

Right on time, the concert ended so all of the silver-haired ladies could scurry off to senior bingo. There were choruses of appreciative words called to Sarah as they filed out, the room emptying quickly. Dante breathed a sigh of relief as he stood by the door, watching to make sure nobody entered. Emily and Randi went to join Sarah, while Grady and Jared stepped out the door to talk about a new project Grady was working on.

Everything changed in an instant.

One moment Dante was caught by Elsie Renfrew to say hello, and the next he turned back to Sarah to see a sight he’d only ever envisioned in his nightmares: John Thompson using Sarah as a shield, the barrel of a 9 mm pistol to her head. It had happened in a split second. Where in the hell had the bastard come from? He was guarding the door, and he’d searched every inch of the room before Sarah’s performance.

“One wrong move from anybody, and she’s dead, her brains splattered all over this room, along with the rest of her friends,” Thompson screeched hysterically.

Dante froze, taking in the situation in seconds. Emily and Randi were flanking Sarah and the gunman, neither of them moving, both afraid the asshole would kill Sarah. Dante’s Glock was within reach, so close, but he didn’t have a clear shot, and he couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t hit one of the women if he shot in haste. They were all too close, and Sarah was being used as human armor. Dante was damn fast with a gun, but not so fast that a psychotic gunman with a twitchy trigger finger couldn’t kill Sarah before he could get a shot off. And even if he did kill the bastard, the gun in Thompson’s hand might still discharge.

“Get out and close the fucking door. Lock it or she dies,” Thompson demanded in a high-pitched, frantic voice.

Dante could see the fear in every one of the women’s eyes, but not one of them moved. His heart thundering against his chest wall, he stepped back as he saw the slight tightening of the man’s grip on the pistol. He met Sarah’s eyes and she subtly nodded, silently telling him to do what Thompson demanded.

There was nothing Dante wanted more than to pull his gun and shoot the bastard right between his beady, crazed eyes, but he didn’t. He took in every detail he could about the man holding Sarah hostage while he was slowly closing the door: his skinny frame, the wild-eyed look on his face, the scruffy brown beard he was growing, the shoulder-length greasy hair, and the orange T-shirt and torn jeans that were littered with stains.

Then, he trained his eyes on Sarah as long as he could until the metal door slammed closed, locked. He wasn’t worried about the lock. Someone had keys. His biggest concern was the fact that there were no windows in the door, no windows in the music room, no way to know what was happening inside.

“Fuck! Call nine-one-one and get ahold of Chief Landon. Now!” Dante bellowed, the desperate sound bringing Jared and Grady to his side.

“What are we reporting?” Elsie asked as she pulled a pink cell phone from her large purse and dialed.

“Hostage situation. Three women with a psychotic lunatic. He has a nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson seventeen-round pistol. Tell them we need a hostage negotiator and a SWAT team.” Turning to Jared, he instructed, “Evacuate the building as fast and as quietly as possible. Have the seniors use the side door to exit the building. Jared, can you handle getting everybody out?”

“Done,” Jared replied, already in motion to get people out of the building.

“I have to find Emily,” Grady said desperately.

“Grady!” Dante grabbed his brother by the arm. “She’s in there with Sarah. So is Randi.”

Grady broke away from him and charged toward the door. Dante had to put his own brother in a headlock to stop him. “You can’t go in there. It’s locked, and doing anything to agitate him could get Emily killed. Think, goddammit! And screw your head on straight. Do you want her to die?” Dante held on to Grady until he stopped fighting against him. “I know exactly how you feel, but you have to pull it together for Emily.”

“I love her,” Grady said, panicked. “She’s my whole life.”

“Sarah has become my whole fucking life, too, and I know how you’re feeling. But you gotta think right now, Grady. Emily is being brave. She isn’t doing anything stupid. Calm the fuck down, and remember that his main target is Sarah.” Dante needed Grady to stop losing his mind. They didn’t have much time. He knew what John Thompson’s objective was—he wanted Sarah dead.

“Okay,” Grady answered in a husky voice. “I got it. Let go.”

Dante released Grady and they faced each other.

“What do we do?” Grady asked in a calmer voice, but his eyes were still wild with worry.

“We get our women back,” Dante replied, his voice filled with harsh determination. He was going to rescue Sarah, Randi, and Emily no matter what it took to get them out of there alive.

He could see Jared herding people out the side door, and police officers came streaming in the main entrance, Joe Landon at the front of the pack.

Everything was happening in his peripheral vision, but Dante was staring at the wall on the other side of the room to clear his mind, racking his brain for a plan that wouldn’t get the three women killed.

Sarah shoved aside her panic, trying to think of a way to get Emily and Randi out of John’s control. After the door had closed, John had shoved the three of them into one of the far corners of the room, his body between them and escape. The pistol was still trained on her, but he moved it when he gestured, which was a whole lot when he was talking.

“You have no idea what my life has been like since you sent the fucking police after me,” John whined. “Before you, I could use women and dispose of them, and nobody ever knew.”

Dear God . . . is he saying what I think he’s saying?

“Women back in Chicago?” Sarah questioned carefully.

“It was just Chicago until you made me leave the city. Now it’s been Chicago, Boston, New York . . . I find the bitches, use them, and then get rid of them so they can’t talk. Nobody even suspected me, nobody ever knew. I was a family man with a wife and kid. I had a respectable job, and I was smarter than the cops. I made sure not a single one of those women stayed alive to talk,” John answered angrily, staring murderously at Sarah. “Until you,” he finished furiously.

If a man or woman has the capability to murder, it’s already there.

Dante had been right when he’d told her that. Trey had always told her that his father had a bad temper, but Sarah feared it was much more than that. John Thompson had killed while his wife and son were alive? They were his cover? That meant the murders had gone unsolved for quite some time. All of the victims had been women. Used?—probably meant raped
and
murdered. Suspicion crept into her brain and wouldn’t leave. She knew there hadn’t been another similar murder in Chicago since John had attacked her.

Dear God, it can’t be him.

She felt Emily squeeze her hand, and Sarah knew her friends were trying to suppress their own horror. John Thompson was a serial rapist and murderer, and had been way before she’d ever met his son, Trey. Sarah squeezed back, trying to encourage her friend to keep quiet. Emily was sitting in the middle, and Sarah knew Emily and Randi were probably having the same silent exchange.

“You’re the Windy City Carver?” Sarah asked blandly, her stomach rolling as she realized exactly who was standing in front of her. The serial killer who had raped and killed so many women in Chicago had never been caught, and it had always been assumed that he was an opportunistic killer. He’d trolled for stranded female motorists or women walking alone at night.

“That’s me,” John answered proudly. “I never left the cops any evidence that would identify me. I was smart. I used a condom when I used the bitches and always cut them up in my truck inside a plastic liner. Then I tossed the pieces into the water. Even if they had been able to find some kind of fiber evidence, I was a family man with no criminal record. They had nothing to match it with. I was never a suspect. And I never struck twice in the same area.” He pointed the gun in her direction. “You. Ruined. Everything. I didn’t have time to use you before I almost killed you, and I didn’t have my favorite carving knife. I had to use a worthless pocketknife because I hadn’t planned on wasting you that day. I saw you, and I wanted you dead for taking away my last bit of cover. You fucking deserved it. A guy with a wife and son was better, but I needed Trey because my bitch of a wife was already dead. Hiding in the stairwell was a last-minute decision, but all I had was a pocketknife. I knew it wasn’t going to be very satisfying, but seeing you bleed to death had to be enough. I could always find another bitch to carve after you were dead.” He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a knife, unsheathing the blade from its protective cover with a flick of his thumb, his face becoming that of a demonic killer.

Pure evil.

Sarah shuddered as she saw the lethal carving knife that had at least a seven-inch blade with jagged edges. The sight struck terror in her heart, but she tried not to show it, even when he waved the knife close to her throat.

Think, Sarah, think. You can’t give in to fear right now.

Somehow, she had to find a way to free Emily and Randi. If she had to use herself as bait and a victim, so be it. But she wasn’t watching her two friends die because of a situation she had created by moving here to Amesport. She’d brought trouble to them, and now she had to get them away from it. She hadn’t known just how deranged John Thompson really was, but she knew it now. He was a cold-blooded killer and always had been. She was a medical doctor, a woman used to seeing blood and gore. Still, the stories about how he’d carved some of his victims had made her stomach roll, imagining the terror those women had gone through before they died.

“John, let Emily and Randi go,” she said calmly. “If you’re planning on raping me, you’ll have a difficult time of it with them here. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“I could just shoot them now,” John mused manically.

“The police would break down the door if you shoot them, and if you try to attack one of us with a knife, the other two will fight you. Do you really want to risk losing the opportunity to kill me the way you’ve wanted to do for over a year? Think about it. You’ve waited a long time for this.” Sarah held her breath, praying he wouldn’t shoot her friends, but she didn’t think he would risk having the police rush in after the gunshots. He’d lose everything he had planned. Her heart palpitated wildly while she waited for his decision. Bile rose in her throat from discussing her own rape and death, but she swallowed hard, knowing she had to do this for her friends. She’d deal with John and her own fate once Emily and Randi were safe.

“If they go, they’ll open the door,” John said, starting to appear confused and hesitant.

“Hold the gun to my head. The door will get closed and locked again.” Sarah couldn’t believe she’d just said that, but she was desperate to get her friends out of harm’s way. She’d offer her life up for her two innocent friends without hesitation if necessary.

“Is this a trick? You’re a smart bitch,” John asked defensively.

“No tricks. Just let them leave and we’ll be all alone.” The thought made Sarah’s skin crawl, but she kept her expression blank.

John took the tip of the knife and ran it along her upper arm. “I can still see my work here.”

“I have plenty of scars,” Sarah admitted.

“They’re faded,” he commented unhappily. “Shitty knife.”

“Let them go and you can do the job the way you want to this time,” Sarah urged calmly.

Emily squeezed her hand again, this time in alarm. Sarah shot a sideways glance at Emily and Randi, and she saw a look of horror that neither one of them could hide.

No fear. Don’t show him fear. Just get Randi and Emily out.