Wicked Need (The Wicked Horse Series Book 3) (24 page)

Dark, greasy hair
that comes down to his shoulders and parts in the middle. A long,
wiry beard. Dirty face smudged with oil and sweat. The light
surprises him and his eyes flare wide as they turn toward the source,
which I know is a car that’s
just pulled into the driveway.

Either Lorelei or
Jake, but I can’t
tell because I can’t turn my head without causing the blade to
go in deeper.

I have no clue if
they can see us, but my attacker must not think so, even though I can
see his eyes are pale blue from the shimmer of the light on him. He
presses the blade in tighter and doesn’t
say a word, seemingly unsure of what to do. For the first time, I
feel a small trickle of blood that rolls down past my collarbone to
my chest.

The engine is cut
off, and I hear the ticking of the motor. The lights don’t
go out and the car door opens.

All of this happens
in just seconds, and without any thought as to whether it’s
the right thing to do or not, I open my mouth and let out the most
piercing shriek I can muster. It startles the man so much that he
actually jerks backward from me, my neck suddenly free from the
knife. I turn and see Lorelei standing beside her car with the door
still open, not even fifteen feet away. She’s staring straight
at us, the headlights showing her exactly what the situation is. I
haven’t met her yet, but I did see her getting in her car one
morning from the upper window in the garage apartment. I wonder if
she knows who I am.

Because she’s
standing in the glow of the sconce lights, I see clearly the look of
shock cross her face, then her eyes narrow in recognition of me and a
scary, greasy man standing there with a knife.

Oh, fuck…
what was I thinking? Lorelei is pregnant. She might even have her
daughter in the backseat. She’s now in as much danger as I am.

“Lorelei…
run,” I scream, my back still pinned against the wall, not by
my attacker but merely by my terror.

But she doesn’t.
Instead, she calmly reaches into her purse and pulls a gun out. My
gaze goes to the man, watching his eyes widen in surprise. I’m
sure mine look the same.

“You get the
hell away from her,” Lorelei says as she holds the gun aimed at
him in a sure, two-handed grip. She looks completely confident in her
abilities, and I think that might be because everyone in Wyoming owns
guns and knows how to shoot.

The man doesn’t
move one way or the other. He stands frozen to the spot, his eyes
riveted on Lorelei and the gun, his hand holding the knife loosely by
his side. My gut instinct—no, my internal sense of
self-preservation—tells me to run—but I stand frozen to
the spot as well, afraid any movement from me might provoke him to
attack.

“Only going to
say this one more time,” Lorelei says, and I hear the
unmistakable snick of the gun cocking. “Get the hell away from
her.”

He only hesitates
for one, maybe two seconds before he bolts off into the darkness, the
sound of his feet thumping on the hard ground and eventually receding
into the distance.

“Get over
here, Cat,” Lorelei says, her gun now swung slightly toward the
way in which my attacker just ran. Well, that answers the question…
she knows who I am.

I bend to grab my
purse, but Lorelei barks at me, “Over
here now. I can’t see much past you and I don’t know if
he’s still out there.”

There’s
no hesitation because the thought he might be back propels me as much
as Lorelei’s commanding voice. I run straight at her, confident
she won’t shoot me.

She nods at her car
and says, “Get
in the back with Amber.”

I don’t
argue but do exactly as she says. When the door is closed, she slowly
backs into the driver’s seat and shuts the door. With amazing
efficiency, she sets the gun on the dashboard, reaches into her purse
to grab her phone, and manages to start the car. Handing the phone to
me, she says, “Call 911. Tell them what happened and the
address. Tell them I’m leaving and going to drive the block
until they get here.”

“Why?” I
ask as I take the phone.

“Because I
have no clue if there are others, possibly in the house or
apartment,” she says as she shifts the car into reverse.

Brilliant. Would
have never thought of that.

I turn to look at
Amber sitting beside me in the car seat. Beautiful little girl with
golden blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, clutching a teddy bear. I
give her a tremulous smile. “Hi.”

She looks at me with
solemn eyes, understanding that something scary is going on here.

Then I turn back to
Lorelei’s
phone to call the police.

“Can you
remember anything else?” Detective Blanton asks as he sits
beside me on the couch in Lorelei and Jake’s living room,
typing notes on an iPad. He’s a nice-looking man… tall
with dark hair peppered lightly with gray, which tells me he’s
been a cop for a while.

“I think
that’s it,” I say, my brain trying to sift through all
the details, but I feel they’re all muddied from the fear and
adrenaline. It took me no more than five minutes to recount to him
what happened the first time, and that’s only because the
entire thing couldn’t have lasted more than two minutes,
although it felt like twenty.

He had me go through
my story three more times, each time managing to pull out some other
detail I had forgotten. It makes me wonder what else I’ve
failed to tell him.

He doesn’t
say anything, just continues to type in some notes.

The front door
opens, but I don’t
flinch as police officers have been coming in and out as they search
for evidence, making sure that no one was inside the house. I turn my
head, surprised to see Rand standing there, his face pale and his jaw
locked. He sidesteps a cop, rounds the loveseat, and heads straight
toward me. I stand up, shuffle to the side of the coffee table, and
meet him at mid-room where his arms are around me and he’s
pushing my face into his chest.

“Jesus,”
he growls as he squeezes me breathlessly. “Thank fuck for
Lorelei.”

I nod, because yes…
thank fuck. As soon as we returned to the house, only after Lorelei
saw the first cruiser pull into the driveway, she called Rand and
Jake to let them know what happened. I had no idea what she said
because I was immediately pulled into an interview to try to get my
statement while details were fresh and untainted. Three other cars
pulled up within moments, with two officers heading off into the
darkness to see if they’d luck out and find the guy who
attacked me. An ambulance arrived moments later.

But here Rand is now
with his arms banded around me tightly and for the first time since
the man grabbed me, I feel a measure of safety.

Rand pulls back
slightly and looks down at me. “Are
you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?”

Hospital?

Hospital!

“How’s
Tarryn?” I blurt out, my hand coming to his chest. “Is
she alright?”

Rand rolls his eyes
and glares at me, pulling me back to the couch where he pushes me
down and then squats in front of me.

“Forget about
her,” he says as his fingers come to flutter over the white
bandage on my throat that the paramedic put on me. He said it wasn’t
deep at all and should heal up fine, so I refused a trip to the
hospital. “He cut you?”

“I’m
fine,” I say, rather than confirm the obvious. It turns out he
didn’t cut me all that bad. A thin slice… more a scratch
really, that produced a single large bead of blood that trickled down
my chest.

Lorelei walks out of
the back hallway and smiles at Rand and me. “I
just put Amber down. Can I get anyone coffee?”

The detective looks
up from his iPad and says, “I’d
actually like to get your statement, Mrs. Gearhart.”

Lorelei nods and
sits down on the loveseat while Rand pushes up off the floor to pace
while she tells her story. He mutters and curses to himself as he
listens, and I’m
thankful he wasn’t here when I told the cop what happened, as
it was far more unpleasant than Lorelei valiantly chasing him off
with a gun.

“Give me as
detailed a description as you can,” the detective prods her.

“He was about
fifteen feet from me and my headlights illuminated him pretty well.
Five-nine, maybe hundred and sixty pounds. Dark brown hair to
shoulder, full beard and mustache. Jeans, black boots, and a
long-sleeved dark t-shirt. Leather cut with an MC patch on the front
that I couldn’t see all that well, but I saw a larger one on
the back when he turned to run. Had a skull on the back. Oh, and he
had a teardrop tattoo under his right eye, at least I’m pretty
sure that’s what it was, but it all happened so fast. I’m
not sure how much that helps.”

I stare at Lorelei,
my mouth agape. How did she get all that in the few seconds she saw
him? How in the hell did she see that tattoo when I was almost face
to face with him and didn’t
notice it. Or maybe I did notice it but it just didn’t
register. Or perhaps it registered but I’ve forgotten it
because I was more worried about not getting my throat slit.

Let’s
face it… I’m practically useless at this eyewitness
stuff. All I had was greasy hair and a preference for beer and hot
dogs, which granted… if they had tracking dogs, they might be
able to sniff him out based on that.

Detective Blanton
nods as he types the information in, his mouth moving silently as he
talks to himself at the same time. When he finishes, he looks up at
me. “Did
he say anything at all? Have a distinct accent? Anything else you can
remember?”

Shit! He did talk to
me and I didn’t
even remember it until he asked. Absolutely fucking useless, and I’m
thinking there’s even more I’ve forgotten and he’s
going to need to interview me several more times to get the entire
store.

I nod effusively.
“He
said he had orders, but that he was going to have fun first.”

“Orders?’
the detective asks with raised eyebrows, and Rand comes to a
standstill. I can feel the shock and anger vibrating off him, but I
don’t dare look. I know what he’s thinking.

“Yeah…
he said something like ‘orders were clear’ but that he
wanted to have some fun first,” I confirm.

“Son of a
bitch,” Rand says as he comes to the same conclusion I just
did.

“Did someone
have motive to hurt you?” the cop asks as he looks at me but
cuts a quick glance at Rand.

I nod, but Rand
answers for me. “Her
late husband’s oldest son, Kevin Vaughn. Cat’s owed some
money from the estate and he’s claiming there’s another
will cutting her out. We’ve asked for a signed copy and he was
supposed to deliver it today, but he never showed.”

“What kind of
money are we talking about?” the detective asks, now very
interested in this turn of events.

“Five million
and a house here in Jackson,” I provide.

“And what is
the estate worth?” he asks.

I shrug. “I
don’t know. Samuel was a billionaire. But a lot.”

“And you think
five million out of a billion plus is worth killing you over?”

It’s
a fair question and it’s something I’ve thought about to
the extent I never understood why Kevin wouldn’t just let me
have that. It was nominal in the grand scheme of things. “No, I
don’t think that’s something that should cause someone to
want to kill me,” I tell him with a measure of confusion. “But
he kicked me out of my house, shut all my access to money off,
claiming there was this new will that cut me out completely. He’s
not been able to produce that, and he made an offer to buy me off a
few days ago.”

“Buy you off?”
Detective Blanton asks.

Squaring my
shoulders, I tell him bluntly, “Five
thousand dollars or I could move into the Jackson house and be his
mistress.”

If this surprises
the detective, he doesn’t
let it show, merely bows his head over the iPad and notes that. He
asks for contact info for Kevin as well as Richard, confirming where
he can get up with me for more questions if needed and so he can keep
me updated. With Lorelei and I both assuring him that’s all we
can remember, he goes outside to oversee the other cops in searching
around the house for evidence.

Rand walks up to me
and holds his hand out. I take it, and he pulls me from the couch.
“Come
on, let’s get you upstairs, fed, and then ready for bed.”

I nod with a tired
smile and turn to Lorelei as she stands from the love seat. “I
know we haven’t been formally introduced, but thank you for
saving my life tonight. And seriously… all that stuff you
remembered about what he looked like… you, madam, are a
fucking legend.”

She grins and leans
in to give me a hug. “My
pleasure. I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Rand leads me out of
the living room and to the front door, Lorelei following behind us.
Food sounds good, but a hot shower sounds better as I can’t
get the smell of hot dogs and beer out of my head.