“I’m tired,” Jessyka yawned. “If you don’t get me into your room soon, you won’t be able to cross that thing off your bucket list,” she teased him, remembering their conversation just two weeks earlier. John had woken up the last time they tried to check that little number off their list, and he had fallen asleep between them. Other than fooling around in the barn, Benny hadn’t been able to achieve that one goal he had about making love to a woman in his room yet.
“Oh yeah,” he waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively.
“Oh yeah,” she came back at him. “I’m game if you are.”
“I’m game.” He took her hand and led her back to the house. He heard a snap and turned in the direction it had come from. His instincts kicked in and he pulled Jessyka in tight. He stared into the darkness in the direction he heard the noise and then out of the corner of his eye saw a slight movement, and then red eyes about six feet off the ground. It was a massive elk, or moose, on the tree line, and he pointed out the majestic creature to his wife. This was a rare sighting. There numbers were low in the state despite protections in place to keep them safe from hunters. Benny stood stock still and kept Jessyka in close. He knew the animal might get spooked and that it could also charge if it felt threatened. The creature sniffed the air and then gazed their way to ascertain if they were a threat to him. After a minute longer, it nodded its long and heavy head before turning and escaping back into the forests on the North side of the farm to resume its solitary existence.
Jessyka gazed at him with wide-eyed wonder. Benny felt the hairs on the back of his neck still standing from the fright the animal had given him, but smiled down at his wife now that the danger seemed to be over. He looked back toward the tree line once more, and scanned it for any other nocturnal creatures. But there was nothing. Just silence while the stars shone brightly in the now cloudless sky.
Quickly, Benny made his way to the house. He opened the front door that he had apparently left unlocked when they went out earlier. He shook his head. He hadn’t left the door unlocked. Once more in less than five minutes his senses went into overdrive. Alarm bells went off when he saw a puddle by the front door. Melted snow? But no one had come back in from outside. Those who had left were long gone. And he and Jessyka had been gone only twenty minutes. He looked around the room quickly and then heard a noise from upstairs. Someone was still up. His arm shot across the entryway of the door and blocked Jessyka from fully entering. She grunted when her chest unexpectedly encountered his steely forearm.
“What…?”
He didn’t even let her finish. Something was wrong. Very wrong. His senses were on high alert. He felt that trickle of fear that swept up his back and then he smelled it—smoke.
“Cookie!!” he roared. “Get the kids out. Jessyka, get out. Go to the car and lock yourself in. Wait for me, I’m getting my aunts.” He screamed as he headed up the wooden stairs at a full run.
Jessyka did as she was told, though her instinct was to head back in after Benny and her kids, and then she paused at the door. She saw Cookie at the top of the stairs and he already held Sara under one arm and John under the other. Fiona was right behind him with baby Suzie.
Jessyka held the door open wide as Cookie barreled past her.
“Put them in the car,” she repeated Benny’s words, and he nodded racing past her towards the rented minivan they had been using all week. Jessyka was about to follow them out, but looked back up the stairs to see if Benny was coming yet. Cam and Cord were running down the stairs. Cam opened the cabinet under the sink and pulled out a fire extinguisher.
“Cord! There is another one in the laundry room, I think!” Cord nodded and then went in that direction, while Cam felt the door to the basement. Jessyka noticed the smoke coming up from the basement.
The door must not have been too warm because Cam opened it while covering his face with his forearm to keep out the smoke. He glanced down the stairs then back at Jessyka. “I can see the fire. Looks small. I’ve got to try to put it out.” She saw the panic on his face. It was his family home and she couldn’t blame him for wanting to try to save it. All of their childhood memories were here. She nodded and watched as he disappeared, then Cord was back with the other extinguisher and without hesitation plummeted down the stairs after his brother.
Benny appeared then, and she saw him leading both his frightened aunts down the stairs. “Is everyone out?” he asked her.
“Cord and Cam went downstairs,” she stated as she saw Suzie’s eyes go wide in fear.
Just then she felt Cookie behind her. “Get in the car, Jessyka. Now. The kids are crying. We will help Cam and Cord with the fire.” His order was a command and not one to be disobeyed.
“Take my aunts with you.” Benny pushed Suzie into Jessyka’s arms. Sandra was helping too. Suzie didn’t want to go, her sons were downstairs battling the flames, but Jessyka heard the firmness in husband’s voice. She knew Suzie had lost her husband tragically, and he didn’t want her to be in the way. She also knew Cookie and Benny could handle this.
“Come on, Aunt Suzie,” she encouraged. “We need to get out and call for help.” Suzie nodded and lifted her hand. She was holding her cell phone. “Good, let’s get in the van and then I’ll call.”
“You’ll call,” Suzie repeated in a trance like voice as she allowed herself to be pulled out the door.
“Yes, I’ll call.” Jessyka was trying to keep her calm and to reassure her at the same time. They took a few steps towards the SUV.
“No, you won’t call!” a voice like a serpent called to her from just a few feet away. It was the tone of that voice that she recognized. Fear trickled down her spine like nothing Jessyka had felt in a very long time. “You’ll never call anyone again.”
Jessyka heard the click of a pistol and turned abruptly pushing Suzie into an embankment of snow. It was one of the piles created by the men as they shoveled the driveway. Sandy collapsed with her as Jessyka faced the woman who was holding a gun pointed directly at her. The woman was two feet away. The gun was point blank in her face. Jessyka’s eyes followed the barrel of the gun to the source, and she found herself staring into the eyes of the woman from the hotel. The woman with the blond hair, that had been red, but that used to be brown a long time ago. A woman who she had been told was dead. A woman who had died in a prison fire three years ago. A woman who was definitely not dead, but was staring her in the eyes with the same cold dead look in them she had seen when she had been dragged out of the courtroom after being sentenced to twenty years in jail. The woman who had screamed at her while she had been dragged out by the police officers, “I’ll get you if it is the last thing I ever do.”
And now she was here to make good on her threat. And for Jessyka everything clicked into place. The past two weeks, the threats, the poison. Lisa was back from the grave and she was hell bent on collecting her revenge.
Jessyka spoke in a voice calmer than she thought she could manage to get out. “Lisa. You’re alive.”
The woman snorted before she answered. “I knew you would recognize me eventually. You’re dumb. But not that dumb.”
“What are you doing here?” Jessyka kept the shock from her voice. She had to stay calm. Stay calm and think. Think of a way out of this. Keep Lisa busy. Keep her from pointing that gun at anyone but her.
“I was hoping to kill your entire family and watch them burn tonight.” She stated it matter-of-factly. Her voice had a sing song quality to it. The woman was clearly insane. “And I wanted to watch you watch them burn, but you had to ruin that too, and came back from your little walk too soon. You know, you just ruin everything.” Lisa’s face twisted into a snarl. The scar appeared even more grotesque in the moon light.
“Why?” her voice trembled in the cold night air. She saw Suzie roll out of the snow and begin to crawl her way.
“Don’t even think of it, you old woman. I’ll blow her head off with her kids watching if you try anything funny.” Lisa must have seen S
uzie’s attempt to sneak away, to go get help from the house.
Jessyka signaled for Suzie to keep still, but she also wondered why Lisa didn’t do it yet? What was she waiting for?
“I see your mind working, Jessyka? It’s not you I want to kill. Not yet anyway. That won’t make you suffer. It’s them,” she nodded towards the vehicle. Her voice sounded like she was explaining something to a small child who did not understand something so simple. “And your husband. I want you to lose the man who loves you and your children, just like I did.” She could see Fiona sitting inside the van with the kids. She was trying to shield them, and keep them from looking at their mother or the smoke still emerging from the wide open front door.
Jessyka focused on Lisa. She couldn’t let the woman know how much her words had rattled her. She needed to stall for time. The men were inside and when they came out all hell was going to break loose. The woman before her was nuts. Certifiable. Completely and utterly insane, just as insane as Brian had been if not more. “Lisa, you don’t want to do this.” She would try to reason with her though she knew that was pointless. At this point it was about buying time.
“Tell your friend to get out of that car. Leave the kids.”
“No.” Jessyka wouldn’t do that. She would die before she let this mad woman anywhere near her kids.
“Fiona, drive away. Take the kids and go,” she ordered in defiance of Lisa’s demand.
“Fiona, if you do that. I’m going to kill your friend. Then I’m going to go into that farmhouse and kill whoever comes out.”
Jessyka saw the pained expression on her friend’s face. The indecision that flickered across Fee’s face was painful to watch. Jessyka had to think. She needed a distraction. Just a second to get the upper hand on this insane woman. Then it came to her. She needed to knock her down. She remembered the squeaky car door. She glanced at Fiona. “Do it. Go ahead, and get out of the car. Now.”
Lisa smiled triumphantly. She would take the kids. She would knock them out somehow and then drive the car over a cliff with all of them inside. That was her new plan. It had come to her in a flash. The cliff just around the bend would be perfect. She had been hiding in that little shack along the edge of the cliff for the past three nights trying to figure out her new plan. The fire, she thought, had been brilliant. She had known the couple would sneak off one night alone and then she would burn the house down. She had hoped it would happen this very night as well. But just in case opportunity came early, she had watched and waited for days, and then tonight her luck had hit pay dirt.
Well almost pay dirt. If they had been gone just five minutes more it would have worked. But this could work too. She would kill the kids, then come back for Benny another time. She’d let them both live with that grief for a while. But Jessyka had to be alone eventually for her revenge to be complete.
Fiona reached for the door, and Jessyka nodded encouraging her. And just like Jessyka hoped, the creaking of the hinge on the car door drew Lisa’s attention as it rent the night air. Lisa watched as the tall willowy woman emerged. The kids were whining inside as she encouraged them to stay put. “Are you sure about this, Jess?” she asked her voice trembling, tears running down her face.
“I’m sure!” she screamed and hurled herself at Lisa in the same moment before Lisa’s eyes could swing back to her. She knew the driver side door squeaked, and Benny had felt bad about forgetting to fix it all week. She was now counting on the noise to distract Lisa long enough to hit her so hard the gun would fly out of her hands.
It worked to a certain extent. Lisa had indeed tumbled backwards, but she still clasped the gun, as Jessyka clambered on top of her and tried to wrestle it from her grasp.
“Get in the van with the kids!” Fiona screamed at the two aunts who were just getting off of the ground during the chaos of the moment. “I’m going for help.”
Fiona ran towards the house, happy to see the smoke had abated. “Benny, Cookie, help!” she screamed into the doorway and then heard the men call back as they scrambled for the stairs.
“What is it?” Benny yelled up at Fiona’s from the bottom of the stairs. But when he saw her panic stricken face, tears streaming down her pale cheeks, he began to climb up towards her.
“A woman with a gun, and Jessyka,” she panted waving away the wisps of smoke that still permeated the air.
Benny didn’t need to hear anymore. He took the stairs three at a time and flew past Fiona with Cookie, Cord and Cam at his heels, all covered in soot from battling the flames in the basement. They had been able to put out the fire mostly with the extinguishers, and then had stomped out the remaining embers before they proceeded upstairs. They had only been down there a few minutes when Fiona screamed for them.
Benny ran outside. First he saw the van and his aunts’ faces pressed up against the windows. Sandra was motioning to the rear of the van and he ran that way. When he saw his wife straddled over another figure, it was like he was reliving a moment from his past. He watched as his wife struck the figure repeatedly on the head with what looked like the butt of a gun. Blood arced out over her and splattered onto the pristine snow. Again and again, she struck until he pulled her off the figure who was no longer moving.
“Jessyka, stop!” he screamed as she thrashed wildly in midair legs still kicking. He lifted her completely off of the body. “It’s’ okay. You’re safe. We are safe. She’s not moving.”
He set Jessyka down before him, but her eyes never left the figure lying in the snow. “Is she dead?” she asked as they both looked at the crimson puddle of blood growing larger in the glow of the moonlight.
“I think so,” he stated pulling Jessyka to him, and nudging the lifeless body with his foot. When he felt Cookie behind him, he pushed Jessyka into his arms and knelt by the figure in the snow. He took two fingers to the woman’s wrist. There was nothing. No pulse. His wife had done it again. Saved them. Saved his kids, and saved herself, but she’d had to bludgeon someone’s skull to do it. “Who was she?” he asked looking up at his wife who had tears streaking down her face. “Did you recognize her?”
At his wife’s nod, he asked once more. “Who was she, baby?”
“Lisa. It was Lisa. Brian’s sister.”
And then Benny knew exactly who this woman was and why she had come here. He saw the blond wisp of hair, and then thought about her eyes, the eyes that he had faintly recognized at the casino four days earlier when he prevented her from falling. It all made sense. The danger they had all been in, had been because of her. A sick woman, who had not died like they thought. A woman who had somehow faked her death and then come after them when they least expected it.
He got up and went to Jessyka. She wasn’t crying any longer. She wrapped her arms around him as he held her. He felt her squeeze him back. His strong woman.
“It’s over now. We are safe.” He repeated his earlier words.
“Yes, we are.” Her words were cold. Strong.
“I love you, Jessyka.”
“I love you too, Benny. Now take me home,” she moaned into his chest. It was her first sign of emotion since killing Lisa. “I want to go home.” She was crying then, and he held her. His wife. His love.
He held her close and whispered into her hair, “Tomorrow love. I promise.”
He knew there would be a lot to do tonight. A lot of questions to answer, but come hell or high water, tomorrow he was taking his wife and kids home. To their home.
CHAPTER 23
The flight home had been delayed until evening, but Benny had been able to keep his promise. He got Jessyka home. He knew the experience would traumatize her and she would need counseling again, but he knew how strong she was. This time she had not only been protecting him, but she had done what she needed to do to protect him and their kids, his aunts, his cousins, and their friends. She saved them all. Fucking incredible!
She had saved him. Again. Fiona filled in the blanks. How Lisa threatened to come shooting into the house and how she
threatened to kill anyone who got in her way. Her plan had been to take the children. He shuddered at the thought. He looked into the room the girls shared for now. They were both sound asleep. The baby, Suzie, still in her crib. They planned to put her in a bed when she was eighteen months old. She had done fine sleeping with her sissy back In Massachusetts.
He crossed the hall and looked in on John. He’d been so brave. The counselor who arrived with the police sat with them all night. They were in shock, but once they saw their mom was okay and that he was okay, they rebounded. They might have a nightmare or two, the counselor reassured them, but they would recover. Kids rebounded quickly.
Jessyka, she felt, would need to see someone. Events like this could bring on bouts of depression or even PTSD. He knew. Many men he had known suffered from the debilitating illness. They rebounded sometimes, and learned to deal with it. And he knew Jessyka was strong. She would survive this.
The flight home was fast. Wolf had arranged a private jet for them. He pulled some strings, and they shot across the continent in a record three hours with no layovers. Jessyka, Fiona, and the babies had all slept. He and Cookie stayed awake and watched over them all. Such precious cargo.
“Thanks for being there, Cookie. You and Fiona got the kids out. I can’t thank you enough.”
“You would have been there for me.”
“In a heartbeat.”
That was all they had to say on that subject because it was true.
* * *
Wolf was waiting for them when they hit the tarmac. He had gotten their vehicle from the long term parking at the airport. The man had connections, friends everywhere. Caroline was with them in her jeep.
“I’m taking Fee and Cookie home.” She smiled and crossed to them as they all descended the gateway, three out of four carrying a sleeping child. She hugged them all as best as she could and kissed the tops of three sleeping heads gently so as not to wake them. She continued in a whisper. “Wolf is driving you home. You all must be exhausted. I’ll swing by and pick him up after I drop these two home.” Benny was too exhausted to argue. He hadn’t slept all night, all day, and even though it was just ten PM in California, he had been on Massachusetts time for days.
Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Betting on Benny (Kindle Worlds) (Mystic Nights Book 6) Page 15
