Cody handed the phone to the state trooper.
“Can you let me verify that both women are still alive?” the trooper asked in a gentle tone.
“You’ll just have to take my word for it,” the man replied.
“What do you want?”
“For starters, turn the power back on.”
“Can’t do that, I’m afraid. Not yet, anyway. Talk to me. What do you want?”
“You’ll find out, very soon.”
He hung up. The trooper relayed the message.
Tank groaned. He should have married Merissa weeks ago. He should have carted her off to a minister the night they had Chinese food. Why had he hesitated? He knew how he felt. He knew how she felt. Now it might never happen. That murderer in the cabin was going to kill her, kill her mother, and it was all his fault.
A telephone truck came down the road, followed by a county water truck. They pulled into the driveway.
“What do you want us to do?” they asked Cody Banks.
“Wait.” He turned to his deputy, who was just driving up. “Rev that thing up, hit the lights and sirens, hard, and head toward town!”
“Yes, sir!”
The deputy went through the same routine he’d used earlier, and cut out onto the highway. Just as he vanished into the distance, a shot rang out.
* * *
HEART IN HIS mouth, hammering, Tank disobeyed a direct order from Cody Banks and ran toward the cabin just as fast as his legs would carry him. Who’d fired the shot? Carson had said to come running if they heard one, but what if it was the man in the cabin firing and they cost the women their lives by running in on him?
He couldn’t stop. He already was imagining seeing Merissa lying dead on the floor, blood in her mouth. He’d never live if she didn’t. He couldn’t go through the process of losing her, not again, not when she’d almost died of poison just days ago.
His chest was bursting as he followed the other men up on the porch. Cody reached for the door handle and there was an explosion.
The concussion from the explosion knocked the men backward onto the ground. Tank, flat on his back, breathless, saw the fireball go up into the air, like an orange balloon that just kept growing. The sound of the explosion followed seconds later.
“Get them out of there!” Tank yelled.
The firemen were already on the way. They pulled the tanker up next to the steps, jumped out and started stretching hoses.
Tank tried to go onto the porch, but Cody tackled him and brought him down again.
“No!” Tank raged. “God, no! I have...to get...in there!” he pleaded with his friend.
Cody wouldn’t let go. “If you go in there, you’ll die with her.”
“I don’t...care!” Tank choked out. “I can’t live without her! I won’t!”
Cody ground his teeth together. He’d never heard so much raw emotion in a man’s voice. He was dying for his friend. But he wouldn’t let go, either.
The water jetted into the cabin, the pressure of it breaking the rest of the glass that the explosion hadn’t.
Tank watched in horror as a flaming human body came diving out the door, screaming. It was too tall, too big, to be a woman.
The man, because it had to be the killer, went running toward the driveway. A fireman in full gear tackled him and brought him down while another fireman aimed a fire extinguisher at him. His clothing was burned half off; his body under it was black already. The foam covered him. Still he screamed and screamed. But very quickly he lay still, shivered and died.
Merissa and Clara. Had they already burned to death? Tank looked into the cabin with dead eyes. His life had burned up in there. What would he do now? He had no life left. His Merissa was gone. Gone, like the cabin that was slowly being consumed in the bright yellow flames, in the thick black smoke that rose up into the sky.
He sank to his knees and just sat there, watching the structure burn.
He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for their souls. He felt a wetness in his eyes, rolling onto his cheeks.
“Merissa!” he groaned. His voice echoed the anguish in his heart.
Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he could hear Merissa’s sweet, clear voice calling his name. It would haunt him forever.
“Dalton!”
He smiled. It was like an angel singing.
“Dalton!”
How odd, it seemed so real.
“Tank! Dammit!”
Tank. Dammit?
He got to his feet and turned around. There, black with soot but still very much alive was Merissa, in Carson’s arms. Clara was standing to one side, grimy, too, but smiling.
“Oh, dear God,” Tank whispered, and it was like a prayer. He went to her, took her gently from Carson’s arms and kissed her. And kissed her. And kissed her!
“I thought you’d died in there!” he whispered as he rained kisses on her face and hair. She smelled like smoke, and to him it was the sweetest perfume on earth. She was alive and breathing and cursing him. He loved it.
“We thought we were going to die,” she said wearily. “He’d already opened the valve on one of the gas canisters.” She coughed. “The fumes were choking us. We didn’t know why he did that, although we knew he had them wired to some sort of timer. He was looking out the window when the sirens started up. He’d just cut off some cord from a roll we had. He was going to tie us to the chairs. The gas was making us dizzy, and we knew what he planned. I motioned to Mama, and we covered our mouths and ran to the back door. We figured we were going to die anyway and being shot was easier than burning up.”
“My poor, brave girl,” he groaned. “Come on.” He picked her up and carried her to the paramedics, who were giving Clara oxygen. She’d inhaled more of the gas than Merissa had, because the shooter had made her stand at the window to watch the law enforcement people.
“Better now?” Tank asked when she’d had a few whiffs of oxygen and the EMTs had examined her and her mother.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Thanks,” she told the EMTs with a smile.
“What happened when you got to the door?” Tank asked.
“Well, I managed to unlock it. He was yelling at us to stop or he’d just shoot us. We panicked. I threw open the door. Carson was just a few yards away. He threw up the rifle and fired once. The man behind us in the house cried out. I heard him fall over a chair or something, I didn’t stop to look. Carson yelled for us to run and he’d cover us. We did, we ran like mad toward him. I think the man’s pistol went off, because there was a second shot behind us. Just seconds later, when we were barely away from the porch, the house blew up.” She drew in a shaky breath. Dalton folded her close.
“Sorry.” She laughed. “I’m still shaky.”
“You’re alive, honey, that’s all that matters to me. Go on...”
“Rourke had gone to check something out. We were eating chicken salad in the kitchen when we heard bumping on the back porch. I thought it was Rourke so we didn’t really pay attention. We went to watch the news on television. Just a little later, the man came into the living room with a pistol and told us to go into the kitchen and not make a move or he’d shoot us dead.”
She shivered. He held her closer.
“There were propane tanks just inside the back door. He’d set them up with some sort of fuses. He made us sit at the table while he opened the valve on one of them. He said he’d kill Mama first if I tried anything.” Her eyes closed. “We were scared to death. He was furious, cursing, raging because he couldn’t kill you and that sheriff in Texas. And he’d just found out that the death of a man he hired to kill a woman in Texas was being investigated. He said he’d poisoned the man because he botched the job. He said there was another killing, one that happened before all that, but we’d never have time
to learn about that one, because he was going to kill us and then make sure his tracks were covered. He said his boss thought he was addicted, but he wasn’t, he could quit anytime he liked. He was yelling and waving his arms around....” She shook her head. “I thought he’d lost his mind.”
“It sounds like it,” he replied grimly. He smoothed over her soft hair.
“He said he was going to blow us up and leave in the commotion that followed. He said you’d never have another moment’s peace and he’d never be discovered. He was going to Texas afterward to finish up the business down there. He said he’d found someone reliable to kill the woman in Texas who saw him. No more loose ends, he said.” She leaned against him. “I was so happy to see Carson. But I was even happier to see you.”
“I thought you were gone,” he whispered huskily. “When the house went up.”
She smiled and kissed him. She buried her soft face in his throat. “We were just going out the back door when one of the propane tanks went off. I don’t know what caused it, but it must have set the others off.” She looked at Carson, who was still holding the rifle and listening to their conversation. “Thank you for my life.”
“You’re quite welcome,” he said, and smiled back.
Tank added his thanks. But he was too busy kissing Merissa to say much more.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“I DON’T UNDERSTAND about the propane tanks,” Tank said a little later, while the women were being treated for the gas inhalation at the local emergency room. He and Cody Banks had superficial burns, but those had already been dealt with.
“From what Merissa said, he’d set them on timers,” Carson explained. “The first one detonated and triggered the others.”
“Yes, but how did the first one detonate?” he asked. “I saw a show once about propane tanks exploding. They shot a bullet into one. It just went straight through. No explosion.”
Carson’s face was grim. “It’s the vapor you have to worry about, when the gas is released and concentrated in a room. If it’s thick enough to hamper breathing, any spark will make it explode, even turning on a light switch.”
“Is that what you think happened?”
“Merissa said he’d opened the valve on one of the tanks, that they were having trouble breathing. He’d set the timer to go off and was probably counting on the fumes to cause the explosion, to cover his exit and kill the women. I assume he planned to tie them up first, but he didn’t foresee someone getting close enough to shoot him before he could follow through. Nice diversion, by the way.”
“Thank Cody, it was his idea.”
“Anyway, I couldn’t get a clear shot from the position I was in, so I moved closer to the cabin. All at once the back door opened and the women tried to come out. The would-be assassin was after them. I aimed past them, hit him in the shoulder, and motioned to them to run. He was stunned long enough for us to get clear of the cabin. I smelled gas before I even got as far as the porch. The women were coughing from contact with it. He fired after us, just before the explosion.”
“You think the shot ignited the gas?”
“Yes,” Carson replied. “When he shot at us, the spark from his pistol must have ignited the gas.” Carson shook his head. “He burned to death. Even for an evil man, that’s a hell of a way to die.”
“Merissa said that’s how he’d go,” Tank replied heavily. “She knew.”
“You take care of her,” Carson said firmly. “If you don’t, I’ll take her away from you and marry her myself.” He grinned.
Tank chuckled. He clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks for saving my life.”
“I didn’t,” he replied, puzzled.
“You saved her. Without her, I wouldn’t have had a life.”
“Got it,” Carson told him, with an understanding look. “You’re welcome.”
Cody Banks joined them in the waiting room. “Well, we’ve got a dead body and no way to identify it,” he said heavily. “Coroner’s working on him down in the autopsy room, but there isn’t much left to go on, unless his DNA is in a database somewhere.”
“Did he have anything on him like a cell phone?”
“He did. It’s pretty much toast. We’ll send it to the state crime lab and hope for a miracle. Just between us, I doubt we’ll get lucky.”
“We need to call Sheriff Hayes Carson in Texas,” Tank said grimly. “The shooter told Merissa that he’d hired someone reliable to take out some woman who’d seen him and had a photographic memory.”
Carson’s eyes narrowed. “I can only think of one woman who fits that description. You’d better make that call fast.”
“I will,” Tank said.
“The man was a certified lunatic,” Cody said angrily.
“What about his watch?”
Cody blinked. “What watch?”
“The one he was wearing...”
Cody was shaking his head. “He didn’t have a watch on his wrist,” he replied. “Nor a wallet. Go figure.”
“He must have stayed someplace while he was hunting me,” Tank said curtly.
“We thought he might have been staying in the attic of the cabin,” Carson added.
Cody sighed. “Well, we’ll give it a look, but the fire did catastrophic damage to most of it.”
Tank winced. “Merissa’s computer was in there. All her work.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Rourke said, joining them. He was grinning. “Forgotten already? I moved out her computer and most of their little personal keepsakes earlier in the day, and was going to bring them to stay at your ranch.”
“Great foresight.” Tank chuckled.
“I am known far and wide for my foresight, which is exceeded only by my striking good looks,” Rourke pointed out.
Carson rolled his eyes.
“We’ll need to contact the Red Cross,” Cody said.
“Why?” Tank asked.
“The women are going to be temporarily homeless...”
“They have a home,” Tank said, smiling. “We have three spare bedrooms.”
“Is that an invitation?” Rourke asked, big-eyed. “Because I’ve been sharing a room in the bunkhouse with him, and he snores,” he grumbled, glaring at Carson.
“I do not snore!” the other man said indignantly.
“Then you’re using a chain saw at night and you don’t remember,” Rourke countered.
“It wasn’t an invitation,” Tank told him. “You have to go home now. This case is closed. The would-be assassin is no longer a problem. Although I’m very grateful, to both of you, and your checks will reflect how grateful.”
“I didn’t do this for pay,” Rourke pointed out. “So don’t insult me.”
“Same here,” Carson added. He smiled, too. “Even famous attorneys do pro bono cases from time to time.”
“Some lawyer,” Rourke muttered. “Do your summations with a sniper kit, do you?”
Carson raised both eyebrows.
“If you ever get tired of working for Cy Parks, you can come and work for me,” Tank told Carson. “I’ll even build you a house of your own.”
“Tempting,” Carson said. “But Cy Parks would grieve for me.”
“He did an Irish jig when you said you were coming up here,” Rourke mused, “and he’s not even Irish.”
“Lies,” Carson said easily.
“I only lie when I’m asked to,” Rourke said haughtily.
Merissa and Clara came through a door, along with Dr. Harrison, who was grinning as he talked to Clara.
“Long time, no see,” Tank said and shook his hand.
“What an extraordinary coincidence,” the doctor said. “I brought a young man in with me who needed stitching up after a fight, and ran into these two.”
“He knows th
e resident on duty,” Clara said.
“I should, I taught him everything he knows.” He grinned. The smile faded. “I was sorry to hear about your cabin. If you need a place to stay...”
“Very nice of you, but the wives have the guest bedrooms all ready for them at the ranch,” Tank said. “And we’d better go. It’s been a long day for all of us.”
“I’d like to phone you later, if I may,” the doctor told Clara. “To see how you’re doing.”
“That would be very kind of you,” she replied. “Thanks.”
“It would be my pleasure.” He nodded to the others, smiled at the women and walked on to the desk.
“Ready to go?” Tank asked.
Merissa nodded. “I’m so tired. We both are.”
“It’s been an ordeal,” Tank replied. “But with a happy ending. Come on. You can ride with me.”
“You’re sure we won’t be imposing?” Merissa asked worriedly.
“How can you impose?” Tank asked with a smile. “You’re family, aren’t you?”
She looked up at him with her heart in her eyes. “Oh, yes. Definitely family.”
He drew her under his arm and smiled.
* * *
THE WOMEN SETTLED in as easily as if they’d been born at the Kirk ranch. Merissa, who had a hard time interacting with most people, fit right in with Morie and Bolinda.
“It’s like I’ve known them all my life,” she told Tank when they were alone in his truck, driving back to the cabin to check out what was left of their personal possessions after the fire department and the crime scene investigators had done their jobs.
Clara had thought about joining them, but she knew Merissa wanted a little time alone with Tank, so she pretended to be too tired. Merissa had just grinned at her, because she knew better.
“I told you it wouldn’t be an ordeal.” Tank chuckled. He had her hand in his. He didn’t want to let go. He’d come so close to losing her, twice now.
“Your family is very nice.”
“So is yours.”
“Thanks.”
He pulled up just a little distance from the front porch. The kitchen was mostly scattered timber now. Half the cabin was almost intact, but there was a good bit of fire damage.
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