Tool Belt Defender

by Carla Cassidy

  Brittany forced herself to laugh, as if finding him immensely amusing. “Gary, Gary, nobody is going to remember your name. A year from now nobody here or anywhere else on the planet will give you a minute’s thought, except maybe your parents, who will wonder for the rest of their lives where they went wrong.”

  “My parents don’t give a crap about me,” he scoffed.

  “Ah, poor baby, so you’re planning on using the ‘I’ve been neglected and abused by my parents and that turned me into a monster’ defense. Larry Norwood was The Professional—you’re not even a pale imitation.”

  Her heart jumped as he took a step toward her. She felt Emily tense next to her and prayed the child remembered every single detail of their plan, prayed that Emily would do exactly what Brittany had told her to do.

  “Shut up,” he said as he narrowed his eyes and took another step closer to her.

  Just one more step or two and he’d be close enough. Her heart screamed in her chest. She forced a laugh again. “At least Larry had a real place to keep us, with cells and cots to sleep on. He was a genius. He pulled off his plot in Kansas City and almost got away with it here. You’ll never be like him, Gary. You’ll always be just a pathetic pretender. Hey, there’s a name for you, The Pathetic Pretender.”

  He lunged at her, rage twisting his features into something unrecognizable. Brittany was ready for him. She wrapped her arms tight around him, gripping him at the knees with all the strength she possessed.

  “Run!” she screamed at Emily at the same time Gary’s fist crashed down on Brittany’s head.

  Emily scrambled to her feet and ran. As she disappeared out the door Brittany tightened her arms around Gary’s knees, keeping him from chasing after the child.

  Run, baby, run, she thought as Gary delivered a blow that struck her upside the face. The pain crashed through her. She tasted blood and almost immediately felt her lip swell, but she didn’t loosen her grip on him. She knew the longer she could hang on the more of a chance Emily had to get away.

  Run fast, she thought. Get as far away from here as possible. Despite her pain her heart swelled with the hope that Emily had truly escaped.

  Gary railed like a madman, screaming and cursing as he hit her again and again. He smashed his fists into her ribs, slammed her in the gut over and over again.

  She sobbed with the pain, afraid that he would beat her to death if she didn’t let go of him, but knowing if she let go he’d run after Emily.

  Finally he delivered a blow to her head that made stars dance in front of her eyes and a sickening nausea well up inside her. In horror she felt her arms slipping from him and her last conscious thought was that she hoped she’d given Emily enough time to get away.

  As the men prepared to leave Brittany’s house, Alex realized they didn’t intend for him to go with them. Tom had been on his phone, arranging for several other deputies to meet them at the Burwell property.

  As Tom walked out the front door and headed for his car, Alex caught up to him. “I’m coming with you.”

  “You’re a civilian. It’s best if you stay here and wait,” Tom replied.

  “Not going to happen.” Alex met the man stare for stare. “It’s my daughter, Tom. And it’s the woman I love. I can either ride with you or I can follow you in my car, but there’s no way in hell I’m staying here.”

  Without waiting for Tom’s reply Alex slid into the passenger seat of his car. “You’re a stubborn cuss, aren’t you?” Tom said as he got behind the wheel and started the car. “I suppose you’ll have to be if you plan on sticking around Brittany for any length of time.”

  They both fell silent as Tom pulled out of the driveway and tore down the street with Brittany’s brothers following in their own vehicles.

  A hard knot sat where Alex’s heart should be. What if they were headed in the wrong direction? What if they were too late?

  He couldn’t think that. He couldn’t imagine his life without his Emily. She was the best part of him, the very core of the heart that beat in his chest.

  And Brittany, how his heart ached with thoughts of her. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t see herself in his life, he just needed to know that she was someplace on earth living in the kind of happiness she deserved.

  The drive to the Burwell place seemed to take forever and when they arrived at the small farmhouse all the law-enforcement officials gathered around Tom.

  “If Gary is the person we’re looking for then we have to assume that he’s armed and dangerous,” Tom said. “I want us to search in teams of two.” As he assigned the areas he gestured toward Alex. “You stay with me.”

  Alex nodded, eager to get started, hoping and praying that they were at the right place at the right time. Any other thought was simply too painful to entertain.

  “I want us to go in quietly,” Tom continued. “Put your phones on vibrate and keep your eyes and ears open.” With those final words the men all parted ways.

  Alex wanted to run through the overgrown grass toward the half a dozen outbuilding in the distance. He wanted to rip open doors, tear at old lumber, do whatever it took to find Gary Cox’s man cave.

  Was Gary simply building a place to party? A place where he could bring his friends to drink and play music and not have to worry about the complaints of neighbors?

  As he and Tom grew closer to one of the buildings, Alex recognized Gary’s car parked nearby. The knot in his chest twisted tighter.

  Okay, so the kid was here, but that didn’t mean Emily and Brittany were here, as well. Tom had his gun drawn, his eyes cold and dark as they drew closer to the building.

  They paused just outside the door and that’s when Alex heard it—the sound of a man cursing softly, the moan of somebody hurt and the sound of fist meeting flesh.

  All cautions that Tom had given his men, any orders Alex was meant to follow, flew out of his head. With the adrenaline of an enraged bull, Alex flew inside the building.

  In an instant he summed up the nightmarish scene. Gary stood over Brittany with his fist raised to deliver another blow. Her face was bloodied and she looked unconscious and there was no sign of Emily.

  He didn’t make a sound as he attacked. He grabbed Gary by the shoulder, whirled him around and then delivered a punch to the center of his face. As Gary stumbled back and fell to the ground Alex wasn’t finished yet. He leaped on top of Gary’s prone body and began to pummel, all his fear, his anger centered in his fists.

  “What did you do to Brittany? And where’s Emily?” he screamed as he pounded. “Where’s my daughter?”

  “If you kill him he won’t be able to tell you,” Tom exclaimed as he pulled Alex up and off Gary.

  Alex immediately rushed to Brittany. Her mouth was bloody, one of her eyes blackened and swollen shut. She seemed to be hanging on to consciousness by a mere thread, but at least she was alive.

  Alex whirled back to face Gary, who Tom had gotten to his feet and handcuffed. “Where’s Emily?” he asked, vaguely aware of the shed filling with Brittany’s brothers and some of the other deputies.

  “I killed the little brat,” Gary said as Tom dug through his pockets for the key to the shackle that bound Brittany to the wall. “I killed her and buried her body in the field outside.”

  “No, he’s lying.” The words left Brittany on a soft pain-laced whisper. “She got away. I held him so she could run as fast and as far away as possible. Go, Alex, she’s somewhere out there and she needs her daddy.”

  At that moment the scream of a siren sounded from the distance and Alex realized one of the brothers had called for an ambulance. Brittany would be cared for, but he had to find his daughter. “Thank you,” he said, knowing the words would never be enough to convey his gratitude for the woman he knew had saved his daughter’s life.

  He tore out of the shed, unsure in which direction to run. Had Gary beaten Emily, too? Was she lying in the tall grass somewhere slowly dying?

  “Emily!” He screamed her name as tears began
to blur his vision. The overgrown brush and weeds were so tall and she was so little. “Emily, where are you?” The words tore from his throat, from a place of such pain he nearly fell to his knees.

  As the ambulance pulled up, several of the other men left the shed and began to search, as well, calling out Emily’s name. It was such a big field and there was no way to know what direction she might have run, how far she might have been able to go in whatever time she’d had.

  Agonizing minutes passed with Alex continuing to yell her name until he was half-hoarse. He couldn’t think about Brittany’s injuries. The thought of her bloodied features made him want to weep, but knowing she was being attended to, he had to stay focused on Emily.

  And then she was there…rising out of the tall grass in front of him. Her green eyes wide and filled with tears. “Daddy?”

  Alex fell to his knees and opened his arms and she ran to him. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight, sobbing into her hair as relief coursed through him.

  “I knew you’d come, Daddy. I just knew it,” she whispered fiercely against his ear, her arms wrapped in a near death grip around his neck as she began to cry.

  “It’s okay, baby.” His heart swelled tight in his chest. “You’re safe now and Daddy is never going to let anything like this happen to you again.” He scooped her up in his arms and rose to his feet.

  Benjamin approached them, his relief evident on his handsome features. “I recommend you take her to the hospital, get her checked out by a doctor and then Tom will want to talk to her.”

  Alex’s first impulse was to take her home and never let her go again, but he knew Benjamin was right. She needed to be checked by a doctor and then she’d have to tell her story to Tom.

  “It won’t take long,” Alex said to his daughter. “We’ll get some things taken care of and then we’ll take you home where Lady Bear is waiting for you.”

  “I don’t want Lady Bear. I just want Brittany,” she replied.

  So do I, Alex thought. At that moment the ambulance pulled away, sirens screaming as it raced toward the main road. He had no idea what kind of internal injuries she might have suffered. She’d looked half-dead from the beating she’d taken.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Alex said.

  Gary was taken away by Caleb as Tom offered to take Alex and Emily to the hospital. As they made the drive Tom asked Emily questions and it didn’t take long for a picture of what had gone down to appear.

  It also didn’t take long to realize that Brittany had sacrificed herself for Emily’s escape. “She held on to him so he couldn’t run after me and he hit her hard, but she screamed at me to run,” Emily said as she rubbed tears from her cheeks.

  If Alex had believed himself in love with Brittany before, this information only intensified the depth of his love for her. He couldn’t wait to find out how she was, but it was a long process when they arrived at the hospital.

  Emily got a clean bill of health and then they sat in the waiting room to hear word about Brittany. Emily sat on his lap, curled into his chest and sharing bits and pieces of the long night with him.

  “I think I lost my shoe,” she said and pointed at her stockinged foot.

  “We’ll get you a new pair of shoes,” Alex replied. “We’ll get you a dozen pairs of new shoes.”

  “I just need one pair. Daddy, I would have really been scared, but Brittany made me feel not so scared. When can I see her?”

  “I’m hoping soon,” he replied. He needed to see her, to thank her for what she’d done for Emily…for him.

  It was another hour before Jacob finally came into the waiting room. Emily was almost asleep, but she perked right up at the sight of the lawman and the news that she could go see Brittany.

  “She’s going to be fine, although she’s banged up pretty good,” he said. He looked at Emily. “She has a black eye and her mouth is kind of puffy, so she doesn’t look too good.” Alex appreciated him warning Emily. “They’re going to keep her overnight for observation, but you can go see her if you want. Room 112.”

  Emily scrambled off Alex’s lap, as if not wanting to wait another minute. Alex had to hurry to keep up with her as she raced toward Brittany’s room.

  She turned into the room and then stopped and gasped with her hands over her mouth. Alex nearly bumped into her and his heart cried as he saw Brittany. One side of her face was black-and-blue, that eye swollen shut. Her mouth was swollen, with a cut on the corner but she offered them both a wobbly smile.

  She looks like this because she saved my daughter, Alex thought. Her sacrifice weakened his knees, ached in his chest. He was positively humbled by the half-broken woman in the hospital bed.

  “Oh, Brittany,” Emily exclaimed as she lowered her hands and raced to the side of the bed. “You look awful.”

  “It doesn’t hurt as bad as it looks,” Brittany replied drowsily. “They gave me a shot that pretty much made the pain go away.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Alex began, his voice thick with emotion.

  Brittany held up a hand to stop whatever he was going to say. “Please, just let it go.”

  “At least your fingernails still look pretty,” Emily said as she moved to the side of Brittany’s bed. Alex noticed that Brittany’s nails were each a different color, obviously his daughter’s handiwork.

  “Can I give you a hug?” Emily asked.

  “Honey, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Alex protested.

  “I think it’s a wonderful idea,” Brittany replied, her voice slurring slightly. To Alex’s surprise she patted the bed next to her.

  Emily crawled up on the bed and curled into Brittany’s side. Brittany placed an arm around her as Emily ever so gently kissed her on the cheek. “I love you, Brittany,” Emily said softly.

  “I love you, too,” Brittany whispered softly as she closed her eyes. Within minutes both of the women who held Alex’s heart were sound asleep.

  When Brittany awakened she was alone in the hospital bed. The room was semidark with only the light from the sinking sun coming in through the window. Alex sat in the chair next to her bed and he smiled at her as he realized she was awake.

  “Emily?” she asked.

  “Is with Rose,” he replied.

  “Gary?”

  “Is in jail.”

  She sat up, wincing as every ache and pain in her body made themselves known. “And all is right with the world.”

  “I don’t know how to thank you for what you did. You saved Emily’s life.”

  There was such emotion in his eyes, those beautiful blue eyes that she’d thought she’d never see again. “I was just doing my job. And it is going to be my job again. I’ve decided to go back to being a deputy.”

  “That’s good if that’s where your heart is,” he replied.

  “It is.”

  “So, you feel competent enough to keep an entire town safe but not enough to help parent a six-year-old little girl who loves you desperately.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to reply, but continued as he got out of his chair and stepped closer to her. “I love you, Brittany, and I believe in my heart that you love me, too. I think we could have something magical between us if you’d just allow it to happen.”

  “There’s a difference between being a deputy and being a mom,” she said. There was no place on her body, on her face, that ached more than her heart.

  “Yeah, you need a gun to be a deputy, but all you need to have to be a mom is love. You sacrificed yourself for Emily in that shed. You already proved yourself to have a mother’s heart.”

  She stared at him, at the face she’d grown to love. There had been a little part of her that hadn’t believed in herself, that had been afraid that she wasn’t the woman she wanted to be, the woman he and Emily needed in their lives.

  She’d faced not one, but two serial killers and she’d survived. She wasn’t crazy and she had grown from the immature girl she used to be into a woman who
wanted something meaningful, something lasting in her life. And that something was here right in front of her. All she had to do was reach out and embrace it.

  “When we were in that shed, Emily told me that being a mom was easy, but that if I had problems with it she could teach me all I needed to know about it,” she said.

  Hope lit Alex’s eyes and in that hope she saw a reflection of the woman he saw when he looked at her—a strong woman with a loving heart, a woman ready to take on the responsibilities of a ready-made family.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Yes, what?” he asked, looking perplexed.

  “Yes, I’d like to be a part of your life, of Emily’s life. Yes, I want Emily to teach me everything I need to know about being a mom. I love you, Alex, and I’m ready to take care of the town and then come home to a loving family. This thing between us, I’m not ready for it to stop, either.”

  His eyes blazed with love and desire and he made a sound of frustration. “I desperately want to kiss you, but I’m afraid no matter where I kiss I’ll hurt you.”

  Brittany held up her hand with the multicolored fingernails. He took her hand and brought it to his lips where he kissed each and every finger with a gentleness that promised the kind of happiness Brittany had never dreamed possible.

  She was not the child her brothers thought of her as, nor was she simply a victim of the crimes that had been perpetrated against her. She was just a woman in love with a man and his daughter and she was eager to discover the future with them that awaited her.

  Epilogue

  Chaos reigned on the deck that Alex built. Conversations filled the air along with the heady smoke scent of barbecue. An explosion of colorful flowers lined the deck and tumbled into a flower garden in the yard where Emily was playing with Lilly in the grass.

  Nobody complained about the late-July heat, especially not Brittany, who was seeing the final version of the vision that had sustained her when Larry Norwood had held her captive for so long. The only additions to that vision were Alex and Emily.