As if to answer his question, the sound of a car door echoed outside in the driveway. Loweman could see into the kitchen and out through the window above the sink. The housekeeper and a short, blond man, the one named Toby, exited a black four-door sedan. The pair had bags of groceries.
Loweman hurried out to meet them.
Chapter Forty-Nine
“Shit,” Jay said, looking in his rearview mirror. “That’s all we need.”
Kasey heard the yip of a police siren before she turned and saw the flashing dome lights.
“Do you think Yanick . .?”
“No. He gave me his word,” Jay said emphatically. “I trust him.”
Jay pulled to the side of the road and stopped, the blue NHP car pulling up behind.
They were at least fifteen minutes from their destination. Kasey glanced at the clock again: 11:41. She looked out the rear window. The cop was taking his sweet time getting to the car.
Gravel crunched on the road. “Afternoon, sir,” the patrolman said. “License, registration, and proof of insurance. In a bit of a hurry, are you?” Without waiting for an answer, the patrolman took the papers and returned to his car.
Kasey’s heart pounded when she watched him get on the radio. Jay’s fingers found hers and squeezed reassuringly.
It took the patrolman five minutes to run a check, write the ticket, and return to the Lexus. Minutes that inched away like the burning fuse on a stick of dynamite. He handed Jay the ticket and his papers, gave him a brief lecture on energy conservation, and finally let them go.
Jay drove off, maintaining the speed limit. When the patrol car behind him took an off-ramp a mile down the road Jay stomped the pedal to the floor. Kasey kept vigil for additional highway patrol.
He didn’t slow once they turned off the highway. For the next agonizing minutes, the Lexus and its occupants took a brutal beating on the unpaved road.
“There it is,” Jay said, pointing to the lone house and shed at the end of the remote lane. The black Camaro was parked in the shed.
At precisely 12:02, Jay brought the Lexus to an abrupt halt behind Cage’s Camaro. Dust billowed forward, covering both cars, temporarily obscuring the view of the clapboard structure. She opened the door to get out, but stopped when Jay held her back. “Kasey, you don’t have to do this. You can leave me here and drive away. Just drive away. This isn’t your fight.”
“I’m going with you.”
“Are you sure—”
“I’m going.”
“There’s a gun in the satchel in the trunk. I can’t chance carrying it; Cage would blow me away if he spots it. If it all falls apart in there, if he reneges and doesn’t let you and Dianne go, try to get to it. Okay?”
She nodded.
“I love you,” he whispered.
An unbelievable sense of dread came over her, overwhelming her. A premonition? She didn’t fear for herself. It was Jay whose life she sensed was in peril. She wanted to pull at him, tell him to run, run and save himself.
He reached into the backseat and grabbed the two canvas bags. They left the car quickly, allowing no more time to think, to stall. They hurried up to the front entrance of the dilapidated shack. Jay eased Kasey behind him as they crossed the threshold and, once inside, stood uncertainly in the doorway, gazing into the dim interior.
“Come on in,” Cage called out from the other room. “We don’t stand on ceremony here.”
Kasey followed Jay through the first room, a room with a chrome-and-Formica kitchen table, one chair, a wood-burning stove and a stained, sagging couch. They entered the bedroom. She saw Dianne, wearing only a man’s wrinkled button-down shirt, sitting on a bare mattress on the floor. Two inch-long cuts, one on each cheek like red teardrops, oozed blood.
The door slammed shut behind them. Kasey whirled around to see Cage standing in the corner, the hunting knife in a sheath at his belt, a menacing grin on his face and an equally menacing revolver in his hand. “You’re late,” he said. “That’s very rude.”
Jay looked from Dianne to Cage. “You sadistic bastard.”
“Watch your mouth, asshole. You were late. I warned you.” He pointed the gun at Jay. “You got the money?”
Jay dropped the bags at Cage’s feet.
Cage stepped forward, eased one bag open with the toe of his boot.
Jay turned back to Dianne. “Are you all right?” he asked her.
“Do I look all right?” she returned, her eyes hard and cold.
“Dianne, I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, I bet you are.”
Cage chuckled. “I see she’s getting some of the ol’ fighting spirit back.” He patted Jay down, looking for a weapon. “Maybe I’ll keep her after all.”
“Let them go,” Jay said “You’ve got me, so let them go.”
“All in good time. I have a little private score to settle with this one first,” Cage said, wrapping his hand around the back of Kasey’s neck. He pulled her roughly to him, the long barrel pointed under her chin. “Try any of that Bruce Lee shit on me again and I’ll break your neck. And yours won’t be the first pretty neck I’ve broken. My stepmother thought she could fuck with me too, and now the only thing she can do is roll her eyes around. Amazing what a baseball bat can do if one knows where and how to swing it,” he said squeezing Kasey’s neck until she moaned in pain.
“Back off,” Cage shouted when Jay instinctively moved toward him. “I could end it for you right here and now. Shoot you dead. Eliminate the major trouble spot. Is that what you want? You want to go out not knowing what’s going to happen to these two fine women of yours?”
Jay dropped his arms.
They were all going to die. Kasey had known it the moment she saw Dianne on the bare mattress, a proud, beautiful woman defaced, demoralized. He had no intention of letting any of them live. He had close to a million dollars, enough money to buy a quick retreat out of the country, enough money to live comfortably anywhere in the world for the rest of his life. He could let them live or kill them; either way, it had no bearing on the outcome. Dead was better. If she knew anything about this man, killing them would give him immense pleasure.
Cage released his hold on Kasey’s neck to pat her down as he had done to Jay. His touch was rough and sexually abusive, meant to hurt and humiliate. She wanted to strike out, to disable him, to hurt him as he had hurt Sherry and Dianne, yet she remained passive, waiting for the right moment.
He pushed her. “Dump out that money where I can see it, then put it in that flight bag by the door.”
Kasey turned the bags upside down and shook out the bundled stacks of fifties and hundreds. She put them into the flight bag.
“Well, everything looks good. Guess we won’t need you anymore,” Cage said to Jay, bringing the pistol up to aim at his head. “It’s payback time.”
“Go ahead and kill me,” Jay said. “You’re just as dead as I am. In fact, you’ve been a walking dead man for years.”
Cage paused. “Trying to buy a little time, huh? Okay, I’ll bite. How do you figure I’m a dead man?”
“You had to take a physical to get the job at the club,” Jay said. “The results came in last week. You tested positive for VD. Syphilis to be exact.”
Cage chuckled. “It ain’t gonna work.”
Jay shrugged.
Despite what Cage said, by the skeptical look in his eyes, Kasey thought it might just work. “He’s telling the truth,” she said. “I saw the report. Extremely advanced. Beyond treatment.”
Cage visibly paled; his hand holding the gun began to tremble. “No. You’re both lying.”
Dianne began to whimper.
The diversion gave Kasey an opportunity and she took it. She brought the flight bag up with all her might, catching Cage in the groin. He doubled over. Kasey rushed in, the heel of her hand aiming for his nose, but this time he was too quick for her. A backhand with the gun barrel sent her flying across the room to crash into the wall.
Jay lunged. A so
lid right caught Cage on the temple; a left to the solar plexus dropped him to his knees. But not for long. The gun came up, aimed at Jay’s chest.
Kasey screamed.
Jay dove straight for Cage, bulldozing him backwards. Both men fell, tumbling onto the mattress alongside Dianne.
Cage rolled over on top of Jay, the gun buried into Jay’s side. Jay clutched his wrist, forced the gun away from him.
Kasey crawled across the floor and got a tenuous hold on Cage’s boot before a kick from him sent her flying backward again.
“Dianne, the gun!” Kasey shouted. “Get the gun!”
Dianne seemed finally to come out of her self-imposed trance. She moved toward the two men grappling on the mattress, the gun poised in the air between them, and bit into the back of Cage’s hand. He howled and released his hold on the gun. She snatched it off the mattress, scooted backwards, waving it in trembling hands, then fired point blank at Cage’s back. He stiffened, his body arching, blood gushing from a wound midway down his spine.
Jay pushed at Cage, wriggling out from under him.
Cage tried to get to his feet. His arms flailed about, but his lower body remained still. “My legs,” Cage said. “Can’t move my legs.” He twisted his head around toward Dianne. “You fucking bitch, you—”
Holding the gun with both hands, Dianne stretched her arms forward and pressed the muzzle against his cheek, just below one eye. They stared at each other.
“You’re a dead woman,” he said.
She pulled back the hammer.
“Dianne, no,” Jay said. “He’s finished. He can’t do anything more to you.”
She squeezed the trigger.
The sound was deafening.
Lucas Cage’s entire body jerked. Very little blood seeped from the black hole under his eye, but blood and gray matter splattered over the mattress at the back of his head. He lay still, his eyes and mouth half-open.
Jay rolled off the mattress, stood. He stepped over Cage’s body to reach Dianne. He touched her face and said “I’m so sorry, Dianne.”
She looked up at him, her expression somber. Then she turned the gun on Jay and fired again.
Kasey cried out as Jay staggered back.
Jay placed a hand to his chest, blood flowing through his fingers. He stood there a moment, a dazed expression on his face, before slowly sinking to his knees.
“Jay!” Kasey crawled on her hands and knees to him. Jay leaned against her, the leaden weight of his body telling her he was unable to remain upright on his own. She lowered him to the floor. “Jay? Jay? Oh, God, don’t die. Please don’t.”
Dianne waved the gun, the barrel going from the body of her captor to her wounded husband. “Bastards,” she cried. “Stupid bastards. Can’t trust men. Can’t trust them. Jay wouldn’t sell the club. He was going to risk everything on that expansion. I couldn’t let him dig us into a bottomless pit. I just couldn’t. It should’ve been so simple…all worked out. They had to die. Jay and Brad. That’s why I hired him.” She kicked Cage’s body, sobbing now. “I knew I would be the first one suspected when Jay died, so I brought you in, Kasey. The concerned wife begs her friend to find out who’s after her and her husband. You did just what I wanted you to do. You found Cage and his past connection to Jay. But the filthy bastard wanted to play games. Wanted to do everything his way. Then he turned on me. Me! He’d taped our phone conversation and threatened to use it against me if I didn’t do what he asked. He didn’t care about the lousy twenty grand I offered him. He only wanted to get even with Jay. I fit right into his plan. He wanted to hurt me, humiliate me, use me in his scheme to extort big money from the club.”
She continued to wave the gun.
Kasey felt for Jay’s pulse. She found one, erratic and weak, but there.
“And now I have to do it all myself. All myself.”
From the corner of her eye, Kasey saw the gun turn toward her. Ducking instinctively, she saw a bright flash from the muzzle, felt a white-hot pain in her shoulder.
Kasey rolled. The next shot went over her head and slammed into the door. Her only chance was to get to the gun in the trunk of the Lexus. As Dianne struggled to her feet, Kasey managed to get the door open.’ She charged out, dizzy with pain from the bullet in her shoulder, bracing herself for the next round. She fell, got up again and ran, praying she wouldn’t pass out before she could reach Jay’s car.
Chapter Fifty
The Lexus, though right outside the front door, seemed beyond reach. Kasey’s shoulder throbbed and blood was everywhere. She left a trail of it behind her. To try to hide from Dianne would be senseless, her own blood would betray her. Her only chance was to get the gun from the trunk of Jay’s car and take out Dianne. She had to fight back or die.
Holding her arm tightly to her side, Kasey ran out to the Lexus, skirting around to the passenger side to stay out of the line of fire. As she opened the car door, the window on the driver’s side blew out, pelting her with chunks of glass the size of crushed ice.
The keys dangled from the ignition. There was a slim chance she could get into the car and drive away before Dianne could stop her, but that meant leaving Jay behind, alone with her. There was no doubt in Kasey’s mind that Dianne would try to finish him off. She was a woman obsessed, a woman driven mad from pain and shock, from a horrendous ordeal of her own making. Kasey had to get Dianne away from Jay. And Jay needed immediate medical attention or he would die—if he weren’t dead already.
Keeping her head down, she reached across the seat, grabbed the keys, then the cellular phone. She pressed 911. In a crouch, Kasey inched her way around to the rear of the car. With the keys, she opened the trunk and pulled the satchel toward her, all the while anticipating the next deafening gunshot.
“Police,” Kasey whispered to the dispatcher. “Police and ambulance. Hurry!” She quickly gave her location and related what had happened, having to repeat herself several times. While she spoke, she pawed through the bag for the gun. Her fingers touched cool metal. She snatched it out.
It was an automatic, and unloaded.
Kasey yanked the satchel from the trunk and dumped it out onto the ground, kicking at the contents. The ammunition magazine lay under Jay’s leather shaving kit. Although unfamiliar with an automatic, she’d seen enough movies to go through the motions. She put down the phone, slammed the magazine home, moaning from the intense pain the effort caused, and struggled to pull the slide back. It took three attempts before she could inject a shell into firing position.
She rose high enough to see over the trunk of the car toward the house. No sign of Dianne.
Where the hell was she? Why wasn’t Dianne coming after her? Dianne wouldn’t know about the gun in the trunk, so where was she?
It was important to get Dianne away from the house. If Kasey could only draw her out, allow her to take the car and go, she could tend to Jay. What was Dianne doing?
Cage’s .44 was a six-shooter; she remembered looking closely at it when she’d found it in his boot at her mother’s house. How many rounds had been fired? How many? She couldn’t think. Three inside the house and one at the car? Or was it four inside? How many? Five or six? She thought six. That’s why Dianne hadn’t fired again. She was out of bullets. Unless, unless she knew where Cage kept them and was, at this very moment, reloading.
“Dianne, I have Jay’s gun. You’re out of bullets. Do you hear me? You’re out of bullets. Damnit, let’s stop all this shit. It’s over.”
No answer.
Kasey held the gun in her right hand and, again holding her arm close to her side, she ran back to the house. A wave of pain made her weak, temporarily blinded her. Don’t pass out. Please, dear God, don’t let me pass out.
Standing at the threshold, she heard a clicking sound coming from inside. Even in her jumbled state of mind, it took only an instant to realize the clicking was the sound of a gun hammer hitting on an empty chamber. Through the doorway, Kasey saw Jay struggling to get to his feet. Ben
eath the bandage at his brow, blood flowed down his face. Dianne stood over him, the gun pointed at his head as she pulled the trigger over and over.
“Dianne, it’s over. Drop the gun,” Kasey yelled.
Dianne glanced at Kasey. Enraged, she screamed, “Bastards. Bastards! Have to do it all myself!” She threw the gun at Kasey.
Kasey ducked, felt it glance off her wounded shoulder. She cried out in agony, falling to her knees. When she looked back into the bedroom, she saw Dianne tugging at the hunting knife in the sheath at Cage’s belt. When it was free, Dianne turned back to Jay and raised it high in the air, about to bring it down on his back.
Kasey fired without aiming.
The first round slammed into Dianne’s thigh, knocking her against the wall, the second one bore into the wall inches above her head. Dianne shrieked, dropping the knife. She grabbed at it, got hold of the blade near the grip, and tried to stand, shrieking again when her injured leg gave out. She stumbled over Lucas Cage and fell forward, the knife disappearing beneath her. She made a soft exhaling sound, then was still.
Kasey ran to Jay, who had fallen back to the floor. The entire front of his shirt was bright with blood. At first, she found no pulse, no heartbeat. Frantically, she put her ear to his mouth and heard a slight intake of breath. He was alive. Barely.
She sat on the dirty floor and cradled his head in her lap, gently rocking him, blood from the open gash on his eyebrow seeping into the white silk of her skirt.
Hurry, oh please please hurry.
The minutes ticked away along with her own blood. Just before the blackness covered her completely, over the faint buzz of yellow jackets in the eaves outside the window, she heard the steady beat of a rescue helicopter. And off in the distance, coming closer, the sound of sirens.
In her arms, Jay looked at peace.
Chapter Fifty-One
Kasey stood under the striped canopy, a gentle afternoon breeze rustling the soft, crinkly material of her skirt and the matching sling, which helped to support her left arm. Although it had been nearly two months since the bullet had gone through her shoulder, fracturing the clavicle, it still ached now and then, especially when she tried to do too much, like today, trying to get everything ready for the wedding.
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