by Susan Stoker
Dax moved his eyes to the desk top, turned the monitor Staal had twisted to face the doorway back to its original position, and groaned. He leaned over and propped himself on the desk with both hands and stared, not believing what he was seeing. The song coming through the speakers changed to the upbeat tones of the B-52s singing “Love Shack”. The song so incongruent to what he was seeing, Dax could barely process it all.
There were three views of Mackenzie in the coffin. One was a viewpoint from the top corner of the small box. Another monitor showed a view from Mack’s feet upward. Dax could see how small the box really was. Her breasts were almost brushing the top of the box and he could see her shift restlessly.
But it was the third view, on the monitor that Staal had turned to the room, that hit Dax the hardest. It was a close-up of Mack’s face. It looked as though Staal had used a wide-angle lens and mounted it in the lid of the coffin, over her head.
Her eyes were huge, open wide as she struggled to see something, anything. Her pupils were dilated as far as they could go. Dax could even see the tear tracks on her face from where she’d sobbed in fear. She had a dark spot on her forehead, where a bruise from hitting the lid of her tomb was forming. She was holding the satellite phone up to her ear with a death grip. He could see her struggling to breathe. Her mouth was open as if she was gasping for air, and not getting any. Every now and then she’d tilt her head back, as if doing so would mean what little air was left in her tomb could get into her lungs more easily.
Dax could hear some of the SRT members walking through the house, making sure there was no one else lurking around waiting to ambush them and that Staal really was working alone. A door opened, footsteps sounded on the floor above them, the low murmurings of the officers clearing the rooms as they searched. Dax figured it was useless. Staal wouldn’t have Mack stashed here. He’d already buried her somewhere, he was sure of it.
TJ came up beside Dax and put his hand on his shoulder. “Fucking hell, Dax. Come on, you don’t need to watch that.”
Dax shrugged off TJ’s touch violently. “Don’t touch me!”
“Let the guys get into the hard drives to see what they can get. There’s still time to find her, Dax.”
Dax just shook his head. “It’s too late. Look, TJ.” He turned to his friend, throwing out a hand. “Fucking look! Without Staal here to tell us where she is, it’s too late. We’ll take too long. We’ll never find her in time.” Dax said the words, but readily moved when two officers came up behind him. One immediately started typing, careful not to blacken the screen with Mackenzie’s face on it, knowing Dax would lose it if he lost sight of her.
“Maybe we can track the feed,” one of the officers said to the other, entirely focused on what he was doing.
“Yeah, see if you can pinpoint where it starts. If it’s within a few miles we can be there in minutes.”
Ignoring the two men frantically trying to use their computer knowledge to find out where Staal had stashed Mackenzie, Dax ran his finger over the screen as if he was actually touching Mack’s cheek. “God.” The word was spoken with such angst, it was obvious to everyone in the room Dax was suffering.
TJ had no words for his friend, and finally backed off, leaving Dax to his grief.
“Dax, your phone.” It was Quint. He’d run out to his patrol car and retrieved their phones. “The last words she hears should be yours.”
Dax took the phones Quint held out with shaking fingers. There was still music coming from it. Mack was still hearing the sound of cheesy eighties melodies in her coffin. Dax didn’t know if he could do it. He looked back at the monitor.
He didn’t have a choice. For Mack. She should hear his voice, the voice of the man she loved, and who loved her back with his entire being.
He tapped off the music on Quint’s phone and brought his own phone up to his ear.
“Hey, sweetheart. I’m back.” Dax’s voice was low and soothing and eerily echoed out of the speakers on the desktop.
“Daxton.”
Dax took a deep breath. He loved hearing his name come from her mouth. He watched as Mackenzie shut her eyes and opened her mouth wider, trying to get air that wasn’t available into her lungs.
“Please be quiet and listen, Mack. Relax. Close your eyes and let it happen. I’m right here with you. I have a story for you. This is a story of a boy who dreamed of a girl made just for him. This boy had the same dream every night. Every single night of his life, he dreamed of a special woman. Not a princess, not a millionaire, but a plain ol’ hardworking woman. As the years went by, and he grew older, he continued to have the dream. He lived his life, made friends, dated, but not one woman he met was the one of his dreams. He dreamed about how she wasn’t perfect. She made mistakes, but owned up to them immediately. She was clumsy and silly and had a tendency to pratter on when she was telling a story or when she was nervous. The man wanted that dream woman more than he could say, but she never appeared.”
Dax cleared his throat, and tried to control the tears gathering in his throat and his eyes. He watched as a tear came out the side of Mack’s eye as she lay gasping for breath and he dug deep to find the strength to continue. To give her this. Her last moments should be filled with the sound of his voice, not the sound of silence or some fucking pop song from years ago.
“One day the man met a woman, he said hello politely and went on his way, not knowing he’d just met the woman he’d dreamed about his entire life. Luckily, fate had pity on the couple, as they met again not long after. One day led to the next and before he knew what hit him, the man realized he hadn’t dreamed of his special dream woman in weeks. He mourned the loss, until he realized there was no need to dream about her anymore, she was standing right in front of him.
“Mack, sweetheart. You’re that woman. I’ve dreamed of you my entire life. I might not have had you for long, but I’ll treasure every second you were in my arms, my bed and in my life. I love you, Mackenzie Morgan. You will not be forgotten. Not by me. Not by your family, not by any-fucking-body. Relax now, baby. Stop fighting. It’s okay. I’m here with you now.”
Dax watched through the tears in his eyes as Mackenzie’s hand went lax and the phone she’d been holding fell by her head. Her mouth stopped gaping open and shut and she lay still, her eyes staring up at the camera, not blinking.
Dax clicked his phone off and put his hand on Mack’s face on the monitor. She was gone.
A single tear coursed down Dax’s cheek and he felt hollow inside. “I love you, Mack. There’ll never be another like you.”
Chapter Seventeen
“Dax! Move your ass!” Cruz’s words were sharp and urgent and came from somewhere in the house.
Dax could tell his friend was shouting the words, as he heard them come from another room, but they also seemed to be coming from the speakers on the desk in front of him. Dax looked at the officers working on the computer next to him, they gazed back at him, eyes wide with disbelief.
Dax didn’t want to go anywhere. He didn’t care that Staal’s dead body was on the floor behind him. He didn’t care about anything but staying right where he was, being with Mackenzie. He didn’t know how he’d get through the rest of the night, or the following day, or the next. He had a million things to do. He had to get ahold of Mackenzie’s family and Laine. He had to… Hell, he had no idea what he needed to do.
“Seriously, Dax. Get your ass down here. Right fucking now!”
The words, louder in the room now that the officer next to him had turned up the volume on the speaker, made Dax stand up abruptly. Now that he was beginning to be able to think again he knew there was only one reason he’d be hearing his friend through the speakers of the computer Staal had been sitting in front of.
“Where the hell are you?” Dax roared, already on the move.
“Basement. Now, Dax!”
Dax jogged through a room with a sofa and TV to an open door, following the pointing finger of
the officer standing next to it. Obviously while he was saying good-bye to Mack, Cruz had been searching the house with the other officers. On auto-pilot, Dax pulled out his weapon and moved down the stairs, having a feeling he knew what he’d find.
Dax stopped dead in his tracks at the bottom of the stairs.
In the middle of the room was a large wooden rectangular box. It was sitting on a pedestal and there were four wires leading from the box up into the ceiling. He had a hard time processing what he was seeing. Dax’s mind was still up in the office with Mackenzie.
Dax met Cruz’s eyes.
“Look around, grab anything you can to help me get the lid off. It’s nailed shut with about a million nails. We need something to help us get in there.” Cruz’s words were frantic as he and two other officers did their best to force the lid up by brute strength alone, with no luck.
Dax shoved his pistol into the holster at his back and looked around quickly, realizing what the hell was going on. His heart beat fast in his chest. How long had it been since he’d seen Mack take her last breath? If he was lucky, she might still have a chance. Dax spied a metal pipe leaning against a wall and grabbed it. He shoved it into Cruz’s hands, hoping it would work. Dax continued to scan the room to see what else he could find.
There! A crowbar. Exactly what he needed.
Dax grabbed it and rushed over to Cruz’s side. He put the end under the lid and pushed. At first he didn’t think it was going to move, but finally Dax felt the lid move a tiny bit. With one more heave, getting help from Cruz and the others around the coffin and putting pressure on the metal tool, the lid finally shifted an inch.
“Grab it. Get it off!” Cruz’s words were barked to the other officers. Every man around the box forced their fingers under the rim of the make-shift coffin, and pulled with all their might.
Dax held his breath as the lid was pushed open.
Mack.
She lay still, not moving, not breathing. She looked exactly like she did on the damn monitor. Her eyes were open, staring sightlessly up, her mouth parted, her hand lying lifeless next to her head. At her feet were piles of dirt. Staal had obviously dumped it into the coffin, ensuring she’d smell it and believe she was actually underground. Fucking bastard.
Dax didn’t hesitate, but leaned over and scooped Mack up into his arms and lifted her from the damn tomb she’d been ensconced in and immediately laid her on the floor.
“Call the paramedics,” he ordered Cruz.
“Already on their way, Ranger,” one of the other officers said quickly.
Dax turned back to Mackenzie. He couldn’t lose her now. Not when he’d been so close. She’d held on for too long for two damn minutes to make a difference between tearing his heart out or making his life complete.
Dax put two fingers on Mack’s neck and felt a faint pulse. “She’s got a heartbeat,” he announced to no one in particular. She wasn’t breathing though. He needed to get air into her lungs. He tilted her head back. Dax put one hand on her bruised forehead and the other on her chin, pulling her lip down. He leaned over and breathed twice into her mouth, pushing much-needed oxygen into her lungs.
“Come on, Mack. Come on, baby.”
He breathed into her again.
“You can do it. Come on. Don’t let him win.”
He leaned over and breathed into Mack’s mouth again.
“Come back to me, sweetheart. I need you.”
Dax did it again, then again.
He firmed his voice. “Breathe, Mack. Fucking breathe already!”
Finally, Mackenzie coughed once, low, and Dax held his breath. “That’s it, Mack. You can do it. Breathe, baby.”
Dax wanted nothing more than to take Mack into his arms, but knew it wouldn’t be smart. He kept his hands on her head and kept encouraging her. She slowly coughed harder and harder and finally Dax could see her gulping in air on her own.
He leaned down into her. “I’m so proud of you. You did it. Thank God. Thank you, Jesus.” Dax sobbed into Mack’s hair until the paramedics arrived.
* * *
Dax held Mackenzie’s hand, refusing to let go, all the way to the hospital. Cruz brushed aside his thanks, telling him to “go with your woman.” Dax didn’t have to be told twice.
Mackenzie hadn’t fully woken up yet. She had regained consciousness twice, but was obviously still confused about where she was and what had happened. She had an IV inserted and was being given oxygen. Dax hadn’t seen any wounds on her, other than the bruise on her forehead, but wasn’t taking any chances.
He’d refused to leave her room, telling the doctors she was under the Texas Rangers’ protection, which wasn’t exactly a lie. The nurses had changed her out of her soiled clothes and put her into a gown. After the doctor had examined her, they’d stuffed her under the covers, and Dax was finally alone with her.
He sat down next to the hospital bed and picked up Mack’s hand. Her nails had been ripped and broken in her initial struggles when she’d awoken in the coffin and tried unsuccessfully to claw her way out, but otherwise she looked fine. Dax kissed each finger gently and rested his head on top of her hand on the mattress.
Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, and he knew Mack was safe and unharmed, Dax was exhausted. He quickly fell asleep, with one hand clasping Mack’s and the other laying possessively and reassuringly on her stomach.
Mackenzie woke slowly and shifted, feeling something heavy on her belly. Suddenly remembering everything, she opened her eyes, then closed them immediately against the harsh light in the room.
Light. That’s all she needed to know.
She wasn’t buried alive anymore. Dax had found her, gotten to her.
She knew she’d had a close call. She recalled every second of straining to breathe, and not being able to get any oxygen into her lungs. She had no idea what had happened and how she’d been rescued, she just thanked God Daxton had done it.
Mackenzie moved a hand to her stomach and covered the hand that was laying there. Daxton’s. She’d know it anywhere.
Mackenzie turned and squinted her eyes open this time, being more cautious now that she knew she was safe and with Daxton. All she could see was his hair. He was sound asleep, trapping her left hand under his head. Mack closed her eyes again.
Safe and with Daxton, that was all she needed to know. She fell asleep again without a further thought.
* * *
“So you’re telling me I wasn’t buried alive at all?”
Mackenzie was sitting with Cruz, Quint, TJ, Calder, Conor, Hayden, and Laine in Daxton’s apartment. She’d been released from the hospital a few hours ago and all of Daxton’s friends, and Laine, had come over to see how she was doing.
“Nope. Fucker didn’t actually bury anyone until after they’d died.”
“Seriously? Man, that is fucked up.”
Everyone laughed, even though it really wasn’t funny.
“He’d run cameras into the coffin and was upstairs watching you. He was also listening to your phone call to Dax, getting off on it.” Cruz laid it out for Mackenzie. He’d had a talk, privately, with Dax and asked what he thought Mackenzie should know. Dax had told him to say what he wanted, but if Dax thought Mack wasn’t dealing, then he’d cut it off. So far, Mack was dealing just fine. She was amazing.
“I mean, really? It’s one thing to kidnap women. It’s another to want them for sexual shit. But he didn’t even touch me. He didn’t hurt me in any way. For him, it was all psychological torture? What a sick, sick man.” Mackenzie held on to Daxton’s hand tightly. It was hard to believe she’d made it through what she had, but she refused to dwell on it. She wouldn’t give the Lone Star Reaper that.
“Apparently his mom taught him all he needed to know about killing when he was a young child. She made him watch as she suffocated his little brother, helped kidnap a little girl in the neighborhood, and they killed her the same way he ended up killing all those other
women. But karma always wins; she taught him so well, Staal ended up killing his own mother, and then couldn’t stop. We figure he killed his wife, but I’m not sure her body will ever be found. If he buried her coffin somewhere, it’s probably better she’s allowed to rest in peace. Somehow along the way, he fixated on law enforcement, specifically Dax here, and the rest is history.”
Mackenzie turned to Daxton. “He was filming me in there?”
“Yeah, baby. He was.”
“Are the tapes…will others see them?”
Dax turned to Mack and put his hands on her face. “Look at me, Mack. No one will see those tapes. I swear to you. Cruz took them. They’re at the FBI. They won’t go anywhere.”
“I—”
“You’re safe. The things you said to me. The stuff I said back. They’re between us. No one else gets that. It’s ours. Okay?”
“Okay. I get it. But, Daxton. If someone can learn from what he did, from what’s on those tapes, I think we should let them see them. I don’t remember some of the stuff I said, and I’m sure I was a big dork, but if somehow the FBI or whoever can use something to prevent this from happening again, I’m okay with that. Or maybe doctors somewhere can use them to see what happens during asphyxiation. Calder, do you think the medical examiner’s office could use them?”
Dax pulled Mack into his arms. “Don’t answer that, Calder. My Mack. Always thinking about others, aren’t you?”
“Well, I’m not doing cartwheels that my last breaths—well, my almost-last breaths—are on tape in some deep dark vault somewhere, and I certainly never want to see it, and I don’t want you to have to see that again, but Daxton, I’d feel bad to ask to have them destroyed if some good could come out of them.”
