Once they were down she launched on top of them and started hitting. But the attacker wasn't going to give up. They brought their knee up and got a hard knock in to the back of Cecelia's back. The strike was enough to cause her to hesitate and the intruder took the advantage.
She reached between Cecelia's arms and grabbed her neck. Cecelia grabbed their wrists and squeezed. The attacker tried to rock her off so she could flip their positions, but Cecelia knew she couldn't let that happen. If the attacker got the advantage, it lowered her own chances of surviving.
The intruder started kicking her in the back by raising a leg and knocking her in the back of head. One of the hits struck the wound and she faltered. The attacker intensified the hold on her neck and Cecelia saw stars. She lost her edge and fell over.
The attacker rolled with her and squeezed harder. Cecelia felt panic set in as she kicked and struggled to get this person off of her. But her vision had blurred and the edges were darkening. She struck at where she believed their face was and kicked, but the combination of losing oxygen and her wound was taking its toll.
She struck out one last time before those darkening edges swallowed everything.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Thomas felt himself jerk awake. He lay still in the dark, listening for sounds in the other room. After a few minutes he didn't hear anything. A minute more and he realized none of the lights were on.
Not even the light from the porch that'd been filtering through the window while he and Cecelia had…
The memory made him smile like a love-struck school boy. He quickly pushed the warm glowy feeling aside and took stock of himself.
Shit. I feel like shit.
He thought he heard something fall in the other room, followed by more knocks and bangs. Thomas groggily pushed himself up into a sitting position and threw his legs over the side of the bed. He reached over out of habit to turn the lamp on—but nothing happened.
Right…power. He shut it off.
He rubbed his eyes and listened. The noises stopped. He thought he heard footsteps move past the door and then the porch door open. Minutes later the generator cranked up, then the lights came back on. He heard the soft beep of the security system as it reset. Some systems actually read power-loss as a break in and sent the signal to the police, but he wasn't sure if this one did it. Or if the police were even at their posts.
He listened for Cecelia and hoped she would come into the bedroom to check on him. I wasn't ego—it was just—well—
After what they'd just shared, he would have come and checked on her. And he wanted to see her, and hold her. He never wanted to let go.
The door opened and light from the kitchen streamed in. He held up his left hand to block out the light and squinted. "Cecelia?"
She didn't answer him. Instead she stepped forward, her face hidden in the shadows, and closed the door. Thomas wondered if she wanted to repeat their earlier acrobatics and figured he should warn her he wasn't feeling up to it.
"Cece?"
When she still didn't answer and her shadow stood between him and the door, he reached over and turned the lamp on next to the bed.
"Hello, Thomas."
It wasn't Cecelia.
"Blair? How…why are you here?
He should have been more surprised and more suspicious and more…
Prepared.
To see his boss's daughter in the middle of the woods in Georgia?
But of all the people he'd known in his life, Blair Hodges was the last person he thought would betray his trust. He'd known her for four years. He'd helped her father teach her the trade, taught her how to shoot a gun, and even taught her how to read people.
So it wasn't surprising when she read him, stepped forward and pressed the barrel of a gun to his forehead. "Thomas Carr. You've become a constant thorn in my side."
It was the same thing the Phantom had said—only this time there wasn't a voice box.
The events of the past night started making sense as he stared past her hand and the gun and looked up into her face. She'd ducked and evaded every shot and every blow because she knew his moves.
She knew his habits.
She knew his tactics.
And she knew his obsession with finding and catching the Phantom.
But he realized all of this too late.
He swallowed and kept his gaze focused on her. "So…you're Phantom. And you're going to kill me."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I told you why."
"I mean, why did you do it? Your father worked his whole life to stop thieves from taking what didn't belong to them and profiting from it."
"And he was poor," she snarled.
Thomas's heart plummeted. She talked about him in the past tense.
"Always poor. Didn't you ever wonder how he was able to pay for all those trips you took? How he was able to pay for your expenses? Or the thief before you? Or before her?" She slapped her free hand on her chest. "Because he made me sacrifice everything I ever wanted. We never had enough to eat or new clothes to wear. The house had holes in the ceiling and the floor. I missed so much school just working odd jobs to make up for the money that slipped through his fingers and into the pockets of his network of spies."
She shoved the gun against his forehead. He winced at the pain. "And forget any kind of extended education. Oh no, not for me. High school was good enough. My dreams of being more had to be put aside for the next piece of shit my father had to find."
He heard her, but Thomas was slack jawed. He'd never known any of this, especially how much he'd sacrificed of his own to keep him and the other thieves out in the field, taking back the treasures.
Thomas had always assumed the Professor kept a share of the money for him and for Blair.
She came closer to him and he could see her eyes were bloodshot. Red rimmed. Whatever was happening in her head was taking its toll on her physically. "And not once…not once, Thomas, did he ever pay as much attention to me as he did to you or the others. The only way I could share in that love was to become a thief. To become what would be something untouchable for him. To be something he'd obsess about."
Oh Blair had excelled in doing just that. It'd been the Professor's own desire to defeat the Phantom that caught on with Thomas, until the Professor's obsession became his own.
"And then I started returning your treasures."
She struck him with the gun. He hadn't expected it so the blow knocked him to his right, into the headboard. He put his left hand to the left side of his face and spit blood out where his tooth had cut into his lip.
"You made a mockery of what I'd done! Until you came along, my father's attention was focused on me. Me as the Phantom."
He didn't say anything. He was worried about Cecelia. He hadn't seen nor heard her in the house. Had Blair done something to her?
"So I was going to set you up as the Phantom and have you placed in prison. But that didn't work. I'm better at taking treasures."
"Where's Cecelia?" He finally blurted.
Blair smiled at him. "She's dead. Close your eyes, Thomas, so you can join her."
"Where's your father?"
She hesitated. "He's dead. You killed him."
"What did you do?"
"You did it. Not me! You killed him!"
He locked his eyes with her and pressed harder. "No, you killed him, didn't you? Did you kill Agent Clark as well? He gave me the exact information needed to get me caught—and he would never betrayed me." Thomas hadn't thought about Clark until that moment as he put the pieces together. Blair had destroyed both men in order to set him up.
But there was one thing she was forgetting. The same thing that made it possible for her to read him, made it possible for him to read her.
And right now, the slant of her eye lids, the set of her mouth, the way she gripped the gun, told him volumes.
"He wouldn't help me."
"Agent Clark?"
"Yes."
Thomas's jaw worked back and forth as he silently mourned his friend, and his mentor. "That makes you alone doesn't it? All alone?"
"You're still here."
"But you're going to kill me."
She hesitated. "Y-yes."
"But you didn't want to kill me did you? You wanted me in jail instead of dead. Why?"
Blair narrowed her eyes. "Because then I could see you and mock you. Tell you I was the Phantom and you had lost."
"But you wanted me alive. You need me alive."
Again, she hesitated. "N-no I don't."
He was going to lose her. He needed to act. Now.
Thomas feigned dizziness and leaned to the left as he gripped his right shoulder.
"What is it?" she demanded.
"It's your wound…where you shot me in the jail. It's…" He rolled his eyes back and fell over onto the bed.
"Thomas?" Blair's voice cracked a little as she stepped closer and reached out with her left hand to touch him. "Hey…what's wrong?"
He had one chance. One.
He grabbed her outstretched arm with his right hand and pulled her to his right, then grabbed the wrist with the gun in his left. She tried to head butt him but held her far out enough so when she tried to kick, he stood up.
The sheets fell away.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Cecelia fought her way back to consciousness with the sound of people talking. One of them, a woman's voice, was loud. Ugh…she wanted to smack that woman and tell her to be quiet.
A second later she realized she heard Thomas's voice and she was on the floor in the hall between the kitchen and the living room.
The lights were on.
And she had the mother of all headaches.
She took in a deep breath and started coughing. Cecelia buried her mouth into the crook of one arm to smother the sounds as she pushed herself up and finally got to her feet. Blood smeared the floor and her throat hurt. She knew the blood was from the wound to her head and it made her just a little bit queasy.
The voices caught her attention. The intruder was in the bedroom with Thomas and it sounded like that were arguing. She heard a thwack sound and Thomas groaned.
Cecelia looked around the kitchen for her gun—she knew she had it when she came in from sweeping the perimeter before she started dinner.
She found it under a used dishrag and checked her magazine. Full.
Now armed and with a strong need to kick her intruder's ass and get Thomas out of there alive because she was not going to lose something so wonderful, Cecelia tip toed to the door and pressed her back against the door next to the frame.
She counted to ten, grabbed the door knob and thrust the door open. She ran in and pointed her gun—
But the intruder, Blair Hodges, was on the floor with a red mark on her face and Thomas stood nude over her. He turned to Cecelia and his expression changed. "You're bleeding!"
Cecelia straightened and lowered her gun. "You're…naked."
"That's the way you left me in the bed." He came to her and pulled her to him.
She instantly felt his response against her thigh. With a sigh, she said, "Thomas…now?"
"You've got handcuffs, don't you?"
Laughing, Cecelia looked up him and brushed his hair from his face. The action made her light headed she slumped against him. But Thomas leaned down and picked her up in his arms, cradling her close.
"Don't you have a fever?" She leaned her head into his warm chest.
"You always give me a fever." He kissed her forehead and placed her on the bed. "You rest. I'll take care of everything else."
***
Cecelia was surprised when Lex and Sheriff Harmon showed up. The snow had stopped falling, but it was still powdery enough to drive through—with the right vehicles. After checking the breakers and turning them back on and shutting the generator off, the Sheriff took Blair into custody and drove off but Lex stayed behind so he could patch her up and check on Thomas.
The three of them were in the kitchen. Thomas was at the stove warming up the dinner left overs, and Cecelia sat at the table as Lex treated up the cut where Blair clipped her with the axe.
"…morning when the snow starts melting. The temperature's not supposed to get much higher during the day," Lex talked as he worked. "And then the temperature's going to drop again. That's when the ice will come and getting up here or out of here will be the worst. So," he said as he sat back and examined his work. "I would suggest the two of you come back with me and stay at the house with Nana and I."
"So she's on her way here?" Thomas said.
"Yep." He had Cecelia turn in her chair to face him. "Okay…sis. You're good. But you're both going to need to take it easy for a few days."
"So…" Thomas began as he turned off the stove and grabbed a bowl. "Would it be too inconvenient if we—meaning Cecelia and I—stayed here?" He wiggled his eyebrows up and down.
Cecelia smiled up at Thomas then looked at Lex.
Lex looked at each of them and shrugged. "Sure. Just make sure you both take your pills and try and get some sleep?"
After a final run through the cabin to make sure Blair hadn't sabotage anything, Thomas finished off the linguini while Cecelia took a shower. When she turned off the water she opened the door to find Thomas leaning against the sink, a clean fluffy towel in his hand. "May I dry you off, sexy lady?"
She laughed and stepped out of the shower.
About the Author…
CJ is an avid reader of romance. Her tastes in romance range from sweet romance, to even a hybrid of cozy/romance to suspense. When she starts a book she has no idea what the tone or the story will be. She starts with two people and watches as the story unfold.
Table of Contents
Title
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Author
December Frost (A Southern Romance Monthly) Page 9
