by Tiffany Snow
“I’ll put down my gun,” Blane continued, “and you let her go. I’m the one who’s going to get Kyle off. Remember, he’s the man who shot your dad. I’m the one you want.”
Frankie didn’t answer. Kade saw exactly where Blane was going with this. His arm was steady, his aim sure. He waited.
“Do we have a deal?” Blane asked.
Frankie nodded. “P-put down your gun, K-K-Kirk.”
Blane carefully bent and placed his weapon on the floor. Kade knew Frankie would aim for the chest. It was doubtful he was a good enough shot with a handgun to hit anywhere else on Blane, especially not at that distance.
And he was right.
When Blane stood, Frankie whipped his arm up and away from Kathleen, firing into Blane’s chest and knocking him backward onto the floor.
“No!” Kathleen screamed. Her knees gave way and Frankie didn’t bother holding her up any longer. She crumpled to the floor, which gave Kade a clear shot.
He squeezed the trigger, putting two bullets center mass on Frankie. Kill shots. Frankie went down.
Kathleen was staring at him in wide-eyed disbelief from where she lay on the floor. Kade holstered his gun as he rushed toward her. She was struggling to get up and get to Blane, who was trying to get his breath back from where lay.
Crouching down beside her, Kade pulled her into his arms. “Hey, take it easy,” he said.
She looked like hell. Blood and dirt coated her face along with bruises that marred her flawless skin. Her hair was matted with more dried blood and her clothes were dirty, with one sleeve torn off and wrapped around her leg as a tourniquet. The bullet wound in her thigh was nasty, blood easing from it. It had to hurt like a motherfucker.
“Blane—” she gasped.
“Shh. Don’t try to talk,” Kade soothed. He couldn’t believe she was alive. He touched her cheek, which was too cold from blood loss. Holding her as close as he dared, his eyes roamed her body, looking for any other wounds. She was cradling her hand. One finger was swollen and by the way it was bent, likely broken. Kade’s lips pressed together. He should’ve just incapacitated that fuck and used the knife strapped to his ankle to flay him alive.
“But Blane—” she said again.
“I’m fine, Kat. I’m right here.” Blane had recovered and now crouched on the other side of her. She whipped her head around to stare at him.
“Call 911,” Blane said.
“I’m on it,” Kade replied. Handing her over to Blane was hard to do, but she needed medical care, so he was exceedingly gentle as he passed her into Blane’s arms.
Though he returned in moments, Kathleen was unconscious by the time he got back. Kneeling next to Blane, they waited in anxious silence for the three minutes it took for an ambulance to arrive. Jumping up when he heard sirens, Kade hurried to open the door.
Paramedics came inside, toting heavy cases of equipment. Blane reluctantly moved aside, letting one of the men handle laying Kathleen back on the floor.
“Can somebody tell us what happened?” the paramedic asked.
Blane gave him a quick rundown. Another EMT had spotted Frankie’s body and stepped toward it. Kade shook his head and blocked the man’s path.
“He’s dead,” he said. “Work on her.” He pointed at Kathleen.
“How do you know he’s dead?” the EMT asked, sidling sideways to try and pass Kade by.
“Because I shot him. Trust me, he’s dead. Now go work on her.” He was getting seriously pissed and it must have shown because the guy looked hard at Kade, then backed down, turning to crouch down next to the guy cutting the tourniquet off Kathleen’s thigh.
The cops were there, too, and Blane told them in concise terms what had happened. One of them glanced at Kade.
“Why is Dennon here?” he asked, gazing suspiciously at Kade, who gave him a thin-lipped sneer in return.
“I hired him,” Blane said, “to help with this case. His presence is legit.”
Blane’s tone brooked no argument and the cop gave a reluctant nod, jotting something down on his notepad. He turned away and went to where his partner was examining Frankie.
Fifteen minutes later, they were loading Kathleen onto a stretcher and into the back of an ambulance. Blane climbed inside and Kade made to follow, but the EMT stopped him.
“Sorry. Only have room for one passenger,” he said briskly.
“I’ll call you,” Blane said to Kade.
Kade stepped back and the doors slammed shut. The sirens started again and the ambulance took off down the street. He watched it go.
She was okay. Kathleen was going to be all right.
It finally hit him and he had to lean against the building, relief and leftover adrenaline making his limbs shake.
“Hey! Tell Dispatch to send someone to collect two bodies,” the cop called out to his partner who was at the patrol car, talking into a radio.
Kade glanced back at the door and saw the cop disappear back inside. Curiosity aroused, he followed him.
“Where’s the other body?” he asked.
The cop was picking up casings from Frankie’s gun. He looked around, saw Kade, and went back to what he was doing.
“In the basement,” he replied curtly, offering no further information.
Kade rolled his eyes and stepped around the cop and over Frankie. Kathleen had been heading through the kitchen, which must mean the basement was…there.
An open doorway was on the far side of the room, and through it he could see a flight of stairs. He headed over and slowly descended. There were fresh blood stains on the stairs. Kathleen’s blood.
The basement itself was dank and musty, the hard-packed wooden floor covered in dust. There was an open doorway with a transom window above it. A strong smell emanated from the room. Kade crossed to it and peered inside.
A man’s body, obviously dead for several days, lay on the floor. Maggots swarmed around his face and an empty eye-socket.
Bowers. It had to be.
Kade spied the remains of Kathleen’s phone on the floor, crushed, and he felt a wave of horror wash over him. Frankie had kept Kathleen here, with the dead body, for six hours? How the hell had she gotten out?
Just imagining her being here—shot and hurting inside a freezing cold room that had no source of heat, with only a decomposing corpse for company—had his hands fisting and rage building in his veins. But he had no outlet for all that fury. Frankie was dead. Kade couldn’t kill him again, though he wished he could.
He left, hurrying up the stairs and not saying anything to the cops as he passed by. They got out of his way pretty damn fast and moments later he was in his car. He had to blow off some steam. The rage at what she’d gone through, and the bitter disappointment that she wanted Blane at her side—not him—was eating him alive.
Though he supposed he could take comfort in the knowledge that she obviously thought he was a better choice to call if she needed help, since she’d called him instead of Blane when the chips had been down. It was a small consolation.
Kade pulled up to a bar in a part of town where the cops didn’t bother responding to calls anymore. He was looking for a fight, and this was as good a place as any.
Inside was dimly lit, with about two dozen people scattered around the room. Heads turned when he walked in and Kade could almost feel the menace in the air, which suited him just fine.
There was an empty seat at the bar and he slid onto the stool. That put his back to the room, but there was a mirror behind the bar, giving him an unobstructed view of everyone and everything behind him.
Catching the bartender’s eye, he tossed a hundred dollar bill on the counter. “Vodka, neat,” he said, “and keep it coming.”
The guy was slow to wander over, but he snatched the money quick enough, the bill disappearing into his shirt pocket.
“We’re all out,” he said. His gaze lifted briefly to look over Kade’s shoulder.
Kade glanced in the mirror. Three guys were heading hi
s way.
“Then I want my money back,” Kade said. He saw one of the guys sliding on a pair of brass knuckles.
“What money?” Reaching under the bar, he pulled out a baseball bat.
The bartender’s sneer turned Kade’s simmering rage into a pool of ice cold fury.
The guy swung the bat at Kade, who reached up and caught it mid-swing. It hit his palm with a loud slap. Kade gave it a sharp jerk, pulling it out of the guy’s hands. He hadn’t been expecting it and hadn’t reacted in time. Kade shoved the bottom of the bat right back at the bartender, nailing him hard in the face. There was a crack of bone and the bartender went down, out cold.
A glance in the mirror showed him the men had paused in surprise, but they were over it.
The first one came at him before he had time to turn around. The bat was still parallel to the floor and Kade reversed its direction, shoving the tip behind him and catching the first attacker in the jaw. The bat was hard wood, heavy enough to withstand the impact of a baseball flying at nearly one hundred miles an hour. Compared to that, the guy’s bones could’ve been made of glass for what it did to him. He went down, which left two.
Kade spun on the stool, gripping the bat with both hands, but not like a batter would. It took too long to swing a bat, needed both hands to wield, and left your body entirely vulnerable while you swung, which was why it wasn’t his first choice as an offensive weapon.
But it’d do in a pinch.
He held it with both hands like a battering ram, which is exactly how he used it on brass-knuckles. There was a reason why brass-knuckles were illegal—they could do a lot of damage with only one hit. So the answer was…don’t get hit.
Kade shoved the bat at brass-knuckles, punching the air right out of him and breaking some ribs. The guy doubled over, his buddy flanking Kade had a knife. Kade whipped the bat up, striking the forearm of the guy slashing the blade toward him, which did two things—it deflected the blow, and broke the man’s radius bone.
He yelled in pain, his hand reflexively opening to drop the knife, which Kade caught.
The guy in the middle seemed frozen in shock. Kade’s hands were full of weapons, but he had no room to maneuver. The guy was too close. So he whipped his head forward, striking the other man’s nose with his forehead. The blow was fast and brutal. Blood spurted from the man’s crushed nose and his eyes rolled up in his head. His knees collapsed and there was only one left.
Brass-knuckles had caught his breath and swung for him, the light catching on the wickedly lethal weapon. He was a big guy and there was a lot of force behind that swing. If it landed, Kade would have a broken jaw, lose some teeth, probably have a concussion and maybe a cracked skull. Brain damage and death were also possibilities.
Kade dropped the bat and leapt forward, off the stool and into the guy’s space. Now his punch was too badly aimed to land with any kind of force and his arm glanced off Kade’s shoulder.
Grabbing his wrist, Kade twisted and ducked under the guy’s arm, using the momentum to slam the man’s hand down on the wooden bar, palm up. A second later, Kade swung the knife, burying its point into the center of the guy’s palm and pinning it to the bar. Brass-knuckles yelled in pain as the blood began to flow. Grabbing the back of the guy’s head, Kade slammed him head-first onto the bar. The yelling stopped immediately and Kade dumped his body over the barstool he’d just vacated.
Kade turned to see the crowd had gone silent. No one moved forward to help the four men, which was too bad because that had felt pretty damn good. He was breathing hard, his heart pounding with adrenaline, his senses heightened as he waited for another threat. But none came.
Rounding the bar, he saw that the bartender was still out cold. Reaching down, Kade retrieved his money, then grabbed an unopened bottle of vodka.
“Thanks for the drink,” he said to no one in particular. Then he was out the door and gone.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Hey, it’s me,” Blane’s voice mail began. “The doctor came back, said she’s going to be fine. They got the bullet out of her and she needed some blood. She’d lost a lot. A couple of inches higher, and he would have hit her femoral artery. She’s banged up, scrapes and contusions, and a broken finger. Other than that, she’s okay.”
Other than that.
Kade took another swig of the now half-empty bottle of vodka as he sat in his car, staring up at the glowing windows of the hospital. He’d listened to the voice mail over and over again, each listing of her injuries like an accusation. He should’ve been there, should’ve protected her. He’d let Blane down.
He’d let her down.
Kathleen hadn’t asked anything of him, and the one time she had, Kade hadn’t gotten to her in time. She’d endured a psychopath, a corpse, and a deadly injury for six hours before they’d found her.
They’d been the longest six hours of his life.
The vodka burned going down, joining the acid tearing his gut up from the inside out.
He didn’t recall making the decision to go inside the hospital, he just found himself walking the deserted corridors in the middle of the night. Passing an empty nurses’ station, he walked around the counter and navigated the software they’d left open on the computer screen until he found Kathleen’s room number.
A few minutes later, he had silently entered her darkened room and stood, drinking in her still form on the bed. A shaft of light from the window illuminated enough for him to be able to see her face, sound asleep.
Moving slowly toward the bed, his hand lifted to touch her, and that’s when he saw the blood on him. Brass-knuckles guy—Kade must have gotten blood on him when he’d used the knife. The reddish brown stained his hand, a stark contrast to the pale skin of Kathleen’s cheek.
He jerked back. It was a good reminder. Kade had blood on his hands both literally and figuratively. He should no more be allowed to touch her than he should be allowed into heaven—not that he believed in such a place.
But he did believe in hell, and not just the hell-on-earth kind, but the real deal. Because he was dead certain that’s where he was destined to end up. It was the only place people like him deserved. And perhaps part of that hell was wanting something so badly—something so pure and good—and knowing you’d never, ever have it.
Going into the bathroom, he quietly closed the door before he washed his hands, carefully erasing the evidence of the brutality he’d meted out tonight. Too bad that, for him, brutality was more than skin-deep. It went to his bones, right down into his soul.
He caught sight of himself in the mirror. There was a bruise forming on his forehead from where he’d smacked that guy. Other than that, he didn’t have a mark on him. He was almost sorry. It seemed he should pay for Kathleen’s pain with some of his own.
His eyes looked…empty. He wondered what, if anything, Kathleen saw when she looked into them. Did she see what he saw? A bleak wasteland of darkness that would only drag her down into the depths with him?
Returning to her bedside, he watched her, and maybe she sensed a presence because she suddenly woke with a gasp, then struggled to sit up.
Kade lightly clasped her shoulder, the bones too fragile beneath her skin. “Take it easy,” he said. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
At his voice, she relaxed back against the pillows with a sigh. “Where am I?” Her voice was a hoarse whisper that made him wince.
“Indiana University Hospital,” he said, wondering how much she remembered of her ordeal.
“Hate hospitals.”
“That’s what Blane said. But you needed to come here. They had to remove the bullet from your leg and you’d lost a lot of blood.” No sense sugarcoating the ways in which he’d failed her.
“Thirsty.” Now that he could do something about.
Grabbing a cup off the table, Kade filled it halfway with water, then helped Kathleen sit up so she could drink it.
“Thank you,” she said once she’d finished it, and her voice was clear
er now, and stronger.
“No problem,” he automatically replied, helping her lie back down.
“How’d you find me?” she asked.
“I put a tracking device inside your cell phone after the first time you disappeared on me,” he said. “I wasn’t about to lose you again.” He swallowed, then said the fear he couldn’t help expressing. “Though it seems I nearly did.”
She didn’t reply to that and silence descended. After a few moments, she asked, “What time is it?”
“Around five a.m.,” he replied. “You were missing for over six hours. We would have gotten there sooner, but the asshole must have turned the phone off. It stopped sending a signal. All we had to go on was about a square-block radius.” It seemed he couldn’t stop the rationale, the defense of how long it had taken to get to her, as if he was begging her to understand why he’d failed.
“How’d Blane know about Frankie’s dad?”
“He was with me when Frankie called. I heard what you said, the description you gave. That was enough for me to track him down. Frankie was Franklin Randall Wyster. Son of James Walter Wyster, aka Ahmed el Mustaqueem.”
She said nothing, so he went on.
“Frankie and his dad allegedly committed an honor killing a couple years ago. The victim was his daughter, Christine Wyster. She was fifteen at the time. They were never prosecuted.”
Her body shuddered at that and Kade had a flash of regret for telling her. She empathized too much, could feel others’ pain too deeply.
“I thought Ryan was the one who killed those people,” she said, “but really it was Frankie.”
“Frankie may have killed them, but Ryan was the one threatening them into changing their testimony. I don’t know who he was working for, but I’m going to find out.”
Kathleen was quiet again for a few minutes, her eyes slowly blinking, as though she was finding it hard to stay awake. The heavy-duty drugs she was on must have been kicking in.
“Why do I feel funny?” she asked, the words slurring slightly.
“Painkillers.”
