She thought in earnest about making a break for the kitchen. If she could get outside, she might draw him out, too, leaving the others safe. But he beat her to the charred kitchen doorway, blocking her exit.
He took a long, ugly knife from a scabbard on his belt and dragged his thumb down the sharp edge. He watched, expressionless, as blood welled around the cut.
Finally he looked back at her. “But I know you,” he said. “And your husband.”
Matt tried in vain to peel Gem off of him. As soon as he’d freed her, she’d latched onto him like ugly on a horn toad and he hadn’t been able to get her off. Truth be told, he hadn’t really tried. Between the tremble in her thin arms where they were wound around his neck and the sobs drenching his shoulder, he hadn’t had the heart. Instead, he patted her awkwardly and waited for the tide of emotion—his and hers—to recede.
When he’d seen her on the videotape, he’d thought she was dead.
Eventually, sobs subsided into hiccups. Matt decided it was time to try to get a little information from her.
“What happened, Gem? Who did this to you?”
She wiped her nose on his shirt. “H-h-he said he would help me. H-he said he cared about me.”
“Who said he cared about you?”
“He didn’t care about me. He just wanted revenge.”
“Who, Gem? Who?”
“It was fun at first, running around with him, without all the rules. He took care of me. He said he cared about me. But I started missing my girls. He said we had to wait. To get you away from Miss Caroline. I didn’t want to do it. But he said if I helped him, he would get my babies back for me. I didn’t know he meant to kidnap them. Honest.”
Her nearly incomprehensible narrative rose from keen to wail. “We didn’t know Dr. Justiss would be there. For real. But she was, and she tried to stop him. He pushed her and she hit her head on the counter.”
“Did he start the fire, Gem?”
Her eyes turned to his, but seemed to look past him, as if she was caught in a nightmare. “It was an accident. Savannah was making tea. She knocked a dish towel onto the stove when she fell. It caught so quick. I told him we had to get them out. I got Jeb and Hailey out—”
“You got Jeb and Hailey out?”
She nodded. “I told him to get Savannah, but he was scared. He ran away. I tried to go back for her after I got the kids outside, but the fire was too hot. I couldn’t get in.
“I told him we had to go back, to tell you what happened, but he was mad. And he was really scared, then. He said Savannah was probably dead and he hated you.”
She sniffed, pulled herself together just a little. At least she talked a little more slowly. “H-he wants to hurt you.” Her face twisted up like a crumpled napkin. “He’s going to hurt Miss Caroline to pay you back.”
The world spun crazily. Matt felt dizzy. Nauseated. “Pay me back for what?”
“For taking his family.”
“His—” Matt grabbed Gem’s shoulders. Gripped her firmly. Resisted the urge to shake, though he was shaking inside. “Who, Gem?” He had to ask, though in his gut he already knew. “Who is going to hurt Caroline?”
“J.J.” She looked up at him, eyes red-rimmed, puffy and pleading. “J.J. Hampton.”
J.J. James Junior. Oh, God. James Hampton Junior.
Caroline made a break for the kitchen. If she could get outside, maybe the young man with the knife would follow her. She had to get him outside. Away from the Johnsons and Jeb.
Away from Hailey.
She bolted right, but before she could escape a wiry hand hooked her elbow, pulling her off balance. Her knee connected with an end table. A lamp crashed to the floor. Pain jolted up her thigh. Caroline bit her lip, but it was too late. A cry had already escaped her. From the hall, she could hear the Johnsons shuffling toward her.
“Caroline, dear? What’s—”
Caroline twisted out of her captor’s grasp. “Mrs. Johnson,” she yelled. “Get out! There’s—”
She never had a chance to finish her warning. He had her again, this time more firmly. One pale arm fished around her waist and pulled her back to his chest. The other arm twined around her shoulder, holding the knife blade to her neck.
“Hold it!” he cried. His hands shook so badly that Caroline feared he might cut her by accident. “Hold it right there!”
Mrs. Johnson stopped as if she’d run into a brick wall. Her eyes widened. Her mouth pursed. One hand flew to the lace collar of her dress. The other bunched in the fluttering folds of cotton printed with brown-eyed Susans falling from her hip.
“Oh, my—”
Mr. Johnson appeared beside his wife. His bushy gray eyebrows drew down, deepening the already cavernous furrows in his aged forehead. “Now look here,” he said, hunching over his cane even more than normal. “What do you think you’re—”
“Quiet, old man!”
“Please, Mr. Johnson, Mrs. Johnson, just do what he says.”
“Yeah, do what I say. Before somebody gets hurt.”
Mr. Johnson’s frail body straightened marginally. “Now look here, young man. I fought the Germans in the Big One. I’m not afraid of the likes of you.” Lifting his cane, he punctuated every word by poking the rubber-stoppered end in the air toward Caroline and the boy.
“Yeah, well this ain’t 1940 and you ain’t Audie Murphy, so don’t go bein’ no hero.” The boy waggled his elbow toward the couch. Every time he moved, the blade scraped across Caroline’s throat. She tried to not swallow.
“Now sit down,” the intruder ordered, turning so that his left side—and Caroline’s—was toward the hallway as the Johnsons moved reluctantly across the room. With the intruder distracted, Caroline cut her gaze down the hallway toward the office. Hailey was back there along with Jeb and his new pup. She offered a quick prayer that neither the puppy nor baby would wake, make noise and give away their presence, and that Jeb would stay hidden.
Unfortunately, her prayer went unanswered. Unnoticed by the intruder, Jeb slunk down the hall. He had his back pressed to the wall and one hand stretched out in front of him, seeking his way. His other hand hung behind him, out of sight.
Just as Jeb reached the corner that opened into the living room and stood with his little chest pumping like a bellows, Hailey let out a wail. The intruder jerked toward the sound. Caroline squeezed her eyes shut tight, sure she would be cut, but the hot slice of steel on flesh never came.
“What the Hell?” the intruder said.
Caroline’s blood thrummed in her eardrums. Panic left her dizzy. Surely she wasn’t seeing what she thought she saw—Jeb, stepping out of the hallway, a small gun clasped tightly in his baby-smooth hands. Savannah’s gun. It must have been in her purse, in the office. With the fire, Caroline had forgotten all about it.
Why hadn’t she remembered Savannah carried a gun?
“Daddy?” Jeb said, his voice pitched higher than normal.
“I ain’t your daddy, kid. Now drop the gun.”
The knife pressed back to Caroline’s trachea. The intruder pulled her closer to him, until she could feel his heat. The wild flutter of his heart. He was close to the edge of panic himself, she thought.
“I said, drop the gun.”
Jeb’s upper lip quivered. He caught it in the open space where his front teeth would soon grow in. Defiance shuddered through his narrow shoulders. The derringer wavered in his clasp, pointing to the ceiling, floor, then in the general direction of the intruder. And Caroline.
The sound of sirens in the distance pumped a brief rush of hope through Caroline’s system, followed quickly by another jolt of fear. The situation was already as dangerous as a short fuse. A herd of antsy cops—led by her husband—just might be the spark that set it off.
“You hurt my momma,” Jeb said, pulling Caroline’s attention back to the immediate problem. “Just like my daddy did.”
Behind Caroline, the intruder went still a moment. Slowly his chest collapsed as he bl
ew out a breath. His white-knuckled grip on the knife eased, and the blade drooped.
“You’re the blind kid, aren’t you?”
Jeb didn’t answer. Neither did he lower the gun.
“What do you think you’re going to do? Shoot me?” He laughed and pulled Caroline a step toward Jeb. “You can’t even see me.” He took another step. “Now gimme that gun.”
Jeb’s cheeks pouched and hollowed, he breathed in quick little pants.
“Jeb, please,” Caroline pleaded. Jeb couldn’t help her. He could only get himself hurt.
“No,” Jeb said, almost screeching. As the intruder dragged Caroline a step closer, the boy pushed the gun out in front of him as far as his arms would reach. Stepping to the side, out of the line of fire, the intruder shoved Caroline away.
She caught her balance quickly and turned. Jeb. She had to get to Jeb. His eyes widened. He stepped back, gun swiveling as he tried to follow two sounds, estimating blindly who was where.
With sirens screaming and the sound of tires grinding to a hard stop on gravel out front, both Caroline and the intruder lunged toward the boy, but the intruder was closer. Halfway to him, in midair, the blast of a gunshot, shockingly loud for such a small weapon, stung her eardrums.
In front of the old farmhouse, Matt jumped from the sheriff’s department cruiser to the sound of gunfire. He rounded the hood of the car at a dead run, headed toward the house, but the sheriff snagged him by the back of the shirt as Matt rushed past, dragging him back behind the cover of the car.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” the sheriff bellowed.
Matt didn’t even spare the man a glance. Just pried the burly arms off his body. But the man was half octopus. Every time Matt removed one tentacle, another grabbed on. It took him a full minute to realize there were actually two other deputies, in addition to the sheriff, holding him back. A half-dozen more deputies crouched behind the fenders of their cars, their weapons trained on the house.
Caroline’s house. With Caroline and Hailey inside.
Matt struggled again for freedom. “I’ve got to get in there.”
“Like hell. You got no idea what you’re walking into.”
Matt’s gaze landed on Caroline’s SUV in the drive, then the light blue pickup parked almost out of sight at the bottom of the hill. His stomach twisted. “I got a pretty good idea.”
“Then calm down so you can explain it to me!”
Matt struggled anew. “Damn it, that was gunfire when we pulled up. My family is in there!”
“And you’re not going to do them any good dead!”
The slam of the front porch door added emphasis to dead. Matt’s gaze jumped up, soaked in the sight before him as if he could absorb it—absorb her and protect her—just by looking at her. Caroline stood one step outside the door. She clasped her hands in front of her, wrung them once as she scanned the horizon of law officers.
A jagged crimson slash stained the sleeve of her white blouse just above her bicep.
“Caroline!” Matt called, his voice as tattered as her torn sleeve. Again, the deputies had to restrain him.
Caroline’s honeyed gaze found him. She pulled her shoulders straight. “Matt. Stay back.”
Matt fought off one deputy, but two more grabbed hold. “Come toward me, Caro. Just walk away, nice and easy.”
“I can’t, Matt. H-he’s got Hailey.” She glanced back through the screened door behind her. “Jeb and the Johnsons, too. I can’t leave.”
Matt quit fighting the deputies. Tentatively, they released him, but hovered close, ready to tackle him again if necessary. “You tell the son of a bitch I want to talk to him.”
Caro looked in the door again, listening.
Crouched beside him, the sheriff rattled off clipped orders into his radio. “I want every door covered. Stand by to make an entrance, but not until I order it. I want sound. Get mikes on every window. Now. If the H.T. so much as takes a piss, I want to know about it. Where the hell are the sharpshooters? Take positions. The phones are out because of the fire. We’ll have to find another way to communicate.” He paused listening, then answered, “I know the robot will have trouble with the gravel drive and the porch stairs. We’ll have to find another way to get a radio in.”
Shaking her head, Carol turned back. “He doesn’t want to talk.”
Matt’s face ached from frowning so hard. The negotiator in him knew what question he had to ask next. The husband and father in him knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“What does he want, Caro?”
She listened again for a moment, then turned. Her warm gaze made Matt’s chest ache, the backs of his eyes burn. “He wants to hurt you,” she said so softly he almost couldn’t hear. “He wants to hurt you the way you hurt him.
“By killing your family.”
Chapter 15
Mr. Johnson taped a gauze bandage over the gouge in Caroline’s arm and rose from his crouch next to her chair in the kitchen where the intruder had herded them. For a moment, she wasn’t sure his old legs had the strength to raise him, but he hardened his jaw, gave one more push against his cane and made it upright.
“Over there, old man.” The intruder—J.J., he’d told her—waved the derringer toward a seat next to Mrs. Johnson. At the sound of J.J.’s voice, Jeb cringed and buried his face deeper in Mrs. Johnson’s bosom. She crooned to the boy and patted the back of his head.
Caroline was about to go and take Jeb into her own lap with Hailey when something scratched at the front door. J.J. wheeled. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson stiffened, clearly expecting a legion of black-clad tactical officers to burst in on them at any second.
Caroline knew better. The police only made hard entries when there was no other option. They preferred negotiating, and Matt was a master negotiator. They’d try to talk J.J. out before they resorted to violence, especially with children in the house.
More scratching rattled the front door. A low, non-human whine snaked through the living room to the kitchen. Jeb’s head lifted. His ears practically quivered in excitement. “It’s Alf!”
Before Caroline realized what the boy was going to do, Jeb slipped off Mrs. Johnson’s lap and ran for the door.
“Hold it!” J.J., who now had control of the gun, jerked the weapon as he tracked the boy in its sights.
“No!” Without thinking, Caroline leaped between Jeb and the weapon. Instinctively she flinched, waiting for the hot blast of pain, the noise, but there was no gunshot. Not yet.
Jeb’s sneakers squeaked to a halt on the linoleum. His face wrinkled in confusion as he swung his head from the scratching sounds at the door to the tense quiet behind him. “Miss Caroline?”
Caroline opened her eyes. And stared straight down the barrel of the derringer. Such a small gun. So deadly. She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want to do that to Hailey. To Matt. God, what would Matt do, left to raise his infant daughter alone?
“Get away from the door, kid.” J.J. punched the gun in the air toward the boy, but of course, Jeb couldn’t see the threat.
“But Alf—”
“It’s a trick. A cop trick!”
“Maybe,” Caroline said. It was, after all, a cop dog. A new rush of adrenaline kicked her heart into high gear. Did J.J. know Matt worked on the K-9 squad when he wasn’t on an emergency response team call-out? Would he see the dog as a threat?
It didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the dog inside, evening the odds a bit.
She shrugged carelessly, turned to put her hands on Jeb’s shoulders, and gave J.J. a pointed look. “And maybe it’s just a dog.”
Her back stiff even though she told herself he was not going to shoot her—could not shoot her—she let go of Jeb and opened the door. Alf trotted inside. Jeb threw his arms around the dog’s neck and buried his face in thick German shepherd fur.
“See?” Caroline said. “Just a dog.”
But Jeb contradicted her, lifting his head. “He gots something around his ne
ck.” Jeb’s fingers worked at a knot holding a mesh bag to the dog’s collar.
In one long stride, J.J. stood next to boy and dog. “Gimme that.”
Alf’s hackles lifted. His upper lip curled to reveal the points of his canine incisors. Fangs. His whiskey eyes fixed on the weapon in J.J.’s hand.
Caroline froze. Alf was trained to recognize and react to a gun. But she wasn’t ready for the dog to make a move yet. She wouldn’t be able to cover the others if J.J. got a shot off. The Johnsons were exposed. Jeb. And Hailey. God, Hailey.
Frantically she wheeled through the memories of all the afternoons she’d spent watching Matt train his dog. She searched for commands to put the dog on guard but not attack, and struggled to embed them in normal conversation, so J.J. wouldn’t know she was instructing the dog, the way she’d seen Matt practice.
“Easy, J.J.” she said, subtle emphasis on the word she wanted the dog to key on. “Just watch out where you’re pointing that gun, okay?”
J.J. didn’t answer, but at least he didn’t seem to notice her clumsy attempts to control the dog, either. He swiped the mesh bag out of Jeb’s hand and yanked open the drawstring, then hissed and threw the contents on the table.
A radio. Matt had sent her a two-way police radio. A lifeline.
J.J. paced back across the room. Caroline put her hands on Jeb’s shoulders and nudged the boy forward. “Jeb, take Alf and go back to Mrs. Johnson.” When the boy stood at her elderly neighbor’s knee she added, “Now stay there until I tell you.”
Jeb climbed into Mrs. Johnson’s lap and Alf planted his butt on the linoleum as ordered. But the dog’s eyes never left the gun.
There. A measure of the tightness seeped out of her chest. At least she knew Alf would protect her friends and Jeb if J.J. actually acted on his threats. Now to work on getting them all out of this before that became necessary.
She strolled casually back toward the table, staring pointedly at the radio. “He wants to talk to you.”
“I ain’t talking to no cops.”
“You have to talk to them.”
Keeping Caroline Page 19
