Call in the location and keep going, instinct urged him, but at the last moment he pulled over, unable to drive past without seeing if Harry needed help.
Jake jumped down from his truck and firmly ordered Misty, “Stay.”
As he hurried toward the car, he shouted, “Harry? It’s Jake Whittaker. Are you in there?”
Hearing no answer and spotting no sign of movement, he scrambled down the low embankment, noting the slightly crumpled hood and the white steam that indicated a punctured radiator. Despite the damage, the wreck appeared survivable.
“Anyone there?” he called, pulling out his cell phone and dialing 9-1-1 again. Wading through weeds, he approached the front door as he gave the dispatcher his location.
“I have an ambulance and deputies en route—you should be hearing them any minute,” she said, clearly struggling to maintain her professional composure. “Is Sheriff Wallace all right? Is he alive?”
“Appears unconscious,” he said as he approached the window and spotted the deflated mass of an airbag and then Harry, slumped on his right side. Chalky pale and beaded with sweat, he had the slack expression of a man who was out cold—or dead. “Let me see what I can do and I’ll call you right back.” Pocketing the phone to free his hands, Jake struggled to open the driver’s door. When it stuck stubbornly, he made his way to the other side, praying he had reached the sheriff in time—and praying even harder that this delay wouldn’t cost Liane her life.
To his immense relief, the passenger door opened. Leaning inside, he reached carefully and laid his fingers against Harry’s throat. He felt a pulse, thank God, though it was thready and erratic.
“Harry, it’s Jake. Can you hear me?” he asked as he scanned the man for injuries. Seeing no blood or any obvious fractures, he tried shaking Harry’s shoulder, though he didn’t expect a response.
To his surprise, the sheriff grabbed his hand, his gray eyes shooting open. “You need to go see Myrtle,” he said weakly. “She’ll tell you where I... She’s a good woman, Jake. The best. But she never did like camping. Hardly used that fifth wheel parked out in the garage...”
Alarmed by Harry’s confusion, Jake hastened to assure him, “I know you loved her, Harry. Everyone knows how much—”
Grimacing, the sheriff shook his head. “When you see her, you tell her I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt any—anyone else. I only wanted more time....” His words faded into gibberish, his eyes growing unfocused.
“Everything’s going to be fine,” Jake said, relieved beyond measure to hear the first faint strains of a siren.
“No.” Harry fought to raise his head. “Not for Liane. Not unless you find... You’ve gotta give it back. You’ve got to find it—for her.”
Jake tensed, wondering if there could be more to Harry’s ramblings than the delusions of a dying man. “Find what?”
“Investors never would’ve seen a dime anyway. Not after the lawyers...”
“The money,” Jake said, thinking of how haggard Harry had looked, how often he had spoken of his own responsibility in the wake of his friend’s death. Could there be something more going on than guilt over a misplaced fax and his failure to take Liane’s first phone call seriously? “You know exactly where Deke hid it, don’t you?”
As the siren drew nearer, the sheriff moaned and closed his eyes, pressing the heel of his hand against his chest.
“Please, Harry. For Liane’s sake. If Deke hid it in his study, tell me. That money might end up being the only thing that can save her life.”
“Not Deke. Never Deke,” Harry choked out. “He...turned it in...gave every dime to me.”
* * *
Pure adrenaline shooting through her system, Liane made it farther than she expected.
Ducking around another tree trunk, she shoved through some low branches. But with the flutter of leaves obscuring her sight, she missed her footing, stumbling over loose rock and gasping as she crashed to her knees.
Mac was on her in an instant, tackling her from behind and knocking her to the stony ground. She struggled to get away, but he struck again and again, a frenzied rain of blows that had her pleading and struggling. “Stop! Please!”
But by now he was beyond listening. When he grabbed her hair and yanked it, instinct made her fight him, her nails scoring bloody gouges just beneath his eyes.
“Bitch!” he shouted, and before she understood what was happening, his red face was in hers and his hands were squeezing her throat. Squeezing so hard she couldn’t scream, couldn’t fill her lungs, as he shook her like a terrier with a rodent in its jaws.
She fought to draw breath, to dig her nails into his hands—anything to loosen his grip. With her empty lungs screaming for oxygen, the trees grayed out before her and bright spangles of color burst across her vision.
“Why do you always have to push me?” he screamed, his voice distorted by the rushing river of her pain and panic. “Push, push, push, until you leave me no choice!”
As the gray haze turned to black and the roaring in her head grew louder, Liane wanted to scream that he had always, from the first, had choices. Choices he had used to steal, to strike, to blame everyone but himself. Choices he had used to kill her father, and to take her from her children and the man she’d loved forever, even if she hadn’t realized that until just now.
And in that moment, all the fear, the shame and self-blame she had lived with for so long crumbled. With her body failing, her heart reached for a memory of Jake and her children’s faces....
And her hand stretched out, until her fingers bumped something hard and wrapped around it.
Chapter 18
“Where?” Jake demanded, shaking the sheriff to rouse him. “Where did you hide it, Harry?”
“My wife—it was for—the first transplant failed. The kidney died, and the dialysis was—it was killing her. But the insurance said we’d...maxed out, and she was so far down the list...I couldn’t let her go. She’s everything...all I had.”
“You took the money to save your wife,” Jake said flatly, though he wondered, if the woman he loved were dying, could he have resisted the temptation?
“We got her into a program—Asian—they promised they could get a living donor if we...if we flew over there.”
“You told everyone you were going for an experimental drug protocol, but it was really for a black-market kidney,” Jake said, sickened by the memory of a photo he had once seen of poor villagers lined up showing off their scars. According to the news report, some had netted as little as a few hundred dollars, while the facilities that brokered the transplants charged tens of thousands—sometimes hundreds of thousands—for their services. “Deke knew, didn’t he?”
“Not at first, but he...he figured out I hadn’t turned in the money. Tried to give him what was left, but he refused....”
“So you’re the one who’s been paying off his bills in cash.”
“The rest—Liane and the kids should have it....”
“So where is it, Harry? Tell me, damn it,” Jake asked as the ambulance came into view. “McCleary could be killing her right now!”
Eyelids shuttering once more, the sheriff’s lips moved. Bending low to hear him, Jake barely made out the words, but when he tried to rouse Harry to get him to repeat them, there was no response.
Seconds later the EMTs were rushing past him. Still reeling from the sheriff’s confession, Jake stopped the driver of the ambulance and asked if he had spotted Liane’s silver Jeep on his way.
The man shook his balding head. “I don’t think so, no. Now step out of the way. This patient needs—”
“You’re sure you didn’t see that Jeep?” Jake pressed, still not budging. “A woman’s life might depend on your memory. That’s who Sheriff Wallace came out here to help.”
“Pretty sure, yeah
. Now, I really have to go.”
“Thanks.” Stepping out of the man’s path, Jake rushed back to his pickup. Still standing in the bed, Misty wagged her tail in greeting. “Up in the front,” Jake told her, not wanting to worry about her falling out if it came down to a chase.
But before he could chase Mac and Liane, he would have to find them.
As the dog hopped up into the passenger seat, Jake wondered if the driver might have been mistaken, but his gut was telling him that he’d been wrong from the beginning. McCleary hadn’t risked coming back for Liane because he’d suddenly developed paternal feelings.
He had returned for either revenge or the money. If it was Liane’s life he wanted, Jake reluctantly admitted there was no way to guess where he would take her or whether he’d killed her already. But if he wanted to find the missing millions, why would he leave with Liane in the first place?
Unless he’d planned to return to the homestead as soon as Jake was gone?
Could that be right? Could Liane’s phone call really have been meant to lure him from the house? Jake pictured McCleary pulling off the road somewhere, then watching from some hidden spot until Jake’s truck vanished from view. In that case, he was probably back at the ranch right now, demanding that Liane produce the stolen money.
“And when she can’t...” he said aloud, his mouth drying as he thought of Harry, pretending he knew nothing, while all along he’d had the answers. With a squeal of tires, Jake turned the truck around and sped back toward the homestead. He couldn’t afford to waste his focus on questions of guilt or blame.
All he could do was pray that he was right—and that he wasn’t already too late.
* * *
When stone met skull, the impact reverberated, running the length of Liane’s arm. The pressure on her throat vanished as Mac fell to his side with a grunt, blood staining the jagged rock she was still clutching for dear life.
Crawling away from him, she sucked in greedy gulps of air, her vision clearing and her strength returning with the oxygen. But Mac was already rousing, moaning curses and struggling to push himself onto his hands and knees.
She raised the rock again, her arms shaking so hard she could barely lift it. Getting up onto her knees, she felt the adrenaline surging through her body and the muscles coiling, giving her the chance to save herself, to keep her children and Jake safe from Mac forever....
She could slam the sharp-edged rock against his head again and again, until bone yielded and brain splattered. It was no more than he deserved, a brutal payback for the fists that had battered her flesh, for the bullet that had stolen her chance for future children, for the murder that had taken her father away forever.
When he turned to look at her, bright streamers of blood pouring down his face, she hesitated, revolted to her core to think that he’d reduced her to such savagery—made her a stranger to herself. And in that single moment the pain and confusion in his face morphed into fury, and he lunged for her, grabbing for her arm and sending the rock tumbling.
She jerked away, springing to her feet and running, racing toward the road. Behind her, she heard him bellowing, “It was all for you! All for my family! Why can’t you understand that?”
Despite their heat, his words were slurred, and—when she dared to look back—she saw him staggering and crashing through thick branches that slowed his clumsy progress. It was only then that she began to think she might make it, might reach the road and find help....
And then the woods exploded, the trees and rocks around her echoing with gunfire.
* * *
Intent on the road ahead, Jake scarcely noticed when Misty jumped up onto the seat and started whining, thrusting her muzzle out the open window.
When she yelped, he said, “Be quiet,” and snapped a sharp look her way.
The dog was craning her head to look intently at a break in the trees they’d just driven past. She barked again, the high-pitched sound reminding him of the last time he had seen her react that way—only hours earlier, when Liane had stood just outside his cabin door.
“Liane!” he shouted, and at the sound of her mistress’s name, Misty put her front paws on the door frame, gathering herself for what could easily be a fatal leap out of the speeding truck.
“No,” he ordered sharply, braking hard as he pulled onto the shoulder.
Gravel still crunching beneath the tires, he made a grab for the dog, but his healing right arm wasn’t strong enough, and she scrabbled out the window and raced toward the woods.
Jake craned his head, scanning the brush and trees ahead but spotting nothing. Could he have been wrong about the dog reacting to Liane’s presence? Was it possible Misty was chasing some animal instead? Unwilling to take the chance, he grabbed his gun and ran after her, desperate not to lose her.
He’d only made it a few steps when he saw bushes near the tree line sway. An instant later a slim figure burst from cover, stopping short as she spotted first the dog and then him.
“Jake!” Liane screamed, her hair as wild as her eyes. Her face was swollen, desperate and tear-streaked. “Get down! He’s right behind me!”
Despite her warning, Jake charged toward her, unable to think of anything but getting her to safety.
Misty rushed past Liane, then slid to a stiff-legged stop, her hackles rising and a deep growl rumbling in her chest.
Liane staggered to a stop, a look of shock and confusion washing the color from her face. “Jake,” she cried, rubbing at a spot behind her back. “I think I’m—”
“I’ll kill you, bitch!” Mac shouted, bursting from the trees behind her.
The moment he showed his blood-streaked face, Misty charged him—a barking, snapping distraction that had him turning his gun on her.
Before Mac could shoot the dog, Jake lunged past Liane and fired on McCleary. When his first shots missed, Mac crouched and took aim—setting his sights not on Jake but on Liane.
But he never got a chance to fire, because Jake’s next shot caught him, not in the chest, where he’d been aiming, but just beneath the eye. Jerking backward, Mac dropped his weapon and sat down hard. His body teetered back and forth, the rage on his face giving way to a blank stare.
Still holding the gun on him, Jake raised his voice to make himself heard over the dog’s barking, “Hands up and we’ll get you help.”
But Mac didn’t seem to hear. Instead, he toppled onto his side, where he convulsed weakly and went still.
Jake rushed in, grabbing the man’s fallen weapon and then checking for a pulse. Shaking his head, he said to Liane, “He’s gone.”
She stared, wide-eyed, the color draining from her battered face. “It—it’s really over?”
Turning away from the dead man, Jake rushed to Liane and gathered her in his arms. “It’s all over,” he promised. “He’ll never hurt you again.”
Their gazes locked as she cried out, and he felt the warm stickiness on his palm. Blood, all over her back.
“Liane, what happened?” But before the question was out, her legs folded beneath her and her head tipped back, exposing her bruised throat as she turned to dead weight in his arms.
She couldn’t be dead, too. A bolt of blue-hot panic blasted through him. After all they’d been through and everything she’d suffered, she couldn’t possibly be gone, too, especially not now, when they’d come so close to finally getting things right between them.
“Wake up,” he pleaded, lowering her to the ground and checking for a pulse. Finding nothing, he cursed, wanting to revive McCleary just to kill him again, to make him suffer. But he couldn’t give up on Liane—he refused to, so he checked again, praying for all he was worth....
This time he felt it. A bumping, faint and rapid, but her heart was beating. After making sure she was breathing, too, he rolled her onto her side to check the dam
age to her back.
Blood was oozing from an entry wound near the base of her rib cage, on the right side. No exit wound that he could see, but he quickly stripped off his shirt, balling it up and applying pressure to stanch the flow.
“Stay back,” he ordered Misty, as the dog tried to nose her way in, whining and licking Liane’s forehead.
As the dog backed off, he pulled out his phone to call for help. But both his training and his instincts told him that by the time another ambulance made it here, it would be too late.
As he struggled to lift her, he glared at McCleary’s body. “I’ll send the authorities for you later, but I hope like hell the buzzards find you first.”
Chapter 19
As Liane drifted, she heard her father demanding that she wake up and get moving or she would miss the school bus, heard her mother urging, “Hurry, or we won’t have time for waffles.”
Later there were others, strangers speaking of transfusions and surgery, then familiar voices encouraging her to open her eyes. But fatigue weighed down her lids, and she couldn’t make her mouth work, couldn’t pluck more than a few words from the torrent that washed past her.
It was far easier to ride the ebb and flow of pain, to sink down into the black comfort of oblivion. In this refuge time meant nothing, so she had no idea how long it had been until she became aware once more of people talking somewhere nearby. Tethered as loosely as a balloon to consciousness, she wasn’t certain who they were. She only knew she loved them more than anything on earth.
“Why won’t she wake up?” the first asked, high and piping. “Why won’t she look at the pictures we made her?”
“She’s working hard on getting better. We just have to keep doing our part, saying prayers and hoping.”
“That’s what you said last time. Cody says...”
“What does Cody say? Come on, now. You can tell me, Giggle Girl.”
Passion to Protect Page 18
