CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE DETECTIVE’S GUN was pointed at Dawn’s head and Tucker could tell by the guy’s lethal tone that he wasn’t bluffing. Son of a bitch. Tucker had to put his weapon on the floor. There was no choice. Slowly, he put his gun on the carpet. Then he and Dawn both walked forward, moving closer to the cop, and Tucker kept his hands up.
That gun wasn’t my only weapon. And when I see the right moment, I will be fighting back. As he advanced, he tried to position his body in front of Dawn’s in order to better protect her.
“Don’t,” Torez bit out. “Freeze right there, both of you.” His face was pale. “You went down to Jinx’s place, didn’t you? Snuck right back to the scene of the crime.”
“How did you get into my home?” Dawn asked.
“I broke the lock. I knocked, pounded, but you didn’t answer. I got worried so I broke in...and then I realized that you’d snuck downstairs.” His eyes glittered at her. “Why? Why did you do it?”
That guy’s finger was too close to the trigger.
“She didn’t hurt anyone. Jinx was good. She was kind.” The gun trembled in his grasp. “What the fuck did you do? Did you kill her together? Has this always been some weird twisted shit where the two of you were taking the victims together?”
Tucker blinked at him. “What are you talking about?”
“You went down there to destroy evidence!” Torez screamed. “Anthony warned me...said I should be careful around you both, but...Dawn...” His gaze swung back to her. “I never thought it could be you. You were her friend.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t hurt Jinx.” Dawn’s hands were up, too, but one of her hands still curled around a heavy flashlight. Torez hadn’t told her to drop that light. His mistake.
Tucker could see that Torez was on the breaking point. The guy was spouting nonsense, and if his hand kept shaking around that gun... He’ll start firing.
“You were in her place!” Spittle flew from Torez’s mouth. “I went into your bedroom. I saw—Your closet was open—I realized you’d gone down there. How many times have you gone down there? Why the fuck are you doing this? Is this some fucked-up game for you both?”
“No one is playing a game.” Tucker stepped in front of Dawn. That gun was shaking too much and if the guy fired, Tucker wanted to make sure that the bullet didn’t hit her. “You need to calm down, Detective. You’re confused. We just went down there to search—”
Torez gave a wild laugh. “Right. You went to search. At a closed crime scene. Bullshit. You tried to set me up on this one, had my own brothers in blue doubting me...and you’d killed her!”
“No!” Dawn’s voice called out. “We didn’t! Look, just calm down. Call Anthony—”
“Already did. Called him as soon as I saw what the hell you had done. He’ll be here soon and we’ll take your asses in. You are going to pay for what you did.” His eyes were wide and stark. “You tortured her. You killed her. You—”
“Drop the gun!” The cry had come from behind Torez. Fierce, sharp. Tucker recognized Anthony Deveraux’s voice.
At Anthony’s cry, Torez spun to face him. He didn’t drop the gun. It was shaking in his hand, and he swung it around toward his partner.
Anthony fired. Once. Twice. Torez’s body jerked as he stumbled back. Then he fell, slamming down onto the floor. His weapon dropped from his hand and skittered across the hardwood, stopping beneath the edge of Dawn’s table.
Anthony’s body was still crouched, his gun still up.
Time itself seemed to freeze.
Then Dawn was rushing around Tucker. She fell to her knees beside the fallen detective and immediately reached out for him. “Torez?”
Anthony sucked in a deep breath. He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. “Is he dead?”
Tucker knew that he was. Dawn was trying to help the guy, but those shots had been clean and precise. The detective might have been dead even before he hit the floor.
“Dawn!” Anthony’s voice thundered out. “Is he dead?”
Her hands were covered in Torez’s blood. “Yes.” Dazed, she looked up at Anthony. “Why wouldn’t he listen? We didn’t hurt Jinx. I didn’t. Tucker didn’t. We didn’t do it! We were just searching her place. We found the sketch of her tattoo—”
And Tucker saw it happen. Anthony’s face changed. The concerned mask vanished. He wasn’t the worried cop any longer. Fury etched onto his face, hardening his jaw and narrowing his eyes. “Fucking bitch.”
Dawn blinked.
Tucker had crouched down when Dawn went toward Torez. He was still crouched and his hand went to his right ankle, sliding under the edge of his pants. He touched the knife strapped there—
“I found the sketch at Voodoo Tats,” Anthony muttered. “Thought it was the only one. Should have known she had another. She always was drawing shit.” His gun lifted and aimed at Dawn. “Did that one have my fucking initials on it, too?”
Dawn blinked. “Anthony?”
He smiled at her. And when he smiled...a dimple flashed in his left cheek.
Fucking hell. “Dawn!” Tucker yelled as his fingers curled around the knife. “Get over here, get to me—”
Anthony swung the gun toward him. And he fired.
* * *
“YOU’RE GOING TO be okay.” Macey squeezed Julia’s hand—her fingers were still ice-cold. They were racing out of the coroner’s building. Julia was on a gurney and two EMTs were on either side of her. “You’re safe. Everything is okay.”
Such a lie. Julia’s lips were blue. She was bleeding from at least four different wounds, but the cold...it had actually helped her. It had slowed down her blood loss.
I’m betting the asshole who did this to you didn’t count on that.
The EMTs rushed Julia toward the waiting ambulance.
“T-T...” Julia’s lips barely moved. “T... D...”
What?
“His...initials...”
Julia was in the back of the ambulance now. The EMTs pushed Macey back.
“Take care of her,” she yelled, right before those doors closed.
T. D.
His...initials...
“Oh, my God.” She grabbed for her phone. She called Tucker and the phone rang and rang and rang...
* * *
WHEN ANTHONY FIRED at Tucker, Dawn lunged to her feet and raced toward the bastard. She swung the flashlight at Anthony as hard as she could, slamming it into the side of his head. He snarled and brought the gun up toward her—but not to shoot her.
Instead, he slammed the gun’s handle against the side of her head. For a moment, she thought her cheek had broken. Stars danced before her eyes and she swayed.
Then he grabbed her. He yanked her forward and held her in front of his body. And the bastard—the man she’d mistakenly called her friend—jammed the barrel of the gun beneath her chin.
Her gaze—blurred and hazy because he’d hit so close to her left eye—sought Tucker. He was on the floor, slowly rising, and she could see the blood soaking the side of his shirt.
Her breath caught. Tucker was on his feet. Bleeding, but...he was coming toward her.
“Don’t take so much as another step,” Anthony snarled at him, “or I will kill her.”
Tucker’s head lifted. His blue eyes blazed as he stared at Anthony.
“Hello, brother,” Anthony murmured.
Tucker flinched. “You’re not my f-fucking brother...” His hand lifted to his shoulder and pressed to the wound there.
Anthony laughed. “Sure I am. Your half brother. Isn’t that what the DNA match said? What? Did you think you and Jason were the only sons your bastard of a father had?”
Dawn’s cheek burned and throbbed. Blood trickled down the side of her face.
“He knocked up my mom. Did it when he was still married to your bitch of a mother.”
A snarl twisted Tucker’s mouth. “Don’t...”
But Anthony just laughed again. “Don’t what? Don’t talk about the dead? What are you gonna do? I’ll tell you...nothing. Not while I’ve got your sweet piece of ass in my arms.” And his hold on Dawn tightened. “I really thought you’d be over her by now. I mean, aren’t you pissed at her? At least a little bit? She’s the reason you had to kill Jason. You should hate her.”
Tucker’s gaze slid to Dawn’s face. It almost hurt to look into his eyes. So bright. My Tucker. “I could never hate Dawn.”
“No, right. I got that as soon as I saw you two together. Knew that I’d have to change my plans. See...before you two got together, I’d intended to pin all this shit on you. That’s why I gave Heather your name. Why I got her to come down to New Orleans right after you closed that Sorority Slasher case in Fairhope. You were gonna be the fall guy. But then I saw you and Dawn together.” His hot breath was on her neck. “And I knew you weren’t the angry ex-lover that I needed you to be.”
“Y-you wanted me to doubt him,” Dawn managed, her voice husky. She wanted to pull Anthony’s attention back to her. She knew Tucker was just looking for a chance to attack. If she could distract Anthony...
“Yeah, you were supposed to doubt him...but you fucking wouldn’t!” The barrel jammed harder, shoving into her chin. “Why not, Dawn? Why the hell not? I even left those gloves, knowing they would give a partial DNA match. You were supposed to think he was covering for someone else. You were supposed to think he’d always tricked you. You were supposed to think he was the fucking bad guy!” He wrenched back her head, forcing her to look into his eyes. “Why the hell didn’t you?”
She swallowed. “Because I trust him.”
His lips twisted.
“Because...I love him.” She needed to say those words. She needed for Tucker to hear them and to know they were true. She hadn’t stopped loving him. She’d lost her way for a while—they both had—but what she felt for him had never died.
If anything, being with him again had made her love grow stronger.
We’re different now. I thought we could have a chance this time. She’d been wrong.
Rage twisted Anthony’s face. “I had everything planned...and you screwed it up. If I couldn’t throw the blame on him, I was gonna put it on you. After all, you crumpled after your attack, didn’t you? Let Jason break your mind?”
“No,” Tucker growled, “she didn’t.”
“Bullshit. I broke into her shrink’s office. I read all the files. She couldn’t stand to look at you—she kept seeing dear old Jason in your place. Bet that made for some wild sex times.”
“Let her go,” Tucker roared.
“After you left her, she thought she was still seeing Jason. Did she ever tell you that? She was convinced he was following her...that was where I got the idea for a little stalking. A little sneaking into her house and rearranging things. But then Jinx fucking saw me, and I had to kill her.” His jaw clenched. “She wasn’t supposed to die. She was too good of a fuck for that.”
Dawn’s hands had fisted. She’d fought back the nausea that had risen after he’d slammed the gun into her head. Her body was steady and she wasn’t going to let him use her any longer. As long as he had her against him, he knew Tucker wouldn’t attack.
She knew it, too. And she knew why, though Tucker hadn’t said the words. She’d always known.
He loves me.
When she’d told Anthony that she was Tucker’s missing piece, she’d meant those words. She fit him. He fit her.
They’d survived hell before. They would again.
“That damn tat,” Anthony snarled. “Didn’t even realize she’d gotten it until I saw a sketch at Voodoo Tats. It had my initials in it... Can you believe that shit? So, of course, I had to bide my time. I had to wait until Julia was alone at the lab and I had to fucking hope that no one found the tat before I got there. Lucky fucking break, though, Julia was too busy with dead bodies to find it until the end...and then I took care of her. I stopped her from telling anyone else. And I cut that tattoo right off Jinx’s hip. No one will ever know.”
Her heart stuttered in her chest. “What did you do to Julia?”
“Exactly what the Iceman would have done... I gave her a very cold grave.” He laughed.
Tucker took a step forward.
“Don’t!” Anthony yelled. “Unless you want her to die right now. If I shoot her from this angle, the bullet will go straight up into her brain. If she’s not dead when she hits the floor, she’ll just be a fucking vegetable, that I promise you.”
Tucker stilled. His hand wasn’t at his shoulder any longer. It was at his side. For just a moment, she stared at him and remembered another time.
“Choose.” Jason’s voice. Filling her head. Hurting her heart. “Choose right now and let her know it. Tell her the truth that we’ve always both known. Blood is thicker than anything else. Blood binds.”
No, blood didn’t bind. Blood didn’t link people more than anything else in the world. Love did that. “I love you,” she said to Tucker and she smiled.
“How fucking sweet,” Anthony mocked them both. “She loves you... She loves the man who is going to kill her.”
Tucker shook his head.
“Oh, yes,” Anthony promised. “That’s how this is going down. The patrol outside? I sent them away when I arrived. So no one is going to come busting in here. No one has any clue what’s happening. The tattoo is gone. If there’s a sketch of it downstairs, I’ll take care of that before I’m done...maybe I’ll even torch the whole building...”
But the Iceman didn’t like fire...
“You’re going to kill her,” Anthony said to Tucker. “Or at least, that’s what it will look like. The Iceman’s brother snapped and killed Jason’s only surviving victim. Then, well, upstanding police detective that I am...I had no choice but to shoot you. To kill you.”
Dawn shook her head. The barrel scraped over her chin.
“I’ll spin some story about Tucker getting my gun and using it to kill poor Torez. But in the end, amazing cop that I am...I was able to stop the sadistic killer. You’ll both die together.”
“Why?” Dawn demanded. “Why are you doing this? Why—”
“It’s in the blood,” Tucker rasped. “I told you, Dawn. My father was a twisted son of a bitch. I wondered if he’d passed it down to me...”
He hadn’t. Tucker was good. And Anthony?
He’s been hiding the monster that he truly was all along.
“Our bastard of a father didn’t want me!” Anthony yelled. “He wanted you and precious Jason, but he didn’t want me! His mistake—his fucking mistake! The whole world will see—the two Frost boys were killers and I...I was the hero, all along.”
No, he wasn’t.
He was going to kill them both. He’d just admitted it—a dumb admission because Tucker had only been standing back because he didn’t want Dawn to be hurt, she knew that.
But if Anthony was just going to kill them both, then she had nothing to lose. I love you. She mouthed those words at Tucker once more.
He gave a hard shake of his head but she was already moving. She drove her elbow back into Anthony’s stomach as hard as she could. He grunted and his hold jerked on her. She slammed her right heel down on his foot and her left kicked back and rammed into his shin. He snarled but his grip finally loosened and she sprang to the side—
He fired. The bullet hit her in the back and she sprawled onto the floor as the pain of that hit burned through her.
She expected another bullet to slam into her. Expected to hear the rapid pounding of gunfire, but there was only silence. Silence and an odd...gurgle.
She turned her head to the side and looked to the right. Anthony was still on his feet but there was a knife in his throat. Tucker was in front of the guy—she hadn’t even heard him move.
“I always choose her.” Tucker snatched the gun from Anthony’s slack fingers and he drove his fist into Anthony’s face. Anthony fell back, hitting the floor. His fingers rose as he struggled to grab the hilt of that knife. He was choking, making that terrible gurgling sound.
He’s dying.
Tucker grabbed the knife and yanked it out of Anthony’s throat. Blood splattered. Anthony’s body spasmed.
Tucker turned away from him. Tucker’s frantic gaze found Dawn and she saw the terror there. He ran to her. She was still on her stomach, sprawled on the floor. Her back hurt, but she’d been lucky, the bullet had hit a few inches to the right of her spine. She could feel it in there. Burning.
But at least it hadn’t slammed into her spine. She could move her body. She just hurt.
“Baby.” Tucker dropped to his knees at her side and his hands reached out to her. “Just stay still. Let me check you out...” She could feel his hands trembling against her.
Her head was turned, pressed to the floor, and her gaze was on Anthony. He was still jerking. “He’s...still alive...”
“He doesn’t fucking matter. You matter. Baby, the bullet is still in you.”
“I...I know.”
“I’m calling an ambulance. You are losing too much blood.”
Not as much blood as Anthony. “S-stop blood flow...”
“I am,” he promised. She could feel the pressure on her back. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay.” Then he broke off and started barking orders into his phone, demanding that an ambulance get there right away. A moment later, he dropped the phone and he leaned closer to her. His lips feathered over her battered cheek. “Everything is going to be okay. Help is coming. I’ve got you.”
He did, but she could still see Anthony. He was dying before her eyes. Was she just supposed to watch him...
The way Tucker’s father had watched their mother die?
The way Tucker had watched his father die?
“You’re...better...” She forced out the words. “Help him.”
Tucker stiffened against her. “I’m helping you. You’re bleeding too much. I’m not leaving you to help his sorry ass. I don’t care if he is my brother...you are my everything. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. The only person who has made me feel like I belong anywhere. I won’t lose you, I can’t—”
She caught his hand. “You won’t.” She made her lips curve for him. “I’m...not going anywhere. I’m...stronger...than I look.”
He’d bent before her and now he blocked her view of Anthony. “I know you’re strong.” His face was grim. “But I can only help one of you and, by God, I will always choose you. I love you, Dawn. Now, forever. I need you in this world. I need you in my life. So don’t ask me to turn away. You matter too much.”
Just as he mattered to her. More than anything and that was why she couldn’t let him watch again as someone else died. Not another brother, even if he is a monster. Not another—
Her broken front door banged open. She heard it slam against the wall. “FBI!” a female voice called out.
Macey? Macey’s voice? And then footsteps were thundering toward her. Dawn tilted her head a bit and saw Macey. Macey sank to her knees beside Dawn. “I knew it was him!” Her voice broke a bit. “I knew it. T. D. Anthony—Tony Deveraux. He was at too many scenes...at the coroner’s lab, deliberately keeping me outside because he wanted to give Julia time to die. He was at the motel with Red, he was there—”
Give Julia time to die... “Julia?” Dawn whispered, eyes tearing.
“She’s all right,” Macey said quickly. “She’s at the hospital. I found her in time—”
Thank God.
“Look at her wound,” Tucker cut through Macey’s words. “Help her.”
And Macey’s fingers flew over her back. A sharp pain stabbed Dawn but she didn’t cry out. Because Tucker had shifted to the side, she could see Anthony again. “Help...him.”
This mattered. For Tucker...this mattered.
“Didn’t hit anything vital,” Macey said. “I’ll keep pressure on her wound. She’s going to be okay... But what about you, Tucker? Is that your blood?”
“I’m fine,” Tucker growled. “Through and through shot.”
“That’s a lot of damn blood,” Macey argued.
His jaw was clenched. “I’m fine...” Tucker stared down at Dawn. “Had much worse.”
Tucker was going to make it. Dawn was determined to survive. And Anthony... “Help...him,” Dawn said again.
“Fuck! Don’t move,” Tucker ordered Macey with a glare. “She’s the priority. You stay with her. You work on her.” His jaw locked. He turned to Anthony’s jerking body. And then Tucker put his hands on Anthony’s throat. He shoved his fingers down hard and Dawn knew he was applying pressure, trying to stop the blood flow.
Macey began yelling out orders about what Tucker needed to do.
Tucker’s fingers turned red as Anthony jerked again and the blood kept pumping from his throat.
And in the distance, Dawn heard the scream of sirens.
* * *
SHE WAS BEING...wheeled...down a hallway. Dawn blinked against the lights. She was on her stomach, but there was no pain any longer.
“It’s okay, baby,” Tucker told her as he squeezed her hand. “You’re going back for surgery. They’re going to take that bullet out and you’ll be good as new.”
She could hear the screech of wheels and she glimpsed a few other people nearby—people in scrubs and wearing gloves. She tried to talk, but her tongue felt thick in her mouth. Drugs. They’ve already given me drugs. But before she passed out, she needed to say something. “You...you’ll be here...when I wake up?” That was important. He was important.
She’d lost him once. She never wanted to lose him again.
His bright blue eyes locked on hers. His handsome face stared down at her. And he smiled, flashing his dimple.
Her Tucker.
“I’ll never leave you again, I swear it.”
She trusted him to keep his word. Satisfied, Dawn’s lashes closed. When she woke up, she’d have another scar. Big deal.
When she woke up, she’d have Tucker. That was what mattered.