Chapter Nineteen
Before she could turn, C.J. was grabbed from behind. She felt the cold barrel end of a gun pressed to her temple.
“Listen to me,” the man whispered against her ear. “Do what I say or you die and so does everyone else in that house. You understand?”
She nodded and he jerked her backward as he half dragged her to the closest barn. She noticed that he was limping badly. This was the man who’d broken into her house. The same one Boone had seen at Hank’s funeral. The same one who’d killed Hank and tried to run her and Boone down in Butte?
Once inside the barn, he said, “Call your boyfriend.”
“What?” She’d been thinking about her self-defense training. The problem was that the man was large and strong and he’d caught her off guard. And now there was a gun to her temple. Something in the man’s tone also warned her that he was deadly serious—and nervous as hell. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“Boone McGraw. I saw the two of you. Call him. Then hand me the phone.”
“No.” She wasn’t going to ask Boone to come out here to face a man with a gun because she’d fallen in love with him. She’d rather die than—
“Listen to me. If you do this, no one will get hurt. If I have to haul you inside the house with this gun to your head, a whole lot of people are going to die. My wife is inside that house and she has some letters I need. Once I have those, you can both go back to your lives. No one gets hurt. Otherwise...”
She thought of Boone’s family. She couldn’t chance that the man was telling the truth about more people being hurt. Also this would buy time and give her a chance to get out of this.
“You’re the one who broke into my house,” she said as she got a glimpse of the man with the scar on his face and the black baseball cap covering his graying hair. “You were at Hank’s funeral.”
He grunted. “Make the call.” He held her tighter, the barrel of the gun pressing hard against her temple. She’d had self-defense training for her job. Hank had insisted. But he’d also warned her about acting rash.
Some of these people are all hopped up on God only knows what, he’d told her. Best to bide your time, try to talk your way out of the situation and if all else fails, use your training.
She doubted there would be any talking her way out of this. She could feel the man’s nerves vibrating through his body. He was too jumpy. In the state he was in, he might pull the trigger accidentally. But that meant there was a good chance of him making a mistake and giving her an opening to escape. She had to count on that. If she got the chance, she would do what she had to do to keep him from killing both her and Boone.
“Okay.” Pulling out her phone, she made the call with trembling fingers.
He snatched the phone away from her before she could say a word. “Boone? Just listen if you don’t want your girlfriend to die. I have a gun to her head. I need you to find Tilly. She has some letters. Tell her to give them to you and then come outside. Once I see that you have the letters, I will let your girlfriend go.”
* * *
BOONE LISTENED. SOMEONE had C.J.? Had a gun to her head over some...letters? He recalled earlier when he’d startled Tilly. She said she’d been on the phone with her ex-husband, but had said what he’d overheard had something to do with them getting back together.
He now realized it had been a lie. He excused himself and went looking for Tilly. He thought about taking one of his father’s guns, but he didn’t want to call attention to himself by going into the gun room where all the guns and ammunition was locked up.
And if anyone in the family knew where he was going, they would want to come with him. He couldn’t chance what the man might do. The man on the phone had sounded scared. And maybe unstable. Surely he didn’t believe he was going to get away with this, whatever it was.
He found Tilly in one of the bedrooms. “Tilly?”
She’d been pacing and now jumped at the sound of her name. The woman was literally wringing her hands.
“You have some letters?” he said, not having time to find out what was wrong with her right now.
Her eyes widened. “You know about the letters?”
“I was told to get them from you.”
She nodded, looking like she might burst into tears. “He told me to keep them. I—”
“It’s fine. Just give them to me.”
Tilly moved to a table next to the bed where she’d apparently come to clean, picked up her large bag and dug into it, pulling out one business-size envelope after another until there were three on the bed. She handed them to him.
“I just did what he asked me to do,” she said.
Boone nodded as he took the letters, noting the names on them and the return address. They were all from Hank Knight. “Who asked you to keep the letters a secret, Tilly?”
“Cecil.” She looked confused. “My ex-husband. Isn’t he the one who wants the letters?”
* * *
C.J. COULD FEEL the man getting more impatient by the moment. He kept looking toward the house and muttering under his breath as he held her tightly, the gun to her head.
“This is about some letters?” she asked.
“As if you don’t know. Your PI friend sent them.”
“Hank?”
“One to you, one to Jesse Rose, one to Travers McGraw.”
“What’s in them?” she asked. But she already knew. The answers they all desperately needed.
“Don’t you wish you knew? Once they’re destroyed, it will finally be over.”
She doubted that, but she didn’t think telling him would do either of them any good. “The kidnapping,” she said with a sigh. “You’re afraid there is something in them that incriminates you.” She felt her pulse jump. “You think Hank knew who was behind the kidnapping. That’s why you killed him.” Anger filled her. “And you thought I might discover the truth. Why else would you try to run me down in Butte? You were the kidnapper’s accomplice. Now you have a gun to my head? Are you crazy?”
“Crazy like a fox. Without proof there is nothing anyone can do. I got away with it for twenty-five years. If you’re partner hadn’t stirred things back up...”
She could tell that the man was unhinged. Fear made her heart pound. And now Boone was on his way.
The back door of the house opened and Boone stepped out. He held up what looked like three business-size envelopes.
The man pushed C.J. out of the barn door far enough so Boone could see her. Even from the distance, she could see his jaw tighten as he saw the gun pointed at her head. He started toward them in long strides.
Since hearing of Hank’s death, all she’d thought about was finding his killer. Now his killer was right here, but all she could think about was Boone. I’ve fallen in love with this man. I can’t let this man kill him.
“Cecil Marks?” Boone called, stopping a few yards short of the barn door. “Let her go and you can have your letters.”
* * *
“BRING THE LETTERS into the barn,” Cecil called back.
Boone shook his head. “Not until you let her go.”
“Bring in the letters or I’m going to shoot her and then you!” Cecil was losing it. C.J. could feel him coming apart, his body shaking as if all this had finally gotten to him. “I have nothing to lose at this point. I’ve already killed two people. You think I won’t kill two more? Bring them now or so help me—”
Boone started toward the barn.
C.J. told herself that maybe the man would take the letters and run off. Maybe the best thing was to just hand them over—
“Cecil!”
They all looked toward the house as an older blonde woman came out into the snow. C.J. felt the barrel of the gun move a few inches against her head as Cecil saw her.
“Tilly? Go back. Everything is going to be all right. But you have to go back into the house.” Cecil’s voice broke.
“I can’t let you do this!” Tilly cried and kept coming toward them.
“No, go back!” He was shaking hard now.
C.J. realized she was watching a man come apart at the seams. Boone must have seen it, too.
“Tilly, don’t make me do this!” Cecil cried as he dragged C.J. back a step.
She knew there was no longer any time. If she didn’t act now...
Preparing herself for the worst, she kicked back at the man’s bad leg and let all her weight fall forward, becoming dead weight in the man’s single arm holding her. At the same time, she saw Boone rush them.
Cecil let out a scream of pain and began to fall forward with her. He had to let go of her as she fell. She didn’t feel the cold barrel of the gun against her temple anymore, she thought, an instant before she heard the deafening sound of the gun’s report.
As she dropped to the ground, she saw Boone barrel into the man. The two went flying backward. From the ground, she saw Boone on top of Cecil struggling for the gun. The sound of the gun’s first report still ringing in her ears, she started to get up when the gun went off again.
This time it was Tilly who screamed at the entrance to the barn. C.J. turned to see the woman’s chest blossom red before she dropped to the ground.
Cecil let out a cry as he saw Tilly fall. Boone wrenched the gun from the man’s hand and slammed him down hard to the barn floor. C.J. could hear voices and people running from the house.
The next moment, she was in Boone’s arms. Her brothers had Cecil. She’d seen Nikki on the phone to the sheriff and a sobbing Cecil Marks was being restrained as he tried to get to his wife.
From the barn floor, Travers McGraw picked up the three letters Boone had dropped.