CHAPTER EIGHT
“Well, well. Who do we have here?” the woman holding the gun said. She stood between Dylan and the room’s exit.
Not good.
She also had a wild look to her eyes, the kind she’d seen on drug addicts needing a fix or psych patients off their meds.
So not good.
“I was just looking for my sister. I must’ve gotten the wrong house.” She used her calmest, no-one-is-threatening-you voice—the one she perfected while working in the ER to help pay her way through medical school.
The woman cocked her head sideways. “Oh, I think you got the right house. You look a lot like the little bitch who thinks she’s going to live here with my ex-husband.”
That’s why she looked so familiar. She’d seen Gage’s ex’s picture in the paper after she was fired for withholding evidence that almost lead to the town’s destruction. Oh, yeah, she was on a first-class trip to crazy-town.
“Since Bobby and Gage aren’t here, I guess I should go,” she said, but didn’t make any movement to the door. She just wanted to test the water—verbally.
“Oh, I don’t think so. If you’re here, that means they’re going to show up soon. Why don’t you just have a seat and wait?” She motioned the gun towards the bed.
Dylan complied and sat on the edge. She needed to keep her calm and talking. Another trick she’d learned from several good ER nurses.
“My sister doesn’t know I was coming here. I wanted to surprise her. I could call her, but my phone is downstairs in my bag.”
Crazy woman laughed. “I’m not that big a fool. You aren’t going anywhere. Sooner or later they’ll show up here and when they do we’re all going to have a little chat about this.”
She held open her other hand. In it was a plastic pregnancy stick.
* * * * *
“How could I forget to call Dylan and tell her what’s going on?” Chloe said, clutching the handgrip of the truck.
Dusk had given way quickly to darkness, and twinkling colored lights glowed on trees and houses as they passed by on the snow-slickened pavement. All the townspeople getting home to their warm homes, celebrating the holidays, unaware that both her sisters were walking into danger. Fear for them gripped her.
“Can’t we get there faster?”
“Gage wants us there to help. Not going to be much help if crash into something.”
He was right. It hadn’t helped that they’d been on their way to drop Henry off at his home when the call came. And the elderly couple lived on the opposite side of town from Gage’s childhood home.
She heaved a sigh of frustration. “I know. I’m just worried about them.”
“I’d tell you not to worry, but I don’t lie to people. Gage’s crazy ex is capable of anything.”
“Oh, thanks. That helps a bunch.”
“Like I said, I’m not going to lie to you.” His eyes met her for a moment as he maneuvered carefully around two cars parked on the street. “But Gage isn’t a fool. He knows what he’s up against now. He also loves your sister above everything else, and because he loves her, you and Dylan are just as important to him now that you’re going to be family. He’s not going to do anything to hazard hurting Dylan or Bobby.”
* * * * *
“You stay here and wait for Wes,” Gage said as he parked the truck.
“I don’t think so,” Bobby said, as she unfastened her seatbelt. “That’s my sister in there.”
His big hand settled on her thigh. “Bobby, I can’t concentrate on saving Dylan and worrying about your safety at the same time.”
“What? I’m supposed to just sit out here on my hands and watch you put your life in danger a second time? Oh wait, make that third, if you include the last time that woman nearly got you killed. I can’t take that. Not again. I’m your deputy. Let me help you by doing my job.”
He ran his other hand over his face, a sign he was thinking about all his options. “Okay. But you have to do exactly what I say.”
“I promise. No unnecessary risks.” She gripped his hand on her thigh and squeezed it tight.
“The only light is in our bedroom,” he said. “That’s probably where they are. We’ll assume she’s incapacitated Dylan in some way.”
Tears sprang to Bobby’s eyes as she thought about her baby sister being injured. She blinked them away. Crying wouldn’t solve anything and she’d just convinced Gage she was woman enough to handle the situation.
He pointed to the stairs on the side of the house where the house used to be a duplex. Gage’s daddy had converted it from upper and lower apartments into a single-family home. “Dad never tore down those stairs, just covered up the opening, making it the closet to my room. When I was a teen, I figured out how to get the panel loose and had an escape route to go hang with my friends after curfew.”
“You little devil,” she said, glad for something to ease the tension and fear in them both.
“Yeah, well, be glad I was. It’s our element of surprise. You’ll have to distract her until I can get in. It’s a little tricky or I’d let you do it. I’ll go up first and then text you when I’m in the closet. You don’t go inside until you get my text.”
She nodded. “I can do that.”
He cupped her face in both his big hands and kissed her slow and deeply. She felt the tremble go through him. Fear. Fear for her and their child. Then he released her. “Promise me you’ll do what’s best for you and the baby, no matter what?”
“I promise.”
“Okay, let’s go get Dylan out of this mess.”
* * * * *
Gage reached the top of the stairs, paused and took a breath. He felt around the edge to the spot where his fingers slid into a small indentation. He wiggled his fingers in, lifted up then out. The panel came away easily.
Inside, was another panel, this one made of drywall. Again, he felt around the side until he found the notch he’d made years earlier. When he had both of them set safely out of the way, he stepped into the large closet. It had once been a small foyer for the upstairs apartment. Like he told Bobby, Dad had it closed in and converted to his bedroom closet.
Thank you, Dad.
He felt a whisper of air on his neck. Almost as if Dad was there, telling him he was welcome.
Gage shook off the odd thought and focused on creeping through the closet. The last thing he wanted to do was make any noise to alert Moira he was here. His sister-in-law’s, wife’s and baby’s lives depended on the element of surprise.
Baby.
The idea hit him hard in the chest. He leaned one hand on the wall and took another deep breath. If he got them all through this, he was going to be a dad.
A deep surge of protection washed over him.
Moira nearly killed him, almost destroyed the town. No way was he letting her get away with harming his family.
He wiggled past the huge box of baseball cards he’d collected as a kid and shoved some of his dress shirts out of the way. His hand on the inside knob of the old door, he slowly turned it, praying it didn’t creak.
Nothing.
Exhaling, he nudged it open. Long enough to see Dylan sitting on the bed, looking toward the door. Moving slightly he followed her line of sight. There stood Moira.
And she had a gun.
* * * * *
Bobby stood on the back porch shivering—as much from fear as the cold. Two of the people she loved most in the world were inside with an insane person. One who wasn’t above harming someone else to get what she wanted.
Breathe. Slow, deep breath and focus.
She glanced at the phone in her hand. Five minutes. Five minutes since Gage had started up those stairs.
How long did it take one man to sneak into his own house?
It didn’t matter. He’d made her promise to wait until the text message buzzed her before going inside. And that’s exactly what she was going to do. The last thing she wanted to do was cause the woman to hurt Dylan before Gage was in position to stop her.
Dylan.
Images of her right after their parents died. Scared. Tiny. Big, brown eyes. It had taken her months to convince her they were all going to be fine. That she was going to take care of her and Chloe and no one was whisking her off to some orphanage or foster home.
The phone in her hand buzzed, startling her out of her memories. She almost dropped it.
Gage was in position in the closet.
With another deep breath, she opened the door and stepped inside.