Conflicting Interests (29 page)

“See, my good friend has had plenty of uses to me. We have a
lot of fun together. And since you’ve been so preoccupied with your cop, we’ve
had to be patient.” He looked down to Josh with a sympathetic, if not sad, look
on his face.

“But Josh isn’t you, dear.” His eyes returned to Katrina.
“And I’m tired of making do with his ass when what I really want is yours.”
Katrina’s entire body started to tremble. She was digging into the tape but it
was useless. She’d never make it in time.

He started moving slowly, tauntingly toward her. He tiptoed
with a completely contrived look of trepidation on his face. He was toying with
her, torturing her nerves, and he was good at it. The moment he’d get near her,
he’d take a few steps back in a bizarre swaying dance. Katrina started
whimpering and crying as he tormented her and slowly closed in.

“All of you. I want you to scream, I want you to bleed, I
want you to beg and then I want you to die.” His eyes were wide and maniacal as
he glared with a sickening expression down to her. He was standing in front of
her, his crotch at eye-level. His arousal was quite obvious and Katrina had
bile rising up in her throat at nothing more than the bulge in his jeans. When
he touched his crotch, she groaned in emotional agony.

The horrible tremble that was running through her body hid
what her fingernails were desperately trying to do behind her back, and she
stared straight at his pants as her mind focused on the tape. She gouged, she
picked and she tore until she thought her fingertips must be bleeding.

When he kneeled down in front of her, he reached for her
neck, gripping with one hand. He was squeezing, slowly tightening his hold. She
couldn’t stop the panic from inching in as her air was cut off. Forcing her
fingers to work while his hand remained on her throat was nearly impossible but
it was her only chance.

Her eyes filled with tears as he stared at her. She held his
eyes as his fingers tightened and then loosened and then tightened all over
again. He knew how to torment and every time she felt the constricting pressure
of his fingers around her throat the panic would cloud her brain and her
fingers would still. She used the occasional reprieve he gave her when he’d
loosen his hold to focus on her task. She’d cough as the air suddenly flooded
back into her lungs and it was then she’d yank, stab and twist against the
tape.

Josh remained sitting on the chair nearby. He looked
terrified but he also looked crazy and when she met his eyes she begged.
“Please, Josh. You don’t have to do this. He’s already hurt you but you can
stop him.”

The moment she got the words out Clinton’s grip on her
throat tightened again and cut off her voice as she started struggling to
breathe. When he leaned his face down to her, he was close enough to kiss her
and she wondered for a moment if he would. “Josh is mine and he knows his
place. Now how about we get you out of those clothes so you can show us what
we’ve so patiently been waiting for?”

He released her throat and she gasped for air. When he
grabbed her elbow, yanking her up to her feet, she could feel the already partially
torn tape tearing further and she instantly shrieked to hide the sound. She was
left standing in front of the men with her hands only loosely bound.

Her heart was racing. It was excitement, but terror, all in
one breath. There was little question she could yank her wrists free at this
point, thanks to the weight of her body being pulled up by her arms but it
didn’t mean she was ready to. She was terrified of what she needed to do.

Clinton pulled a long knife from his back pocket and though
it sent a driving urge to tear her hands loose and try to fight she held her
ground. She had to wait until he was distracted if there was any chance of
keeping that knife out of her body. So she gasped and took as many tremulous
breaths as she could. He started at her throat with the knife, cutting through
the fabric and when he’d finished with her shirt he reached a hand out to her
breast, gripping her harshly through her bra.

He turned toward Josh, who appeared to be cowering as much
as she was. “Remember the fucking checkerboard I cut into her fucking tit?” It
was an opportunity. She might die taking it but it was now or never. The knife
was held slack at his side and he was turned from her. She was terrified—she
was more terrified than she’d been in her entire life but if she was waiting
for a time when she wasn’t terrified to move she’d be waiting until this man
killed her. And so she yanked.

* * * * *

The house was small and surrounded by overgrown bushes and
trees. It was obviously ill-kept and the bushes alone were going to make their
approach difficult. The black car was backed up to the garage and that was all
the confirmation SWAT needed to enter.

There was a large bank of low-branching trees on the side of
the garage and on the opposite side of the house. It was making it difficult
for the SWAT team to circle the property effectively and monitor all sides at
once.

Dillon could do nothing but watch from a distance that made
him uncomfortable. Hell, the whole thing made him uncomfortable and he was
going to be on the brink of losing his mind until this thing played out.

Knowing she was in there and he couldn’t get to her was pure
torture. It was more torture than he’d ever felt and he knew, standing by
Stephens’ car with him, that it had been a mistake to come.

He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t stand by and let someone
else try to save her. She was too close and he was just too damn unhinged to
sit back. The moment he took even one step toward the house though Stephens was
there with his hand on his elbow, pulling him back. “Fuck, Stephens. I can’t…I
can’t fucking do this.”

“Then you need to leave!”

They watched as Smith and Terrell approached the front door
of the house behind the SWAT team. The men were in position. It was time.

* * * * *

The moment Katrina’s hands swung away from her body Clinton
whipped toward her. The snarl coming from his mouth coupled with the monstrous
sneer on his face froze her in place and when his fist shot out, hitting her
square in the gut and throwing her into the wall behind her, she was
effectively stunned into immobility. She also couldn’t breathe thanks to the
air he’d knocked out of her lungs.

Her face was down toward the floor as she tried in vain to
suck in enough air. When his palm met her throat again, gripping tight, she clutched
at his wrist.

She was panicking. She knew she was and she knew she didn’t
have the luxury of her panic if there was any hope of surviving but then she
was no longer holding out much hope of that happening. She was gripping and
clawing at his hand but it was to no avail.

When she saw him lift the knife, he was taunting her. He was
holding it so she could see it clearly. She couldn’t breathe and he was showing
her just how much control he had and just how much control she didn’t have. But
the knife glinting in front of her lit a fire in her gut and when his fingers
tightened just marginally, she fought. She brought her knee up into his groin
as hard as she could and as his breath escaped in a rush of agony his grip was
loosened and the knife clanked to the floor. She dropped to her knees, grabbing
blindly for the knife handle as he grabbed the hair at the top of her head and
yanked up. But she found the handle and as she looked up into his furious,
vengeful eyes, she brought the knife up and plunged it into his side.

His eyes bulged, his mouth dropped open and he let out a god-awful
guttural groan as he sank to the floor in front of her. The look in his eyes
was shock. He stared wide-eyed at her before he found his bearings and started
reaching for the knife still sticking out of his side. But she was faster than
he was and she grabbed the handle again, wrenching it from his body as he fell
back.

Josh stood from the chair whimpering like a scared child,
but however scared he looked, he held the gun in his hand. It trembled as his
whole body vibrated and as she raised her hands in the air, she started
pleading. “Please. Please, Josh. You don’t have to do this. Please.”

“Shoot that bitch, you stupid fuck.” His voice was gurgling
and blood was bubbling up from his mouth as he spoke. “You fucking loser. Shoot
her. What are you waiting for?”

“Please. Please don’t do this.” Josh stood trembling and
whimpering. He could barely hold the gun steady but as she watched in horror he
adjusted his aim. She cried out at the last moment and he fired.

* * * * *

Stephens tackled him to the ground as he sprinted across the
lawn. The shot was unmistakable and it was discharged before any of the SWAT
team had made it into the house. He watched the group storm through the front door
and as they disappeared he could do nothing but listen to the shouts coming
from inside.

Stephens refused to release him and kept him pinned to the
ground as the shouts continued. Dillon felt as if he were dying. He couldn’t
endure it if she died and he’d never felt closer to insanity than in that
moment. He was pinned like a crazed animal to the ground, listening to the
fight for Katrina’s life play out without him.

The garage door opener suddenly activating shocked them both
and Stephens leaped from Dillon’s body, pulling his sidearm from its holster.
Dillon followed his lead the second he was up off the ground and they rounded
slowly and cautiously toward the garage from their place on the front lawn.

The front SWAT team was all within the house, storming
through the residence in response to the shots fired and he could hear the men
in the back, fighting to get through the foliage and branches that blocked
their path around to the front of the garage.

They had no idea what awaited inside the garage but the
second he heard Katrina’s whimpers he threw procedure out the window and ran
out into the driveway as Stephens cussed and yelled after him. He came face-to-face
with Josh and Katrina standing within. Josh held a gun to Katrina’s head and he
was whimpering and shaking as much as she was—but as frightened as he might be
he was threatening her life.

He pushed her out of the garage in front of him. Dillon’s
gun was trained on his head, and Stephens’ was too from his place on the lawn.
He wasn’t going to lower his gun until the man was dead or gave up his gun in
surrender. Dillon glared at him, holding his focus within the sites of the
handgun.

He wanted so desperately to look at Katrina, see if she was
okay, simply see her alive but he forced his eyes to remain on Josh.

“I just…I just want this to be over. I don’t want this.
Please. Just let me go.” Josh was whimpering, sobbing as he walked farther out
into the driveway.

“Let her go now!” He bellowed at the man. Josh flinched and
cried out at the sound of his voice but he refused to let her go. “You let her
go now or I will kill you!”

Josh started sobbing but the gun remained in place. The man
was breaking apart. He was losing his mind in front of them. SWAT officers were
just finally breaking through the trees to the front of the house, and the
moment they rounded the corner with their semiautomatics up, Josh’s grip on
Katrina loosened and he raised the gun to his own head.

“Kat, get down!” He yelled as the SWAT officers started
barking orders at Josh. She dropped to her knees and just as she did, Josh
discharged his handgun, putting a hole through his head.

His body crumpled to the ground beside her and she started
sobbing with her hands over her ears. SWAT officers surrounded Josh’s body as
though he might reanimate at any moment. They trained their M-16s on his
lifeless body and Dillon ran to her, scooped her up in his arms and walked with
her to the front lawn where Stephens was walking in circles with his hands on
his head.

Dillon melted with her in his arms, sinking to sit on the
grass with her in his lap. She was crying against his chest and she seemed more
in shock than coherent. He wrapped his arms around her, feeling at last the
panic start to subside. He stroked her hair as she quietly cried and he held
her chest close to his to shield her nakedness from the men milling about.
Paramedics approached once SWAT gave the all-clear and she was taken from him
again. But this time she was safe.

He watched the ambulance pull away and he turned to Stephens
who was on the phone. He knew it was Greenwood and he knew the hospital was
going to have to wait lest he give the man even more reason to fire him.

She was safe, Seth was safe and for the first time since he
met her, he didn’t doubt she’d remain that way if he stopped worrying about her
for more than one second. It was over.

“We’re keeping you overnight. It’s just a precaution but
you’ve taken a few good knocks to the head today and I’m concerned you could
have a concussion. If you’re doing okay tomorrow we’ll release you. Do you have
someone who can look after you for a few days?”

Doctor Jorgenson was a kind older man who looked at her in
much the way her own father had whenever she’d get hurt. His sympathy alone
left her in fresh tears every time he said something nice to her.

“She’ll stay with me.”

“And you are?”

“I’m Imogen. I’m her best friend and she lives with me
sometimes. Err…I don’t know. Do you live with me now, love, or…I mean, I really
can’t keep up with the drama anymore.”

Kat chuckled and then winced as her laughter caused her head
to shoot pain through her like lightning bolts.

“Yeah. I live with you. At least that’s the last place I
remember being.” The doctor smiled at her before turning to Imogen.

“You can stay if you’d like. I want to keep visitors to a
minimum but if she’d like someone here I’m fine with it.” He excused himself,
giving Katrina a kind pat on her shoulder.

Smith and Terrell showed up a short while thereafter with
Doctor Jorgenson on their tail, threatening to kick them both out if they
disturbed her. Katrina reassured him she could handle a little conversation
with the two most boring detectives in the world and he watched them
suspiciously for a moment before excusing himself from the room again.

Katrina talked at length about the part of the story they’d
not witnessed and she cried a good portion of that time. Imogen sat beside her
on the bed, rubbing her back or squeezing her shoulder.

She’d been so relieved to be alive she’d not really let
herself think about the part she’d played in ending a man’s life. The life was
threatening hers and that ought to be enough to make it okay and vindicate her
guilt—but sadly, she was learning it was just plain hard to be responsible for
sticking a knife in a man’s gut even if that man wanted to rape and murder her.

In the end though it had been Josh who’d finished him off.
She’d thought until the very last moment when his aim shifted down to the floor
in front of her that it would be her life ending but Josh squeezed the trigger,
plugging a hole through Clinton’s chest.

He’d sobbed like a baby afterward but had wasted little time
pulling her up and dragging her out of the room when he heard SWAT officers
storming the house. But the house was old and what they’d failed to realize was
the garage was an add-on. The old cellar door still let out right into the
garage and while the officers were storming the upstairs and just making it
into the basement and searching through the cluttered and dark rooms, he was
dragging her up the cellar stairs and into the garage in hopes of escaping,
though she couldn’t imagine he was holding out much hope at that point.

When she started crying for the last time as she related the
details to the detectives, she couldn’t seem to figure out how to turn the
waterworks off and they finally stood and offered to catch up with her after
she was released.

Imogen asked about Dillon and Stephens as she stood to walk
them to the door. Katrina cringed at the sound of his name and she wasn’t
really even sure why. Seeing him in front of her at the house had been one of
the most emotional moments of her life. He stood in front of her looking as desperate
as she felt but there was no denying she’d put herself in the position yet
again.

She’d made the decision to run away from him rather than
face him in all his fury and anger and it had nearly gotten her killed. She
just didn’t know how to feel about any of it anymore, least of all him.

“I’m guessing they’re both getting their asses reamed at the
moment.” There was a subtle smirk on Smith’s face as he spoke and Terrell
glared at him for a moment. Then they were gone and Imogen turned back to her.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“What?”

“Don’t play stupid. He’s going to show up soon to see you.
You know he will. His family too perhaps.”

“I can’t. Not right now.” She looked up to Imogen’s eyes.
She could see unvoiced disagreement in her expression but she kept her peace—at
least for the time being. Imogen would always speak her mind and Kat knew it
would come soon enough but she meant it when she said it. She just wasn’t ready
to deal with him. And at the same time she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

She fell into a restless sleep that woke her constantly as
she dreamed of being raped, tortured, killed. The next round of nightmares, she
saw herself killing him, she felt the knife plunge into his body, she heard the
sickening sound of slicing flesh and she felt the warm ooze of his blood around
her fingers.

Every time she woke Imogen was there to hush her. It became
an endless game of sleeping, waking in terror, being shushed like a baby and
then doing it all over again. But she was alive. She was not going to end up as
some dead body in a ditch somewhere. At least not on this day.

* * * * *

He usually liked Imogen. He liked Imogen a lot actually but
as she crept from Katrina’s room she shook her head. “She doesn’t want to see
anyone.”

“Anyone.” He mumbled the words as he contemplated what they
might mean.

“You.” Imogen looked a bit devastated as she spoke the word.
“She doesn’t want to see you—” His jaw clenched tight at her words. “Right now.”

“Right now.” He repeated her.

“Yet…”

“Yet…” He was incapable of any original speech and as he
glanced up to her feeling pathetic and stupid, she pursed her lips and cocked
her head sympathetically to the side. Stephens reached for her shoulder and
squeezed gently.

“I’m sorry, Dillon.” She was practically whispering.

“You’ll tell her I stopped by then?” She nodded and he
turned from her to head back the way he’d come.

To say he was devastated was an understatement. He wasn’t
sure why he’d expected her to be happy to see him after his cruel treatment of
her over the past forty-eight hours.

He’d nearly forgotten all about it, having gotten so wrapped
up in her nearly dying and all, but there it was. She certainly had not
forgotten what a prick the man who loved her could be. It didn’t much matter if
he’d had a good reason to be upset with her or not. He’d been too upset. He’d
said too many cruel and awful things to her and he’d just been too big an
asshole for her to forgive.

He sat silently in the car as Stephens drove them back to
the precinct. He stared out the window. He was more relieved than he could even
put into words. She was finally safe. Finally—and yet he felt as though he’d
lost her in the process.

Balancing Seth and Katrina had been his undoing. Ironically,
they balanced perfectly with each other. It was he who’d fucked it up—thinking
he could handle Seth, Katrina and the threat that had loomed over her head.

She’d been right to say he’d set her up for failure. He had.
Dillon had been right to tell her she had no reason to feel guilty about her
situation. He was absolutely right about that. But right didn’t seem to change
much for them. It had fallen apart regardless.

When he walked into Molly’s house she met him at the front
door and gave him a hug. “The boys are asleep upstairs. How is she?” It was
late—well after midnight—and she looked as exhausted as he felt.

“I wouldn’t know. She won’t see me.” He stumbled past her
and she followed him into the kitchen. He grabbed a beer from the fridge and
she grabbed her own.

“Give her time, Dillon.”

“No. I think I fucked it up.” He nodded in
self-chastisement. It wasn’t hard to remember the hurt in her eyes when he’d
condemned her for being human. He could still easily hear her quiet sobs as she
pleaded with him and he remembered every last word she’d spoken to him that morning—the
last moment he saw her before she nearly died.

“What did Greenwood say?”

“Three weeks unpaid suspension. He spent the better part of
an hour yelling but in truth he’s letting me off pretty easy. If I’d have shot
the man, I’m not sure I’d be keeping my job, given my completely inappropriate
relationship with the victim. There’s no question she stabbed Latham in
self-defense and Josh Grant is ultimately the one who put a bullet through his
chest and killed him. The fact I had little bearing on how it played out is
likely my saving grace.”

“That’s a relief. Mom and Dad are flying in tomorrow. I’ve
been talking to them all night. They’re really concerned about you both.”

“Yeah? Well unless they have better luck than I had getting
in to see Katrina they shouldn’t expect much.” He looked up from the spot his
eyes were glued to on the table to see her sad face peering back at him.

He took a deep breath. “It was just too much.” She watched
him, waiting for him to continue. “Not the best way to start a relationship.”

“So take away psychopaths trying to fuck it all up—would you
two have worked? Better yet, would you three have worked?”

He didn’t need to think long to answer that one. “Yes. I
love her. No question. Seth loves her too. We’re both crazy about her and I saw
our life with her.”

“Then maybe it’s not time to throw in the towel just yet.”

He spaced off for a moment. The first time he met her came
popping into his head. She’d been so angry at him. He’d deserved it and she’d
held nothing back. And yet even with all her attitude and pissiness he’d been
completely drawn to her. He’d loved her spunk, her quirkiness.

Catching her staring at his ass in the parking lot before
she’d sped off had sealed the deal for him. He wanted her instantly and he’d
wanted her more and more with every passing day since—even through his anger at
her he’d wanted nothing more than to get past it and move forward with her.

“I told her I wanted to marry her.” He mumbled the words as
Molly’s mouth dropped open.

“And?”

“And she said someday.”

“What does that mean?”

“Someday being after the psychopaths were all gone and we
could have a life that didn’t revolve around this constant fight to keep her
safe.”

“So…someday meaning today?”

“Like I said, I think I fucked that up.”

“And like I said, it’s not time to throw in the towel yet.”

* * * * *

He wanted to believe what Molly said but when he’d left
Imogen a message asking that Katrina call him and that message went unanswered
the next day, throwing in the towel seemed to be exactly what Katrina wanted to
do.

When he left two more messages over the next couple of days
and still received no response, he started losing hope Katrina ever wanted to
hear from him again. And on the fourth day when he’d still heard nothing from
her, and Seth asked him where she was, he finally conceded the woman he loved
was done with him.

“Seth, I was pretty awful to Katrina when I found out how
she’d lost her cell phone. I don’t think I can fix that. It was my fault.”

“No duh, Dad. I know you were a dick to her.”

“Language.” He was trying to be stern but given his own
guilt at having driven away the woman he loved he wasn’t doing his parenting
skills much justice.

“Stop being such a chicken. Go see her. It’s not like it’s
any secret where she’s staying. She still has a sub for class, so she’s just
sitting at Ms. Graham’s house being upset. If you like her, you need to go talk
to her. Tell her you’re sorry.”

Seth was looking at him in exasperation and Dillon’s parents
who were sitting around the dining room table were watching the conversation
with interest. “It’s what you’d tell me to do if I was mean to someone!”

Dillon didn’t miss the smirk on his mother’s face.

“It’s complicated, Seth.”

“Stop saying that! Why do grownups always say that?
Uncomplicate it. What’s so hard about that?” Seth stalked from the room,
leaving him to fend for himself against his parents’ prying eyes. They said
nothing, just telepathically kicked his ass with their chastising expressions.

But none of them quite understood his guilt. He’d hurt the
woman he loved in a way she could never deserve and she didn’t want him anymore
as a result. He didn’t blame her. He blamed himself. They had everything they’d
always needed and now it was lost. They’d waited for this time, this time that
was free of threat and now it was here and she was gone.

And it was his fault.