Dorothy Garlock (34 page)

“You no-good, worthless bastard,” Cole snarled.

Beneath him, Cole felt Riley grow slack, the fight apparently driven out of him from the relentless beating he had received.
Nevertheless, he reared back, hoping to land one last punch to finish the man, anxious to hurry on to Sophie and ensure that
she was safe. But just before he let his fist fly, a roaring, sharp pain lanced through his bad leg, a blazing heat that struck
him so hard that it felt hard to breathe.

“Goddamn cripple,” Riley coughed through a busted mouth.

In the faint light from the heavens above, Cole could see the deep gash sliced into his upper thigh, the wound dark and ugly.
Instantly, he saw the knife blade glinting in Riley’s hand and slick with blood, raised to strike another blow. Without thinking,
Cole’s hand flew toward the knife, grasping Riley’s wrist, struggling to hold it still, all the while realizing that he’d
been overconfident as the man played possum.

“I’ll kill you, you no-good son of a bitch!” Riley shouted.

“The hell you will!”

Though he had peppered Riley with stiff punches, Cole felt no ebb in his foe’s strength, all of his muscles straining to hold
the knife in check. With a sharp rotation of his waist, Riley flung Cole off him, pivoting his weight so that they rolled
over each other, each trying to gain the upper hand. Elbows smashed into ribs and knees collided as they continued to wrestle
among the cornstalks. Just as it seemed one of them had the advantage, the other would somehow manage to turn the tide.

“I ain’t… gonna lose to… the likes of you!”

Suddenly, Riley freed one of his elbows and drove it fiercely into the bridge of Cole’s nose. The pain was tremendous; a kaleidoscope
of agony that filled his vision, dazing him as he struggled to maintain the precarious balance between them. But in that moment,
the man once again rolled across him, this time ending end up on top, the tables now completely turned to his advantage, the
knife’s blade poised directly above Cole’s throat.

“Ain’t no cripple bestin’ me,” Riley boasted, a sick smile twisting his lips.

“It’s not… over… yet…”

Sweat beaded on Cole’s forehead, his muscular arms quaking as he struggled to maintain his grip on Riley’s powerful wrist.
The tip of the blade shook violently, inches from his body, and his heart pounded in step with the still throbbing ache in
his leg.

Do something, damn it! Do it now!

Arriving as unbidden as a spring squall, the vision of Sophie standing before him after their date to the movies sprang before
Cole’s eyes. He saw her gleaming smile, the excitement in her eyes, and even the way the moon made her new white blouse more
lustrous. It was as if he could smell her perfume, feel her touch, and revel in simply being with her. The thought of never
being able to experience such a moment again infuriated him and made him struggle all the harder.

Do it for Sophie!

With all of the strength left to him, Cole pushed Riley’s wrist to the side, while at the same time bucking upward with his
hips. The man’s menacing look evaporated in an instant and he fell to the side with a face full of both surprise and shock.
Cole followed him over, ever mindful of the knife.

Once again they were rolling, a tangle of sweat and struggle, until suddenly, a piercing cry escaped from Riley’s lips, howling
skyward toward the moon. The sound was brutal, guttural, agonizing in its fury. Instinctively, Cole recoiled from the stricken
man, repulsed by the noise, skittering across the destroyed stalks and ears of corn, trying to get as far away as he could.

Bathed in the moonlight, Cole gasped at what he saw. There, the hilt of the knife buried deep between his ribs, Riley Mason
lay dying. Crimson blood permeated his shirt, an angry stain that grew with every ragged gasp of breath or strained beat of
his heart. He tried to look down at his injury, his hands spread around the knife, unable to actually touch it, but his strength
seemed to be ebbing as fast as his life’s blood.

“You… son of… a… bitch,” he spat, blood trickling from his mouth.

Then, suddenly, Riley was dead, done in by his own weapon and hand. As Cole rose, bruised and battered, he felt no remorse;
this man had been intent upon killing him and all that he held dear. From the moment he had joined with Ellis Watts, he had
been traveling a path that had been destined to end violently.

The man got what he deserved!

Cole knew that there was no time to linger. Somewhere in the darkness Ellis lurked. Until he was stopped, Sophie and her family
would never be safe. Struggling to limp forward despite the gash in his leg, Cole set out to put an end to their nightmare.

D
ARK, WISPY CLOUDS
trailed across the luminous moon as Ellis approached the Heller farmhouse. He’d hurried along the dirt road that fronted
the property before darting into the cornfields just short of the drive. Picking his way among the cornstalks, he paused before
the lawn, examining the house for any sign of life, but he couldn’t see a single light.

Ellis breathed heavily, steeling himself for what was to come. Until that very moment, he had preached discipline, wanting
to avoid being impatient in undertaking his plan. But the time for waiting had come to an end. With Graham behind bars and
Carolyn whispering in his ear, he’d realized he needed to act, to rid his town of the Nazis in their midst. Besides, the day
that he was to be shipped off to the war was soon approaching; he couldn’t possibly leave Victory to the mercies of a family
of Hitler’s willing minions. If he were to be punished for his actions, then so be it.

For a moment, Ellis wondered if he shouldn’t wait for Riley. He wasn’t a big enough fool to believe that the god-damn Krauts
hadn’t heard the calamitous smashing of automobiles back down the road. Even if the place was dark, that didn’t mean they
weren’t waiting to give him hell. But in the end, he decided to go on alone; Riley would be along soon enough, just as quickly
as he could dispatch Cole Ambrose.

“Time to get what’s comin’ to you,” he muttered into the darkness.

Inching along the edge of the cornfield, Ellis went over his options. He could run up toward the rear of the house, gain entry
through a door or window, and hopefully take them all by surprise. Otherwise, he could mill about in the hopes that the Nazis
would make a mistake, showing their hand and playing right into his. He was still mulling over what to do when the hint of
a shadow played along the moonlit night at the side of the house.

“Well, I’ll be goddamned. They ain’t so scared after all.”

Moving as quickly and as silently as a fox, Ellis began to stalk his prospective prey, his eyes never leaving the spot where
he had seen the shadow move. The thundering of his heart sounded in his ears, his grip tightening on the butt of his pistol.
If he could just make it to them without being seen, if he could just maintain his advantage, it wouldn’t matter how many
of them there were or if they were armed.

There was another ripple of a shadow, followed seconds later by yet another. He knew without a doubt that it wasn’t an errant
tree branch or some other trick of the deepening night intent on leading him on a fool’s errand. His feet began to move as
quickly as his heart as he cut sharply toward the house, hoping to keep the angle of sight between him and his target as narrow
as possible. Halting in the deep shadows, Ellis waited, his senses alert.

Slowly, a figure emerged from the gloomy darkness and stood near the edge of the farmhouse. Ellis couldn’t be certain, but
it looked as if whoever was waiting for him carried a rifle. The mysterious shadow was peering in his direction, but Ellis
wasn’t the slightest bit worried about being seen; the house blocked him from the moon, leaving him swathed in inky black
shadows of his own.

Because his target was standing almost thirty feet away from him, Ellis couldn’t be sure which of the god-damn Nazis had been
brave enough to come outside and investigate, but in the end it hardly mattered. Calmly, he raised the cold steel of the pistol,
patiently sighted down the short barrel, and, with a gentle squeeze, pulled the trigger.

Sophie let loose a startled scream at the sound of the gunshot, the loud crack nearly deafening in the still quiet of night.
Before the noise had even begun to fade, she saw her father’s body crumple to the ground in a heap. Hermann Heller rolled
in agony, a painful moan escaping his lips. Without a moment’s thought, Sophie began to run toward him.

“Father!” she shouted fearfully.

Not again! This cannot happen again!

After hearing the sound of the car crash outside her bedroom window, Sophie had gone right to her father’s side. He’d already
been awakened by the noise and was dressed in his nightclothes, brandishing his hunting rifle. After ordering his wife and
mother to remain upstairs with the doors locked, he and Karl had headed outside to investigate. Against his vehement protests,
he had finally relented and allowed Sophie to come along.

Outside, Sophie had felt as vulnerable as a newborn calf caught in the middle of a storm. Unlike the night that Ellis, Riley,
and Graham had come to burn their barn down, the Hellers now knew the danger they were facing. Still, that danger was hidden;
behind every corner or lurking in every darkened shadow could be someone looking to do them harm.

“I’ll go look,” Hermann had said.

Standing beside Karl, Sophie had wanted to shout to her father, to warn him away from exposing himself, but before she could
give voice to her worries, he’d already stepped around the corner of the house. It was then that the gunshot had split the
night.

“Father!” she shouted again as she ran. “Father!”

The horrific irony of what she was doing slammed into Sophie with such fury that she felt as if she had been the one shot.
This is happening just as before!
When Ellis Watts had slammed the butt of his rifle into her father’s head, her instincts had led her to run to him, to care
for him when he could no longer care for himself. This was no different.

Sophie collapsed on the dew-wet ground beside her father. Blood seeped from a small hole in his shoulder, staining his nightshirt
a gruesome shade of red. He held tight to the wound, his fingers already wet and sticky. When Hermann had fallen, he’d landed
hard upon his own rifle, his body covering most of the weapon; Sophie’s fingers instinctively went to the rifle’s stock, but
her attention remained riveted upon her father. A low moan of pain escaped through his tightly clenched teeth, his breathing
ragged.

“Get… get away… Sophie…” Hermann gasped.

“I won’t leave you!”

“You have… to run…” he muttered before finally passing out from the pain.

“She ain’t gonna be runnin’ anywhere, are you, girlie?”

Ellis Watts emerged from the darkness to stand above Sophie and her father, a vicious smile spreading across his handsome
face. The pistol in his hand was pointed directly at the center of Hermann Heller’s chest.

“You best get out where I can see you, boy!” Ellis called into the shadows.

Sophie turned around to see Karl step slowly into the moonlight, his hunting rifle trembling in his hands.

“Now you throw that rifle over here,” Ellis shouted. “That is ’less you want to be the reason why your old man and sister
never get to see the light of another day.”

“Don’t do it, Karl!” Sophie shouted. “He’s going to kill us anyway!”

“Sophie? What should… ?” Karl asked hesitantly.

The thunderous eruption of the pistol brought Sophie’s hands to her ears as bits of earth rained down on her. Her head swung
around in horror, terrified that Ellis had taken her father’s life, but instead she saw that he had fired the gun into the
ground beside his fallen body.

“Next one goes in the middle of his chest, boy,” he barked, his narrow eyes fixed on Karl. “You ain’t gonna want to see what
happens if’n you give me a goddamn reason to ask twice.”

“Don’t, Karl!” Sophie implored her brother yet again, but it was already too late; Karl flung the rifle through the blackened
night where it crashed in a clatter to the ground near where Ellis stood. Before Sophie could react, the man picked it up.
The only weapon that remained at their disposal was the rifle that still lay under her father.

“There now.” He smiled. “That weren’t so hard, was it?”

Hopelessness and despair relentlessly hammered at Sophie’s will, threatening to break her and make her give in to Ellis Watts’s
twisted reality. Still, anger continued to burn in her chest at the indignities that had been visited upon her and her family.
Though heavy tears streamed down her cheeks as freely as rushing water in a spring brook, she refused to surrender, turning
to face her enemy with a defiant visage.

“You won’t get away with this, Ellis,” she snarled.

“Who’s gonna stop me, darlin’?”

“Cole will—” Sophie began, but Ellis’s laughter cut her short.

“That cripple ain’t gonna be botherin’ anyone anymore,” he explained with a maniacal cackle. “I warned him what was awaitin’
him if he stuck his goddamn nose into our business. He had his chance to do what was right but he wasn’t smart enough to take
it. Now on account of his stupidity, Riley’s takin’ care of him out in those fields.”

Listening to Ellis’s words chilled Sophie to the very center of her heart. There was little she could do to stop her mind
from imagining the worst; the thought of Cole being at the mercy of a man like Riley Mason was nearly more than she could
bear.

“You bastards!” she cursed.

“Watch your mouth, you Nazi whore,” Ellis warned, leveling his pistol at her head and cocking the hammer.

In that instant, Sophie felt her fear vanish. As bad as it would be for her to be killed, to leave her family behind, the
thought of living in a world without Cole Ambrose was utterly unimaginable. She would have to content herself with the knowledge
that someday, somehow, Ellis and those who had aided him would surely get their just rewards for all of the damage they had
done. She was at Ellis’s mercy; even if she were to yank the trapped rifle free, there was no chance that she could bring
it to bear upon Ellis before he finished her off. Closing her eyes, she waited for what she knew was to come.