Love you to Death (39 page)

A bedroom was next. It, too, was void of serial- killing psychos, but it did have a nice 9mm semiautomatic handgun sitting on the bedside table.

Trent took that as proof that God was on his side, and he limped over to the weapon. He dropped the saw, picked up the gun, released the magazine, found it full, and slipped it back into place, working the slide.

He hadn’t touched a gun since that night two years ago, but he hadn’t forgotten how to use one. The deadly weight of it in his palm was reassuring. Comfortable.

Now, all he needed was that psycho, and his job here was done. If he could keep his eyes and trigger finger working that long.

A wave of dizziness made him sway. He gritted his teeth and let his fear for Elise seep in. He’d been trying to shut it out, ignoring what could be happening to her right now, for fear that he’d break down or give up. But he needed that fear and the adrenaline it poured into his system to keep going just a little longer.

He let himself imagine what could happen—saw her perfect body lying in pieces, smeared with dirt and algae. The image enraged him, made his blood pound through his veins. He was
not
going to allow that to happen. If it took every last bit of life he had in him, he was going to find that man and kill him.

Only a few more steps. He’d find the killer in the next room and it would all be over.

But the killer wasn’t in the next room. Or the living room. Trent had searched the whole first floor and hadn’t found him yet. He’d wasted precious time searching in vain.

The creak of old wood trickled in from the kitchen, almost too faint to hear. Trent thought he’d imagined it, but it happened again.

The psycho was in there.

A surge of deadly satisfaction ripped through Trent. His body responded when he ordered it to move and find the bastard. He kept to the shadows as best he could, but his wobbly gait made it hard to stay balanced. His leg had been a throbbing mass of pain, but right now, all that fell away. He couldn’t feel anything but the reassuring weight of the handgun in his grip.

“I’ve got your woman,” called out the psycho. “I know you’re here. Show yourself.”

“He’s got a gun, Trent!” That was Elise’s voice, high and strained with fear.

Elation trickled over his skin like cool rain. She was still alive. There was still a chance to save her.

Trent peered around the doorframe, into the glaring brightness of the kitchen, and saw the situation. He pulled his head back before the psycho could blow it off.

He wasn’t lying. He had Elise in there with him, plastered against his front like a living shield. Even on his best day, with rock-steady hands, Trent wouldn’t have been able to make a shot like that without hitting her. Today was not his best day. His hands were shaking like the rest of him, getting worse by the second as his blood pooled on the floor at his feet.

Damn it!

How the hell was he going to get them out of this?

“I’ll shoot her if I have to,” said the psycho. “We both know what happened the last time you held a gun. If you try to shoot me, you’ll only hurt her the same way you hurt your partner.”

“He’s going to kill me anyway, Trent. He’s going to kill both of us. Don’t listen to him.”

The killer roared, “Shut the fuck up, you bitch!”

Elise yelped in pain, but Trent had no idea what he’d done to her. The only thing he knew was that he couldn’t let the man do it again. Not to his Elise.

He stepped around the corner, aiming the gun at the psycho’s head. He had to use two hands to keep it steady, and he still wasn’t doing a great job. The shredded remains of the plastic handcuffs dangled from his left wrist, vibrating in time with his unsteady grip, blatantly displaying exactly how unsteady it was.

The killer shoved the gun against Elise’s cheek. “Drop it or I’ll shoot her.”

“You shoot her, and you won’t have time to blink before I kill you.”

“Tough words for a man who can barely stand. Look at you. You’re leaking like a sieve.”

“Worried about your floor? You won’t have to worry about anything for long.”

“Shoot him, Trent.”

“Yes, Trent,” said the killer. “Shoot me. Go ahead. I dare you.”

Trent had maybe two inches of clearance on the left side of the man’s head. The rest of him was covered by Elise. Unfortunately, her head was right next to those two inches.

The night he’d shot John came back to him, pounding him with a barrage of memories. He remembered pulling the trigger. He remembered John’s pained scream. He remembered the blood—heaping gouts of blood pouring out of his friend’s back.

If he missed, it would be Elise’s head bleeding.

“You can do it, Trent,” she said. “I trust you.”

She shouldn’t. She knew what he’d done—the mistakes he’d made. How could she trust him?

“He’s going to kill all of us if you don’t.”

That much was certain.

Trent’s vision grayed out at the edges. It was creeping inward, blinding him by slow degrees. He felt cold, numb.

Elise stared at him, her eyes bright with trust, her expression pleading.

A little more of his vision faded. He couldn’t see the man’s feet anymore. Suddenly, it got hard to breathe.

“Please, Trent. Don’t let him kill us. I love you.”

Had he imagined those words? Surely, he was hallucinating. But what if he wasn’t?

He had to find out, and the only way he had a shot at that was to take it.

Trent leveled the weapon, lined up the sights on the killer’s left temple, and fired.

The gun bucked in his hands. Blood bloomed out from the killer’s head. Elise slammed her arm up, knocking his weapon away from her face, and ducked away.

Trent fired again, this time aiming at center mass, now clear of the woman he loved. He hit something, but he couldn’t tell what. All he saw was the killer stumble backward before that gray tunnel closed down to a pinpoint and winked out entirely.

He felt his body hit the ground, and this time, he couldn’t get back up.

E
lise kicked the weapon away from Gary, well out of his reach.

He was thrashing around on the ground, holding his chest.

Trent had collapsed and didn’t look good. His skin was pale and there was a lot of blood on his clothes.

She couldn’t deal with both of them, and she couldn’t go to Trent until she was sure Gary wasn’t getting back up. She needed something to tie him up with.

Elise looked around for something she could use, and saw Ashley standing at the top of the stairs, staring at the man who had held her hostage and tortured her for the past seven days.

“He didn’t lock the door,” she said in an eerily calm voice. “When he grabbed you, he didn’t lock the door.”

“Help me find something to tie him up with, Ashley. Trent’s bleeding”

Ashley bent down and picked up the gun Gary had been using. The thing looked huge and alien in her hands. She leveled it at Gary. Her hands didn’t shake. “Go ahead and take care of Trent. I won’t let Gary up.”

Ashley stared at the bleeding man lying on the cracked vinyl floor. The demon lay broken but not destroyed.

Blood frothed from Gary’s mouth. He stared at Ashley, his oil slick eyes wide with rage and hatred. He tried to say something but he choked on his own blood, and the words were too garbled to understand.

Not that Ashley cared what he had to say. There were no words to make up for what he’d done. No possible redemption.

The gun was heavy in her hands and surprisingly warm. The red polish on her thumbnail shone like wet blood against the dull black surface of the gun.

Gary gripped his chest as if trying to hold in the blood that leaked between his fingers.

He was dying.

He hadn’t suffered nearly enough for her to let him die so easily. He deserved to suffer first, to be afraid, to be in pain.

He deserved to lose his hands.

Ashley leaned down so he could see her face. She looked into his tainted eyes, at his hands, then back again. Her gaze was deliberate—slow—so he’d see what she was going to do before he did it.

Gary’s eyes rounded in fear, and it was the most satisfying thing Ashley had ever witnessed.

That satisfaction wouldn’t make up for the terror and pain he’d caused so many women, but it felt good all the same. She supposed that made her a smaller person, but so be it.

Ashley leveled the gun, aimed for his hand—an easy thing as close as she was to the demon—and fired.

The weapon shuddered in her grip, and Gary’s hand exploded into a ragged mess of flesh and bone. He screamed, a gurgling wail of agony.

A grim sense of justice filled her as she aimed the gun at his other hand.

A gun went off behind Elise. Gary screamed. Elise jumped, turned around in time to see Ashley shoot Gary again. His hand exploded in a spray of blood and pulpy bits. The other hand was already a bloody mess.

He’d been holding his chest, and both of Ashley’s shots had gone through his hands and into his body. He jerked, trying to suck in a breath. A panicked look stretched his features into a grimace.

Ashley didn’t seem to notice. She walked across the kitchen, as if in a trance, set the gun beside the stove, picked up a steaming pot of something and walked calmly back to Gary’s side.

She tipped the pot, spilling its contents onto Gary’s groin and abdomen. Boiling water splashed down onto him, along with shiny bits of metal that stuck into him like silver quills. Gary screamed out in agony. His body arched up off the ground, then went suddenly limp.

Ashley dropped the metal pot on top of him and stood there staring, unmoving.

Not once did her expression change. It was as calm and tranquil as if she’d been sleeping, only now, a steady flow of tears fell down her face and wet her shirt.

The sirens grew louder. Trent’s eyes fluttered open for a brief moment.

“You safe?” he asked.

“Yes. We’re all safe. You hold on. Help’s here.”

Elise split her time between Trent’s hospital room and Ashley’s house. She hated leaving either one of them, but at least Trent had a constant stream of family coming in to sit with him. Elise was the only family Ashley had.

Trent had woken up only once since they’d done surgery to remove a bullet and repair the damage Gary’s gun had wrought, but he hadn’t stayed awake long, and it was clear he wasn’t lucid. The doctor assured her he’d recover; he just needed time for his body to heal and fight off infection.

Elise stroked his hand, silently willing him to hurry up. She needed to see for herself that he was okay. Until then, she wasn’t going to be able to take a full breath.

The door to Trent’s room swung open and his parents walked in.

Elise had met them once before, but she hadn’t been able to talk with them. As soon as she knew Trent had someone at his side, she’d raced out to go check on Ashley.

Leann Brady looked young enough to be Trent’s sister, but there was no mistaking the maternal concern tightening her features. She had shoulder-length hair that had only begun to show a few silver strands at her temples. Her blue eyes glowed with tears, and a crumpled tissue was clutched tight in her fist.

Trent had gotten his mother’s coloring—dark hair and blue eyes—but his build had come straight from his father.

Alan Brady was a tall, lean man, tan from years spent working under the sun. He had one leathery arm around Leann’s waist, holding her close. His eyes were the color of autumn sunshine, glowing with the kind of determination that would make grown men step out of his way.

He glanced at Elise, then to where she touched Trent’s arm. He nodded, as if pleased by what he saw, then led Leann over to the far side of the bed.

“How is he today?” asked Alan.

“Better,” she said, because she wanted to believe it was true.

“Has the doctor been in yet this morning?”

Elise nodded. “Around seven.”

Alan’s brows lifted. “You were here that early?”

“That late. But now that you’re here, I should go back to my sister.”

“How is she doing?” asked Leann. She clutched her husband’s arm with one hand, and with the other, she stroked a loving caress over Trent’s head.

Elise almost lied but stopped herself at the last minute. “She has a long way to go.”

“You’ll help her get through this. We all will. Our family is yours now.”

The offer of help rang inside Elise like a church bell—full of beauty and hope. She had to swallow twice before she could speak. “Thank you.”

“You go on and see to your sister,” said Alan. “We’ll stay with Trent.”

Alan put his arm around Leann and hugged her close. She looked up at him, and the love shining between them, glowing in that simple gaze, was almost palpable.

Elise stood there in shock, staring, intruding upon their private moment. But she couldn’t stop looking. She’d never seen anything like it before.