Mine to Keep (29 page)

Drake’s body was already covered in blood.  So much blood.  But when Anna Jean moved to step around him, his hand flew out. His fingers locked around her ankle. “No…” Drake growled.

“Oh, darling, relax, I’ll slit your throat and end things soon.” She lifted the gun. “But first, I want to make sure Skye’s dead.  You were right, you know. I did have a partner. And he’s waiting for a phone call from me. One that tells him Skye is dead.”  She smiled at Skye. “Who’s going to save you now?”

Skye stood up. She inched away from Claire, not wanting the bullet to hit the other woman.  “
Why?”

“Because when Trace falls, we’ll take everything he has. All that money…
mine.”

This had been about money? “I thought this was for revenge.”

“Killing you…” Anna Jean shrugged.  “That’s for revenge. The rest is for money.”

Drake was trying to heave himself up behind her.

Anna Jean’s finger tightened on the trigger. “At least I’m being merciful.  Good-bye, little dancer.”

Skye flew forward even as—

Nothing happened?

Anna Jean’s fingers squeezed the trigger twice more, but the gun didn’t fire.

Skye slammed into her.  They fell to the floor, landing right next to Drake.

“Stupid…f-freaking water…” Anna Jean snarled. “I’ll just…do it…the old f-fashioned way…” Her fingers locked around Skye’s throat and she started to squeeze.

Skye slid her own hands under Anna Jean’s, and she shoved up, fast and hard, breaking the other woman’s hold.  Then Skye drove her fist into Anna Jean’s face.

Again and again.

She was pretty sure that she heard bones crunch.

Anna Jean sagged back, unmoving.

Skye jumped up. Her hand throbbed. She’d probably broken some of her own fingers.  She tried to grab for the phone that had been left on the little table near the door, but the phone fell from her now burning hand. Skye dove for it, and tried to dial nine-one-one.

Anna Jean yelled.
The woman just won’t stay down.
Anna Jean pushed up to her knees. “B-bitch, you’re done!”

And Drake drove the knife into her heart. Anna Jean gasped. Her eyes widened.  She turned her head to look at him.

His face was ashen. His eyes appeared sunken. “I didn’t…miss this time,” he told her.

Anna Jean’s lips trembled.

The nine-one-one operator came on the line.

Skye spilled out the emergency details as quickly as she could.  When she looked back over at Anna Jean, the woman’s body was ominously still.

And Drake was slumped over her.

Skye scrambled to them. She rolled Drake over. Checked his pulse. Faint, thready, but he was still alive.

“Hurry,” she whispered into the phone. “Please, hurry.” 

She ran back to Claire. 

“T-tell me she’s dead,” Claire whispered.

If Anna Jean wasn’t dead yet, she would be soon. 
And will Claire be gone, too?

The phone in Skye’s hands vibrated.

Another call was coming in. Skye was still on the line with the nine-one-one operator, but she glanced at the screen and saw the note for—

Unknown caller.
The message flashed across the phone’s screen.

The phone wasn’t hers.  It had just been tossed on the table.

Was it Claire’s?

Or Anna Jean’s?

Anna Jean’s voice echoed through Skye’s mind.
I did have a partner. And he’s waiting for a phone call from me. One that tells him Skye is dead.    

Had the partner got tired of waiting?

Skye crouched next to Claire. She put one hand on the wound, keeping up the pressure. Her left hand held the phone.  Her finger slid across the phone’s screen as she took the call. “H-hello?” Her voice was a rasp. Lower than normal. 

Static, then. “Is she dead?”

A tear slid down Skye’s cheek because she
knew
that voice. 

Frantic, she ended the call and immediately tried to get Trace on the line. 

***

Trace bounded up the stairs.  When he reached Reese’s apartment, he didn’t pause.

He kicked in the damn door.

Trace ran inside with his weapon ready, but he stopped cold at the sight of the body before him.

Detective Alex Griffin lay on the floor, face-down.  Reese stood above him, a horrified look on his face.  “I had no choice,” Reese muttered. “No choice.”

There was no weapon in Reese’s hands. No weapon near Alex, either.

“He did it,” Reese said. “He came here, with a knife, trying to kill me.” Reese lifted his head. “Boss, dammit,
why?
”

Trace’s phone vibrated in his pocket.  He didn’t answer it. Not yet. Carefully, he bent next to Alex. The cop’s blond hair was matted with blood, and Alex’s pulse was weak, but steady. “He’s still alive. An ambulance is on the way.”

Reese hadn’t moved.

Trace looked up at him. “There was a shooter here.”

Reese nodded frantically. “
Him.
He had me tied up, I got loose, we fought—”

Trace’s phone kept vibrating. He rose to his feet. The gun was still in his hands. “We’ve been friends for a long time,” Trace told Reese.

Reese nodded. He rocked back on his heels. “A cop…I can’t believe…a cop…”

“I’ve trusted you with my life.” The phone stopped vibrating. “More importantly, I’ve trusted you with Skye’s life.”

Reese’s hand slid toward his waist. “You can always trust me,” he told Trace, the expression on his face stark. “I’ve got your back. You’ve got mine.”

Trace’s jaw locked. “Right now, I’m wondering what the hell you
have
behind your back.”

Reese’s hand stopped its slow glide toward his waist. “Boss?”

“Alex was hit from behind. His head is matted with blood—blood that’s already partly dry in his hair. If the blood had time to dry, that means he wasn’t shooting at me.  You were.” 

“What?” Shock slackened Reese’s face. “How can you say that? I would never do that! We’re friends!”

“Yes, we are.”  He didn’t hear the scream of sirens yet. They needed to damn well get there. “But you’re still the man who’s been after me.”  Rage beat in his blood. “
You killed Sara.
”

Reese flinched. “No, no, it was the cop!” He took a lunging step forward.

“
Stop!
” Trace shook his head and aimed his weapon at Reese’s head. “Another step, and I’ll shoot you.”

Reese’s eyes narrowed. “The same way you shot Tucker?  I guess you have a history of shooting your friends, don’t you?”

“Only because my friends have a history of betraying me. I don’t deal well with betrayal.”

“I haven’t betrayed you!” Spittle flew from Reese’s mouth.

“You think I haven’t checked on you?” Trace demanded, body tight. “Guess who didn’t have alibis for the kills?”

His phone vibrated again.

Reese’s gaze flickered at the sound. “Maybe you should get that call, boss.”

“And maybe we should all just wait right here until the cops arrive.”

At that, Reese laughed. “Like the great Trace Weston gives a flying shit about local cops. You do what you want, when you want. You always have.”

And the mask that Reese had worn seemed to fall away. His face twisted with bitterness.

This was my friend?

“You climb out of hell, and you rise to heaven,” Reese’s voice was a grating snarl. His eyes flashed with fury. “That’s your charmed life, isn’t it?”

“My life’s never been charmed.” An alcoholic mother. A father who used his fists too frequently and forgot to even feed his son most days.

One war zone after another.

The phone stopped vibrating.

Reese shook his head. “You do have a weakness, though.” Reese smiled at him. “And I can’t believe you just left her alone…with Anna Jean.”

In that instant, Trace’s heart stopped.

“Oh, yeah, boss, it’s her. New face. New contacts. New hair.  But you—you’re always so taken in by the innocent ones. The ones who look lost and scared, just like Skye.”

Skye didn’t look lost and scared. She looked like the most perfect thing in the world.

“Anna Jean came to me,” Reese told him, smug now. “She told me about what you’d done. How you’d left her and Tucker to die. I’d heard the story before, of course. You’d told me
your
version, but this was different.”

Anna Jean’s story was bull. “You know Anna Jean betrayed the team.”

“Like I gave a damn about that. I wasn’t on that team.” His smile stretched. “She wanted vengeance, and you know what I wanted?”

“No clue.” Every instinct in Trace’s body screamed for him to attack.

Alex still lay prone on the floor.

“I almost died for your girlfriend,” Reese snapped. “When that freak of a doctor came after her, I wound up in the hospital. Collateral damage, right? Screw that!”

“You were not—”

But Reese cut right through his words and said, “I had your back day in and day out, but I got
nothing.
”

Trace shook his head. “That’s not true, you—”

“You saved my ass in battle, so what? I’m supposed to be your lackey forever?  I want my share! Why do you get everything?
Why?
”

This time, Trace didn’t try to talk. He knew Reese didn’t care what he said.

“You were going to marry her.  As soon as I saw the chunk of glass on her finger, I knew I had to act.  I got Anna Jean in town, and we started our plan.  Skye had to die, of course.”

He fucking dared to speak so easily about her death?

“If you married Skye, then you’d change your will,” Reese said, jerking a hand through his hair. “I couldn’t let the money go to her. Not after all the time I’d put in to make sure I was the one closest to you.”

Now Trace laughed. “You idiot. I never planned to change my will.”  Reese was so wrong. About so many things.

Reese blinked. “Wh-what?  But…but I thought…”

“I was always going to take care of you, Reese. You were my
friend.
” A lying, deadly friend. “But Skye, she was the one I loved. Even if I’d never gotten back with her, the bulk of my fortune was always set to go to Skye when I died.” It had been his only way to take care of her.

Reese’s jaw dropped.

“With the ring or without it,” Trace said. “She was always mine.  And I protect what’s mine.”

Trace’s head tilted. Ah, he could hear the siren now.  It was time to end this.

“You didn’t protect her this time!”  Reese’s body vibrated with fury. “Anna Jean
killed
her. Your precious Skye bled out while you were on your way here. Anna Jean killed her the instant you left the studio. Then she killed Drake and Claire.  They never even saw her coming.”

Skye’s alive. Skye’s alive.
He yanked out his phone.

Reese’s hand flew up. He grabbed a gun—one that he’d had hidden behind his back—and he fired.

Trace fired at the same instant. The blasts thundered through the room.

Reese’s lips moved. A weak gasp slipped from him.

Trace hadn’t aimed for his heart.  The bullet had blasted right through Reese’s head.

Reese’s body thudded to the floor.

Trace’s weapon dropped. He pulled out the phone. Called back the number that had tried to reach him again and again. It wasn’t Skye’s number. It was a number he didn’t know.

“Trace!
” Skye’s frantic voice shouted over the line.

She was alive.

“It’s Reese,” she told him, her voice warming him even as a chill seemed to surround his heart. “He’s the one who’s been after you.”

Sirens screamed, coming closer.

“I’m on my way to you! Be careful, Trace, be very—”

“I love you,” Trace told her as emotion rose up to choke him.  “Always, you…”

“Trace?”

The phone slipped from his fingers.

Trace stared down at his chest.  Reese had always been such a damn fine shot.

A good friend? No.

But a good killer.

I love you, Skye.

He just hated that he’d broken his promise to her.  He’d said that he would return to her.

She’d asked for only one thing.
Come back to me.

It was the one thing he couldn’t give her.

***

Skye raced toward the apartment.  Her breath heaved in her lungs even as her heart thundered wildly in her chest. She’d been disconnected. Trace’s call had just ended and no matter how many times she tried, she couldn’t get him back on the line.

“Ma’am, stop!” A uniformed cop appeared in her path. “This is a crime scene, you can’t go in there!”

Police cruisers lined the street. Three ambulances—
three—
were there.  “My fiancé is in that building! I’ve got to find him!”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but no one is getting in there now.”  His face was grim but sympathetic. “Now just stand back.”

“
Injured officer!”
Another voice shouted. “Make room!”

Her head snapped to the right. Two EMTs were pushing out a man on a gurney. They wheeled right past her, and she saw Alex’s ashen face.

“Alex!” She rushed toward him.

His hand rose and caught her wrist.  “So…sorry…”

An EMT pulled Alex’s hand away.

But she grabbed it right back. “Where’s Trace?”

Alex’s eyes squinted up at her.  “Was…watching Reese…caught him t-tailing me…thought Weston had…sent him…”

“Please,
where is Trace?”

The uniformed cop wrapped his arms around Skye and pulled her back. The EMTs loaded Alex into the back of the nearest ambulance. The doors slammed shut and the siren screamed on.

“One fatality,” a voice behind her muttered. “But did you see the blood in that place? It looked like something out of a horror movie.”

Skye was glad the cop held her.  Without him, she might have hit the ground right then. Her nails dug into his arms, and she turned to gaze up at the young officer. “Was the fatality Trace Weston?”

“I don’t know who died, ma’am,” he whispered back. “I wasn’t cleared to go upstairs. I just know some guy took a detective hostage and started shooting people in the street.” He pointed to the left, and she looked, gasping when she saw the dark pool of what had to be blood under a street lamp.

“They already took one man to the hospital. He had a gunshot wound to the chest.”  The cop’s lips thinned. “I can’t say anymore, okay? Go to the hospital. St. Mary’s. Wait there.”