Resisting Samantha (Hope Parish Novels Book 10) (25 page)

Twenty minutes later
I dropped her off. “I’ll pick you up after closing.”

She nodded, looking
a bit raw emotionally. We kissed and she got out.

The day went
quickly, and just as I was going to leave the shop, the phone rang.
“Sutton Bait and Tackle, Chase speaking.”

“It’s
Mike. I’ve got us a suspect here. He was caught red-handed
trying to sell one of your bows. The prints match to the ones we took
off the cash drawer. I need you to come down to the station.”

“Okay, I’ll
be right there.” I called Sam, but she didn’t pick up, I
left a message. “Babe, I have to go down to the sheriff’s
office. I’m going to be a bit late getting you. Wait for me.”

I walked in and Mike
had the paperwork for me to sign. There was a skinny blond guy in one
of the cells. “That him?”

“Yup.”

I walked over to the
cell and leaned against the bars. “Why did you have to trash my
place like that? You have something against me?”

He looked and me and
shook his head. “No, I don’t even know you. I was just
passing through and the door was wide open.”

I straightened.
“What?”

“It was like
that, mister, when I got there, I swear. I just took the cash and the
bows. That’s all that was salvageable.”

Mike’s phone
rang and he answered, stiffening. “When? How long?
Sonofabitch.” He hung up, alarm in his eyes. “Chase. That
killer Miz Wharton put away, the one she asked me to check into, he’s
out. It seems there was a glitch in the system, and it showed he was
still in Rikers, but he’d been released, the charges dropped,
some mishandling of evidence. He walked free and clear. They don’t
know where he is.”

“Kyle Mayhew
is out of prison! How long?”

“Three weeks.”

It had been him
gaslighting her. Him she’d seen in Suttontowne on that stormy
day. He had been watching her, watching us. He’d slashed my
tires, vandalized my traps, and trashed my shop. He was the threat
and AnnClaire knew he was intent on harming Sam. I had to warn her. I
had to get to her. We rushed to Mike’s car and he flipped on
the siren.

“Give me your
phone.” I tapped her number listed in the sheriff’s call
log, my heart beating frantically.

Samantha,
pick
up.

SAMANTHA

When I heard the car
drive up, I unlocked the back door and went into the kitchen to make
sure everything was turned off. I couldn’t get Chase off my
mind all day. Even with getting over Jeff—and that had been a
hard, painful journey—I wanted what Chase and I were
building…had built. The way he’d been so open and
understanding about Scottie last night made me teary all over again,
but I blinked them away.

I was falling for
him hard. It was as pure and simple, and as terrifying and complex as
that.

I heard the back
door open and close. “I’m in the kitchen,” I
called.

My cell phone went
off, and I looked down to see it was the sheriff’s office.

I reached for it,
but something heavy struck me on the back of the head, and I hit the
kitchen floor hard. Boots moved around me, and I smelled gasoline.
Then I blacked out.

Samantha! Wake
up!

Something heated
around my neck roused me. The scent of gasoline was even more
intense. I opened my eyes to see AnnClaire beside me, her eyes wide
and scared-looking.

When I moved to get
up, someone grabbed a fistful of my hair and hauled me up. “Hello,
Samantha. Remember me?”

He shoved me hard
against the counter, slamming my back into the metal, sending pain
radiating through me, adding spikes to my sudden and devastating
fear.

Kyle Mayhew.

Out of prison. How
could this be?

Icy fear chilled me
to the bone.

He had the face of
evil. I could see him clearly in the bright, overhead lights. It was
a face I would never forget, at first glance handsome, but with each
successive expression becoming an object of fear and loathing. He had
straight blond hair, cut to accentuate his finely chiseled features.
His smile was wide, revealing perfect teeth. His nose narrow, his
eyes blue slits. Tall and well-formed, he towered over me, and he
liked it that way. He fed off intimidation.

He spread his hands
wide, and I couldn’t miss my gun clutched in his left hand.
“What, no kiss and hug? I thought we were good friends.”

“No, Kyle.
We’re not friends,” I said.

“You cut me to
the quick, Sam. Here I thought we had something.”

“What do you
want.”

“Where’s
your pretty-boy boyfriend? I heard someone’s been messing with
him, tires slashed, traps wrecked, and wasn’t his place broken
into and trashed, his boats and plane sunk?” He made a tutting
noise. “That’s going to cost his insurance company a
pretty penny.”

My mouth tightened
and anger replaced my fear. “What do you want?”

He lunged at me and
caught me by the throat. “To watch you die, bitch…but
first, I’m going to give you an opportunity to compare me to
your pretty boy.”

“No!” I
yelled, and my training kicked in as I stomped on his instep, kicked
him in the shin, and went for his eyes. He recovered and slapped me
across the face, the stinging pain exploding in my cheek and jaw.

“You killed my
brother,” he growled, “my only kin.” He backhanded
me this time. “So I took from you. Your husband, he put up one
hell of a fight, but your baby boy went without so much as a peep.”

His words were like
physical blows, trigging all-consuming anguish and blind rage, and I
flew at him, pummeling anything I could reach, raking my nails down
his face, making deep gouges as he cried out and backhanded me right
into the butcher block. I held on to the edge to regain my balance
and spied my rolling pin.

The floodgates of my
grief, my loss, opened, and all the anguish, the crushing,
soul-destroying pain rushed out in a tsunami of hate. I grabbed the
rolling pin, holding it like a baton. I ducked his next blow and
dashed around him, hitting him on the outside, mid-thigh going for
the peroneal nerve. Then I slammed the wood against his hand, and the
gun flew out of his lax fingers and slid across the floor. Hatred for
him exploded, an all-encompassing, drenching, drowning hate that
washed away control, compunction or restraint. And all of it—the
need, the hate, everything exploded. He tried to counter, but I
shoved him back with the pin across his chest, and he fell. My blow
to his head missed because he rolled at the last minute, then swept
my legs out from under me.

He straddled me, but
I didn’t give him the chance to get his hands on me. I quickly
put my ankle over his and bucked, knocking him forward. I used the
pin across his back, compressing his rib cage. He roared in pain and
I rolled. The rolling pin was under him, but the handle was visible.
I grabbed it and lifted my arm to bring it down on his head. He
brought his forearm up blocking me, threw me off and jumped to his
feet, grabbed one of my knives.

He threw the knife
at me, and I had to duck. Then he rushed me like a linebacker,
knocking me to the floor, my head hitting hard enough to make me see
stars. He stripped the pin out of my hand and retrieved the knife. He
pulled some matches out of his back pocket and the strike of the
flame ignited horror in me. “Don’t.”

He looked down at me
and smirked as he threw the match, and one corner of the room burst
into flame. He rose and dragged me away before dropping down on me
again. “I waited for you all night, but you didn’t come
home. You had to take that second shift because you were such a good
little police officer. While you made the streets safe, I took what
was most precious to you.”

“You sick
monster,” I shrieked. “He was just a baby. Jeff…he
was such a good man.”

The knife descended,
and I braced for the cut, but he cut open my shirt, then my bra,
before going for my jeans. Smoke filled the air, and I coughed. The
shrill wail of the fire alarm sounded, then moments later my
sprinkler system kicked in and drenched us.

It revived me, and I
came out of my anguished daze fighting. But he slapped me hard, then
wrapped his hand around my throat and squeezed. I struggled and
kicked, couldn’t breathe, everything starting to go black. When
he let go and reached for my jeans again, I knew I’d rather die
than let him do this unspeakable thing to me.

Then I heard it, the
whispering.

I looked up to see
the determined face of AnnClaire, saw the same kind of hate that
seethed inside me on her face, in every line of her body, the memory
of her rape and murder stark and chilling in her eyes. Her mouth
moved with words of protection and the amulet heated red-hot around
my neck.

She crouched and, to
my utter shock, curled her hand around the gun. She stood and pointed
it at Kyle.

He sliced into my
jeans, nicking the skin just below my belly button, but something in
my face must have alerted him. Swiveling to follow my intent gaze,
his face went white when he saw AnnClaire. The sound of the gunshot
was deafening in the room, the bullet plowing into him, knocking him
off me. Blood spread across his chest, soaking into his T-shirt.

I pushed myself to
my knees, heard sirens in the distance, and scrambled away from him,
clutching my ruined blouse. He looked at me as the life drained from
his eyes. “Who was that,” he choked. “A ghost?”

“No, that was
retribution, and her name was AnnClaire. I hope you rot in hell,”
I said as he died.

I covered my face.
He’d killed Jeff and my sweet boy. Guilt consumed me. Their
deaths had been because of me. I heard running footsteps and my name
shouted several times. The doors burst open, and Sheriff Dalton
charged in, his gun drawn, Chase streaking past when he saw me.
Firefighters behind him.

He rushed over to me
and gathered me close to him. “Samantha,” he whispered,
his voice breaking. “You’re all right.”

I laid my head
against his chest, feeling hollow inside. I burst into tears of
shock, realization, and renewed grief. “You’re going to
be okay.”

I wasn’t sure
I would ever be okay again.

***

They stitched me up
and attended to my cuts and abrasions, giving me an analgesic for the
bruises and the contusions. They wheeled me to a room and a bed for
the night…observation for the concussion, they said.

Chase
came into the room, obviously distraught, but I couldn’t seem
to say anything comforting. I was glad Kyle and his mad dog brother
were dead. I had finally learned the truth and confronted the man who
brutally murdered my family. Having to hear his gleeful descriptions
had opened a door, setting loose a brutal, murderous rage I hadn’t
realized was waiting, festering, hidden behind my grief and guilt.
There
were
evil
monsters in this world. AnnClaire had stood against her own, and she
stood against mine.

“Talk to me,
babe,” Chase said, sitting on the edge of my bed. “Please,
Sammy.”

“Don’t
call me that,” I said, my voice harsh, a knee-jerk reaction.

His face fell, his
eyes showing me he was concerned, committed. His jaw clenched and he
let out a heavy sigh. Even though I was quite sure I was in love with
him, I wasn’t sure I deserved him, if I could handle a love
even more encompassing, one that filled me to bursting, closing up
gaping wounds, and making me as whole as I could be without Scottie.

“Sam, I love
you. Let me help you through this. Let me be there for you.”

I shook my head, my
tears like acid, and final, the declaration of his love registering
and it hurt. “Don’t you see? My Scottie, the terror he
must have endured, and I wasn’t there to save him because I
accepted an extra shift. That was the real reason I quit the police
force. It was the real reason I came to Suttontowne to escape. I
couldn’t save the two most important people in my life
because
I wasn’t there when I should have been
.”
That truth I tried to deny for two years wouldn’t stay hidden
anymore. “No, I can’t do this, Chase. I can’t.
Please just leave me alone.”

“Samantha,”
his voice hitched. “Don’t do this. Don’t shut me
out.”

Hurting him like
this killed me, making me shrivel up inside. “Go!” I
said, turning away from him, breaking into sobs.

When I could breathe
again around the pain, Chase was gone. I was alone.

The next day they
discharged me from the hospital. I called Beth to pick me up, and she
assured me Imogene’s was undergoing repair. Chase had taken
care of it. But the restaurant would be out of commission for two
weeks.

I nodded and wearily
closed my eyes to avoid conversation. She dropped me home, and I
closed and locked the door, heading up to my bed. Crawling onto the
coverlet, I let the tears flow.

As the weeks passed,
I took the time I needed to recover, but every second I missed Chase
so much I wasn’t sure I was going to get through the next hour.
The sheriff came by, and I gave him my statement for his official
report. When he looked at me like I was crazy, I gave him AnnClaire’s
journal and pointed out her fingerprint. He left with a worried,
indulgent look.

Shortly after that I
woke up and discovered…Imogene. Unlike her daughter, her face
was serene. “Punishing yourself is natural, child,” she
whispered. “I know a mother’s pain. I know your pain. You
will feel your son’s presence at times, sometimes so strongly
that it is as if he is dancing just at the edge of your heart. And
other times you might not feel his presence at all. Life
will not go back, you will never be the same, because a piece of you
departed with your son. And that even though the pain does not go
away, somehow your soul will eventually make enough room so you can
hold it all–the grief, the pain, the joy and the love. Move
forward, pretty Samantha. There is so much more to experience when we
have the courage to start anew.”