Chapter Sixteen #4
beat out training. And that there was no such thing as a fair fight. If he had
the chance, he would stab these fuckers in the back and never think twice about
it.
But he was still at five in the kitchen. He wouldn’t
discount the young woman since it appeared she was the one who shot Noah.
Killed Noah. If Henry had done what he thought he’d done, then two were already
dead. Kingman sent three more out, two to the foreman’s house and one to the
basement.
There was the sound of banging coming from the west end of
the house.
Kingman frowned. “Go check on Ned, Billy. If that asshole
fell down the stairs, I’ll kill him myself.”
Billy hesitated but went anyway.
Four. It was Kingman and the woman and Dennis and Andy.
He just needed to wait for the right moment.
Well, he also needed a weapon of some kind, but he could
try.
Brooke. He had to think about Brooke and seeing her again.
“I don’t like this. Something feels wrong.” Kingman proved
he had some instincts.
“Nothing’s wrong. I told you. I checked and James Glen is
with his wife and they’re all the way in Alamosa,” the woman explained. “And
from what I overheard on the phone, McNamara’s girl got hurt on the playground
and he and the other one took off running. You’ve got hours.”
Kingman’s eyes narrowed on her. “And the hands who are out
in the field? What do I do when they show up? You know they don’t work
twenty-four seven. They do come in every now and then.”
She sighed and shrugged. “Kill them.”
They started arguing about how every extra body was another
problem, but Shane didn’t care. He was fairly close to the butcher block of
knives Beth kept, though he probably shouldn’t say they were Beth’s. Both Bo
and Trev cooked meals for their family. They spread out the work so it wasn’t
piled on Beth.
Like he and Bay wanted to do with Brooke. They’d learned
from their parents. The workload was a thing to manage, not to dump on the
human with female genitalia. He and Bay had talked about setting up a schedule.
Laundry and cleaning and cooking. They would all participate.
He prayed he still had a chance.
Or that Bay and Brooke could carry on without him. Bay would
find his way. He leaned on Shane as much as Shane leaned on him, but his
brother was strong. He would honor Shane by taking care of the woman they
loved.
“That girl is going to get us all killed.” Dennis stared at
Shane. “You’re fucking with us. It won’t work. The boss can’t leave it. I wish
we could because the truth of the matter is I liked you, Shane. I wanted to
bring you and Bay in, though I agree with the boss that Bay is the lesser of
the two of you when it comes to being solid enough to be one of us.”
Awesome. So he was the better brother when it came to
potentially being a criminal. Bay had his savant-like art skills and Shane
had…blind obedience? Well, turned out he wasn’t good at that either. “I would
never have joined. I wanted out a week after we hired on. I knew something was
wrong.”
Now that was a better way to look at it. He had way better
instincts than his brother. He had known something was wrong with the Kingman
Ranch. The same way he’d taken one look at that magnificent woman and known she
would complete their family.
Dennis sighed as Kingman and his mistress yelled at each
other. “Well, I thought you handled seeing the guns pretty well. You didn’t run
until a few weeks later. What made you do it?”
He could be honest. He was close to the knives. He couldn’t
make a move yet, but it was coming. “I heard you and Andy talk about getting
rid of us. I knew enough by then to think it wasn’t going to be a firing.”
Dennis chuckled. “I wondered if someone was in the barn with
us that night. I thought that might have been the reason you took off but I
didn’t say anything because the boss sometimes loses perspective, as Dinah is
about to find out.”
Kingman slapped the shit out of her. “Shut the fuck up. You
need to learn your place. Get outside and wait in the truck.”
Dinah held her hand to her cheek. “But I did good, King. I
killed that asshole when he was going to leave. I killed him right in the
living room.”
Dennis frowned. “Where did you move the body?”
The room seemed to stop. Dinah shook her head. “What do you
mean? I didn’t move no body. That’s man’s work. I shot him. That was my job.”
“That was not your fucking job, Dinah,” Kingman said between
clenched teeth. “Your job was to ID where they would keep the sketchbook. You
failed at your job or we wouldn’t be here.”
“How was I supposed to know they moved?” Dinah returned.
“Well, my dear, you were supposed to get into his bed and
find it for me.” Kingman’s face was a mottled red.
Dinah sniffled, the first crack in her bitch-of-the-world
armor. “He didn’t want me. I don’t even think it registered that I was flirting
with him.”
Dennis stood. “Look, I don’t care about y’all’s relationship
drama, but we have a problem if she says she killed a man who got up and walked
away. Have you thought about that?”
Noah wasn’t dead? If Noah wasn’t dead, then they had more
hope. Noah would try to find a way to call in Nate.
“He’s dead. I killed him,” Dinah shouted.
“I walked through there, and while there was a lot of blood,
there wasn’t a body on the floor,” Dennis replied.
Kingman’s eyes closed. “Fuck. We need to burn the whole
place down. Dennis, go tell Jones to forget the barn and get the gasoline
ready. We torch the place and pray for the fucking best, and while we’re at it,
I should solve another of my problems.”
He turned to Dinah and calmly raised his pistol and shot.
Shane’s whole body went stiff. He certainly hadn’t liked the
woman, but no one deserved to go like that. And it all fell into place. “Meli
was your mistress.”
Kingman’s expression was bland. As though murdering his
lover was simply another task. “Bitch said she was on birth control but then
she showed up pregnant. Wanted a piece of my fortune. That night I told her we
were going to my lawyer’s. I couldn’t let her stay around or my wife would find
out.”
“Now see, she actually could take a big old piece of his
fortune,” Dennis explained. “No prenup.”
“Why the fuck would I have a prenup? We got married in high
school. We had nothing to protect,” Kingman argued. “And I love her. But she’s
old and doesn’t get my dick hard anymore. Trust me. My wife would have pulled
that trigger, too. Now let’s get moving. First thing to do is take care of that
asshole.”
And he was out of time. Shane moved as Kingman raised his
gun again. They should have tied him up. He kicked the table over to give
himself some cover and reached for the knives as the first shot blasted.
Cover. He had some. All he had to do was get to the next
room. Trev’s office had heavy oak doors.
“Like that’s going to keep you safe,” Kingman said and
picked up the table and tossed it to the side.
Fuck. He was going to die. He was going to die right here
and now. He stood and started to rush at Kingman when he heard a loud blast.
Time seemed to slow, and Shane realized getting shot didn’t
feel as bad as it should. He reached for his gut, trying to stop the overflow
of blood that would come.
Except it didn’t.
Kingman’s eyes had gone wide, and that was when Shane
realized he wasn’t alone.
Bay stood behind Kingman, and he had a gun.
Shane’s heart thudded as Kingman clutched the hole in his
chest and dropped to the floor beside his mistress.
Bay’s skin was a pasty white but his voice was steady. “You
okay?”
“Where did Dennis go? He has a gun, too.” Shane had never
been so fucking happy to see his brother. And there were plenty of times when
Bay walking in a room had saved him from something terrible in their childhood.
“The older gentleman?” Henry Flanders walked in the room,
and he was covered in blood. “He’s dead. I caught him a few seconds ago. I got
the others before that.” He seemed to realize they were all staring at him in
horror. “Oh, this? Not mine. The one in the basement found a knife. I got it
away from him. Then I used it on him and his friend, and then the older guy. I
took out the guards the old-fashioned way. It’s been too long, and even though
my wife told me I could use the guns, I find them loud and impersonal. The
knife was better.”
He was scared of Henry freaking Flanders, who looked very Dexteresque in that moment. “Brooke?”
Bay stepped over Kingman’s body and took a place by Shane,
helping him move around the wrecked table. “Is she okay?”
Henry’s manner was detached and cold. He wiped the big knife
on his already coated jeans. “She’s protecting the barn for me. We need to get
the radio working. Nell needs an ambulance. Are there any other men I should
take care of? I handled the one in the basement and the one who came to check
on him.”
Just then the door opened and Shane heard a voice call out.
“Hey, boss. Everything okay in here? We didn’t find…”
The knife hit the man in the center of the neck with a deep,
thudding sound as it sank in. Instinctively the man pulled it out and blood
gushed forth.
He was dead before he hit the ground. Henry calmly picked up
the knife.
Bay’s head shook. “Uh, I think I saw two of them walking out
to the foreman’s house. This one and a tall, dark-haired guy. It might have
been Mike.”
Shane nodded. “It was Mike. They were looking for Bay’s
sketchbook. We need to get to Brooke.”
He heard the sound of a gunshot and couldn’t handle it a
second longer. He took off running.