Chapter Twenty-Nine
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A fter being forced to wait more than seven excruciating hours until it was dark enough to risk returning to her neighborhood, it was finally time. Rob took a final swig from the bottle of Jack he’d started earlier, polishing it off before dumping it into the back floor of the rental car.
The whiskey burned down his throat, warmed the pit of his stomach and eased the hard knot of anxiety there.
He wasn’t wasted. Not yet. But this would take the edge off long enough for him to do what needed to be done and make his getaway.
It also silenced all the whispers of doubt in his head.
Replaced them with the raw anger he needed to get this done.
Exacting revenge on Cassie had turned out to be so much harder than he’d ever expected. He was done chasing her around and trying to figure out another way to set her up.
His life was already ruined beyond repair. Thanks to social media and the internet, the stain blackening his name and reputation would follow him to his grave. No one would hire him based on that alone. And it was all her fault.
Revenge wasn’t nearly enough at this point. Now he just wanted her dead.
When he’d killed Mikey, he’d left himself open. Chances were good the forensics would link it to him eventually. He needed to be down in Cuba long before that happened.
What did one more murder matter at this point? She deserved to die way more than Mikey had. And at least this way he would have the satisfaction of knowing Cassie was no longer breathing.
The alcohol began to kick in. A calming, warm balm that soothed his racing mind and heart. The whiskey let the anger take over, burning everything else away.
Except there was a strange pickup in her driveway. One that hadn’t been there when he’d come by earlier.
It was almost midnight. Which meant whoever it was had to be staying over.
Fury punched through him. The sanctimonious bitch who had destroyed his life and accused him of being a narcissistic, predatory sex addict was getting laid right now while he was facing exile and starting his life over in a foreign country.
“Fuck you, Cass,” he snarled, his heart slamming so hard against his ribs he could hear it. She’d betrayed him. Turned on him and moved to this pathetic backwater, and now had hooked up with some local prick tonight?
She would pay. She would pay for it all .
He drove several blocks away, struggling to get control of his erratic breathing. When he was calmer he parked along the curb on a quiet street, tugged the balaclava onto his head and got out, shrugging into his backpack.
The rage eased as he strode purposely back toward her house, replaced by a dizzying sense of euphoria. She had no idea what was coming. No idea that she was down to her last few minutes on this earth.
Her street was nearly silent. The occasional bark of a dog in a yard he passed was the only sound, along with the gusts of wind in the trees and his footsteps along the sidewalk. The weather was perfect, no moon to illuminate him. The wind would help accelerate the flames.
He tugged his hood up, kept his head down as he neared her house. It was dark, all the lights off. She probably had security cameras around, but he didn’t care. He’d already scoped out where the motion-activated lights were on the exterior of her house.
He tugged the balaclava down over his face and crept silently across the yard through the shadows. Moving fast, he unzipped the backpack and took out the accelerant.
He squirted it across the front doorway, over the wooden shingles on either side of it, and across the wooden windowsills.
Keeping his back to the edge of the house, he made his way to the rear and did the same at the back door and rest of the lower floor windows.
Blocking all her exit points. Trapping her upstairs where the smoke would quickly suffocate her.
A laugh bubbled up in his throat, his head spinning from the whiskey and the accelerant fumes. He smothered the sound, snuck back around to the front while avoiding tripping the security lights, and allowed himself to pause a few seconds to savor his moment of anticipation.
The hair on his arms stood up. His dick hardened, shoving against the front of his pants as he imagined Cassie’s terror when the smoke alarm went off. Her and the asshole she was fucking both racing to find a way out through the thickening smoke and realizing they were trapped upstairs.
Part of him wished the flames would get them before the smoke. But just in case they were able to make it out via the upper floor, he’d come prepared.
His hand trembled slightly from the heady rush of power as he withdrew the Zippo from his pocket. He flicked it open. Stared at the bright flame for a heartbeat before tossing it toward the soaked front door.
A whoosh filled the air as the powerful accelerant ignited. Flames raced up the doorway and along the front of the house, spreading quickly along the windowsills. The gusting wind fanned them, pushed them up the wooden shingles.
He wished he could stand here and watch, but it was too risky.
Rob turned and raced across the yard to the bushes dividing her property from the neighbor’s and crouched there. Drawing his weapon, he watched the flames spreading up the front and along the side of the house. In another minute or two, the entire lower exterior would be alight.
And waited. Ready to kill two birds with one stone.
Or a bullet.
****
C assie shot upright in bed beside Tristan when the smoke alarm went off. He rolled away from her.
“Stay here,” he said, already yanking his jeans on.
She scrambled to pull her clothes on and grabbed her phone to disable the alarm as Tristan went to her bedroom door. Hopefully just a false alarm. She didn’t smell any smoke.
He paused at the door, testing its temperature with the back of his hand, then opened it and stepped out into the hall.
A few seconds after he disappeared from view, she saw an ominous, flickering light on the hallway wall from somewhere down below.
She rushed for the door.
Thick, black smoke greeted her from the top of the stairs, already rising up the stairwell. She coughed, threw an arm across her face as she moved to the landing. “Tristan!” What the hell was happening?
“Right here.” He charged back upstairs, pulled his arm away from his face to continue. “Fire’s too widespread down there, and it’s moving up this side of the house. We have to get out through a window on the other side before the smoke gets us.”
Oh, shit... She quickly dialed 911.
The guestroom was on the opposite side of the landing from her bedroom.
She grabbed Tristan’s hand, dropped to her hands and knees to try and avoid the worst of the smoke as it gathered along the ceiling.
In as few words as possible, she gave the operator her address and explained it was a house fire.
“The fire department has been notified. Stay on the line with me—”
“Can’t. We’re going to evacuate from the second floor.” She left the call open and shoved her phone into her back pocket so the operator could hear what was happening.
Together, she and Tristan crawled down the hall and across the upstairs landing to the guestroom. Smoke stung her eyes, burned her throat and lungs. She moved straight through the open door, past the bed to the window beside it.
But when she tried to shove it open, it was locked.
She scrambled to open it in the darkening gloom, trying to keep the growing fear at bay. The smoke was so thick in here already. She estimated they had only a few minutes to escape before they were in serious trouble.
“I’ll wet some towels in the bathroom,” Tristan said.
“No, I’ve almost got it.” After another few precious seconds, she managed to get the window unlocked. She shoved it upward, only to have it stop abruptly half a second later.
The safety locks had sprung into place a few inches up the inside of the frame. The irony wasn’t lost on her. They were designed as an extra security measure, to stop someone from breaking in. But now they were endangering her and Tristan by trapping them inside.
“Hurry,” he said urgently behind her.
“I know. I’m trying. The damned lever snapped into place!
” Her fingers fumbled to find the edge of the plastic latch.
She shoved the window down slightly to allow her to press the lever back in.
On her next breath, she sucked in a lungful of smoke.
She coughed, squinted through stinging, watering eyes as she finally managed to heave the bottom of the window upward.
Tristan reached past her and rammed it upward, throwing it all the way open.
It hit the top of the frame with an audible bang and locked there.
Not wasting any time, she threw a leg out over the windowsill and set her foot on the roof.
Tristan helped her through it. She got to her hands and knees on the rough asphalt shingles and crawled a few feet away to make room for him.
He emerged beside her on the roof a moment later, a cloud of smoke billowing out behind him from the open window, backlit from the glow of the flames below them. He crouched next to her, wiping a forearm across his face and blinking fast. “Fire’s all the way around the bottom floor now.”
Shit, it was spreading so fast. It was too risky to try moving around back or front. “We’re gonna have to get down here.” The fire was already close to the base of the wall below them, but they had no choice.
Tristan peered down over the edge of the roof with her. “I’m gonna jump onto the fence.”
She eyed the distance, shook her head. “Not without breaking your leg.”
“Better that than staying up here and falling into the fire when the roof caves in.”
Okay, true. She shifted to the balls of her feet. Watched anxiously as he crept to the edge of the roof. He gripped the lip of the gutter with both hands, swung over the edge and dropped down out of sight.
Peering down at him, she held her breath as he swung himself back and forth to gain momentum, then levered his body outward and launched into the air.
His right foot hit the top of the fence for an instant, then immediately slipped off. He pitched to the side, arms thrown out to try and catch his balance as he toppled over.
Cassie gasped, her scream sticking in her throat when he managed to catch the top of the fence with both hands and break his fall. He steadied himself, levered up and swung himself back over the top in one agile motion, landing in the boxwood hedge on her side of the fence. She could breathe again.
Illuminated by the spreading fire in front of him, he righted himself, spun to face her, and threw up an arm to shield himself from the intense heat. “You gotta be quick. Drop down from the gutter and kick off the side of the house. I’ll catch you.”
She wanted to argue, but there was no time. The flames were way too close.
Setting her jaw, she shuffled to the edge of the roof, sat on it and gripped the aluminum gutter with both hands. Holding tight, she dropped over the edge. A moment’s panic streaked through her when her hands started to slip, the heat of the flames searing along the back of her.
She dug her fingers into the groove and hung on tight, engaging her core to bring her legs up and set her feet flat against the wooden shingles. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Tristan standing below her, feet spread wide, hands up near his shoulders in preparation to catch her.
“Jump. Now ,” he commanded.
It felt wrong on every level, but she had no choice. Taking a deep breath, she shoved hard against the side of the house with her feet and threw herself backward. An instant later, she collided with a wall of muscle.
Tristan’s strong arms locked around her as they both crashed back into the boxwoods. She heard a loud thud, realized the back of his head had slammed into the fence behind them.
She scrambled up onto her hands and knees. The heat of the fire was intense. They needed to get away from here. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, rolling his head as he got up. She grabbed his arm, helped him to his feet as she darted a look around. “This way.” Locking her hand around his, she rushed toward the front yard.
Something slammed into the wood siding of the house, inches from her head.