Chapter 16 #3
While he was still brushing at the thick sauce and beans splattering his coat, she came at him. It was only through an inborn sense of self-preservation that he looked up in time to see her coming, but he didn’t move in time to save himself from the dagger’s sharp thrust.
He swung at her head with the butt of his gun just as the pain began to burn through his chest. Casey went limp, slumping to the floor at his feet as Lash stared at the familiar silver shaft sticking out of his chest.
The drumbeat got louder. He kept thinking of the dagger sticking out of that fat rat’s body, and now it was in him. The analogy was as sickening as the nausea rolling in his belly.
By now, the drumbeat was so loud in his head that he couldn’t hear himself scream. And yet the soft patois of the French-speaking slave, warning—predicting—promising, could still be heard above the drum.
Sharp like a serpent’s tooth, it will spill your blood and your flesh will be eaten by the worms of the earth.
In a wild kind of panic, he yanked at the handle, ignoring the pain, losing sight of the fact that, with Casey Justice unconscious and helpless at his feet, his goal was well within reach.
Blood welled then poured out of the wound, and Lash staggered from the shock of seeing his life spilling on Casey’s legs.
And then he heard her groan, and a certainty came upon him. Kill her now, before it’s too late.
He wiped at the sweat beading on his brow and aimed the gun. He had to do it now while she was unconscious. He no longer had the guts to let her witness her own death. Not anymore.
He leaned down, jabbing the barrel of the gun at her head as the room began to spin around him. And then footsteps sounded on the porch outside and he turned and froze. A gourd rattled, like a rattlesnake’s warning, and the drumbeat grew louder, hammering—hammering—in what was left of his mind.
Crazed with pain and the impending vision of his own mortality, he lifted his gun, his wild gaze drawn to the shadow crossing the floor ahead of the man coming in.
* * *
When the first two shots came within seconds of each other, Ryder panicked.
He tightened his grip on the gun Roman had given him and picked up his pace as he moved through the marsh beyond the old house.
Brush caught on his blue jeans and tore at his shirt.
Limbs slapped at his face and stung his eyelids and eyes.
Water splashed up his legs to the tops of his knees and he kept on running, assuming that whatever was in his path would have to move of its own accord.
His focus was on the house just visible in the distance, and the small white car parked nearby.
A hundred yards from the house, he saw the bodies of two men sprawled upon the porch and fear lent fresh speed to his steps. That explained the two shots. Water splashed a bit to his right and he knew that Roman was there on his heels as they ran out of the marsh and into the clearing.
Another shot rang out and Ryder almost stumbled. Dear God, it wasn’t possible that they’d come this far just to be too late. He couldn’t let himself believe that God would do that to him… not twice.
Two seconds, then ten seconds, and Ryder was up on the porch. He cleared Bernie Pike’s body in a smooth, single leap and came in the front door on the run.
“Dammit, Ryder, look out.”
Roman’s warning came late, but it would not have slowed his intent. He kept thinking of that blip on the computer screen.
Had his wife’s heart stopped when it had, too?
He saw them both at the same time. Marlow was straddling Casey’s body with his gun aimed at Ryder’s heart.
And the knowledge that he’d come too late filled his soul.
Despair shattered his focus. Rage clouded any caution he might have used.
His mind was screaming out her name as he pointed the gun at Marlow’s chest.
“You lying son of a bitch.”
They were the last words Lash Marlow would hear as Ryder pulled the trigger.
Lash’s shot went wild as Ryder’s bullet struck Marlow in the chest. He bucked upon impact, and Ryder fired again, then emptied his gun in him just to see him dance.
Roman was only seconds behind. He came through the door with his gun ready, the echo of Ryder’s last shot roaring in his ears. But hope died as he saw the woman on the floor and Marlow lying nearby. It looked as if Ryder would have his revenge, but little else.
Ryder’s gun was clicking on empty chambers when Roman took it out of his hand. Ryder jerked, then groaned and let it go. The pain in his chest was spilling out into his legs and into his mind. He couldn’t think past the sight of her battered and broken body lying still upon the floor.
Roman started toward the two bodies but Ryder stopped him. With tears streaming down his face, he grabbed his brother’s arm. “No. Let me.”
Roman ached for his brother’s pain as he stepped aside, and Ryder walked into the room, absorbing the filth and degradation of the place in which she’d been kept. Dropping to his knees, he lifted her from the filth on the floor and into his arms.
Blood ran down her legs as her head lolled against his shoulder, and then he couldn’t see her face for his tears. His heart broke as he cradled her against his chest.
His voice broke along with his heart. “No more! No more!” Laying his head near her cheek, he choked on a cry. “Ah God, I can’t take anymore!”
His shoulders hunched as he bent from the burden of living when those he loved kept dying around him.
Roman knelt at his side, sharing his brother’s pain.
He glanced at the woman in Ryder’s arms. Even through the bruises and dirt, her beauty was plain to see.
Years ago, he’d shut himself off from this kind of loss.
He’d seen so much death and too much misery to let himself be hurt by it anymore, but this was too close to home.
This woman, Ryder’s wife, was gone too soon.
He reached out, lifted her hair from the blood on her face, and as he did, his finger brushed the curve of her neck.
His eyes widened as he tensed and shoved Ryder’s hand aside. When he felt the pulse beating strong and sure, he rocked back on his heels. A miracle! That’s what it was. A heaven-sent miracle.
Ryder choked on a sob. “Don’t, Roman. Just leave us alone.”
Roman grabbed his brother’s hand, his voice shaking as he pressed it at the pulse point on Casey’s neck. “She’s alive, Ryder. I swear to God, your wife is alive!”
* * *
At that same moment in the Ruban household many miles away, Matilda Bass heard a whisper.
She froze, and then tilted her head, straining to hear.
As suddenly as the whisper had come, it was gone, and Tilly’s body went limp.
She leaned against the cabinet as the bowl she was holding slipped out of her hands and onto the floor, shattering into a thousand tiny pieces, just like the weight that had been on her heart.
Joshua spun, wide-eyed and startled. And then he saw her face.
“Tilly?”
“They found her, they found her. My baby girl is alive.”