Chapter 13
Dane didn’t worry about coming in hot. He wasn’t in a cop car and he was delivering the prize package.
His stomach turned at the thought of bringing Shana here to the place where he knew Nash wanted her.
Somehow he had the idea that it was playing into the crazy man’s hands even though he knew the cops were in the process of arresting him back at the church.
Even before the car stopped short of the lawn at the end of the driveway, Shana flew from the passenger side.
“Damn it. Wait for me.” He flung the car into park, left the key in the ignition, and jumped from the car heading after Shana.
He saw Joe and Ronnie watching the house from the backyard under cover of the woods.
Both he and Shana headed that way crouched low as if that would save them from discovery.
But then it wasn’t likely that Eli Hughes would happen to look out the basement window at that moment—or any time—to see them.
“We’re planning on entering through the front door, quietly. We need to take him by surprise to make sure Sassy stays safe,” Joe said.
“I’m going in first,” Ronnie said.
“I’ll watch Eli from close in and distract him if we need to,” Joe said. “You two can follow Ronnie inside for backup.”
“Do we have a key to the house?” Shana asked when a car screeched across the sidewalk and into the yard, heading straight for them.
“What the hell?” Dane yanked Shana behind him. Then he saw who it was jumping from the car.
“Go. Get in the house now and get her.” Ronnie and Joe spurred into action. Shana struggled from his grip to see who had been driving the car.
Then she yelled at the top of her lungs as the hideous Whitey Nash strode toward them across the grass fifteen yards away.
He was wielding a knife. Dane clamped down on Shana’s arm hard as she pulled away from him. Whitey was ten yards away now and Shana slipped the knife from her boot and faced him.
“Shana, no.” He breathed the words, his throat tight with fear and adrenaline. He had a gun in his shoulder holster, but he’d need to let go of her to get it. And she would lunge for Whitey if he let her go. Whitey stood twenty feet away now, holding his knife up prominently.
“Let her go. Let her come and try to finish the job. If she can,” Whitey spoke in a sick raspy singsong voice.
Dane’s spine tingled with foreboding. He wanted to ask how he’d escaped from the cops.
He wanted to hang onto Shana until the cops got there, which had to be soon.
They must have known where Nash would run to.
It was an odd stand-off with Shana struggling to get at Whitey, Whitey standing patiently waiting for her to come to him and Dane holding on for dear life—Shana’s dear life—to stop her.
Whitey made a move. It was a small move, a half step forward, a tensing of his shoulders. Nothing obvious, but enough for Dane to know he intended to throw the knife. And he did.
At the same time, Dane threw Shana to the ground and landed on top of her. The knife went over their heads and planted in the ground. But he had no time to contemplate the near miss because Whitey was rushing at them now. Dane didn’t know if Whitey had another knife, but he had to assume the worst.
Scrambling to his feet, he lost hold of Shana as she rolled out of reach from both him and Whitey. Dane tried putting himself between the madman and his prey. It was clear that he was out for revenge.
Whitey came at him, trying to throw him aside to get at Shana. Dane went for his gun, but it wasn’t there. It had come out of his holster as he’d tried retrieving it when he’d taken a dive. Shit. Lashing out with his foot, he caught Whitey and knocked him off balance.
Shana pounced. At the same time Joe burst from the bulkhead doors of the house’s basement dragging Eli who was bleeding from the shoulder. Joe held a gun to the man’s head. That drew Dane’s attention for only one beat, but that was all the time needed for things to go straight to hell.
With a crazy screech, Whitey launched at Shana, using his brute force to knock her to the ground and force the knife from her hand. At the same time, Dane was knocked to the ground from behind as Eli jumped him. Joe lunged after him, but Shana needed his help more than Dane did.
“Help Shana,” Dane yelled as he pried at the stranglehold Eli had on him.
When he headbutted the man they both fell backward and Dane freed the knife he had in his ankle strap.
Eli abandoned him and, with a yell sounding like a battle cry, jumped onto Shana as she stood.
Joe had Whitey in a hold. He’d lost his knife.
They all saw Whitey’s knife lying on the ground at the same time.
Shana was the closest, but Eli had momentum.
Dane was right behind him with his own knife in hand.
Pulse pounding, his ears buzzing, the world shrunk to this tiny space between him and Shana as she reached for the knife a second before Eli landed on her.
Dane watched with horror as he leapt forward to stop it, but couldn’t.
Eli got the knife. Shana wrestled with him, holding him off as Dane reached Eli and pulled him off.
He heard shouts and the insane cackling of Whitey Nash as if he were in a cave with a strange echo.
That one lost beat of time was all it took for Eli to stab his knife into Shana’s gut.
It was the most sickening sound Dane had ever heard, the sucking sound of life torn and wrenched apart.
Rage boiled as he lunged from behind, grabbed Eli’s head and, wrapping his arm around, slit the man’s throat.
“Goddamn it.” Dane spun in time to see Whitey break free of Joe with a wail.
Joe knocked him to the ground and, seeing only the horrific face of a lunatic, Dane dove into him, pounding the hideous face until his knuckles bled.
As Joe pulled him up, Dane kicked Whitey where he lay on the ground moaning.
Dane would have kept struggling against Joe, kicking Whitey until there wasn’t another breath in the bastard, but suddenly Cap was there, helping Joe pull him off.
All the fight left him at once when he heard Shana in a weak groan call his name.
Zeroing in on her, everything in him went white hot and cold.
Shaking off Cap and Joe, he flashed to her side where another officer held a patch to her wound with one hand and called an ambulance with the other.
Dane took her in his arms, pressed his mouth into her hair, smelled her sweet siren scent as he squeezed his eyes shut and told her he was sorry.
She held onto his T-shirt with a weakening grip. “Don’t let him get away.”
“Don’t worry. He’s done. I promise you.”
They both watched as the battered Whitey Nash was half carried to the street where two ambulances pulled up. Dane lifted Shana into his arms to carry her to the street, not wanting to waste any time.
“We’ll need one of those ambulances for Sassy,” Joe said. He helped Ronnie lead her to the street. A cop examined Eli’s corpse and then looked up at him, shaking his head. Dane didn’t care. He’d done what he had to do. The cop pulled out his two-way and called for a death wagon.
When Dane got to the ambulance with Shana, he barked at the EMTs attending to Whitey.
“Never mind him. These women need your attention.”
“But he has—”
Dane interrupted in a deadly calm voice. “Either put him in a cop car or call another ambulance because these two are for Shana and Sassy.”
The medics helped Dane lay Shana on the stretcher and immediately went to work on her, taking her vitals and putting an oxygen mask over her mouth. She kept her eyes on Dane.
Cap led Whitey toward the cop car nearby until Whitey collapsed in a heap.
“Damn, we need another ambulance,” he said.
“We can put two stretchers in this one,” the medic said as he directed the driver to help get Whitey on a stretcher.
“No damn way is he going in the same ambulance—”
“Not your call,” the man said to Dane. He was either exceptionally brave or extraordinarily stupid.
“Dane, it’ll be okay. He’s not in any shape to do anything,” Cap said.
Dane looked Cap in the eye and said, “Maybe not, but I am. And I am going in that ambulance with Shana. Don’t try and stop me.”
Cap paused a beat with a worried frown then, after darting a glance at Shana, now hooked up to an IV, he nodded.
“She’ll be okay. You go with her.”
Dane sat alongside Shana and held her hand while the EMT worked to keep her wound covered and asked her questions.
He prayed to the unholy gods of heaven and hell to save her.
The medic hooked her up to a bag of Ringer’s lactate solution to replace fluids and provide electrolytes and encouraged her to stay awake and alert.
Dane kept light pressure on her hand with his, willing his life and warmth into her cold, pale fingers.
He kept his eyes connected with hers except when she closed them.
“Hey, what about me?” Whitey rasped.
No one paid attention to Whitey as he lay with his face swollen and bruised and his hands cuffed in front of him.
Dane figured he’d broken the bastard’s ribs.
The thought barely registered as mattering one way or another.
He put Whitey out of his mind now. He would have an opportunity later to take care of the man permanently.
This wasn’t the time or place. He could only focus on Shana, stay calm and strong for her, make sure they sewed her up, that she survived the knifing.
“You know I didn’t want to kill Sassy.” Whitey spoke in that singsong voice again. Dane refused to look at him, didn’t respond. The EMT turned to Whitey, giving him a wary look.
Dane put his hand on the EMT’s arm with an unfriendly grip. “Never mind that excuse for a human being. You keep your attention on her,” he said. His voice vibrated with warning,
They had to be close to the hospital. The driver drove with unrelenting speed, taking corners fast, making them sway where they sat.
“I never wanted to kill the girls. I loved them. But I didn’t want them to become evil.” White continued to speak in that crazy man’s voice and Dane continued to focus on Shana. He could tell by the distress in her eyes that she heard him, that she didn’t like what she heard.
“I was saving them from the evil because I loved them, you know.” Whitey’s voice had become more urgent and that made Dane’s hairs stand, sent a warning through his system. He flicked a glance at him in time to see him try to sit up.
Dane moved so fast, the EMT screeched like a girl. He was over Whitey, pushing him back down on his cot, holding him by the throat, shutting him up.
“What the hell?” The ambulance driver shouted as he swerved into the hospital’s emergency bay, screeching to a halt in front of the door.
Dane let Whitey go and turned his attention back to Shana.
Her eyes were closed, her lashes dark against her too pale face.
The doors popped open and Dane jumped from the back, seeing to it that the hospital personnel took Shana first. The EMT exchanged a few clipped updates with the team as they lowered her gurney. Dane took her hand.
As the EMT jumped down to accompany them, Whitey bellowed from inside, making everyone start with alarm. Dane’s blood froze.
“I need to make her understand. Shana is bad. She has to die.”
“Shut the hell up,” Dane turned, his heart thudding. Dane grabbed the attention of the stunned man dressed in scrubs nearest to him. “Give that animal something to shut him up before I strangle him to death.”
Whitey laughed hysterically as two orderlies scrambled to offload his gurney. The doctor who came rushing from the hospital caught Dane’s attention. He knew the doc, knew that he was there for Shana, knew that he was one of the best.
“Just hold on one minute,” Whitey sat up on his gurney in spite of the two orderlies trying to keep him calm.
His voice was loud and clear and ominous in that sick, singsong tone.
Dane’s spine tingled as he turned to look, stopping Shana’s gurney from moving forward.
All the hospital personnel stopped, as if they too sensed something. Something bad.
Whitey looked around at them all from his hideous face until his eyes locked with Dane’s. and then landed with his hideous face and eyes on Dane. He squeezed Shana’s hand. Then Whitey said in a ringing, matter of fact voice, absent the sing-song of a mad man.
Sounding perfectly sane now, Whitey said, “Don’t you want to know where the bomb is?”