Chapter 20 #2
The gasoline container jerked in Kal's hands and fuel splashed out.
Kal staggered under her weight. He was not a large man, and the sudden impact of another body on his back drove him forward two steps before he regained his balance.
He tried to shake her off. He twisted his torso and reached behind him with one hand, but Cadie seemed to grip tighter.
Her arms appeared locked in place, and she held on with a ferocity that Barrett recognized as beyond physical strength. It was sheer will.
Kal swore and twisted harder. He could not reach her with his hands and could not shake her loose with his body. So he did the only thing left available to him—he backed up hard until Cadie's body slammed against the wall.
The impact was brutal. Barrett heard the dull collision of a body against plaster and lath, and he saw Cadie's grip break. She slid off Kal's back and hit the floor against the base of the wall. Her arms went loose, and she lay on the wooden floor.
During those few seconds, Barrett rushed into the room as far as the chairs.
Kal's eyes narrowed as he held up a lighter for Barrett to see. He rested his thumb on the wheel, ready to light the flame.
"Back off, hero," he said. His voice was breathless from the struggle with Cadie but steady enough to carry the threat. "I'll light this place on fire."
Barrett stopped. He was fifteen feet from Kal, and between them the floor was streaked with liquid.
Cadie was on the floor against the wall to the right, conscious but dazed, with fuel on her clothes and her skin.
Olivia had not moved from her position to the right, against the wall.
She stood frozen with her hands pressed over her mouth and her eyes wide.
Barrett assessed the room in the time it took to draw a breath. The accelerant was on the floor, on the walls, on Kal's hands and shirt, and on Cadie. One spark from the lighter and the room would ignite. The old wood and dry plaster would catch in seconds. Cadie would be engulfed in flames.
He could not rush Kal. If the lighter sparked during a struggle, everyone in the room would burn.
Barrett raised his hands, palms out. He held them at chest height where Kal could see them, and he kept his body still and his expression calm. His breathing was steady, but his heart rate was elevated.
"You don't want to do this, Kal," he said. His voice was level and unhurried. "You light that, you burn too. Look at your hands…and your shirt. You've been pouring for two minutes. The fumes alone will catch."
Kal's eyes flickered downward for a fraction of a second.
He glanced at his hands and saw a sheen of fuel on his skin and the dark stains on the front of his jacket.
Barrett saw doubt register. It was brief, barely a shadow crossing his expression, but it was there.
Kal was not a man who sacrificed himself.
He was a man who used other people to take risks while he remained safe.
The realization that he was standing in the same kill zone he had created for Cadie introduced a variable that his plan had not accounted for.
Barrett took advantage of the moment. While Kal began to realize his own exposure, Barrett moved—but not toward Kal.
He moved laterally by shifting his weight to the right and taking a slow, measured step that changed his angle in the room.
He was not closing the distance. He was repositioning, creating a line of approach that removed Cadie from the direct path between himself and Kal.
Cadie was on the floor against the wall.
Barrett could see her in his peripheral vision.
She was conscious and watching him. Her eyes were sharp despite the impact she'd taken.
Barrett could see that she understood what he was doing.
She did not need him to explain. She began moving too, sliding her body along the wall, pulling herself away from the largest pool of accelerant on the floor.
Each movement was slow and deliberate, designed to avoid drawing Kal's attention while she put distance between herself and the ignition zone.
"Put the lighter down," Barrett said. He kept his voice at the same level tone, neither threatening nor pleading—just steady. "You're a smart man. You've always been smart. Think about what happens next. You light that and you die in this room. Is this property worth dying for?"
Kal's hand trembled slightly. The confidence that had carried him through previous encounters was cracking. He was not in control of this situation anymore, and that unfamiliarity was doing more to unsettle him than Barrett's physical presence.
"Stay back," he said. "I mean it."
Barrett did not stop moving. His lateral repositioning continued in slow, measured increments that were designed to be difficult to track.
Kal's eyes were fixed on Barrett's face and hands, watching for the sudden movement that would signal an attack.
He was not watching Barrett's feet. He was not calculating the angle.
Barrett was now positioned so that Kal's lighter hand was aimed toward the center of the room. Cadie had shifted her position. She wasn't out of danger, but at least she was a few feet farther away from the action.
Barrett took another step. The movement was barely perceptible, a slight forward shift of weight that brought him six inches closer to Kal. He was now only twelve feet away. The distance could be covered in two explosive strides.
"The police are on their way, Kal. We know everything about the texts to Olivia, the payments, and the pharmacy records. It's over. The only question is how much worse you make it for yourself."
Kal's expression contorted. His eyes darted from Barrett to Cadie to the door, then back to Barrett.
In that moment of distraction, Barrett closed the distance before Kal could react. But he did not reach for the lighter. Using his own right forearm like a hammer, he chopped Kal's mid-forearm with such force that it caused him to release the lighter.
Kal's fingers splayed open, letting the lighter tumble free, and Barrett caught it. His left hand closed around the small object before it had fallen six inches, and he plucked it out of the air, faster than conscious thought. In a single motion, he palmed the lighter and swept it behind his back.
Without the lighter, Kal was defenseless, facing a former Navy SEAL who had just disarmed him.
The fight—such as it was—lasted less than three seconds.
Barrett's right hand closed on the front of Kal's jacket. He pivoted his hips and used Kal's own weight against him, driving the man forward in a controlled takedown to force him face down on the floor. Barrett placed a knee in the center of Kal's back, pinning him to the wooden boards.
Kal struggled, kicking his legs against the floor and clawing at the wood beneath him. He yelled a stream of threats.
"My lawyers will destroy you," he said. "You have no idea who you're dealing with. I'll have you arrested. I'll sue you for everything you have."
Barrett did not respond. He held Kal in place and reached into his back pocket with his free hand.
He carried zip ties the way he carried everything useful, habitually and without thinking about it, because preparation was not something Barrett Anson treated as optional.
He secured Kal's wrists behind his back with two ties cinched tight, then shifted his weight off the man's back and stood.
Kal was on the floor with his hands bound behind him. He was still operating under the delusion that his money and his lawyers would protect him. Barrett looked down at him for a moment. He felt no anger or satisfaction—just the recognition that the threat had been neutralized.
Barrett turned to see Cadie sitting against the wall where she'd slid during the confrontation. Her dark hair was disordered, her skin pale. Her clothes were wet with gasoline.
But her eyes were clear. She was looking at him with the same fierce determination that had driven her to leap onto Kal's back when every instinct should have told her to stay in the chair and wait for rescue. Instead…she had fought back.
Barrett crossed the room. He knelt beside her and put his hands on her shoulders. The impact against the wall had left her shaken, but he saw no signs of serious injury.
"Cadie?" he said.
"I'm okay." Her voice was hoarse, but steady.
Barrett pulled her to him. He was careful of her bruised back and shoulders, careful of everything about her.
He held her against his chest and felt her embrace.
The room was quiet except for the muffled sound of Kal's continued protests from the floor and the distant wail of sirens that had just become audible from somewhere outside the building.
Sullivan was coming. Backup was on the way. The building was intact. Cadie was alive.
Barrett held her and breathed.
Against the far wall, Olivia sank to the floor.
Her legs folded beneath her as though they had simply stopped supporting her weight, and she sat on the hardwood with her back against the plaster and her arms around her knees.
She stared at nothing. The tears had stopped, and what remained on her face was an expression of such complete emptiness that it was difficult to look at.
She was a woman who had destroyed her life for a man who had just told her that she hadn't mattered to him.
She didn't try to run, or to help Kal. She sat on the floor resigned to the inevitable.
The sirens grew louder. The event room filled with the sound of approaching vehicles. Barrett heard the squeal of tires on the street outside and the slamming of car doors, followed by the heavy sound of boots on the stone steps of the entrance.
Sullivan's voice came from the front of the building, authoritative and controlled. "Charleston Police. We're coming in."
Barrett shouted, "Back here. Performance hall. Scene is secure."
The sound of boots on the wooden floor grew closer, and Sullivan appeared in the doorway with two uniformed officers behind him.
His eyes swept the room in a single assessment, taking in Kal restrained on the floor, Olivia sitting against the wall, Barrett with Cadie, and the dark stains on the floor. "It smells like gasoline."
"Yeah, Kal tried to turn this building into a bonfire," Barrett said.
Sullivan turned to one of the officers. "Call the fire department. Let them know what we've got here." Then he crossed to where Kal lay on the floor. "Kal Davis, you're under arrest." He recited the man's rights, then ran through his list of crimes.
Kal lifted his head from the floor. His face was flushed and his eyes were wild with fury. But he seemed to have run out of threats.
One of the uniformed officers lifted Kal from the floor and ushered him out of the room.
Sullivan turned to Olivia, who hadn't moved from her position on the floor.
"Olivia Stewart," Sullivan said. His voice was quieter now, not gentle but measured. "You're under arrest."
She let an officer help her to her feet and stood while he secured her hands behind her back. She looked at Cadie, and Barrett observed the exchange.
"She was kind to me," Olivia said. Her voice broke on the words. "Your aunt was kind to me, and I killed her…for him."
Cadie didn't reply. Olivia's gaze locked with hers for a moment, before she looked away. Then the officer escorted Olivia out of the room.
Sullivan looked at Barrett and Cadie. His expression softened by a fraction, enough to show the man behind the badge.
"The fire department is on the way," he said. "They'll want to ventilate the building and clean up safely. You two need to get out of here and get checked by the medics."
Barrett helped Cadie to her feet, keeping his arm around her waist as she steadied herself.
She winced with discomfort, and he adjusted his grip to take more of her weight without being asked.
Cadie asked him to stop at her aunt's office to get her purse and jacket.
Then they walked down the hall and out the front door of Stratton House into the morning light.
The street was filled with vehicles—two police cruisers, Sullivan's unmarked car, and an ambulance.
Officers moved between the vehicles and the building, establishing a perimeter.
Neighbors had emerged from nearby houses and stood on porches and sidewalks, watching the activity with the concerned curiosity of people who understood that something significant had happened to the old building on the corner.
Barrett guided Cadie to the ambulance. A paramedic met them and began assessing Cadie while Barrett stood beside her. The medic checked her eyes and her reflexes, then examined the bruising on her back and the skin on her wrists. Then he checked for signs of concussion.
"You'll be sore for a few days," he said. "I'd recommend getting a full checkup with your doctor, but I don't see anything that requires emergency treatment."
Next was Barrett, who submitted to the assessment with the tolerance of a man who understood the necessity of protocol even when he felt fine.
When the medic stepped away, Cadie and Barrett were alone for the first time since the confrontation. They stood beside the ambulance with the activity of the crime scene moving around them.
Her hair was still damp. Her clothes were stained with dirt from the floor. She looked exhausted and battered—and more beautiful than anyone Barrett had ever seen.
"How did you get out of the zip tie?" he said, touching her cheek.
Cadie looked at him. A light came into her eyes.
"I'm good friends with Genevieve," she said. "She married a cop, you know, and hangs with PI types like you."
Barrett felt the grin spread across his face before he could stop it.
Cadie smiled back. "So yeah…I've learned a few tactical skills along the way."
Barrett laughed, and she laughed too.
Then Barrett pulled her into his arms. He held the woman he loved and didn't want to let her go.