Pain screamed through Shane’s thigh as he slowly limped his way down to the basement, leaning heavily on the railing as he went. A small part of him wanted to celebrate that he’d gotten the confession he’d been looking for, but he was still at gunpoint and he had no idea what he was walking into.
Taking a breath, he opened his mouth to say the code word when he turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs…and his heart skipped a beat. Kate was there. Fuck.
Tied to a chair in the middle of the room on top of yards and yards of plastic sheets. They protected the carpet and the furniture that had been pushed back against the walls from blood splatter. Behind Kate stood Carl, Gerald’s bodyguard, with a gun pointed at the back of Kate’s head.
He could only guess that she’d been there a while. A thick piece of duct tape stretched across her mouth while her eyes were swollen shut. Cuts and bruises covered her face and arms, and blood streaked down her pale skin to soak into her torn black turtleneck. She didn’t move at the sound of Gerald’s voice, but Shane could see the shallow rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.
The code word was swallowed down. There were two armed men and now two hostages in the house. And there were only two cops sitting outside. Shane had his gun tucked in a holster on his ankle, but those were some damn bad odds for him and Kate.
“What have you done to this woman? You tortured her,” he said for Natalie and the other cop. He prayed that Quinn didn’t do anything stupid like try to storm the house. The man had an enormous heart and even without using her name, Quinn would be able to guess that Shane was looking down at Kate Masters.
“Don’t act like you don’t know who she is. What she’s done!” Gerald growled. He shoved Shane hard into the room, causing him to take a few stumbling steps. The plastic rattled loudly underfoot and pain lanced up the back of his leg. “She corrupted my wife.”
“She loved your wife!” Shane shouted back as he regained his balance.
“Bullshit! If she loved Brenda, then she would have left her alone. She would have respected our marriage vows. She kept trying to convince Brenda to leave me and take the kids. As if I was going to allow two fucking lesbians to live in sin and corrupt my poor girls.”
“She had her own son, who was a good man that loved his mother. How is that a threat of corruption?”
A dark chuckle left Gerald and his smile widened. “And I had that little bitch killed too when he came to meet you.” He made a tsking noise and Shane followed Gerald’s gaze over to his bodyguard. “He was supposed to kill you too just in case the boy managed to tell you something, but he fucking missed.”
And Shane had never been so grateful in his life. “So you knew the entire time that it was Kate who hacked you.”
Gerald’s grin returned to his lips as he looked at Shane. “Yes. I just hired you to figure out what you knew. Hoped you might even draw her out if you did get close.”
“But how did you know about our meeting? I’m assuming it was Carl who was shooting at us in Sawyer Point.”
“Carl put a tracking device on your car the first time you came to visit. He kept an eye on you, followed you to the park. I knew it was only a matter of time. Figured he could kill you and her, then just sweep this whole mess under the rug.”
“That’s it, Shane. We got everything we need to take this dirtbag down,” Natalie whispered. It was hard to believe but she actually sounded giddy. The only problem was that he was standing between two shooters and had no idea how he was going to get himself and Kate to cover before the cops charged on the place.
“You’re planning to kill another innocent woman after killing her son—”
Gerald reached over and grabbed Shane roughly by the shoulder so he could pull him close. His fist twisted Shane’s sports jacket. “There’s nothing innocent about that whore. She…” His voice suddenly dropped off and his fingers moved along Shane’s shoulder, pressing into something. Shane’s stomach clenched. He knew what Spring was feeling. The wire that hooked into a little Bluetooth pack taped to his back. The earpiece was wireless, but there was a thin wire required to help boost the signal.
“What the fuck is this?” he said. He pulled at Shane’s jacket and shirt, but Shane batted away his hands, backpedaling away from him. He couldn’t get closer to Kate to help her, but he wasn’t far from the bar.