And Wade had stood by her through it all. Even when he charged ahead full speed, he was doing it for her. And she’d pushed him away, rather than considering his reasons. He’d been right to be cautious, albeit he could be heavy-handed at times, but given what had happened to his mother, that was understandable.
Morning rays shimmered off the icy bay. Fishing charters in the distance were all oblivious and too far away to signal. Even if Astrid didn’t still have the gun wedged into her side.
Brett eased back on the throttle, the boat slowed, and her heart sped.
Not yet, not yet.
She needed more time. Misty, Wade, the authorities needed more time. Damn it all, she wanted more time with Wade, another chance. She tucked her hand inside her parka to touch the survival knife, strapped to her waist.
One-on-one odds in a fight, she could handle. But three against one was beyond hopeless. The best she could do was stay alive long enough. If they threw her overboard, she would be unconscious in thirty seconds, dead in ninety. Without some kind of protective clothing, she couldn’t survive in the freezing waters.
The boat drifted past a small iceberg, swirling turquoise streaks through the black Alaska waters.
Brett turned from the helm to the others behind him, his face paler where his beard had once been. He was frighteningly normal looking. “This hasn’t gone quite as we planned.”
His hand slid from his pocket, holding a gun.
Her hand clenched tighter around the knife handle as her mind raced for ideas, for anything, but she couldn’t see a way. Her mind filled with images of Wade.
Before she could finish registering that the Beretta had a silencer lengthening the barrel…
Hiss. A bullet ripped through the air. Bracing, Sunny stifled the urge to scream.
Ryker crumpled against the railing, his eyes wide with shock—and lifelessness. His body toppled over and into the water as Astrid’s scream filled the air.
Screw inaction. She wanted that gun. She whipped around—
Brett’s Beretta hissed again.
Astrid jerked, stumbled, then slumped over a seat, the back of her skull covered in blood. Her sister-in-law went limp, so horribly dead, as the weapon tumbled from her limp grip.
Sunny lunged for the gun. A revolver beat a knife, hands down, and this was a fight-to-the-death moment. But Brett scooped it a second ahead of her. Frustration, fear, rage all howled through her in a typhoon of emotions. How could the world just continue to spin so normally in the distance, unaware? Houses on the far shore with families. A news helicopter overhead in search of a story for the 6:00 p.m. news, but flying obliviously past the horror happening here.
“Why are you doing this?” she screamed at him, the boat rocking beneath her feet as she stared down the murderer. “Why did you have to kill them?”
The bastard stood still as an ice sculpture, emotionless after having snuffed out two lives with no explanation. So much for Astrid’s faith in her “partner.”
“Count yourself lucky that I chose you for my hostage, my insurance.” He tapped under her chin with the lengthy barrel before backing up a step and pocketing Astrid’s weapon. “I’m big on having insurance. Accomplices don’t hold much weight with the authorities when it comes to hostage negotiation. Now, get yourself under control and maybe you’ll be able to walk away from this alive.”
At least he was talking instead of driving, killing time instead of people. “How could you just murder them?”
She struggled against distracting thoughts of the two people who’d just been murdered, the mother of her nephew, the young man who’d made them grin with his outlandish conspiracy theories.
Wind whipped past her ears, bringing tears to her eyes.
“Who are you to judge me?” he sneered, grabbing the back of Astrid’s jacket, hauling her up, then flinging her overboard as if she were nothing more than a piece of trash rather than a human being. “You helped your brother hide out for years even though he turned his back on his country.”
“What do you know about my brother?” Please, no more betrayals today. Still, she had to know.
“I know your brother wasn’t man enough to see what was going on right under his nose with his wife. He thought he could sit up there on that mountain and avoid the rest of the world forever. He still does, poor idiot.”
And with those few words he’d put to rest her fears that her brother might be involved, in spite of what Astrid had said. Sunny wouldn’t have covered for him, not on something like this. Maybe not at all, anymore.
“Do you think it’s better to mow down innocent people, disposing of their bodies on a mountain and in the sea?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Keep that up and damn straight you won’t be arguing with me because you’ll be dead. If that damn deputy had done his job right you would be taken care of already, just like he took care of your friends on the mountain. I have that kind of power you know—to decide who lives and dies. Which makes me wonder why you would risk pissing me off.” His eyes narrowed, his Beretta raising back to point dead center at her head.
The feel of cold steel pressed against her skin was an effective reminder of her need to stay calm in the face of hearing how coldly he’d ordered Deputy Smith to execute so many of her friends. To execute her. She needed to think, to stall.