No way was she going to be locked up in this tiny room with coral snakes and another copperhead and a dead body. No damned way! It didn’t matter that their venom might not kill her. She was not going to take that chance. As he chuckled at how clever he was, she reached into what was left of the sink, her fingers scraping around the rim until she touched the old pipe she’d seen the last time she was here.
Without thinking, she pulled it from the sink and, using all her strength, hurled the heavy elbow joint at his head.
Thud!
With a groan, he went down to his knees, the knife clattering out of his hand. Moaning, about to pass out, he reached for the knife.
She stomped his hand with the heel of her boot and grabbed the knife.
“Oooowwwweeee!” Camp let out a howl of pain guaranteed to wake the dead in five counties . Then she tried to climb over him, to get away, but his free hand grabbed hold of her injured ankle and he squeezed. Hard.
Pain splintered up her leg and she screamed.
“You little bitch!” He grabbed her other foot just as she felt something slither down her leg. “Aaawwwe!”hecried, and she knew one of the snakes had bitten him.
Good!
For good measure, she kicked his head, then scrambled forward.
Where the hell was Reed?
“C’mere!” Camp growled, rising to his feet again, ready to lunge.
Blam!
In a deafening flash of light, a gun fired, and Roland Camp, six-feet-five inches of muscle, bone, and hatred, jerked backward. He hit the bathroom wall. The entire cabin shook as he sank to the floor, a huge man caught in the light of his own flashlight as a growing red stain seeped through his jacket.
Nikki felt the urge to fall apart and sob in relief when she heard the footsteps approaching. “I thought you’d never get here,” she admitted, climbing to her feet and wanting nothing more than to fall into Reed’s arms.
“What took you so long?” She was hobbling forward and was surprised that he stopped to pick up the flashlight on the floor.
The muscles in her back tensed. Where were the other cops? The sirens? The team running through the house to secure the building?
“Nicole,” a female voice said, and it was tinged in disgust.
“Aunty-Pen?” Nikki was confused. What the hell was her aunt doing here and why did she . . . ?
The big man on the floor groaned.
“I heard his story,” Penelope said, the flashlight blinding, as it was now trained on Nikki’s face. “And he got it all wrong anyway. But then what can you expect from a cretin?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t,” Aunty-Pen said wearily, but with her trademark supercilious sneer.
“The gun? You have a . . . ,” Nikki stopped. “Why are you here? To meet Effie?” And then it hit her. This was all a setup. “You knew what would happen,” she whispered in disbelief. “You knew that Roland would kill her . . . and me.”
“Did you really think I didn’t know what you were doing, Nicole? That I didn’t see you skulking around my house, that I didn’t figure out that you were going to tell that little slut’s story? Like mother, like daughter, don’t you see?” She shifted slightly, and Nikki’s eyes, adjusting to the darkness, caught a glimpse of her in her suit and open-toed heels, the diamonds around her wrist catching in the flashlight’s beam. She’d been to the auction, of course, establishing her alibi.
“What are you getting at?” Nikki asked, hearing another groan behind her.
“And here you were supposed to be so smart. Blondell and your uncle? They weren’t fighting over her baby. The bastard was Alex’s, of course, and she was devastated that she’d lost it, but she was even more upset to learn that her own daughter was carrying his child.”
“What . . . no! Amity and . . .”
“Your dear, sweet Uncle Alex.”
Nikki’s stomach threatened to heave. All the conversations came back to her, about the older man, about a secret that would be life and death. Another wave of nausea hit her hard.