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“If you did, I swear, I’ll kill you.”

“Tough talk considering the situation.”

“You bastard!”

“Sticks and stones, baby,” he spat. “Sticks and fuckin’ stones!”

“This is the way? You’re sure?” Nate demanded as the truck roared down a gravel road.

“I–I think so.” Dani had only traveled down it twice. As the Beast had driven her from the cabin, she’d tried to memorize landmarks. There had been a big rock that had stuck out in the road, a boulder, and she’d seen that, and then a tree split and charred by lightning at a fork. She’d pointed out the way, but it was so dark…

“It’s all right,” her father said, but she knew it wasn’t; knew that her birth mother’s fate relied on her memory.

“And the road doesn’t even go up to the cabin.” She swallowed hard. “How are we going to find the cabin in the dark?”

“Atlas will help us,” Nate said. “He’ll find her.”

Staring through the bug-spattered windshield, Dani hoped he was right.

Adrenaline surged through Shannon. Again she strained at her bonds. Was it her imagination or did they slip just a fraction more?

He walked to the fireplace. Slowly he picked up the framed pictures that had been resting atop the mantel, items she hadn’t noticed until now. He fanned them and waved them in front of her face.

She blinked at the pictures and a new terror rose in her.

“Recognize everyone?” he asked.

“My family?” she said, aghast. What now?

“All that count.” A muscle worked along his gleaming jaw. “Shit! I’d planned to kill them first but that damned kid…I couldn’t stand another minute with her, so I had to go after you. She was the bait.”

She remembered seeing the girl during the fire. Silently, she prayed for her safety. “She wasn’t part of this. Whatever it was you had against us, my daughter wasn’t a part of it!”

“But your brothers were part of it. Every last one of them wanted me dead. Didn’t care how I died or how much pain I had to endure.” With a deft turn of his wrist, he flipped Aaron’s picture into the grate.

Glass shattered. Sprayed. The fire hissed angrily.

Shannon yanked at her bonds the brief second his head was turned. Her forearms ached from the strain, but she was certain the restraints gave a bit more. Crackling flames consumed Aaron’s image.

Another flip of Ryan’s wrist. Robert’s snapshot hurtled into the fireplace to smash against the burning logs.

Shannon pulled on her restraints some more.

Crash!

Tiny, glittering shards of glass spewed onto the floor, reflecting the fire’s glow. They sizzled and she thought about the gasoline. So volatile…Where the hell was it? She didn’t dare ask, didn’t want him to know her fear. Dear God…was that another line on the floorboards? Had he soaked the tinder-dry wood with the incinerant?

Ryan tossed another picture, this one of Oliver, into the flames. Smack! Again the glass splintered, the fire roiled, surging furiously, sparks rising.

Shannon twisted her wrists against the biting cords. She saw that Ryan intended to kill her with the same fire devouring the photos of her brothers. It was some symbolic thing, the same with his nakedness. Part of the ritual to destroy her family. Her gaze darted around the tiny cabin with its plank walls and broken windows. Dry as a bone, it would, if lit, become a horrifying inferno. And her clothes would go up instantly.

“No way out,” he said, taunting her, as if he’d read her thoughts.

God, he loved this. Torturing her. Making her twist in the wind. Just as he’d enjoyed killing them all. First Neville, then Mary Beth and Oliver. If he’d planned it right they all would have died…

You can still do it…you still have time…but first just kill Shannon. Remember what she did to you. How she set you up with the police. Show her no mercy. Kill her. Now. Do it!

He licked his lips in anticipation, felt that familiar buzz, the rush of the act. It was time. Sex would be good.


Tags: Lisa Jackson West Coast Mystery