He stepped into the kitchen. “What—?”
“Don’t come any closer.” I held up the candlestick.
His gaze darted back to me, and he started to turn at the sound of high pitched sirens arriving out front. My gaze quickly moved over his face. Along the left corner of his mouth, the skin was pink—the tone an angry shade of pink, like he he’d been a recent fight. Too recent.
Horror exploded in my stomach as I stared at Gavin. Too many coincidences. My brain clicked off, and instinct roared to life—to protect Jensen, to protect myself. He started to take another step toward us and I swung. The base of the candleholder caught him in the side of the head. A look of surprise flashed across his face as he crumbled into the side of the fridge. Down for the count.
Gavin?
Something in my chest broke. The candleholder slipped from my fingers, clanging off the floor. Turning, I dropped next to Jensen. Through the tears, I could see that the rivet of blood along the side of his head had increased.
I didn’t know what to do, how to help him.
I smoothed my hand along his cheek, whispering his name, telling him that I loved him, over and over again.
The front door burst open, and officers piled into the kitchen within seconds. I looked up, my hands shaking. “Help him. Please.”
“Christ.” A younger officer knelt down on the other side of Jensen as he glanced to where Gavin lie. He hit a button on his shoulder radio as he checked for a pulse. I couldn’t bring myself to do that. “What’s the status on a bus?” he asked.
The static reply made no sense to me. “Is he alive?”
“I’ve got a pulse.” He looked over my shoulder. “What about the other one?”
“I got a pulse over here,” answered another officer.
I clutched at Jensen’s shirt. He was alive, but a hit to the head could be serious—could end up being fatal.
“What happened?” the officer demanded.
A tremor rocked my body. “We went outside. He was taking me to my dad’s, but we saw… we saw Brock’s body, so we called the police. They told us to wait inside and we did. But he…” I didn’t look at Gavin. I couldn’t let myself think about that right now. “But he was in here. Jensen tried to fight him off.”
“Okay. Do you know what he was hit with?”
I nodded at where the pan rested a few feet from the door. “I didn’t even see him grab it. It all happened so fast.”
It all had happened too fast.
The EMTs showed up after that. One of them grabbed my shoulders, physically moving me out of the way and putting me down in the chair. I couldn’t stay seated, so I stood, but I kept out of the way as they checked Jensen over. Another set worked on Gavin.
A stretcher was brought in. Words were spoken at a rapid pace. Jensen was loaded up and strapped in. An oxygen mask was placed over his pale face.
“Is he going to be okay?” I asked.
No one answered.
They started to wheel him out of the room, and I followed after them. When I reached the front door, Shaw blocked it. “Is he going to be okay?” I demanded.
“They’re going to take good care of him.”
That wasn’t good enough for me. “I need to be with him.”
“We need you here, just for a little while.”
“No.” I started to brush the hair back from my face, but saw that my fingers were covered in blood—Jensen’s blood. “Oh God.” I wiped my hands across my jeans, dragging in deep breaths. “I need to go see him.”
Shaw took my arm, pulling me outside as the EMTs came through with Gavin. The deputy’s gaze followed their progress, his face paling.
“I’m sorry. It was him,” I whispered, feeling sick even saying it. This whole time I never, ever thought it was him, couldn’t even wrap my head around it being Gavin. It didn’t make sense to me, but God, it hurt—cut so deep. “He showed up right after I thought the attacker disappeared. He pretended like he didn’t know anything, but I saw… it looked like he’d just be in a fight and Jensen was fighiting…” I trailed off, seeing Brock’s body in the tree. They hadn’t cut him down yet. I turned, squeezing my eyes shut.
He looked down at me, and I could tell he struggled with keeping his face blank. Gavin had been best friend for forever and we’d been closer, but he was also Shaw’s family. They weren’t close, but this had to be hard for him. “Is it possible Gavin ran into the attacker?” Shaw asked. “And fought him?”
“What?” I opened my eyes.
“That’s a possibility,” he clipped out. “Gavin could’ve been trying to protect you. God.” He scrubbed his hand through his hair. “This is going to kill his father—the whole family if it was him.”
“If?” I shuddered, shaking my head. “But…”
But it could be possible that it wasn’t him. Gavin did live right down the street, just like Brock lived next door to Linds. He could’ve randomly shown up. It wasn’t impossible and I… I had hit him pretty hard.
And that also would mean the killer could still be out there.
I don’t know how much time passed as I went through another round of questions. Jensen’s parents were notified, so they never showed up at the house. They’d gone where I wanted to be.
Finally, Shaw was ushering me off, toward his cruiser after he spoke with a couple of other officers. We reached his cruiser. I drew in a deep breath. “I want to go to the hospital.”
Shaw shook his head. “We need to get you someplace safe.”
“The hospital will be safe!” I dug in my heels. “I want to be with Jensen.”
He opened the door, pinning me with a look. A moment passed. “Fine. Just get in the car.”
“Thank you.” I could’ve hugged him. Kissed him.
I climbed into the backseat, wiping my hands against my jeans again. It felt like I couldn’t get the blood off.
Shaw didn’t say anything as he eased away from the curb and started toward King Street. When he made a left, I frowned.
“I thought we were going to the hospital.”
He didn’t answer.
I sat forward. Breathing heavy, I grasped the cage as I stared out the window. My thoughts whirled as I focused on Shaw in the front seat. Stopped at a red light, he sat there, grasping the steering wheel until his knuckles bleached white, and then he slowly, finger by finger, let go.
My fingers curled around the steel. “I want to go to the hospital. That’s where we’re going, right?”
“I’m not taking you to the hospital.”
“What?” I whispered.
“I’m surprised you lived on that street after everything. Wasn’t it hard?” he asked, his voice off.
I frowned at the strangeness of his tone, the absolute flatness.
The cruiser started forward again, traveling under the underpass. We could get to the hospital from here, but… “Considering how you want to move away from here, get away from all reminders of what happened four years ago, I’m surprised you just didn’t move in with your father when he left.”
My frown started to slip. “How… how do you know I want to move away?”
“Everyone knows that, Ella. You haven’t made it a secret.”
“It’s funny how people deal with things—stuff that they brought on themselves. Some think they have no fault, you know? None at all. They just keep doing what they do, blissfully ignorant. Others get angry.”
The next breath I took froze in my lungs. My fingers eased off the steel.
“And there’re people like you.” At another stoplight, he twisted around so he faced me. The oddness of his gaze stopped my heart. There was so much sorrow there. “So riddled with guilt that you can’t even say his name without wincing.”
“His name?” My pulse sped up.
His gaze met mine. “Penn.”
I drew back from the steel cage as I stared at him. Part of my brain was processing what was going down, knew what he was saying, what precarious position I was in, but
the other part flat out refused it. Couldn’t even wrap itself around the idea.
A sad, little smile appeared on his face, and then he made the low guttural sound that had haunted me from the first time I’d heard it. “I didn’t want to have to do this, Ella, but you leave me no other choice.”
“Shit,” I whispered.
Chapter 22
Oh, my God…
It was Deputy Shaw Jordan.
Part of me rebelled at the idea, but it was him. He was the monster. The killer among us. As I stared at him, pieces started to click together in a horrifying chain of connections.
Shaw had been one of the officers to respond to Penn’s house. He lived in this town, knew it inside and out. He’d been at the school when the bird had been placed in Wendy’s bag. He’d been at the warehouse when Jensen and I talked about me staying with Linds’. And had he been at school when the mask was placed in my locker, but how did he know to climb up my window? Unless he’d been watching and seen Jensen do it? And him being a cop? He knew how to get away with what he was doing, could hide evidence if there was any, but I didn’t understand. Why? Why would he do this? He was Gavin’s cousin, but why would he do this to us? I couldn’t think of a reason.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Over and over again, that one word replayed in my head as I reached for the door and realized there was no handle, no way out.
Shaw sighed, sounding tired. “You’re not escaping this time.”
This time.
The hairs rose all over my body as my head swung back to him sharply. Coldness pitted deep in my stomach. I was trapped.
“God, you walked right into it.” He shook his head slowly and then reared back, punching the steering wheel. “I didn’t want this to happen!”
I swallowed against the rapidly building nausea.
Lifting his hand, he wiggled his fingers as his attention flipped back to the house, back to where Gavin was. Oh God. Gavin. He was hurt—hurt badly, could be dead, and I… I had helped Shaw take him out.
He glanced back at me. “Thinking of Gavin, huh? You know, he was the only one out of you little shits that really cared about that kid. Who never screwed him over.”
My heart was beating fast now, trying to climb out of my chest. “We cared about Penn.”
“Sure seems like it.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why are you doing this?”
“Why?” he mimicked, and then turned back to the steering wheel.
Shaw didn’t answer. The cruiser lurched into motion, pulling away from the curb. I had to get out of here. That was the only thing I could focus on, but as I glanced around the dark interior, there was nothing back here I could use to break the window.
Nothing other than my feet.
Leaning back against the seat, I pulled my knees back and slammed my feet into the window. The thud sent a jolt up my legs, but the window didn’t give. I did it again, totally prepared to jump out of a moving car.
Shaw laughed without humor. “That’s reinforced glass, Ella. You aren’t going anywhere.”
I switched positions, pushing against the back of the seat. Pulling my knees back, I kicked the cage. The steel rattled, but like with the glass, nothing gave. I kicked it again, and then again.
“Knock it off,” he warned, glancing back at me as the houses sped by outside the cruiser. “You don’t want me to stop this car.”
Pulling the cruiser over would give me a chance to escape. That was my only opportunity, so I kicked the cage again and again, until my feet and knees ached.
At the red light, he reached down to his side, unhooked something, and a second later, a red dot appeared on my chest. I sucked in air, stilling.
“This is a taser,” he gritted out. “It won’t kill you, but it will hurt like hell. And if it makes it through the cage, you’re going to wish you listened to me. So stop.”
Shaking all over, I decided pushing it wouldn’t be wise. I’d never been tased before, but I’d seen videos, and it didn’t look fun. Not to mention, I had no idea how long the effects of a taser would last. I couldn’t risk being out of it when he opened the car door.
He had to open the car door at some point.
I settled down, conserving my energy. I couldn’t let myself think about Gavin or Jensen.
“That’s smart, real smart,” he murmured.
The desire to kick his head in was almost too much. Taking several deep breaths, I turned my attention to the window. The streets were virtually empty, lit by the streetlamps. I recognized where we were. Downtown. Ironically, we passed the police station.
It wasn’t long before we reached Rosemont Avenue. Confused, I twisted toward Shaw. Was he taking me back to my street?
Yes.
We drove down my street, passing my house by a block, and then he turned into a narrow alley I hadn’t gone down in years. Absolutely refused to go there, because it led to the back entrance of Penn’s house. Ice drenched my veins.
Shaw pulled the cruiser off the alley, tires crunching over gravel. The car crept under the carport that was still standing and virtually hidden by overgrown bushes and trees. No one would see the car, and as late as it was, I doubted anyone would even be up, let alone, looking out the back window, seeing through the jungle of overgrown branches and weeds.
“Why here?” I asked.
Shaw killed the engine. “It’s where it all began. Seems fitting that it’s where it all should end. When I’m done with you… well, that just leaves two more.”
Mason. Jensen.
I had no idea where Mason was, but oh God, Jensen would be in the hospital, virtually unprotected. No one would stop Shaw from walking in there, but there’d be witnesses. “You’re not going to get away with this.”
“That’s probably the most cliché thing people can say.”
“Others saw you take me!”
“I’ll say I dropped you off at your father’s. Then I’ll pay them a little visit.” He laughed again, the sound cold and flat. “Of course, I’m going to get away with it. Do you think I don’t know how to cover my tracks? Make a death look accidental or for some medical reason? That I don’t know how to do that?”
My heart stopped again. He was talking about my dad and Rose and Jensen.
“And up until ten minutes or so ago, you had no idea it was me.” A smirk curved across his face. “I will get away with it, and it’s not because I’m smart or a cop. It’s because I’m doing the right thing.”
“Doing the right thing? You’re killing people!”
“I’m cleaning up this damn mess.”
Cleaning up this mess? I wasn’t following.
“It is the right thing to do.” His brows rose and then he turned, opening the car door. “You do anything stupid, you’re going to regret it.”
My heart was back to pounding so fast I was worried about having a heart attack. I was planning a whole lot of stupid. I’d have only one chance to get free. My hands were shaking as he rounded the car, his form bulky and heavy in the shadows. He reached for the door.
I rolled onto my back as he opened it, kicking out with both of my feet. My sneakers caught him in the midsection. I don’t know if it was the impact, or simply surprise that I would attempt something, he stumbled several steps back, and I didn’t waste any time.
Survival was the only thing I could focus on. I wriggled out of the back seat, and the moment my feet hit the gravel, Shaw was right in front of me. I didn’t think. I swung from the waist, slamming my fist into the same area I’d kicked him—the solar plexus.
Shaw doubled over and I spun, opening my mouth to let loose an ear piercing scream. The sound tore through the night, but a hand clamped down on my lips, muffling the cry before it could gain any traction.