“Help’s on the way,” he added as he pulled her straight ahead. They didn’t trip on any furniture, so yes, the guy must be seeing like a cat. “We just need to stay calm until they arrive.”
She was calm, eerily so. They’d gone into the hallway, away from all the windows. She could hear the sound of her heartbeat filling her ears. It wasn’t fast. Just a dull thud. “He used a bomb before,” she whispered. “How do we know he isn’t planning the same thing right now? While we’re hiding in here, he could be out there, setting this whole place to blow. We could get trapped inside.” And burn to death.
She felt him stiffen beside her. “Well, damn, that’s not a good option,” he muttered. “Okay, stay here. I’m going to see if I can get a visual on him outside. I’ll figure out just what the perp is doing. If we need to make a run for it, we will.” Then he pushed a gun into her hand.
“No,” Elizabeth began. “You need—”
“I’ve got a second weapon in my ankle holster. Trust me, I believe in always being prepared.”
Her fingers curled around the gun. She hadn’t held a gun in years. Not since Nate and that cabin.
“Stay here. When I come back, I’ll give a low whistle so you know it’s me.”
Elizabeth nodded. So I know it’s you and I don’t shoot.
She really didn’t have plans to shoot Mac’s brother.
His hand squeezed her shoulder. “I won’t go far.” Then he was sliding away, moving soundlessly in a way that she wished she could mimic. The same way Mac moved. Her fingers curled around that gun. It was oddly heavy in her grasp, and she remembered the hours she’d spent in that little closet, tensing at every sound, wondering if the attacker would come for her at any moment.
Wondering if—
Gunfire blasted. A hard, fast thunder, and Elizabeth sucked in a sharp breath. She wanted to scream out for Grant, but—
He whistled.
She lowered her gun, only aware then that she’d lifted it and aimed at the darkness. “Grant?” Elizabeth whispered.
“He’s coming in. That was Mac’s back door being blown to hell. He’s in the house.”
In the darkness. Hunting.
“He’s here,” Grant said, “and we’re stopping him. Our advantage is that he may not know I’m here. I parked my car down the road a bit. I stuck to the shadows when I came to the house. If he thinks it’s just you—” his voice was a bare breath of sound “—then he isn’t going to be ready for us when we both attack.”
Attack. Right. She knew they didn’t have a choice. They had to fight. Maybe even kill. If they didn’t, they would be dead.
I can’t let Mac’s brother die.
There were no more blasts from the killer’s gunfire. Just an eerie silence that seemed to stretch too far.
Then...
“Elizabeth...” the killer’s voice called from the darkness. “This time, I can’t let you live.”
She shuddered and lifted her gun. And this time, I won’t let you get away.
* * *
HE COULDN’T DRIVE fast enough. Mac’s foot slammed the gas pedal into the floorboard, and he raced through a yellow light. He’d been the one to leave Elizabeth; it had been his mistake. He’d thought that the cops would catch the killer.
I was wrong.
“Slow down, man,” Sullivan ordered as he gripped the dashboard. “If we get in a wreck, you’re not going to be able to help her.”
And if he didn’t get back to that house, he wouldn’t be able to help her, either.
“Grant is there,” Sullivan added. “You know the man understands how to take care of a threat. Trust him.”
He did trust Grant. But he also didn’t know who they were dealing with. A professional killer, yes—but just how much experience did the guy have? Was he ex-military, too? They already knew the guy could wire a bomb, could shoot well, was deranged enough to take a cop hostage...
A guy like that...there is no predicting what he’ll do. Lives obviously didn’t matter to him. Not at all.
“You heard him,” Mac snapped. “He said he’d take out any collateral damage. Grant is in his way. He might just go through our brother in order to get to Elizabeth.”
And he couldn’t get there soon enough. Mac locked his jaw and tried not to think of that killer shooting his brother—or Elizabeth.
I’m coming, baby. I’m coming.
* * *
“ELIZABETH, WHY DO you like to hide from me?” His voice was close, and she knew he was in the den. Soon enough, he’d be heading for the hallway. The guy hadn’t turned on any lights, and she wondered just how the hell he could be navigating so well in there. He and Grant—what was up with them?
“These games bore me,” he added.
Her lips pressed together. Then stop playing them.
Grant’s hand brushed against her side. She knew he was trying to reassure her, but she didn’t feel particularly reassured. It was so dark, and that guy was creeping ever closer. She was afraid the gunfire would start, and she knew she was supposed to shoot in order to defend herself. But...
I can’t see. What if I hit Grant? What if—
“Do you like the dark, Elizabeth?”
Grant put his mouth to her ear. “I’m going after the bastard.”
No, no, that was not a good plan. She tried to grab him, but he slipped away.
“I like the dark,” the killer continued, his voice carrying easily. She reached out, trying to touch Grant, but he wasn’t there. Her hand hit a door—Mac’s bedroom door. She’d been in that room with Mac hours before, her body alive with passion and need.
But she’d turned away from him. Played it safe.
Now she could be dying.
I should have held on to him. I should have taken everything he had to give me.
Instead of being afraid. Always afraid.
“Can I tell you a secret?” the killer’s voice boomed. “I don’t mind the dark...because I can see every single thing.”
He could—
Night vision. Oh, crap, wasn’t that what soldiers used on missions? Hunters? He’d killed the lights so they’d be his blind prey, and all along...
He can see.
“Grant, no!” Elizabeth yelled.
Gunfire thundered once more. She heard a groan. Someone had been hit. But was it Grant or the killer? She stepped forward, and she wasn’t calm any longer. Her racing heartbeat shook her entire chest.
She needed Grant to whistle.
He wasn’t. “Grant?”
“Grant can’t talk right now,” the killer said. “But I’m here.”
She wondered if the killer was staring straight at her. Was he already at the end of that hallway? No, no, if he was there, he would have shot her already.
You can’t just stand there. You’re a target.
Her left hand slapped out and hit Mac’s bedroom door. She opened that door, rushing inside. There was light there, trickling in faintly from the blinds. This side of Mac’s house faced the street, and the lone streetlamp out there was giving her a little illumination. If she could get the killer to come into the room, she could see him. She could shoot him.
“Elizabeth! How many others have to die before you just let me do my job?”
He sounded so angry. What the hell. She was angry, too. “Come and get me!” Elizabeth yelled, wanting him to stay away from Grant. Grant can’t be dead. He can’t. “Come and get me!” This time, her yell was even louder.
And she heard the frantic thud of his footsteps as he raced down the hallway. Only, he didn’t get far. There was a loud crash, as if his body had hit the floor. A gunshot blasted, and he screamed in fury.
She rushed back to the bedroom door, squinting against the darkness in the hall.
&nbs
p; A whistle filled the space.
“Takes more than that,” Grant snarled, “to stop a McGuire.”
She kept her fingers around the gun and slid into the hallway.
Chapter Seven
Mac braked in front of his house and saw the flash of police lights behind him. He’d beat the cruisers there; not a good sign. He’d needed them to already be in the house.
He ran toward his home. All of the lights were out. They shouldn’t have been out. The house was pitch-black. He grabbed for the doorknob, but it was locked. He didn’t even waste time trying to find his key; he just kicked in that door.
“Elizabeth!” Mac roared her name. The house was dark, like a yawning cave, and he slammed his hand on the light switch, but nothing happened.
Then the cops were behind him, shining flashlights into his home. He saw a body slumped near his hallway. A man’s body.
Not Grant.
Mac lunged forward just as Grant and Elizabeth emerged from the hallway. The flashlights hit them, and Mac noticed the blood on Grant’s shoulder.
He also saw that—
“Drop your weapons!” the uniformed cops yelled as they burst around Mac.
“That’s my brother!” Mac shouted back at them. “He’s not the enemy! It’s the guy on the floor that’s the attacker!”
The guy who could be dead. Or who could still be a threat. Mac wasn’t sure yet. He needed to get across that room and get to Elizabeth, but the cops were all in battle mode, and they were in his way.
Grant dropped his weapon. “You need to secure that man,” he called out. “He’s not dead.”
Just as Grant said those words, the guy jumped to his feet. He had a gun out, and he was aiming at Elizabeth.
“No!” Mac shoved the cops out of his way.
Elizabeth had a gun. He hadn’t even noticed it before, but she had the gun aimed at the man who was lunging for her.
“No more games,” Elizabeth said. She fired.
The bullet slammed into the man, hitting him right in the chest. But he didn’t fall. She shot him again—
Still on his feet.
Grant pushed Elizabeth back, because the attacker was preparing to fire his weapon—
The cops were yelling for everyone to freeze, to stand down—
Gunfire. Thundering all around him. And the jerk still was standing.
Mac slammed into the killer, tackling him hard the way he used to do to the opposing team in high school. They crashed to the floor, and something fell off the guy’s head. Looked like some kind of goggles—night vision, tricky SOB.
The killer tried to bring up his gun, but Mac pounded the fellow’s wrist against the floor, and it fell from his fingers. Then Mac drove his fist into the guy’s gut.
What the hell? He hadn’t made a hard impact, because the man was wearing a heavy vest. A bulletproof vest. The perp had come well prepared.
The killer’s cold laughter filled the room.
The gunfire had stopped. The cops had closed in, and one had his weapon aimed at the attacker’s head.
“A bulletproof vest won’t save you from a bullet between the eyes,” Mac snapped at him.
The laughter slowly faded. The flashlights poured onto them. The killer still had a twisted smile on his lips when he said, “I always finish my jobs.” The man stared up at him—and the fellow didn’t look like a cold-blooded assassin. The guy appeared...normal. Slightly balding, with a weak chin and small eyes. His face was stark white in all of those lights, and his body was slight, almost thin.
Yeah, the guy looked normal all right, and that normalcy had probably helped him over the years. A professional killer who blended right into the background. Deadly SOB.
Mac rose to his feet. Grant and Elizabeth were standing close by, a cop shielding them. “Not this time,” Mac told the killer. “This time the only thing you’re going to do is rot in jail. You aren’t going to hurt anyone else.”
The cops rolled the guy over and cuffed him. While one of the uniformed officers patted the perp down, searching for weapons, Mac turned to Elizabeth and Grant. His gaze went to Elizabeth first, and he had to touch her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, needing to feel her against him. Alive. Safe.
His body shuddered as he held her.
The killer had come so well prepared...night-vision goggles, a bulletproof vest. He’d been determined to eliminate Elizabeth.
Mac’s hold tightened on her. “You’re safe now.”
But...
Was she? Really?
Because the person who’d hired the killer was still out there. The one who’d set this nightmare in motion was hiding somewhere in the shadows.
“Your brother’s hurt,” Elizabeth whispered.
Mac pulled back and glanced at Grant.
His eldest brother gave him a grim smile. “Barely a flesh wound. Figured out a little too late that the fellow came prepared for the dark. I dove to the side right before he fired.”
Sullivan had also closed in on them. “Scarlett is going to give you hell over that,” he said, referring to Grant’s wife. “You know she doesn’t like it when you get hurt.”
But Grant just shrugged. “She will, but that’s just what I love about her.”
Love. Grant talked about love so easily, but once, he’d tried to keep a cold distance between himself and everyone else around him...until Scarlett had punched right through his defenses.
The way Elizabeth is punching through mine.
He hadn’t let her go yet. He just didn’t want to stop touching her. She was warm and safe in his arms. And he needed to stay with her.
He had been too afraid.
The cops were hauling the killer out of Mac’s house. The lights were still out, but the flashlights were shining in every direction. Mac and Sullivan helped Grant outside, making sure that Elizabeth stayed close. When they cleared the house, he saw the chaotic scene outside with mild surprise. He’d been so intent on getting to Elizabeth that he hadn’t realized a full-on cavalry had come to the rescue.
Half a dozen police cars were outside his house, and two ambulances waited close by.
“We’ve got a man who needs help!” Captain Howard’s voice bellowed when he saw Grant. “EMTs!”
And then Ben Howard was in front of Mac and his brothers.
“Quite the scene,” Sullivan murmured. “Didn’t expect such a large, uh, tactical response.”
“That perp took one of our own. He nearly killed her.” Howard’s voice was low with a lethal fury. “We were taking him down tonight.”
While an EMT directed a protesting Grant toward an ambulance, Mac glanced over and saw the killer being loaded into the back of a patrol car.
“This time, it’s him,” Elizabeth whispered.
Mac frowned.
“He goes in the back of the car,” she added, her gaze on the man who’d tried to destroy her. A ghost from her past. “And I get to walk away.”
* * *
THEY SPOKE TO the cops for hours. Mac watched his house become crime scene central. There were questions, dozens of them—again and again.
They didn’t have many answers. It was the man in custody, the hired killer; he’d be the one with the answers.
If the guy talked.
When the police finally released Mac and Elizabeth, when the darkness had faded and light was slipping across the sky, he took her to the one place where he thought they could have some much-needed privacy. And safety.
The McGuire ranch.
His brothers—Davis and Brodie—had been working to remodel the ranch for a while. Those two had always loved that place. After their parents’ deaths, Mac hadn’t wanted to be anywhere near that spot. Once, he’d been happy there.
But killers had taken that happiness away.
Now, though, things were different. His brothers and his sister had worked so hard to make new memories for all of the McGuires. So when he drove onto the ranch land, he didn’t feel the familiar weight of sadness fill him.
But he did feel peace.
“Are you sure it’s okay for me to stay here?” Elizabeth asked from the passenger seat. “I can go back home or check into a hotel.”
He didn’t want to let her go—not yet. Not when they still didn’t know who’d ordered the hit on her. She was exhausted, had dark circles under her eyes, and a fine tension shook her body. In the past twenty-four hours, they’d both maybe grabbed an hour or two’s worth of sleep. They needed to crash—and crash hard.
Since his place still had crime unit crews collecting evidence...the ranch was their best bet for a haven. “It’s more than okay,” Mac assured her. “We’ll be using the guesthouse. No one is there, so you’ll have plenty of privacy.”
“I, um, I got your older brother shot. I don’t think your family is going to be real happy—”
“You didn’t get him shot. Some crazy hired killer did that. You were the one firing that gun you held to protect Grant. No one in the family is going to blame you for anything.” If someone sent her so much as a cross look, they’d be dealing with him.
She was silent then, and he cast a quick glance her way. Elizabeth was gazing out the window, her expression wistful. “It’s really beautiful here. I can’t imagine what it must have been like growing up in a place like this.”
He looked out the window. The ranch was beautiful. There were horses running behind the fence—that would be because Davis’s soon-to-be wife, Jamie, was a vet who loved horses. She’d gotten Davis to buy more recently, and they were beauties.
The land rolled gently, and as the drive snaked to the left, he saw the lake. When he’d been a kid, he had gone fishing out there so many times. Often, he’d snuck away with his sister, Ava. He’d always had a special bond with her. Whenever Ava had looked at him, he’d seen love in her eyes.
She and Mom...they always looked at me that way.