Eventually she’d have to deal with everything she’d seen and heard since waking in the warehouse, probably with the help of some nice therapist. Ronnie and his crazy belief he was her half brother. Baylor’s cunning treachery. The Kill Club. And the sight of Ronnie lying dead just a few feet away.
But for now, she couldn’t give in to panic.
Instead, she peeked around the edge of the cart, watching as Baylor tucked one of the guns into the waistband of his slacks before he reached into his pocket to pull out a disposable lighter.
“I know you can hear me,” he called out, clearly speaking to her and Griff. “You might as well come out. Unless you want to be burned alive.”
With a casual gesture he leaned down to touch the flame to the floor, which was covered in the turpentine he’d spilled. Fire danced toward the nearest stack of boards.
Griff reached out to grasp her upper arm, tugging her toward the aisle behind them. Blood rushed in her ears as she bent low and followed behind him. Then she silently cursed. She hadn’t counted on the fact that her legs would’ve stiffened up while she’d been crouched behind the cart.
Before she could warn Griff, she was stumbling to the side and slamming into the metal rack. It was enough to jolt a box of nails off the shelf. It hit the ground next to her feet, busting open.
In the silence of the warehouse, it sounded as loud as a bomb going off.
Carmen clenched her teeth as horror spread through her. She’d exposed their presence. Nothing she could do about that. There wasn’t anywhere to run. And nowhere to hide.
But even as she resigned herself to the inevitable, she abruptly realized that she could make sure Griff had the opportunity to escape. Not giving herself time to consider the consequences, she straightened and walked directly into the small clearing.
Baylor pivoted to face her, his gun pointed at her as his gaze darted over her shoulder.
“Ah. There you are, sweet Carrie,” he drawled, trying to hide his fear behind a smug bluster. “So kind of you to join me.”
She curled her lip in disgust. “You bastard.”
Circling the edge of the small fire that was thankfully producing more smoke than flames, he moved toward her, his gaze continuing to search the shadows behind her.
“Where is Griffin?”
She shrugged. “He got out through the loading dock.”
Baylor released a harsh laugh. “You’re not dealing with an idiot. I know your lover would never abandon you.” At last reaching her, Baylor wrapped an arm around her neck and stepped behind her, as if hoping to use her as a shield. Spineless coward. Then he pressed the muzzle of the gun to her temple. “Come out or I’ll put a bullet through her head,” he commanded in a loud voice.
“Don’t,” she instantly called out. “He’ll kill both of us anyway.”
Baylor’s arm tightened around her neck. “You should have stayed on the farm.”
A distant part of her knew she should be terrified. This man might be her cousin, but there was no doubt he was truly insane.
For now, however, she was just so damned angry.
This lunatic had used, abused, and murdered anyone who crossed his path. And for what? Ego? Greed? Perverted lust?
“So you could steal my inheritance?” she demanded, her voice harsh with scorn.
Behind her, she could feel Baylor stiffen. As if she’d managed to strike a nerve.
“It belonged to the family, not some spoiled little brat,” he snapped.
“Don’t you mean that it belonged to you?”
“I run the business.”
She released a sharp laugh. “Does Uncle Lawrence realize he’s no longer CEO?”
He used the arm around her neck to steer her toward the edge of the clearing, pressing his back against the nearest rack. Obviously, he realized that Griff was nearby with a gun pointed at his head. And that the second he had a clear shot, Griff would put a bullet through his brain.
Which meant he couldn’t kill her, right? Not as long as he needed her to protect his own pathetic life.
“I’m the future,” he boasted. “With me Jacobs Hardware can become a worldwide corporation.”
“You’re as delusional as Ronnie,” she charged.
Again she seemed to hit a raw nerve as Baylor sucked in a sharp breath.
“Don’t compare me to that pathetic psycho,” he warned.
Her gaze skimmed blindly from the smoldering fire toward the shadows across the clearing as the memory of what she’d overheard seared through her mind.
“Are you saying you didn’t kill those women?”
She felt him shrugging his shoulders. “It was necessary to play the game with Ronnie,” he drawled. “And I’ll admit there’s something satisfying in releasing my deepest lusts. It cleanses the soul and allows a man to return to civilized society with a sense of peace.”
Nausea rolled through her stomach. She still had nightmares from the pictures that had been sent to her. The thought that her own cousin had been responsible for torturing and murdering those poor women was inconceivable.
Had there been warning signs when he was young? Had he always harbored such wicked lusts? Or had his greed slowly corrupted his soul?
“Ronnie was sick,” she breathed. “You’re pure evil.”
He muttered a curse, the gun pressing hard enough against her temple to leave a bruise.
“Last chance, Griffin,” he called out, an edge in his voice warning that he was reaching a breaking point. “One. Two.”
Carmen squeezed her eyes shut. In the next few seconds, Griff was going to step into the clearing and be shot. Or she was going to have a bullet rip through her brain.
Neither option was something she wanted to watch.
It never occurred to her that there might be a third option. Not until she felt the raindrops that were spraying over her face.
At first she thought she must be dead. Why would it be raining in the middle of the warehouse?
Then she felt Baylor loosen his grip on her as he stumbled backward.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
Carmen opened her eyes and impulsively did a belly flop onto the hard floor. She landed with enough force to knock the air out of her lungs, but she barely noticed as the blast of a gunshot deafened her.
Blinking through the rain that continued to fall, she turned her head to watch as Baylor’s eyes widened. As if he’d seen something surprising. Then a trickle of blood flowed down his nose from the new hole he had in the middle of his forehead.
Carmen grimaced, jerking her gaze away as her cousin started to tumble backward. She didn’t need to check to see if he was dead. Instead, she frantically searched for some sign of Griff.
He was standing just a few feet away, his dark hair plastered to his head and his arm slowly lowering, with the gun held loosely in his hand.
He was pale and soaking wet, and he’d never looked more gorgeous. Jumping to her feet, Carmen wobbled across the suddenly slick floor and tossed herself into his waiting arms.
“Griff,” she breathed, pressing her face into his damp sweater.
He was alive. They’d survived both Ronnie and her crazy-ass cousin.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, laying his cheek on top of her head.
She was trembling so hard she was sure her knees were about to collapse.
“Why is it raining?”
He chuckled softly. “It’s the sprinkler system.”
“Oh.” She wrapped her arms around his waist. She dismissed the relentless water drops that fell from the ceiling. And the knowledge there were two dead men in the building. Right now nothing mattered but the fact she was in Griff ’s arms. “Hold me. Just hold me.”
“Don’t worry, Carmen, I’m never going to let you go,” he promised in low tones.
For long minutes they clung to each other, and then the sound of footsteps had them awkwardly pulling away to watch a slender man stumble out of the shadows.
Matthe
w.
He looked as bedraggled as Carmen and Griff, but there was a goofy smile on his face.
“I did it,” he announced with obvious pride. “I pressed the button.”
Epilogue
January 22, Louisville, KY
Griff did finally manage to join Rylan and Jaci to enjoy the holidays. It was a little belated, but with Carmen at his side, he’d never been so happy.
They’d also traveled to visit his grandmother, who’d smothered them with her special brand of affection. Carmen had slowly lost her pallor and the dark circles beneath her eyes had faded to mere smudges.
Griff wasn’t naïve enough to believe that she’d fully recovered from the trauma she’d endured. It might take months, if not years. But he could sense that she was starting to heal.
Best of all, she’d agreed to his demands that she allow him to travel with her during her upcoming book tour, and that when she was done, he insisted that she move into his home in California.
He’d leashed his urge to ask her to make their relationship official. Until she was strong enough to stand on her own two feet, he didn’t want to pressure her into something she might later regret. When she walked down the aisle toward him, he wanted to be sure it was because she shared the same overwhelming love he felt for her.
It was three weeks later when she abruptly announced that she’d been in touch with a real estate agent and was preparing to put her grandparents’ farm on the market. He’d merely nodded and made a few of his own phone calls. Then, loading their belongings in his rental SUV, he’d driven them from Iowa to Indiana, where a professional moving company was waiting for them at the farm, along with a couple of trusted security guards whom he ordered to remain hidden outside.
Although they’d already spoken with the cops, as well as given their statements to Nikki at the FBI, he wasn’t taking any chances.
Ronnie and Baylor, along with their Kill Club, might be dead, but that didn’t mean the danger was completely over. He wasn’t going to take any chances. Besides, he still had one task to complete before he could whisk Carmen back to California.
Brushing a kiss over Carmen’s lips as she directed the movers who were loading the furniture and the boxes she’d neatly packed, he’d promised he would be back by the end of the day and driven away from the farm.
He ignored the speed limit and arrived at the Jacobs Hardware headquarters in Louisville before lunch. Leaving the SUV in a loading zone, he strolled through the entrance, then headed toward the private elevator. He’d already hacked into the security system, which meant he could use his own passcode to unlock the elevator and head to the top floor.
His lips twitched as he walked through the hushed lobby that was decorated to look like an old English manor house. All dark wood and muted lighting.
He crossed the crimson carpet with a roll of his eyes, ignoring the elegant secretary who eyed him with open suspicion. He was wearing casual jeans and a leather bomber jacket and was three days past needing a shave. No doubt she thought he was a homeless man who’d wandered in off the streets.
“Can I help you?” she forced herself to ask, her voice as cold as her beautiful face.
He didn’t bother to answer, crossing directly to shove open the heavy walnut door. She called out, but he closed the door behind him and entered the office that matched the reception area.
His gaze landed on the older man who was standing next to the bank of windows that overlooked the river.
Lawrence Jacobs had aged over the past weeks. Griff could see added silver in his brown hair and a stoop to his square shoulders that hadn’t been there before. At his entrance the older man slowly turned, his pale eyes widening. Obviously, he’d assumed it was his secretary.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he rasped.
Griff reached to lock the office doors before casually strolling toward Lawrence.
“Clearing up the last of the mess.”
The man’s face darkened, genuine pain flaring through the pale eyes.
“Mess?” he rasped. “Is that what you call killing my son?”
Griff met his accusing gaze without flinching. He didn’t regret shooting Baylor Jacobs. Not when the younger man had tormented Carmen and then planned to kill her.
He’d do it again without blinking an eye.
“Would you rather that he was tried and convicted as a serial killer?” he demanded, strolling forward. “What about your precious Jacobs name?”
The square face paled at the direct hit. They both knew Lawrence would always put the reputation of his business before anything and anyone. Including his own child.
“Tell me what you want,” he snapped.
“The papers that you took from Carmen’s house.”
There was a shocked silence as Lawrence’s white face was suddenly tinted with a dark flush. If Griff had doubted his wild theory, he’d just had it confirmed.
Lawrence licked his lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Fine.” Griff shrugged, reaching into the pocket of his leather coat to pull out his phone. “We’ll let the cops sort it out.”
“Wait.” Lawrence took a step forward, a fine layer of sweat on his forehead. “If someone was at Carrie’s house, then it was probably Ronnie. Or even Baylor.”
“That was my assumption at first,” Griff admitted.
In fact, he hadn’t really thought about that particular incident. Not until he’d been sharing an early-morning conversation with Rylan as they’d sipped coffee and indulged in Jaci’s decadent blueberry muffins.
As the words had left his mouth, he’d been hit with a sudden revelation. One he hadn’t shared with anyone.
Until now.
“Then I realized that it didn’t make any sense,” he said. “Ronnie and Baylor were planning to murder Carmen. Why bother stealing anything?”
A nerve twitched next to Lawrence’s mouth. Griff wondered if the older man ever gambled. He had a terrible poker face.
“They were clearly unstable,” the older man tried to bluff. “Who knows what they were thinking?”
Griff shook his head. “No. They were already on their way to California when someone tried to ram Carmen and me into the river. Which leaves you.”
Lawrence cleared his throat, his gaze darting over Griff ’s shoulder as if wondering if he could make a run for it. At last realizing he was cornered like the proverbial rat, he hunched his broad shoulders.
“You have no proof.”
Griff heaved a deep sigh. Had the idiot forgotten that Griff had created an empire with his ability to either locate information or hide it?
“I could find the proof in less than ten minutes,” he said, holding up his phone. “Using this.”
Lawrence scowled. “How?”
“I would start with the car rental. Even if you used cash I could send a picture of you to the local rental agencies. Someone is bound to remember you,” he said with a shrug. “If they don’t, then one of the auto body shops close to Carmen’s farm certainly will. They’re too small not to remember a stranger coming in. And you most certainly had to get the vehicle repaired before driving it back to Louisville.” He paused, allowing his words to sink through the man’s thick skull. “I have the power and the resources to discover whatever I want.”
Lawrence clenched and unclenched his hands, the sweat starting to drip from his forehead.
“It was a moment of madness,” he finally burst out. “I swear I rented the SUV and drove to the farm just to see if Carrie was there.”
Griff folded his arms over his chest. “Why?”
“When you walked out before we could have Christmas dinner, I feared that you must have discovered something about the . . .” Lawrence’s words trailed away.
Griff studied him with a frown before he realized that the older man didn’t want to confess what was bothering him until he was sure that Griff already knew the full extent of his treachery.
“About the insur
ance policy you stole from your own niece?”
Lawrence flinched. Griff was guessing his unease was more from embarrassment at getting caught than any genuine sense of guilt.
“When I saw you leaving the farm, I decided to follow you.”
“So you could kill us?”
“No.” Lawrence held up a hand, trying to convince Griff of his sincerity. “I was in a panic. I wanted to see where you were going. I had a crazy idea that I could stop you from talking to the cops if I just explained about the money.”
Griff snorted with disbelief. He still remembered his horror as he watched the SUV hurtling toward them, knowing that Carmen might die if they went over the edge.
“You weren’t trying to talk to us,” he said in a voice that revealed his revulsion toward the older man. “You were trying to shove us into an icy river.”
Lawrence hunched his shoulders. “I told you. That was nothing more than a mad impulse. I saw you stopped in front of the bridge and my foot just hit the gas pedal. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until I felt the impact.”
Griff shook his head. There was no way he was going to let the man act as if attempted homicide was nothing more than a silly prank.
“A mad impulse is buying a jet ski,” he said in icy tones. “Or dying your hair purple. It isn’t trying to knock off members of your own family.”
Lawrence lowered his gaze, studying the tips of his expensive Italian leather shoes.
“I was going to lose everything.”
Griff rolled his eyes. Obviously, people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths had different morals than poor schmucks like him.
“The Jacobs family is quite a work of art,” he breathed.
“Don’t forget that Carrie is a Jacobs,” Lawrence ridiculously reminded him.
“Not for long,” he said.
Carmen might not have formally agreed to marry him, but Griff had no doubt that it was going to happen. Although he wasn’t the most handsome or charming man in the world, he did possess the sort of grim determination that meant he would never give up until he’d achieved his goal. That’s how he’d graduated top of his class despite the loss of his mother and the awkward years beneath his father’s roof. And how he’d convinced Rylan to go into business with him.