Lucy stopped struggling. “Trevor is going to kill Dillon. You have to let me go. Please.” Her voice quivered in panic and fear.
Kate’s heart pounded. “You mean Adam Scott?”
“Right, Adam. He has Dillon.”
“How do you know?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw Jack run from the Kincaid house, gun drawn. He saw her and Lucy and made a beeline for them.
“I saw. He called me.”
“Adam Scott called you?”
“Yes. Thirty minutes ago. My time is almost up. He’s going to kill Dillon! I have to save him.”
“Why do you think Adam Scott has Dillon?” Kate asked as Jack stood next to them, his eyes scanning the area. Her entire body tensed. If it was true…
“My phone.”
Kate loosened her hold on Lucy, who reached into her pocket and handed Kate her phone. Kate opened it, looked at the last message sent.
Dillon, shirt and face bloodied, handcuffed to a bed.
“Get her inside,” Jack said.
“Come on, Lucy. Let’s go inside.” Kate helped her up.
“No! I’m supposed to be at Dillon’s house right now! I’m going to be late.”
“Is Dillon there?” Kate asked.
“He said he’d contact me when I got there.”
“This is Dillon’s house,” Jack said. He pointed to the nightstand. “That’s Justin, our nephew, in the photograph on the nightstand.”
Scott had contacted Lucy at 4:50 that afternoon. He had probably been waiting for Dillon when he arrived home.
It was 5:20 p.m.
Kate stood. “This is going to end right now. I’m going.”
“No,” Jack said. “He’ll kill you.”
“Not right away.” She stared at Jack. “You take Lucy back to the house. I’ll go in.”
“No way am I letting you go without backup.”
Jack was right. “Okay,” she agreed. “I need a layout of Dillon’s house.”
“Let’s go inside and talk to my dad. I’ve never been in Dillon’s house.”
And at this moment, Kate knew Jack regretted it.
Inside, Dillon’s father, Pat Kincaid, drew a makeshift blueprint while Kate called Quinn and told him what had happened. He was calling in a local SWAT team.
Kate looked at Pat’s drawing. “Are these two the only doors?”
Pat nodded. “Front and back. The back leads right into the kitchen. The dining room separates the kitchen from the living room, then there’s a short hall here, his office here, a bathroom, and his bedroom here.”
His bedroom was in the rear of the house.
“Where are the windows?”
Pat drew them in. “Three, one large window on this wall, and two narrow windows on either side of the bed.”
“I’m going to the front door. Alone. He won’t let me in if he sees anyone. Jack, as soon as Dillon is alone in the bedroom, you go in through this window”-she indicated the one in the rear-“and get him out.”
“What about you?” Jack said. “You can’t go in there unarmed, and he’s not going to open the door without a hostage.”
“He’s cocky. I keep my hands up, he’ll open the door to me. Or unlock it. We can wait for the SWAT team to get into place, but I don’t think we have that much time.”
“You think he’s going to kill Dillon?” Pat said somberly.
“As soon as Dillon is of no benefit, yes. But right now he’s safe. Without a live hostage, Scott knows he can’t win.”
Lucy’s cell phone rang. It sat in the middle of the table.
Kate caught her eye. “Answer it. Tell him your brother Jack is sitting outside your bedroom door and you can’t get out. Buy time.”
Lucy nodded, shaking. She answered the phone.
“Hello.”
“You’re late.”
“Jack is sitting outside my door. I can’t get out.”
“Climb out the window.”
“I’ll try, but-”
“Five minutes or Dillon is dead.”
Suddenly, an earsplitting scream came from the phone. Kate sucked in her breath.
Dillon.
Then another scream.
Dillon sat on his hand to stop the bleeding. He’d been dizzy for a minute, the pain clouding his thoughts. But he had to push past it. The worst of the pain was gone, only a violent throbbing in his palm that reminded him of the unexpected attack. It matched the throbbing in his thigh.
Scott had left the room as soon as he pulled the knife from Dillon’s hand. Dillon had never felt so helpless in his life. Was Lucy going to walk into the trap?
Stay away, Luce. Don’t do it. Don’t worry about me.
He’d find a way out. He had to.
He pulled at the handcuff, but his hand was too big to slip out. He had nothing but books in his nightstand drawer. No paperclips or pins to try and pick the lock. Not that he’d be able to use his left hand. Already his fingers were numb and felt thick. The tendon may have been severed.
But that was the least of his problems.
He looked around his spare room. If Lucy came, Scott had to have some other place to take her. He wouldn’t keep her here-someone would eventually come to the house, looking for him or Lucy. If Lucy didn’t come, as soon as he was missed tonight Jack or Kate would call or come by.
Scott wouldn’t kill Lucy, at least not right away. She had become Monique, the girl he’d killed all those years ago. But Kate? She stood no chance against Scott’s rage. Scott viewed her as his personal demon in the flesh, the woman he had to destroy to regain control of his life. It wasn’t logical to anyone but Adam Scott, but Dillon saw Scott’s twisted reasoning. He prayed Kate didn’t come looking for him.
As for him, Dillon knew he could die and Adam Scott wouldn’t feel an ounce of remorse.
Kate called Quinn from her cell phone while Jack drove his SUV the long way to Dillon’s house, parking around the corner so if Scott were looking he wouldn’t see them.
“We’re in place,” she told Quinn. “He gave Lucy five minutes. It’s already been four.”
“He’s not going to kill Dillon. That was a threat to get Lucy to move.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He needs a hostage, Kate. Don’t be reckless. SWAT ETA is three minutes.”
“Dillon’s already injured, Quinn. I can’t let him bleed to death. I’m going. I’ll count on SWAT being in place.”
“Kate-”
Kate slammed her cell shut, looked at Jack. “Ready?”
He nodded. He was letting Kate approach first. Then he’d go through backyards into Dillon’s, go directly to his bedroom and get him out.
Kate had a knife and a gun. She would kill Adam Scott without hesitation if she could. But first she had to assess the situation. Scott loved explosives. She wouldn’t put it past him to wire the entire house and blow them all up.
No, he wouldn’t kill himself. He was much too arrogant for that. That knowledge could buy her some time.
She pushed the fear that Dillon was seriously injured-or dead-from her mind. The scream had been sudden, brutal, solely to torment Lucy and force her to act. Scott would kill Dillon, but not until he had another hostage.
She took a deep breath and walked up the porch steps. She saw movement behind the blinds and resisted the instinct to draw her gun.
The door opened before she knocked, a gun aimed at her chest.
Adam Scott, the man she’d dreamed of confronting for the last five years, stood there, surprise on his face.
He had darkened his hair, wore brown contacts to hide his ice-blue eyes, probably to elude security when he left Seattle. But face-to-face, there was no doubt that this was the man who had shot Evan and kidnapped Paige. This was the man who had killed an innocent woman Saturday night because he couldn’t kill Lucy. This was the bastard who was holding hostage the man she loved.
She itched to shoot him. Only days ago she would have lunged at him, knowing she’d die at the same time he did.
But today she had a future and she wasn’t willing to sacrifice herself without a fight. Yet there was no way she was letting Adam Scott walk out of this house alive.