Carolyn shook her head rapidly.
“You have to. He’ll go after you and I can get the gun. I know how to use it. I won’t miss. It’s the only way I can think of to end this. Unless you want me to run and you get the gun.” Lucy didn’t like that idea at all. “Do you know how to use a gun?”
Carolyn’s bottom lip quivered and she shook her head.
“Please, Carolyn.”
There were footsteps running down the stairs, from the second floor to the first. Carolyn whimpered and crawled back to her corner.
Lucy braced for Miller to burst through the door and hurt her again. But he didn’t.
Then there was silence. That scared Lucy even more.
I stand by the front door. How long I am here, I do not know, but I stand and wait. A sentry. Protecting my women from predators. I wait. I listen. My eyes are closed because they will deceive me.
Listen.
CREAK.
Someone is on the porch.
I open my eyes. The sky is gray, the mist settling into my valley, so I can see only the faint outline of the barn. The snow covers the ground so evenly, so perfectly, that I see every imperfection.
The deep trail left from when I brought the disobedient female back to her cage. My earlier footprints to and from the barn.
I carefully walk around to the back of the house. I look out through the crack where the drapes meet. A set of footprints across the fresh snow, from the woods to my house. There’s a second trail farther out. I see no one.
But I hear a footfall.
CREAK.
I aim toward the sound and fire through the window.
FORTY-FOUR
Kate fell and crawled to the far end of the porch. Sean swore silently as he dove into the snow. Kate gave him a hand signal that she was all right, but Sean knew she’d been hit.
Sean moved as fast as he could through the snow, around the edge of the house, the porch blocking his body from view, but he didn’t go up the front steps. Instead, he pulled himself over the railing at the corner and flattened his body against the side of the house. He peered through a crack in the blinds and saw Miller standing by the back door, looking out through the drapes, toward where Kate had gone.
Sean bent low and walked silently to the front door. He carefully tried the knob. Locked.
In his earpiece, Hans said, “SWAT five minutes.”
Sean wasn’t going to risk responding and having Miller hear him. If he could get inside and to Lucy before SWAT set up, he could protect her and surprise Miller if he came down to the basement. He needed to get in.
Sean put his gun in his left hand, and with his right he quietly picked the lock. He prayed there was no interior dead bolt. He heard a faint click when the lock was sprung.
He waited, gun back in his right hand, and listened. He didn’t hear any movement. He pictured the interior of the house from where he’d observed it through the window. The entry area couldn’t be seen from the back door. If Miller was still there, Sean could get in. If not …
He whispered into his mic, “I need a distraction in the back.”
Hans responded. “Ten-four.”
A moment later a single gunshot went off from the trees where Hans and Dillon were. There was movement in the house—Miller ran past the front door and up the stairs.
Sean quickly opened the door and heard Miller running down the upstairs hall. A half-minute later he fired from an upstairs window.
Sean closed the door. “I’m in,” he whispered. “I’m going for Miller.”
“Negative,” Kate said.
Sean ignored her. Lucy was downstairs, Miller was upstairs. Sean was between them. Miller was the obvious target.
He flattened his back against the wall at the base of the stairwell. There was silence now, the final report of the rifle fading. Staying on the edge of the stairway, Sean started up, gun ready.
The staircase had a turn halfway up. Sean paused, then peered around the corner.
Clear.
He moved quickly, listening carefully, and suddenly Miller sprinted toward the end of the hall. Miller saw Sean at the same moment Sean said, “Drop it, Miller. Now.”
Miller dove through another doorway and Sean heard footsteps running downstairs.
Shit! There was another staircase.
Sean jumped over the stair rail and Miller shot at him from the kitchen. He missed, then reached for a door.
The basement.
Sean fired in rapid succession. He hit Miller in the hand and Miller dropped the gun.
Miller ran back the way he’d come. Sean said, “He’s on the move and injured.” Sean hesitated. He wanted to pursue Miller, but if he circled around, Miller might have yet another entrance to the basement. He would be leaving Lucy unprotected.
Sean opened the unlocked door and took one cautious step down. The basement was barely lit, faint light coming in from the narrow windows.
“Lucy?” he called, louder than he’d intended. Rescue operations might be part and parcel for the course in his brothers’ lives, but not his. He was the brains behind the operation, not the operative himself.
Except now he didn’t have a choice.
“Sean! Oh God, Sean!”
He closed the door at the top of the stairs so he’d know if Miller was coming through. He found the light switch, which lit only two fluorescent lights, one above the door and one in the center of the basement.
He saw the cage. And Lucy looking up at him through the bars.
Sean’s chest tightened with a rage so powerful he nearly stumbled as he ran down the stairs.
“Lucy!” He knelt next to her, and she reached out of the bars and grabbed his neck.
He kissed her, holding her face with one hand. Blood had dried on her cheek and matted her hair. She had a gash on her arm that looked deep, and her sweater was torn in multiple places. She was so cold, her entire body shaking. He looked at her bare feet; she had no shoes. He quickly took off his shoes and socks, and handed her his socks before putting back on his shoes.
“Where’s Miller?” Lucy asked as she pulled on the socks.
“I don’t know where he went. I shot him, but he ran to the back of the house. He’s not getting out without a confrontation—SWAT is almost here, and Dillon, Kate, and Hans are outside. But I need to get you out of the cage first.”
Lucy said, “And Carolyn.” She motioned toward the corner.
A blond woman stared at him with huge blue eyes. The resemblance to the younger Rosemarie Nylander, Miller’s ex-wife, was stunning.
Lucy said, “He really screwed with her head. This isn’t going to be easy.”
He assessed the combination lock on the cage door. He handed Lucy his lock pick and said, “Can you get out of the handcuffs?”
She nodded and started working on the cuffs.
Sean went over to the padlock. He put his ear to the lock and listened to the tumbler as he turned the knob.
“Sean, do you smell something?”
“Shh.” He had to concentrate or he’d miss the sound and feeling of the clicks.
One. A tumbler fell into place, and he turned the other way, all the way around, then listened very carefully …
Lucy freed herself from the handcuffs, then crawled over to Carolyn. “We’re leaving, Carolyn, and you’re coming with us. I won’t let him hurt you again.”
Sean focused on the lock … except he then smelled what Lucy had smelled.
He glanced up the stairs. Smoke billowed under the door. Then the lights went out. Lucy gasped and Carolyn whimpered.