“It’s not an excuse.”
“Why did you come back to Dark Canyon? That was you in Colorado driving the black Ford. Why risk going to jail to return here?”
“I told you. You’re coming with me.”
“Why?” she snapped.
“You haven’t repaid your debt to me, Haseya,” he said. She could see through his calm, his cynicism, to the madness underneath. It lurked there with tentacles ready to drag her under. He raised the knife and stalked over the carpet between them…into the nail gun’s range.
She raised it, aimed at the center of his chest, pressed the trigger…
Nothing happened. The battery was dead. He kept coming.
No.She would not be dragged out of this house against her will. He did not get to decide how her part in this ended.
She danced back at the first swipe of the hunting knife, then swung the nail gun—all ten pounds of it—at his face.
Chapter 18
Nick pulled up to Sassy’s house to find a squad car already there, lights flashing. Her neighbors stood outside in a cluster, each one holding a little girl. “What’s happening?” he asked, getting out of his truck. Riot barked incessantly from the passenger’s seat, but Nick left the windows rolled down slightly and closed the driver’s door.
“Not sure,” the man said. “The officer told us not to approach the house.”
“I hope everything’s okay,” the woman added, concerned.
The wail of an ambulance preceded the van as it rolled to a stop on the curb. Perez and Dilinger jumped out. “Nick!” Perez called. “Dispatch said someone’s down inside the house. Is Sassy okay?”
Nick didn’t stop to answer. With the sounds of Riot’s panicked barking chasing him, he hurdled a hedge and charged the open front door. “Sassy?” he called.
The tracks were easy to find. He followed them from the living room down the hallway to the master bedroom, urgency and anxiety pent up inside him.Someone’s down, Perez had said.
Someone.
He entered the room to find Officer O’Connell crouched next to a body. For a second, Nick’s heart racked his ribs painfully. Then he blinked, scanning the figure with more clarity. Ryder.
Ryderwas down. Blood marred the whole right side of his face. A blood-tinged knife lay next to his form along with a cordless nail gun.
Nick’s gaze lingered on the knife. “What happened here?”
O’Connell blew out a breath. “She pegged him with the nail gun. The bleeding’s slowed, but the man’s out cold.”
Perez rushed in after Nick, crowding him against the wall. “Is he breathing?” she asked.
Dilinger joined the fray, but Nick had already tuned them out. He’d found the trail of blood across the floor to Sassy’s bed.
His breath backed up in his lungs. There was blood in her sheets. It was wet and vibrant, red and fresh. Fresh blood on Sassy’s bed…
“Where is she?” he heaved, whirling on O’Connell.
He pointed to the cracked door of the walk-in closet. “I couldn’t get her to come out.”
Nick passed through the door and found Sassy sitting against the wall, her knees high, her arms full of Maine coon.
Her wild eyes swung to him, glazed with shock. “Nick?”
“You’re all right,” he blurted, bracing his hand against the wall when his knees softened in relief.
“He tossed her in the hamper and closed the lid,” she cried. “Whodoesthat?”
