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Marilyn’s hand with the gun began to shake.
“Don’t listen to him,” Bree said. “You made the best decisions you could in the situation you were in. It doesn’t matter what happened then. It only matters what happens now.”
Jared took a step toward Marilyn. Bree wanted to grab her phone and call Tanner but knew there was no way he could get here in time, and she might distract Marilyn.
“If you take one more step, I’ll shoot you,” Marilyn said. But her voice was shaky. So very shaky.
“Come on now, sweetheart.” Jared took another step toward her. “We both know you used up all your bravery on that little self-defense move you pulled a minute ago. How about if our deal still stands? You leave with me now, and nobody gets hurt.”
Marilyn widened her stance and shook her head, her arm with the gun becoming steadier. “How about if Bree calls the police and you are out of my life for good? You’ll never have me again, Jared. That teenage girl you rescued from the trailer park? I’m not that same person. I know my value. And I’m way too valuable for someone like you.”
With a yell, Jared launched himself across the table, arm raised with the knife.
Marilyn didn’t hesitate. She fired a double shot to the chest.
Shock blanketed Jared’s features before he stumbled back and collapsed onto the couch.
Not a half second later both her front and back doors burst open, Tanner coming through the front, Noah the rear.
Bree just stared at him, the echo from the gunfire so close it caught her off guard. Processing seemed impossible.
Almost from a daze she saw Tanner checking for a pulse from Jared on her couch.
“He’s dead.”
It was Noah who came up to Marilyn and helped take the gun from her shaking hand.
Marilyn was staring at Noah with huge eyes. “You told me to attack at the beginning. That when he first saw me was my best chance for escape, but I froze. I froze.”
Noah pulled her against his chest. “You didn’t get him at the start, but you got him at the end. And when it’s all said and done, that’s all that matters.”
Bree was still staring at Jared’s body. Oh, God. He was on her wedding gown. Bleeding all over her wedding gown. She couldn’t even think about that now.
Tanner was on his phone and soon all sorts of people were filing into her apartment. Ronnie, a paramedic, other people she didn’t know.
Bree just stood there, almost numb.
Finally, it was Tanner’s face right in front of hers that zapped her back into reality. “Freckles? You okay? Two dead bodies in one week is a lot for anybody to handle.”
“I’m not sad he’s dead. After what he did to Marilyn? This is the only way we’d know for sure he’ll never hurt her again. He found a way around the ankle monitor. Something I missed.”
Tanner shook his head. “He had Oscar Stobbart and Marius Nixon holding Adam Sowers, his wife and his baby hostage. That’s how he got out of the ankle monitor—not something you missed, something you never even considered, because you’re not a psycho like Jared. So Oscar will be going to jail for a long time too.”
“Good.”
She felt his fingers trail down her cheek. “Maybe we should get you checked out. You’re looking a little pale. And you haven’t taken your eyes off Jared since I got here. He can’t hurt anyone anymore.”
“I know. It’s just that...he just bled out all over my wedding gown.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
“They’re supposed to leave tomorrow late afternoon for their honeymoon. It would be nice for them to be married before that happened.”
“Not to mention there’s no way we’re going to get the church again any Saturday soon. It was hard enough to get it this weekend when we booked it six months ago.”
“Plus, Bree’s cousin Melissa and those sweet babies will be here only for this weekend.”
Bree sat in a booth at the Sunrise Diner listening to the women talk around her, not even sure who was saying what. It was after midnight, her wedding dress was currently part of a crime scene and even if it was released, there was no way she was getting married in that thing.
