Brett was there, rounding the corner of his truck, and the next came a low, ugly coughing sound. Suddenly, he wasn’t there anymore. The muffled sound of a gunshot still hung in the air as Sarah threw herself out of the passenger seat. Horror congealed in her chest, almost stopped her heart.
He’d gone down so suddenly, so hard. Had he been shot?
No. No. No.
Was he dead?
Her heart tried to claw its way up her throat.
This couldn’t be happening.
A tall, lean man with brown hair hustled into view on the other side of the truck, close to where Brett had gone down.
Mitch.
Instinctively, she ducked. Although he must have seen her; it wasn’t like she was invisible, and the bastard noticed everything. But he’d headed for Brett first. Why? To make sure he was dead?
To kill him if he wasn’t?
Rage and terror flooded her in a red-tinged mist, galvanizing her. No damn way. If Brett was still breathing, still alive, she wasn’t giving Mitch a chance to kill him. The bastard had stolen enough from her. Her morals, her brother, her peace of mind, two years of her life—she wouldn’t let him take Brett too.
She didn’t remember moving. One moment she was crouched next to the passenger door, the next she was rounding the hood of the truck and charging the man straddling Brett’s prone form.
She had no weapon, nor was there one handy to grab on the fly. No sticks to stab the bastard with. No rocks to bash his brain out. But his back was to her, his knees spread as he straddled Brett’s hips and searched through his pocket. There was enough room between the bastard’s legs to get her foot in there, to connect with his balls.
Maybe she could incapacitate him long enough to grab his gun.
Mitch must have heard her coming. He dropped and rolled. A big, black gun came up, centered on her chest.
“Uh-uh,” he drawled in a chiding tone. “No repeatsies.”
She skidded to a stop, her toes nudging Brett’s boots. He was on his back in front of her. His forehead skinned and seeping blood. His face pale. His eyes closed. Blood spread across his chest, painting his blue t-shirt black.
Everything inside of her went still. Silent. Alert.
“Is he dead?” she asked, the sheer levelness in her tone a shock to her own ears.
“Not yet. Whether that remains true depends on you.” Mitch rotated the gun slightly. “Back up.” He clipped the command out, an icy demand in his voice.
“I need to stop the bleeding.” A plea tightened her voice. “Please! He’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Then he’ll have to bleed slower,” Mitch drawled, but then his tone hardened. “Back up.”
When she didn’t respond to his demand, he turned the gun on Brett—shoved it against his temple.
“Back. The fuck. Up. He can live or die—right now, right here. Makes no difference to me.”
The icy disinterest on his face convinced her more than his words. She took a step back, then another, watching in frustration as the man who’d made her life hell for years, and apparently intended to continue doing so, easily gained his feet.
It should be illegal for such a god-awful person to have such natural grace.
“What do you want?” she asked, her gaze dropping to Brett’s still form.
Was he still breathing? She couldn’t tell. But he must be…he had to be. There was no acceptable alternative. She took an instinctive step forward again, the need to help Brett, to stop the bleeding, to keep him alive stronger than her own sense of self preservation.
“Don’t.”
The quiet menace in the demand stopped Sarah in her tracks.
“Good girl.” He tossed the motel keycard at her. It hit her in the chest and dropped to the ground. “Pick it up.”
She did as told.
“Turn around.” He took a step forward, but remained out of reach of her feet, elbows, and hands. “Use the keycard on the side door. Push it all the way open. Then go through.”
“We can’t go back in there,” Sarah protested. “The place is on fire. There’s smoke everywhere.”
She jolted as something cold and hard jammed into her back, shoving her forward. She looked down, but his boots were too far back, out of her reach. No way to tangle their feet and trip him.
“You left Sean’s stuff in your room, didn’t you? You left the morgue with a paper bag. Left Tag’s truck with that damn bag in your arms. Went into the motel with it. What you didn’t do was come out with