Her gaze went back to the man lying on the floor, blood pooling beneath his body, then back to Mac.
The gun dropped from her hand, and before they could catch her she ran for the bathroom, sliding to the floor as Mac caught her at the toilet, where the violence and fear began to heave through her body.
Jethro knelt beside the fallen body, checked the pulse at his neck, and smiled. The smile was one of anticipation and pleasure.
He gripped the outstretched arms, jerked them behind the Playboy’s back, and was rewarded by a fractured cry.
“Oh, you’re going to live, aren’t you, my friend?” he asked the trainer with increasing triumph. “You’re going to live and you’re going to pay. And pay. And pay.”
“Jethro?” Mac called from the bathroom.
“He’s alive,” Jethro called back as the sound of the front door breaking in caused him to wince. “Heinagen just took out your front door.”
Jethro cursed as the sound of Keiley’s sobs reached him. He jerked at the trainer’s shoulder again, feeling a surge of furious pleasure race through him at the bastard’s pain.
A second later Heinagen and Sheffield rushed into the room, weapons drawn, to stare at Jethro in surprise.
“Cuff this bastard and read him his rights.” He turned the moaning trainer over to Heinagen as he jerked restraints from the back pocket of his jeans. “This is our Playboy, gentlemen. Meet Wes Bridges, alias whatever the hell we can find on him.”
Bridges moaned again as Heinagen restrained him and Sheffield made the call for law enforcement backup on his radio.
“How did you catch him?” Heinagen was breathing roughly. “How the hell did he get in?”
Jethro had to chuckle as he glanced toward the bathroom. The hell if he knew what happened, but the next time Keiley demanded to stay in a hotel, he had a feeling he and Mac both might be listening to her.
“Get him out of here, we’ll give you a report later,” he breathed out roughly. “Call the director and let him know we have our stalker. I want the D.C. bureau to handle this one. Keep him out of the hands of the locals, if you don’t mind.”
“We have to inform them, Jethro,” Heinagen reminded him firmly.
“So inform them, but get the director on the line and tell him to get jurisdiction on this one. I want him in D.C.” Jethro’s fists clenched as he gritted his teeth against the need to pound the life from the bleeding body at his feet. “Mac and I have this case. He goes home where we can interrogate him. Now get him the hell out of here.”
He turned and stalked to the bathroom, slamming the door before he slid to the floor behind Keiley, where she was safely wrapped in Mac’s arms. He touched her hair, her neck, then let his hands grip her waist below Mac’s arms as he leaned into her, pressing his lips against her neck and whispering a prayer of thanksgiving.
She was sobbing raggedly, her hands biting into Mac’s shoulders, but as he touched her, one hand moved, gripped one of his hands, and pulled it around her, between her body and Mac’s, gripping it between her br**sts.
“We have you, sweetheart,” Mac murmured raggedly, his own cheeks damp from the feeling of helplessness that swept through him.
That same feeling swamped Jethro. They had left her alone. They had let that bastard get to her. How the hell had he gotten to her?
“How?” He whispered against her hair. “How did he get in?”
“He was under the f**king bed,” Mac snapped. “Under the goddamned bed, Jethro, where he had somehow managed to wedge himself into the box springs.”
The horror of that miscalculation swept through Jethro. They had checked under the bed. He remembered bending down, looking for a body, and seeing nothing. Because the body hadn’t been on the floor, but somehow had been above the floor?
Because of their mistake, she could have been dead. It could have been her lifeless body lying on the floor of the bedroom rather than Bridges’ wounded body.
“He said—he said no one checks the box springs,” Keiley hiccupped then. “He said that all the women, he laid under their beds like that and no one checked. No one checks under the box springs.”
Not when the rooms were monitored and supposedly secured. Jethro knew he himself had rarely checked beneath a bed because it was so damned obvious. Too obvious. And that arrogance had nearly cost Keiley her life.
“Pappy has a listening device on his collar,” she whispered then. “That’s how he knew everything. When to strike, when we were gone. He was using Pappy. He always used Pappy.”
The dog. Mac blinked furiously against the dampness in his eyes as he realized how easily Bridges had managed to maneuver all of them.
“Let’s get her downstairs and get some whiskey in her before she goes into shock. Before the sheriff gets here.” Jethro moved back, staring at Mac with the remnants of the horror still racing through his system reflecting in his friend’s eyes.
“You take her downstairs.” Mac lifted her to her feet and gave her to Jethro.