“Mac. No.” Her hands reached out for him, her voice shaking. “You’ll do something you’ll regret. I know it.”
“Go with Jethro.” He leaned forward, whispered a kiss over her trembling lips, and then stepped away. “I have to find out who he is, Kei. Go on. I promise. I won’t kill him.”
Wes would wish he were dead though, of that Mac would make certain.
“Mac,” she whispered again, her voice filled with fear. “If you do something violent, then I’m going to hurt you. I mean it. I really will use that baseball bat on you if you get put in jail. I swear it.”
A smile touched his lips. She kept him centered. As he stared at her, he found the control to push back the rage.
“I won’t do anything to risk our lives, Keiley. I swear it. Never again will I risk your life or your happiness. Never.”
Her wide hazel eyes held his as Jethro wrapped his arm around her and led her from the bathroom.
The bastard had hid under the f**king bed. Mac wiped his hand over his face and breathed out roughly. Right there beneath their noses, all he had to do was bend down and look, and he hadn’t.
He stepped into the bedroom, staring at the bloodstained carpet, then at that bed. Like all the beds in the house, the frame itself was higher than most. He stared beneath it, tilted his head, and wondered how the hell he hadn’t seen anything.
The first thing he had done was looked around the edges of the bed. He hadn’t bent down and checked beneath it because only a child could have hidden there without being seen.
He knelt down, laid on the floor, and stared beneath it.
And there was why he hadn’t seen anything, why Jethro hadn’t. Why no one would have seen anything unless they laid on their backs and looked.
At some point the box spring itself had been carved out and reinforced. Just enough to allow someone to wedge inside it and, with enough leg and arm strength, hold himself out of sight for the amount of time it would take to check a room.
He lifted up, braced his hands on his knees, and stared at the bloodstained carpet. This was why the Playboy had been able to get so close to his victims. Because he had somehow learned how to reinforce the inner springs after cutting part of them out and make himself a secure hiding place when he needed it.
Son of a bitch. He pushed his fingers through his hair and breathed out tiredly. That was it. Every bed in the f**king house would be tossed out and they would sleep on the floor if they had to. This would never happen again. Never would he let Keiley be at risk in such a way again.
Moving to his feet, he clenched and unclenched his fists as he heard the sirens in the distance and shook his head. At least he knew the sheriff. The same man who had once been a boy and kept his mouth shut about the horror Mac had lived with as a child.
Tobias Blackwood knew how to keep his mouth shut. And he would keep his mouth shut this time. Because Mac intended to do a little interrogating now.
27
Keiley’s gaze flew to the gun, and Wes’s followed. She saw the realization on his face the minute she jumped for it. She was closer. She had a chance. Oh, God, all she needed was a chance.
The phrase “everything moved in slow motion” and the cliché that one’s life flashed before one’s eyes at such moments had always seemed a little far-fetched to her. But not now.
Now she saw Mac and Jethro, their expressions creased in desire and wonder as they made love to her. She saw her own emotions, felt them overwhelming her, filling her, giving her a strength she hadn’t known she could find. Because her knees were shaking and her heart racing so fast, it should have weakened her as she jumped for the gun.
The safety was on. She remembered that as her hand fell on it and she felt Wes’s breath on her neck. Her thumb fell into position, flipped it as she brought it up.
The knife glittered above her head as she heard her own screams and the sound and the feel of the weapon discharging, throwing her hand up even as she stumbled to throw herself out of the trainer’s way.
And she watched him fall. Slowly. Shock rounded his eyes, parted his thin lips. It was a curse that croaked from his lips as the knife fell to the floor milliseconds before his body did.
And then she saw the blood—
“Keiley! Wake up, Wake up now!”
Jethro and Mac were yelling at her as hard hands shook her shoulders, bringing her from nightmare to reality with a jerk.
She stared up at Jethro, fighting to breathe, seeing the emotions that washed over his face the moment he realized she was awake. The emotions displayed there were heartbreaking. Fear. Remorse. Love. He loved her, just as fiercely, just as possessively as Mac loved her.
“God, you’re going to give me a heart attack at this rate.” He jerked her into his arms, his powerful, na**d body shuddering once as his hold tightened on her briefly.
“I’m okay.” She was shaking, shuddering in the aftermath of the nightmare that had come two days after the attack.