red.”
“Close enough. We’re going in.”
“There’s someone near that stand of trees,” Kendra said. “Do you see him, Joe?”
Just a vague shadow, but the man was tall and slim.
Drogan was said to be tall and slim.
Joe stomped on the accelerator for the remaining distance separating them from the shack. He screeched to a stop as they came near the burning house. “Both of you get out. See if you can get into the shack and check and see if there’s anyone inside.”
Kendra and Newell were already out of the car and running toward the burning shack.
Joe turned the car and headed toward the stand of trees.
Drogan.
The headlights picked up Drogan in the beam. His eyes were wide, his expression vicious, and he was raising his gun.
Joe ducked as a bullet shattered the windshield. He jammed on the brakes, opened the driver’s door, and rolled out of the car. Drogan was coming toward him, firing.
“Welcome, Quinn,” Drogan said. “My plans were all disrupted, but here you are anyway. It must be fate.”
“Where’s Eve?” From his vantage point all he could see were Drogan’s legs on the other side of the car. “I may let you live if you tell me—”
A bullet hit the hubcap of the car next to Joe’s head.
“No, you wouldn’t let me live if I told you where she is,” Drogan said. “You’d be very angry with me. People seem to have a particular horror of the death I’ve planned for your Eve … and you. I hope I can keep you alive long enough to have you join her in her coffin.”
Coffin. It was what Joe had feared most. “Where did you bury her?”
Drogan laughed. “Guess. Either she’ll suffocate, or the snake I gave her for company will get her. I’ll leave it to your imagination.”
And Joe’s imagination was scaring him to death. If Eve was already in a coffin, he might have only minutes, seconds. He had to put an end to this. He took careful aim under the car. “I’d rather imagine you writhing in hell, Drogan.” He shot out both of Drogan’s kneecaps.
Drogan screamed, and his legs gave away.
Joe was on him before he touched the ground. His hands clutched Drogan’s neck. “You like the idea of suffocating? Let’s try it on you, Drogan.” His thumbs cut off Drogan’s air. “Where is she?”
Drogan gasped, his eyes bulging as he struggled to breathe.
“Talk.”
“Dead.” His eyes burned with malice. “I haven’t heard anything from her for almost ten minutes. She’s dead. Mama … Zela took … her.” He suddenly rolled to the side, breaking Joe’s hold. He grabbed a knife from the holster on his leg and lunged toward him.
The knife nicked Joe’s upper arm before he twisted Drogan’s arm and managed to jerk the knife away from his body. “Where is Eve?”
“I told you. I’m not saying anything more.”
“No?” Joe’s hands closed on his throat again. “You say you killed her. Then you’re of no use to me, and you’re wasting my time. One last chance?”
“You’re a cop. You won’t do anything to me.”
“You’re wrong, you know,” Joe said softly. “Good-bye, Drogan.”
His hands tightened, jerked, and he broke Drogan’s neck.
He jumped to his feet and didn’t look back as he moved toward the trees.
Newell was running toward him. “Quinn, did you find Eve?”
“No. She wasn’t in the shack, was she?”
“No.”
That would have been too much for which to hope. Drogan had been far too sure, too malicious.
“But Beth was in the shack, still alive,” Newell said. “She was crawling out the door when we got there. She’s hurt, but Kendra’s with her. Did Drogan tell you where—”
“No. She may be somewhere in this stand of trees. You go to the left. I’ll go to the right.”
Drogan had said he hadn’t heard anything from Eve for ten minutes. That meant she must be close.
Find her.
And pray Drogan had been lying or wrong.
* * *
“EVE!”
Footsteps.
Frantic cursing.
Joe’s voice.
Eve’s heart leaped into her throat, but she couldn’t even scream to him because it would have caused vocal-cord vibration.
“Eve.” The lid was torn off the coffin and thrown aside.
Joe. The bright beam of a flashlight. “Oh, my God.” He drew a long, ragged breath. “Stay perfectly still. I can’t shoot it. I have to grab the snake quick and throw it out of the coffin and away from you.”
He bent closer and moved with painstaking slowness. “He’s lifting his head out of your hair. I think he senses me.”
And would strike at him … or her, as soon as he was