Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [113]
She didn’t want to think about it, she wanted to get to Peter. Harry had a gun somewhere—she’d seen it, though he hadn’t brought it back into the main hall of the old lodge. The man was cutting swiftly, but he hadn’t touched the duct tape across her mouth, and she wondered if that goddamn Peter had told him too that she was yappy.
She kicked at him, to try to get his attention, only to have the rope around her neck tighten again.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “You’ll only make it worse. If you’re worried about Peter I promise you he can take care of himself.”
He finally cut the last rope, then yanked the duct tape from her mouth.
“He’s got a gun,” she tried to say, but her throat had closed up and she could barely manage a choked whisper. She tried to get to her feet, to go after them, but the man grabbed her, held her back.
“Leave them alone. You’ll only get in the way.”
She had no pencils or keys to stick in the man’s eyes, nor did she want to hit him across the throat and kill him, since in fact he’d saved her life. But there was one other lesson she’d learned.
She went for his face, and when he immediately responded, to fend her off, she went for her true target, using the sweep that Peter said wouldn’t work, knocking him flat on the floor before he knew what was happening.
Harry and Peter had gone through the deserted dining room, and she raced after them. There were two ways out—the kitchen and the deck, and she knew which one Harry would choose, with his sense of the melodramatic. She slammed out the door onto the deck at just the wrong moment, drawing Peter’s attention away from Harry, who chose that moment to fire the pistol he held, emptying it into Peter’s body as he fell to the deck and lay twitching in a pool of blood.
“No!” she screamed, rushing over to him and falling to her knees on the deck beside him.
“So touching,” Harry said, perching on the top of the railing, still holding the bourbon in his other hand. “And convenient. We were at a standstill when you distracted him.”
He was still breathing, but the blood was everywhere, and she buried her face against his chest, sobbing. Barely hearing the faint whisper that came from his white, unmoving lips.
“Gun,” he said. “Get it.”
She could feel it as she wept over his body—a hard, metallic presence just beneath his belt. She didn’t dare hesitate—she moved back and reached into his pants.
“Copping a feel on a dying man, Counselor? You surprise me,” Harry chuckled. His smile didn’t fade when she pulled out the gun.
“I’m afraid I used all my bullets on your dead boyfriend there. None left for you. But I’m not concerned—you won’t shoot me. You’re too decent a human being to kill an unarmed man, no matter how much he deserves it.”
“Maybe not,” she said in barely a rasp. “But Peter didn’t come alone.”
“Does your throat hurt?” he asked with feigned concern. “Oh, I am so sorry. And I’m afraid I didn’t quite hear what you had to say. Are you trying to convince me that someone else is here who can sneak up on me and end my wicked ways? I don’t believe you. I’m astonished that you managed to get free, but I must have been distracted, and you’ve proven to be annoyingly resourceful. But the only thing behind me is the hillside—I’ll be able to see anyone the moment they try to approach.”
There was no sound from the lodge behind her, and she wondered whether she’d made the incredibly stupid mistake of killing her rescuer. She wasn’t sure she cared—Peter was lying utterly still now, and she couldn’t tell if he was breathing or not.
“You killed Peter,” she said. “I’ll kill you.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Go ahead, try and pull the trigger. You haven’t got it in you.”
She knew how to aim the gun, how to cock it. She pointed it straight at him, but it was all over the place in her shaking hands.
“You won’t hit the broadside of a barn like that, Ms. Spenser,” Harry said.
She started to pull the trigger, trying to keep it aimed at Harry’s face. She could see Hans, Renaud, the man