Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [100]
She heard the clunk of metal on the rubble-strewn floor, the sound of it slid in their direction. Nate didn’t bother to turn his head.
“I’ll ask you one last time, Nate. What do you want from me?”
Nate lifted his head, and his mad, beautiful eyes were shiny with tears. “I want you to love me,” he said, and plunged the knife toward her throat.
She rolled away from him, the knife glancing across her shoulder, and for the second time that night gunfire shattered the night. Whatever Dillon had dropped on the ground, it hadn’t been the gun.
Nate rose, the knife still clutched tightly in his hand. “Just love me,” he said in a whisper, as the bloody hole in his chest spread. The knife clattered to the ground and he pitched backward, toppling over the edge of broken wall, still clutching the end of rope that bound her.
She was dying. Choking to death, as he’d told her she would, as the ropes dragged her up against the wall, and she tried to make a sound, but nothing came out but a choked gasp.
And then the ropes loosened, and she could breathe again. Dillon was slicing through the cord with the knife that was still wet with her blood, his face totally blank.
She wanted him to hold her. She needed his arms around her, she needed to bury her face against his chest and sob. But his words came back to haunt her, and she lay very still as he sliced through the thin plastic cord.
“Is he dead?” The words came out on a strangled gust of air, and the pain was excruciating.
Dillon rose, glancing over the side of the tower. “Very,” he said in a cool voice. He didn’t reach down to touch her, didn’t do anything but stand over her, waiting. But she didn’t know what he was waiting for.
“My mother…’ she said. “He shot my mother….”
“Where is she?”
“In the carriage house. Upstairs. I’m not sure if she’s dead.” The words were hardly distinguishable, but he seemed to understand.
“I’ll check on her,” he said. He was wearing a jeans jacket that had seen better days, and at the last minute he shrugged out of it, tossing it at her. “You look cold,” he said.
Nothing compared to his icy demeanor. She could hear sirens in the background, getting louder and louder, and knew the police were coming, knew and felt nothing but panic.
She pushed herself up off the floor, trying to catch her labored breath. “You have to get out of here,” she said. “The police…”
He seemed unfazed, and she realized he must have heard the sirens before she did. “I’ll check on your mother,” he said again.
“And then run. Nobody has to know you were here—I’ll come up with something.”
He shook his head in what could have been refusal, could have been disbelief. And then he walked out of her life without another word.
23
Jamie moved home for Christmas. They’d kept her in the hospital overnight, stitched up her various cuts and slashes, watched her for signs of a concussion, sent her back to Rhode Island with a police escort, including Detective Drummond, who spent the entire time questioning her and giving nothing in return but a thoughtful “hmm.” She didn’t tell him a damned thing, pleading shock and an unlikely amnesia, and after a while they stopped trying. She’d hoped she could protect Dillon, but she knew it was too late for that. She wasn’t going to tell them anything to make it worse. The source of evil was gone—Dillon deserved to be left alone.
At least he’d gotten far enough away. He wouldn’t have gone back to the garage—they’d find him there. No, he’d probably disappeared, created a new life for himself. When she saw him again, if she ever did, he’d be sixty years old and unrecognizable.
And who the hell was she kidding? The way he was going he’d be lucky to reach thirty-five.
Her mother stayed behind in the hospital for another two weeks, then returned home with the fanfare reserved for a duchess. She’d lost a lot of blood, but by sheer luck Nate’s bullet had missed any vital organs, and when Isobel returned it was as if nothing had happened.