Into the Fire - Anne Stuart [97]
Jamie had opened her mouth to scream a warning, no matter what the consequences, but she sank back in sudden relief as her mother filled the doorway. She was supported by her two canes, hunched over in pain, and it must have taken a tremendous effort for her to get this far. She hadn’t left the house without her nurse in five years.
“Nate,” she said, her voice soft, not the usual strident demand that Jamie was used to. “Dear boy…”
“Aren’t you going to say something to your daughter, Aunt Isobel?”
Her eyes slid over Jamie’s figure, then back to Nate’s. “You need to get away from here. I’ve brought money. You can just walk away—no one needs to know you’re still alive. You should have told me. But it’s not too late. You can start life over.”
Nate’s sweet smile was chilling, and he still held the gun loosely in his lap. “But Jamie would know. You don’t think she’d keep quiet about it, do you?”
Her mother’s glance was brief and dismissing. “Jamie will do what I tell her to.”
Nate looked over at her, a smug look on his bony face. “You see, Jamie? You’ll always come in second. Won’t she, Aunt Isobel?”
“Dear boy…” her mother began, but the flash of light was shocking, followed by an explosion of sound. And Isobel Kincaid pitched forward, her canes rolling across the floor as blood spread out beneath her.
“You know,” Nate said calmly, “I think I like shooting people.” And he turned the gun toward Jamie.
22
Someone was screaming, a wild, keening sound. Jamie had surged to her feet as her mother pitched forward, and she realized belatedly that she was the one who was screaming.
“Shut up!” Nate shrieked at her, and he swung the gun at her, slamming her in the head with the butt of the weapon.
It felt as if her head exploded, but before she could do more than stagger back under the force of the blow he hit her again, and this time she fell, the floor hard and unforgiving as she went sprawling, her eyes unfocused, her head spinning. She blinked past the tears of shock and pain, and found herself staring at the body of her mother. The blood had spread from beneath her, so that it touched Jamie’s fingertips, and she managed to scramble backward in panic, before Nate could slam her with the gun again. She couldn’t stop him from shooting her, but she could keep him from bludgeoning her to death. Or at least make it damned hard.
He was looking down at the gun with a pleased expression. “I like using it that way, too,” he said. “There’s a nice crunch of skin and bones when it hits. Imagine a whole world that I’d never fully appreciated.”
She was beyond talking. Her hands were covered with her mother’s blood, and she rubbed them on her jeans. Her face felt numb, swollen, her mouth wasn’t working right. She touched her lip with her tongue and tasted her own blood.
“What are you going to do?” she finally asked, her voice muffled.
Nate tilted his head to one side, like a curious robin, as he considered the possibilities. “Well, I may have been a bit hasty. We can’t stay here now—the fun’s gone, and she’s made quite a mess, hasn’t she? She’d hate that, wouldn’t she? She was always so fastidious, so prim and proper. To lie facedown in a pool of blood would strike her as impolite.”
“Is she dead?”
Nate shrugged. “I have no idea. If she’s not dead yet she will be soon enough. Get up, Jamie. Stop cowering—it doesn’t become a Kincaid, even a mongrel one. Aunt Isobel wouldn’t appreciate it.”
She managed to push herself up off the floor. Her head was still ringing from the force of his blows, and she couldn’t see clearly. “Are you going to shoot me?”
“I’m waiting for Dillon before I decide. I’m kind of hoping I’ll talk him into killing you himself, but that’s probably an unreasonable fantasy on my part.”
“Why would he want to kill me?” she asked, bewildered.
“He lost eighteen months of his life to you. He’s spent years thinking about you, and Killer isn’t the kind of man who likes to be vulnerable. He’s finally managed to fuck you—he might just be ready to finish you