With a shrug, the attorney reluctantly said, “Okay, I’d heard.” His lips twisted into a deep line of disdain. “Clarissa doesn’t know how to keep a secret. Never has.”
Noreen, broken, let out a little gasp.
Gerald’s sigh was deep with despair. As the fire crackled and the snow continued to fall outside the window, where the gaslights glowed, he said to Judd, “You can’t protect him anymore.”
“Where is he?” Pescoli demanded.
“I don’t know.” Gerald shook his head. “He keeps to himself.”
Pescoli ordered. “Call him!”
“I tried on the way over here,” Judd admitted. “He’s not answering.”
“Try him again!” She wouldn’t budge, but Alvarez knew they would get nowhere further. They’d learned more than they’d expected and now they had to act. Fast. To prevent Cameron Johnson from killing again. She said to Pescoli as she pulled out her phone, “We don’t have time for this.”
“You’re right.” Her partner threw the Johnson family one last angry look, but she was already starting for the door. “Let’s find the son of a bitch!”
Click!
Trace heard the distinctive cock of a gun and froze. No one could see him in the dark. Whoever was inside the stable wouldn’t be able to draw a bead on him. He had the advantage. He knew his way inside and out of this old building.
Unless the prick has night-vision goggles. Or a scope.
Damn it!
Sarge growled again, low and throaty.
Trace felt the dog tense. His own grip tightened on the pitchfork. He eased toward a post where, at least, he’d have some protection.
Show yourself, you sick son of a bitch.
Then he saw it. The tiniest movement, a shadow in the deeper umbra of the stable. His eyes narrowed, his gaze searching, trying to make out the person. He drew the pitchfork back, ready to launch it through the air, then stopped.
Eli.
What if somehow his son was in the darkness? Hiding? Or ... what if whoever it was had kidnapped his boy and was going to use him as a shield? His insides turned to water. Then he thought of Kacey and that made it worse. She could be inside, held with a gun pointed at her head, watching the horror unfold.
Heart thudding, he tried like hell to make out whoever it was, but the stygian darkness was impossible to pierce.
“What’re you waiting for?” The voice was deep and male. It taunted. “You think that stupid pitchfork can do any real damage?” And then laughter. Deep. Cruel.
So the bastard could see him. Trace’s blood burned.
“Who are you?” he demanded, his weapon still ready to be hurled.
“Does it matter?” A snide, sickly question.
“Eli?” he said.
“No! I’m not Eli . . . oh, your kid?” A pause. “What the fuck are you thinking?”
So he didn’t have the boy. Good! “Let Kacey go!”
“Now that wouldn’t make sense, would it? Not after I waited all this time.”
Trace crumbled inside. The madman had her! Intended to kill her, if he hadn’t already! A new fury took hold and he searched for something, anything so he could see. But there was nothing, not so much as a match!
“She’s waiting for you. So that’s why I think it would be better if I kill you up at the house with her. Make it look like she did it! An accident, you know.”