She stumbled back and tried to squeeze between the toilet and wall. Was he going to shoot?
The door rattled and shook as something hammered the outside. She watched the crack she’d created lengthen. The door shook again and splintered by the knob. One more hit had it flying open and a man in a helmet abruptly stepped around the corner with a gun pointed at her. Her legs gave out and she collapsed against the toilet in relief. She didn’t need to see his face. The body armor was reassurance enough.
“Damn it.” The SWAT vehicle had blocked his view. Jack was moving to where he could clearly see when the front door crashed open and a mass of loud voices shouted to get down. His teeth clenched. Every voice inside his head urged him to get over there and find his sister.
A rumble of voices accompanied a group of SWAT members back out of the house. At the front of the group, a man with his hands behind his back stumbled across the white yard. SWAT shoved him onto his stomach in the snow. Two heavily armored officers stood over him, guns aimed at his head.
Fuck, yes! Got him!
Jack squinted at the form on the snow. The man was shaking in fear and awkwardly whipping his head around to see behind him.
Jack blinked. He knew him. He knew that face. Stepping closer, he cast a glance toward the detectives who wore twin expressions of surprise. They’d recognized the figure in the snow too.
Frank Stevenson. Lacey’s ex.
Jack stopped cold, sucking in a deep breath. Something’s wrong. His intestines twisted. That gutless rat-bastard couldn’t be a killer. Stevenson couldn’t have done all those... Jack’s heart froze.
It was a setup. Melody wasn’t here. It’d been a ruse to get him...
Lacey.
He spun in the snow and sprinted back to his truck. His heart made the blood pound through his brain and he ignored the shouts of Callahan behind him.
The detective had figured it out too.
Mason swore. He’d made the mistake letting himself hope the nightmare was over.
“Holy shit! It’s Stevenson. It was him.” Ray was stunned.
“It’s not him.”
“Yes it is. That’s Dr. Campbell’s ex.” Ray headed closer, eager for a look, but Mason grabbed his arm, feeling his blood pressure rocket.
“No. That’s not our guy,” Mason croaked.
Ray stopped and opened his mouth, but was distracted by a man tearing away down the street. “Where the fuck’s he going?” Mason turned. Jack Harper was sprinting away.
“Harper, check your truck!” Stevenson was a hoax; Harper had already figured it out.
“What’s going on?” Ray’s confused gaze went to the man in the snow and then back to Harper running in the opposite direction. Before Mason could speak, he saw understanding flash across Ray’s face. The detective swore.
“We’ve been set up.” Ray moved to race back to their car, but he stopped and glanced back at Frank Stevenson, unsure where to go first.
Mason grabbed his arm and hauled him toward Stevenson. “We’re in the right place, but that’s not the right guy. He better fucking know where the right guy is.”
Stevenson yelled at the circle of cops standing around him. “I didn’t do anything. The door was unlocked.” He shouted at the pair of detectives as they stepped up. “I was just looking!”
“What in the hell were you doing in that house?” he snapped, wanting to stomp on Stevenson’s head and kick him with his cowboy boots. Then punch him in his yellow gut.
“He told me she was here,” Stevenson sputtered.
“Who? Who told you?”
“I don’t know.” He drew out the words in a wail. “Someone called. Said Celeste was here fucking around with some guy. Said I could catch them in the act.”
“Your wife’s cheating on you?”
“I don’t know!” Red jealousy flushed his face, a sharp contrast to the snow. “I didn’t think she was until I got the call. I had to find out!” Mason stood silent, weighing the man’s words. God damn it, he believed the asshole. The man wasn’t intelligent enough to be their killer.
DeCosta had orchestrated this whole setup.
DeCosta must have tempted Stevenson into his home because he knew the police were coming. DeCosta knew Stevenson would come looking for his wife, and he knew the police would come searching for a hostage.
Bobby DeCosta, a.k.a. Robert Costar, had made Mason look like an idiot. An idiot who’d called out the heavy artillery for nothing.
But why did he do it?
A commotion at the house drew his attention.
“Sir, we’ve got her!”
Melody Harper emerged from the home, leaning heavily on the officer next to her. Her clothes were wrinkled, her hair limp, and she was barefoot. She stepped through the snow without noticing the cold, leaving bloody footsteps. Shock covered her face as she took in the mass of police force. Mason closed his eyes.
Thank you, God. He hadn’t totally fucked up.
At least on this aspect Mason’s gut had been right.
He strode to the woman, pulled off his heavy coat, and wrapped it around her shoulders, rubbing his hands over her upper arms in attempt to warm her. Blurry eyes looked at him gratefully and then shifted to stare at the man on his belly in the snow.
“He doesn’t have dark hair.” Her voice was confused. “That’s not him. That’s not the man from the parking garage.”
Mason nodded. “We know.”
“Then why is he cuffed?” Curious eyes looked at him. They were the same color as her brother’s. Mason stared, seeing the resemblance to Jack Harper in the shape of her face, but on her the effect was startlingly feminine.
“Because he’s an idiot.”
“Oh.” She calmly accepted that reason and started to shudder violently.
“Get her in a car and warmed up.” He gestured at a uniform to take her as his cell rang.
“Callahan.”
“She’s gone. He took her.” Harper was out of breath, but Mason heard the fury in his voice. “He’s got Lacey.”
“Don’t touch anything.” He’d nearly hung up when he remembered Jack had run off before Melody appeared. “Harper, wait! Your sister was in the house. She’s OK.”
Silence filled the line for two seconds. “She was there? She’s all right? When I saw Stevenson I figured the whole thing was a setup. Did he hurt her?”
“She’s OK,” Mason repeated. “She wasn’t hurt. We’re taking care of her.”
Jack exhaled loudly in the phone. “Thank you.”
“Don’t move. We’ll be right there.”
Mason slapped his phone shut and gestured at Ray.
“We’ve got another situation.”
Mason felt like he’d aged ten years. The emotional ups and downs of this case were going to kill him. He took a deep breath, pulled his hat, and started a rapid walk down the cold street to the roadblock. One phrase ricocheted through his skull.
This isn’t over.