Tuesday Late Night
ANNA WAS HALFWAY OUT of the Camaro when she felt a hand clamp onto her shoulder and jerk her backward. Her head slammed against Charlie’s collarbone with a tooth-rattling thwack that vibrated through her skull. She could practically feel her brain shimmy. The spare keys to the neighbor’s lake house always hung on a giant brass ring above the hearth at her Uncle Joe’s place. She should have noticed that key ring was missing as soon as they’d entered the cabin. She should have realized the lake house down the road would be far more comfortable for a mother and child than her uncle’s rustic cabin. But she hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t realized. And now they’d lost precious time that could possibly cost Simone and Bobby their lives. She lunged forward, and Charlie pulled her back again, and this time he pinned her to his chest beneath his arm.
“Let me go,” she demanded, wriggling like a puppy who’d been swooped into the safety of its master’s arms just as it was making ready to corner a venomous snake.
“No can do, Peaches. You know how to fire that pistol?” Easily controlling her with his one-armed hold, Charlie used his free hand to pat the butt of Uncle Joe’s .45, which gleamed on the dash.
“Better than you, I’m sure.” She relaxed into his arms. Physically, she was no match for Charlie. Might as well pretend to cooperate rather than waste time arguing with her pigheaded protector. “Let me go, and I promise to sit tight until we both agree on a plan.”
He released his hold on her, and she sat up, drew in a deep breath and rubbed the back of her skull. Charlie had parked his car off the side of the road in a spot partially concealed by a grove of cypress trees, but the moon was full, and she could see the lake house up ahead. Nate’s car was parked a few yards distant from the drive, perhaps to ensure a surprise approach. How the hell had Nate tracked Simone to the lake house?
“I’ve got signal.” Without warning, Charlie grabbed her and kissed her on the forehead with such force he may as well have bitten her—it was that gentle and that full of teeth. “Wait here and talk to the police. Do not get out of this car.”
He pressed 911, shoved his phone in her hand, and jumped out of the Camaro.
“Nine-one-one what is your emergency?”
“Charlie!”
He’d left the .45 on the dash.
WHERE THE HELL was Charlie? During the brief moments Anna had spent on the phone with the 911 operator, she’d completely lost track of him. But if he thought she was going to wait for him in the car while he rolled up to the house unarmed…
Cuh-rack.
A branch snapped beneath her feet, and she froze. Pivoting her head from side to side, she surveyed her surroundings. As far as she could tell she was alone. But of course, she was relying on patches of moonlight to illuminate the way, and there were plenty of places Charlie…or Nate…might conceal himself; in that copse of chinaberry bushes to her right, for example, or maybe inside that antique wagon to her left.
The door to the lake house stood open, and lights flared through the curtains. Once inside, she’d make an easy target, but Simone would be a sitting duck too, and she wasn’t leaving her friend to fend off a killer on her own. Gingerly, she resumed her approach. A gang of crickets provided cover for the creak of the porch steps beneath her weight. Straight-arming Uncle Joe’s gun, she sucked in a blast of oxygen, crept inside the house, and ducked behind the other side of the door. Her ears pricked at the sound of a masculine timbre.
Nate.
His voice, sharp and angry, was coming from an adjacent room.
And crying.
She heard crying too.
Bobby!
With her gun stuck out in front of her, tracing the circumference of her path, she spun across the room until she reached the half-closed door that led to the sound of Nate’s voice. Silently, she positioned herself to peer through the crack.
Nate perched on a hard-back chair and, as she’d seen him do on many occasions, bounced his young son on one knee.
Oh dear God.
She had to cover her mouth to muffle the wheeze that escaped her lungs. Nate held Bobby on one knee and a pistol on the other. And that pistol was pointed at Simone, who huddled against the opposite wall. As Anna tightened her grip on her Colt, her arm trembled all the way from her shoulder to her wrist.
She hadn’t lied to Charlie. She really did know how to fire this gun, but it’d been years since Uncle Joe had taken her to the shooting range. No way would she risk firing at Nate with Bobby on his knee.