Ivanov’s attacker glanced back at her, his eyes narrowing as he got a load of her straightening to her full height with the gun gripped in both hands. She was aiming squarely at Ivanov, but—the second man was within her target range, too, and as his face registered in her brain, she let out an involuntary gasp.
Cal. It was Cal. Their eyes locked for the briefest of moments, and the instant connection between them sent a jolt of awareness through her.
“Thank God,” she said on a shaky exhaled breath, and realized that somewhere deep inside she’d recognized him from almost the beginning. It was the coat that had thrown her off.
“Give me the gun.” Cal stretched his hand out behind him for it as if he absolutely expected her to comply, and refocused his attention on Ivanov, who stumbled back over the threshold to the mudroom and collapsed.
Gina barely hesitated: she put the gun in his hand, which said volumes about the level of trust she apparently had in him. Until that moment, she hadn’t even realized that she trusted him at all. Where he’d come from, how he’d known she was in trouble, and why he hadn’t stuck with their plan were all questions that chased one another through her brain. Bottom line: she didn’t care. He could answer them later. For now, he was here, and that was enough.
Handling the gun like a man who knew what to do with it, Cal followed Ivanov to the mudroom and stooped over the man’s supine body. Trailing him, surprised she could even walk given how rubbery her legs felt, Gina leaned against the doorway and watched as he pressed two fingers below Ivanov’s left ear to feel for his pulse.
“Is he dead?” Her voice had a definite squeak to it. She was still breathing hard, still in fight-or-flight mode. The knife in Ivanov’s chest—it was one of the butcher knives from the kitchen. She’d used the set herself when it was her turn on the rotation to cook dinner for the group. She didn’t know how to make much, but her pot roast was incomparable, and the knives sliced through the tough root vegetables like butter . . . She felt herself starting to hyperventilate and deliberately slowed her breathing down. Ivanov’s eyes were still open, but they were glazing over as she watched. His lips were parted and blood and saliva continued to spill from a corner of his mouth. His skin had taken on a distinctly gray tinge.
“Yep.” Cal said it matter-of-factly. Gina realized that she’d just watched him kill a man. Not that she objected, under the circumstances. Ivanov would have killed either or both of them without turning a hair. “You okay?” He straightened, glancing back at her and then casting a quick, probing look around the small room.
“Yes.” Forget how glad she was to see Cal. Forget the pounding of her heart and the lingering aches and pains from her fall and her shaky insides from her hideous encounter with Ivanov. The horror of what lay in the common room crowded into her mind to the exclusion of all else. Her next words came out in a jumbled rush. “In the next room, Mary and Jorge—two of my friends—are dead. I think nine of them are dead. Ivanov—this one’s name is Ivanov—and the others shot them. Murdered them. There are two others—two more men with Ivanov. That I know of.”
“I saw them.” As Cal spoke, he pocketed the gun and bent over Ivanov again. “There are a lot more than that. They’re all over the island. We’re going to be dead ourselves if we don’t get a move on. Open the dryer door, will you?”
More? A lot more? The thought sent Gina’s heart rate soaring again. But this wasn’t the moment for questions, and she brushed past him to open the door of the dryer. It was large, an industrial-size front loader. A few items of clothing lay in the bottom of it. Ignoring them, she looked back at him. He had Ivanov in his arms and was carrying him toward her. His intention was clear: he meant to stuff the dead man in the dryer.
“It’ll buy us some time,” he said, presumably in response to the look on her face. “Once they find the body, they’ll know somebody was here and they’ll be coming after us with everything they’ve got.”
Gina’s blood ran cold at the thought. Closing her mind to the horror of Ivanov’s lolling head and dangling limbs, to say nothing of his sightless, still-open eyes and the blood sliding across his cheek, her question was purely practical. “Will he fit?”
“I’ll make him fit.” Cal grunted as he shoved Ivanov’s head and shoulders inside the dryer.