The nearly paralyzed girl looked at Kat, then at Scott Massey, who was struggling to his feet, his jeans around his ankles, then back at Kat. She lifted her arms and slid her handcuffs over his head, pulling back hard, the chain between them cutting into the flesh of his throat.
He jerked to his feet like a marionette, Addie hanging with him on his back. Supported by her freed leg, Kat swallowed and called on her courage, then kicked forward once more, catching him dead in the crotch before her weight dropped her down on the barbed wire again. She cried out in pain as Massey collapsed on the floor, writhing and swearing. Addie was still on him, and she threw her weight against the chain, strangling him. He garbled, his eyes bulging, his fingers clawing madly at the heavy links cutting into his throat. He stumbled forward, digging at the chain. With a roar, he yanked himself free, and Addie tumbled back onto the cot. Wild-eyed, he vaulted upward and lunged for Addie. Kat shot her leg out, tripped him, then fell against the barbed wire with an aching moan.
“You bitches!” he screamed, his face red, his eyes bulging.
BANG! CRASH!
The door suddenly splintered inward and slammed against the wall. Kat looked up and saw Blair in the aperture. In his hand was Kat’s gun.
“Stop, or I’ll shoot,” Blair said.
In a blind rage Massey hurled himself at Blair, who slammed the gun into Massey’s nose. Blood gushed as he hit him twice more alongside his head. Massey collapsed, and Blair stared down at him, the gun leveled at his head. “I lied the first time. I won’t a second. Go ahead and rush me and die. Do us all a favor.”
Massey looked at Blair through blood running into his eyes and then broke down and cried.
*
“I’m fine. Just fine,” Kat said for about the hundredth time as Blair looked blackly at the cuts on her wrist from the barbed wire. “Luckily, I recently had a tetanus shot.”
“I wish he’d let me kill him.”
They watched as Massey was led toward the back of an ambulance. He had superficial wounds from fighting with Blair, but everyone was following protocol. Sheriff Featherstone was there with the Donovans, who’d brought Dean Croft, and the lot of them were hugging Addie, who was also due for a trip to the hospital to be checked out, but no one wanted to be the first to let go.
“I’m still taking you to see the doctor,” Blair told Kat as one of the EMTs temporarily bandaged her wrists. “That damn barbed wire’s nasty.”
“In a bit. I want to go back to Massey’s house. I need to see what’s in the basement.” Ricki had radioed that Kat should take a look.
“Seriously?” He gestured toward the rustic shack. “You haven’t had enough of this?”
“It’s on the way.” When Kat gestured toward his truck with one bandaged hand, he gave in, moving ahead to open the door for her.
*
Ricki had already been inside the Massey house and had told a frightened and disbelieving Joleen that her husband was being arrested for kidnapping and holding Addie Donovan against her will. Other charges would be filed later. Completely shattered, Joleen had immediately phoned her sister in Cheyenne, begging her to come straighten things out. The sister couldn’t understand the extent of Scott’s crimes yet, but she was already on her way to come to Joleen’s aid, and that was all that mattered.
*
Now Kat and Blair walked inside the house, aware of Joleen softly weeping in one of the back rooms. It hurt Kat, and she felt tears spring to her own eyes. Massey had wounded his wife as well as all of his other victims.
They headed down the stairs, past the black-and-white photos of Scott trick-riding, and entered a long, low-ceilinged room broken only by posts that held up the floor above. It was unremarkable except for one corner where she could see the remains of what looked like a dark room. She instantly had a mental image of Massey developing the picture of the three of them skinny-dipping.
She shivered, and Blair put his arm around her, whispering in her ear, “You okay?”
“Yes. He’s caught. So, yes, I’m okay.” Her eye fell on a familiar photograph, tacked on the wall and curling at the corners. It was a smaller duplicate of the one of the Dillinger family. But then she looked more closely and drew a breath. It wasn’t a perfect match. In the background was a roll of barbed wire. Rocking D wire, she would bet, if she could get a close look at it. Maybe it was even the reason he decided to use the barbed wire in the first place, moving it out of the shot for the one he made for the Dillingers, coming back for it later.
“Sick bastard,” she muttered.
“What?” Blair asked.
She shook her head. There would be time enough to tell him everything later.
Epilogue
The Pioneer Church was filled to capacity as Sabrina Delaney and Colton Dillinger stood at the altar together, hands clasped, their gazes constantly meeting as they smiled at each other throughout the ceremony. Colton’s son, Rourke, was best man, and his brother, Tyler, was his other groomsman. Sabrina had chosen Ricki to be her maid of honor and Delilah Dillinger Kincaid as her other attendant. Delilah kept glancing back to her husband, Hunter, who sat in one of the front pews holding baby Joshua, who missed the whole event as he blissfully slept through it all. He was directly in Kat’s line of sight, and she could see the little sucking motions his lips made and the shape of his fingers as they curled around Hunter’s larger ones. Colton’s sister, Nell, was seated beside Hunter, along with Ricki’s daughter, Brooke. Tyler’s wife, Jen, was nowhere to be seen as they’d recently separated, and Jen hadn’t made the trip from Colorado.
The church still had that new pine smell from when it had been rebuilt after a fire several years earlier. Kat inhaled deeply and felt Blair’s arm steal around her shoulders. His other hand rested possessively on her abdomen, its slightly rounded form growing more so every day. Soon her pregnancy would no longer be a secret.
Now she slid a look into his blue eyes. How had she ever thought they were icy? The warmth in them was impossible to miss. Catching her glance, he tickled her middle, and she clamped a hand over his marauding fingers and warned him with a mock angry look to behave.
It had been six weeks since Addie had been rescued. In that time, she’d started healing, though it was going to be a long haul. Her family’s support was everything, and Dean Croft, even though he was only eighteen, seemed to be hanging in there with her, a surprisingly strong and mature presence to help her recover from the dark time of her capture.