Page 28 of Hidden Resolution (Stonebrooke #2)

M ason drew up about a hundred yards from Zack’s house.They had inched their way around the block and checked the area for the best approach, careful to avoid driving by his place.

Turning around, they backtracked wherever they could.

More than once, they stopped and studied the nearest neighbors’ yards to be certain Christie hadn’t implemented her camera trick.

Dane messaged them with Zack’s suspicions and detailed their plan. Mason was to go in through the patio door. Once inside, he could sneak up and disarm Christie while Zack distracted her. Dane was the secondary backup and would stay hidden until the last possible moment.

Shonda was to lie in wait and call for help if things went sideways.

“You good on the plan? You’ll listen from outside the window, and if it turns south, you call Bucky,” he reiterated because she was bullheaded.

“Why aren’t we trusting the police with this? Our last foray into rescuing Erica still gives me nightmares,” she said.

“Zack’s woman, Zack’s call,” he replied.

Their eyes locked.

“Stay safe, love.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” she whispered back.

With a grin, Mason slipped into position. Taking care to be quiet, he inched his way toward the dining room sliders. As he was passing the kitchen, he chanced a peek.

Zack’s hands were half-raised, and he was visibly struggling to stay calm.

A step to Mason’s right revealed Christie, who was continually opening and closing her lighter. Jacob was tied to a chair, sitting inside a kiddie pool, lost and terrified. The sight of Erica’s unconscious form slumped in her seat shot his heart rate up.

Not good.

Blowing out a breath, he disabled the alarm chimes, using the app, and waited impatiently for the required two minutes for it to take effect. He was reaching for the handle when a gun cocked behind him. The barrel was pressed to the back of his head, aborting any action on his behalf.

Fuck!

Zack had been correct in assuming Christie had an accomplice.

Dane was their only hope.

“Get moving,” Judith snapped.

“Neither you nor Christie will get away with this. There will be a massive manhunt. You have to know that, right?” he tried to reason.

“Do you think we care? Zack convinced Charlie to commit my daughter to an institution,” she said, pressing harder. “Do you really think she’ll be taken alive to be drugged and locked up until the end of time? She’ll burn this whole place to the ground first.”

Mason’s heart stuttered to a stop.

Minus his mother, his whole world was in that house. Shonda would also be injured in a blast. His heart restarted, beating double time. Why the fuck didn’t he tie her to a chair and leave her behind?

Judith ordered him to stop outside of view as she awaited her daughter’s cue.

“Mason, you might as well come out now,” Christie tauntingly called a minute later. Directing her next statement to Zack, she said, “I know you’d never come here alone. You don’t have the balls.”

“Actually, I did come here by myself.” Zack was a fraction louder than he normally was, relaying the bluff to Dane and him.

She tsked. “Hmm. Well then, let’s see about that. Mother?”

Mason entered, followed closely by Judith, who had a Glock jammed against his lower back. His fury at being caught was a living entity. Palpable to those around him. But unless he wanted a bullet in his spine, there was nothing he could do until they provided an opening.

His brother’s dry humor in the middle of the chaos surprised him.

“Dude, you let an old woman get the jump on you?” Zack scoffed. Apparently, his inner child couldn’t resist.

“Fuck off, dickhead.”

Zack grinned, showing he had no hard feelings.

“Come out, Dane, or my mother shoots Mason where he stands,” Christie threatened.

“He’s not here,” Mason deadpanned, buying him time and hoping she believed the bluff. “That pussy’s at home, nursing a broken nose.”

“Is that right?” she asked with diamond-hard eyes. Three beats passed. Her mouth curled the slightest bit as she whipped her gun around and shot him in the thigh.

“Jesusfuckingchrist!”

The pain was liquid fire, dropping him where he stood. Applying pressure to his wound, he prayed to whatever god would listen that she hadn’t struck an artery.

Zack managed a few steps before she aimed at him.

“I told you not to move,” she snarled.

Although action heroes could take a bullet with a grunt and a quip, it was a helluva lot more painful in real life. Blood seeped through Mason’s fingers, and his mind grew fuzzy.

Shonda had to have heard the shot and called the police, right?

“Christie, call this off. Please. I’m begging you. Surely the neighbors heard the gunshot. The police still routinely patrol this block looking for you. They’ll be here any minute,” Zack cajoled.

Behind Christie and Judith, Dane shifted into position, posed with a shovel high above his head, and prepared to strike.

“Christie, for fuck’s sake! Light the damned match already. I need to sleep,” Erica growled.

Instantaneous fury flared on Christie’s visage, driving her forward.

Dane struck.

The shovel connected with her wrist, sending the gun skittering across the floor toward Zack.

And right as Judith aimed at Dane, Shonda stepped into the view, squeezing off two rounds.

Judith fell, and Mason scrambled for her discarded weapon.

With only a single-minded concern for Jacob, Zack jerked him out of harm’s way and urged him toward the back door. He spun back for Erica, but Christie beat him.

Standing over her, positioned with her thumb to flip open her lighter, she sneered.

“No!” Zack scrambled like hell for purchase on the slick, gas-drenched floor, slipping and sliding his way back to them.

And it was now or never. Mason squeezed off a round, echoing Shonda’s next shot.

Stunned disbelief crossed Christie’s face as she looked down at the hole in her chest, and a whoosh of air extinguished the lighter’s flame as she crumpled to the ground.

With a groan, Erica eased into a sitting position, and the second she was free of the chair, she shuffled her way to Christie. There was no hesitation in her action as she promptly kicked her in the ribs.

“I hope you’re dead, you fucking piece of shit!” Whack.

“Rot in hell!” Whack.

Erica got off two additional well-placed kicks before Zack pulled her to him.

“I think my ribs are broken,” she said between shallow pants. “I forgot for a minute.”

In the distance, sirens wailed, coming ever closer. They couldn’t arrive too soon!

Woozy from loss of blood and action, Mason closed his eyes, snapping them open as he sensed movement beside him.

Judith inched closer to Christie’s discarded gun.

“Don’t you even think about it,” Shonda snarled. With the weapon clasped in her hands, she was a goddamned Viking princess—tall, stance wide, blonde hair escaping her braid. Her fierce expression assured them she’d willingly kill without remorse.

Christ alive, he’d never seen a more beautiful woman!

Dane left to admit the police, as Shonda whipped off her shirt and tied off Mason’s wound.

Later, he might blame it on the dizziness, claim he was out of his gourd, but he couldn’t hold back his sudden anger.

“What the hell were you thinking?” he shouted. “You could have gotten us all killed. Yourself included.”

Dane returned in time to hear. “Shut the fuck up! She saved your ungrateful ass along with everyone else in this room. Her shot was true. Twice! ”

But Shonda didn’t defend herself. She remained silent as she applied pressure to his wound until the paramedics assumed control.

And when Bucky questioned her, she relayed her version of the story with admirable calm. After, she was handcuffed, with the officer apologizing for needing to take her into custody.

“What the fuck?” Mason scowled. “She stopped a human barbecue.”

“Procedure. We’re taking her for further questioning.” Bucky replied, grimacing.

“I don’t gi?—”

“It’s fine,” Shonda said, not sparing Mason a glance. “Let’s go.”

“No! No! ” It required two paramedics and an officer to restrain him. “You aren’t going to treat her like a fucking criminal for being a hero.”

“Mason, if you don’t knock it the fuck off, we’re going to sedate you.”

He whipped his head around and groaned when he saw Phillip.

His cousin served as a paramedic and was voted least likely to take shit from a patient.

“Lip, she did nothing wrong. She shouldn’t be treated like a damn criminal.”

“Tommy told me you had it bad. I didn’t believe him.” Lip glanced at his partner. “We lift him on three.”

“Lip—”

“She’ll be treated like a princess, Mason. No worries, okay?”

“And I don’t have it bad. We?—”

Again, his cousin cut him off. “You can deny it all you want, man. We all have eyes and ears.”

They rolled Mason out to the waiting transport.

When he opened his mouth to argue, Lip slapped an oxygen mask over his face.

“Hey Mike, you have any elephant tranqs in your bag?”

Mason glowered.

“Ah, the man doth protest too much.”

He ripped the mask back long enough to snarl. “Bite me.”