Page 30 of The Survivor (Silhoutte Romantic Suspense)

“We’re on the same page,” he finally squeezed out. “I won’t screw this up. I won’t let what happened to Kate happen to Sam, all right?”

Rick looked shocked. “That wasn’t what I was implying.” He sighed. “What happened to Kate wasn’t your fault. I was hoping you’d figured that out by now.”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t do this right now. Couldn’t think about Kate and what took place in that warehouse a year ago. If he did, he would lose the last shred of control he had left, and at the moment, that control was barely a thread and it was ready to snap.

His silence ended the conversation and fortunately Rick didn’t push it.

The drive took them thirty minutes. The greenhouse was located north of the city, in an isolated area flanked by forest on one side, and near a stretch of farmland and a handful of industrial buildings, including a lumber mill that had been closed for years.

They left the SUV half a mile from their destination and entered the woods from the road. It couldn’t have been five minutes before the trees cleared and the greenhouse came into view.

Though old and isolated, it was an amazing structure.

The afternoon sun bounced off the enormous windows, the layer of dirt covering the glass sparkling under the light.

The scent of flowers carried in the wind and wafted toward them, making Blake’s nostrils burn.

Sam was being held prisoner in there, at the mercy of a man whose reason and sanity had gone missing years ago.

His hand rested on his .38 and he slowly slid the weapon from its holster.

“I’ll take the front,” he said in a low voice. “You go around the back.”

Rick nodded. His boots scarcely made a sound as he moved across the twigs and snow to the edge of the greenhouse.

Blake inhaled the chilly air. He found himself saying a silent prayer, something he hadn’t done since he was a child.

Then he crept toward the glass structure, his fingers curled around the gun in his hand.

Sam gulped for air, desperately trying to swallow the debilitating horror glued to her throat. With a chuckle, the monster moved closer and closer, until he was kneeling down beside the cot.

“I’m sorry, Annie, but I have to make you pay.” Regret flashed across his face. “I hate to do this.”

“Then don’t .”

She batted at him with her bound hands but he easily avoided the useless blows and pushed her fists against her stomach with one hand. “Don’t make this difficult,” he hissed, his regret morphing into fury.

The red eyes. Oh, dear God, those red eyes.

She cried out as his other hand, the hand holding that gleaming knife, dipped lower and lower until it hovered inches from her collarbone.

“I loved you.” He dragged the blade over the collar of her cotton T-shirt.

“But you betrayed me. They all betrayed me—the army said I wasn’t needed anymore, cops kept me from being one of them—but your betrayal, Anne, yours was the worst, and now you’ll have pay. ”

He sliced the top of her shirt with the tip of the knife. The seams hissed as they tore apart. He placed the cold steel against her trembling skin.

“So I have a present for you,” he continued, those wild red eyes searing her.

“Last time I tried to be generous. I only gave you one rose, in honor of the tattoo—you know how much I hated that tattoo, Annie?” His voice hardened.

“This time I’m going to give you twenty-four roses, just like your lover did.

But my roses will be the ones that last forever. ”

“Please.” It was all she could choke out, but this man was beyond hearing her words.

“And this time, I’m going to sit here and watch you die.

” His jaw stiffened. “You won’t survive this time, Annie.

You won’t be on the news and flaunt your adultery to all those reporters and screw yet another man who isn’t your husband.

Do you hear that, Anne? This time I’m going to kill you right. ”

“Let her go, Grant.”

At first Sam thought she’d imagined Blake’s voice, that she was so desperate to escape this sick scenario that she’d conjured up the voice of the man she’d prayed would save her.

But when the knife froze over her chest, when the madman’s head cocked in the direction of the door, she knew she wasn’t hallucinating.

Blake. Here. A gun in his hand and his eyes so menacing, so determined and unwavering that she almost sobbed with relief.

She’d known he would come. That he’d save her. That she could trust him to protect her.

She’d known he couldn’t walk away.

Blake took a cautious step into the small dark room, breathing in the scent of roses and mildew.

History repeating itself.

His eyes registered Sam on the metal cot, hands and feet bound, gorgeous face rigid with fear. His eyes saw Francis Grant, sitting at her side, knife in hand.

But his mind…his mind saw something entirely different.

A dark cavernous warehouse with high-beamed ceilings and exposed piping. A skinny man with a gun pointed at Kate Manning’s back. Kate’s green eyes, wide with horror, then flashing with agony as the gun went off. Kate jerking forward as she got hit. Kate falling. Kate dying.

* * *

Blake blinked. Forced his brain to focus on the present. He wasn’t in the warehouse anymore. Sam wasn’t Kate. And this time there would be no room for hesitation. Not when another woman he desperately loved needed him.

“You’re under arrest, Grant. Drop the knife,” he said calmly.

Francis Grant stumbled to his feet, his lifeless eyes widening with…recognition?

“You’ve got some nerve, showing your face here,” Grant hissed out. “Haven’t you done enough?”

Blake took another step forward. “Drop the knife.”

Grant gave a humorless laugh. “Why? If I don’t kill her, you will. Either way she’ll die because of you, Ted.”

In his six years on the Serial Squad, Blake had spoken to a lot of killers. Sane ones, crazy ones, delusional ones. Grant obviously fell under category number three.

“Your wife died ten months ago,” he said quietly. “The woman in this room is not Anne.”

Grant whirled around to look at Sam, then glanced back at Blake.

“You’re crazy. You think I don’t recognize my own wife?

You think the time I spent in the Gulf screwed me up that bad?

You think the pills the doc gave me are messing with my head?

Well, I’ve got news for you, Teddy. I never took a single pill. I didn’t need to. I’m not crazy.”

“Of course you’re not crazy. You’re grieving for your wife.” Blake watched Sam from the corner of his eye. The ropes binding her to the cot looked strong. There was no way she would be able to undo those knots.

“I’m not grieving for her,” Grant said with a firm shake of his head. “I’m punishing her.”

With a bored look, the Rose Killer drifted toward the tall metal file cabinet leaning against the wall behind him.

“Don’t move!” Blake ordered.

Grant ignored him. Set the knife on the top of the cabinet. Pulled open the top drawer.

“She has to pay for what she did,” Grant mumbled, reaching into the drawer. “I won’t let you interfere, Ted. I won’t let you—” Without finishing his sentence Grant spun around with a small pistol in his hand.

“Drop it,” Blake commanded. “If you don’t, you won’t get out of here alive, Grant. So drop the gun, raise your hands and follow me outside into the squad car. Nobody needs to get hurt.”

Grant’s eyes flashed with blind fury. “She does,” he snapped, jerking his head at Sam.

Blake’s fingers hovered over the trigger of his weapon. He kept it aimed at Grant’s heart. “This woman isn’t your wife.”

A feral look replaced the fury on Grant’s face. He raised the weapon. “She needs to pay.” He pointed the pistol at Sam. “She needs to pay for what she did—”

This time there was no hesitation.

Blake fired two shots into Francis Grant’s chest.

With a strangled cry, the man stumbled forward. As he fell, he raised his gun and it went off, the deafening sound rocking the small room. Grant’s wayward bullet connected with the ceiling, sending big chunks of stained plaster crashing down to the floor.

Adrenaline pumping through his veins, Blake bounded toward the man and kicked the weapon out of his hand. Grant’s blood poured out of his chest like sticky cough syrup and stained Blake’s fingers as he bent over the injured man.

“She needs to pay. She needs—” Grant gurgled, coughed out a spurt of blood, then gasped.

The man’s dull eyes rolled to the top of his head.

Swallowing, Blake pressed his fingers to Grant’s neck and checked for a pulse.

Nothing.

The Rose Killer was dead.

Heavy silence fell over the dark room, except for Blake’s ragged breathing. Grant was dead. A wave of relief crashed over him, so violent that he nearly keeled over backward. It was over, finally over. Eight months of hunting, eight months of headaches and insomnia and—

“Blake?”

Sam’s small voice sliced into him like a knife to the jugular.

With shaky legs, he hurried over to the cot and started untying the knots binding her wrists. He freed her hands, then her feet, then crushed her into his embrace.

“Are you okay?” he whispered into her hair, holding her so tight he feared he’d crack one of her ribs.

She clung to him, her tears wetting his shirt collar, her hands icy when she wrapped them around his neck. “I knew you’d come.” Her voice was muffled as she pressed her face to his chest.

He planted a kiss on the top of her head before pulling back. “Did he hurt you?” he asked, sweeping his gaze over her.

Aside from the tears on her face, a purplish bruise at her temple and the red welts the ropes had left on her wrists, she looked uninjured.

She opened her mouth but Rick, Hodges and Samson burst into the room before she could speak.

“He’s dead?” Rick asked in a brusque voice, kneeling beside Grant’s motionless body.

“Yes,” Blake said hoarsely.

Rick checked the man’s pulse anyway, then glanced over his shoulder at Hodges. “Get the coroner in here. And tape off the scene. Forensics will need to do a sweep.”