Page 62

Sixty-one

HIS MUSCLES COILED and heart racing, Greyson held up his hands and began to lower his weapon. He needed Kevin to shift just a little. No doubt his gaze would follow the lowering of the weapon, but he prayed his head would follow too. As slow as possible, he inched down, the weapon sideways but the muzzle still aimed at Kevin.

“Hurry up or she’s dead,” Kevin said.

Greyson nodded and shifted his stance. Kevin’s head followed the movement. Praying, he fired. Nearly too scared to look, he forced himself to.

Kevin’s body crashed to the deck, and Riley raced for Grey’s arms. He moved to embrace her, but he was yanked back, a gun to his head. How? The man had come from around back. Had someone been in the shed?

“Didn’t see me coming, did ya? I can hide in the trees just as easily as you can.”

“Alvin?”

“Gotcha,” he said, his voice low and with a bite of cruelty.

Riley’s eyes welled with tears. She was a good shot, but not that good.

“In the house,” Alvin ordered Riley. “Or lover boy is dead.”

She did as instructed, and Alvin pushed him into the house, his gun fixed at his head.

He just needed to get Alvin to move by a window, giving Christian or Deckard a side shot.

“Well, hello,” Lance said. “Welcome to the party.”

Jared lay on the floor, his stomach seeping blood.

Kelly, bloodied and bruised, knelt beside him. She looked up. “Riley?”

“Hi, Kel.”

Greyson calculated the window shot he needed to give Deckard.

“So you are the two causing all the problems,” Lance said.

“We know what you did,” Riley said, “and the police know too. You’re not just a con; you’re a murderer.”

Lance’s lips spread into a cold, thin smile. “Only when the occasion calls for it.”

“The occasion?” Kelly yelled. “What occasion called for murdering Kathryn Buford?”

“She threatened to expose my empire,” Lance spit out.

“Empire?” Riley frowned. “What empire? You’re just a con at the base level.”

“I built that con up beautifully. Alvin recruited the women for me, and I siphoned everything I could out of them. Murdering them, while it holds its own pleasure, was just a means to an end. Just like this.”

Lance pointed his gun at Kelly and Jared. “Now the only proof of Kathryn’s fate and my role in it is the locket. They took it, and the rest of my keepsakes, and they’re going to tell me where they are, or they die.”

“Keepsakes?” Kelly’s face distorted in disgust.

“I even took one from that friend of yours, but after a while, I tossed it out. She wasn’t a keepsake kill.”

A red flush spread up Kelly’s face. “A keepsake kill?”

“Your friend died from her disease. Not my hand.”

“You killed her all the same,” Kelly shot back.

“Fine.” Lance shrugged. “I’ll take that kill too. That’s what this is all about, isn’t it? Your stupid friend wasting away to nothing.”

“You—” Kelly lunged for Lance, and he shot her in the thigh.

She screamed and grabbed her leg, stumbling back.

Greyson readied himself. It was now or never. He tripped over his own feet, lurching forward as they lined up with the window.

He heard the thwack before the loud report, Alvin’s body slumping to the tan carpet as the shot rang through the night.

Greyson gathered his weapon and aimed it at Lance’s head.

“So we’re going to have a showdown?” Lance laughed.

“No need,” Riley said, shooting him in the back of his knee, as he’d foolishly taken his eyes off her. He stumbled forward, firing his gun in the air as he fell.

Riley and Greyson ducked. She kicked Lance’s gun away the minute it fell from his thick hands.

Greyson stood over him, putting the sole of his shoe on Lance’s neck, his gun aimed at his head. “Move and you’re dead.”

Footsteps raced across the porch. Steve. Another gunshot rang out, and a thump sounded.

Soon Sheriff Pearlman raced through the door, followed by two more policemen he’d brought in.

“Looks like we’ve got a lot of injured here,” he said.

“Self-defense,” Riley and Greyson said in unison.

Pearlman smiled. “I don’t doubt it one bit.” He turned to one of the deputies—though the badge read a different county. He had called in reinforcements. Wise lawman. “Wanna call this in?” he said. “We’re going to need at least four ambulances.”

“On it,” the deputy said.

Soon more sirens wailed in the night. Brent and Lance were handcuffed and placed on stretchers.

Kelly limped toward Lance, blood oozing from her thigh, but it looked like a through and through. “I’ll see you rot in jail,” she bit out.

“Keep wishing, honey. I’m a master manipulator. I can get myself out of this one.”

“Not without the keepsakes, as you so disgustingly call them.”

“I still have one man searching. He’ll find them eventually.”

“Not unless he has access to police evidence,” Riley said, coming to stand by Kelly.

Kelly looked at her, and she nodded. She’d handed the key off to Deckard, instructing him to hand it to Sheriff Pearlman when he arrived.

Lance’s brow rippled. “What?”

“Oh, did I forget to mention the locket is already in police custody as well as Lindsay Jacob’s tennis bracelet and the chain and ring you stole from the other poor women?”

Once they knew the locker location, Joel had gotten a warrant to access it and take the items into police custody.

Lance’s face blanched. “I’ll figure a way out of this,” he said, but his voice cracked. “I always do.”

“Time to go,” the EMT said.

“I’ll see you at the trial,” Kelly said as they rolled Lance by on the stretcher.

Lance looked piqued as the ambulance doors closed. The vehicle pulled away into the night, red lights swirling in the thinning rain, but no sirens this time.

Sheriff Pearlman saw Kelly and Jared to their ambulances and read them their rights. They’d be facing a number of charges, but Kelly appeared surprisingly serene. They’d accomplished their mission.

“You’re going to be okay,” Riley said, examining Kelly’s injury. It was indeed a through and through, and it’d missed the femoral artery, thankfully.

“Thanks, Riley.”

She nodded, and the EMT shut the ambulance doors.

Greyson, Riley, and her brothers filed back into the house to give statements, and the dead remained until the coroner arrived.

Hours later, they returned to their vehicles.

“So,” Riley said, leaning into Grey. “What’s this about you loving me?”

Deck cocked his head, then shot a confused look at Christian, who shrugged.

Grey smiled and brushed her hair back from her face. “I do with all my being. I only wish I’d told you sooner.”

Deck’s jaw tightened. “What is happening?”

Ignoring her brother, she bit her bottom lip. She hated to ask in this moment but needed to know. “And your future?”

“I want to spend every minute of it with you. I will trust God to take it one day at a time.”

“Duuude,” Deck said. “What is happening?”

Christian held up his hands. “I’ve got no clue.”

Attempting to ignore her brothers, she gazed into Grey’s eyes. “That sounds pretty wonderful to me.”

Grey smiled, clearly oblivious to her steaming brothers behind him. He cupped her face and leaned in for a kiss.

“All right,” Deck hollered, sliding up his sleeves.

Riley’s eyes widened. Not fight mode.

“What on earth is happening here?” Deck moved to stand between them. “Tell me I did not see you almost kiss my sister.”

“Deck,” she said, trying to wedge between them as Christian moved to stand beside their brother.

“Stop,” she said to Christian. “He doesn’t need a wingman. There isn’t going to be a fight.”

Deck stiffened, his hand balling into a fist. “That remains to be seen.”

“We love each other,” she said.

Christian’s jaw slackened. “Love each other as in...?”

“I love your sister with everything in me,” Greyson said.

“Way wrong answer.” Deck raised his arm, pulling it back, and Riley shoved her way between them. Pressing her palms on Deck’s chest, she pushed him back ... well, the inch he’d let her.

“Whoa! Deck. Calm down,” Grey said. “It’s not what you think.... I mean, it is, but so much deeper.”

Riley turned her gaze on Christian. “Talk to him. You’re the rational one.”

“He was about to kiss you,” Christian said, like that explained everything.

“I understand. If I had a sister, I’d feel the same way,” Grey said. “Go ahead.” He waved Deck forward. “Take a shot.”

“Don’t encourage him!” Riley held her ground between them. “Deck, seriously, calm down.”

Deck looked at her, and after a moment, lowered his fist. “Then explain quickly.”

“We have loved each other for a long while but only just professed it.”

“We’re not fooling around,” Grey said. “We want to be together.”

“Together?” Deck grunted out. “As in date my—”

“ Our ,” Christian said, standing beside him.

Deck nodded. “Our sister?”

Before she could respond to something she and Grey hadn’t even talked about, he cleared his throat.

“I want to be with your sister for always,” Grey said. “It’s not a casual date thing. It’s serious.”

“Serious?” Christian chuckled—that nervous laugh when he didn’t know the best way to proceed. “You two try to kill each other.”

“We’re not that bad,” Riley said. “But we’re getting off course—”

“How? When?” Deck mumbled.

“The specifics don’t matter,” she said, moving beside Grey and wrapping her arm around him. “The fact is we love each other, and you two are going to have to learn to respect that.”

Deck’s gaze bounced between the two of them, then fixed on Grey. “You really love her?”

“I do, and I’m sorry you had to find out this way, but I love her.”

Deck pinned his gaze on her. “And you... feel the same way?”

“I do, and I’m beyond happy.”

Deck looked at Christian, who nodded and took a pronounced step back.

“Okay,” Deck said. “I’m not saying I can wrap my head around this, but if you’re happy, Cool Whip, thenwe’re happy for you.”

She stepped toward her brother. “Thank you. I know this isn’t easy for you—”

“That’s an understatement, but if you’re both happy...”

“We are,” she and Grey said in unison.

“Then that’s that.” Deck wrapped her in a hug and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then pointed at Grey. “You take good care of her.”

“I’ll protect her with my life.”

A hint of a smile graced Deck’s lips. “I know you will.”

Riley moved back to Grey’s side, nuzzling into his embrace.

“Ugh, I don’t want to see that,” Deck said. “I’m out of here. See you back at the hotel.”

“See you, guys,” Christian said, shaking his head, a smile on his lips.

Eighties rock emanated from Deck and Christian’s rental Jeep as they pulled away.

“So,” she said, turning to face him head-on. “You said always.”

Grey smiled. “I did, didn’t I?”

“Always sounds pretty good,” she murmured, snuggling against him.

“Then always it will be.” He smiled before lowering his lips to hers.