Page 52 of Valor (Long Hot Summer: Christian Romantic Suspense #2)

LANI

“Sorry to cut this short, but I’ve got someplace to be now.” Deputy Brown shoves her cell into her pocket, then turns to face me, a sadistic smile on her face. The fact that she’s no longer hiding her identity from me means she has no intention of letting me live this time around.

“Why are you doing this?” I can barely speak, and my words come out more like a whisper than anything from where I’m propped up against a wall in her kitchen.

I tried to scream, but even if I’d been able to, the acres between her and her neighbors mean it’s unlikely that anyone would even hear my cries for help.

She’s still in uniform, her hair pulled back from her face. The moment she took that mask off—anger unlike anything I’ve ever experienced rushed through me. I trusted her. Gibson trusted her.

But she shot my dad.

She kidnapped me.

And for what?

“You could have lived, you know. When all this started, I had no intention of killing you. Honestly, if you’d just stuck to doing your job, then none of this would be necessary. But no, nothing I did worked to distract either of you.”

“You sent the emails.”

“Yes. Not too difficult, either. Your brother gave me some fabulous advice on an uncrackable password. He really should be more careful who he talks to.” She hops up on the counter and looks down at me as though she’s delighted to tell me everything now that it’s unlikely I’ll ever get away. “I really did feel terrible for breaking the diner window though. But it had to be done. Because you stepped out of your lane and went after what wasn’t yours to have.”

“He’s not yours,” I tell her. Every word scratches against my dry throat.

She ignores me. “You were supposed to only be gone long enough for him to notice me. Then I would’ve let you go. You could’ve had any other man in town. Any other future. Yet you just had to go and steal mine.”

Gibson. My stomach churns, and I try to clear my throat. The tranquilizer she gave me is wearing off slowly, but not nearly as fast as I need it to. Still, I fight against it as best I can. “Is he why you’re doing this then? Because you’re in love with Gibson?”

“You know, I’ve spent the last year watching you, Lani Hunt, and I cannot believe someone as self-centered as you would garner the type of attention you have. Not just from everyone in this ridiculous town. Or even your family. I get how you’ve fooled them. Big, pleading brown eyes. Tragic backstory. They’ll get you anything, huh? They think you can do no wrong.” She crosses her arms. “It’s the Sheriff I can’t quite figure out. He already made the wrong choice once. Why is he so eager to do it again?”

“I’m not the wrong choice.”

“But you are the wrong choice. Just as Manny was the wrong choice for me. Boy, was he the wrong choice. I took care of him though. Just as I’m taking care of you.”

“You killed him?”

She smiles. “I made him disappear. Just as I’m going to make you disappear.”

“Just like you made Carla disappear?” I ask, tears rolling down my cheeks. I try to move my toes, but nothing happens. My fingers wiggle ever so slightly. But not enough to mean anything—yet.

“Carla knew too much,” she says. “She escalated my plans. Just like you did when you escaped.” She shakes her head. “If you hadn’t, Carla would still be alive. So really, her death is on you.”

“How did she know too much? All she saw was someone loading up supplies.” I try to wiggle my toes again, breathing a sigh of relief when I feel them move—just a bit—in my shoes.

Almost there.

“Mrs. Yates, community staple she was and all that, answered quite a few questions for me. About medications that could be used to subdue someone. How high the dosage should be. How frequently it should be administered. Even after you were found and opened your big mouth about it, she didn’t put the pieces together. She came to me to tell me what she saw that day on the loading dock. But even though she hadn’t put the rest together, the second she talked to Gibson, he would have.” She smiles wistfully at the mention of his name. “He’s the smartest man I know. It’s taken quite a bit to outmaneuver him. Especially since your arrogant brothers returned to town.”

Arrogant has never been a word anyone has ever used to describe my brothers. They’re kind, level-headed men, and the fact that she just insulted them adds another layer to my anger.

“You used her.” I take a labored breath.

“I wouldn’t have had to kill her if you hadn’t escaped! I had a perfect cover for that. A perfectly reasonable explanation for why I was asking her those questions. But then you got out and you just had to open that big mouth of yours.” She grips my face and squeezes. Pain shoots up both sides of my face, radiating from where she’s pinching my cheeks with her hand. “And now, you’ll have to be dealt with. I learned from my mistakes last time. I won’t make them again. This time, you don’t get to live. By the time I’m done with you, there will be nothing left for them to find.”

She releases my face and grips the chain between the handcuffs binding my wrists. The deputy starts humming as she drags me out of her kitchen and down the back steps of her porch. Warm sunlight hits me in the face as the back of my head hits wood.

I open my mouth to scream, but a barely audible, “Help!” comes out.

All while she just keeps humming. A tune I don’t recognize, even as I know I’ll never forget it. Not for as long as I live. Which, right now, is not looking like very long.

We stop moving, and she releases the handcuffs. I fall back against the grass, and my head lolls to the side. My gaze lands on a mound of fresh dirt and a flowering bush still in the temporary pot she bought it in.

Dread coils in my stomach. “Please,” I urge. “Please stop. It’s not too late.”

“Oh, it is too late. For Manny. For Carla. And now, for you. You really should’ve just stayed in that room. A month, maybe two, and you could’ve gone free. I would’ve even looked like a hero for finding you.”

“You’re deranged.”

“I’m the only one who sees the truth. That people like you—selfish people—cannot be allowed to hurt good-hearted people.”

“I didn’t hurt anyone.”

“Not yet. But you would’ve broken his heart. Something I will never do.”

“If you kill me, you’re breaking his heart.”

“It’ll heal this time. And I’ll be there to make sure it does.”

“That’s what your big plan is, then?” I ask as more of the paralytic wears off and I can move all ten fingers and toes. “You stole my stuff, are you planning to try and take my place? Some kind of twisted fake out?” Every word is a fight to get out. “They’ll figure out that you shot my dad. You’ll never get away with it. Gibson and my brothers are likely hunting you down as we speak. I bet they’re already on to you.”

Her cell rings, so she turns it around so I can see the screen. Gibson. “They’re not on to me,” she says cooly. “And they never will be.” Reaching forward, she tugs the gag she’d secured around my mouth earlier back into place. I choke on the dry fabric as she puts the phone on speaker. “Brown,” she says.

“You haven’t sent me the location of the car.” Gibson’s angry voice washes over me like a safety blanket just out of reach.

I call out to him through the gag and fight against the hold, but the deputy simply takes a few steps back and grins at my struggle. “I’m sorry. I’m canvasing the area. Trying to see if anyone saw who dumped it. I’ll send you the ping as soon as I get back, but if you just head south out of town, it’s sitting on the side of the road about ten miles out. You can’t miss it.”

“On my way.” He ends the call, and my hope dies alongside it.

“As I said. I covered my tracks.” She leans down and lifts me with a grunt, then drops me into a wooden box partially buried in the ground.

Panic claws at my chest.

It tears at my throat.

“And now I’ll cover you with a nice layer of dirt. Don’t worry, I got a pretty azalea to plant right over the top of you. Your final resting place is going to be gorgeous.”

I whimper against the gag in my mouth.

“Oh, I’m sorry. How rude of me.” She tugs the gag out of my mouth. “Any last words?”

“They will catch on,” I tell her, tears in my eyes. “And when they do, whether I’m alive or dead, there will be hell to pay.”

“No one is going to find you, Lani. No one is coming.”

The confidence in her tone does nothing to break my faith that I will be found. “You clearly underestimate them,” I say. “Don’t worry, you’re not the first person to do so.”

She chuckles and shakes her head. “So much confidence. What you can’t even see through your own arrogance is that you brought this on yourself.”

“You won’t win.”

She completely ignores me and continues, “I knew from the moment I met him that I couldn’t have Gibson. Not when his mind was so focused on you. I’d been planning on letting you go as soon as I knew he was over you.” She looks back at me. “Eventually, he’ll forget you. Goodnight, Lani.” She shoves the gag back into my mouth and slams the lid shut.

I scream as loud as I can against it.

The whirring of a drill fills my ears as screws are tightened into the wooden coffin. Even if the paralytic wears off, I won’t be free. As the first shovel of dirt hits the top of the box, some of it making it through the cracks and down on top of me, I close my mouth and do what I can to regulate my breathing so the oxygen doesn’t run out too quickly.

Then, I pray. Because even though I’m trapped in this box, being buried alive, I know I’m not alone. God is in the fire with me. And He will wrap me in His loving embrace until I meet him face-to-face.