Dead End Read online

  “You need to tell him.”

  Wyatt clenched his back teeth together. It had taken two years, but Parker had worn him down. The end of a long weekend, work that had tired them both out so far beyond exhaustion they couldn’t fall asleep they’d been so wired. Parker had poked and prodded, and Wyatt had broken down. He’d explained the real reason why he’d made the transfer.

  “I’m serious, Wyatt. You should tell him.”

  “I know that.”

  “But are you actually going to do it?”

  Wyatt was silent. Probably Karl had figured it out, and then they’d be talking about it for no reason whatsoever.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Karl pulled up outside Theresa’s house, still eyeing Wyatt as though he’d very much like to know what he was talking about.

  “Gotta go.” Wyatt hung up and got out.

  * * *

  Tashi covered Nina’s hand with hers. “I’m sure everything will be fine. It was probably nothing but a scare tactic.”

  Nina shot her a sardonic smile. “I’m officially scared.”

  Click. The living room blanked into darkness. Not one single light remained.

  Nina gasped. “He cut the power.” She grabbed her cell from her back pocket and illuminated the screen. No signal. She turned it around to shine through the room.

  Tashi grabbed her hand. “Get under the dining table. Now.”

  Before she could ask why Tashi had made that declaration, Nina was shoved toward the archway that led to the dining room. Tashi raced from the room so quietly it rang like bells in Nina’s head. Who was this woman? Nina put her hands out, using the dim light from the phone so she could see where she was going.

  It had to have been Mr. Thomas who’d cut the power. And done something to her phone.

  Her fingers hit the chair back and bent. Nina winced and started to shift the chair aside. Tashi touched her arm, and Nina jumped. She pressed the cold metal of what felt like a revolver into Nina’s hand.

  “He cut the landline, too. Now hide. And dim that light. I’ll cover you.”

  * * *

  Theresa was on the porch, her arm around Emily. They were crowded by uniformed police officers, most of whom he thankfully didn’t recognize. He strode straight to the two women. “How are you both?”

  Theresa nodded, looking understandably confused about the fuss. “We’re okay. Thank you.” She shifted Emily from under her arm. “Why don’t you go inside and put on some coffee for these nice officers, honey?”

  “Sure.” Emily rolled her eyes, but did as her grandmother asked. “I’m not done looking through my pictures anyway.”

  When Emily was out of earshot, Theresa said, “How worried should I be that this murdering freak is going to come around my granddaughter again?”

  Wyatt thought about Nina, back at Karl’s house with Tashi. “A healthy worry is never a bad thing.”

  With Tashi. At Karl’s house.

  Mr. Thomas wasn’t here now, and they’d left Nina there. He couldn’t have known Wyatt and Karl would do that. He couldn’t even know they’d planned to stay the night in Portland.

  Right?

  * * *

  The retort of gunfire flashed like lightning through the dark house. Tashi cried out.

  Nina prayed Tashi had fired, or if she hadn’t that she wasn’t hurt. Or not hurt too badly. Lord, what’s happening? Help us.

  The time for hiding was over. Nina lifted the revolver Tashi had given her and aimed the phone’s flashlight in her other hand along with it. The injuries Mr. Thomas had given her last time ached, but at least he hadn’t broken her ribs. Just bruised. Still, she didn’t want to be in another fight anytime soon.

  Had Mr. Thomas drawn the men away for this reason? Pretending to target Emily to get Nina on her own, or exposed? So he thought. Tashi could hold her own, that was for sure. Please, Lord.

  Nina crept down the empty hall to where Tashi had been positioned. Where the shots had come from. She gripped the butt of the gun and the phone, scanning as she went. Nina couldn’t risk not seeing where the threat was coming from until it was too late.

  Where was Wyatt? Was he heading back? Had he sent officers ahead to help them? Hopefully Emily and Theresa were fine, because Nina thought maybe Tashi might not be. Her phone started to ring.

  Baltimore Public Library.

  She should end the call and dial Wyatt’s number, but would it go through when the phone still registered no signal? Mr. Thomas was trying to throw her off.

  “I’m not going to answer that. Why don’t you come out so we can talk?” She stepped closer to Tashi’s position. Nina was supposed to be hiding under the dining table. Like that was going to happen when Tashi could be injured.

  “Why talk?” His voice made her shudder. “All you need to do is die...like your friend here.” He spoke slowly, a smooth tone that held no happiness, no sadness. It just was. And it made her want to rage. “All that warm blood seeping onto the carpet. Whatever will she do? Gasping for breath. Will help come before she expires?” His chuckle was high-pitched, insane.

  Nina’s phone quit ringing. She swiped at the screen and emergency-dialed 91—

  Two arms banded around her waist and lifted her feet off the ground. The gun dropped to the floor, along with her phone. He dragged her backward, and the pain from her ribs stopped her from taking even a partial breath. She gasped, tried to scream.

  White spots blinked in the corner of her eyes like lightning bugs.

  He hauled her back with him. Where were they going? This wasn’t how things were supposed to end. Nina pried at his fingers, his hot breath on her hair. She kicked at his legs, but couldn’t hit anything. Strength bled from her the way he said Tashi’s blood was doing right now.

  Wyatt and Karl had left her with Karl’s wife, and now both of them would die, and it would be all Nina’s fault.

  The animosity between the two men would snap and break like a rubber band stretched too tight. They would never speak to each other again. That was, as long as they didn’t kill each other instead.

  Sometimes there was only one way to get rid of the pain, and that was to expunge it out of your system. Nina had seen it happen many times—people stuck where they didn’t want to be. The world was a messed-up if not downright evil place to live. She’d met men, women and children imprisoned in a life no one should have to live.

  Sometimes there was only one way out, and it wasn’t cutting yourself off the way Wyatt had done.

  Her hip clipped a counter, and his arms loosened. Nina sucked in a breath and screamed. He hit her head with a solid object and she went down on her hands and knees. A rush of cold air hit her.

  He dragged her outside.

  “No, I’m not!” Tashi yelled. Why was Tashi yelling? “He shot me! I don’t know, but Nina needs help, and you better not be late!”

  She sounded angry more than in pain. But that didn’t mean this might not very well be almost the end for Nina. They hadn’t won yet, and neither had Mr. Thomas.

  He pulled her by the arm, but Nina stumbled. Mr. Thomas dropped his shoulder and it hit her stomach. She folded over his back, and he hiked her up and strode away like it was no big deal to walk with a person on his shoulder.

  Nina batted her fists on his back and screamed. She kicked her legs and pummeled his stomach with her knees, but it wasn’t enough. He was going to carry her off to her death.

  She fought harder. There was no way.

  She liked her life. She wanted to teach. She wanted more coffees with Wyatt, but without the awkwardness of today. If she gave up there would be none of that. Give me strength, Lord. I have none.

  With a roar, Nina renewed her fight. She heard him grunt. “I’m not going to let you kill me. Enough is enough.” She’
d woken up now, and like a mama bear she was mad. “You won’t kill me like you killed all those other women. If you hurt Tashi, I’m going to shoot you for it.”

  He chuckled. “You dropped your gun.”

  The wail of sirens approached the house.

  The outside air was cool, but she didn’t care. The low temperature invigorated her to keep trying. There was nothing that would stop her now. Nina wasn’t ever going to give up.

  He shifted her on his shoulder and gripped the back of her legs as his other arm came across the back of her knees. She was going to fall off. And now she couldn’t even kick him!

  “Let. Me. Go!”

  More sirens.

  They were almost at the back of Karl and Tashi’s mammoth yard now, walking through a raised bed with corn stalks brushing across her face. Mr. Thomas had probably parked on a street that backed up to theirs. He would carry her off to his white van, and she’d be nothing but evidence. A lengthy report, the sad tale of a woman who wouldn’t let her mother’s murder go and the killer who came back to finish the job.

  Well, he’d picked the wrong woman when he had shown up at her house all those years ago.

  Nina struggled, slammed her fists on his back and roared.

  A door slammed.

  She lifted her head. “Wyatt!” She screamed his name at the top of her lungs.

  Mr. Thomas’s steps faltered. He tossed her, and she landed on the grass on her behind with a grunt. Where was her weapon? She had nothing.

  He was going to kill her now, and there was no way she could fight him off when he was bigger and stronger.

  But someone did have a gun. “WYATT!”

  The glint of a knife flashed in the moonlight. She couldn’t see his face, but did that matter? In a minute she would take her last breath, a statistic. A memory.

  His hand gripped her hair and pulled her face back to his. “What did you just say?”

  “Wyatt,” Nina breathed.

  “Well. This just got a lot more interesting. I suppose that was the man in your condo? Did you tell him all about me?”

  “So what if I did?” she gasped.

  “Then he must die, too.”

  “No—”

  Mr. Thomas lifted the knife above her chest.

  Nina squeezed her eyes shut. But she never felt it slice into her. Instead a gunshot echoed across the yard.

  She opened her eyes in time to see Mr. Thomas running away, holding his arm.

  Wyatt.

  Everything went black.

  EIGHT

  Her face was pale, with dark circles under her eyes. The bandage on her temple had been placed there by EMTs after Wyatt fired his gun and scared Mr. Thomas away. That knife. He’d foregone thought and simply fired in an attempt to save her life. But Mr. Thomas had seen Wyatt, and the shot had gone wide.

  When he’d reached her, Nina had been lying alone at the end of the yard, unconscious. She’d refused to go to the hospital, and instead Nina spent the night on Karl and Tashi’s couch with Wyatt sitting in the armchair across from her because she didn’t want to be alone. When she wasn’t waking because a phone rang, wondering if it was news about Tashi’s condition, Nina woke in a cold sweat, convinced Mr. Thomas was back.

  If Mr. Thomas had intended to get Wyatt out of the way so he could scare Nina half to death, mission accomplished. But he’d been there to kill her.

  The vibrant woman Wyatt had met weeks ago was now subdued, jumpy and constantly looking over her shoulder.

  Last night had been her third run-in with Mr. Thomas and his twisted agenda of terror. Despite her determination to see this through to the end, she was doing so with less verve this morning.

  Wyatt set his coffee on the dinner table and lifted his phone.

  “No news?” Her voice was soft.

  Wyatt glanced at her, huddled against the window beside him in the booth, and shook his head. Tashi was still in surgery. She’d been shot twice, once in the thigh and the other—much less serious—across the back of her shoulder as she’d rolled to escape Mr. Thomas. The shoulder wound had taken fifty-six stitches.

  Wyatt was more angry than anything else, but they had to keep the appointment with Emily’s mother’s best friend that they’d made the day before. Neither wanted to miss anything worth knowing about Mr. Thomas. Still, he couldn’t help but think there was something Nina wasn’t telling him.

  Wyatt gripped his coffee cup so hard he worried it might crack. The man had thoroughly played them, and Wyatt hadn’t even seen it coming. Sure he’d fired at Mr. Thomas, and it seemed he’d wounded the man. But he was supposed to be protecting Nina, and he’d thought he was until he realized that splitting them up was what Mr. Thomas had intended.

  Now Wyatt was going to make sure that Mr. Thomas didn’t get to try again.

  The protection they had placed on Emily and Theresa had been stepped up and tightened to ensure their continuing safety. All he had to worry about was Nina. And worried was exactly what he was.

  “Are you sure you’re well enough for this?”

  Nina set her own coffee cup down and shot him a look. “Will you stop asking me that?”

  Wyatt sighed.

  “Any word from Karl now?”

  He flipped his phone over on the table. He opened his mouth, but Nina’s eyes immediately came alert. She had switched on to some kind of “operator” mode and straightened in her chair. Wyatt looked at the door and saw the best friend of Emily’s mother glance around.

  He’d looked into her. Ronnie Walters was the mom of three kids, the oldest of whom was about to start high school, but she still had the bearing of a cheerleader. Her husband was a bank manager she’d met in college, and Ronnie cut hair Tuesday through Thursday when her kids were at school.

  Wyatt came halfway out of his seat, far enough that she saw him and angled their way. After introductions had been made, she ordered green tea and a slice of whole wheat toast from the waitress. When the food was delivered, Ronnie held the mug in her hands as though the breezy chill of the morning had turned to an early January frost.

  “Theresa said you have questions about the man Abby was seeing.” Her gaze darted between them and settled on Wyatt. He didn’t blame her. Nina was an anomaly in this situation Ronnie probably didn’t know how to handle. Wyatt doubted anyone came into her salon bruised up as though they’d been through a war.

  Wyatt nodded. “That’s right. Anything you can tell us about him will help.”

  “Because you think he killed her, and that he’s killed others, too.”

  Wyatt nodded again, holding in the surprise that Theresa had shared that much. He sure hadn’t.

  Ronnie said, “His name was Thomas. But I’m guessing you already know that.”

  Nina shifted on the seat. “Did you ever meet him?”

  Ronnie shook her head, and Nina deflated. Ronnie said, “When Abby finally told me about the new guy she was seeing, it had already been going on for months. Months. Can you believe that? She told me he was a very private person, and that he’d asked her not to tell anyone about him, but she did eventually tell me.”

  Ronnie’s face twisted, awash with grief and the betrayal of a deep trust between friends. “Mostly I just figured he was married and that’s why he didn’t want her to tell anyone. What did I know? It was only a few weeks later she was dead. Emily was at her gramma’s for the night, came home after school the next day and found her. Hours and hours my Abby lay on the floor dead and no one knew. So you catch this guy, okay? I want him to pay for what he did to my friend.”

  “What about Abby’s husband?” Wyatt fingered his coffee mug. “Didn’t the police consider him a suspect at one time?”

  “Mason? Not for long. The man’s a hothead and a soldier, a workaholic if that’s what
you want to call it. But he woulda walked through fire for Abby. He never wanted that divorce, but she figured she was giving him the out he never would’ve asked for. Not when they had Emily. I told them there was no way he did it. He was deployed, and he hadn’t sneaked home somehow. He was on an operation. The theory didn’t go anywhere.”

  Ronnie sniffed. “I kind of figured that boyfriend of hers was some kind of hit man hired to kill her and then disappear. The police had no clue who he was, where he went or even where he’d come from.” She shrugged slender shoulders. “The police couldn’t even figure out if he existed in the first place. Then they started looking at Mason, thinking he hired the hit man. But he was deployed at the time, and he didn’t have that kind of money. I’ve regretted saying it ever since.”

  “Mr. Thomas exists.” Nina’s voice was cold.

  She’d latched on to one thing Ronnie said—the question of whether Mr. Thomas existed—and responded to it. He’d known she was in the middle of this, not just close to it. She was bypassing facts to focus on her emotion. She wouldn’t have made a good cop, but Wyatt figured that wasn’t necessarily a character flaw.

  Ronnie motioned to Nina’s bruised face. “He do that to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Catch him for me.”

  “I’m going to.”

  Wyatt glanced between the two women, not liking at all where this was going. Nina had to be on board with Mr. Thomas’s receiving justice, not whatever punishment she deemed appropriate. He wasn’t going to stand by and watch, and then allow her to try to explain the mitigating circumstances to whoever was going to be on cleanup duty. The woman was a former spy. She could have killed people in her former life for all he knew.

  Before he could lay out some ground rules, Ronnie excused herself. Wyatt glanced at Nina, who bit her lip and looked right back at him. “I’m not going to back down. He’ll keep coming after me.”

  “So go on vacation to Australia for a month.” He shifted so he could see her better. “Let me investigate this, and when Mr. Thomas is brought in you can come back.”