Danger on the Ranch Read online

  Jane Reyes had been many things—foolish, naive, clueless and needy—but she was not going to add coward to the list. She wouldn’t let Mitch burn to death, not if it was in her power to save him.

  Before fear changed her feet to stone, she pocketed her phone and sprinted down the slope toward the burning cabin. Skidding on wet grass, she slipped and slid her way down the hill and onto the gravel path, nearing the front door. Smoke was thickening, swirling around the edges of the curtain and under the doorjamb. As she neared, some of the wood shingles ignited with a pop that made her jump.

  “Mitch,” she shouted as she closed the gap. “Mitch, can you hear me?”

  Raising a hand to push the door open, she was pulled backward by the hood of her jacket. She stumbled, fell and found herself staring up into the face of Wade Whitehorse. Time stopped, the fire receded in her mind and all that was left was pure, undiluted terror.

  The moonlight painted his skin in bland luminosity that almost blended with the white of his teeth. He wore jeans and a denim jacket, the perfect imitation of a country cowboy. A friendly, charming serial killer. “Hello, Janey,” he said. “You’re here just in time. You were always so prompt for everything.”

  Trapped in a nightmare from which she could not awaken, her body began to tremble. He regarded her with a wide smile. “You look nice. You’ve grown your hair out. I like it, though the bangs need a trim.”

  Stall him, her instincts screamed. Foley would send help. Just keep him talking. It was not easy to force her mouth to make syllables, but she managed. “T-time for what?”

  “In time to watch Mitch die.” Wade said it with a smile, nodding in that way that meant he was pleased with his own cleverness.

  “No, Wade.” It came out as a whisper.

  He shot a quizzical look at her. “You know, I wondered, I mean, I really puzzled over why you came here to the coast. I tracked you to your rented room, but you’d already gone—come here, I later found out. But why? That was the question that tormented me. Why would you go to my brother, the man who sent your husband to prison?”

  She found she could not answer, propped up on her elbows, staring at him while another shingle erupted into flame with a shrill hiss.

  He snapped his fingers. “Then it came to me.” His smile was coy. “You knew, didn’t you, Janey?”

  She tried twice before the sound came out. “Knew what?”

  “Where I would go.” He sounded so pleased, she could only gape at him as he continued. “As soon as you heard of my escape, you came here, to Mitch, because you knew I’d head right on over to kill him.” The words were infused with such friendly cheer he might have been speaking of attending the neighborhood block party. “You’d be sure to find me, wouldn’t you? Clever wifey.”

  Delusional, insane. “We’re divorced, Wade. I’m not your wife anymore.”

  He aimed a kindly smile, crouched next to her and reached to pat her knee, stopping just before he made contact. She had to force herself not to recoil.

  “The divorce was the most practical decision at the time, and I want you to know I don’t fault you for it, not in the least. It doesn’t matter what the courts or anybody else says, anyway, Janey. You’ll always be mine.”

  Something stone cold slithered up her back and clutched tight around her throat. She found herself pushing out the words as if she was expelling poison from her gut, voicing the question that had plagued her from the beginning. “You killed those women, Wade. Why? Why am I different? Why didn’t you kill me, too?”

  He sighed, cocking his head, birdlike. “Silly Janey. You’re my wife. I selected you because you’re the most suitable. Pretty, intelligent, easygoing, trusting, affectionate—though that was annoying sometimes. Minimal family ties. You are the one I chose and groomed, not like the others. They were just means to an end, not quality like you, Janey.” He pointed to his heart. “You’re my wife forever. We are going to go where they can’t find us.” He winked at her. “I think it’s about time we started a family, don’t you?”

  Started a family. So he didn’t know about Ben. A sliver of relief stabbed through the terror, the tiniest pinprick of hope. Her son was still safe. She got to her feet, feeling the heat on her neck. The crackling of the roof shingles swelled ominously. Wade stood and surveyed the growing inferno with satisfaction.

  Jane swallowed, throat parched. “You can’t let him burn to death, Wade.”

  He blinked as if the thought startled him. “Why not?”

  “Because...” She groped for an idea. “They’ll find you. The marshals are looking all over. Someone must have called in the smoke. They’re probably already on their way to arrest you.”

  He laughed. “Oh, trust me, the marshals won’t be a problem, but I appreciate your concern. Leave all the details to me, Janey.” He crooked a finger at her. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  A flash of annoyance crossed his brow. “I explained that already. The location isn’t important.” He gazed up at the sky and frowned. “I feel like it might start to rain soon, and you know I don’t like being wet.” He gestured impatiently. “Now, Janey.”

  She could run, sprint out into the trees or back to the truck. Her legs were paralyzed with fear as he moved closer.

  “We’re going now,” he said again, a placid smile on his face. “Mitch is already dead. He put me in prison, and now he’s dead, so justice has been served and we can move on.”

  “Just let me check, Wade,” she said. “To be sure he’s dead.”

  “No need, my sweet.”

  But she already had her palm on the door.

  “No, Janey,” he said, voice steely now. “I don’t want you smelling of smoke.”

  In the distance came the whine of sirens. Wade jerked a look toward the fire trail as headlights probed the trees.

  At the same moment, the glass shattered in the front window and Jane ducked reflexively, covering her face. Wade reached for her, his fingertips grazing her sleeve as a rifle appeared through the broken glass.

  * * *

  Mitch caught the barest glimpse of Jane through the smoke. He fired high with the first shot, clear of Jane with an extra margin of safety built in. She screamed low and to his right. Wade returned fire. The bullets shattered the remaining glass and took a chunk out of the window frame.

  “Stay down, Jane,” he shouted, but there was little chance she heard him over the bullets and the crackling fire. The changing angle of Wade’s shots indicated he’d moved, taken cover, probably, behind the woodpile. He risked another quick poke and a volley of shots. Nerves rattling, he yanked the front door open.

  Jane was crouched on the porch in a ball, arms covering herself. There was no time to go about it in a gentle manner, so he simply picked her up and ran back into the cabin, bullets slamming into the closing door. He released her and she instinctively started to leap to her feet, but he pulled her down by one wrist under the safety of the window frame.

  “You hit?”

  She shook her head. “I think you both managed to miss me.”

  The wry humor was so incongruous with the circumstances that he actually smiled for a moment.

  “Keep low,” he said. He figured he must be quite a sight, covered in black soot, sweating all over and muscles still spasming from the effects of the stun gun.

  Her eyes were wide in the gloom as their situation slowly dawned on her. The kitchen was fully engulfed in fire, cutting off their exit to the rear. The flames were slowly marching toward the living room.

  Wade’s voice carried over the fire. “You gotta come out, Mitch, or burn to death in there. Send Janey—you don’t want her to die with you, right? The big, bad marshal wouldn’t sentence an innocent to death? Only your brother. Isn’t that right, Mitch?”

  Mitch looked at Jane.

  “I texted Foley,” she said. �
�The police are close. I can hear the sirens.”

  He nodded. They needed time, minutes maybe. He gripped his rifle, fighting the urge to suck in a deep breath of the poisoned air. “Got an idea, but it’s not guaranteed.”

  “Anything.” It was only one word, but the strength of it, the trust in it, trust in him, robbed him of speech. She would rather put her life in Mitch’s risky plan than go back to Wade. In that moment, he knew he’d misjudged her completely. She’d never been a part of Wade’s plans. Jane Reyes was Wade’s victim just as much as anyone. After a slow nod, he fired out the window, then grabbed her hand, drawing them stumbling toward the closet. Inside he yanked up the trapdoor and guided her to the ladder.

  “Cellar. Go.”

  She didn’t pause, just did as he directed. As soon as she cleared the ladder, he followed, drawing the trapdoor closed and swinging the latch into place to lock it from the inside. Flimsy—it was intended to secure the house from bears who managed to infiltrate the cellar, but it would slow Wade down, he hoped.

  The cellar was no more than a ten-by-ten space, cold and dark. The earth that surrounded the structure kept the walls perpetually moist, the cement floor frigid, and allowed for the occasional tunneling rodent. Even in the heat of summer, Mitch found it too cold for more than a quick visit.

  Jane flicked a light to life on her phone, shining it around the space. Crude wooden shelves held jars of strawberry jelly and a big glass container of some dark, mysterious liquid that had been here when he bought the old place.

  He went immediately up the far steps, which sloped up to the heavy wood door. “Exits to the woods behind the cabin. We can...” Her scream startled him, and he whirled around.

  Her hand was holding the phone light, which trembled in her grasp, illuminating a dirty animal cowering in the corner. He heard her relieved exhalation. “It’s a cat, I think. Somehow it found a way in.” Like Wade would do soon enough. “This place has more holes than a golf course. We have to get out.”

  The cat mewled plaintively—a kitten, really, no bigger than his palm. He paid minimal attention, his mind spinning out the possible scenarios. Stay put, and they’d be safe from the fire for a while and perhaps Wade wouldn’t know where they’d gone. Or exit into the woods, also safe from the fire, but exposed for a time until they made it to the tree line.

  “Stay or go?” he said, as much to himself as her.

  She was crouched down, reaching for the little cat. “I say we stay. Wade won’t come in the house. Too much smoke. He won’t know about the cellar, right?”

  The beam of light caught her tapered fingers, caressing the tiny mewling creature. The mewing was lost in a cacophonous sound. Jane bolted to her feet.

  “What was that?”

  The heavy wooden door shuddered under the weight of another blow.

  Mitch’s throat went dry. “It’s my ax. He took it from the woodpile. He’s cutting his way in.”

  They listened to the sound of the blade punching through the last barrier between them.

  TWELVE

  Jane watched in horror as a piece of wood broke loose from the door and tumbled down the steps to land at Mitch’s feet. He was already running to the ladder, but he was back in a moment, face grim. “Trapdoor is hot to the touch. We can’t get out that way.”

  “Mitch.” Wade’s voice was oddly muffled. “I didn’t think you were a coward, hiding behind my wife. Let her out now and I’ll kill you quickly. I don’t want her damaged.”

  Damaged, as if she was a piece of pottery or a computer part. Damaged? Oh yes, she was certainly that, but the broken pieces had been glued together, thanks to God, and as long as she had Ben, she’d never be ripped apart again.

  “Give it up, Wade. Cops are on their way,” Mitch shouted. His words were lost in the rapid blows of the ax biting into the wood.

  “I’m coming, Janey,” Wade yelled. “Don’t you let him touch you.” A hole appeared in the middle of the door as another hunk fell away.

  To combat the surge of helplessness, she grabbed a flat shovel from the spot under the cupboard. The movement startled the kitten, who leaped up onto the high shelf. Mitch had the rifle ready.

  “Squeeze behind the shelves, if you can,” he said.

  She shook her head. “I’m going to help you if he breaks through.”

  “This is a tight space, and the bullets are going to fly. Protect yourself.”

  “He won’t win.” She gripped the shovel, shoulders squared with a will of iron, though her body felt brittle as glass. “I won’t let him.”

  Mitch’s face was streaked with sweat, eyes tar black. “You have a son. Staying alive, that’s all that matters.”

  Being with Wade isn’t living, she wanted to say. It’s a death sentence.

  Another hunk of wood fell through near the tarnished knob. Now Wade’s gun barrel poked through the hole, and she watched in some sort of slow-motion terror as his finger pressed the trigger. The bullet smashed into a jar of jelly, sending shards of ooze-covered glass raining down. The scream stuck in her throat.

  “You’re gonna hurt Jane,” Mitch thundered. “That’s not what you want, is it?”

  “She’s mine or she’s dead,” Wade spit.

  A wave of nausea sickened her. Mine or dead. Wade fired another blind round, which buried itself into the wall.

  Mitch went to her, grabbed the shovel and pushed her toward the space behind the shelves. She didn’t understand at first, until she saw the hole down low, a boarded-up opening where the walls had failed, scratched away by animals eager for shelter. It was the way the cat must have gotten in.

  She bent down to look. The opening, no more than three feet square, bathed her in cool air. Mitch saw it, too.

  “Pull the boards away. You can squeeze out.”

  “No.”

  The ax split through the door. Wade pulled it free and hacked again.

  Mitch put his hand on the small of her back, but she resisted. “Just...please,” he said.

  He was asking. She’d not heard him ask for anything from her, just issue orders. Now he gave her a pained look that she couldn’t decipher, as if he was about to ingest poison, and then called to Wade. “All right. You win. I’ll open the door.”

  Jane shook her head violently, grabbing at his wrist. “No, Mitch,” she breathed.

  His face was inches from hers. “You have to live.”

  “Not this way.”

  “You’ll have a chance to escape.”

  “He’ll kill you.”

  “He’ll try, and while he’s busy about it, you run. Hard. Lose him in the woods.”

  “No,” she hissed.

  He exhaled long and slow and then touched her face with the calloused fingers of his left hand. “Please,” he said again.

  How was it possible that Mitch Whitehorse was offering up his safety as a security for hers? In wonder, she reached up and put her hand over his. It seemed to surprise him, but just for a moment, he relaxed a fraction into the touch, and something ever so subtly gentled in his eyes. Then he took her palm away and pulled her toward the hole. Uncertain, she was struggling with whether to resist or comply when her phone buzzed. She’d forgotten it was still in her pocket. The soft glow illuminated the text.

  “It’s Foley,” she whispered in Mitch’s ear. “He’s closing in right now.”

  He considered a moment.

  “Stay low, crawl into the hole.” He took up the rifle and sneaked to the other side of the space. At first she didn’t know why he began firing at the hole in the door when it was clear his bullets would not penetrate the thick wood. Wade returned fire through the spot he’d carved out, aiming now for Mitch’s location, next to another shelf of jars. Mitch was drawing Wade’s fire, hoping to distract him long enough for the marshal to arrive. Wade’s bullets exploded the jars. They tumbled from the she
lves and rained their contents down onto the floor. She clapped her hands over her ears to block out the deafening noise. A scream built up in her throat, and just as it bubbled from her lips the shooting stopped.

  There was the sound of shots again, but this time not aimed into the cellar. Police? Fire? All that mattered to her hammering heart and quivering eardrums was that the shooting had stopped. When her phone buzzed, she answered it, holding it so Mitch could hear.

  “This is Danny Patron of the Driftwood Police Department. We’re outside. Wade’s fled on foot, but we have eyes on him. Please exit immediately.”

  With a heart brimming over with relief, she tried to get her legs to comply.

  * * *

  While Mitch helped Jane pick her way over the glass, an officer shouted through the mangled door. “Police,” he said. “Open up.”

  Mitch unlocked it, and the smell of smoke assailed them. He took Jane’s forearm and urged her through the opening.

  “But the kitten...” she said.

  “Go,” he insisted, pushing her through.

  Officer Patron huffed out a breath. His thatch of red hair gleamed oddly metallic in the smoke-heavy air. “Come on, Mitch.”

  “You’ve got eyes on Wade?”

  “Foley’s tracking him. Appears he’s heading for the main road. Working on a roadblock. We have to move away from the structure now.”

  The structure—his home, as much as he had one—was done for. He knew without visual confirmation that it was a complete loss. No matter how much water the volunteer fire department pumped on the old place, it was not going to be salvageable.

  Jane followed Patron toward the strobing lights of his police car. Before Mitch trailed them out, he surveyed the wreck of the cellar, the smell of smoke now mingling with the fruity fragrance from the ruined jams. Despair slumped his shoulders and made breathing an effort. Countless hours had gone into putting up those berries, but what right had he, anyway, to set aside such things to enjoy in the future? He had no future, only a past from which he could not escape and a tomorrow in which nothing else mattered but finding his brother.