Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 108849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108849 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
The feeling in her hands still tingled. “You’re a pastor. Don’t you believe in hell?”
He shrugged. “I’m a god, you know. Rarely fail—am quite pissed your mother outran me the other night. I was ready to make a move.”
Laurel shivered. “She was too smart for you.” Thank goodness she’d gotten Deidre out of town.
He rubbed his hands together, and the wind lifted the bottom of his jacket. “Deidre will die somehow, but apparently not this way. I did love the elegance of this campaign, though, dealing with her as well as Huck, so as to leave you isolated.”
“Isolated? By taking some of my team away?” She tried to concentrate. “The raffle for the vacation?”
He snorted. “I paid for that myself. Goodbye, Walter and Ena.”
Her stomach rolled. “And Nester’s sister?”
He laughed out loud. “Hit that girl with a truck, I did. Took me awhile to learn her schedule, and I had to hire out for that. But I was the one who introduced her to a bumper.”
What a horrible man. Yet Jason Abbott had helped him without even knowing it. “You thought I’d feel alone and come to you?” Laurel asked.
“You would’ve,” he said, his arrogance on full display. “I would’ve been all you had left once you understood the truth about Abigail.”
The freezing wind kept Laurel from passing out. “What about Teri Bearing?”
“Wasn’t me,” Zeke said. “We both know who it was. Haylee Johnson saw one of you that night, and it wasn’t you. Right?”
A branch cracked near the cabin, and they both turned to look. Laurel instantly bunched and attacked, kicking him in both ankles and then jumping up on one foot to nail him in the groin.
He leaned over, grunting.
She dove for the crampons and turned, coming up with them, but he was already on top of her. He grabbed her head and slammed it down against the ice. Her body went limp, even as her brain tried to fight.
“Good move,” he growled. Grabbing the crampons with his gloved hands, he pulled her up and spun her around, shoving a gun into her hands.
“What?” she asked.
He put his finger on hers and fired it twice across the river.
His action made no sense.
He pulled the weapon free and tossed it yards away. “Your prints are now on the gun that shot Huck Rivers. Everyone will think you shot him trying to save yourself from the horrible River Reaper. I fucking love that name. Hopefully he is not bleeding too badly, because I’ll need to bring his body up here.”
“No!” Laurel screamed as Zeke flipped her over, grabbed her hair and dragged her toward the hole.
She fought as wildly as she could, but her body had gone numb. The first plunge of her face into the river shocked her senses, and she went alert, waking up instantly. She shut her mouth and fought back, and then he pushed her head under the ice. She tried to jerk up and the ice cut into the back of her head.
Panicking, she clawed the ice and river rocks, trying to push herself back. It was a natural response.
She could hear his laugh as he easily held her under. This wasn’t going to work. He pushed her harder, and she opened her mouth in response. Freezing cold water poured down her throat. She pulled her knees in and then kicked out as hard as she could, barely hearing his muffled oof from beneath the ice.
Her entire body shuddered. Darkness started to fall. Freezing water filled her lungs. The pressure on her head lessened. She heard a crack and a large boom.
Her lungs compressed, out of oxygen, and she nearly relaxed. A warm darkness enveloped her, and her heart stopped.
She didn’t feel rough hands yanking her from the water, but the thump of a fist on her chest brought her back to the freezing world. Gasping, using the last of her strength, she shoved away from the ice. Her lungs screamed. She opened her eyes to see Zeke tackle a bleeding Huck onto the icy ground.
Chapter 40
Huck came to with a jolt, his entire right side screaming in pain. Aeneas barked wildly from inside the cabin, and Huck blinked his eyes, trying to see what had happened as he rolled to his knees
“Laurel?” he croaked. He heard a scream and then a laugh down by the river.
He shoved to his feet, swayed, and went down on one knee. Shuddering, taking a deep breath, he slammed his left hand against his right shoulder, trying to stem the blood, and then gave up the fight as he pulled his phone from his back pocket and stumbled toward the cabin.
“Officer down, officer down,” he hissed after dialing 911. “Get everybody out to Huck Rivers’s cabin immediately. Fucking everybody.”
He fell against the side of the cabin, then pushed on, hearing movement down by the river. In the back of his head he knew he’d been shot, but he could feel Laurel fighting, needing help.