“Jack.” She kept her voice soft and friendly, though she wanted to claw him bloody. “I had no idea you felt that way. I wish you’d told me. We might have been able to—”
“Shut up!” The first chink in his impeccable armor appeared with the vicious scream. “Stop lying!”
“I’m not—” She broke off as she heard the gun cock, watched him raise it to chest level and point it at her for the first time.
“Slut!” His agonized scream ripped through the house, tore up Serena’s spine before she could brace herself against it. “I loved you. I always loved you. And you pay me back like this?”
His voice broke and he sank shuddering into a kitchen chair, the gun falling to the table with a clatter as he activated the safety. He buried his head in his hands for a moment and Serena tightened her grip on the chef’s knife as she slowly sidled toward the back door.
Jack’s head came up at her second step, the gun coming up one second later. “Where you going?” he asked, a singsong quality to his voice that creeped her out more than his belief that she was her long-dead sister. “You can’t leave the party so soon.”
“Nowhere. I just wanted to get something out of the fridge. I’m making gumbo and I don’t want it to get ruined.” Was she seriously talking about dinner with a crazed, gun-wielding murderer?
“I like gumbo.” His voice was still high-pitched and childlike.
“I know you do,” she replied soothingly, her mind desperately searching for a way to warn Kevin. “That’s why I’m making it.”
“You knew I was coming?” A hint of his long-ago charm lit the sudden smile that flashed across his face.
“I hoped you would.” She pitched her voice low and seductive, fought the intense urge to vomit with everything she had. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too, Serena.” His eyes were crafty as he studied her. “Come here.”
And get close enough to let him touch her? Not without a fight. “But I’ve got to make dinner. Remember? The gumbo?” Oh God, Kevin, please stay in the studio. Stay safe.
“It can wait, can’t it? I’ve been wanting to hold you for such a long time.”
“Later. I promise.” She nearly choked on the lie.
“Put the knife down and come to me.”
Serena’s head jerked at the command in his tone, her startled eyes meeting his suddenly clear ones. “Jack—” She tried a placating tone, but his gun was pointed once again at her. This time he had it aimed at her head.
“Now.”
“But how will I—”
She stopped dead as he cocked the gun. “I’m not an idiot, Serena. Nor am I a child. Now please do as I ask, or, I fear, the results will be disastrous.”
It seemed it was time to lay her cards on the table. “From what you said earlier, I figure it’ll be disastrous no matter what. So why should I make it easy for you?” If soothing didn’t work, maybe tough would.
“Because you can die easily or with more pain than you could ever imagine exists. At the moment, the choice is yours. But I’m running out of patience and soon the choice will be mine.” His smile was cruel. “Somehow, I doubt you’ll like my choice.”
Her fingers went numb and the knife clattered to the floor before she could stop it. He wore the same smile on his face that Damien had worn ten and a half years ago, when she’d answered the door and called her sister to her death. When he’d plunged his knife into her and locked her in the closet. When he’d returned to finish the job.
What could she possibly have done to attract the attention of two psychopaths in her lifetime?
And now that she had Jack’s attention, how was she going to get out of this alive? More important, how was she going to keep Kevin alive as well?
She walked across the kitchen toward him—small, dragging steps designed to buy her time to think. But memories were crowding into her brain, clamoring for attention, demanding that she run as fast and as far as possible. Messing with her ability to think rationally.
He wore the same cologne Damien had worn so many long years before and the scent made her stomach churn sickly. Calvin Klein’s Obsession. More appropriate than the designer would ever know. That stench of it had stayed with her even longer than the smell of her sister’s blood. Walking by the counter at the mall always made her queasy and she’d turned down dates from every man who’d ever asked her out while wearing it. How had she overlooked Jack’s predilection for it?
Her heart beat faster and her breathing turned harsh. Panic crawled through her despite her attempts to keep calm. She was going to die. She knew it, could even accept it if it meant this was finally over and that Jack would spend a big part of his miserable life rotting in jail.
But she couldn’t stand the idea of him killing Kevin too. Beautiful, talented Kevin whose only fault in this was to fall in love with her. To make her love him back. She couldn’t let that happen. Jack might kill her, but she had to take him with her. Better she die painfully then spend eternity knowing that she could have saved Kevin but hadn’t been brave enough to try.
She was a few feet away from him when she stopped walking, the beginnings of a plan suddenly forming in her overwrought brain. “Didn’t you hear me?” he demanded. “I said, get over here.”
“Make me.” Her voice wasn’t as strong as she would have liked, but it didn’t shake either.
He fired an almost soundless shot at the floor near her feet. She’d been right—it did have a silencer. Somehow the knowledge didn’t make her feel any better. But she used the shot to jump backward, pretending to cower in fear against the kitchen cabinets. Not that it was all pretense. She did have a madman with a gun stalking her.
“The next one rips through your flesh instead of the floor,” he sneered. “Now move it.”
“I can’t. Please—” She made her voice tremulous, lowered her lashes as she pretended to look away from him.
He stalked toward her, swearing. “Get up!” He plunged a fist into her hair and pulled, lifting her up as pain ripped through her scalp. He drew back the hand that held the gun, prepared to punch her. But she whirled at the last second, ignoring the sharp pain in her head at the action. Her hands closed over the handles of the huge gumbo pot on the stove and she turned as she lifted it, dumping the hot broth down his front.
The stove was electric and had turned off with the lights, so the soup wasn’t nearly as hot as she would have liked. But it did the job. Jack screamed, his hands releasing both her hair and the gun as he tried desperately to rip the hot shirt from his scalded flesh. She didn’t take the time to examine the damage, but ran, heart pounding, straight through the utter darkness of the living room to the front door—the one closest to Kevin’s studio. She was fumbling with the lock when Jack caught her around the waist and flung her facedown on the wood floor.
Serena hit the ground hard, but was rolling over to face him even as he leaned over her, screaming obscenities. She kicked her right leg up and out with everything she had and her loafer clad foot connected with the angry skin of his stomach.
He fell backward and she scrambled to her feet, biting back the instinctive screams welling in her throat. Jack was making enough noise to wake the dead—if she added to it, Kevin was sure to hear and come running—a scene she wanted to avoid at all costs.
She turned to run, hoping to hide somewhere in the pitch-blackness of the house, but his hands closed around her left calf. She had a moment’s regret that she wasn’t wearing her favorite pair of dress boots—a hit from them would definitely have slowed him down more than the one from her soft-soled loafers had.
Then he was on her, shoving her to the ground, turning her face up as he straddled her prone body. His hands tangled in her hair and he smacked her head, hard, against the floor, again and again. Things turned fuzzy after the second hit, but Serena refused to give up without a fight.
She bucked against him with her hips, desperately trying to unseat him. Or at least make him loose his balance enough to give her a shot at escape. But his legs were strong, catching her h*ps in a vice that seemed unbreakable.
Keeping one hand in her hair, he pulled her head tight against the floor and lowered his face to hers. “How does it feel knowing you’re going to die, bitch? How does it feel knowing you’ll never see pretty boy again? That the last dick you’ll ever feel inside you will be mine?”
He tilted his pelvis so that his erection pressed against her stomach and she gagged before she could stop herself. “What’s the matter, baby?” he jeered, fumbling with his wet and slippery zipper. The jeans had obviously protected that part of his anatomy in a way the thin dress shirt had been unable to protect much of the rest. “You like what the laborer does to you. Maybe you’ll like it with me as well.”
She whimpered despite herself, bucking wildly against him as fear swept through her for the first time. She couldn’t let him rape her, couldn’t stand to die with some psychopath inside of her, as Sandra had.
She wiggled her hands between them, forced herself to ignore the way he pushed and tore at her khakis—and the tender skin below it—as she waited for the perfect moment. Her button and zipper gave way and he lifted onto his knees in an attempt to push her pants out of his way.
It was the move she’d been waiting for, the chance to get her arms between them and rake his burned skin with her short, sharp fingernails. Curling her fingers into talons, she dug in, drawing blood with every swipe of her hand.
He bellowed in rage and agony as he crashed his fist into her jaw. Pain exploded through her face and she tasted blood as the world went dark around the edges.
* * *
Kevin hung up the phone after Grayson’s call, uneasiness eating at him.
LaFleur had escaped his police tail, shedding them nearly four hours before in a mall dressing room. Grayson figured it wasn’t deliberate, that the cops had simply gotten distracted and simply missed him.
But Kevin wasn’t so sure. If it had been sheer, dumb luck that had enabled LaFleur to lose them, why hadn’t they found him by now? And if it had been deliberate, what exactly was he up to? He glanced uneasily out the big bay window at the side of his studio, saw his truck once again parked in front of the house. Serena was back from the store, yet hadn’t come by to see him. Which wasn’t totally unheard of behavior, he had to admit, particularly if she had just returned. But it made him nervous enough to want to check.
With narrowed eyes, he headed toward the house. If she was fine, he would warn her about what Grayson had said and they could figure out what she wanted to do about it. The detective had also promised to look into Rawlins, but he thought Kevin was way off track. For Serena’s sake, Kevin hoped the detective was right. She didn’t need another disappointment in her life.
And if she wasn’t okay, well, then he would figure out a way to deal with whatever was wrong.
But the closer he got to the house, the more uneasy he became. Something felt different, wrong. Even the bayou animals were quiet, as if sensing danger. Then it hit him—the lights were out and there was no way Serena had turned them out voluntarily. He broke into a run, and heard the scream of an animal in pain as he hit the porch full force. Every instinct he had told him to push through the open door, to rush in and save the woman he loved.
But he had just enough sense left to stop and look through the window, to try to find out what he was up against. The room was black and he couldn’t see anything. But he heard Serena moan, the sound quickly followed by a high-pitched masculine giggle.
With a bellow of rage, Kevin crashed through the open door and launched himself at where he thought Damien was. His hands connected with warm flesh and then he was dragging the bastard off Serena like a man possessed. He grabbed him by the front of his soaking wet shirt and held him in place as he plowed his fist into his stomach again and again.