Page 43 of Dead Man's Hand

“He lost a lot of blood.” She sounded close to tears. Ansley was close to them herself. “Willie’s headed up there with a helicopter, deputies and EMTs. The Feds aren’t far behind, he said.”

She nodded but couldn’t speak. “I never should have asked them to find my twin,” Ansley said.

Lori took her hand. “None of this is your fault. This is what they do.”

“You sound like Bella.”

“Welcome to being a wife of a private investigator.”

“I want to be a wife of a private investigator,”Ansley wailed as Lori pulled her into her arms.

“I’ve known Buck Crawford my whole life,” Lori said. “He’ll be standing next to you on Saturday. He might be bruised and battered, but he’ll be there. Sorry, not funny.” She drew back to look at Ansley. “Buck will be there and if there is any way on this earth, your twin brother will be with him.”

Ansley desperately needed to believe that finding her missing twin wouldn’t cost her everything.

“How’s James?”

She looked up to see Davy Colt coming through the door.

“He’s in surgery,” Lori said.

Davy glanced at his half sister. “Just got the preliminary DNA report from the blood Buck found on that scarf left in his pickup,” he said. “DJ Diamond is definitely your twin.”

Ansley began to cry. Buck had done just what he’d said he would do—find her missing twin even if it killed him. She couldn’t lose them both.

“SETTLEDOWN,”DJ said to Butch as the sound of gunfire died off. “I’ll get your money.” He knew the money was only an excuse. “Let me take this off the fire.” He picked up the pot holder next to the stove, grabbed the handle of the largest skillet and swung around fast.

The sizzling canned ham hit Butch first so he was already screaming when the blistering-hot cast-iron skillet slammed into his face, not once but twice as the AK was wrenched from his hand. The first strike stunned him, the next knocked him to his knees. DJ was about to hit him again when he saw Rafe raising his AK and heard Sadie scream a warning.

Everything seemed to happen too fast after that. DJ saw the winter-clad figure come up behind Rafe. Crawford. The butt end of the PI’s handgun came down on the thug’s head hard. Rafe dropped, but as he did he pulled the trigger on the AK. Bullets sprayed across the cabin.

When DJ saw what was happening, he grabbed Sadie and threw her down, landing on top of her. As he threw her to the floor, he saw Keira’s body jump with each shot before the bullets arced toward him and Sadie on the floor. He’d felt Sadie take one of the bullets even as he tried to shelter her from them. It was as if the bullet punctured his heart. For a moment he couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. Beneath him, Sadie wasn’t moving, either. His worst fears had come true. He’d gotten Sadie killed.

In the silence that followed, the earth seemed to move. He heard a whump sound, then Crawford yelling. He rolled off Sadie, praying he was wrong, that she was fine. But one look at her and he knew she wasn’t. More yelling. He wasn’t even sure it wasn’t him yelling as he scooped an unconscious Sadie up into his arms.

“We have to get out of here.” Crawford was shaking his shoulder. “We have to get out of here. Now!”

He could hear a roar, thinking it was in his ears, but it appeared to be outside as if a runaway train was headed for the cabin.

“This way,” Crawford said, dragging him through the demolished front door, off the porch and into the pines away from the cabin. “Keeping going. Don’t stop.”

He could hear what sounded like trees being snapped off as the roar grew closer. Looking back he could see nothing but a cloud of white. He kept going until Crawford yelled for him to stop. DJ fell to his knees, still holding Sadie in his arms, and the PI rushed to him. Buck took off his coat and spread it on the snow. “Put her down here.”

DJ didn’t want to let her go.

“Let me check her wound,” the PI said.

He slowly released her, laying her on the coat in the snow. He could see that she was still breathing but losing blood from a wound in her side. He stripped off his coat and put it over her, then removed his bloody shirt to press it against her side. He didn’t feel the cold. He didn’t feel anything as the cloud of snow around him began to dissipate.

“Stay here. I’ll get a snowmobile. Help is coming. We just need to get to a spot where a chopper can land,” Crawford said.

DJ looked back toward the cabin. It was gone. All he could see was a few boards and one wall sticking up out of the snow farther down the mountain. Charley’s cabin was gone and everything in it. Keira. He closed his eyes and pulled Sadie closer as he heard the PI coming with the snowmobile.

Chapter Nineteen

Dressed in his Western suit, Buck rode the elevator up to the recovery floor. He found DJ next to Sadie’s hospital bed. He was sitting in a chair, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. The anguish he saw there was nothing like what he saw in the man’s eyes when DJ lifted his head.

“How is she doing?”

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