Page 101 of Deadly Attraction
Chapter Twenty-one
Mitch heard the gunshot and his heart stopped.
Emma.
Not only had Cooper and the others arrived, so had the county sheriff’s CSI techs—finally—and a woman claiming she was Emma’s veterinarian. Will had vouched for the doctor, and she had started rounding up the horses, saying she would help Will care for them until Emma could come home from the safe house.
Mitch’s feet moved on their own accord, sprinting for the house, his heartbeat pounding in his ears.
The dogs barked behind him, people yelled at him. He had the sense that the dogs and several of the men—Cooper, Nelson, and Will—were following.
In the distance, he heard the solidwhap-whap-whapof a helicopter’s blades.
Or maybe that was his heart, a heavy, bass drum pounding out dread.
The long lane was full of mud-filled ruts. Mitch hopped some, ran straight through the larger ones. He tore past the juvie van, catching a whiff of the dead man inside, all of his senses heightened and firing off messages his brain didn’t like.
“Emma!” he yelled, hitting the door into the kitchen.
The dogs ran past him as he hesitated and glanced toward the mudroom, the pantry. He kept hauling.
Living room. Nope. No Emma. Broken glass still covered the floor, bullets embedded in the walls.
The other men hit the kitchen as Mitch tore up the stairs. His gun was already in his hand, sweat mixed with rain running down the back of his neck. “Emma!”
“In here,” he heard her soft voice calling from her bedroom.
His muddy boots skidded on the wood floor as he tried to stop his forward projection on the landing. He nearly slid right past the bedroom door. Salt and Pepper came to stand on either side of him as Mitch finally righted himself in the doorway.
“Jesus,” was all he could say at the sight that met his eyes.
Emma sat in her underwear on the side of her bed, staring down at a man with a bullet hole between his eyebrows. Blood pooled under the man’s head as his unseeing eyes stared up at the ceiling.
Chris Goodsman.
She raised her gaze to Mitch, her body teetering uncertainly, her face as white as Salt’s fur. She stuck out a hand to balance herself and Mitch saw the gun lying next to her. “He was under the bed, playing with his Tom Monahan figurines.”
She shivered hard, her face filled with revulsion.
“Jesus,” he said again.
He walked into the room, eager to get to her, but checked Goodsman for weapons first. The man had a camping knife on a belt around his waist, but didn’t appear to have anything else.
The dogs stayed in the doorway, noses lifted at the scent of blood. Salt growled low and deep in her throat. The other men clattered up the stairs, and Cooper yelled, “Holden?”
“First room on your left,” he called, turning to Emma, the body still between them. “Are you all right?”
Emma reached over and pulled a blanket toward her. “I’m…”
A scream split the air, a banshee cry if Mitch had ever heard one. He jerked toward the bathroom to see a flash of brown clothes, frizzy hair, and a lifted arm coming at Emma full-throttle.
“What have you done?” the banshee screamed.
The glint of light on metal, the arc of the knife slicing through the air.
Everything went into slow motion. Mitch jumped across Goodsman’s body, throwing himself toward the bed, but Emma—strong, determined, protective Emma—was already up, gun in hand, as Linda brought the knife down.
For some reason, Emma threw the gun at Brown instead of firing. The gun hit the knife, sending the knife off center, but Brown instantly counterbalanced, whirled in a martial arts circle and drove the knife into Emma’s chest.
