Page 74 of Yuletide Hero

They were going to get his wife cuffed and out of here, and then it was just him and Kinsley. Then they would try to badger him into letting go of the only thing keeping him from being shot right now. They would try to distract him with talk about his past, trying to analyze it and find a way to explain why he had turned out to be the man he was.

But he didn't care about that.

He was who he was, he made no apologies for it.

And he wasn't going to let them use it as a weapon to keep his attention on them while they got their cop buddies to sneak into the house and take him out from behind.

Maria was too well trained to obey the command of anyone but him, and she still stood beside him, right where she’d been when the intruders had arrived.

A plan was already forming in his head.

A way where he got out of here and succeeded in ending Hayley Hood’s life. If he played things right, he might also walk away with his wife and kid.

All he had to do was get upstairs to his gun. Then he’d run into Hayley’s room, shoot her, then as the cops took Maria and Kinsley outside he could shoot them, then go out the window and flee.

He had to hurry though.

He had no doubt that the cops were telling the truth when they’d said that more of them were coming.

Without wasting another second, Jay threw Kinsley at Maria and ran.

* * * * *

3:58 A.M.

If they weren't right this time, he didn't think he could take it.

Brian was pretty much at the end of his rope.

One tiny little push and he was going to go tumbling over the edge and fall apart.

Hayley had been with that man for nearly twelve hours now. That was more than enough time for him to have killed her, and it was more than enough time for him to have tortured her.

That was almost more terrifying than the thought of Hayley being dead.

A quick death was one thing, he would never get over losing her, and neither would the rest of her family, but at least she wouldn’t have suffered. But to think of her alone, scared, in pain, being tortured, that was too much. He couldn’t cope with that. He couldn’t. He needed her to be okay.

Brady, Adam, and Jessica had ordered him to stay in the car while they went inside to see if Jay Turner was hiding out with Hayley, his wife, and his daughter at the house of a woman named Bridie Kocsh. Bridie had been a social worker who had worked with Jay’s family when he was a child. So far, he had complied, mainly because his body was physically fatigued. After not sleeping the night before, then the car accident, and worrying over Hayley, he was tapped out. And sore, his body ached, and the bumps, bruises, cuts, and broken nose were starting to make themselves known.

He just wanted Hayley back.

Now.

But they’d been wrong once already tonight.

They'd thought that Jay Turner might be staying at the home of a different retired social worker, but when they’d turned up the woman had been at home with her three sons and their families who were visiting from out of state. Since they thought that the anger he had directed toward Hayley had to come from a deeper seated place than just her doing her job and removing Kinsley from the home they decided to see if there was a social worker in his own past.

There was.

And now they were here.

Where he had been left waiting.

Shoving open the car door, Brian got out and began to pace up and down the sidewalk.

What was going on in there?

What was taking so long?

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