Fear For Me

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

With horror filling her, Lauren watched as Anthony flew over the dock and into the small boat. His body slammed into Greg’s. Greg swiped out at Anthony with the knife he still held.

Anthony drove his head into Greg’s. The knife glinted once more as Greg shoved it at Anthony.

No one was steering the boat. It bounced on the waves, rattling hard, and then—

Greg slipped on the edge of the boat. He tumbled toward the black water. He grabbed Anthony’s arm, sending them both crashing into the water.

The boat rushed away, heading into the dark.

Lauren ran toward the dock, with Kyle rushing to her side. “Where are they?” Lauren demanded. Her throat hurt, a raw, burning pain from the slices. Blood soaked her skin, but she didn’t care.

She only cared about Anthony.

A dark head broke the water. The flashlight fell on him. Anthony. Her breath rushed out.

Greg’s upper body shot out of the darkness. Water flew around him, and he drove the knife in his hand straight at Anthony’s unprotected back.

“No!” Lauren screamed, and she jumped in the water.

A gunshot fired behind her.

Kyle’s bullet had missed its target. The knife had thrust into Anthony’s shoulder. As she tried to get to him, Anthony spun around—never crying out in pain, never making a sound—and knocked the weapon out of Greg’s hand. Fighting, both men sank under the water, only to jump back to the surface moments later.

Greg won’t stop. Like one of those twisted horror show killers, he just wouldn’t freaking stop.

Not until they stopped him.

Something hard and rough brushed by Lauren’s feet as she fought to swim. A gator? She recoiled. Then she swam faster. Faster.

The knife was thrust at Anthony again.

Something splashed behind her. Please be Kyle coming to help. Not a gator. With all the blood in the water, the gators would be drawn in fast.

Anthony and Greg vanished once more.

The boat’s motor was a low growl in the distance.

The splashing behind her was louder.

She whirled.

Kyle. Kyle was there. With his face grim and gun still clutched in his hand.

“Lauren…”

The voice came from behind her.

It wasn’t Anthony’s.

She grabbed for Kyle’s gun, but he held tight. They both aimed it as they spun toward Greg.

He wasn’t advancing on them. He was staring at Lauren—shock, longing, pain—all twisting in his face.

Anthony was behind him.

He had Greg’s knife. It was now pressed to the killer’s throat.

“It’s over,” Anthony snarled.

Lauren pulled her gaze from Greg and saw Cadence and Paul swimming toward them.

“Don’t kill him!” Cadence yelled. “Dammit, Ross, don’t!”

Lauren knew Anthony wanted to kill him. She wanted him dead, too. The temptation was so strong, and Lauren knew all she had to do was tell Anthony…

Do it.

And he would.

“Think of the victims!” Cadence cried out.

She was thinking of the victims. Jenny. Lauren’s lips parted.

“Their families! They need closure. He can take us to the bodies. He’s the only one who knows where they are.”

Dammit.

Anthony kept the knife at Greg’s throat. Lauren knew he was waiting for her response.

She shook her head.

The families.

They all needed peace.

Anthony held tight to the killer. Kyle was at his side. They had the bastard.

The water was cold against Lauren’s skin. Tears burned her eyes. Tears she wouldn’t shed, not yet. She was frozen in the water as the others closed in on the killer.

Paul cuffed Greg. The men towed him to shore while Cadence helped Lauren back to land. Cadence checked Lauren’s throat and asked her over and over if she was all right.

All right didn’t come close.

She couldn’t take her gaze off Greg. His head was down, his shoulders slumped, and he wasn’t saying a thing.

Sirens wailed in the distance. The rest of the cavalry, riding to the rescue. But the battle was over.

Wasn’t it?

He took Jenny away. She pushed away from Cadence and walked toward Greg.

Anthony stepped into her path. Anthony—her strong, tough marshal. The man who’d just stopped her nightmare.

He wrapped his arms around her. Held her tight. His clothes were soaking wet. So were hers. She shivered as she reveled in the hard power of his body.

Yet over his shoulder, her gaze fell on Greg. Kyle was on Greg’s left. Paul on his right. Greg was cuffed…

His head lifted. He smiled at her.

Then he drove his arm into Paul’s gut. In the next second, he rammed his face into Kyle’s nose. Greg lunged away from the men and raced toward her and Anthony. There was a gun gripped in his hand, a gun he’d taken from Paul.

Lauren shoved Anthony out of the way.

The gunshot hit her, slamming into her chest.

Anthony roared her name. He rushed at Greg even as Lauren fell back.

She saw Anthony’s hands fly out. He ripped the weapon away from Greg. Twisted the weapon, turning it back on the ME—

Then fired.

The blast seemed to shake the earth. Then she realized she’d shaken the earth as her body slammed into it.

“Lauren!” Anthony’s voice was roaring again. His head was over her. “Lauren!”

He was there. Safe. She wanted to smile.

“No, baby, no.” His hands were on her chest. It should have hurt. He looked like he was pressing so hard.

But she didn’t feel his touch.

She wanted to feel him.

Cadence’s face was above her, too. The profiler ripped away Lauren’s shirt. Applied her own pressure to the wound.

Lauren couldn’t feel any of it.

Before she’d fallen, her heartbeat had been so loud. Almost as loud as the shots. Now, she could barely hear it at all.

“Don’t you do this,” Anthony ordered her, but the words sounded ragged. “Don’t! Lauren, look at me.”

She wouldn’t look anywhere else. She knew what was happening. She wanted him to be the last thing she’d see.

The best thing.

He’d said he loved her.

She should have told him how she felt.

He was the only man she’d ever loved.

“Baby, please…” Then he raised his voice. “Stop the blood, Cadence, stop it!”

“Tony…”

Just saying his name made her feel so hollowed out and weak. It was getting darker, so dark that it was hard for her to see him at all.

“Hold on, Lauren, you’re going to be okay. Cadence says the medevac is coming. You’ll be—”

“Love…” The word was a rasp, but she was determined to tell him. “You.”

“I fucking love you, too. If you think for a second I’m letting you go, think again. I’ve got you for the next thirty years. Hell, I’ve got you forever. We’re getting married. We’re having kids, and we’re telling them to stay the fuck away from swamps and—Lauren!”

Her lashes were closing. “Yes…”

“Lauren?”

Yes…I’ll marry you. She didn’t get to tell him. She didn’t get to tell him anything else.

A low, constant beeping pierced the darkness around her. Lauren slowly opened her eyes, squinting against the onslaught of light.

Everything was so bright and white.

She tried to move and found tubes running over her body. She tried to speak.

Panic hit her.

Something’s in my throat.

Lauren twisted, clawing, and a long, hot burn rushed across her hand.

“Lauren!” Anthony said. His voice was rougher, raspier than she’d heard before.

Her gaze flew to him.

“About fucking time,” he whispered. He leaned across her and hit the call button. “It’s okay,” he told her, his eyes staying with hers. “You’re safe.”

In a hospital. I hate these places.

“He almost got your heart, it was so close.”

She frowned at him, noting the hard lines on his face. Deeper lines. She tried to talk again.

His jaw tightened. A nurse burst into the room. He still didn’t look away from Lauren. “You’ve got a breathing tube in your throat. You can’t talk, baby, not yet.”

Her eyes stung.

He looked so worn.

How long had she been there?

“Seven days,” he whispered, as if he’d heard her question. “Seven of the longest days of my life.”

Another nurse came into the room. The doctor followed.

They tried to push Anthony back, but he was putting something in her hand. The hand that had burned before. The object felt cold.

Her head turned so she could see it. She’d yanked out an IV. The machines beeped wildly. In her hand, clutched between her fingers, he’d put two necklaces.

Two crosses. Two perfect crosses.

Merry Christmas, girls! She could hear her mom’s voice rising with laughter and love.

Her hand clenched around the crosses.

“Greg had the crosses on him. I think he meant to plant them on Hawthorne, but he didn’t have enough time. After…” He cleared his throat. “Cadence found them after.”

After Greg had shot her.

After Anthony had shot him.

Tears tumbled from her eyes. The nurses went to work on her. The doctor tried to soothe her.

Anthony stayed by her side, and brushed away her tears.

“Where am I supposed to go?” Lauren asked, her voice still not as strong as Anthony would like. He’d just put her in his SUV, and they’d left Our Lady of Mercy Hospital behind them. Finally.

Two long weeks.

The first week, when she’d struggled so desperately to live, he’d nearly lost his mind.

Anthony glanced at her from the corner of his eye. He had lost his mind. Cadence had been forced to pull him off one of the doctors—a prick who’d said Lauren only had a 10 percent chance of survival.

Screw that.

He’d stayed by her side. Day and night.

“I don’t exactly have a house anymore,” Lauren murmured. “And hotels are nice and all but…”

“I have a place for you.”

He’d always have a place for her.

Her lips, still not the healthy pink he loved, curved. “Is it a no-tell motel?”

Damn, but he loved her. Only Lauren would try to joke with him after the hell she’d been through.

Only Lauren.

“Better,” he whispered. Promised.

Her smile widened.

His heart cracked.

When she’d been airlifted to the hospital, he’d been so helpless. His Lauren, still and bloody.

I should have killed him when I had the chance. Instead, she’d suffered.

“Don’t.” Her smile was gone.

His hands tightened around the wheel.

“Do you think I don’t know what you’re thinking? It’s on your face, Anthony. It wasn’t your fault.”

He’d bear the guilt for the rest of his life, no matter what she said.

“Anthony…”

She’d risked her life to save him. He cleared his throat. “Promise not to ever do that again.”

“Promise not to get into a battle with a crazed serial killer?” Lauren said. “Done.” It was that low, husky voice he loved.

But then, he loved everything about her.

They drove in silence, the SUV eating up the miles, taking them back to a place where they’d been safe. A place where they’d been happy, even in the middle of hell.

“Wait, isn’t this…?”

He turned onto the drive that would lead them to the antebellum home. He hadn’t been there since Lauren had been in the hospital, but then he hadn’t been anywhere since she’d been in the hospital.

“I lied,” he told her when he brought the SUV to a stop.

She was frowning.

“It’s not a friend’s.” He climbed from the vehicle and hurried to her side. She tried to walk. He wanted her taking it easy, so he scooped her up into his arms and carried her into the house. “At least, it doesn’t belong to him anymore.”

She glanced around the house. “What’s going on?”

“I bought this place, right before Walker broke out of Angola, before everything went to hell.”

Her wide eyes found his. “Why?”

“I was coming back to you. I was going to fight for a second chance with you.” He eased her into one of the lush leather chairs. Everything there had been picked with her in mind. “Whatever you don’t like, we can change. I’d had a decorator working on the place. I was just trying to get things in place…”

“In place?”

“For when I came back begging you for another chance.” After the Valentine case in New Orleans, when he’d had only moments to live, he’d known exactly what he wanted to live for—

Her.

He bent down onto one knee. “I don’t have a ring.”

Her delicate brows climbed. “A house, but no ring?”

Was she laughing? God, he hoped so. He wanted her to spend the rest of her days smiling and laughing and banishing the ghosts and demons from the past.

“I’ll give you any ring you want,” he promised. “I’ll give you anything you want, just please, stay with me.”

Her gaze searched his. “I remember what you said to me.”

Hell, during those desperate hours in the hospital when he’d been a deranged fuck?

“Marriage,” she whispered. “Kids.”

He had to swallow the thick lump that rose in his throat. He wanted those things with her, so badly.

“I tried to tell you then…”

She had the two crosses around her slender neck. A neck that still showed the wounds Greg had given to her.

“I tried to tell you yes.”

All of the breath left his lungs. He surged up. Wrapped his arms around her and held her carefully, so carefully.

Her hold on him was tight and hard—and so perfect.

“How is this going to work?” Lauren whispered. “With your job, how?”

He pulled away, just a few inches, so he could stare down at her. “I’m not a marshal anymore.”

“What?”

“I’m officially retired.” He gave her a smile. “I’m going to open a security business in town.” Giving up the job had been easy for him.

Wherever she was, that was where he needed to be.

“What happens now?” Lauren asked.

Her eyes were shining. Her lips waiting. Love…it was right there for him to see and touch and taste.

“Now we live.” He put his mouth to hers and knew their life together was truly beginning.

“It was a beautiful service.”

Lauren turned to see FBI Special Agent Cadence Hollow heading toward her. Kyle had flown back to Virginia, but Cadence had stayed a little longer.

Cadence had been checking in on Lauren, and helping Paul find the last of the victims.

When the police had searched Greg’s home, they’d discovered journals, diaries—dozens of them. All talking about his kills.

He’d planted a tree over each body. A special tree for his special girls. Love could be twisted for some.

Anthony’s hand brushed lightly over Lauren’s arm.

And love could be dark and dangerous and perfect for others.

“Your sister’s at peace now,” Cadence continued quietly. “You got justice for her.”

Lauren glanced at the flowers on the ground, the spot that would mark her sister’s resting place. A perfect spot right next to their parents. The service had been a long time coming, and now…I still miss her just as much.

“What happened to him?” Lauren asked the profiler. “What made Greg turn out…”

Like this?

“We talked to some of his old neighbors. As a kid, he was caught killing a lady’s cat. Skinning a dog.”

Lauren shuddered.

“The behavior stopped after his parents sent him to a group therapy home, so they thought everything was back to normal for him.”

Anthony wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close against him.

Cadence’s stare moved between them. “Sometimes, it’s hard to stay what turns one man into a killer but makes another the hero. The protector. Both have the same capacity within them for good and evil.”

Some were just evil, hiding behind good.

“From his journal entries, we learned that Greg and Jon actually met at the therapy group. Their parents were trying to get them help, but it just didn’t work.” The wind lifted her hair, and Cadence brushed it back. “He helped Jon get out of prison. A week before the escape, Greg was at Angola, supposedly for a consult. We think he found a way to talk with Jon then.”

“Do you believe some people are born evil?” Lauren asked.

“Yes.” Her voice was flat. “After all I’ve seen…” There were ghosts in Cadence’s eyes, shadows of terrible memories. “I do.” Cadence straightened her shoulders and offered Lauren her hand. “I’ll be leaving tonight. Got a call about another case.”

“There’s always another one,” Anthony murmured.

Always another monster waiting in the wings.

Cadence nodded. “But at least we took two down.” She shook Anthony’s hand. “Enjoy your happiness. Few people ever get to be truly happy.” Her eyes were sincere. “I envy you that happiness.”

She turned away and walked slowly from the cemetery.

Goose bumps rose on Lauren’s arms as she watched Cadence leave. The woman spent her days in the minds of killers—why?

I prosecute to give victims their justice. I do it because of Jenny.

What had made Cadence so determined to go after real-life monsters?

“Are you ready to go?” Anthony asked as she turned to face him.

A line of stubble darkened his hard jaw, making him look even sexier than normal.

Her sexy ex-marshal. “I’m ready.”

Ready to walk away from the past and start looking toward the future.

The future that waited, with him.