“You’re sure it’s not in your purse?” Don asked, and they heard the clink of change and metal on the wooden floor.

“I told you it was stolen,” Maryn whimpered. “Why would I lie?”

“All right,” he relented. “Maybe you’re telling the truth. Doesn’t matter, does it? Come on, get up. And be quiet.” He slung the briefcase over his shoulder.

Maryn was crying again.

“I said get up, damn it,” Don growled, pulling his own pistol from his waistband.

Maryn gave another cry of pain, and they heard footsteps on the wooden floor.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, her voice quivering.

“You wanted to see Adam Kuykendall, I’m taking you to see him,” Don said. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not alone here, Don,” Maryn said. “My friends—they’ve probably already figured out you’re here. They’ll call the cops. They won’t let you…”

He slapped her so hard her ears rang.

“Friends?” he sneered. “You don’t have friends, Maryn. Those women let you live here—why? Because you paid them? Nobody’s coming to save you, Maryn. It’s just you and me. That’s the way it’s always been. The way it always will be. Now move, God damn it.”

*   *   *

When they heard the sound of the heavy door opening, the slide of the dead bolt, all three of the women knew what was happening.

“Come on,” Ellis said, racing for Dorie’s door. “He’s taking her down the back staircase. Ty’s down there, somewhere. Julia, is that thing loaded? Do you know how to shoot it?”

“It’s loaded now,” Julia said, her voice grim. “I haven’t fired a gun since Daddy showed me how when I was fourteen, but it’ll come back to me.”

“Wait for me,” Dorie said, sliding her feet into a pair of flip-flops.

“Stay here,” Julia ordered.

“The hell I will,” Dorie said fiercely, and the three of them sprinted down the stairs as fast as they could go.

When they reached the living room, Ellis made a detour towards the fireplace. “What are you doing?” Julia whispered.

Ellis raised aloft the heavy wrought-iron poker, and Julia nodded approval.

“Wait a sec,” Dorie ordered, peeling off towards the kitchen. When she came back, she was brandishing a meat cleaver and a butcher knife. “Now we’re set,” she said.

*   *   *

Crouched under the rear stairwell, Ty heard the rusty door hinges squeak, and finally heard the heavy old door swing open. Shit! He felt the vibration of footsteps on the old steel stairway.

Madison was crying. “Don, no. Please, no. I won’t tell anybody. Please…”

“Shut up!” The man’s voice was hoarse, and Ty heard the sickening sound of a slap, flesh against flesh, and Madison cried out again. “Go on, move,” the man ordered. “Move or I’ll, by God, throw you down these stairs.”

Ty looked around for something, anything, to use as a weapon, but the only thing handy was a scrap two-by-four left behind by the construction crew. He looked longingly at the shovels and rakes lying around by the construction site, but that was thirty yards away in the open, and it was too late now to risk making a run. He’d be seen for sure if he tried to move. The staircase shuddered under the weight of the footsteps descending it.

“Move, God damn it,” came Shackleford’s hoarse whisper.

52

The women crept onto the front porch, huddling together in a knot. “I wonder where Ty is?” Ellis worried. She peered out at the driveway. The rain had gotten steadier, and mist rose eerily from the construction equipment and debris scattered around Ebbtide’s weedy yard. “How’d Don get here?” she whispered. “There’s no car in the driveway.”

“Maybe he parked somewhere down the block,” Dorie suggested.

“No good, because then he’d have to drag, or carry, Madison to his car,” Julia said.

“Wait,” Ellis said. She ran across the driveway, veering around the remains of the old garage, towards the lot next door, the one where she’d parked what seemed like months ago to get her first sneak peek at Ebbtide. A moment later she was back, panting and out of breath.

“There’s a black Escalade parked over there, behind that burnt-out foundation,” she told them. “That’s got to be Don’s. Dorie, do you think you can make it over there to the car, like, fast?”

“Of course,” Dorie snorted indignantly. “I’m not a cripple, for God’s sake.”

“Okay,” Ellis said, gesturing to the knives Dorie wielded in each hand. “Get over there and slash his tires. If he does manage to get Madison past all of us, that should slow him down. And then get the hell away from there.”

“Be right back,” Dorie promised. “Don’t do anything without me.”

When she was gone, Ellis and Julia crouched down and crab walked towards the edge of the front porch.

“What’s the plan?” Julia asked, her voice unaccustomedly shaky. “Ellis, even if I could pull this trigger, I’ve only ever shot at hay bales, in broad daylight, with Daddy right beside me. I’ve got no idea whether or not I could actually hit anything, especially in the dark like this.”

*   *   *

Ty felt the footsteps coming closer. He crouched into a fetal position, willing himself to fade into invisibility. Rain trickled down his head and into his ears, it dripped off the tip of his nose. He blinked and shook his head just slightly, with sudden understanding of the efficiency of Chinese water torture.

“God damn it, move your ass,” Shackleford rasped. “Or I swear I’ll kill you right here.”

“My ankle,” Madison moaned. “I think I twisted it.”

Ty looked up and saw Shackleford shove Madison down the last few steps of the staircase. He saw the gun, too. She cried out, landing in a heap on the matted grass. The man stepped over her and jerked her to her feet. He had a briefcase on his shoulder.

“This way,” he growled hoarsely, shoving her in the direction of the driveway.

Now or never, Ty thought grimly. He stood and launched himself into a flying tackle, fueled more with testosterone than skill, remembering his high school coach’s mantra: “Square up and drive, son.” Ty slammed into the back of Shackleford’s thighs, sending him sprawling headfirst onto the ground. BOOM!

The gunshot was so close and so loud, for a fleeting moment, Ty wondered if he’d been shot. Madison fell too, and now the three of them were flopping around in the rain and the mud, arms and legs hopelessly entangled.

“What the…?” Shackleford rolled onto his back. Ty slapped awkwardly at Shackleford’s gun hand, managing only a grazing blow, and Shackleford retaliated with a vicious backward kick to Ty’s gut. Now he was pointing the gun directly at Ty, who was scuttling backwards in the mud, trying desperately to get out of firing range.

Madison somehow managed to scramble to her feet. “No!” she screeched. “No!” She darted forward and managed to land one good kick in her husband’s ribs before he caught her foot and jerked her off balance. She screamed in pain, screamed in fear, screamed until she thought her lungs would catch fire. Senseless with rage, she kicked out at Shackleford, who grabbed her ankle with his left hand and flipped her to the ground.

Seizing the moment, Ty spied a piece of scrap two-by-four, grabbed it, and was advancing on Shackleford. But the other man saw him coming, raised up on his elbows, aimed, and fired.

BOOM!

This time he didn’t have to wonder. Ty felt a searing pain in this thigh.

*   *   *

Ellis and Julia startled at the screams coming from the back of Ebbtide. “He’s killing her!” Julia whispered, peering around the corner of the garage. “We’ve gotta do something.”

“Wait!” Ellis said, clutching the hem of Julia’s shirt. But the gunshots coming from the back of the house canceled the women’s sense of caution.

“My God,” Ellis gasped. “He’s got a gun. And Ty’s back there. He’ll kill them both!”

Before Julia could stop her, or argue for a reasonable plan of action, Ellis was sprinting towards the rear of the house, with Julia close behind. Ellis’s legs felt like concrete. Her lungs, calves, and thighs burned as though she’d set fire to them. But Ty was back there, and that bastard Don Shackleford had a gun. For once in her life, she didn’t have a plan. All she had was adrenaline.