“Kill you,” her father’s words came out in a breathy hiss.

Dig laughed. “Your time is done, old man. With you gone and proof of Operation Magic in my hands, no one will oppose me. I’ll have taken everything that was once yours. Imagine — first your son, then your daughter, and finally, your bastard protégé sitting in your chair.”

While Dig was talking, Riley had forced her body to go limp. Then, when Dig was concentrating on her father, she slammed the heel of her sneaker down on his foot. He groaned and the pain caused him to loosen his arm enough for her to continue her downward motion into a squat. She slipped right out from under his arm. Pivoting around and shooting upwards, she brought her knee up into his groin with every bit of anger and strength she had in her.

Again she heard him moan as his body bent. She stepped back, trying to get out of his reach, but his arm shot out. He grabbed a handful of fabric at the front of her shirt. He straightened up with effort and pulled her to him. Though she hit back and landed several good punches to his body, he didn’t flinch.

Then both his hands were around her throat and she could not breathe. He pulled her face so close to his, she could see the watery tears shining in his blue eyes. Dig’s attempt to smile through his own pain turned his face into a horrible grimace of clenched teeth and drawn cheeks. She didn’t want to look into those eyes, but he held her so close, there was nowhere else to look.

In the distance she heard another voice she thought was her father’s, but the roaring in her ears made it too difficult to hear.

Dig’s nostrils flared and she felt the hot breath on her face. He was taunting her. He had air, she had none. His fingers tightened on her throat, and she felt his fingernails dig into her skin. She punched at his body with both her hands, tried to reach up, to get past his forearms and elbows to scratch at those eyes that were burning into her, but she also knew that all of her flailing was hurrying the process.

“Yorick,” Dig shouted. “I’ve been waiting for this day. You didn’t get to watch me kill your son.” His spittle sprayed her face. “But this time, you’ll get to watch it all.”

Riley did not want to die. Not like this. Not staring at this man, her heart filled with hate. Her chest felt like it was going to explode, while at the same time she grew weaker. With no idea whether it would work or not, she unbuckled the big dive watch on her left wrist and laced the strap through the fingers of her right hand, the big glass and metal dial on the outside of her knuckles. Then, with every bit of strength she had left in her, she swung her fist at Dig’s head. Just as she struck, she saw her father standing, launching himself onto Dig’s back.

The pain in her fingers was excruciating, but Dig’s eyes went unfocused for a second and she saw blood smeared down from his temple. In the next moment, his face reddened with rage. He roared and flung her away. In the second before she hit the wall, she sucked in air before the impact knocked it out of her again.

The side of her head struck the wall first. The blow didn’t knock her unconscious, but she couldn’t move for several seconds. She was aware of lying there in a heap on the floor, helpless, but there seemed to be some disconnect between her brain and her limbs.

She opened her eyes and saw Dig’s back. He was leaning over her father’s wheelchair. Her father’s legs were twisted.

Riley heaved herself to her knees and crawled over to the couch. From that angle, she could see the hands around her father’s throat, just as they had been around hers. She saw her father’s red face, the fear in his eyes.

“Dad,” she croaked as she used the couch to pull herself to a standing position. She picked up the ceramic lamp, raised it above her, and brought it crashing down on Dig’s head.

He released her father and turned to face her. Another gash in his forehead dripped a jagged line of blood.

“You bitch,” he said before he went for her.

She didn’t have enough strength left to put up much of a fight. He knocked her to the floor again with one back-handed blow to the face. When she got up, she licked her lip, tasted her own blood. The room was tilting, her vision blurred. Where was he? She blinked her eyes, trying to clear them.

Then she saw him. He was standing behind her father’s wheelchair, now, his big palms gripping the sides of the old man’s head like a pair of earmuffs. Her father’s lazy eye shone white, while his good eye danced in the socket as he tried to see what Dig was doing.

She forced her body to a stand and started toward them.

Then her father’s good eye focused on her and he said, “I’m so sorry.”

Dig roared, “Yorick!” and twisted the head around to the right with a sickening crunch.

Riley screamed, “Dad!”

Dig released his grip and jumped back, his hands high in the air like those of a runner who had just won the race of his life. He danced back and forth from one foot to the other, his bloody face alight with laughter.

Her father’s head fell on his chest at an unnatural angle, the lock of white hair falling forward again. More than anything she wanted to run to her father, to fix him, to straighten his neck and brush back that lock of hair.

When Dig lowered his arms and looked at her, she knew he intended her to be next.

So she ran.

Riley made it into the hall before Dig reached the door. He was so much bigger and faster though, she could never outrun him. She would have to out maneuver him.

When she reached the top of the stairs, he grabbed the tips of her fingers on her arm’s backswing. She whipped around and smashed her free hand down onto his, breaking his grip. Dig howled with rage. He lunged after her, but she dodged his grip, pivoted around, and started down the stairs, taking them three at a time.

Dig was taking four steps with each of his strides, and when they reached the bottom, she felt the tug as his fingers closed around her shirt tail. She dug her shoes in even harder, thinking that if only she could make it to the door and scream, someone might hear her on the street and come help her.

That was when she saw something flash past her right side at the farthest edge of her field of vision. She heard a metallic clang and a crack at the same time. The pressure pulling at the back of her shirt released, nearly causing her to fall face first onto the floor. She slowed, glanced over her shoulder, then came to a complete stop inside the front door.

There, at the bottom of the stairs, was Cole Thatcher standing over Dig’s crumpled body holding the lid to Mrs. Wright’s soup pot in his right hand.

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

Washington, DC 

March 28, 2008

1:05 p.m.

All Cole could think of as he looked at her standing in the entry like a frightened fawn ready to bolt, was what has that son of a bitch done to her? Riley’s lower lip was swollen and split, her chin streaked with blood. Her neck shone with the imprint of fingers and thin red slits where fingernails had pierced the skin. A big knot of a goose egg swelled on her right temple. She stood there, unmoving, staring at him. He heard the sound of traffic outside, the ticking of a clock somewhere in the house. In the seconds that passed as he tried to think of what to say to her, her blank eyes filled, and tears dripped down her already wet cheeks.

“Cole?” she said. She sounded confused.

He walked to her and put his arms around her, inhaling the scent of her. He touched her hair and attempted to lay her head on his shoulder, but her body remained rigid. He slid his hand from her hair to the silky soft skin of her neck, and he felt the flutter of her runaway pulse. His own heart and body were reacting to the closeness of her, and he felt the fierce heat of anger together with an overwhelming need to protect her.