Light up the Night (Firehouse Three #2)(57)

“But I’ve still lost her. My baby girl,” he said grimly, shoving Everly against the metal shelving hard enough that her skull cracked loudly against it, throwing stars into her vision. “The only way I can make this up to her is to give her a gift.”

“This isn’t a gift!” The fumes in the room were making her dizzy, and she coughed. He’d obviously loosened a fitting behind the dryer, and the natural gas was filling the room with a slow, hissing sound. “This is a crime!”

“You took what she wanted from her, and so you’ve got to pay. It’s the only way I might be able to win her love back.”

Everly screamed then, kicking and flailing and doing her dead-level best to escape. There was no waiting for an opening any longer, the panic had her in a chokehold just as tight as the ropes that were circling her waist, pinning her to the front of the shelves full of paper goods and spare office supplies.

When the knots were done, Belinda’s father stepped back and examined his handiwork, a prominent frown on his face.

“The explosion will be biggest in this room, so the evidence should be gone, but I don’t trust you not to work out of those knots.” He set a small electronic device in front of the dryer. It looked like he’d cannibalized an RC car, bits of plastic and wires cobbled inelegantly together. Then he propped his hands on his hips like he was trying to figure out a problem with an engine instead of looking for holes in his strategy for murder.

Everly swallowed hard, trying to find the key out of this.

“You don’t want to do this,” she said, pulling at her bonds ineffectually. “You’re not a bad person. You love your daughter, and she’ll forgive you for whatever it is you think you’ve done. She’s happy now, she’s got Drake, and I’ve lost him. Please, don’t take everything else from me too.” She was sobbing openly now, a glimmer of hope flaring in her heart as his expression broke slightly. “Please, let my animals live, and let me live.”

“Sorry,” he said, his eyes dimming as he stepped closer to her. “I really am. But this is the way it has to be. If I let you go now, you’ll turn me in. Once it got out back home that I’m a criminal, there’s no way she’d ever speak to me again. I’ve got to see this through.”

He placed his broad hands on the sturdy metal utility shelving and pulled hard. Everly braced back as tightly as she could, but his superior size and strength coupled with her bonds made her easy to overpower.

The heavy shelving hit the tile with a loud clang that she didn’t register—her body was trapped beneath the substantial weight and bulk.

When she could blink again, she looked around wildly. Her head was pinned beneath the shelf, but there was enough space between it and the floor for her to see just a little.

He’d propped open the laundry room door, and that was the only reason she hadn’t lost consciousness from the gas leak yet. As it was, she felt dizzy and nauseous with every breath she took. Of course, that could also be the blood that was pooling beneath her head. It didn’t matter. Either way, she was done for.

Here, in the place she’d spent so many happy hours, she was going to die.

The tears that dripped onto the tile floor weren’t just for her. They were for each of the animals in her shelter that would be lost along with her.

“I’m sorry, Bella,” she whispered aloud. “Lucky, I’m sorry. Fritz, Amos, Benji, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Socks and Boots, Blackie and Sparkles and Mr. Green Jeans.”

She apologized to all of them by name, and she did it in as loud a voice as she could manage.

If they only had hours—or minutes, she didn’t know when he planned to set off the explosion—to live, she wanted every animal in her care to know that they were wanted. That they were loved. That someone cared that their lives would be sacrificed today.

But eventually she ran out of animals to name. Then, and only then, did she let his name fall from her lips, and she did it in a way that she’d been longing to before this horrible, hellish day had ever dawned. She would die there, she had no doubt. But she wouldn’t die before she allowed herself to speak the truth.

If this was the last chance she had? She would take it. Better a truth spoken while staring down Death than never uttered at all.

“I love you, Drake.”



Getting checked out of a hospital AMA was a huge pain in the ass.

As soon as those elevator doors had closed, security had glared at the rest of them and walked off. Drake had stalked—well, stumbled with his bum leg—back to his room. Belinda had talked his ear off the whole way. At the door to his room, he whirled and glared at her.

“Why the hell are you still here, when she had to leave? I’m not sure what language I need to speak to you in for you to understand me. I. Do. Not. Love. You. We are through. I don’t want to see you again, ever. I hope you have a very nice life, somewhere far away from me.” He stepped closer to her. “And if you ever, and I mean ever, cause Everly a moment’s discomfort, pain, or anxiety again? I will sue the ass off of you. I know you’re responsible for at least part of her stress lately.” He remembered the look on Everly’s face when she’d seen his cell phone lit up with Belinda’s picture.

Jesse reappeared then, and Hunter wrapped his arm around her.

“I—Drake, the golf tournament thing was just to warn her off! And I—”