For You (The 'Burg #1)(184)

Then I set the cordless on its side by the base and shouted, “I don’t know where she keeps her scarves, Alec! Ask Susie where she keeps her scarves!”“Just look around,” Denny shouted back.

I pulled my cell out of my back pocket and didn’t f**k around with scrolling to anyone’s number. I dialed 911 and then yanked my t-shirt out of my jeans and slid the phone in, display down, between my belly and my belt. I pulled the t-shirt back over it and tucked it around the phone.

“Found one!” I shouted my lie, but started searching and luckily found Susie’s scarves in the first drawer I pulled open.

I nabbed one and ran back to the living room, praying he hadn’t started without me but also that the 911 operator would keep quiet.

“You want me to gag her?” I asked loudly the minute I hit the room.

“Yeah, darlin’,” Denny said and I walked direct to Susie, my eyes sliding between her and Melanie, trying to tell them without words it was going to be okay and hoping I wasn’t nonverbally lying.

“What next?” I asked Denny as I gagged Susie.

“Erase,” Denny answered and I straightened and turned to him.

“What?”

“Erase,” Denny repeated, moving toward me, taking me by the arm and pulling me back.

“Erase?” I asked. “What –?”

“Gonna erase everything, Feb. All of yours, all of mine.” He lifted the gun and pointed it at Melanie as I stood and stared at him, frozen stiff with shock. “So we can get back to the way it’s supposed to be, gonna erase it all.”

He was going to shoot Melanie, I knew it, and he wasn’t going to hesitate.

I didn’t think, I just went for the gun but I was too late, he pulled the trigger when my hand hit his wrist and the gun exploded as the noise pounded against my ears and my heart stopped beating.

* * * * *

“He’s got a gun,” Morrie said, sitting beside Colt as Colt drove his truck to Susie’s.

“Yeah,” Colt replied.

“How’d he get a gun?” Morrie asked.

“Don’t know,” Colt answered.

Morrie was silent, staring out the windshield.

Then he said, “Joe-Bob –”

“Nope, not now, Morrie. Later.”

Morrie was silent again and Colt concentrated on driving, thinking about time, how much had elapsed, what was Denny’s intent, why he’d gone off target. He was supposed to be hunting for Colt, not Susie, not f**king Melanie. Melanie could barely handle giving herself a paper cut. She’d come undone being a hostage. Colt didn’t know what this meant. He didn’t know what it meant for Susie, Melanie or Feb. He didn’t know how much time they had.

“A f**kin’ latte,” Morrie muttered.

“I need you to be cool, Morrie,” Colt told him.

“If I hadn’t –” Morrie started.

“If you hadn’t, you’d be hacked or full of holes too,” Colt told him.

“Better’n scared shitless he’s got my sister.”

Morrie was wrong. If he thought he was right, he just had to ask Jayden Whelan’s wife.

“No, it isn’t, not when you got a wife and two kids at home,” Colt said.

“I was buyin’ a latte, Colt.”

“You were doin’ something your sister wanted you to do. You think Feb’s happy about where Joe-Bob, Darryl and Marty are now? Do you think she’d want that for you? For Dee? For Palmer and Tuesday?” Morrie made a guttural noise and Colt went on. “Focus, Morrie, this ends today and you and me, we don’t need to lose control and f**k it up.”

Morrie paused then blew out a breath before he said, “Yeah.”

“You with me?” Colt asked.

“Yeah.”

Colt turned on Vine and he tried to take his own advice, he tried to keep control, be cool but all he could think was he promised Feb he’d keep her safe and, at that moment, she was far from safe.

* * * * *

“What the f**k you doin’?” Denny shouted but I was staring at the bullet hole in the wall beside where Melanie’s head used to be.

She’d fallen to the side, into Susie who had also leaned away. Both of them were crying behind their gags which worked for me since neither of them were bleeding.

Denny pushed me away and stared at me. I had to think fast, I had to buy time.

“You shot at Melanie!” I yelled.

“I gotta erase –”

“Colt wouldn’t shoot at Melanie!” I yelled over him, he went stock-still and his face went funny, not a good funny, a bad funny.

“What’d you say?” he asked quietly.

“I said Colt wouldn’t shoot Melanie. And he wouldn’t have hacked up Angie. Or Butch. Or even Pete. Colt’s about good. He’d never hurt anyone. You’re not supposed to hurt anyone!” I shouted.

“I’m not Colt,” Denny told me. “I’m Alec.”

I shook my head again, short, fast, all the while blinking. I didn’t understand.

“You’re Alec,” I said to him.

“I’m Alec,” Denny agreed.

“And Alec is Colt.”

Denny shook his head then he grinned. This wasn’t a good grin either, it, too, was a bad grin and it scared me to the depth of my soul.