Colder Than Ice (35 page)

Bryan heard her message, loud and clear. And he understood. He backed away slowly, then turned and hurried back through the woods. He raced across the lawn and through the back door, bursting into the kitchen and lunging through the dining room. “There's a bomb! Everyone out of the house!”

People shot to their feet, gaping at him.

“Outside! Everyone outside! Now!”

And then they burst into motion. All of them racing for the front door. It was a crush, people pushing, jostling, but still keeping it under control. After an initial hassle at the front door, Frankie started issuing orders, and they eased back and made their way outside single file.

Bryan joined them when there was a break in the line and began searching the crowd gathered on the front lawn for his father, for Dawn.

Chief Frankie gripped his arm. “Bryan, what in God's name is going on?”

“Mordecai Young. He's in the woods, he's got Beth, and he says there's a bomb in the house.” He looked back toward the house. “God, where's my father?”

 

“Come on, Beth. I want you to see it when it goes. I want you to see what your unrepentant pride has wrought.” Mordecai gripped her upper arm and jerked her to her feet.

She didn't fight him, because she needed desperately to get back to the house, to make sure everyone had gotten out. “When…when is this bomb going to go off?” she asked, running to keep up with him as he strode through the woods, still gripping her arm.

He smiled and looked at his watch. “Less than two minutes, Beth. And maybe then you'll be humbled before the power of almighty God.”

They emerged from the woods and heard voices, loud, alarmed voices coming from the front lawn. “What's happening?” Mordecai asked someone who wasn't there.

Beth wrenched her arm free, jammed her elbow into his windpipe and ran around the house. But he chased her, and then he had her again, his arm snapping around her neck from behind. They were standing there on the front lawn, twenty feet from half the town, but concealed by one corner of the house. She could do nothing. Mordecai had her, his gun jammed against her temple.

And that was when she heard Bryan saying, “Where's my father?”

“Last time I saw him, he and Dawn were looking for Beth,” someone said.

“They went upstairs,” someone else said.

“Jesus, they're still inside!”

“No!” Beth cried, wrenching against Mordecai's imprisoning arm. “Joshua?” She no longer cared if he shot her, so she sprang into the open. “Dawny! God, no, Dawny!” Mordecai lunged after her, grabbing her again.

Everyone turned at her cry, seeing the situation, the man holding her, the gun pressed to her head. They went still and silent. Frankie held up a hand, keeping everyone calm, and Beth noted Jax at the edge of the crowd, working her way closer, one hand behind her back.

“Dawn?” Mordecai whispered close to her ear. “You mean the girl—the girl who's been with Bryan all this time—she's our Sunny?”

“You didn't know? Mordecai, you have to do something. Sunny, our Sunny, she's in that house!”

He looked at the sky. “That's why you wouldn't let me see her?” he asked. “How could you? How could you trick me into killing my own child?” As he said it, his imprisoning arm relaxed a little. Beth jerked free and ran for the house, but he came after her. She mounted the front steps, only to be yanked roughly back again. Mordecai flung her to the ground, and she landed hard, as he raced past her and through the front door.

“Beth, you have to get back!” Jax was beside her, lifting and tugging her backward, over the ground, and then Frankie was on her other side, dragging her away from the house, over the grass.

She pulled against their hands, scrambling to get to her feet, but just as she did, the entire world exploded in light and sound. The shock wave sent her flying backward, and she landed flat on her back on the ground. She couldn't hear, couldn't see, as she instinctively drew her arms and legs over her body against the rain of debris that pummeled and
pounded her into the earth. And even when it stopped, she didn't want to get up again.

Mordecai had kept his promise. He'd taken everything. Everything. Maude, Joshua.
Dawn.

“Beth!”

Jax was at her side, prying her arms away from her face. “Are you all right? God, look at your head. Lie still, hon. Lie still, help's on the way.”

Beth blinked through tears, staring at the smoke and rubble that had been Maude's home.
Her
home. She shook off the hands that were on her, pushed herself upright, got to her feet, staggered a little. “Oh God, oh God. Joshua…” she whispered, and her heart told her what she should have known before. She still loved him—even learning what he'd done hadn't changed that. And now she'd lost him and—oh God, Dawny.

She heard Bryan calling for his father in a broken, choked voice, and knew someone must be holding him, too, or he would have been beside her right now, fighting to get in. There were bits of the house still standing amid the dust and smoke; unrecognizable walls, beams, part of the roof angled upward from the ground.

“Joshua?” she called. “Dawn?” She started forward, heard sirens in the distance. Some of the smoke cleared.

And then she saw something moving. Something…in the smoke and dust. Something rising, rubble tumbling off its back. A man's form.

“Joshua?”

It staggered forward a few steps. Just enough, and then he stood there, wobbling on his feet. Mordecai, his face streaked in dirt and soot, his head bleeding.

Beth lunged at him, shrieking, pummeling. Mordecai sank to
his knees even as Jax and Frankie gripped her arms and dragged her off him. “You killed them! You bastard, you killed them!”

“Beth.”

The voice came from beyond Mordecai, and she went still, stopped struggling against the arms that held her, and looked.

Another form rose from that same spot. The dust cleared a little more.

“Joshua?”

He came forward out of the smoke, carrying Dawn in his arms.

A cry was wrenched from her lungs. People rushed past her, easing Dawn from Joshua's arms, as she shouted, “I'm fine! Put me down, dammit!”

Others helped Josh out of the smoke, onto the lawn. Ambulances had arrived, and paramedics milled around Dawn, while others went past her and returned again with Mordecai on a stretcher, only to lower him to the ground farther from the danger. But Joshua only stood there, staring into Beth's eyes.

Bryan rushed by her, hurling himself into his father's arms. “Are you okay, Dad? God, I thought I'd lost you. Like Mom. Dad, don't let that happen, okay? Please?”

“Never,” he promised. “I'm okay, Bryan.” He hugged his son, but his eyes remained on Beth. He was filthy, streaked in soot and dirt.

“What about Dawn?” Bryan turned, pulling his father's arm around his shoulders and starting toward the lawn, where the medics were gathered around Dawn. Beth turned, as well.

“She's going to be okay,” Josh said. “She hurt her leg, couldn't walk.” The two of them came closer to Beth, flanking her.

She felt odd, outside herself, as if she were a stranger watching everything.

“She's going to be okay, Beth,” Josh said softly.

And even as he said it, she saw Dawn sitting up from amid the people around her. “It's just my ankle, that's all. I think I twisted it.”

Relief flooded her. She felt Joshua's hands on her shoulders. “Mordecai threw himself on top of her and knocked me to the floor in the process, just before the house went up,” Joshua said. “I think he may have saved her life. Hell, maybe both our lives.”

“M-Mordecai?” She looked to where he lay, saw the medics frantically beginning CPR.

“Beth—Jesus, honey, your head—” Josh said.

She looked at him. “You…you were there. You were there. You shot me.”

His face went lax.

“She knows, Dad. Mordecai had a clipping,” Bryan said.

Josh gripped her shoulders. “Listen to me, Beth. I n-ver—ent oo—”

Beth frowned, because his words were no longer words but broken vowel sounds and partial syllables. Gibberish. “Josh?”

He was searching her face, and his eyes narrowed. “—eth?”

Everything went dark, and she collapsed against him.

 

It was too much for his mind to process all at once, Josh thought as he caught Beth in his arms. Firefighters charging past him, blasting water onto the wreckage of the house…

Her house. Beth's house. God, it's gone.

Jax had taken charge big-time, and Josh thought Frankie was glad of the help. The woman had herded bystanders off the lawn into a solid group along the roadside. She and Chief Frankie seemed to be speaking to each of them, checking for injuries, giving them the okay to leave the scene.

His hand stroked Beth's hair, sliding to her throat, where he felt a strong, steady pulse beating against his fingertips.

Paramedics took hold of Beth, moving her off him. He let go, though he didn't want to, and let them lay her onto a stretcher. One belted straps around her and another checked her vital signs.

She has to be okay. She can't die, not after all this.

Bryan moved to his side, stood shoulder to shoulder with him, put a hand on his back as if to offer strength.

He's a man. He's not a boy anymore. He's grown up while I've been too busy to notice.

Dawn was pushing her way free of the medics that surrounded her, and Josh felt his son tense. She got to her feet, none too steadily, and her gaze swept the lawn, the wreckage, the bustle of people—then it stopped on the man who lay just behind Josh and Bryan, medics still surrounding him. At her stricken expression, Josh turned to follow her gaze.

Mordecai lay there. The medics had brought a portable defibrillator, and even as he looked on, they sent a jolt through the madman's chest. His body jumped. But there was no other visible reaction.

As Dawn made her way closer, limping badly, moving past Josh, Bryan went to her, but she held up a hand, and he stopped. She kept moving, her face transfixed.

They shocked Mordecai again. One of the medics yelled, “Wait—he's coming back.”

Another said, “I'm getting a pulse.”

Dawn pushed through them and dropped to her knees, and Josh couldn't help but move closer. He watched as she moved a trembling hand to the prone man's sooty face, touched his cheek.

Mordecai opened his eyes. He stared at her, strained to speak. “Sunny. My Sunny. I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was you. I didn't know…. I'd never hurt you, Sunny.”

“You saved me,” she whispered. “I'm all right.”

He nodded. “It's time…for me to…go.”

She had tears welling in her eyes. “I know,” she told him.

“Do you…can you…?”

“I forgive you. Father.”

The expression on the man's face changed from tortured to peaceful. “You're my next of kin,” he told her. “Make them let me go.”

She nodded. “I will.”

His hand rose from the ground, closed around hers. “The guides were wrong, Sunny. About a lot of things. Especially about you. You were the one. It was you all along. All I have is yours, Sunny. My gift…use it more wisely than I did. And know I always loved you. Always will. Always…”

His eyes fell closed, and his hand seemed to clench hers fiercely for an instant. She gasped and looked down at where he gripped her, but then his hand went lax.

“I've lost the pulse!” one medic said as the machine beside Mordecai droned in a high-pitched, warbling tone.

“He's in v-fib. Give me the paddles.”

“No.” Dawn spoke loudly, firmly. “Let him go.”

“But—”

“I'm his daughter. His only living relative, and I'm acting on his wishes. Don't shock him any more.”

Josh was stunned at how she looked just then. Not at all like a young girl. She stood straighter, strong, chin up, face streaked and bruised, weight mostly on one leg, clothing dirty and torn, hair a mess. She was a strong woman—a
woman claiming ownership of a decision no one should have to make.

He spoke. “She just gave you a legally binding DNR order. You have witnesses. Let the man go.”

With a sigh, one of the medics reached out and flicked a switch, and the machine's now-steady tone stopped. Another covered Mordecai's face with a blanket. A sob was wrenched from Dawn's throat, and only then did she let Bryan fold her into his arms.

“Jesus, your hand,” Bryan said. “It's on fire. Did you burn it?”

“No,” she whispered, looking toward her father's sheet-draped form. “It's fine.”