House of Fire (Unraveled Series) (31 page)

“But Anna…” Ann
continued, her eyes tearing into Holston.

“She’s not mine,”
Holston said as he moved his empty hand onto her leg, but Ann shoved it down,
letting it swing to his side. “

I know that now,” he continued
as he pulled a small vial from his jacket that contained a cotton swab - the tip
of it stained a blood red. “I suspected it, but never wanted to believe it.
When Evie began acting out, well, I had to find out for myself that Delaney was
mine.”

“You thought you were
taking Delaney,” Ann whispered. “But you didn’t.”

“Delaney, you’re my
daughter. You are a part of me,” Holston answered, looking up into Delaney’s
eyes. “I suspected it all along but didn’t confirm it until this winter.”

The words buzzed through
Delaney’s head in a fog of black. She didn’t believe that the disgusting
revelation could be true. She couldn’t be Holston’s daughter. Her stomach
lurched, her hand grasping the armrests as she turned to her mother. Ann’s face
was pained as she nodded her head slowly. Delaney closed her eyes, feeling the
room swirl around her.
It can’t be. It can’t be. I am not yours.

“And that’s why you
never loved me.” Evie stepped into the room with the 9mm locked in her hands,
pointing at Holston. His head dropped down without turning to the sound of her
voice behind him.

“I’m sorry, Ann. I
will always love you. Everything I’ve done, everything that I’ve become, it was
all for you. You never knew my urges, my calling to God, but I served Him,
ridding the world of evil, begging for his forgiveness,” Holston started.

“What about Ethan?
Joe?” Evie accused.

“I had no choice with
Ethan, and Joe’s blood is on your hands, Evie,” he replied, shaking his head.

“My brothers,”
Delaney added.

“My only regret,”
Holston replied, still staring at Ann. “You have to believe me. If God would
forgive me, I thought you would, too. I would have taken you away with me. It could
have just been me and you. Forever. But I accept my fate.”

He opened his arms
wide, moving his legs to stand. “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. Please forgive me.
Wash me clean of all sin and give me strength to endure with your power. I ask
this in your name, Jesus. Amen.”

Delaney felt the gun
release from her back.

“STOP!” Florence
yelled as she pulled the gun up, pointing it at Evie.

Florence stepped
forward, her vivid red dress now in front of Delaney. Holston’s hands flinched
open; the clattering noise of the gun and vial hitting the floor filtered
through the air as Delaney lunged forward. Delaney wrapped her arms around the
red dress and pushed all her weight forward, tackling Florence to the ground at
the same time that the shots popped from the other side of the room.

BANG. BANG.

Ann let out a shrill
scream, the sound piercing Delaney’s ears. Florence’s gun sprawled across the
floor as she let out a muffled groan. James clamored from the couch, moaning as
he picked up the gun just a foot away from him and pointed it at Florence lying
on the ground. Ann let out another scream as she moved out of her fetal position
on the chair and pushed Holston’s lifeless body off her. His body tumbled to
the floor, his black eyes open to the ceiling. Blood poured from his head.
Evie’s
double tap to the head.

Evie stood with the
gun still raised in the air, her finger clenched at the trigger. Evie
hesitated, staring at Ann before returning Delaney’s gaze. It was done. He was
finally gone. Delaney broke Evie’s stare and scrambled up to James on the
couch. She grabbed the gun out of his shaking hand and kissed his
sweat-drenched face. She covered her hand over his wound, holding his side
tight, the blood now merely trickling out of the hole.

“It’s not that bad,”
James whispered when a bang echoed from the front of the house.

“Anna?” Ann Jones
whispered as she stepped closer to Evie. Evie froze as another bang registered.

“Evie, don’t,”
Delaney started.

“I hope you
understand,” Evie said as she turned on her heels and sprinted out of the
living room toward the kitchen. Delaney lifted her head to see the black dress
vanish around the corner followed by the quiet sound of a door shutting behind
her.
And just like that, she’s gone.

“FREEZE!” a voice
boomed from the entryway, the footsteps echoing through the house toward them.

Sanchez appeared in
the living room, his gun drawn as he crept in. Delaney gripped her gun firmly,
hovering over James as he eyed Holston on the ground. Her hand twitched on the
gun, ready to pull the trigger when Michael and Mark came barreling in behind
him. Delaney exhaled, dropping the gun to rest on the couch.

“Michael,” Ann said
as she stood up. Splatters of blood stained her shirt.

“Ann, are you hurt?”
Michael yelled as he ran to her, meeting her in the middle of the living room.

“No, no,” she said,
shaking her head as they embraced, squeezing each other. “I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, shit, James,”
Mark said as he leaned across the couch. Mark pushed his body back and pulled
the phone out of his pocket. “We gotta get you an ambulance.”

Just as Mark began
his conversation with the emergency operator, Delaney caught a red streak
crawling along the floor.
Florence.

“Don’t you go anywhere, ma’am,”
Sanchez said as he pulled her arms behind her back. Florence relented, weeping
as Sanchez cuffed her arms. He stood her up and walked her over to the chair
she had held Delaney in. “Until we know what happened, you’ll need to stay
right there.”

“Mark,” Florence
whispered, looking at Mark standing in the corner of the living room giving the
operator the address.

“Later,” Delaney
warned her. The damage had been done. The truth would eventually have to come
out to Mark and Ben, but Delaney couldn’t bear to hear or see anyone else get
hurt. Not now.

“Where is she?”
Sanchez asked, studying Delaney’s face. Delaney moved her shoulders in a light
shrug. She wasn’t about to tell Sanchez that Evie escaped out the side door.
Delaney wanted to give Evie the space she needed, time away from it all. Evie
had pulled the trigger on Holston Parker. Lieutenant Schaefer. Janice Hinske.
There would be a lot of cleaning up to do, and Evie wasn’t that kind of person.
Evie didn’t know how to say the right things to the right people. She didn’t
know how to be polite to save herself from the accusations. Sanchez pulled his
gun down and slid it back into his holster, resting his hand on the end.

“It’s better that
way,” Sanchez said. “That girl’s got a rough road ahead of her if she stays.”

“How did you know?”
Delaney asked, looking up into Sanchez’s weathered eyes.

“I had a hunch after
she left the first time,” Sanchez said. “The drug dealers in the barn didn’t
make any sense. Too much evidence missing or contaminated. After Theron’s
account of the eyes that he saw, I had to look into it a bit more. I believed
the kid when no one else did. So I dug a little deeper. I thought it was a
coincidence that Holston Parker donated such a large amount of money to the
department until his daughter went on an extended vacation with no end in
sight. I’ve been following him off and on for the last couple of months,
waiting for him to slip up. For his daughter to come back. None of that
happened until this morning, when you reported Ann missing.”

“The gun range?”
Delaney asked.

“Coincidence. Well,
sort of, anyway. I followed Schaefer there because I was starting to suspect
something,” Sanchez answered.

“Schaefer,” Delaney
started.

“Yeah, I know. I
should have seen it sooner,” Sanchez finished Delaney’s sentence. “We made the
first stop like you did. I put a GPS tracker on Schaefer’s car two days ago. We
stopped Ken just before he was about to shove Schaefer’s body in the crematory.
I called in a team to the house. We left him tied to the railing outside. We
had to get here as soon as we could, and I wasn’t about to let Mark or Michael
ride in back with him.”

“But how did you find
the house?” Delaney asked.

“Mark saw the plans a
few weeks ago in Holston’s office but didn’t think anything of it - until
today, of course. He called the foreman on the project to get the address. So
we came here after Sanchez’s first guess. A little late, it looks like,”
Michael said, nodding to Holston’s still body on the ground.

“Not really,” Delaney
said as she curled up to James, pushing the hair away from his wet face as the
faint sound of sirens wailed in the background.

32

June 17 - 3:30 p.m

It was done. Evie
pulsed out the door and into the sunlight. Her feet pounded on the pavement as
she passed Sanchez’s police car. It wouldn’t be long until more police officers
and an ambulance came. They would all be fine. They would all be better without
her. Besides, she couldn’t stay, not with her hand being the one that had
pulled the trigger on Holston, Schaefer and Janice. It had been self-defense,
but it had also been calculated, all shots taken had ensured they would die.

She couldn’t go back
to the family she’d never had. Could they love her? Would they trust her after
what she had done? She had grown up with a monster, and she couldn’t take the
unraveling of the disgusting legacy that trailed her. She would start over.

The birth of her new
beginning would start in this moment.

Evie sprinted across
the lawn, the warm wind filtering through her black dress. If she could get to
James’s SUV, she would be fine. She would get her bag, drop off the SUV in
Appleton and hop on a plane. As long as Delaney held Sanchez off, they wouldn’t
start looking for her until after she got on a plane. She would never set foot
in Wisconsin again. She would find a cozy niche in Europe somewhere, similar to
what Ryan had done. She would start over, just like he had, away from it all.
Evie had killed Delaney’s father, the man who Evie had grown up calling her
father. Evie had ended the vicious ties for them both. Delaney would hold them
off; she owed Evie.

As she wound around
the evergreens, she felt an arm grab around her waist and lift her into the
air. She swung the gun in the air, trying to aim behind her.

“Stop, Evie,” a voice
whispered. Evie swung her legs, kicking wildly in the air until the voice
finally registered. Her body went limp in his thick arms, the gun dropping into
the weeds next to his feet.

“It can’t be,” Evie
whispered as he let her down. She whipped around to see the broad smile spread
across his face. “How?”

“I knew you needed to
do this alone, to finish it so you could put it behind you,” Ryan said as he
wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her into his body. “But I couldn’t
let you completely out of my sight. I left the morning after you.”

“How did you know I
was here?” Evie insisted, her eyes narrowing.

“GPS tracker in your
bag. How clueless do you think I am?”

“Asshole.” Evie
smiled as she stood on her tiptoes to meet his waiting lips, the faint sound of
sirens ringing in the far distance. She pulled back to meet his eyes in a
silent understanding before they both sprinted toward Ryan’s waiting car.

33

3 months later

The paper lanterns
strung across the pergola exuded a warm glow that filtered through Mark’s
backyard. The globed lights danced in the cool fall breeze, swaying back and
forth to the sound of the upbeat swing of Latino music. The quick beats pulsed
through Delaney’s body as she lay comfortably reclined on the striped cushion of
the outdoor chaise. Her white dress flowed over the edges, almost grazing the
ground. She twirled the champagne stem in her fingers, feeling the smoothness
of the glass rub across her skin. White bubbles lined the inside of her glass,
each popping one by one. She was leaving Appleton for good.

James had asked
Delaney to marry him on the ambulance ride in true James fashion. He had known
she couldn’t deny him.
She
had known she couldn’t deny him. She had held
his hand, hitting him with her other hand, before she’d said yes. The stodgy
paramedic had placed an oxygen mask on his mouth before he could say another
word.
Under one condition
, she had said,
that they never live within
a ten mile radius of a barn.
He had squeezed her hand once with a small
“yes” pulse.

A small burst of
laughter sounded, casting her eyes up. Robert was shaking his hips to the beat
in all his Latino glory, beckoning June to join him. June grabbed his hand and
fell into her own hip shaking form. Her long, cotton skirt moved side to side,
chasing her hips to the sound. They laughed at each other while they shook
their bodies, a small crowd forming around them that included Randy in his
finest tuxedo shirt and his bouncing wife. Aunt Emma and Uncle Walt were next
to him; her cousin, Levi, danced near the outer edge, beer raised high, next to
Ben and Megan. Ben rubbed Megan’s pregnant belly as she shook back and forth.
Mark was leaned up against a post, sipping on his own beer while shaking his
head in laughter.

Delaney smiled as she
watched Michael wrap his arms around her mother from behind. He held her in his
arms, her head bobbing to the music as she laughed at the antics of June and
Robert. After the “incident” back in June, which was what her family called
it- most often surrounded by air quotes, raised eyebrows and soft spoken,
carefully chosen words - Ann had divulged all the dark secrets to the family in
one hard sitting.

It was that night,
back at Mark’s house, out on the same patio they now danced on; Ann had told
Michael privately about the affair. Delaney stayed out of that conversation,
not wanting to hear all the gory details on how she’d met Holston or how long
the affair had gone on or how many times. It had been brief, maybe once, is all
she had ascertained, but to Delaney, one had been too many times. According to
Michael, who’d felt the deep pain of betrayal for less than a week from what
Delaney could tell, one was enough to give them Delaney. And regardless of the
DNA, Michael believed he was Delaney’s father Delaney had agreed with Michael;
after all, he’d always had the annoying habit of being right.