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“He was under the fucking bed,” Mac snapped. “Under the goddamned bed, Jethro, where he had somehow managed to wedge himself into the box springs. ”
The horror of that miscalculation swept through Jethro. They had checked under the bed. He remembered bending down, looking for a body, and seeing nothing. Because the body hadn’t been on the floor, but somehow had been above the floor?
Because of their mistake, she could have been dead. It could have been her lifeless body lying on the floor of the bedroom rather than Bridges’ wounded body.
“He said—he said no one checks the box springs,” Keiley hiccupped then. “He said that all the women, he laid under their beds like that and no one checked. No one checks under the box springs. ”
Not when the rooms were monitored and supposedly secured. Jethro knew he himself had rarely checked beneath a bed because it was so damned obvious. Too obvious. And that arrogance had nearly cost Keiley her life.
“Pappy has a listening device on his collar,” she whispered then. “That’s how he knew everything. When to strike, when we were gone. He was using Pappy. He always used Pappy. ”
The dog. Mac blinked furiously against the dampness in his eyes as he realized how easily Bridges had managed to maneuver all of them.
“Let’s get her downstairs and get some whiskey in her before she goes into shock. Before the sheriff gets here. ” Jethro moved back, staring at Mac with the remnants of the horror still racing through his system reflecting in his friend’s eyes.
“You take her downstairs. ” Mac lifted her to her feet and gave her to Jethro.
“Mac. No. ” Her hands reached out for him, her voice shaking. “You’ll do something you’ll regret. I know it. ”
“Go with Jethro. ” He leaned forward, whispered a kiss over her trembling lips, and then stepped away. “I have to find out who he is, Kei. Go on. I promise. I won’t kill him. ”
Wes would wish he were dead though, of that Mac would make certain.
“Mac,” she whispered again, her voice filled with fear. “If you do something violent, then I’m going to hurt you. I mean it. I really will use that baseball bat on you if you get put in jail. I swear it. ”
A smile touched his lips. She kept him centered. As he stared at her, he found the control to push back the rage.
“I won’t do anything to risk our lives, Keiley. I swear it. Never again will I risk your life or your happiness. Never. ”
Her wide hazel eyes held his as Jethro wrapped his arm around her and led her from the bathroom.
The bastard had hid under the fucking bed. Mac wiped his hand over his face and breathed out roughly. Right there beneath their noses, all he had to do was bend down and look, and he hadn’t.
He stepped into the bedroom, staring at the bloodstained carpet, then at that bed. Like all the beds in the house, the frame itself was higher than most. He stared beneath it, tilted his head, and wondered how the hell he hadn’t seen anything.
The first thing he had done was looked around the edges of the bed. He hadn’t bent down and checked beneath it because only a child could have hidden there without being seen.
He knelt down, laid on the floor, and stared beneath it.
And there was why he hadn’t seen anything, why Jethro hadn’t. Why no one would have seen anything unless they laid on their backs and looked.
At some point the box spring itself had been carved out and reinforced. Just enough to allow someone to wedge inside it and, with enough leg and arm strength, hold himself out of sight for the amount of time it would take to check a room.
He lifted up, braced his hands on his knees, and stared at the bloodstained carpet. This was why the Playboy had been able to get so close to his victims. Because he had somehow learned how to reinforce the inner springs after cutting part of them out and make himself a secure hiding place when he needed it.
Son of a bitch. He pushed his fingers through his hair and breathed out tiredly. That was it. Every bed in the fucking house would be tossed out and they would sleep on the floor if they had to. This would never happen again. Never would he let Keiley be at risk in such a way again.
Moving to his feet, he clenched and unclenched his fists as he heard the sirens in the distance and shook his head. At least he knew the sheriff. The same man who had once been a boy and kept his mouth shut about the horror Mac had lived with as a child.
Tobias Blackwood knew how to keep his mouth shut. And he would keep his mouth shut this time. Because Mac intended to do a little interrogating now.
27
Keiley’s gaze flew to the gun, and Wes’s followed. She saw the realization on his face the minute she jumped for it. She was closer. She had a chance. Oh, God, all she needed was a chance.
The phrase “everything moved in slow motion” and the cliché that one’s life flashed before one’s eyes at such moments had always seemed a little far-fetched to her. But not now.
Now she saw Mac and Jethro, their expressions creased in desire and wonder as they made love to her. She saw her own emotions, felt them overwhelming her, filling her, giving her a strength she hadn’t known she could find. Because her knees were shaking and her heart racing so fast, it should have weakened her as she jumped for the gun.
