Page 101 of Dark ’N’ Deadly

As Jesse had warned, he did indeed look different—older, thinner, and with less hair, but she’d know his walk and that arrogant bearing anywhere. Even after her brain had made a positive ID, she still couldn’t quite believe it. Saying it out loud to Eric had made it all real, and now she could barely string together a single coherent thought.

“Tess!” came Eric’s angry voice again. “Do not go near him. Get to Nick, or Kade, or the first cop you see, and tell him where Harley is and that he has the detonator.”

She looked around for a police officer. Spotting a young cop standing at the next corner, she began heading in his direction while still keeping an eye on Harley. When she was within ten feet of the cop, a woman screamed, and the cop began running toward the woman. In the opposite direction of Tess.

“No, wait!” she cried, but he was already halfway down the block and Harley was getting away. She turned back to follow him before he disappeared.

Now, he was thirty feet ahead, and she could barely get through the crowd. She stood on her toes, catching sight of him as he turned a corner. Her heart slammed against her ribs as she pushed past one person after the next, getting elbowed and jostled and cursed out for her efforts.

“Tess.” Eric’s insistent voice. “Tell me where you are.”

The farther from the hotel she walked, the less crowded the streets and sidewalks were. The chances of her being spotted the next time Harley turned to look behind him were about fifty-fifty. If she didn’t hustle, she’d lose him. Her breath sawed as she picked up her pace.

Holding the radio to her mouth, she pushed the button. “I’m—” She looked around for a street sign, but there were none. How can there be no street sign in the middle of a big city? “I don’t know where I am,” she said in a hushed voice. “I made a left out of the hotel, then a right and another left. I’ve been walking straight for about three more blocks, but there’s no street sign.”

“Okay,” Eric said. “Describe what you see. The buildings, the stores…what do they look like?”

Desperate now, she spun, searching for something, a landmark Eric would recognize. Her gaze landed on a church. “I’m passing St. John’s Church.”

“Okay, that’s good. I know where it is. Keep updating me on your location. We’re on our way.”

She breathed a little sigh of relief, but not much. Eric was on his way, but would he be in time to stop Harley from escaping?

When Harley looked over his shoulder again, she ducked behind a mailbox, holding her breath for several seconds before peeking out just in time to see him disappear around the corner.

She took off running down the sidewalk. At the corner where she’d last spotted him, she paused to peer down the street. Her chest heaved as she struggled to slow her breathing.

He was less than twenty feet away. Talking to him yesterday over the phone was one thing. Then, he’d been nothing more than a disembodied voice that couldn’t hurt her. This was different. He was really there, and her past whooshed back in a flash.

The beat-downs, the degradation, the isolation.

Her fingers clawed at the corner of the building, but she couldn’t move. She was thrown back in time—ten years—to when waking up every morning with the fear of not knowing whether she’d be beaten by her stepfather or raped by his best friend made her life a living hell.

Halfway down the block, Harley pulled open the door of a gray sedan.

Oh, no. If he drove off, he’d take the detonator with him. I have to stop him.

Her entire body shook, and she despised herself for her weakness. The bruises and broken bones had long since healed, but the damage he’d inflicted on her emotions had never fully recovered and never would. Unless I do something about it. Now.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she called upon the strength and emotional fortitude she’d never had under his roof as a child. Strength she didn’t know if she possessed now.

You can do this. It’s showdown time. Move, move, move!

Taking a deep breath, she pushed from the corner and raced down the street toward the sedan. As she ran, she pressed the radio’s microphone button.

“Harley!”

Her stepfather spun. His eyes went wide, then narrowed.

She halted five feet away. So many words crawled to mind, but nothing came from her mouth. She drew in breath after unsteady breath. Unable to speak, she could only stand there numbly, struggling to absorb the fact that this evil person—the man she’d fled from and swore never to set eyes on again—was there, standing before her and holding the fate of this city in his hands. Hands that were empty, she realized. Except for a set of car keys.

“My dearest Tess,” he said in a deep Alabama drawl, leaning casually against the open door and looking as if he didn’t have a care in the world. “I don’t know how you came to be here, but I’m guessin’ you’re responsible for leakin’ word about the little surprise I left at the hotel. It doesn’t matter, though. I’ll still kill plenty of people here today, and that will put us on the map in the Garden State.”

“Let’s get one thing straight.” She clenched her fingers tighter around the radio, keeping the button depressed. “I’m not your dearest anything. I never was.”

“Oh, I beg to differ.” He chuckled, and God, how she hated that sound. “Like it or not, you are—and always will be—my stepdaughter.”

“An unfortunate fact I had no say in. Jesse, either. What you did to us was unforgivable.”