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"Not for long."
"If you kill me now, the authorities will know Carl didn't do it."
"Random act of violence," he said flippantly. "Two women left alone in a lake house. A deviant comes along." He shrugged, leaving the rest unfinished.
"That would be awfully coincidental, Oren," Berry said. "I don't think any peace officer would believe that."
"Any peace officer like your brawny Deputy Nyland?" he sneered.
"If anything happens to Mother and me now, you'll naturally be the prime suspect."
"Nyland might suspect, but--"
"Nyland knows."
They all jumped at the sound of the voice coming from the open doorway that connected the kitchen to the dining area. Berry nearly fainted with relief. Dodge stood there, his hands raised high above his head.
Oren squealed as he jabbed the barrel of the pistol against Berry's temple. "I'll kill her!"
"No!" Dodge kept his hands in the air but frantically waved them. "Please don't."
He was red in the face and short of breath, as if he'd just run a mile before stepping through the doorway. His shirt was sticking to him with sweat. Berry shifted her eyes to her mother, who didn't seem all that surprised to see him, and, in that split second, she realized that, somehow or another, Caroline had known he would appear when they most needed him.
He said, "I just want to talk to you, Oren."
"Who are you?"
"Berry's father."
Oren sputtered. "That's not true. Jim Malone's dead. Do you think I'm stupid? You're a cop they sent in here to--"
"I'm not a cop, Oren. I'm Berry's father. And I don't think you're stupid. I know you're smart. Too smart to pull that trigger. Because as soon as you do, Nyland's going to take you out. He's former Army. Special Forces. The best of the badasses.
"And right now, he's got a rifle aimed at you that looks like it could blow your eye out from a mile away. If you kill Berry, he'll do it. The only reason he hasn't pulled the trigger yet is on the outside chance that he'd miss you and hit her. But if you kill her, he'll have nothing to lose. He'll squeeze that trigger, and your head will disintegrate, and I bullshit you not."
Oren wet his lips and gripped the pistol more tightly. "You're trying to trick me."
"While you've got a pistol aimed at my only kid's head? No way."
"She's not your kid."
"She is. I left her in the hospital nursery the day she was born and only just reunited with her. Don't take her from me now. Please."
"You're breaking my heart," Oren said.
"All right. You don't care about us, think about yourself. Don't be foolish enough to think Nyland sent me in here to bargain with you. The man's a cowboy. He wants you dead. I had to fight my way past the son of a bitch to get in here. Thought I might get a bullet in the back at any second."
"You're a cop."
"I swear I'm not."
"It's true, Oren," Caroline said. "He's Berry's birth father. He abandoned her just as he said."
"I don't believe you."
"Who else besides a desperate father would defy Nyland, huh?" He looked at Berry and changed the tone of his voice. "You're bleeding. Does it hurt too bad?"
"No. I'm okay."
