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Marlene huffed. “I’ll let Isabel go, too, just as soon as I’m away from the house. Just as I’m sure you and yours won’t gun me down.”
“Let her take me,” Isabel insisted. She was crying now, and her breath was coming out in short, hiccupping sobs. “That way, she won’t be anywhere near Evan or Hanna.”
That made up for some of the anger Hanna felt for her mother, but it was an offer that Hanna knew Marlene would take. She couldn’t afford not to. Without a hostage, she stood no chance of getting away.
Well, maybe she didn’t.
There was probably at least one of her men near the driveway. Either that or Marlene had managed to fire all those shots and set off those gas canisters herself.
“Your militia buddies aren’t going to save you,” Jesse said while he made a subtle shift in his position. He was still looking for an opening to take a shot. “And we have enough proof to put you away for a long, long time.”
“You have no proof,” she snapped.
“You were in the trees the night Arnie shot me,” Hanna threw out there. Partly a bluff. “You also talked my mother into helping you by depositing dirty money into her account.”
Marlene didn’t deny any of that, but she was shuffling around, her gaze volleying toward the living room. She was trapped and getting desperate. Hanna doubted she’d just shoot Isabel, but that gun could go off.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” Marlene yelled. “Why couldn’t you just have died when Arnie shot you? Then, I wouldn’t have had to worry about what you did or didn’t remember, about what you did or didn’t see.” Marlene wailed and cursed some vile words.
Hanna wanted to ask what it was she could have seen or heard, but Jesse spoke first, and he went with a different angle.
“How long have you known your brother was an ATF agent?” Jesse asked. “One who came back into your life with the sole purpose of bringing down a militia you were running.”
“When the hell do you think I found out?” the woman snapped. “It was the night Arnie went off the deep end. The idiot. I tried to calm him down, tried to tell him that I’d deal with it if you arrested him, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He had to go out there and mess everything up.”
The coldness in the woman’s words sickened Hanna. Marlene didn’t care one bit that Arnie had nearly killed her and her baby. She only cared about Arnie bringing heat to the militia.
Her militia.
“So, what happened?” Jesse pressed. “You went to the ranch, hoping to intercept Arnie, and you witnessed the shooting. Then, you heard Bull tell Hanna he was a deep cover agent.”
“My own brother,” Marlene railed, verifying what Jesse had just suggested. “I was shocked, stunned. Horrified. And that’s the only reason I didn’t kill him then and there. I waited a heartbeat too long, and then you and your cousin arrived on scene. I couldn’t kill all of you because I didn’t know how many other Rylands and ranch hands were running to the rescue.”
“That’s why you stayed hidden,” Jesse finished for her. “But then you started worrying about what else Bull might have told Hanna.”
“Damn right I was worried. I didn’t know if Bull had connected me to the Brotherhood or not. I knew I’d have to keep a watch on Hanna. As long as she didn’t remember what happened, she wasn’t a threat, but Isabel said your memory was starting to come back.”
And there it was.
Finally, the truth.
But it was also what Marlene had obviously hoped to be her parting words to them because she started to back away with Isabel in tow. She muttered something, not to any of them, but into what Hanna thought might be a communicator clipped to her collar.
“I’m on the move,” Marlene told whoever was on the other end of the device. “Help me get out of here.”
Jesse moved fast, and he took aim. Not at Marlene but at the wall just over her head. He fired, the sound of the gunshot blasting through the house.
On a howl of outrage, Marlene whirled around to aim at Jesse just as another shot slammed into the wall. That one had no doubt come from Grayson. Marlene turned, dragging Isabel tighter against her. Or rather, trying to do that, but Isabel started fighting her.
Hanna got hit with the flashbacks of her own attack, but she didn’t give in to them. She just kept the gun ready in case she was the one who got the right shot.
Screaming and cursing, Marlene lost her grip on Isabel, who was struggling hard to get away. The moment Isabel finally managed to drop down to the floor, Hanna was ready to pull the trigger.
But Jesse beat her to it.
He went for the kill shot to the head, probably because he couldn’t risk a wounded Marlene getting the chance to return fire. The woman froze, her startled gaze locking with Hanna’s for just a split second before the life drained from her eyes. She fell, crumpling into a heap on the floor.
Hanna froze, too, but it was from the relief that was already washing over her. It didn’t last though. The fear and worry returned with a vengeance when Grayson rushed into view. He glanced around, helping Isabel to her feet while he all but carried her into the bathroom. It was probably overkill, but he went ahead and frisked Isabel to make sure she wasn’t armed.
