AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Call whoever it is.” Her throat tasted of bile. “Do it now. If anything happens to Oakley, Pickett Hanson will be the least of your worries.”
His jaw set, but he pulled his phone out. For a moment he only looked at it. “Oakley did this,” he said. “She gets what she deserves. She wouldn’t leave well enough alone. She has only herself to blame.”
Through clenched teeth, Charlotte said, “Make the call, CJ, or leave this house right now and never come back.”
He looked at her in surprise and must have seen that she was serious. He lifted the phone. Keyed in a number and then held it to his ear. “There’s no answer. There’s nothing I can do. It’s done.”
OAKLEYHADALMOSTfinished setting the explosives when she heard the vehicle coming. She only needed a few more minutes. She didn’t dare hurry for fear of blowing up not only the drilling rig, but also herself with it.
The sound of the vehicle’s engine grew louder and louder as it came closer and closer. There was no doubt it was headed in her direction. She concentrated on the job at hand.
She almost had it finished when headlights washed over her. She heard the vehicle speed up as she began climbing down from where she’d set the charge as a pickup roared up. She saw both doors fly open as she recognized the two men who came rushing toward her.
“Get down from there!” Frankie ordered as the smaller of the two Lees brothers began to climb up the rigging, trying to grab her leg to pull her down.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” she called down to him as she climbed up out of his reach. “This whole thing is about to blow sky-high.”
“She’s lying,” Frankie said, scoffing. “Bring her down.”
Norman began to climb though she could see he was hesitant. She quickly swung around to the other side of the tall drilling framework out of his reach. She had to get off here and quickly. She wasn’t lying.
She’d given herself time to get down and ride far enough away before it blew. She hadn’t planned on the Lees brothers showing up until later. By then, she’d hoped that all they’d find was twisted metal.
She heard what sounded like banging around in the back of the pickup the men had arrived in. Frankie saw her surprise. “We would have been here sooner, but we ran into a friend of yours, Duffy McKenna. Norman, I hope you did a good job of tying him up. But he can join our girl here as soon as I’m finished with her.”
“No,” Oakley cried. “We all have to get out of here. You have to take Duffy out of here. This is going to explode and when it does—” She scrambled down, hoping to slip past Norman, who was hanging on for dear life. But just as she reached a spot where she could jump down, she was grabbed from behind. For a few moments she had lost track of Frankie in the darkness beyond the pickup’s headlights.
He locked an arm around her throat as he lifted her off the ground and hauled her over to the edge of the creek. She fought, kicking and clawing at him, but he was much larger, much stronger, and she guessed she wasn’t the first woman he’d pulled off a gas drilling rig.
“Get down from there, Norman,” he called. “I’m going to need your help with this wildcat.” At the edge of the creek, he began to stomp on the ice, breaking a path into deeper water as he walked. “You know the thing about cats? I heard they don’t like water.”
“I wasn’t lying about the explosives,” she cried. “We need to get out of here before it blows.”
He didn’t seem to be listening. He was knee-deep in the freezing water. “This should do it,” he said and flung her down on the ice. She hit hard, heard the ice crack under her and felt it give. Icy water washed over her as she tried to catch her breath and get to her feet.
Frankie pushed her back down, forcing her under the icy flowing water. She tried to fight him off as he shoved her under, but he grabbed a handful of her hair and pushed her down. The water took her breath away as she was fully submerged. He held her under, but she twisted, coming up to gasp for air before he plunged her deeper, this time pushing her under the ice, farther out into the deepest part of the creek.
She grabbed at the edge of the ice but couldn’t hold on as she kicked at Frankie. The freezing water made every movement slower, harder. She could no longer feel her body. Desperate to breathe, she grabbed again for the ice edge above her. A piece of ice broke off in her hand as Frankie shoved her under again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PICKETTSPOTTEDTHEdrilling rig in his pickup’s headlights. He sped up at the sight of a truck engine running, lights on, in front of the rig. But its headlight beams did little to cut through the rising fog moving through the bare limbs of the cottonwoods from the creek.
There was no sign of Oakley as he roared up, grabbed the shotgun from the rack behind the seat and jumped out. As he ran by the pickup parked next to the drilling rig, he heard a noise in the back. He couldn’t see anyone in the blackness of the pickup’s bed. Past the drilling rig, the creek was cloaked in fog. He reached into the back of the truck, shotgun ready and uncovered the body squirming there.
“Duffy?” He jerked the cloth gag from his friend’s mouth.
“Frankie and Norman. They have Oakley down by the creek. I could hear the ice breaking.”
Pickett felt the impact of his recurring nightmare as he hurriedly pulled out his pocketknife, tossed it to Duffy and headed for the creek. Behind him, Duffy yelled, “Oakley said the drilling rig’s going to explode any minute!”
Pickett hadn’t gone far when a figure emerged from the darkness near the drilling rig. He caught Norman in the chest with the butt of the shotgun. The man went down hard, gasping for breath.
“Duffy, take care of Norman,” he called back, and rushed into the dense fog at the creek. Within a few steps, he spotted a large figure out in the creek bent over pushing something under the ice. As he charged, Frankie was still leaning down, one hand holding a struggling Oakley under the ice, the other lifting a gun to fire in his direction.
Pickett wanted desperately to pull the trigger on the shotgun, but he couldn’t chance hitting Oakley. He charged, swinging the rifle, the butt knocking the gun from Frankie’s hand, but not before he got a shot off. Pickett felt it whiz past his ear.
He brought the shotgun back across, hitting Frankie in the side of the head. A loud crack filled the air, but the big man was still standing, and past him Oakley was no longer struggling. She lay, her face pressed against the ice, not moving.
