Allison Brennan - Fear No Evil

“Hell if I know, she probably escaped with the girl!”

Roger left through the sliding glass doors and the second man hesitated, then followed.

Kate immediately left her hiding place and went to the room down the hall where Lucy had been held captive. Déjà vu hit her again as she stared at the broken camera, the broken window. Paige .

A naked man, bleeding, crawled toward her in the doorway.

She shot him in the head, imagining that he was Trask and she’d been in time to save Paige.

She jumped out the window, saw movement in the trees. A naked chest. Heard the startled cry of a girl in a dark green shirt.

Dillon had given his sister his shirt.

She had to buy them time to get to the boat.

She ran around the deck making noise. She fired into the air, then ran into the second man.

He was young, couldn’t be more than twenty. The realization startled Kate. She’d been expecting Roger.

But being young didn’t make him less of a killer. He raised his gun.

She was faster. Three pumps into his chest. He didn’t get a round off.

“Richie?”

Roger’s voice came from around the cabin. He emerged from the direction Dillon and Lucy had run from.

He saw Kate. “You fucking bitch!” He raised his gun. “I should have known it was you.”

Kate dove for cover, off the deck and into bushes. Hot, burning pain hit her upper arm and she bit her tongue to keep from crying out.

She pulled her tank top over her head-she had the black one over a white one-and tied it around her arm where Roger’s bullet had sliced cleanly through her skin. She leaned against a tree to catch her breath.

“Where’s the girl?” Roger called. Close. Too close.

Kate stood, got her bearings, exposed herself, and fired once, twice.

She missed, but Roger fell to the ground, giving her enough time to run.

Away from Dillon and Lucy. To give them time to get the hell off the island.

She could swim. She didn’t want to think what the salt water would do to the bullet wound in her arm, but maybe she’d be lucky. Maybe she’d get to kill the bastard who’d raped Paige and Lucy and a half-dozen other women.

She counted the shots she’d fired in her head.

Dammit, she only had one bullet. She’d better make it count.

She ran.

Trask watched on the webcam as the man jumped through the window and kicked Frank in the face.

When he received the message that the outer perimeter had been breached, he’d tried to reach Roger. Nothing. What good was he if Trask couldn’t count on him when it mattered? Roger had used his silence twenty years ago to demand trust. “I never said anything about Trevor, did I? I never said anything about Monique. You can trust me, you know that, right?”

Fucking idiot.

Now his prize had been stolen. Frank was dying. For all he knew Roger and Denise were dead, too.

And Dillon Kincaid-the last man Trask thought would come after Lucy-had shot Frank and destroyed his show. He took his girl. Monique.

No, no, Lucy . Monique was already dead.

Trask slammed his hand on the dashboard of the Hummer. He was at the docks at Anacortes, but he didn’t dare go out to the island now. Not with the feds this close.

That fucking Mick Mallory. He must have figured out where they were. Alerted someone.

Kate. She’d been in contact with the Kincaids. Her fingerprints were all over this travesty.

Damn, damn, damn! First his money gone. He’d lost more than half his wealth in minutes. Minutes! Then his people.

He should never have trusted anyone. Hadn’t he learned that before?

His father. The whores. His own mother turning her back on him after he was expelled. Roger and Paul, weak, needy fools.

No one had ever stood by him. He could only depend on himself. Everything he knew, everything he was, was due to his intelligence, his foresight, his vision. No one had seen the potential of the Internet until he had launched his online pornography company. No one saw the potential of fantasy role-playing until he did it first.

Because he understood the darkest fantasies of human nature. He harbored them. He’d harbored them his entire life.

Everything was crumbling, but Trask felt free for the first time in years. Everyone he had mistakenly trusted was dead. Now he could go after Kate Donovan on his own. No cameras, nothing but her and him and his hands on her neck.

He’d keep her alive for a long, long time. Long enough to crush her soul before he watched her blood flow.

But first he had a need. Lucy had been stolen from him. In nine hours she should have been dying underneath him.

Someone else would fill her role. An understudy.

He looked around the dock. The day was warm and bright, hundreds of people out in boats and walking along the dock, shopping, taking in the sun.

He spied a lone woman. A little old for him. But she had short blond hair like Kate. Tall and skinny. Walking toward her sporty little car.

He got behind the wheel of his Hummer and followed her. She would go home eventually, and he had backup recording equipment in his car. If she had a family, he’d kill them first. If she lived alone, all the better.

He hoped she lived in the country where her screams couldn’t be heard by neighbors.

DILLON STEERED THE BOAT toward the island in the distance where help waited. He swallowed anger and a deep, intense protective rage he’d never felt before. He gently touched Lucy’s hair as she huddled in the bottom of the boat, under a damp wool blanket Kate had taken from the helicopter and stuffed under the seat. Lucy shook uncontrollably, her face buried in her hands.

“Lucy, you’re safe. I promise.”

“You know.” She looked up at him, blinking in the harsh sunlight. Her voice trembled, the pain and anguish evident in those two words.

“Yes.” He couldn’t lie to her.

Tears streamed down her face and she closed her eyes, burying her face again.

He gently, cautiously, touched her cheek. She was bruised, but her external injuries would heal. He remembered what Kate had said in her note when she had planned to leave without him.

“Luce,” he said, trying to keep his voice calm, “you’re the strongest, bravest woman I know. We’re going to get through this, okay?”

She nodded but wouldn’t look at him.

She was scared and hurting. He was trained to help people deal with tragedies, their fear, their overwhelming sense of hopelessness. Intellectually he understood what Lucy was feeling: the humiliation, the fury, the helplessness, the terror, the injustice. Wanting to live and die at the same time.

But he didn’t know how she felt. He’d never been a victim. He’d never been physically and emotionally terrorized by a sadistic killer.

He wanted to take and internalize her pain. Yet for the first time he felt ill-equipped to offer the right words or guidance. She was alive, and that meant everything to Dillon and the Kincaid family. But what did it mean to Lucy?

As he neared the island where the copter waited, he saw three men standing on the shore. As he came closer, he recognized Jack. Quinn Peterson. The pilot, Hank.

How could they, four men, possibly know how to help Lucy?

He tossed the rope to Jack, who tied it off. That’s when he saw a tall, lean woman standing with Quinn Peterson. Her long black hair was pulled into a high ponytail and her face was ruddy from being outdoors.

She stepped forward. “Miranda Peterson. May I?” She nodded toward Lucy.

“Please be careful.”

Miranda looked him square in the eye. “I know exactly what she went through.” Then she stepped into the boat.