Dani Sinclair - Scarlet Vows

Andrew Pierce was undoubtedly some woman’s idea of a prince, she thought, but not hers. Not anymore.

WITH HER SCREAM reverberating in his ears, he watched in detachment as her delicate features twisted in comprehension and horror.

“Ursula.”

He said her name sharply, reaching for her. She scuttled away with surprising speed. How unfortunate. She was going to make him do this the hard way. The bloodied gloves made getting a good grip on her all but impossible. Terror gave her a strength she wouldn’t normally have.

He peeled the gloves from his hands. They dropped to the floor with a wet plopping sound.

“Ursula, stop this.”

“My God! My God!”

Fists pressed against parted lips, her eyes wide, dark pools of horror. Her gaze seemed mesmerized by the still figure on the table, bathed in the bright surgical lights. He had peeled back the skull to reveal the all important brain.

“You killed her!”

“Calm down.”

The hand pressing against her mouth trembled violently. “You killed her!”

She backed into a lab table deep in the shadows of the room. Objects clattered in protest. A pair of test tubes fell together with a jarring crash. He took a step closer. Frantically, her hand swept the table in search of a weapon.

She really was quite beautiful, he decided in detachment. Beautiful, sensual—immoral. Yet even in her panic there was a delicate grace about her.

“This is unfortunate. You shouldn’t have come in here,” he told her regretfully.

A test tube hurled toward his face. He turned his head and the empty vial bounced off his shoulder, falling harmlessly to the floor. She twisted, turning to run. His lips curved. Grotesque shadows danced about the lab, thrown by those bright lights over the exam table where the nude body lay still as marble.

“You’re being foolish, my dear. There’s nowhere for you to run, you know.”

Her panicked breathing made harsh, raspy sounds as she scrambled around a bank of storage cases, nearly falling. He’d planned to confront her later, after he’d finished his work. What had made her decide to come in here now? Not that it mattered. The results would have been the same either way.

His footfalls were the only other sound in the room as he stalked her, cutting off each avenue of escape. She was lost. Confused by the darkness. When she fled between a tall storage cabinet and the untidy stack of large pine boxes, he had her. She’d chosen a dead end in the maze of disorganized equipment.

“Stay away from me! Don’t come near me!”

“Poor Ursula.”

“Let me go!”

“You know I can’t do that. Not now. It’s too bad, really. I’d hoped this would work out much differently.”

She screamed, the shrill sound hurting his ears. Even in the darkness he could see that her eyes were so wide with fear they dominated her small face. His pity was cold comfort for both of them.

“Poor, traitorous Ursula. You really shouldn’t have come in here,” he said sadly, pinning her flailing arms in a grip she had no chance of breaking. “You’ve left me no choice. None at all.”

Andrew “Drew” Pierce gazed around at the large crowd gathered outside the firing range in frustration. “Where’s Carey?”

“He had to see a man about a horse,” Zach announced.

At the same time, Nancy Bell replied, “He went to use the men’s room.”

Drew gave the attractive brunette an apologetic look before scolding his much younger brother with a frown of reprimand. Zach shrugged, but his grin was unrepentant.

“That was his expression, not mine,” Zach said. “How much do you two have riding on this bet? They’re always competing with each other,” he said in an aside to Nancy. “I think you scared the—”

“There is no bet,” Drew said sharply. “And watch your language, Zach.”

“It’s all right, Andrew,” Nancy told him, her soft, graceful hand a stark contrast against his tanned arm. “I could probably even teach Zach a few phrases.”

Drew rolled his eyes. “Please don’t.”

“Think so?” Zach inquired with a broad smile that revealed two hidden dimples.

“You’d be amazed at what I deal with in my line of work.”

“Maybe so, but you don’t have to deal with it from Zach,” Drew warned.

Zach held up his palms. “Sorry, big brother, for a moment there I forgot about your image.”

Drew’s frown deepened. There was an edge to his brother’s tone and a strange undercurrent of emotion beneath the impish expression. Drew turned away thoughtfully. He sensed, rather than saw, Zach lean toward Nancy. Sotto voce, Zach asked, “Like what, for example?”

Drew never heard her response. The tournament had brought out a large crowd as always, and there was a festive air despite the heat. People milled in scattered clumps, chatting and laughing loudly as they waited for their turn to compete. The scent of grilled hot dogs and fresh popcorn mingled bizarrely with the scent of cordite in the heavy air.

A disturbing sensation pulled Drew’s attention to the thick clump of trees that began halfway up the slope on one side of the pistol range. He stared at the dark line of woods, puzzled. Something had changed a short way into the tree line, but he wasn’t sure what that something was.

Deer?

The woods were filled with the animals, but no deer would be within twenty miles of the noise coming from the firing range. Nancy and Zach added laughter to the din. Drew tuned them out. His attention centered on the shadows up the slope. Without knowing why, he concentrated on a dark patch near a wide maple tree. Beads of sweat collected at his hairline and trickled warmly down his back beneath his light summer shirt.

Nothing moved in the patch of trees, yet Drew sensed a presence there. Someone was watching him.

His fingers tightened on the gun case. He had a strange impulse to pull his weapon and aim it toward that spot on the hill.

As if sensing that thought, the darkness stirred.

The motion was slight, hardly a movement at all, but Drew waited, rigid with expectation. A face suddenly appeared, for all the world looking like a disembodied head floating in midair.

Eyes clashed and held.

Drew swore viciously under his breath. The features were unmistakable.

Zach broke off midsentence, coming alert. “What’s the matter?”

“Andrew?” Nancy asked in concern.

“Bryson,” he growled.

The face melted back into the shadows as if it had never been there at all.

“David Bryson?” Zach demanded. “Where?”

“Who’s David Bryson?” Nancy questioned.

“In the trees up the hill,” Drew told his brother with a small nod.

“I don’t see anything.”

Nancy squeezed his arm in a bid for attention. “Andrew? Who is David Bryson?”

In that brief moment of eye contact with the man, rage had surged inside Drew, welling from the recesses where he kept it mostly caged. Now he worked to contain a whole host of emotions, feeling his jaw clench. His knuckles whitened on the case in his hand. He looked at Nancy without really seeing her.

“David Bryson is the bastard who killed our sister.”

“What?”

“I still don’t see anyone,” Zach said, watching the trees with the same tense wariness Drew had felt only moments earlier.

“He’s gone now,” Drew told him with certainty. “Back to the shadows where he belongs.”

“I thought your sister’s death was an accident,” Nancy said sharply.

“That’s how they classified it,” Zach agreed, equally grim.

Drew didn’t believe those findings. He never had. Their beautiful sister, Tasha, would have been alive today if it hadn’t been for David Bryson. One day, Drew would prove he’d been responsible for what happened. In the meantime, he’d concentrate on winning the mayoral election. Then he’d be in a position to make Dr. David Bryson wish he’d died in that boat explosion as well.