“Where is she, Oliver?”
“She’s gone.”
“Where?” Sweat was beading on Skye’s face, beginning to run into her hair. She looked pale from the pain, as if she might pass out. But her eyes remained focused and lucid. “Did you kill her? Did you kill her like you killed those other women?”
He didn’t want to answer. He didn’t owe Skye anything. He’d planned to rape her, to take his time and make it as painful as possible. But he didn’t want that anymore. He doubted he could even get hard. He was too upset. All he could think about was Jane’s blood on his hands and his inability to wash it off. It was back now. He couldn’t see it, but he knew it was there. Maybe when he went home and took off his shirt, he’d find the spatter all over his chest again, along with blood from the wound she’d caused….
He needed to end this and leave. But he’d dropped his knife in his rush to stop Skye from escaping. He tried to drag her the few feet he had to move in order to reclaim it, but she understood his intent, and the panic that had immobilized her evaporated. Whatever pain she endured, she managed to ignore as she began to kick and fight as she’d fought four years ago.
“You won’t win!” she kept screaming. “You won’t win.”
“I won with Noah,” he said, grabbing a handful of her hair. “I won with Jane. What are you next to them?”
“Whatever I have to be,” she said, and then the nails of her left hand found his cheek.
Skye knew she was fighting for her life, but that alone wasn’t what gave her the strength she needed. It was the knowledge that she fought for her unborn baby, too, for David and the life they could have together if she came out of this alive. She wouldn’t let senseless violence cost her any more than it already had. She’d dedicated her life to stopping it, and she would stop this.
Ignoring the pain radiating up her arm from her injured hand, pain so acute it made her nauseous, she used the momentary advantage she’d gained with her nails to kick Oliver in the stomach and then the groin.
He let go of her hair and doubled up. But he didn’t stay that way long enough for her to get back on her feet. Her only option was to come up with a weapon. Her purse wasn’t far. She could crawl over to it. But even if she could retrieve her gun, she couldn’t fire it. Without her dominant hand, she doubted she’d even be able to turn the muzzle in the right direction as quickly as necessary. Which left the knife.
God forbid…
In a split-second decision, she moved as if she was going to lunge for her purse, and he bought it. He grabbed the purse before she could reach it, but she rolled in the other direction and scooped up the knife. The last thing she saw was the surprise on Oliver’s face when he realized she’d tricked him. He fumbled with her purse, but he didn’t even get it open before she sank his own knife as deep in his chest as she could.
Four years after the first incident, Skye had stabbed Oliver Burke again. Only this time she’d hit something vital. She could tell by how quickly the strength fled his limbs. He gasped and slumped on top of her, but she pushed him off and managed to scramble away.
She immediately started searching her purse for her gun. But when her mind caught up with the adrenaline flowing through her body, she dropped it. She didn’t need a gun. Oliver wasn’t moving.
“Help me!” he whispered, but his expression was almost sardonic, as if he was tempting her to refuse him, to reveal that she could be as inhumane as he.
Skye was shaking so badly, she wasn’t sure she could move even if she wanted to. The pain that her body had momentarily blocked out was returning. She felt sick, light-headed. But something he’d said earlier worried her.
“Where’s Jane?” she asked. “Tell me where she is and I’ll stop the bleeding, call the paramedics.”
“No…you wouldn’t.” He tried to shake his head. “Not…for me.”
“I’d do it for anyone,” she said. “That’s how we’re different. But you have to tell me what you’ve done with Jane.”
“Janey…” He flinched as if his wife’s nickname brought him more pain. “She’s…” He gasped, fighting for a few more seconds. “She’s in bed with…with Noah… where she belongs.” Then he gave Skye a bittersweet smile, as if he’d just told the funniest joke in the world, and was gone for good.
David received Skye’s call as he reached the outskirts of Sacramento.
“I’m almost there,” he said. “I’ll check on Lynnette and be right over.”
“Don’t go to the delta house.”
He felt his eyebrows go up. “Why not?”
“I’m at the hospital.”
That feeling he’d had earlier, the one that had prompted him to call her so many times, returned. “What’s wrong?” he said urgently.
“Oliver Burke’s dead.”
“How do you know?”
“He came after me.”
Instinctively, he gave the car more gas, wishing he could get to her sooner. He’d sent a deputy from the sheriff’s office to stay with her. Had the deputy not made it in time? “What happened?”
“He was waitin’ for me when I got home. I had to stab him. I couldn’t use my right han’.”
Her words were starting to slur, and he wondered if she was on some medication.
“He slammed it in the door when I was tryin’ to get ’way,” she continued. “I—I smashed sev’ral bones in my han’. They’re goin’ to operate.”
David clenched his jaw. “Didn’t Deputy Meeks come?”
“He came…after.”
“Did you tell the doctor you’re pregnant, Skye? Before they gave you whatever they gave you?”
“’Course.”
“That’s good. And…do you think…” He was afraid to ask about the baby for fear of what the answer might be.
“Babe’s gonna be fine. I’m ’cited ’bout the babe.”
He sighed in relief. She was hanging on to that thought, and so was he. He knew she was struggling to stay conscious. But then she said something that shocked him.
“Jane’s in crit’cal condition.”
“Jane Burke?”
“By…time they got to her, she’d—she nearly…bled to death. I don’t know…how she held on…so long. Stabbed…in the neck, missed jugular by…a fraction.”