shook his head. “Just go. Please.”
The pleading tone in his voice sent a shiver over her flesh. “No. You don’t want me to die on your watch and I don’t want you to die on my watch, so I guess we’re at an impasse.”
In the gloomy light of the cabin she could see the fierceness on his handsome face. “You have too much to live for.”
“We both have too much to live for.” She wanted to shake him. Instead, she opened a vein. “We’ve only just met.” And she wanted time to get to know him. Please, Lord.
His eyes widened. Tenderness filled his expression. “Then you better get us some help.”
Tears burned the backs of her eyes. “Promise me you won’t die while I’m gone.”
He flashed a strained grin. “I’m not going anywhere.” He held out his hand. Tentatively, she took it. “When this is all over and done with...” He squeezed her fingers lightly.
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
He released her hand. “Go. And hurry back.”
Pausing in the shack’s doorway with her gun raised, Serena scanned the area for the sniper.
“Go,” Jason prompted. “He would have picked us off already if that’s how he’d planned to do it. He’s counting on the bomb, now.”
The sick roll of her stomach let her know Jason was right. With Ginger by her side, Serena ran in the direction they had come. The sun had dropped low, causing shadowy fingers across the landscape like a greedy specter of death. Every few minutes, she checked her phone and the radio with a prayer on her lips: “Please, Lord, I don’t know what you have in store for Jason or for me, but I want more time.”
Jason replayed Serena’s words over and over in his head. She wanted more with him. He wanted more with her, too. More time. More opportunity to know her. To see her smile, hear her laugh. To discover all there was about the pretty deputy.
He’d promised Serena he wouldn’t die while she was gone. He prayed he’d be able to keep that promise.
As the minutes ticked by, his thoughts turned to asking why Mary and Paul had been together that night. Had they been having an affair? Jason had found no evidence to suggest his wife and partner had betrayed him. Witnesses at the restaurant had claimed the two had been in an intense discussion. But that could’ve been about anything. Like a surprise party as Serena had suggested.
Whatever the two had been doing had died with them and left Jason riddled with guilt.
He heard the sound of boots on gravel, and his spirits lifted. Serena was back already? He was going to kiss that woman the next time he saw her.
The unhurried steps on the porch sent caution sloshing over him like a bucket of ice. Slowly, so as not to move too much and cause an explosion, he withdrew his gun and held it at his side.
The door opened. A man holding a sniper rifle in one hand and a dozen roses in the other entered the shack and stopped. The surprise on his face was comical, and if the situation hadn’t been so dire Jason would have relished getting the drop on the Red Rose Killer. But really, the situation was reversed. Jason was the one caught in a trap.
They aimed their weapons at each other.
Yet neither fired. Hyperaware of the explosive device beneath his foot, Jason expelled a harsh breath. Until this morning when a certain deputy showed up on his ranch, he wouldn’t have cared if he lived or died. But now he wanted to live. He had to live for Serena. He’d promised her.
The man in the doorway had regular features, nothing special or memorable. A symmetrical round head with dark blond hair and ice-cold blue eyes. He wore camouflage clothing, heavy boots and a sneer on his face.
“Well, well. Isn’t this a treat?” He moved out of the doorway, keeping the barrel of his rifle trained on Jason. “Drop your weapon.”
“You drop yours.”
The man’s lip curled. “I’m not the one standing on a landmine of my own design.”
“If I move, we both die.”
“If you were going to move, you’d have done so already. And if you shoot me...” He pulled a remote detonator from his pocket and gave Jason a wicked grin. “You die. I’d say you’re in a bad place, Mr. Hargrove.”
So he knew who Jason was. Had he been casing his ranch? Anger simmered within Jason. His fingers tightened around the Sig Sauer but self-preservation kept him from pulling the trigger.
“How about I walk out and shoot you from a distance? That would be more fun,” the killer taunted. “I can’t use this place anymore. Might as well blow it up and you right along with it.” The man pivoted and walked back out the door.
Dread twisted in Jason’s gut. He had to keep the guy here and talking. And not get blown up in the process. He had to give Serena time to get help. “Wait!”
He hoped to extract information that could be used later—if Jason survived. He sent up a silent plea that he’d get out of this situation. For now, the only thing he could do was to comply and trust God and Serena.
With minimal movements, Jason released the magazine, ejected the shell in the chamber and tossed the gun aside.
The creep glanced around before stepping back inside and closing the door. “I saw you at the creek with the cute deputy. Where’d she go?”
Jason assumed the question was rhetorical, because surely the man knew she’d gone for backup. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours. You at least owe me the courtesy for using my land uninvited.”
“Maybe I do, or maybe I don’t owe you a thing.” The killer shrugged. “But you’re going to die today. My name is Boyd Sullivan. My late granddaddy, on my mother’s side, once owned this land before the bank confiscated it and made the Wadsworth family pariahs in town.”
Jason hadn’t taken enough of an interest in the neighboring properties to know the history of the land. “You’re the Red Rose Killer.” He needed the confirmation.
Boyd walked around him and set the roses on the rickety table. “That I am.” He chuckled. “Don’t you just love the media? They get a kick on naming things so obvious.”
“You’ve killed five people. Why?”
“Why not? They deserved it.”
Deserved it? Was he a religious fanatic? Some sort of crusader? “What did those women and men do to deserve being murdered?”
“No-good, uppity so-and-sos. Every last one of them. They thought they were better than me. I showed them, didn’t I?” He cackled, an unhinged sound that raised the fine hairs on Jason’s arms.
Jason was dealing with a psychopath. “So you killed them because they hurt your feelings?”
