Final Scream (47 page)

“The what?” Derrick must have finally seen the blaze, smelled the scent of smoke. The high squeal of terrified horses, thudding hooves and the distant cry of a siren swept into the room finally and pierced his brain. “Holy shit. What the hell’s going on?” he said, as if mesmerized by the flames. “I didn’t see—”

Brig, feeling the barrel move slightly, a slackening between cold metal and his sweat-soaked back, dived to the side. He scrambled on the floor, moving through the darkness, running as fast as his feet would carry him.

“Hey! Stop!” Derrick yelled, stumbling slightly. “You fucking bastard, I’m gonna kill you—”

Crouching, Brig sprinted through the house, toward the front door, but he was slow. His bad leg was like a dead weight and pain screamed up his thigh.

He reached the knob and pulled, but Derrick caught up with him. Yanked him back inside. Brig was ready. His fist doubled and he smashed Derrick in the face, hitting him square in the nose. Blood spurted. “Son of a bitch—” Derrick clamped a hand over the squash that had been his nose.

Brig nailed him again. A left cross that crunched bones and snapped Derrick’s head back. Blood sprayed on the walls and splattered Brig’s chest.

The rifle clattered to the floor. A window in the back of the house burst from the heat. Glass shattered and sprayed, and all around the house hot flames crackled and roared.

Brig hurtled through the open door and started running, his bare feet hitting the asphalt that was already warm.

“You can’t run away this time, you dumb fuck!” Derrick’s voice was hysterical.

Brig dived. The rifle cracked. His body jolted. Pain seared through his side. He slammed hard against the pavement, the skin of his face scraping, blood pouring from his abdomen. The air was hot, unbreathable, and his side burned.

“Ha! Nailed you, you bastard.”

Stunned, fighting to stay conscious, Brig started crawling, moving forward, away from the inferno and his brother-in-law.

“Help Brig.” Willie’s voice was close by. Suddenly, he was lifted to his feet and dragged toward the woods on the far side of the property. Only fifty yards, but it seemed like a million.

Flames and smoke were everywhere. Heat so intense it waved, seared the breath from his lungs.

“Got to run. Brig. You run.” Willie was insistent, propelling him forward, big hands dragging him away from his attacker, away from the fire toward trees not yet devoured by the flames.

“Derrick’s mad and it’s gonna burn. Gonna burn.”

“Two for the price of one,” Derrick yelled.

Agilely, Willie dropped to the ground, taking Brig with him. Pain scorched up Brig’s leg. The Winchester cracked again and a bullet whizzed above their heads.

“Come on! Hurry!” Willie, his eyes wide with fear, was desperate, yanking on Brig. The woods were closer now, only thirty yards. They could make it. Brig forced his feet to move. A rifle report split the night. With a squeal, Willie fell. His body smacked against the pavement, his head cracking.

“No!” Brig cried.

Air whistled through Willie’s lungs.

“Nooooo!”
Brig screamed, turning to see Derrick standing on the front porch, the house a burning backdrop of living flames. “It’s okay,” he said to the dying man. “It’s okay, you just hang in there.” But blood gurgled from Willie’s mouth and nose and drained from the wound in his chest. Brig tried to help him, stanching the flow, but there was just so much blood everywhere. “Willie, hang on!”

Willie’s eyes were wide. He stared upward as Brig held him. “Brig,” he whispered, blood and spittle spraying.

“Don’t talk—”

“Brother. Good.”

“Yes, good, Willie.”

“She burned.”

Cassidy?
Oh, God no! “Willie—”

“Felicity—she burned Angie. She burned Chase. She burned you—”

“No, Willie, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Brig whispered. “Don’t say anything, okay? Now, hold on. Help will be here—oh, shit no!”

A horrid rattling breath wheezed through Willie’s lungs and his blue eyes glazed.

I couldn’t tear myself away. God, it was beautiful, the flames crackling through the house, the windows breaking…and then I saw Derrick with his rifle. God, no! Not after all I’d been through. He was going to mess things up. Again. He was there with Brig and Willie and…and…no, this wasn’t right. Not after all my planning. All the time I’d put in to see that he inherited everything, that he and I and our girls were the rightful heirs to all the Buchanan holdings…Rage tore through me and I started toward the blaze that was roaring wildly, white-hot flames licking the heavens.

“Don’t!” I yelled. “Get away…Derrick, don’t!”

A rifle cracked and everything I’d worked for, all the plans I’d made, died in that horrifying instant.

“No, no, no, you damned fool. Don’t!”

But it was too late. Willie Ventura was spitting up blood and Brig McKenzie looked like he would kill Derrick with his bare hands, and Derrick, the fool, stood beneath a burning roof that was about to collapse. “Oh, God, no,” I whispered. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Derrick. “Run!” I screamed but he just stood there, as if rooted to the porch. If I didn’t do something and fast, he too would die a grisly horrid death!

“No!” Brig cried. He held his half brother’s head, denying the inevitable. “No!” He glared up at the heavens, at the furious inferno devouring Chase’s land, and then his rage turned black and deadly. Fury and vengeance drew an ungodly pact in his mind. “I’ll get him,” he swore to Willie. “If it’s the last thing I ever do, Willie, I’ll get him and I’ll get him good—”

Coughing, blood pouring from his side, Brig struggled to his feet. Derrick hadn’t moved from the porch, seeming unaware or unconcerned about the flames devouring the roof above his head, the ugly smoke surrounding him, the glass spraying as windows shattered. Tinder-dry grass ignited and the fire moved swiftly, demolishing everything in its gruesome path, heading toward the stable and sheds. Somewhere nearby sirens shrieked and deep, bellowing horns honked.

The fire department.

But it was too late. Too damned late.

Deliberately taking his time, Derrick stepped off the porch, the rifle pointed squarely at Brig’s chest.

“I think it’s time you went directly to hell, McKenzie,” Derrick yelled, coughing but fearless and stupidly proud. “And I want you to know that I’m proud to be the one to send you there.”

“You murdering bastard, I’ll take you with me,” Brig growled. He rushed forward. Horses screamed. Tires screeched. Horns blasted and men started running.

“Hey—you!”

“Stop!”

“What the fuck’s going on here? Oh, Christ, he’s got a gun!”

Derrick squeezed the trigger.

An explosion roared in his ears. Brig took one step forward before the blast hit him, throwing him off his feet, causing fire to spew into the sky and rain down from the heavens. Boards and glass, metal and chunks of concrete flew out from the house.

Brig knew that he was going to die. Blood flowed sticky and hot from his side, and he couldn’t get enough air. Smoke clogged his lungs and billowed upward, blotting out the moon. Blackness threatened to take him. He reached up to his neck, his fingers searching for the chain and medal he’d worn so many years and finding nothing.

“Cassidy,” he whispered hoarsely. “Oh, God, Cassidy, I’m so sorry.” He closed his eyes and her beautiful face swam in his vision. “I love you. I’ve always loved you…”

As she pulled the Jeep around a huge fire truck, Cassidy stood on the brakes and gazed in horror at the fire, at the house, at Brig. And Derrick on the porch with a gun…Oh God.

“Stop!” she yelled, flinging open the door as a blast knocked her back. “Brig!” He flew through the air and landed near the base of an old apple tree. Limp as a rag he slammed into the earth. “No!” she yelled. “Brig, no!”

“Hey, lady, stand back!”

Ignoring one of the firemen, she ran to Brig, heard the final words torn from his lungs over the scream of sirens. “Brig! Brig! I love you!” she cried, falling on her knees beneath the tree and cradling his head in her lap. She kissed him, tasting his blood and sweat, willing life into him. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. You can’t die, damn it, you can’t!”

Her voice was drowned by the sirens and engines of a truck that ground to a stop only inches from where she knelt, holding him, praying that he was alive, knowing that she’d loved him all her life. Tears rained from her eyes, despair clutched her soul. “I love you…oh, God, I’ve always loved you.”

Men scrambled around her. Firemen, paramedics, policemen and women. Even Felicity, who had appeared and was raving and screaming about Derrick.

“I didn’t mean to do it!” Felicity yelled, searching for her husband as a fireman restrained her. “I didn’t want to kill him. Not Derrick. Just Brig. He needs to die. Just like Angie! Oh, Christ, please, someone save Derrick!”

“Hold on there. Someone call a policeman over here. Her husband—”

“It doesn’t look good. Probably dead.”

“No! He can’t die! He can’t! Just Brig. Oh, God, what have I done?” Felicity screamed. “What have I done?!”

Cassidy glared at this monster of a woman. “I hope you get everything you deserve, and believe me, if the justice system doesn’t take care of you, I will!”

“Enough,” a policeman intervened. “I think we’d better read this woman her rights.”

“Save him—save Derrick. He’s—oh, God!”

The fire chief paid her no mind. “Get the number two truck hooked up and spray the stable, three can start on the house—what the hell? Where’d this dog come from?”

“Found him locked up in the stable—looks like he’s been drugged or something—”

“You have the right to remain silent—”

The words were dull and fuzzy, other sounds—horses and a dog barking and men shouting—all muted against the dull roar of the fire and the fear that took hold of her heart as she held Brig to her. Brig, the only man she’d ever loved. The man she’d left…

Cassidy didn’t move, couldn’t. Just held him tight.

“Hey, there—” Detective T. John Wilson’s hand was heavy on her shoulder. “Let’s take a look at him.”

Lifting her head, she stared up at the man she’d considered her enemy so long and blinked through her tears. “Save him,” she begged. “Please, you’ve got to save him—”

“The boys in the ambulance, they’ll do their best.”

“I love him.”

“I know you do, darlin’.”

“He’s—”

“I know that, too. Come on now. We have to work fast. Get him to a doctor.” She climbed to her feet though she couldn’t feel her legs, or anything else for that matter, and watched as he was placed on a stretcher and carried into the ambulance.

“She’s in shock,” someone said. “Better get her to the hospital.” But she threw off the gentle arm over her shoulders and ignored the stench of smoke and yelling, stepping over hoses and around men as they pumped gallons of water onto the house that Chase had built for her. Instead she insisted on being with Brig, knowing that she might never see him alive again. The ambulance, siren howling, took off. She held his hands in hers, lacing her fingers through his. She couldn’t stop her tears, just stared at him, wishing she could relive the last twenty-four hours. “Please, Brig. Wake up and love me.” But he was motionless, blood soaking through the bandage they’d wrapped over his side, dirt and sweat covering his face that was again scraped raw of skin from the asphalt where he’d landed.

Tears slid down her face, and the ambulance roared through the night. Couldn’t they go any faster? Brig was so pale, looked so near death.

“I love you. Don’t you dare die on me, Brig McKenzie,” she added, her voice catching. “Swear to God, if you do, I’ll never forgive you!”

He moved. Just slightly, but he moved. His eyes blinked open for a minute and he looked at her—straight in the face. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Cass,” he whispered, his tongue thick.

“Brig!” Her heart leaped.

His hand tightened over hers, giving her strength.

Hot tears spilled from her eyes all over again, and she leaned forward to kiss his scratched cheek. “Don’t ever leave me.”

“Never,” he vowed. “From here on in, it’s you and me, kid.”

“Promise?”

His gaze held hers before his lids lowered again. “Promise.”

Derrick…oh, God, not Derrick!
I felt tears run down my face and my heart squeezed painfully. This was wrong. So wrong! I was sobbing, unaware of the men shouting, the hoses streaming water, the smell of charred wood. All I could think about was Derrick. “No, no, no!” I railed to the heavens and fell to my knees.

Someone, I didn’t know who, pulled me to my feet. Roughly. I blinked and stared into the face of a dark-eyed man with a sharp nose. “Felicity Buchanan, you’re under arrest.”

“What?” Dazed, the words didn’t really sink in.

“For the murder of Angie Buchanan, her unborn child, Jed Baker and Chase McKenzie.”

“What?” I finally screamed, trying to pull away. “Are you out of your mind?” The oaf of an officer yanked my arms behind my back and snapped on the cuffs. “Do you know who I am? Who my father is?” I forced some starch into my spine as I felt my world crumbling, the world I’d been born to, the world I’d only tried to improve.

“Yep.” He stared at me. “I’m Detective Steven Gonzales with the Sheriff’s Department.”

I stared him down. “You have no proof.”

“What were you doing here?”

Think, Felicity
, I told myself, trying to regain some composure. “I…I followed my husband. I saw him take the gun and I followed him here.”
Yes, that was the story I’d use
.

“I just happened to hear your confession,” he said, a smile sliding across his steely jaw. “And I found your truck…it’s got some interesting things inside. Disguises and electrical equipment. I’m having it impounded.”

“Why? No!” I thought of everything in the truck and felt sick inside. “It’s registered to my husband!”

“But you were driving it. He came in another vehicle.”

“No…you’ve got it all wrong. I…I drive a Mercedes.”