Page 81 of Chilled
Smoke clogged his lungs as he lurched to his feet and plowed back through the thick haze to the man leaning over Brenna with a gun in his hand.
Nick threw himself at Stan Klaus knocking the weapon free, and the two men crashed to the floor in a tangled heap.
“No! You can’t stop me. She needs to die!” Stan screamed.
“Not on my shift.” Nick swung a fist with all his pent-up emotions packed behind the punch. Pain sliced through his knuckles when they made contact with Stan’s jaw. The killer’s head jerked back, bouncing off the hardwood planks.
Nick worried about Brenna lying behind him on the floor. He had to get her out before she died of smoke inhalation.
He cocked his arm, ready to land another fist in Stan’s face when the man twisted and shoved him to the side, rolling out of range.
His feet sliding on the floor, Nick struggled to get up, throwing himself after the serial killer. He caught Stan in the back of the legs, and the man fell against the edge of a curio cabinet and lay still.
Nick yanked the hem of his shirt up over his face and nudged Stan with his foot. The man didn’t move, didn’t respond.
With the fire quickly consuming the dried timbers of the old house, Nick didn’t have time to waste on Stan. He turned back to Brenna and, in one fluid motion, scooped her into his arms and ran for the door.
Flames had climbed into the rafters, eating through the beams like paper. A loud cracking sound rent the air, and the porch overhang collapsed in Nick’s path. He dodged to the side and leaped off the porch into a foot of freezing water. He didn’t stop running until he reached the truck.
Jerking the passenger door open, he gently laid Brenna in the seat, his heart lodging in his throat.
He hadn’t stopped to check for a pulse. She hadn’t woken up to tell him she was okay.
With his hands shaking, Nick touched two fingers to her neck, feeling for life in Brenna’s still body.
For what felt like a lifetime, he held his breath until the faintest nudge tapped against his finger, then another, until her pulse beat in a regular rhythm.
Brenna coughed, her eyes fluttering open. “Nick? Oh, God. Nick.” She coughed again, and tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, leaving charcoal trails down the sides of her face in the thin layer of soot.
He pulled his pocket knife out of his pocket and sliced through the ethernet wire, freeing her hands.
Brenna wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shirt. “You came.”
“Damn right, I did,” he murmured against her temple.
Melissa and Paul waded around from the other side of the house and stood beside the truck. “Hey, boss, that house is toast,” Melissa said. “We never saw Klaus, did you?”
Nick stroked Brenna’s soft cheek. “He’s inside.”
“Then he’s history,” Paul said, gazing over his shoulder at the fire burning out of control.
“Good.” Nick pulled Brenna into his arms, glad he’d found her before Stan could finish what he’d started.
“Well, boss, I hate to break up your reunion,” Melissa said. “But the water is rising faster and it’s damned cold.”
Nick tucked a strand of hair behind Brenna’s ear and straightened. “Let’s go.”
Sliding Brenna to the middle of the seat, Nick climbed in beside her. “Bradley, you drive.”
“As they say around these parts, ‘you betcha’.” Melissa climbed behind the wheel, turned the truck around in the flooded yard and headed back the way they’d come.
Nick glanced over his shoulder as the roof of the little house caved in, the entire building an inferno. If Stan Klaus had survived the fall against the cabinet or smoke inhalation, the fire burning now would finish the job.
Good riddance.
Melissa drove a lot slower in the rising river water on the trip back to town, straining to keep the truck on pavement they could no longer see. “Wow, this might get ugly before it gets better.”
“I’m counting on you, Bradley.” Nick tightened his hold on Brenna as the truck skidded sideways. “Show us how to drive like a Texan.”
