Page 74 of Crossfire Creek Vengeance

Chapter Nineteen

The blast shook the ground under Deacon’s boots, a hard concussion that rattled the nearest headstones.

Dirt sifted down around them. The shockwave had punched through the cemetery, but it hadn’t been enough to level the place. Thank God. If those explosives had been fully rigged, they’d all be gone.

Wynn scrambled back behind cover of a tombstone. So alive but possibly hurt. Deacon couldn’t spare more than a half-second to figure it out.

The shooter didn’t stop.

Rounds cracked through the cold air, slamming into stone and earth. The bastard had barely even paused after the explosion, which told Deacon this guy wasn’t some panicked amateur. This was someone hired, focused, and determined to finish the job.

Jessa stayed tight at Deacon’s side, both of them moving low and fast between markers. The air still vibrated from the blast. Smoke drifted in thin gray ribbons, making the lights look smeared and ghostlike through the cemetery.

Deacon risked a glance to the far side of the grounds. There. A flash of movement near a stand of cedar.

Roman.

He was closing in from the opposite direction just like they’d planned.

Deacon’s pulse kicked harder. They were boxing the shooter in, collapsing angles, tightening the net. If they timed it right, they might actually end this nightmare before someone got killed.

He signaled to Jessa to keep low. She nodded and slid behind a broken angel statue.

Jessa froze when the gunfire abruptly cut off. The sudden silence was almost worse, like the cemetery itself was holding its breath. Then a voice shouted out from behind the mausoleum.

“Come any closer and the whole place will blow!”

Hell, Deacon knew that voice.

Corbin.

The man stepped out just enough to be seen, half-hidden in the shadows, and he tossed something across the ground toward them. It clattered over the gravel and came to rest near the base of a headstone.

An explosive, rigged with a damn detonator.

Not that Deacon needed it, but that explosive was more proof that Corbin was behind all of this. Not a puppet. Not some unlucky bystander in Wynn’s chaos.

He was the one with a gun in his hand and in control of that detonator.

“Corbin,” Deacon snarled, “you sick sonofabitch.”

He laughed. It was a raw sound, jagged enough to raise the hairs on Deacon’s arms. “I’m going to do what I should have done a long time ago. None of you walk out of here unless I say so.”

Deacon glanced over and saw that Roman’s eyes were locked on Corbin, full of fury and something darker. Deacon didn’t need to guess why. They weren’t shocked that Corbin was the culprit. After all, he’d been a suspect. But it disgusted them to grasp the motive for all of this was because of the hatred he felt over Lauren rejecting him.

Corbin straightened, smug and sure of himself, the detonator glinting between the fingers of his left hand while his gun was in his right. Deacon had no doubts, none, that the man planned to end it here. He planned to kill every one of them.

“Corbin, was it you?” Wynn shouted, his voice cracking through the smoke and cold. “Did you murder Lauren?”

Corbin didn’t deny it. He didn’t even flinch.

It hit Deacon like a punch. Corbin. Not just stirring Wynn up. Not just feeding chaos. He had killed her mother.

Wynn must have reached the same conclusion because he suddenly shoved himself upright. He staggered, bleeding and weak, but full of rage.

“You bastard,” Wynn snarled and charged straight at him.

“Wynn, don’t!” Jessa yelled, but it was too late.