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Nothing happened.
He’d run out of bullets.
He chucked the gun at her head, but missed, and it went tumbling away.
Before she could do anything, he leaned down and grabbed her by the hair, yanking her up and dragging her back through the woods toward the shack.
“Hunt is coming for me.” She stumbled along behind him, pain exploding along her scalp from his grip on her hair.
“Good. Then he’ll be here to see I meant it when I said I’d make him pay by hurting you.”
She tried to dig in her heels and struggled to get free by prying his fingers from her hair, but he just held on tighter. “Where are Angela and Lana?”
“Your stupid sister got what she deserved. Lana is not your concern. She’smydaughter. No one is taking her from me.”
Relief washed through her. Her knees nearly buckled, but he kept dragging her forward.
He pulled her up onto the cement pad in front of the barely hanging door and through it into a dark wide-open space filled with old farm equipment, horse tack, tools, gas cans, large water containers and a table strewn with miscellaneous stuff, including a pillowcase filled with jewelry, cash and other items, along with the ghost mask. Behind the table was a cot with a sleeping bag and a duffel bag of clothes.
She didn’t see or hear the baby.
“Where’s Lana?”
“She’s not your concern.” He grabbed a coil of rope hanging on a peg on the wall, walked her to one of the support posts in the center of the room, pushed her backagainst it and shoved her to the ground. “You should be worried about what I’m going to do to you.”
“You kill me, Hunt will never stop coming for you.”
“He already won’t stop!”
She tried to scramble away, but he grabbed her wrist, pulled her back and shoved her down to the ground again.
He tied her hands behind her back and around the post. “You convinced her to leave me.” He squeezed her chin so hard it stung. “She was the only good thing I had left. But she didn’t want me anymore. She didn’t want me around our daughter. She thought I’d hurt Lana, too.”
“And did you?”
Rad grasped her by the throat. “I didn’t mean to grab her that hard when Angela tried to leave with her. The baby started wailing. Then Angela went berserk and hit and scratched me. I had to defend myself!” The rage in his eyes promised death.
She couldn’t use her hands because they were tied too tightly for her to get free. She gasped for air and tried to wiggle and back away, but she had nowhere to go.
Rad suddenly released her, a gleam of something merciless in his eyes. “What was it you said to me? You’d rather be set on fire than let me touch you? Yeah. I think that was it.” He stood and grabbed a gas can.
Her heart raced and her vision blurred but didn’t go out on her altogether. “Rad, please. Don’t do this.”
“Now she begs. Now she says please.” He stared down at her. “Fuck you, Cyn. You ruined everything!”
“If you’re going to kill me, then at least tell me where my sister is.”
“You walked right over your sister’s grave and you didn’t even know it.”
“Just tell me where she is!”
“You’ll both be here together. That’s what you wanted, right, Cyn? Wish granted.” He dumped the gasoline on some empty bags in the corner next to a wheelbarrow and shovel, went to the table where an old kerosene lamp sat, grabbed a box of matches, lit one and tossed it onto the gas-soaked bags.
Cyn panicked. “Don’t leave me here. You don’t want one more death on your hands. Hunt knows about the burglaries. He knows you killed that man.”
Rad grabbed the stolen items off the table, his duffel bag off the cot, and stood in the doorway. “He’ll have to prove that, won’t he? By then, I’ll be long gone.”
“You can’t do this.” She coughed as the flames rose higher, eating up the dry wood structure, filling it with smoke.
