Brutal Obsession (The Safeguard Series, Book One) (25 page)

Ashlyn looked back, wiping the rain from her eyes. She could barely see ten feet in front of her or behind, but she could have sworn she saw a shadow across the street move toward her, and go in between the houses. Coen? She couldn’t be positive, but she wasn’t about to backtrack and make herself a viable target.

Another gunshot rang out and she literally jumped, raising a hand to her chest as fear sliced through her. What if
he
had shot Keane? The graphic vision she’d conjured up was enough to encourage her to move, putting one foot in front of another as she rounded the corner of the house. Why was it that it appeared darker here? There was roughly twenty feet from where she was to the neighbor’s home, with bushes forming a hedge line separating the properties.

The rain was still coming down as Ashlyn continued to slowly make her way to the back of the property. She’d only made it halfway when she heard Keane’s voice, talking in a rather soothing manner. Had he discovered Sawyer and was telling him help was on the way? Was it Coen? She took a few more steps to try and see who it was, but she also didn’t want to call attention to herself.

Ashlyn would have screamed had she had the time, but instead she was literally shoved into the concrete of the garage wall, unarmed, with a hand over her mouth to prevent her from shouting for help before she could do a damn thing.

“Shhhh.” Ashlyn couldn’t make out the man’s features, but she instinctively knew she didn’t know him. He was massive, as in those fighters on television. His shoulders had to be at least twice the length of hers and she unconsciously brought her knee up with enough force to inflict damage, but the man didn’t budge. Panic took hold and she struggled, only to find that he pressed his body harder against hers and whispered in her ear. “Ms. Ellis. I’m Townes Calvert. I need you to stop fighting and run as fast as you can across the street, to where Coen and Sawyer were setup above the garage.”

Ashlyn was already shaking her head, refusing to leave Keane behind. He was with Sawyer or Coen, but one of them needed medical attention. The gunshots said it all and she wasn’t about to leave without doing what she could to help. It was because of her they were hurt.

“You tainted her,” a voice shrieked aloud, causing Ashlyn to go absolutely still. It was enough for Townes to slowly release his hold on her, but he didn’t understand. She couldn’t have heard right. There had to be some mistake. “She was mine. For months, she paid attention to me—smiling, laughing, and even touching me. You ruined her and then turned her against me. So you’re going to go in there and get her or I will put a bullet in your friend’s head and then yours.”

“You know how this is going to end,” Keane replied quietly, doing his best to soothe Andrew Rutledge while dissuading him from following through with whatever delusion he’d convinced himself he was living out. Ashlyn was grateful the concrete kept her upright or otherwise her trembling knees would have given out on her. She fought off the nausea as it rose in her throat, burning all the way. A man she’d considered a colleague, a friend, had invaded her privacy by watching her twenty-four hours a day in her own home. A man who killed two people they’d both known. Two men she admired greatly, both of which would have had long lives ahead of them if it hadn’t been for this sad, delusional man. “You can’t get away with this, Andrew. Too many people are now involved and you’ve made a lot of mistakes. The best thing you can do right now is lower that weapon and give yourself up before you force my hand.”

The two men continued to exchange words while Townes Calvert maintained his stance on Ashlyn leaving the scene. She couldn’t, not with Keane’s life on the line and whomever Andrew was threatening to kill. She dug her heels into the grass and tugged against Towne’s grip when he tried to extract her from the situation.

“He’ll listen to me,” Ashlyn whispered in encouragement, doing her best to get Townes on her side without him hearing the fear consuming her. She managed to grab ahold of him, unable to wrap her fingers completely around his forearm. “Please. I can talk him down without anyone else getting hurt.”

Even through the darkness, Ashlyn could see the large man shake his head in disagreement. Desperation clawed at her and she took a hold of that, spinning it into what she dealt with on a daily basis when she spent hours convincing a jury of someone’s guilt.

“Mr. Calvert, I’m the only one who can get your man out of this situation,” Ashlyn stated persuasively, straightening her shoulders and pushing against him to garner some room so that she could at least look up into his face. The shadows prevented her from seeing his features, but she conjured up what she thought he might look like. “Andrew Rutledge is a colleague and one I know rather well. He won’t hurt me, but he’s already proved that he’s willing to kill for me. Let me talk him down while you figure out a way to stop him from killing anyone else. I can at least give you the time to do that much.”

Ashlyn waited, fighting the urge to try and run toward Keane. That would likely end up resulting in more deaths, so she maintained her composure and hoped like hell Townes agreed with her assessment of the situation. For whatever reason, Andrew wasn’t in a position to be eliminated. She understood how these situations worked better than anyone. Keane would have taken the shot already if he could and Townes Calvert knew that.

“We do this my way,” Townes conceded in a tone Ashlyn wasn’t so sure was on purpose. He sounded as if he’d had trauma to his voice box, but that wasn’t her concern. He also had strung along a line of curse words she hadn’t even known existed. He wasn’t happy with her plan, but it appeared it was all they had at the moment. “Announce yourself first. Stay away from Keane, giving him a chance to do what he does best. He’ll know I’m around to cause a distraction when he needs it, so keep Rutledge occupied, but stay out of his line of sight. And for Christ’s sake, you run as fast as you can if you so much as think he’s coming after you. Got it?”

Townes Calvert wasn’t the most polished speaker, but he certainly got his point across. Ashlyn was so relieved he was allowing her to do this that she didn’t give him a chance to renege or let herself think about the risk she was taking. It was nowhere near the danger Keane was currently standing in and trying to talk his way out. She managed to get to the back of the house and looked over her shoulder, only to find that Townes wasn’t anywhere in sight. For someone so large, he could move quickly and remain undetected in an alarmingly short amount of time.

“You have on the count of three to retrieve Ashlyn and—”

“I’m here,” Ashlyn called out, wiping the rain away in hopes that would make her see better. It didn’t. The tree line in the back made it even harder to make out the figures, but she could distinguish Keane next to the generator. Townes’ cautionary word on giving Keane space to do his job came to mind, so she stayed where she was and ignored the sharp inhalation that had come from someone near Keane’s position. Was Andrew holding someone hostage? Coen and Sawyer were nowhere to be found. “Andrew, what’s going on?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Andrew shouted, sounding nothing like the professional prosecutor she’d dealt with numerous times in the past. Ashlyn was starting to understand how witnesses always stated under oath that they had no knowledge of previous behavior issues. And it wasn’t only those types of questions they couldn’t answer. It was looking back and then seeing the signs of something he or she could have stopped. She could honestly say now that she could see his ability to pull something like this off. Andrew was assigned the Haung case because of his technical comprehension, but no one had really known the extent of his knowledge. Now they did, but it was a little too late. “You said yourself that we were soul mates. You made me believe you, but you’re just like all the rest. You’re a filthy whore and I should have known you weren’t worthy of my affection from the beginning.”

Ashlyn only now caught on to the fact that she could do nothing to prevent Andrew from killing more innocent people. Whoever he had with him in the tree line was going to be shot to death because she’d realized too late that her presence had only aggravated him. She’d read the situation wrong and had put all of them in more danger, if that were even possible. She needed to turn the tables or else the person Andrew had would be dead within a minute. She hoped like hell Keane understood what she was about to do. She could either beg Andrew for forgiveness or she could anger him in a manner that would create the response they needed. She chose the latter.

“Worthy of your affection? You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” Ashlyn spat out in disgust, hoping she carried off her revulsion credibly. If she could only get him to step out far enough for Keane to distinguish between the shadows of the trees and Andrew’s silhouette, they all might stand a chance of getting out of this alive. “Andrew, what you’ve done disgusts me. I wouldn’t allow you touch me if you were the last man on earth and I certainly wouldn’t—”

Ashlyn was once again hit, although this time from behind. She hadn’t been paying attention and the resulting damage was her now lying in the wet grass without the ability to breathe. She tried to scramble away, hearing shouts from various positions around the property. Terror flooded her system as she looked up just in time to see the firing of a weapon…aimed directly at Keane.

*

None of them
deserved to live.

Rage and fury like he’d never known caused him to react without thinking it out, something he’d never done before. He was running on pure emotion and it felt incredible. It was almost as if he were undergoing an out-of-body experience. A euphoric high embraced him and he became invincible.

He raised his weapon and continued firing until everything went dark.

‡

K
eane had only
ever experienced fear like this once before…and both times had been due to Ashlyn being in the line of fire. She’d purposefully stepped into Rutledge’s line of sight, exposing herself to the whims of an insane killer who had been brutally obsessed with her for close to a year. How did Keane know this? Because Rutledge had gleefully described in detail his fascination of his colleague.

What were innocent, casual gestures to Ashlyn had meant much more to Andrew Rutledge, who clearly thought he was the sane one among them. He saw nothing wrong with what he’d done or the fact that he’d killed two innocent people in an act of revenge for what he thought was true love—a gift from God.

The moment Keane had stepped out the back door, Rutledge had called out to him to tell him that he had Sawyer and would kill him if he didn’t retrieve Ashlyn from the house that instant. Keane had done his best to delay any reaction Rutledge might take in hopes that Calvert, Coen, or the authorities would finally make an appearance. Two of the three had finally been spotted, but neither Coen nor Calvert could enter the tree line without their target knowing. The question remained just how badly was Sawyer hurt and why hadn’t he tried to communicate with them?

Rutledge had outplayed them all, all the while secretly listening in on their conversations to gain the upper hand. Having Parker come through the front door as a distraction was smart. It allowed Rutledge to engage each member of the opposition separately. What neither Keane nor Rutledge had been prepared for was Ashlyn’s sudden appearance at the back of the garage distracting everyone. Pride and trepidation mingled, surging through him when Ashlyn finally stood up for herself. He understood what she was doing and lifted his weapon immediately, looking ahead off to his right and finally catching sight of Rutledge stepping forward in an angry response to Ashlyn’s claim of contempt for his love.

Keane pulled the trigger at the same time Coen was able to get a shot off from his location on his left. The bullet that discharged from Rutledge’s weapon hit the wooden structure behind him with a resounding thud, but Keane didn’t move an inch as he fired his weapon one more time for good measure, aiming just above Rutledge’s right ear.