House of Fire (Unraveled Series) (29 page)

“But you were quiet,”
Delaney interrupted.

“You told me not to
trust the police,” James said as he turned his eyes back on Delaney, looking
deep into her eyes. “I trust you, remember?”

“My dad? Mark?” Delaney asked. “Are
they okay? How did you leave without them?”

“They’re with Sanchez, so I don’t -”
James started.

“Sanchez is okay. I think,” Delaney
interrupted. “He is - was - Lieutenant Schaefer’s partner, but I don’t think
Sanchez had any clue about what Schaefer was doing.”

“What was he doing?” James asked as
he gripped the wheel. “I’m still lost.”

“Holston was paying him off to keep
things quiet. Schaefer was covering Holston’s tracks, keeping any investigation
away from Holston. He was tampering with evidence along with doing whatever he
needed to do to keep Holston out of their sights. Holston’s killed more than
twenty-two people, James,” Delaney said. “And kidnapped Anna - Evie. Now he has
my mom. I think she had an affair with Holston, but I don’t know for sure. I
think Evie’s his daughter, but I don’t know that for sure, either. I don’t
think she even knows for sure.”

“Holy shit, Delaney,” James said.
“Are you sure we can do this? Maybe we should call Sanchez.”

“Let’s wait until she gets back,”
Delaney replied as Evie’s brown spikes emerged from the car. She trampled back
through the ruts of the dirt, carrying her own phone.

“You really trust her, don’t you?”
James asked, studying the small woman maneuvering through the dirt. She pounced
back and forth swiftly until she was just a few feet away from his SUV.

“I love you,” Delaney said. “No
matter what happens, just know that I love you. And yes, I trust her. She wants
nothing more than to kill Holston Parker, and she’s crazy enough to do it.”

“I hope so,” James said as the car
door opened, letting in a swirl of hot air.

Evie climbed into the back seat,
slamming the door shut behind her. The shotgun and 9mm kept her company on the
seat next to her. “Less than ten minutes away, go west,” Evie said as they both
turned to her, peering into the backseat.

“What did I miss?” Evie said, her
blue eyes staring back at them with an inquisitive look.

“Nothing,” James mumbled as he
turned around and shifted the SUV in reverse to back out of the field.

“I just told him you were my
sister. That you’re Anna.” Delaney smiled at her before turning around, her
head jolting with the bumps of the field.
My sister. One bad ass sister.

“Did you believe all that bullshit
in there that Schaefer said?” Evie asked.

“Yeah, I don’t think it was
bullshit. That son of a bitch is - was - cocky. I didn’t believe him at first,
but I guess it makes sense when you combine it with the story that Janice told
us,” Delaney said, recoiling at the thought of Janice’s jiggling eyes. At least
they weren’t jiggling anymore. She felt a twinge of guilt about crazy old
Janice, but she let it pass as she thought of Janice blowing holes in each one
of them. She had been psychotic enough to do it. Janice had been a far cry from
what a grandmother was supposed to be. Holston had become a perfect replication
of his role models.

“I don’t want to believe it,” Evie
said looking out the window. “But I didn’t want to believe that I was his
daughter, either.”

“You think my mom - our mom,”
Delaney corrected herself, “had an affair with Holston? I just have a hard time
fathoming that possibility. I don’t think she would do that to my dad.”

“It’s the only possibility. Why
else would he take me? He knew I was his, so he kidnapped me,” Evie said. “You
know it would have been a hell of a lot easier to just run a test to see if I
was his daughter and then get joint custody. Apparently, judicial processes
aren’t a part of his vocabulary or state of mind.”

“He’s crazy, Evie,” Delaney
replied. “There’s no way around it. He’s a vigilante. Maybe not as bad as we
both thought, but he’s still a murderer.”

“I think we should call Sanchez,”
James offered. “You said it yourself, Delaney, that he’s not corrupt. He could
help. They could send out communications to all the transportation agencies.
Airports, trains, you name it. If they have headshots of them both, they will
stop them from leaving the states.”

“Not until we check the last
location. If they’re not there, then we’ll call,” Evie responded.

Delaney laid her head back,
watching as the fields ran past them in their tidy little rows. James’s neon
clock read 2:58. They had been in that house for just under two hours. Holston
and Ann could be long gone by now - on a flight to the Caribbean, China,
Brazil. Her mother was following the idle threats of Holston, just as Delaney
had over the last six months. Threatening to harm her family, everyone she
loved. They might never find her.

“I’m sorry, Delaney,” Evie’s small
voice sounded from the back seat. “For last winter. For dragging you into all
of this. I had no idea what this was. What he had done.”

“I know, Evie. It’s not your
fault,” Delaney said, closing her eyes to feel the comfort of James’s SUV as it
rocked her.

“But we have to finish it. We have
to find her,” Evie said.

“We will,” James said as he gripped
the wheel tighter, his foot heavy on the accelerator. “How long yet?”

“It’s only about a mile up the road,
after we take this right coming up,” Evie ordered as James slowed at the stop
sign, only enough to make sure no oncoming traffic was coming on the country
road. He hit the gas to make the turn, swinging wide to hit the last straight
away.

“I want the shotgun,” Delaney said
as she heard Evie slide open the chamber of the 9mm. “I would feel more
comfortable with the 9, but I know you’re a better shot. At least give me the
shotgun.”

“Delaney, I don’t think -” James
started.

“James, I know what I’m doing. I’ve
been training,” Delaney replied as Evie handed the shotgun over Delaney’s head.
Delaney held the gun, the barrel hanging over James’s lap.

“Training?” James asked.

“At an outdoor facility. I’m not
much with shotguns, but I’m actually not bad, believe it or not,” Delaney said
with a smile.

“When?” James asked, looking at
her.

“The last couple of weeks,” Delaney
said. “There’s a lot we have to talk about.”

“I guess,” James said, staring back
at the road.

“What are we looking for?” Delaney
asked, peering out the glass at the country landscape unchanging before her.
Farm fields and barns scattered the landscape, patches of trees separating some
of the areas.

“I don’t know yet. It’s the
property that the house was burned down on. Holston bought it from your dad and
bulldozed the barn more than twenty years ago. Anonymous bidder,” Evie answered
the question before Delaney could ask it.

Holston had managed to stay in the
dark, moving through their lives without them knowing. Until now. Holston was
ready to change that all. They passed a wooded patch on the left, the fields
opening back up to see the newly built structure, gleaming in the sunlight.

A house.

31

June 17 - 3:00 p.m

The air was silent,
suffocating, as all three passengers stared at the house. The two-story, new
construction stood tall in the midday sun - the roof a black and grey patchwork
of shingles that reflected the harsh rays. Beneath the roof, the bright white
shone clean, like a fresh puff of pristine white clouds floating in a deep blue
sky. Sweeping white stairs led to a porch with massive, square, white columns
which wrapped around the entire front and sides of the home. Cascading down the
stairs were large flower pots blooming over with red and pink splashes. The
surrounding yard was meticulously landscaped, pruned and poked to perfection.
It was a modern farmhouse, a beacon of white light wedged between an oak tree
forest and the iconic leafy green sprouts of a cornfield. It was horrifyingly
beautiful.

“Are you sure he
still owns the property?” Delaney finally broke the silence as James decelerated,
approaching the house.

She wanted to believe
that he had sold the property to a family that built their dream house located
in the country among a quiet, private oasis. That Holston hadn’t constructed
the property in the same exact location of her parents’ house that had burned
down. That it wasn’t a larger, more elaborate replica of the house she had seen
from the picture. The baby boy - Seth, her father had told her - loaded in a
wheelbarrow in front of the steps ran through her head. Yet, deep inside, she
knew. Delaney knew that Holston’s twisted mind had warped some fantasy
homecoming that he could bring Ann to. That he could somehow rebuild -
replace
-
the life that Ann had lost, the lives that the family had lost.

“It looks like
something he would build. Clean lines,” Evie said as she ducked her head down
to peer out the window.

“It’s the same house
from the picture,” Delaney started, her chest thudding as she continued,
“Bigger, more beautiful, but it’s a replica of the picture I found yesterday of
the house. It was hidden in the jewelry box Mom had given me last summer. A
beautiful baby boy was out in front of a farmhouse. When I showed it to Mom,
asked her about it, it’s like she’d seen a ghost. Her face went pale. Dad
filled in the rest of the details this morning.”

“Pull over,” Evie
ordered. James veered to the right and hit the brake, idling three hundred feet
away from the house. “Pull onto the other side of the road further down by the
trees. They might not see us then.”

“Are you sure they’re
even here?” James asked as he whipped the SUV in a U-turn and idled on the
other side of the road.

“No,” Evie said as
she slid the chamber of the gun open again, double checking the bullets.

“How many?” Delaney
asked as she opened the barrel of the shotgun. The Remington was old, maybe
from the ‘50s. It hadn’t been shot in a long time, maybe decades, but it still
held three rounds of trapping pellets. Ken and Janice must have used it at some
point for hunting small game in the woods next to them or for keeping intruders
off their property. It wasn’t a weapon Ken or Holston killed with.

“Eight,” Evie
counted. “Seven more than I need.”

“Backup sounds good
right about now,” James said, tapping his fingers on the wheel. His eyes caught
Delaney’s, his brows furred down as he shook his head. “I’m a good lawyer and
all, but I don’t know if I will be able to keep you both out of jail. Hell, I
don’t want to go to jail. Have you seen the people in jail? None of us would
last.”

“We won’t need
backup,” Evie said, her voice steady. Just like Holston. Delaney wouldn’t ever
dream of telling her that, though, the insult too much of a burden to carry.

Delaney closed the
barrel, locking it into place. A shotgun would tear the place up, but she
wasn’t leaving without Ann Jones. This was their last chance, if they didn’t
find her here, they might never find her. It all needed to end. They had to do
this alone.

“You both get guns
and I get the knife?” James asked, holding up the rusted fillet knife he had
swiped from the house.

Delaney shrugged her
shoulders. “You never hunted a day in your life. Have you ever shot a gun? Be
honest.”

“Well, no,” he
answered, rolling the handle of the knife in his hands. James was judicial,
law-abiding, not a knife-stabbing renegade. He jabbed the blade forward with a
quick poke, like a small child prodding an ant with a stick. A small, muffled
groan came from Evie in the back.

“Knife it is,” James
continued.

“With any luck, you
won’t need it. Three on one is a good scenario,” Evie said as she slipped out
of the SUV and shut the door without a sound.
How does she do that?

Delaney stepped into
the muggy heat onto the gravel, the shoulder of the road dipping down into a
weedy ditch overgrown with clumps of yellow mustard seed. Her shoes slid along the
ditch as she followed Evie along the weeds; Delaney felt the small flowers
tickle her mid-calves, brushing against her as she followed Evie’s footsteps.

She heard the quiet
sound of a door shutting behind her followed by a thrashing and heavy breath.
James
. Evie stopped, turning to give him a threatening stare that made
Delaney’s lips twitch. Delaney forced back the small smile. He would be careful
now, and if not, he would be waiting in the car. He nodded his head, his hair
shaking forward so that the strands brushed against his forehead. He was
willing to risk his life for her.
I am lucky,
Delaney repeated the
mantra as she gripped the shotgun.

Evie turned back
around, moving forward to the evergreens that lined the edge of the woods. They
separated the leafy, wild growth of the forest from the trimmed, lush greenery
of the grass. Evie crouched down, waving them forward until all three crouched
next to each other with the evergreens at their backs. The needles scratched
Delaney’s arms and legs as she bent to eye the house that was only two hundred
feet away. She rested the butt of the shotgun on the ground.

They were looking at
the side of the house, the porch wrapped halfway across the house until it met
a set of white, closed double garage doors.
Next to the double garage
doors was a service door into the garage. White, everything was white.
Anything
other than innocent and pure
. Delaney’s stomach curled as she thought of
the black smoke billowing through the sky, signaling the neighbors and the rest
of the town to the tragedy. Her brothers, trapped inside, inhaling all of that
smoke. Her throat charred, the night Evie set fire to the barn swirling through
her head. It had been suffocating, torturous, thinking about the painful death
the fire would bring. Her body burned, twitching beneath her skin. Holston
needed to die.