Deadly Proposal(73)

“Sheryl,” Mandy said, her tone desperate. “I’m the one you want revenge on. This is all my fault.”

“This is all Troy’s fault,” Ally countered. “You’re trying to blame everyone else for his mistakes, instead of just admitting he was a coward.”

“Troy was not a coward.”

“Oh, you’re right,” Ally said. “He was a stupid coward. He was also greedy and narcissistic. In other words, he was a total ass.”

Sheryl shifted the gun, leveling it at Ally. “You obviously want to die first. This actually works. Mandy can see you die, feel a little bit of what I felt when I heard about my son, and then I’ll finish her off. It’s almost … poetic.”

“No,” Mandy said. “Ally doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

“I’m not afraid of you,” Ally said. “I actually feel sorry for you. You lost your husband. You lost your son. You’ve obviously lost your sanity. The real tragedy in all of this, though, is that you’ve also lost your soul.

“From everything Mandy has told me, you fought tooth and nail to be a good person despite the losers who raised you,” Ally continued. “You threw all of that out the window for revenge – and it’s revenge that’s not even warranted.”

Mandy’s eyes were trained on Sheryl’s trigger finger. She was focused on Ally right now, and that wasn’t likely to change. Ally wouldn’t let it.

“They killed my son,” Sheryl raged. “He has to be avenged.”

“Your son killed himself,” Ally said. “He had every opportunity to do the right thing, and he did the wrong thing at every turn. He must have learned that from you. I mean, you killed a mentally ill vet to cover your tracks. What kind of person does that? A crazy person, that’s who.”

Mandy saw Sheryl’s finger flex, and she knew she was out of options. She launched herself out of the chair, tackling Sheryl to the ground, knocking her arm up into the air at the same time.

They hit the blue linoleum in tandem. Hard. Thankfully, since she was on the bottom, Sheryl’s body absorbed most of the blow. Sheryl squeezed the trigger reflexively but, since she wasn’t aiming, the bullet went wild and lodged into the ceiling.

Mandy reached over, grappling for the gun. Sheryl was clawing at her face with one hand, and trying to aim the gun at her with the other. Mandy slammed her shoulder into Sheryl’s chest, purposely trying to knock the wind out of her.

When that didn’t work, Mandy used both of her hands to try and control the gun. Sheryl managed to draw it into the space between them, causing Mandy to suck in a breath when she felt the cold, hard metal against her ribs.

“Ally, run!”

In the split-second after the gun went off, Mandy expected to feel pain. She was familiar with the sensation, the hours and days after the explosion filling her with nothing but agony.

It didn’t come.

Instead, Sheryl slumped beneath her, ceding the fight. Mandy reared back, running her hands over her chest and abdomen to see if she could find a hole. There was so much blood, Mandy couldn’t be sure what was happening. She heard the front door of the salon open, but she didn’t look up. Her mind was a muffled mess, everything dull and out of focus.

I must be in shock.



JAMES raced into the salon from the back room, cursing himself for waiting for Jake to get into position. Either his sister or the love of his life had just been shot, and losing either one of them would kill him.

He saw Mandy first. She was on the ground, Sheryl’s lifeless body prone beneath her. He couldn’t tell if she was hurt, but the blood coating the front of her T-shirt terrified him.

Jake was in the room, too, immediately moving to Ally’s side. “Are you okay?”

Ally shook her head, her feet still planted in the water basin and tears coursing down her face. “I don’t know.”

Jake pulled her to him in an attempt to anchor her to reality. “It’s all right,” he said. “It’s okay. Just … it’s okay.”

James moved toward Mandy, worried she was going to keel over before he got to her. The dreams bombarded him. He was going to get to her, he was going to be able to touch her, and then she was going to collapse. She was going to die in his arms this time.

James knelt down next to his blonde, his hand shaking as he reached for her. “Baby.”

Mandy turned to him, her lower lip trembling. “I don’t think this is my blood.”

James glanced down at Sheryl, an open wood spreading red liquid across the front of her shirt. “Were you hit?”

“I don’t … I don’t think so.”