He’d touched the tip of the rubber knife to one side of my lower back.
Pastor Bill would have benefited from Ripper’s lessons. The tall, pleated collar on my wedding dress might get in the way of the knife, or at least make the slash less lethal. And the fool had his hand pressed firmly against my mouth.
Ripper’s eyes flicked to mine, and I gave a slight nod. I sank my teeth into the base of the pastor’s thumb, biting down as hard as I could. With both hands, I seized the wrist holding the knife and jerked it down and away from my body. Twisting sideways, I dropped my head and shoulders out of the way.
It was all the opening Ripper needed.
He fired two shots, blasting a hole in Pastor Bill’s chest. As he collapsed, the pastor’s body carried me down onto the floor.
I wriggled out from under him, blood splattered across my hideous wedding dress.
Rebecca shrieked and flung herself on top of the pastor’s body. She actually cared about the man?
I was so shocked that at first I didn’t notice Deacon Morris draw a gun from a shoulder holster.
Ripper did. He dropped the deacon before the man could raise his weapon. Morris toppled over, and his gun clattered to the floor at Justine’s feet.
Deacon Gary stood frozen in place, an open Bible clutched in his hands. He carefully set the holy book on the altar, then raised his hands and shuffled backwards.
“You.” Ripper stalked forward, his voice heavy with menace.
“I surrender.” Deacon Gary’s voice quivered. “I’m unarmed.”
“Yeah?” Ripper’s voice rose to fill every corner of the chapel. “Did you think about all the unarmed people who died when you blew up The Dalles Dam?”
The congregation gasped.
“I...I was just following orders.”
As if that mattered, as if history wasn’t full of scumbags who trotted out the line just following orders to justify their heinous deeds.
“Just following orders, huh.” Ripper dropped his chin. “Tell me, did you think about all the unarmed folk who died when you just followed orders and burned Portland to the ground? Seattle, too? God knows what Pastor Bill had planned for The Hanford Nuclear site, but I bet you would’ve hopped to and just followed orders there, as well.”
Shocked murmurs rippled through the congregation.
“And how about Tyler?” Ripper pressed his point. “Were you just following orders when you knocked him out and left him to die in the cabin before you blew it up?”
Justine fell to her knees and clawed for the gun that Deacon Morris had dropped. Without hesitation, she pointed the weapon at Gary and fired. The bullet struck him in the neck. A fountain of blood erupted, and the deacon crumpled to the floor.
In less than sixty seconds three men were dead.
I gaped open-mouthed at the bloodbath. I was smack-dab in the middle of a Shakespearean tragedy, where everybody on stage died at the end.
“Tyler.” Justine wailed, her body racked with sobs.
Good lord. The only word I’d heard the timid girl speak, and it conveyed a world of meaning. She loved Tyler, and somehow Pastor Bill had forced her to become his second Eve. I wished I’d recognized that something was wrong and had reached out to the girl, instead of simply assuming that she was Rebecca’s willing minion.
She hiccuped, drew in a breath, and raised the gun, pressing the barrel beneath her chin.
“No,” I cried.
Ripper lunged and wrested the gun away from the girl.
She broke down entirely then, swaying back and forth as tears streamed down her cheeks.
I crawled over to Justine, dragging my wedding dress through the blood, and wrapped my arms around her shoulders, hugging her close while she cried.
Ripper squatted next to us. When I lifted my gaze to his, his mask finally cracked, revealing a hint of the man I loved beneath the brutal facade. His eyes softened, and he brushed his knuckles over my cheek.
“Ripper.” I whispered his name. I couldn’t abandon the hysterical Justine and throw myself at him, however much I wanted to.
He nodded, his eyes brimming with promise.
Commotion at the doorway compelled us to turn our heads and look away from each other. Ripper stood.
Pastor Derek limped up the aisle, holding onto Nicole’s shoulder for support. Bruises and abrasions circled his wrists from wearing handcuffs 24/7, and he held himself stiffly. Being chained to a wall and sleeping on a cold cement floor would do that to a man. And clearly, whatever his captors gave him to eat was inadequate for a man of his size. I recognized the buff, athletic man from the photos on the office wall, but two weeks of incarceration had changed him, hollowed out his cheeks, and left his gray henley swimming on his tall frame.
He stopped halfway up the aisle and slowly turned around, surveying the congregation and the bloody carnage at the altar.
“What in God’s name happened here?” His body might be weak, but his voice was strong.
“Who are you?” Ripper demanded.
“Pastor Derek Heywood. This was my church’s summer camp. When I came to check on it two weeks ago, Bill and his deacons locked me in the basement of the camp offices.” His gaze swept up and down Ripper, his keen eyes taking in every detail. “Who are you?”
“Ripper Solis. My friends and I were passing through and tangled with Bill and his men. He sent us on a wild goose chase, then told us that the flu killed Mac. Told her we died in an explosion. All because he wanted her for one of his harem.”
Ripper tilted his head at me, sitting on the floor in my blood-stained white dress, hugging the inconsolable Justine.
“You’re Kenzie’s friends?” Derek stared at the bloody altar. “Kenzie and I got to know each other when we were locked up. I heard the devil’s bargain she made with Pastor Bill, offering to marry him if he’d leave the teenage girl alone.” He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “‘Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.’ I suspect that Bill and his deacons are accounting for their sins right about now.”
“They got more than enough sins to go around. Bill ordered his men to blow up The Dalles Dam and to burn Portland and Seattle to the ground. And, oh yeah,” Ripper continued. “He had one of his deacons murder the young man who was in love with the pastor’s wife number two.”
Nicole gasped and rushed forward, dropping to her knees by my side. “Justine. Sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”
Justine opened her eyes and hurled herself into Nicole’s arms.
I rose unsteadily to my feet. Ripper pivoted to face me. Mere feet apart, we stood stock-still, as if rooted in place by some unseen force.
Over the eons, how many despairing people had bargained with fate, begged for the impossible, only to be denied? For the rest of my life, I’d never ask the universe for another favor. Destiny had dealt me an incredible hand. In one fell swoop, I’d been blessed with a lifetime’s worth of good luck. I almost choked on my gratitude.
The spell lifted, and I stumbled toward Ripper. He caught me in his arms. Home. My exile in the wilderness was over, and I was back home. I nuzzled his throat and inhaled his familiar scent, that heady combination of leather and man that was uniquely his own. Sighing with pleasure, I tasted his skin, then shaped my lips into a circle and sucked hard. Yep. I gave the man a hickey and marked him as my own.