The Last to Die. Beverly Barton

to die, but she feared others would have to forfeit their lives, also, if they interfered. Of course, it wasn’t entirely his fault; after all, he was only human, a mere man, with all the weaknesses inherent to his sex. But he was the worst of his kind, spineless and weak. He gave in to his baser instincts without regard to how his actions might harm others. He reveled in the depravity that plagued most men and many women.

      Her hand settled over her belly. In order to protect herself—and her baby—she needed to plan a strategy that would put suspicion on someone else. But not just anyone. She wanted that woman to pay with her life, and what better justice than to have her executed for murdering her lover? After all, the whole town knew she’d threatened to kill him.

      She stood in the shadows, waiting and watching, knowing where he was and what he was doing. He was with that woman, making love to her. How could he do this? He had sworn his love was true. Lies. All lies! They were fornicators. Sinners. Evil to the core. Both of them deserved to die. To be punished.

      She shouldn’t act hastily, in the heat of the moment. That was the way mistakes were made. She had made mistakes in the past, but not this time. She had trusted when she shouldn’t have, but never again. She needed to be calm and in control when she ended the son of a bitch’s life. There was no need for her to kill him tonight. As long as she eliminated him before his wedding day, everything would be all right.

      She would not kill him quickly. A quick death was too good for him. He needed to die slowly, painfully, tortured and tormented. The thought of listening to his agonizing screams excited her. Her mind filled with vividly gruesome impressions of his last hours on earth.

      “Everything I do, I do for you, my sweet baby. I won’t let anyone hurt you. They think we aren’t good enough for them. They think they can sweep us out the door and pretend we don’t exist. But I won’t let that happen. You don’t have anything to worry about. Not now. Not ever. Mother’s here…Mother’s here.”

      Chapter 1

      The man writhed in agony, his naked torso helplessly bound, his legs spread-eagled. Tight rope manacled his ankles to either side of the heavy spikes in the wooden floor. She removed the thick cotton rag used to gag him effectively and mute his tortured cries. Self-satisfied and excited, she stood over him, the bloody knife clutched tightly in her steady hand. The dim glow of the lone lamp burning in the room cast shadows across her face, revealing nothing about her except a few flyaway tendrils of burnished red hair. As she lowered the knife, the man’s eyes widened in terror. He knew what she was going to do. He struggled futilely against his captivity. Sweat dotted his forehead, his upper lip, and dripped along the side of his face. When she placed the knife between his thighs, red with blood from where she’d tormented him, she laughed.

      “‘Whatsoever ye sow, that shall ye reap.’”

      He mumbled pleadingly as he shivered, his head thrashing side to side, panic seizing him completely. Fear consumed him.

      “You will never hurt anyone ever again,” she told him. “I will punish you for your many sins and rid the world of your evil.” She brought the knife back, reached under him and lifted his scrotum, then, with one swift, deadly slice, castrated her victim. “I am your angel of death, whoremonger!”

      Genny Madoc screamed. When she shot straight up in bed, her fiancé, Dallas Sloan, came up beside her a split second later. He wrapped his arms around her and held her as she trembled.

      “What happened?” he asked, then brushed his lips along her temple. “Was it a nightmare or a vision?”

      She gave herself over completely to his comforting care, having come to depend on him with total trust these past few months. “Both. A nightmare vision.”

      “You haven’t been bothered with visions since…” He let his words trail off. She suspected that he, as she, preferred not to dwell on the events of this past January, when she’d come very close to being a maniacal serial killer’s fifth victim here in Cherokee County.

      Although it was early April in the mountains, the nighttime and early morning temperatures remained in the high thirties and low forties. Genny shivered as a cold chill racked her body. Dallas lifted the heavy quilt from the foot of their bed and wrapped it around her, then pulled her back down into the bed beside him. She cuddled against him and sighed heavily.

      “Want to tell me about it?” he asked.

      “I’d rather forget it…but I can’t. I believe the vision was a forewarning. I saw a man being murdered.”

      “Did you recognize either the victim or the killer?” Dallas asked.

      “Yes and no, but…” She pulled away from him and rolled out of bed.

      Dallas leaned over, just enough to loosen the covers from his upper body. Genny looked at him, at this man she loved more than life itself, and wished more fervently than she ever had before that she wasn’t cursed with the gift of sight. Loving her, living with her, marrying her come June, Dallas had to deal with her special talents as only the mate of a true psychic would have to do.

      Genny discarded the heavy quilt, dropping it to the floor as she slipped into her robe and house shoes, her movements slow and unsteady. She turned to Dallas. “I won’t be able to sleep. I think I’ll fix myself some coffee and go outside to watch the sunrise. You stay here and go back to sleep.”

      Totally naked, Dallas emerged from the bed in all his masculine glory, a morning erection jutting out between his thighs. “You’re so weak you can barely walk. You aren’t going anywhere without me.” He grabbed his discarded jeans and shirt off a nearby chair. “I’ll fix coffee. Then if you want to go outside, I’ll go with you.”

      “I’m just a little weak. The vision drained some of my strength, but it was a brief vision and I’m not exhausted. Really I’m not.”

      Not bothering to put on his socks, he stuffed his feet into his shoes, put his arm around her shoulders and guided her out of the bedroom. “You need to talk about it. If it was a premonition of someone’s death, then maybe there’s something we can do to prevent it from happening.”

      Genny loved the way he said “we” so naturally, without giving it any thought. Almost instantly, from the first night they met, they had become one spirit.

      Fifteen minutes later, Dallas and Genny, coffee mugs in hand, stood on the front porch of her old Tennessee farmhouse and watched the sunrise. Dallas’s strong arms encompassed her as he stood behind her, his big body warming her. Pale and pink, like the tips of a hundred torches barely beginning to brighten the horizon, the first glimmer of morning sunlight lit the Eastern sky.

      “No matter how many times I see this, it never ceases to take my breath away,” she told him.

      “I know exactly what you mean.” One of his big hands clamped down on her shoulder.

      When she glanced back and up at him, he wasn’t looking at the sunrise, but at her. And she knew that she, not nature’s beauty, was what captivated him.

      Genny glanced up at the sky, leaned her body back, closer into Dallas, and lifted the strong, dark brew to her lips. The Colombian Supreme had a rich, mellow flavor, and she, like Dallas, took her coffee black.

      “The man was Jamie Upton,” Genny said, her voice not much more than a whisper, as if she thought by not saying his name too loudly, it might somehow protect him.

      “You saw someone kill Jamie Upton?” Dallas nuzzled the side of her neck with his nose. “I’m not surprised. I figure it’s only a matter of time before he pisses off the wrong woman.”

      “Please don’t say that.”

      Dallas took a swig of coffee, then set his mug on the windowsill behind him. When Genny took several steps toward the edge of the porch, he followed and wrapped his arms around her again. “Tell me what’s frightened you so. There has to be more to your vision than simply seeing Jamie killed.”

      “Isn’t that enough?”