When the Heart Falls (25 page)

“
So what,” Vance said, blowing out a cloud of smoke and shrugged.

“
I thought I told you to keep your mouth shut!” Trent yelled and came nose to nose with Vance. “Are you too stupid to realize that when I tell you to do something I expect you to do it?”

“
What the hell, Pop?” Vance yelled and shoved Trent backwards. “It’s not like they’re going to be around to tell anyone that it was us anyway.”

“
I don’t care! I told you to shut up!” Trent said, poking a finger into Vance’s chest.

“
So that’s your plan then? You’re going to kill us?” Dylan asked trying to buy them some time. “Why? Is owning a piece of land that important to you? You all have practically run our ranch down to the ground. It’s going to cost you a ton of money to get it back and running like it’s supposed to.”

Trent spun around to face Dylan and laughed maliciously. “I’m not doing all of this to keep your ranch, you fool. There’s oil running through these parts and I want it. I plan on tearing all of this down and creating my oil empire. I’ll be the richest man in the whole state.” Trent gave Dylan an eerie smirk. “And to think, you all were sitting on a gold mine and you didn’t even know.”

Dylan kept his cool and calm composure while he continued to try to keep Trent distracted; until he could figure out a way to get them all out of this. “Don’t you think that the police will figure all of this out? You can’t just kill a room full of people and expect to get away with it scot-free.”

“
That’s the beauty of the plan,” Trent explained quietly. “I’m not going to get pinned for the murders. You are.”

“
What? And how do you plan to pull that one off?” Dylan asked.

“
Simple, really. You’ve been through a lot of stressful things here lately. The death of your father, your near death car accident, the barn fire. Seems like all of this was just a little too stressful and you cracked. You murdered your whole family and girlfriend in a fit of blinding rage before turning the gun on yourself and taking your own life. Believable enough story. They’ll never suspect that we had anything to do with it,” Trent explained, checking the bullets in the gun.

“
That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. No one will believe it. They’ll figure out it was you,” Dylan protested.

“
They didn’t figure it out when we took care of your old man,” Hank chimed in from the hallway.

Dylan’s eyes narrowed into tiny slits and he tasted blood. He hadn’t realized it at the time but he was biting the inside of his lip to keep from losing his cool. It hadn’t worked though.

“
You son of a bitch!” Dylan yelled and jumped off the sofa.

He ran towards Hank but was brought up short when Vance pushed himself from the wall and grabbed Dylan from behind, holding him around the shoulders. Trent delivered a hard blow to Dylan’s stomach and he crumpled to the ground, letting out a huff of air in the process. Trent walked around to Dylan’s back and brought his foot around to kick him directly in the ribs. Dylan groaned and coughed as he tried to catch his breath.

“
Stop it! Stop!” Misty cried and pushed herself up from the chair. Vance grabbed her by the arm and shoved her back down. “Get off of me!” She slapped at his hand and kicked him in the shin.

“
Ouch! You stupid bitch!” He brought his hand around and back handed her across the face. He grabbed her face with his right hand, pinching her cheeks in and squishing her lips outward. “I should have made sure you were dead when your car flipped,” he whispered two inches away from her face.

Her eyes widened at his revelation and she glanced down to see Dylan being hauled up onto his feet. A tear slipped down her cheek and she let out a soft whimper. Instinctively, her body start to shake from the mix of adrenaline and fear that pulsed through her veins.

“
Vance will you stop making out with the hostages and get your ass over here so we can get this done?” Trent called out.

Vance scrunched his eyes shut, took in a deep breath and held it for a moment. He let it out in one loud short huff and released his grip from Misty’s face. He stood up and removed the gun from the back waistline of his pants and cocked it.

“
Nobody makes a fool of me and gets away with it.” He aimed the gun and pulled the trigger, filling the room with the deafening echo of a bullet slicing through the air.

CHAPTER 21

Misty drew her knees up to her chest, covered her ears and closed her eyes as she let out an ear piercing scream, followed by Beth’s and Katherine’s. Misty opened her eyes and watched as Dylan stumbled and worked to remove Trent’s hold of his shirt as Trent fell to the ground. Dylan took three steps back and stared at the lifeless body before him.

“
Vance, what the hell are you doing? This ain’t part of the plan!” Hank yelled out as he crossed the floor to where the body of his father laid.

Vance cocked the gun and pulled the trigger once more. Hank let out a yelp and a huff of air before crumpling to the ground next to his father. The women screamed again and Dylan took another look at the ground. And for the first time Dylan noticed that Trent’s gun had slid in his direction and was about two feet away from him. Dylan watched Vance carefully and slowly started to bend down to reach for the gun. Vance, seeing the movement from the corner of his eye, quickly turned the gun around to Dylan.

“
Don’t try anything stupid,” Vance warned.

Dylan slowly stood back up and lifted his hands in defeat. Before Dylan had time to stop him, Alan lurched himself off of the sofa and attempted to tackle Vance. Vance turned on him and pulled the trigger once more; delivering a shot to Alan’s left shoulder.

He yelled as the bullet pierced his skin and Beth came off of the sofa to his side. She cradled him in her arms and placed her hand firmly over the open wound. “Oh my God, Alan!”

“
I said don’t try anything stupid!” Vance yelled, waving the gun towards Alan.

The color had started to drain from Alan’s face and he took in short gasps of air.

Vance lifted his empty hand to his face and dragged his fingers down the side of it, looking as though he was trying to claw the skin from the bone.

“
So what’s the plan now?” Dylan asked Vance. “Murdering your father and brother certainly puts a damper on your original idea.” He had moved from where he was standing a few moments ago to stand behind the half wall that stood next to the doorway, keeping the lower half of his body and hands hidden from plain sight.

Vance turned at the sound of Dylan’s voice and eyed him suspiciously. “This will all play out, don’t you worry. The original story will still work. However now instead of it being a mass murder with no survivors, there will be one: Me.”

Dylan looked at him, confused. “I’m not following you.”

“
My father, brother and I had come over to seal the deal with your mother signing over the ranch. And you, in your fit of rage, opened fire on everyone taking your own life as well. However, you’ll miss killing me and I will be the lone survivor and live to tell this elaborate story.” Vance twirled his gun and smirked.

Dylan looked to each one of his family members and stopped when he met Misty’s red and swollen eyes. A million thoughts ran through his mind at that second. So many things he wanted to tell her, and from the way things were going he wasn’t sure if he would ever get the chance. He longed to be next to her in these last final moments. Hold her one last time. Tell her he loved her and that he was sorry she got mixed up in all of this.

From a distance, police sirens sounded and Vance ran to the window. Five police cars were speeding up the lane with their lights on.

“
Shit!” Vance cursed under his breath. He saw Dylan shift from the corner of his eye and spun around to face him, holding his gun out in front of him ready to shoot. The cruisers sped up to the house and slid to a stop, surrounding it.

Dylan mouthed the words
“I love you”
to Misty before turning his eyes to Vance.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion. One second he was looking into her eyes, mouthing the words
“I love you”
and the next he was staring down the barrel of Vance’s gun. She watched in horror as Dylan stepped out from behind the half wall barricade and whipped Trent’s pistol he had been hiding out in front of him. Both men pulled the trigger simultaneously. The sound echoed in her ears and she sat there, wide eyed staring as both men fell to the floor. She couldn’t move. Her body screamed to be in action. To run to Dylan’s side, but her mind had completely shut down. She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs refused to take in the air they needed and her chest started to burn.

The room was all of a sudden alive with action. Katherine fell to Dylan’s side, talking to him and running her hands over his body looking for a wound. Beth had reluctantly left Alan’s side and ran to open the door to instruct the officers inside. All of this bustling about, and Misty couldn’t hear a thing. She could see Katherine looking in her direction, waving her over and calling out something to her, but all she could hear was just a muffled ringing sound. Her eyes stung with the tears that quickly filled them and she began to take in ragged breaths.

The police came bounding through the door and started to assess the scene. One stopped and crouched next to Katherine, and Misty watched as he leaned his head towards the walkie talkie on his shoulder and gave the dispatcher on the other end a code. Just then Misty saw Dylan’s legs shift and the officer pull him into a sitting position. He was alive. The blood returned to her limbs and she was out of the chair and by his side in a few seconds.

“
Dylan!” she cried and wrapped her arms around him. She moved her hands to his face and feverishly pressed her lips to his. He brought one of his arms around her waist and pulled her tighter to his chest.

“
Ma’am, please, we have to take care of his wounds,” the officer instructed as he attempted to separate them.

She loosened her grip and stared into his eyes. “I thought I had lost you,” she cried and stroked his face ignoring the officer.

“
You’ll never lose me, Misty.” He pressed his lips to hers once more. “I’m here to stay.”

An ambulance sped up the driveway, followed by another. The paramedics were in the room almost as soon as the vehicle had stopped. They helped Dylan up and led him to the back of the truck so they could clean his wounds. Alan was led away on a stretcher with Beth holding his hand. The paramedics had promised her that he would be fine, that the bullet had gone straight through and hadn’t seemed to do much damage. The room seemed overly full of police officers and crime scene investigators taking pictures and searching for evidence.

Misty was in the corner giving her statement to an officer when her attention was drawn to a bit of a commotion coming from outside. She stopped when she heard, “That’s my daughter in there!” She ran to the doorway just as Jack had pushed his way through the barricade of the policemen.

“
Daddy!” she cried and ran into Jack’s arms.

“
Misty, baby, are you ok?” he asked in a panicky tone and held her close.

“
I was so scared,” she cried and the tears that fell from her cheeks left a wet circle on Jack’s shirt.

“
It’s ok, Mis. It’s all over now,” he said and comfortingly patted her back.

“
How did you know where to find me?” She pulled away and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.

“
The horse came back to the house without you and scared the hell out of me and your mother. I took the four-wheeler out to look for you and when I couldn’t find you I decided to call Dylan to have him come help. But he didn’t answer his phone so I really started to panic. I was about halfway up the dirt lane when I heard the gun shots and I pulled off and called the police. I’ve never been so scared in my whole life, Mis. I’m just so glad that you and everyone else are ok.” He pulled her back into a hug and crushed her against him.

“
Daddy, it was Vance and Hank that were stealing the cattle,” she explained.

He pushed her shoulders back so he could look at her. “What?” he asked.

She moved out of the way of the officers coming in and out of the doorway, pulled her father to the corner of the room and explained everything that had happened that evening. After listening to her story, Jack excused himself and went to talk to the officers and to call Maggie to let her know that everything was ok.

Misty stepped outside and caught sight of Dylan sitting in the ambulance. He smiled his heartwarming smile and waved her over. She walked towards him and sat down next to him, melting against his side as he placed his arm around her. She looked up to his face and touched the butterfly bandage over his eye.