The Edge of the World

Chapter Eleven

It was only after minutes passed and Tank remained motionless that Ian unraveled himself from Tatum's embrace, pausing to cup her clammy cheek.

"I need to check on him. Stay here."

Normally, Tatum would scoff at his whispered request, and boldly walk out first, refusing to be the damsel in distress. She'd already trudged down that path before and it hadn't ended well. But this time, nothing was as it should be. She didn't have the strength to move for the door, needing Ian, for now, to take control.

Tank had always frightened her. His dead eyes and cruel jabs at her throughout her decade long marriage to his son left her fragmented, unable to find solace within herself. At first, she'd thought he was a harmless, self-righteous dick wielding a badge. Until his wife, Tony's mother, had vanished. And Tatum knew Tank had something to do with her disappearance because the evangelicals of her hometown didn't divorce. Ever. And Tank, like Tony, was devout.

Alice had hinted to Tatum several times she wanted to leave her husband of thirty years. Tired of the cheating and abuse, her mother-in-law had hoped to escape, and rumor had it, that the quick-tempered Tank had figured out his wife's plans. One day, Alice was simply gone, and Tatum initially believed that she'd made her escape. But then Tatum discovered a bloody tire iron, along with Alice's purse, behind Tank's old shed. That day, she put two-and two together and came up with homicide. Tank, knowing she spotted the weapon, had smirked in her direction, wiping engine grease from his thick fingers. His shark eyes were unflinching as he stared her down, daring her to say anything.

She knew what would become of her if she spoke out, and kept her mouth shut, despite the guilt burning her guts.

If he had the wherewithal to kill his wife and live with the deed, Tatum could only imagine all the things he might do to her. Her. A nobody. Just his daughter-in-law, who he despised. Tatum was alone in the world, without friends or family to defend her, so she knew if she disappeared like Alice had, nobody would look for her. There's a brotherhood among law enforcement in that town, one that represented disaster for those foolish enough to cross them. No one with a badge would have helped her, or betrayed the infamous Marshal Tankard Gibson.

When he'd arrived at the police station in Sydney, two days after her inevitable arrest, her blood had gone cold, her heart freezing mid-beat. His smile was carnivorous as he glared at her through those bars, and she believed still that once Tank got her to Texas, she wouldn't have made it to trial. He was going to end her somewhere in the woods, leaving her broken body behind for the wild animals to feast upon.

And there would have been no questions asked.

Right then, as she gazed through the window at his body, resembling a melting candle in the snow mere yards away, she fought the belief that he was really dead.

She'd made that mistake days before, and yet he'd chased her through the forest, his claws slicing the air while seeking to shred her flesh as he sought revenge for his only child's murder.

So, she would let Ian do the man thing, and go it alone, while she waited inside like some Disney princess waiting to be saved.

The wind beyond the cabin seemed to pick up as Ian stepped outside, his attention glued to the corpse, laying before the waist-high rock wall. Tears she'd been holding for years fell from her eyes as she watched, hoping Tank was dead. Really and truly gone from this Earth and perhaps, if there was a Hell, he was burning in the fires there. Not only for her, but for the small, timid middle-aged Alice whom he'd tormented for years, making her life as wretched as his very soul.

Ian stepped closer, then closer, his hands fists at his side, reflecting his anxiety. He was wise to feel thusly for Tank, alive or undead, cared nothing about human life. No matter how many times he waved the Bible around, it didn't hide the blood under his nails. He was an abomination against women and anyone he deemed weak.