Alias

Chapter 17

Chapter 1

Somewhere in northeast Texas

10:00 p.m.

E li Archer’s world was about to change.

If he’d had any smarts, he’d have left for his usual Friday night out with his pals by now. Instead, he’d stuck around his house, drinking too much too early—and that turned a redneck bully into two hundred pounds of mean and nasty.

His mistake was in taking his temper out on his small, barely nineteen-year-old wife while Darcy was less than a hundred yards away.

At the first scream, Darcy’s long legs ate up the dry, flat land, each step on her toes to make as little noise as possible. She hitched over the porch railing and stopped short of rushing through the half-open back door, then flattened against the wall. The floor-boards creaked but Eli couldn’t hear the noise over his own shouts. Over the degrading insults he threw at his wife, Mary Jo.

Darcy reached up and gingerly unscrewed the back-porch light, throwing the area into darkness.

She’d been watching the isolated country house from the tree line since sundown. Up close, it was worse. Sacks of garbage torn open by animals were stacked against the house. The stench of rancid grease and rotten food hung in the night air, which pulsed with swarming flies.

Darcy’s eyes watered. The place reeked more of hopeless neglect. Its sagging porches and roof begged to be put out of their misery with a well-placed wrecking ball. Paint barely colored the wood exterior, the stains of the rusted tin roof streaking the sides of the building like bars caging in its inhabitants.

But a shiny new pickup truck sat in the dirt driveway, a full gun rack clear in the rear window. Easy to see where Eli’s priorities lay. Darcy had already unloaded the weapons and removed the firing pins. But that didn’t mean Eli Archer didn’t have more. Men like him always had more weapons than guts. Predictable morons. Eli drank heavily, worked little and, for recreation, tortured stray cats and spotlighted deer. That Eli beat his wife was a character flaw that put him just below amoebas.

A real prize.

Inside the house, Eli shouted for his boots. He was leaving. Men like him always left long enough to work up some twisted reason as to why they pounded on women—she had personal experience to back up that theory. Darcy prayed Eli went out the front door without hurting Mary Jo again. Confronting a drunken wife beater was not in her immediate plans, but she couldn’t let him hurt the girl. If his mood was any indication, he’d kill her.

Darcy spied through the window for a sign of Mary Jo Archer. Shadows moved behind tattered curtains, and her heart pounded a little harder as the people inside drew closer to her position.

This was stupid. Normally, she snatched abused women while the men were gone. She could be shot for being this daring, but she couldn’t abandon Mary Jo, either. And where the heck was Jack? He should have been here by now to back her up.

She moved to the open doorway, peering inside. Despite what the Archer place looked like on the outside, the interior was tidy and clean. But then how else would Mary Jane spend her time as a prisoner in her own home?

Darcy flinched when another door slammed somewhere inside, shaking the windows. She heard Eli’s voice, harsh and deep as he hurled foul words at the woman he’d promised to love, honor and cherish.

Three days ago, Darcy had been woken by Mary Jo’s call around midnight, the voice on the other end of the line sounding achingly familiar, hushed, terrified. Sobbing. The caller had heard from her only friend, Tomas, a worker at the local grocery store, that Darcy helped women like her. Darcy had driven like a madwoman to get there, to find Tomas and discreetly learn all she could about the Archer household. It paid to be aware of routine.

Eli met his pals at the Bullriders Saloon like clockwork every Friday night, leaving his wife locked inside the house like a punching bag he stored for his rage. He was so terrified of losing her that he’d installed latch locks better suited for a storage shed.

Pig.

That pissed Darcy off more because she understood exactly what Mary Jo was feeling right now. Terror, hopelessness. A loneliness that imbedded itself deep into her bones. And the constant worry over which insignificant detail would provoke another battle for your life.

It ends tonight.

The sound of flesh hitting flesh then a cry of pain came through the open windows and doors. Without a choice, Darcy took a breath, then stepped through the back doorway, into the kitchen. No one noticed.

Mary Jo was on the floor, scooting back out of her husband’s reach, but Eli kept coming, a growling bear intent on his kill. Man, he was a big one.

Darcy slipped her knife out if its sheath. “Touch her again, Eli, and you’re a dead man.”

Eli whipped around, scowling mad. “Who the hell are you? Get the fuck outta my house!”

Darcy stood on the threshold. “Leave her alone.”

He latched on to Mary Jo, holding her off the floor like a limp rag doll. “She’s my wife, I can do what I want with her.”

“No, you can’t, actually. Legally or morally.”

Darcy inched closer, gripping the knife, point down to slice faster and with greater accuracy. Eli didn’t look the least bit intimidated by the nine-inch blade. Guns were his deal. Darcy didn’t like guns. They were noisy and registered. And though she didn’t really want to stab Eli, he wasn’t looking very cooperative right now.

Dangling in Eli’s grasp, Mary Jo whimpered, her lip bleeding.

Darcy couldn’t spare a look at the woman. She kept her gaze on the man threatening them both as she moved the blade slowly back and forth, waiting for the knife to catch Eli’s attention. When it did, he let his wife go, grinning as he headed toward her.

He charged like an angry bull going after the red cloak. Darcy stood her ground till he was three feet away, then sidestepped out of his path. He plowed past her into the kitchen table and landed hard on it, shattering the table legs and crashing to the floor.

Darcy rushed to Mary Jo. Keeping one eye on Eli, she grabbed the bruised, bloodied woman and tugged her to her feet, then pushed her toward the back door. “Get out of here.”

“He’ll kill you!”

“I’m right behind you. Go!” Darcy put herself between Eli and Mary Jo.

Mary Jo was nearly at the door when Eli rolled over, shaking his head and getting to his feet. “You bitch!”

Oh, no. For a big man, he was fast. Darcy sidestepped again, circling, forcing his attention off his wife stumbling toward the back door. Darcy’d run out the front if she had to and circle back.

Eli charged again, this time with a table leg in his hand. He swung. Darcy ducked. The table leg sang past her head, the impact driving it into the plaster wall. Eli tried jerking it out and with her elbow, Darcy clipped him in the kidney. He howled, arching with the pain, then sank to his knees. She backed toward the door, but not fast enough. He grabbed her ankle and yanked.

She hit the floor so hard her teeth clicked. The knife flew from her grip and spun across the floor.

Oh God.

“Run, Mary Jo!”

But Mary Jo, a slim blonde dressed in shorts and a T-shirt meant for a twelve year old, huddled on the edge of the room, too scared to move.

“Yeah, run, Mary Jo,” Eli taunted, “so I can hunt you, too.” He lunged at Darcy.

As he came down, she drove the heel of her hand up into his nose.

Cartilage shifted, bone cracked. Blood poured.

Eli Archer lurched back on his haunches, swearing and clutching his bleeding nose. “I’m gonna kill you!” he shouted, swiping his sleeve under his nose, smearing blood before grabbing for her.

But Darcy rolled away, springing to her feet, glancing around for her knife. She spotted it, but he was there, lumbering, big and hound-dog ugly.

She dove at the knife, landing on her side, grappling for it as he neared. His meaty hand latched on to her calf. He dragged her.