“Then cut out her own tongue?”
John didn’t offer an answer.
“You should have done something then.”
“What?” John demanded. “Gone to you? You don’t even believe my story now, man. What am I going to do? Turn in a cop? Who’s gonna believe an ex-con who works at a car wash?”
Will kept his hands tight around the wheel. John had brought this down on Angie. She would be safe now but for the man’s arrogance and stupidity. “You were baiting him. You knew exactly what you were doing.”
John snapped the map along a crease, folding it into a smaller section as he kept trying to defend himself. “You tell me what I should’ve done and I’ll get back in my magic time machine and do it. Tell you what, though, let’s don’t stop at four days. Let’s go back twenty years. Give me my youth back. Give me my mother and my grandparents and my family. Hell, throw in a wife and a couple of kids for me while you’re at it.”
“She was running away from something in that yard.”
John was still working on the map, but Will could hear the anguish in the other man’s voice when he said, “Don’t you think I know that?”
Will looked back at the road, watched the signs blur by, the mile markers with their bold numbers popping up along the landscape. He hadn’t thought this through; hadn’t considered that he might be endangering John.
Will said, “It violates your parole to go over state lines.”
“I know.”
“You could be arrested. I can’t help you in Tennessee.”
“You can’t help me in Atlanta, either.”
Will chewed his lip, staring at the black pavement, the other cars on the road. He had driven back and forth between Atlanta and the mountains for the last two years, so he knew exactly where all the speed traps were. He slowed down through Ellijay, not resuming his speed until he crossed Miciak Creek. He coasted by the new Wal-Mart and the old one, then past several outdoor flea markets and a couple of liquor stores. At the town of Blue Ridge, he took a left. He was flying down Coote Mason Highway, just beyond the apple orchard, when the phone rang.
He flipped it open on the side of his leg. “Amanda?”
Her tone was grim. “We found blood in the garage. Two different types and lots of it.”
“Angie?”
“She’s not here, Will.”
His mouth opened, but words failed him.
“Here’s how this is going to work,” Amanda said. “I’ve called Bob Burg at the Tee Bees.” The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. “He’s putting together a team right now. They’re about forty minutes out from the cabin.”
“I’m closer.”
“I figured you would be,” she said. “Let me speak to the pedophile. I’ve got directions to Elton Road.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Angie had almost passed out when she lifted her arm off the shard of glass cemented to the bottom stair.—not so much from the pain, but from the sensation of the glass sliding out of her flesh. There wasn’t much blood, and compared to the throbbing in her wrist, the wound was manageable. She had been lucky. Her right wrist was the one that was probably broken and she had by some miracle fallen on her right shoulder at the bottom of the stairs. Like Will, Angie was left-handed.
“Jasmine?” she whispered, her voice echoing in the pitch-black cellar. “Jasmine?” There was no response.
Angie pressed her good shoulder against the wall and stood. She took a moment to catch her breath, then carefully slid her bare feet across the dirt floor, searching for the girl.
“Jasmine?” she repeated, her foot making contact. “Are you okay?”
The girl was either too terrified to answer or was dead.
Angie knelt down, put her head to where she thought Jasmine’s mouth and nose might be and tried to listen for signs of life.
Nothing.
Angie turned around, reaching blindly with her fingers. She felt along the girl’s naked body, touching sticky blood, finally feeling the shallow up and down of Jasmine’s chest laboring to breathe. Angie didn’t touch her mother much, but the few times she’d visited Deidre in the home, this is what she had felt like: dead weight, just a shell that looked like a body.
“Jasmine?” Angie whispered.
The girl did not stir as Angie touched her face, her hair. Angie’s fingers slipped under the scalp and she recoiled.
“Oh, Jesus!” Angie bent at the waist, trying not to vomit again. She’d touched the girl’s skull, felt the splintered bone and the soft, wet, gray matter underneath.
They had to get out of here. They had to get help.
Angie stood again. She paced out the cellar. Ten feet wide, maybe twelve feet deep. Before the bulb had been switched off, she had glimpsed crude wooden shelves built into the walls. With her hands tied behind her back, it was difficult to check the top shelves. Her fingers felt nothing but vacant space as she checked the lower shelves for anything that might be used as a weapon.
The cellar was empty. Even the packed dirt floor was swept clean.
Maybe her wrist was not completely broken. Angie could still move her fingers, though they felt swollen and hot as if an infection was already working its way through her bloodstream. She was becoming used to the pain, almost welcoming it because it took her mind off the pounding in her head, the roiling in her stomach. The dark helped, too. There was nothing for her eyes to focus on, nothing to throw her balance.
Michael was upstairs. She thought he might be making a meal, lunch or dinner. She didn’t know what time of day it was or how long she’d been in this fucking hole.
Every noise he made—a chair sliding across the floor, joists squeaking as he walked around—intensified her fury. Angie seethed with hatred. He had gotten to her. He had worked his way into her mind and made her feel like a useless piece of shit. She’d had more men inside her body than she could count, but not one of them had ever gotten into her head like this.
She would kill him when he came back. She would kill him or make him kill her. Those were the only two options.
Angie braced herself, sliding down the wall until she was on her knees. Two paces to the stair, the broken glass imbedded in the tread. She turned and felt for it with her hands, careful not to slice her already shredded fingers as she positioned the thick, knotted rope over the biggest shards. She sucked in air through her teeth, trying not to think about the pain as she sawed the rope against the glass.
Michael’s handcuffs were on Jasmine. He had used rope to tie up Angie.
“You fucker,” she breathed, a mantra to herself. Michael Ormewood didn’t make mistakes. He was always in control, always on top of everything. Everything but the fact that glass could cut rope.
“You stupid fucker.”
Blood soaked her hands, wet the rope that bound her wrists together. Angie stopped sawing, trying to catch her breath, take it slow. She’d almost passed out the first time she’d tried to cut the rope, but with each new attempt, she honed her technique, learned more about the knots he’d tied, the way the rope bound her wrists. She could feel that the rope had shifted down a little, was rubbing raw a new section of skin. Her blood was acting as a lubricant.
She would get out of this. She would saw off her own hand if she had to.
“Oh!” She gasped as the rope skipped down the glass, her hands slipping, the razor-sharp edges slicing into her fingers.
Angie held her breath, listening for Michael. God, she had never hurt so bad in her life. She couldn’t stand it, couldn’t take the feeling of the flesh being sliced off bone. She leaned forward, her forehead touching the ground as she cried.
“Will,” she whispered. She couldn’t pray to God, not after everything she’d done, so she prayed to Will. “I’m going to get out of this,” she promised him. “I’m going to get out of this and …” She didn’t say the words, but she knew them in her heart. She would leave Will for good. She would finally let him escape.
Overhead, footsteps wal
ked across the floor. Angie reared up, her hands fumbling for the glass. She furiously worked the rope, fear anesthetizing her against the pain.
“Angie?” Michael called. He was on the other side of the locked door. “Answer me. I know you hear me.”
She stretched the rope taut, wrenching her shoulders, desperate to break free. “Fuck you, motherfucker!”
“Get away from the stairs, Angie. I’m gonna open the door, and I’ve got my gun trained right on you.”
She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. Faster, faster, she sawed the rope up and down the jagged glass.
The key scraped in the lock.
“No,” Angie whispered, forcing herself to hurry. “Not yet, not yet.”
“Get away from the stairs,” he said. “I mean it.”
“No!” she screamed, jumping away from the glass just as the door flew open.
The light blazed on. Angie looked at Jasmine, saw the girl’s face was turned toward her, the eyes slit open but unseeing. Her mouth was open. Blood pooled around her head.
“Don’t try anything,” Michael warned. He stood at the top of the stairs with the gun in his hand. He was bare-chested, jeans and sneakers the only thing covering his body.
“Fuck off,” Angie told him. She’d felt the rope give, but not enough. Blood wet her hands like water. She was still trapped, still helpless.
He tucked the gun into the waist of his jeans, then reached into his back pocket.
“Go away,” Angie told him.
He put on a black ski mask, holes cut out for the eyes and mouth.
“Go away!” she screamed, backing into the wall, scrambling to stand.
He took out the gun and started down the stairs. Slowly, one tread at a time.
Angie’s shoulders tensed to their breaking point as she pulled at the rope. She had felt it give before. She had felt it give.
He kept up his steady pace down into the cellar. The ski mask was unnerving, more terrifying than anything he could have said. The gun stayed trained on her chest, and she saw the knife sheathed at his side.
Angie’s throat tensed. She could barely speak. “No …”
He stepped over the last stair and stopped. His eyes were dark, almost black. She could see dried blood around the mouth of the mask.
The sight of him sent an uncontrollable tremble through her body.
He looked at Jasmine lying in the corner, then took a step closer to Angie. They both stood there facing each other, the room quiet but for the short breaths Angie was taking.
His voice was so soft she could barely hear him. “Michael is going to hurt you.”
“I’ll kill you,” she breathed. “I’ll kill you if you touch me.”
“Lie down.”
She kicked out at him. “You sick fucker.”
He still spoke gently. “Lie down on the floor.”
“Fuck you!”
He brought up his gun and slammed it down on her head.
Angie slumped to the ground. She couldn’t keep her head up, couldn’t remember for a moment where she was.
He cupped her chin in his hand, his words still soft; the tone he would use with a child who was misbehaving. “Don’t pass out on me,” he whispered. “You hear me?”
She saw Jasmine lying behind him, her body limp. What had Michael done to her? What had the child endured before her body simply gave up?
“Look at me,” Michael said, gently, as if this was some kind of seduction. “Keep looking at me, Angie. Look at Michael.”
Her head rolled to the side. She couldn’t make her eyes focus.
“Come on, darlin’, don’t pass out.” He cupped her chin with his hand again, tilted up her face. “You okay?”
She nodded, mostly to prove to herself that there was still some part of her body that she could control.
“That’s good,” he soothed, placing the gun on one of the shelves above her head, high out of the way. He took the knife out of the sheath and knelt down, holding the blade to her face so that she could see.
“No …” she begged.
He used his knife to cut open her shirt—Will’s shirt—pushing it back on her shoulders. She tried to watch him, tried to see his hand as he traced his fingers across her breasts, but she could only feel what he was doing.
“No,” she pleaded. “Don’t.”
“Lie down,” he coaxed. “Lie down and I’ll be sweet to you.”
She rolled back her head, trying to look at his face. Who was behind the mask? Was it John? Had she tricked her mind into thinking it was Michael when it was really John?
“Angie?” He was so calm. Like Will. He knew that was the best way to make her angry. She would fly off in a tantrum and he would just stand there, patiently waiting her out, staring at the floor. Oh, God, Will. How would he live with this? How would he live with himself knowing that he’d failed to stop this bastard?
“An-gie,” he sang. “Look at me.”
She knew that voice, knew that body.
“An-gie …”
She squeezed her eyes shut, seeing Will’s arm, the angry scar where the razor had cut into his flesh.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
She fell to her side, her uninjured shoulder thumping into the packed-dirt floor. He helped her lie flat on her back, tugging at her shirt when it got caught around her arms. All of her weight rested on her hands, her pelvis arching up as if it was on display for him.
“That’s good,” he whispered, straddling her legs. She saw his tongue dart out of his mouth as he traced the tip of the knife down her abdomen, stopping just shy of her snatch.
Where was the gun? Where had he put the gun?
“Look at me.” He leaned over her body, pressing the knife against her neck.
The shelf. He had put it on the shelf.
“Look at me.”
She looked at him.
“Kiss me.”
Too high. The shelf was too high.
“Kiss me,” he said.
Her whole body shook, but she leaned up, pulling at the rope as hard as she could as she brought her mouth to his. He was still trying to be tender, his lips soft against hers. She could taste her own blood, feel his heart pumping against her chest as he pressed against her. When he put his tongue in her mouth, she gagged, instinctively trying to jerk away, but he pressed the knife harder against her throat, and Angie had no choice but to let him kiss her.
He made a smacking noise as he sat back up, satisfied. “If you’d kissed me like that in the back of the car, maybe it would have gone differently.”
Angie looked up at him. The bare lightbulb made a halo behind his head. She turned, saw Jasmine, saw the blood in the girl’s mouth, the dead look in her eyes.
“Angie,” Michael whispered, tracing his fingers along her face, down her body. Will had touched her like this a long time ago. Why had he stopped touching her? When had she started pushing him away?
Michael leaned over her again, his weight pressing her into the ground.
“Please … Please don’t …”
He kissed her again. She pushed her weight into her right hand, pulling as hard as she could with the left to stretch the rope. Her stomach muscles shuddered, her breath caught, as the skin started to peel off her hand like a glove. He jammed his tongue farther down her throat, his teeth clashing against hers. She could feel the shattered bones in her right wrist grind against each other. The pain was so unbearable that she finally gave into it, let it rush through her body like a red tide.
Michael sat back on his heels, watching her.
“No …” she breathed. “Oh, God, no …” She was going to pass out. She couldn’t stop it. Her eyelids flickered. Her vision blurred.
She felt him press harder into her, excited by her pain.
“Take it off,” she panted. “Take off the mask.”
He shook his head.
“Let me see you.”
“No.”
“Will,” she whispered. Where was
Will?
“What?”
She shook her head, blinking, forcing herself to stay lucid. “Oh, Will …”
“It’s not Will,” he said, using his free hand to peel off the ski mask. He threw it on the ground. “It’s Michael. I’m the one who’s doing this to you.”
“Will.”
He twisted her head, forced her to look at him. “Who’s doing this to you, Angie?”
“Will …”
“Look at me,” he repeated, his voice stern. “Look at me, Angie.” His weight shifted, pressing her harder into the dirt. Angie moaned as the broken bones shifted.
“Help …” she whispered, her voice nearly failing her.
“That’s it,” Michael said. “Yell for help.”
“No …” Angie writhed underneath him, whimpering, “Please don’t hurt me … please.”
He dropped the knife and fumbled with the button on his jeans. He was reaching into his pants when she reared straight up and slammed her head into his.
The blow stunned him, and she scooped up the knife in her left hand before he could regain his senses. She was the one straddling him this time. She was the one holding the knife at his throat.
“You stupid cunt,” she slurred, blood and saliva spraying his face. “The glass on the stairs. I cut the rope on the glass.”
He didn’t speak, but she saw it in his eyes. No.
Her body shook with rage as she pressed the blade harder against his flesh. Michael didn’t flinch, didn’t struggle; the brutal rapist, the violent murderer, and he’d given up just like that.
How many men, Angie thought. How many men’s faces were seared into her brain, their twisted mouths grinning as they pounded it into her, their big hands pressing into her wrists so hard that the next day she almost hurt more there than she did between her legs?
Even if Jasmine made it out of here alive, she would always have this bastard’s face in her head, always feel his hands on her body every time another man touched her. Even if she loved that man. Even if she wanted that man more than anybody else in the whole world, it would always be Michael’s face she would see when she closed her eyes.
The Will Trent Series 7-Book Bundle Page 38
