Autumn's Game

by Mary Stone

  “Liar.” Before she could react, his hands were wrapped around her upper arms. “You’re a liar.”

  “It was dark,” she sobbed, shaking her head. “I freaked, I told you I freaked. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  She knew what she should do. She should fall into his arms and press against him. She should beg him to hold her, kiss her, make love to her. Ask him to protect her.

  It would change everything, she knew.

  That was what he wanted, and was it so bad to give a little to get a little in return?

  But even as her mind tried to convince her to save herself, her body recoiled. She retched and pulled away from his touch, jerking her arms. “Leave me alone!” she screamed and bolted toward the door.

  He caught her by the hair and pain exploded through her head as he yanked her back, then down to the floor.

  How could she have been so wrong?

  How had she thought this man had ever cared for her?

  How had she not seen a glimpse of what lived inside him?

  She saw it now.

  It was terrifying.

  He wasn’t scowling anymore. He was smiling.

  “I’ll have to put you somewhere else, somewhere more secure.” He wrapped her hair around his fist and yanked her up. “Jesus God, woman. I have tried so hard to make things comfortable for you. Can you not forgive me for one little mistake? I meant to leave you a light. I just forgot.”

  She wanted to tell him that she forgave him about the light, but she knew if she did that, she would start forgiving him for everything.

  There are worst things than death.

  He shoved her out of the room, and she stumbled as she hit the hallway wall. Before she could right herself, he was using her hair to steer her into the main room, where he grabbed a bag up off the floor. A second later, he was shoving her through the back door.

  Where was he taking her? Somewhere more secure, he had said.

  What did that even mean? Was he going to drive her to a different cabin now?

  But they didn’t turn toward the truck. He pushed her ahead of him, deeper into the woods.

  Branches and twigs scratched at her face. “Please don’t. Please don’t!”

  He didn’t respond as the trees seemed to stretch on forever.

  Underneath one of the tallest ones was a large boulder. He shoved her in its direction. But it wasn’t a boulder. What was it?

  No! Oh, no!

  “Get in.”

  Her mind reeled. He was pointing at an old well opening built of rocks.

  “No, no, no!”

  He growled and pushed her toward it, not stopping until she was forced to grab the rocks to stop herself from falling in.

  She heard a ripping sound. He was pulling a length of blue vinyl rope out of his bag, and while she watched, horrified, he tossed it into the air, looping it over a tree branch.

  Was he going to hang her? Leave her body at the bottom of the well?

  “Stop!”

  She’d changed her mind. She would do anything he said to stay alive.

  Turning on her knees, she pulled at his shirt, pulled at his pants. She would distract him with sex. Yes, that was what she’d do.

  Instead of turning him on, her actions seemed to disgust him.

  “You’re just like all the rest,” he roared before pushing her to the ground.

  She couldn’t move. She’d heard of people being frozen with terror. That was her.

  Gina watched him tie the bottom part of the rope around the trunk of the tree.

  “Please don’t kill me.”

  He looked genuinely startled by her words. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m saving you.”

  Saving her.

  Just like he saved the person or people he’d already killed?

  He made a loop in the other end of the rope. It almost looked like a noose, and with all her willpower, she forced herself to her feet, even though her legs felt like water.

  He was going to kill her—save her—and she wouldn’t fight him anymore. She stood before him, resigned to her fate.

  “Put your foot in here.”

  She did a double take. “What?”

  He huffed out a breath. “Put your foot in here, and I’ll lower you to the bottom.”

  She just stared at him, her mind a tangled mess.

  With another huff, he forced her leg up, not stopping until her foot was in the loop. He then lifted her up, putting her on the side of the well. As she gazed down into the deep hole, reality hit her again.

  “No, please no.”

  “It’s for your own good.”

  She stilled, and her past blended with the present.

  The dark. The pain. The fear.

  Her foster home and Helen Mathers.

  “I’m sorry that you’re making me do this.” He actually sounded genuinely sad. “But you leave me no choice.”

  She began to fight him. “Let me go!”

  “Oh, Gina, sweetheart.” The words were kind, but the grip on her arms was brutal. “You can either hang on to this rope, or you can test your falling skills.”

  She began to cry. Began to beg.

  “It will only be for a little while. Until you stop disobeying me. This place will cure what ails you quicker than anything. Can’t you see? I’m only doing this because I love you.”

  He smiled, and his mouth gaped like a black pit.

  She shivered.

  Balling her hand, her knuckles landed precisely in the middle of his nose. As it exploded with blood, she burst off the well, landing on her feet in a sprint.

  Then tripped.

  The rope had tangled around her shoe, taking her down.

  When he jerked her up this time, he was smiling again, but the red on his teeth magnified the terror.

  This time, he wrapped the rope around her waist. This time, he shoved her over the edge.

  And this time, the sky grew smaller and smaller as he lowered her into the well’s depths.

  He seemed to be lowering her slowly on purpose. To make the torture last longer.

  When she reached the bottom, she shivered as her feet sank into a couple inches of cold water, then a few inches more. She almost sobbed in gratitude when a tangle of sticks and rocks settled under her, then she was so terrified that she would sink even farther, but they held.

  “Help!” she shouted. “Let me out! I don’t want to die down here.”

  “You stay right there and think about what you did. Untie the rope.”

  The rope around her waist jerked, making her stumble backward and hit her head on the wall.

  “Untie the rope, Gina.”

  She could fight him, but what would be the use? She untied it, and it slithered away.

  What would happen if the sticks broke? What would happen if she fell asleep? Her feet were already numb with cold. What happened if it rained?

  His footsteps retreated. He was really leaving her.

  She began to sob as she stared up at the small circle of light. She began to climb, looking for places to put her fingers and feet. But the walls were smooth as glass and slippery from some type of mossy growth that covered everything.

  A few minutes later, a plastic grocery bag full of bottled water and protein bars flew over the edge of the well and bounced down at her. By the time the bag reached the bottom, it was torn to shreds, and one of the bottles had burst open.

  Gina scrambled to keep the protein bars from sinking into the water and disappearing. She stuffed the food and water into her tucked-in shirt, feeling her hand brush against the locket that contained the picture of her lost family. But her parents couldn’t help her now.

  Something else followed, and she managed to catch it before it hit the ground. At first, she didn’t know what it was, then she realized it was one of the silvery blankets that were designed to keep a person warm.

  Maybe she wouldn’t die of hyperthermia, but the blanket seemed so thin, she wasn’t sure how it would help.

/>   “Think about what you did, Gina. Think hard. Or you’re going to be stuck down there for a long, long time.”

  She swayed on her feet, and before she could beg him one more time to save her, he was gone. She’d been prepared to forgive him anything. To tell him that she would obey him. Do whatever he wanted.

  But it was too late.

  15

  Noah hated like hell to watch the woman he loved suffer.

  Even when she smiled and offered to make lunch, the pain hovered in Winter’s eyes. The pain that her bastard of a baby brother had put there made him want to walk into that prison and circle his hands around the kid’s scrawny neck.

  He’d squeeze and squeeze, and he wouldn’t let go until Justin Black was dead or the guards took Noah down.

  But then Winter would hate him, and that would be its own kind of death.

  Damn it to all hell. He didn’t know what to do.

  Actually, he knew exactly what to do, but the person he would normally call in this type of situation was in bumfreakin’ Oregon. And while he had Autumn Trent on the line, he’d give her and her Ph.D. a nice piece of his mind for not checking in and letting them know she was okay.

  They’d only learned about how her case was going from Adam Asshole Latham, and Noah had been forced to get what little that asshole had sent from Aiden Asshole Parrish.

  It was maddening.

  Through a slim gap in his heavy blue blackout curtains, the Virginia sky was gray, clouds heavy with snow. Noah had finally convinced Winter to take a nap. She’d been sleeping poorly for much too long, and the weight of her insomnia seemed like a weight on her slim shoulders.

  Closing the curtains, he strode softly to their bedroom. Winter, wearing red plaid flannel pajamas, was restless, tossing and turning in bed. Her skin was flushed, as if she were feverish. He was tempted to crawl into bed with her but didn’t want to disturb her even more.

  With a last glance, he closed the door and began pacing the living room.

  Earlier, he’d talked to Special Agent in Charge Max Osbourne on the phone and told their boss what had happened, and they’d both agreed that Winter needed more than one mental health day.

  She probably wouldn’t take it, but since he also took a second day off, he might be able to convince her to take a long drive or do something fun. God knew both of them needed a little bit of that.

  He reheated some cold coffee in the microwave, popping open the door before it could beep, then went into their office and closed the door behind him. Two desks sat next to each other along the wall. His was battered with an oversized office chair that he’d bought at Goodwill for his first real apartment in college. Hers was a classier affair with metal legs and an oak top and featured an ergonomic mesh chair.

  Noah tossed himself in his giant chair and let it spin him around once before he tapped Autumn’s number on his cell phone. The phone rang. If she didn’t pick up, he’d try again in ten minutes. And every ten minutes after that, as necessary.

  Noah hadn’t made it as far as he had by giving up easy.

  Autumn answered right away, sounding frazzled. “Hey, Noah. You have awesome timing. Just stepped into my hotel room to freshen up before heading out to interview a foster mom.”

  “I won’t keep you long. Just wanted to check in. How’s it going out there in the wild, wild west?”

  “Wild.” She sounded so tired that Noah grew concerned. “Did you hear that we have yet another dead couple?”

  “Yeah.” Poor Autumn. She was a psychologist, not a trained FBI agent with years of death and destruction under her belt. “It’s like that, sometimes. You go in thinking it’ll be a quick catch, and the bastard throws you for a loop. You just have to keep powering through. You’ll get him.”

  “What if he hurts anyone else?”

  “You got this,” he told her firmly. “If he strikes again, then that will give you even more clues you can use to catch him. Just keep working on it. You can stop to cry when he’s in jail or six feet under.”

  She took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Thank you. It’s kind of a cliché, but I guess I needed to hear that.”

  “Hey. I’m no psychologist, but I know how to give a motivational speech. Rah rah rass, kick the bastard’s ass.”

  She chuckled, and he smiled.

  Noah gave her a moment to mentally adjust. “I have news for you from our end. Parrish…who, I have to mention, has gone over the reports Latham sent and agrees with me that you’re doing everything you can, is setting up an FBI task force to help you and Sheriff Morton out.”

  “Really? Good. We’ve both done our best, but we need help. I’m not trained in tracking people to ground up in the mountains, and I doubt Adam is either. We know who we’re after. We just can’t seem to locate him.”

  Noah put his feet up on his desk. “Parrish thinks that combing through property records is where you’ll find those clues. Find places that belong to people connected to the kid’s family, flag his credit card records, go through his online trail with a fine-tooth comb. Stuff like that.”

  “I don’t think Kyle Murphy is the kind of person who has an online presence,” Autumn commented drily.

  He could just picture her rolling her eyes as she said it. “You’d be surprised what our ladies can find out. Once, I asked them, like the smartass I am, to find out what Mick Jagger ate for breakfast that morning. Ten minutes later, they said he wasn’t up yet, he was in France at the time, but that his cook had the ingredients for French toast on hand.”

  Autumn snorted. She didn’t ask whether he was bullshitting her or not. “How is Winter? And Justin?”

  Noah stared at the ceiling, wondering how much to tell her.

  He wanted to believe what Autumn and Winter did, that Justin could be treated or helped somehow. But Noah had serious doubts. The Preacher’d had his hands on Justin for too long. Maybe someone could have done something with him as a kid. Good discipline might have put him on the right path and taught him limits that would have kept him out of trouble.

  Now, though?

  Noah suspected it was too late. Not that the girls needed to hear that. He took his feet off the desk and spun his chair around again. “Winter went to see him. She went in by herself and spent maybe fifteen minutes.” Noah could still see her face as she was led back to the waiting area. “It was bad.”

  “Oh no.” From Autumn’s end of the line came what sounded like a pair of kids running down a hotel hallway. “I wish I could just reach whatever dark place he’s in. How terrible.”

  “Yeah, it was.” Noah picked up a pen from the desk and flipped it around between his fingers. He wasn’t sure what good it would do to talk to Justin, but he had to give it to Autumn for wanting to try.

  “I wish I could be back home for Winter.”

  He wished that too. But putting a lot of pressure on her to hurry up an investigation wouldn’t help. “She isn’t going anywhere. Justin either.” Time to change the subject. “Hey, don’t they have anything good to eat out there?”

  Food. One of his favorite subjects.

  “A couple of places. No offense to Oregon, but I’m getting tired of being here.”

  “Be careful. If you relax and enjoy yourself, you might just end up liking the place.” Over the phone, Noah heard a knock, then a rattle. “What’s up?”

  “One sec.” The phone rustled as Autumn moved. “Someone’s at my door.” Another pause. “Yes?”

  “May I come in?”

  Noah gritted his teeth at the sound of Adam Latham’s voice. He’d only been forced to deal with the megalomaniac a few times, but that had been enough.

  “Sorry, I’m on the phone. I’ll meet you at the car in fifteen.”

  When there was no response, Noah frowned. “You okay?”

  “It’s just Adam. Again.” She sighed. “He’s been making a pest of himself. I think he thinks that he can ‘fix’ my childhood traumas on his own. Things haven’t been going well for him out here. N
ot only is he not surrounded by acclaim and glory, but he got off on the wrong foot with the sheriff. She doesn’t like him and doesn’t make much of a secret about not wanting to work with him. I’m getting the most interesting tasks, and it’s obvious that he can’t take credit for them. He has no one on his side, and he’s focusing on ‘helping’ me so he doesn’t have a meltdown.”

  Noah made a mental note to tell Parrish about Adam Latham. He didn’t like Aiden—not at all—but the SSA could at least be trusted to handle the smarmy shrink. Parrish seemed particularly protective of Autumn. Noah couldn’t help but wonder if there was something between him and the redhead.

  “Sounds unpleasant. Be careful around him. The killer too.”

  “Do you know how much work I could get done if I didn’t have to deal with assholes?”

  He grinned. That was his girl. “If there was no such thing as assholes, the world would be a better place and we’d both be out of a job.”

  She laughed again. “Thanks for the perspective, but I should get ready for my foster care meeting.”

  “Good luck. And do me a favor?”

  “What is it?” She sounded suspicious.

  “Keep in touch. We know you’re busy, but Winter worries about you, and Parrish is chewing a hole in the carpet. Don’t let Latham screw with you. Or screw you.”

  She made a gagging sound. “You had to go there.”

  Noah was a strong believer in humor. “Just let me know if I need to arrange an ‘accident.’”

  Actually, that wasn’t really a joke.

  “I’m hanging up now.” The phone went dead in the middle of her laughter.

  Autumn was a big girl. She could take care of herself—probably.

  When people tried to screw with Noah, all he had to do was stop slouching, stand up to his full six-four height and crack his knuckles. There was just something about a former college jock that made most people think twice.

  But people like Adam Latham seemed to think it would be easier to push around a five-foot-eight redhead who had survived parental abuse, the foster care system, and bartending her way through several high-level psychology degrees.