by Leslie Wolfe
“I get that,” she replied, repressing a shiver under his fierce gaze. Fear sent blood rushing through her veins, urging her to run. “More than you know, I get it.”
Her words came out a little slurred and her lips felt swollen. Numb. She was running out of time.
“So, tell me, have you heard anything about the girls from Silent Lake?” she asked, forcing herself to speak clearly. “I’m guessing you have; it’s your line of work.”
Instead of replying, he stared at her for a long moment, while her breath caught, captive in her lungs. His eyes turned dark and his smile vanished. Tension locked his jaw as he stared at her with bloodlust in his heavy gaze, the air between them crackling with tension.
The time for charades had passed.
“Where are you keeping them, Nick?” she asked coldly.
“Who?” he replied, standing abruptly, the armchair scraping against the hardwood. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She stood also, relieved to see she was firm on her feet and not dizzy at all, the numbness of her lips the only effect of the spiked wine. She walked toward the front door and stopped by the wall-mounted coatrack, an antique piece that must’ve cost a fortune.
Next to it, at eye level, there was a matching, hand-carved key cabinet, six inches tall by at least twenty inches long, protected with two sliding panels of glass. Inside, hanging from individual silver hooks, there was a variety of car keys, some simple, others modern, smart, keyless remotes.
She counted fourteen different keys, all different brands, including Nissan, Jeep, Subaru, and Ford. Mementos of his victims, on display, to rekindle his urges and soothe his searing pain.
Pulling Elliot’s gun, she pointed it at Nick’s chest.
He didn’t even flinch. “Who are you talking about, Kay?”
“Them,” she said, gesturing with the gun toward the keys hanging on the wall display. “The women whose keys you kept as trophies. Some are at Silent Lake, others in the morgue, and one, one’s still out there, isn’t she? Where is she, Nick?”
“That’s ridiculous, Kay,” he replied, laughing lightly as if Kay’s question was an old joke told by a friend. He approached her casually, clearly unafraid of the weapon she was holding aimed at his chest. “Those are from the cars I’ve owned, nothing else.” He took another couple of steps closer. “I was hoping you were here as a friend, not as a federal agent.”
“I’m not a fed anymore,” she said, realizing she’d backed herself into a corner of the hallway, in a spot where Elliot couldn’t see her through the large living room windows.
He took a few more steps forward, getting so close to her she could hear his calm, steady breathing. A stone-cold psychopath, whose pulse didn’t climb under stress, a predator who never felt fear.
“Stop right there,” she ordered, but Nick smiled and took another step closer.
“Or what, Kay? Shoot me at point blank?” He kept on smiling, he kept on drawing closer, inch by inch. “Because I have a collection of car keys?”
If she pulled that trigger, there was a risk they’d never find them, the vastness of the national forest an insurmountable impediment to any traditional search. Bloodhounds had been at it for several days already and had found no trace of the missing children. Even if she didn’t kill him, if she only wounded him, he’d never cooperate; people like him, psychopaths, never did. Her bullet would kill four other souls, the missing woman and three children, surely prisoners without escape in a place where no one could ever find them. She only had one option, regardless of how scary it was. Regardless of how much it took to keep her fear under control, when it screamed inside her mind, seeding fire in her blood.
She could let him capture her. He’d take her where he held the others. And Elliot would follow them, would rescue her. Please, Elliot, come find me.
Her hand shaking a little, she lowered her weapon with a long sigh. She’d made her decision.
“You’re right, Nick. I’m sorry,” she said. “I—I guess being a fed changes the way I look at people. I hope you can forgive me.”
“No worries,” he replied, grabbing the Glock from her hand. “I won’t hold that against you.”
Then he struck her with the butt of the handgun, sending exploding stars in front of her eyes, while she fell to the ground. She was still falling when darkness engulfed her, thick and silent.
Fifty-Three
Breach
Elliot watched the brightly lit window through binoculars, crouched behind a clump of firs with heavy, low branches. Even so, he could barely see Kay, who sat on a sofa at the far end of the room, but at least he knew she was all right.
From a distance, the two seemed to chat and drink wine as if they were old buddies catching up, which, in fact, they were, at least officially. He didn’t understand how Kay was going to make him divulge the location where he kept his victims, but she was the one with all those years of fancy education and experience catching serial killers.
He had to admire her guts, when he could stop for a moment from wondering how he’d let himself be talked into letting her go in there by herself. It couldn’t’ve been easy for her to ring that doorbell, knowing who Nick Stevens really was, and walk into that house, after having seen, under the strong lights of the autopsy room, what he did to the women in his power.
A quiet buzz alerted him of a new text message. He pulled out his phone and checked the screen. Deputy Hobbs’s message read, We’re in position.
Everyone who could be spared from the sheriff’s office, including Logan himself, were holding a mile out, ready to storm the property when he gave the signal. As Kay had instructed him, he wasn’t supposed to breach unless more than an hour had passed, and she was unresponsive on her cell.
He counted the minutes, slowly dragging as Kay seemed relaxed, glass of wine in hand, talking and smiling casually with a blood-lusting psychopath. The woman had some seriously big, round stones, the size of pickup trucks; that was a fact.
She’d told him she’d be safe, because he couldn’t take her anywhere without having to drive his Cadillac right under Elliot’s nose, and he’d see that coming the moment the garage door would open. But was she, really, safe in the presence of a homicidal psychopath? Anything could go wrong in a situation like that. Absolutely anything. The district attorney, like a bucking wild bronc, could do whatever crossed his deviant mind; there was no way of knowing what and when.
“What the heck was I thinking?” he muttered, angry at himself and his powerlessness. It seemed his brain turned to mush whenever he worked with a woman. That had to be the reason why he’d always given into his female partners’ demands, no matter how ludicrous. He’d let them talk him into just about anything. If Alaska was in his future, it was a long time coming.
Kay and Stevens stood, then disappeared from view, somewhere to the side. He didn’t see any other windows lighting up, but with every moment he didn’t see Kay through the living room window, he ached to break that door down, warrant or not.
He checked the time and groaned. Only thirty-five minutes had passed; he still had some time to kill, the slowest-moving seconds of his entire existence.
Eyes riveted to the window through binoculars, he watched for any indication as to where Kay could be. Were they still in the living room? Did they go to the back of the house? Why? Why wasn’t she staying where she knew he could see her? Why risk her life pointlessly?
For the remaining twenty-five minutes, Kay didn’t reappear in view, there was no indication of any movement and no sound to give him a hint as to what was going on. The moment one full hour had finally passed, he called Kay’s phone, but the call went straight to voicemail.
“Damn it to hell and back, Kay Sharp,” he mumbled, then radioed Hobbs. “Breach, now.” He overheard Logan’s voice, ordering him to wait until they got there, but didn’t acknowledge. Weapon in hand, he left the cover of the firs with the gait of a prowler, hiding in the shadows and keeping to the left of th
e driveway, where the trees continued along the asphalt. He reached Kay’s car and crouched behind it, waiting a few seconds, listening, checking his surroundings for any sign that he’d been spotted. Then, with a few rushed and silent steps, he approached the front door, then looked through the window, searching for Kay. She wasn’t in sight, and neither was Stevens.
With one kick, the door flew open. He entered carefully, stopping for a moment to listen for any sound. Several blood drops and a smudge stained the white tiles, telling the story of what might’ve happened. Anger rising in his body like a tide, he cleared the living room, then proceeded to the kitchen as the rest of the team arrived, entering the property through the front and back doors at the same time.
“Clear,” he heard Logan’s voice from the back of the house.
“Clear,” Hobbs said, leaving the dining room after opening a closet and checking inside.
“Clear,” Elliot announced, after going through the living room one more time.
Kay, where the heck are you?
His next stop was the three-car garage. He opened the door and felt for the light, then switched it on and stepped back, in case Stevens was waiting in there, ready to ambush him. Then he looked inside. Outside of the blue Cadillac, a lawn mower, and some garden tools, the garage was empty. “Clear,” he announced, then holstered his weapon with a long oath.
They couldn’t have just vanished into thin air.
The Cadillac took the middle bay, and the left bay housed the ride-on mower and several power tools along the walls. The right bay was empty, but the most interesting detail was another door, narrower, leading to the backyard.
He pulled out his weapon and approached the rear garage door. There was no door opener installed above it, so it had to be manual.
Yanking it up to open it, he flinched when he found himself face to face with a man. He almost pulled the trigger.
“Don’t shoot,” Hobbs reacted, “it’s me.”
“Jeez, Hobbs,” Elliot replied, lowering then holstering his gun, while sweat broke at the roots of his hair. “That was too damn close.”
He took out his flashlight and examined the backyard, rushing from one end to the other.
The right side of the garage stood neatly against the rocky side of the mountain, not leaving nearly enough space for a vehicle to access the backyard by circling around the house, not even a ride-on lawn tractor. That was probably why he’d had the smaller door built at the back of the garage. It made sense.
But in that case, why was the ride-on parked in the left bay, not the right one? That part made no sense whatsoever, unless there used to be a third vehicle in that third bay, a vehicle that had disappeared with Kay and the killer who’d taken her.
The backyard was narrow, ending in thick woods and a steep, rocky ravine. There was nowhere to go, even if there had been a third vehicle in the garage. He kneeled by the rear garage door and studied the blades of grass, looking for tire tracks. They weren’t visible at first, not from up close. But when he took a couple of steps back and aligned his line of sight with the direction of a vehicle leaving the garage, he spotted them.
He’d been looking for small tires, like a lawn tractor’s, but the barely visible ones he saw were from large, wide wheels, the kind all-terrain vehicles had, especially those geared for rocky, uneven mountain slopes. And that all-terrain vehicle was now gone.
He followed the tracks to the back end of the yard, where they disappeared behind a curtain of low-hanging hemlock branches, and descended into a steep ravine on a barely visible path that disappeared after twenty yards or so into thick woods.
They could be anywhere on Stevens’s 220-acre property, or beyond, far into the national forest somewhere or on the other versant of the mountain. Blood drained from his face when he realized how badly he was out of options, while with every moment that passed Stevens put more distance between him and Kay.
She was gone.
He turned around and looked at the house, every lit window projecting a yellow glow against the darkness of the woods. Logan and Hobbs approached quickly, but he was staring at the blue Cadillac, partially visible through the back door of the garage.
“He drove straight through there,” Elliot explained, pointing at the ravine. “Get some ATVs from the neighbors; most people who live here have them.”
“You got it,” Hobbs replied, then rushed away, beckoning two other deputies to follow him.
“What are you going to do?” Logan asked, following him to the garage.
“I’m going after her,” he replied, then headed toward the Cadillac. “When Hobbs gets an ATV, he’ll catch up.”
“That won’t fit—” Logan started to say, but Elliot had already started the engine and forged ahead. The narrow door barely allowed the massive frame of the SUV to make it through, leaving deep, long dents on both sides and putting deep cracks in the garage wall.
Once he got to the edge of the lawn, he slowed down a little, then advanced through the curtains of low-hanging hemlock and fir, flooding the woods in the bright lights of the Escalade. The ATV’s tracks were no longer visible, but here and there he could still see where the all-terrain vehicle had driven a few times before, leaving behind the makings of a path.
Fifty-Four
Taken
She came to with a start, awakened by the thumping in her chest and the pounding of a blinding headache. She blinked a couple of times, trying to adjust her vision to the powerful light in the room, then she saw him. His back was turned to her, while he busied himself with arranging some small objects on a tray.
Kay breathed, steadying herself, and took a mental inventory of her body. She’d been hurt, hit in the back of her head, and the collar of her blouse seemed moist. Her nostrils picked up a familiar metallic scent. Blood.
She was seated on a wooden chair, her hands tied behind the tall, narrow backrest with what felt like a zip tie, already cutting into her flesh. Her ankles were tied to the chair legs, also with zip ties. She wasn’t injured anywhere else except her pounding skull and her self-esteem.
How could she let herself fall into his trap so easily? What good would it do the others if she was tied up and about to be tortured, like the rest of them? Elliot was right; she was insane.
Elliot.
The thought of him rushed through her mind like a lightning bolt. Why wasn’t he there already? Had he been caught? Killed? The idea of Elliot Young lying somewhere in a pool of blood brought a whimper to her lips.
“Ah, you’re awake,” Stevens said, turning to face her.
His eyes were cold and frenzied, as he was consumed by his compulsions and energized at the thought of what he was about to do. She’d seen on Kendra’s body what that was, in gruesome detail, on Alison’s too. Panic rushed through her entire being, making her pull erratically against her restraints.
“Don’t even think about it, my dear Kathy,” he said smiling, a cold smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. “May I call you Kathy? That’s what I used to call you, anyway.” He caressed her cheek with his fingers. “To me, you’ll always be Kathy. The girl who stole my heart.”
She resisted the urge to pull away frantically, knowing that she’d only harm herself. She listened to her own breathing for a moment, pushing him out of her reality, distancing herself in a controlled dissociative state. Then she regained control over her senses, reminding herself she still had a fighting chance.
“Kathy, the girl who stole my family,” Stevens continued, gathering a few objects from a distant table and putting them on the same tray.
Kay stopped herself from denying the accusation, no matter how ridiculous. For all intents and purposes, he was a hostage taker. The golden rule in hostage negotiations applied here; never say no to them. Never contradict them, no matter how insane their statements or ludicrous their demands.
She remained silent, inviting him to continue. He didn’t.
“Tell me, was there any truth to the story you told me?” she ev
entually asked.
“Uh-huh,” he muttered.
“Which part?”
He brought the tray over by her chair and set it on a nearby stool. It held scissors, a hairbrush, several combs, and a couple of braided leather hair ties adorned with small feathers. Then he looked at her as if he’d never seen her before.
“Why did you want to become a district attorney, Nick?” she asked, ignoring his distancing silence.
A lopsided grin stretched the corner of his mouth. “For the power it gives me,” he replied. “I’m surprised you, the famed psychologist and criminal profiler, didn’t figure that part out yet.”
He ran his fingers through her hair, his touch sending shivers of dread down her spine. She managed not to flinch, not to gasp, and focused on what she needed to say to reach him, to throw him off his game.
To buy herself some time.
“I apologize for every harm I’ve done you, Nick.”
He glared at her. “You have no idea.” He grabbed a comb from the tray and started drawing it through her hair. “You took my rightful spot in my family,” he added, grabbing another comb, one with a long, sharp handle. He used it to part her hair from the forehead all the way to the back of her head. When he touched her wound, she winced.
He didn’t stop. He tied one half of her hair loosely with an elastic tie to keep it out of the way, then rolled his chair over to her right side and started braiding. “It was my family, Kathy! Mine, not yours.”
She swallowed hard; her throat parched dry. “I had no idea, Nick. I was just a stupid kid, and you were my friend. I never wanted to hurt you.”
