by Kaylea Cross
He paused when something disturbed the quiet.
A warning tingle started in his gut as he turned in a slow half-circle to face the garden’s entrance.
A vehicle. Still a fair distance away, but speeding and coming closer.
The neighboring farmer never used that road.
Fear trickled through him. Shit, he’d left his car parked on the road rather than hiding it.
Spinning around, he ran to grab the mower. He had to put it away, make it look like he hadn’t been here, and get to his car before the other vehicle arrived.
Heart pounding, he raced for the shed. He couldn’t be captured now. Not when the monster was finally quiet.
****
Fingers locked tight around the steering wheel, Noah fought the urge to pin the accelerator to the floor as he turned down a quiet country road close to the target property.
“Slow down,” Silvestri said to him. “We don’t want him to know we’re coming.”
Noah clenched his teeth but slowed. He’d already turned his lights and sirens off the moment he’d turned off the highway. If Langford was there, he wasn’t getting away.
Desperation and anger boiled in his chest. More Feds were on the way to help search the property, only a few minutes behind them.
He wanted to race the rest of the way but forced himself to slow even more. It was so quiet and deserted out here, engine noise would travel.
Noah’s pulse thudded in his ears as he took the final turn onto the one-way lane that wound through a wooded area. He wouldn’t even have known it was there except for the aerial photos he’d seen from the Feds.
The road twisted left then right, continuing around a sharp bend.
Please be here, please be here, he repeated to himself.
“There’s a vehicle.”
Noah stopped his car and radioed dispatch to alert them that he was getting out to investigate. While the Fed did the same Noah got out quietly, took his rifle from the trunk and started up the last bit of the lane. A flash of silver caught his attention through the shifting branches as he rounded the last bend.
A silver Nissan was parked at the opening of what looked like a big hedge in front of it.
Noah crept around it, the Fed following. Peering through the gap in the neatly-trimmed hedge, Noah’s heart kicked hard when he saw a man rushing a lawnmower toward a shed in the far corner of what appeared to be a garden. He could see various flowerbeds scattered around the immaculate lawn.
He stepped around the edge of the hedge, his eyes locked on the man. Then the man emerged from the shed and recognition sent a molten tide of rage sweeping through him. White hair and beard. Bit of a belly. Almost looked like he could play Santa at the mall come December.
Langford.
“Police!”
At Noah’s shout Langford jerked and whipped around, his eyes wide with shock.
Noah stalked toward him, rifle to his shoulder. Silvestri was a few paces away, a pistol aimed at Langford. “Put your hands up and don’t move.”
Langford stared at him for a long moment. Then his eyes darted left and right and Noah could clearly read his intention to run before he even moved.
“Don’t,” he warned, fury suffusing his veins.
Langford wheeled around and ran.
Noah almost pulled the trigger. He wanted to. The only thing holding him off was the risk of injuring Langford to the point that he wouldn’t be able to tell them what he’d done to Poppy and where she was.
Langford tore through the hedge like a cartoon, fleeing on foot.
Noah dropped his rifle and ran. He ignored the Fed’s shout from behind him, his sole focus on getting Langford.
Tiny, sharp branches scraped and snagged on him as he burst through the hedge right where Langford had. His feet landed on a carpet of leaves and fir needles, surrounded by forest. Instantly he spotted Langford as he crashed through the underbrush ahead.
Noah didn’t bother shouting at him. He put his head down and charged after him, adrenaline and anger giving his muscles added fuel as he ate up the ground between them. He leaped over the trunk of a fallen tree, vaulted over another, darting to the right when Langford changed directions sharply. Trying to get away.
Not. Fucking. Happening.
His boots thudded on the damp forest floor as he ran, gaining on Langford with every second. There was only fifty yards or so between them. Then forty. Thirty. Twenty.
At ten yards away he let out a savage roar, put on a burst of speed and launched himself at his target.
He slammed into the middle of Langford’s spine like a linebacker. The older man grunted at the impact, and then they crashed into the ground, Noah on top. Langford tried to flip over but Noah had him.
He wrenched the asshole’s arms behind his back and cuffed them, planting a knee in the small of Langford’s back. “Where’s Poppy,” he snarled. He was panting. Not from exertion. From pure, animal rage.
“Where’s Poppy?” he yelled when Langford didn’t answer.
Fuck this.
Climbing off him, Noah flipped the bastard onto his back, straddled him and drove his forearm against Langford’s throat. The guy’s eyes bulged at the pressure, fear and disbelief in their depths. “Where the fuck is Poppy,” Noah screamed at him. “What did you do with her?”
Langford stared up at him for a moment, then closed his eyes. As if he could block Noah out.
The last thread on his control snapped.
Noah drew his fist back and slammed it into Langford’s lying, evil face. “Where the fuck is she?”
Langford cried out and tried to turn his head as blood spilled from his split lips.
Noah savored the pain in his hand, drew his fist back and punched him again. “Goddamn you, where is she?”
The fucker still wouldn’t answer, and if Noah hit the bastard anymore he risked knocking Paul out.
Chest heaving, his whole body taut, begging to be let off its chain, Noah surged to his feet and dragged Langford upright. The asshole pretended to be dead weight but Noah simply heaved him over his shoulder and started carrying him back to where they’d come from.
Silvestri met him partway there, taking in the scene with a single glance. “He say anything?”
“Not yet. But he will.” Noah would make him.
“Rest of the team’s on site and getting set up.”
Together they hauled Langford, blood dripping into his beard and onto his shirt, back through the hedge. Noah dragged him into the middle of the lawn, halfway between the hedge and the first garden bed, and shoved him onto his knees. Hard. “Where is she?” he demanded in a cold voice, his hands trembling with the need to break every bone in the bastard’s body. Itching to.
Other agents and officers were approaching them. And there was a background noise. Something high pitched and shrill he couldn’t put his fingers on, but muffled, and it was setting his already taut nerves even further on edge.
Langford refused to answer or even raise his head.
Seething, Noah reared back his battered hand to strike again but the Fed caught his arm. Noah shook Silvestri off, his gaze still pinned on Langford, who stayed on his knees, head bowed. “Talk, goddamn you!”
Silvestri’s head snapped to the right. “What is that—”
They both went dead still. Noah followed his gaze, the sound sharpening as the pulsing roar of blood in his ears faded slightly.
Screaming. It sounded like a woman screaming.
“What the fuck,” he breathed, immediately scanning the property. It wasn’t coming from the shed, it was coming from—
He sucked in a breath as his gaze landed on the pipe sticking out from one of the garden beds.
No. No, it couldn’t be.
He was running without even realizing it, his heart in his throat. What. The. Fuck.
The screaming grew louder and more distinct as he neared the pipe.
“Help me! Someone help me, please! He’s buried me under the pipe!�
�
“Poppy.” Her name tore from his tight throat, relief and pain knifing through him. Tears clouded his vision as he slid to his knees on the mound of dirt and started clawing at it. Trying to get to her. Free her. “I’m here, baby. I’m gonna get you out.”
“Noah,” she choked out, and started sobbing.
“I’m here.” Jesus. Oh, Jesus, this couldn’t be real. Langford had fucking buried her alive. How deep down was she?
Tears spilled down his face as he clawed at the dirt trapping her, his mind unable to process what had been done to her. Spinning around to face the others, he read the abject shock on their faces. “Somebody get some fucking shovels,” he shouted, and frantically went back to digging with his bare hands.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Noah was here. He was really here.
She could hear frantic shouts above her, but nothing else. Were they digging her out? “God, please get me out of here,” she begged, fighting a renewed surge of desperation. Her throat felt almost as raw as her hands.
Survival instinct kicked back into high gear, demanding she fight, push, kick and claw until she got free of this box. The walls were closing in on her, squashing her tighter and tighter until it was all she could do to swallow the scream rising in her throat.
“We’re getting shovels,” Noah said, a frantic edge to his voice that made her already rapid heartbeat quicken. “How deep down are you?”
“I don’t know. Five or six feet at least.” Too deep. It would take them too long to dig her out. She couldn’t breathe in here!
“Fuck.” He said something she didn’t catch. Then, “Just hold on, Poppy. I need you to hold on for me.”
I can’t. I can’t anymore. I can’t stand this.
Being trapped like this was the worst psychological torture she could imagine. The scream was building, building, all but choking her now. She fought it, squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, struggling to contain the panic. Stay calm. Just breathe. They’re working on it. They’re going to get you out.
But her mind wouldn’t stop shrieking at her. Insisting she was going to die if she didn’t get out right now. That she couldn’t stay in here one more minute.
She’d been cold before. Cold all the way to her soul, listening to Paul gloating about how she didn’t have much longer to live and biting her lips until they bled to keep from giving him the satisfaction of a reply or letting him hear her tears.
The moment she’d heard Noah’s voice, the instant she had realized she wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating, the cold had begun to thaw. Now her naked skin was slick with cool sweat, her heart trying to beat its way out of her chest as she lay there and waited, aching all over, tracking each second that passed.
“This is gonna take fucking forever. We need some equipment in here,” Noah said to someone.
“I’ve requested a bobcat or a tractor just in case,” a man replied, his voice muffled but nearby.
“No,” Poppy cried, unable to take it anymore. Who knew how long it would take for the equipment to get here? She was crying now, her breath hitching in her chest, unable to stop. “I can’t take this. You can’t stop. You have to g-get me out right now.”
“We’re not stopping,” Noah assured her. “I’m getting you out of there as soon as I can. Just breathe, baby. Keep breathing for me and focus on my voice.”
She was shaking, dizzy, nausea slithering through her belly, sending bile surging up her throat. She swallowed hard against the burn, dug down deep for the dwindling reserves of her courage. “I need to s-see you,” she choked out. Maybe if she saw him, she could calm down a bit.
A shadow blocked the top of the pipe, blotting out the tiny amount of light reaching her.
The darkness triggered something inside her. It seemed like the flow of air stopped. Her franticly beating heart stopped. No.
She screamed as her lungs closed up, the sensation of being suffocated magnifying her panic. She thrashed in the wooden box, unable to move, unable to breathe. Smothering. Dying.
Dots swam behind her clenched eyelids. Her ribcage was locked tight, her lungs refusing to expand.
Noah let out a string of curses, his voice blending with shouts in the background. “Poppy. Sweetheart, no. Please, baby. Breathe for me.”
She tossed her head back and forth. I can’t. I can’t! There was no air. She was dying.
“Fuck, she’s panicking,” Noah said, and started snapping out orders.
Poppy barely heard him. She sucked in increasingly shallow gasps of air. Until finally she couldn’t even do that.
The spots changed into rapidly flickering specks of light. A high-pitched buzzing sounded in her ears and the noise above ground faded. She was lost in a world of blackness. Of terror and panic and pain.
She drifted there, suspended in a hellish twilight from which there was no escape. Until the blackness closed in at last and swallowed her whole.
Dim sounds finally began to penetrate the stygian darkness, calling to her through the fog she floated in. Sounds that made no sense.
A grating roar. Vibrations that traveled through her body. Words, but garbled and meaningless.
Scratching and scraping, like rats. Rats coming to eat her corpse.
Tapping. Growing louder and louder.
Her eyes scrunched up. She was afraid to push through the fog and surface. Whatever awaited her out there was too painful. Staying under was easier. She didn’t want to suffer anymore. Couldn’t take it.
More tapping. And a grating sound. Thumps.
Clicking. Rattling.
Light flooded in.
Paul was coming back to hurt her again.
She pulled in a painful, wrenching gasp and started flailing. Her hands beat against something solid. She turned her head as something pattered over her face, driven by pure instinct, her arms and legs churning.
Blurred shapes appeared above her. A face. Someone was speaking to her.
She didn’t understand the words. She was shaking. Shaking apart, her teeth clacking.
Something locked around her wrists. Pulled. It hurt.
A high, thin cry escaped her. Paul was too strong.
She shut her eyes and retreated into her mind, tried to go somewhere else as she started to rise upward.
NOAH STOPPED BREATHING when he pried the lid open and flung it aside. Poppy made a horrible, wrenching gasp and started fighting. She was naked, her skin glistening with sweat and blood. Her hair was lank, plastered to her head. And her hands were slick with blood.
“Poppy,” he moaned, reaching out to seize her flailing wrists as he hung suspended above her. The hole was barely wide enough to accommodate the coffin, giving him no place to stand other than on the lid. So they’d rigged him into a harness once the tractor had dug out most of the soil, allowing him to brush aside the remainder and unlock the lid on the goddamn coffin she was in.
Poppy’s brown eyes were huge, staring around blindly as she lashed out. She didn’t seem to recognize him. Didn’t even seem to know he was there.
Noah pulled on her wrists slightly, trying to stop her from fighting so he could reach around and get a grip on her torso. “Shhh. Hey.” He scooped her up and brought her close to his chest, cradling her there while he spoke soothing words to her, his voice choked with tears.
She huddled against him, her eyes shut now. She was shaking like she was on the verge of hypothermia.
“You’re okay,” he kept saying to her, praying his words reached through her panic. “I’ve got you. You’re okay now.”
He held her close to him, careful to protect her from the sides of the hole as they hoisted him out. The moment he was on firm ground he hauled Poppy into his lap and wrapped around her as much as he could.
“Get a blanket,” the Fed beside him shouted.
Moments later someone draped a blanket around Poppy. Noah released the pressure of his hold just enough to tuck the folds of it around her, covering her nakedness. Then, with a low, ragged g
roan, he held her tight and buried his face in her sweaty hair.
People were swarming around them. Asking questions. Crowding them.
Noah ignored them all for a full minute, needing that time to get a grip on himself and soak up the reassurance of Poppy being alive in his arms.
Finally he raised his head and relaxed the pressure of his arms. Her eyes were still clenched shut, the way she shook breaking his heart. It was as if she didn’t even know she was free. Didn’t even know he was there.
“Hey.” He gently curved his hand around the side of her face, tilting it toward him. “Sunflower, I need you to look at me, okay? Open those pretty brown eyes and look at me so I know you’re okay.”
She shoved her face harder into his shoulder and didn’t answer. Noah cursed silently and got to his feet. His legs wobbled for a second but Silvestri was there to help steady him. Noah nodded his thanks and paused to make sure he had his footing, then glanced around. Langford was gone, and Noah was glad. Otherwise he was afraid he would have killed the motherfucker with his bare hands for what he’d done.
Holding Poppy close, Noah strode determinedly across the neatly-tended lawn to the entrance into the property where the ambulance waited beyond the secured perimeter. Silvestri moved ahead, shouting orders and waving people aside, making a path for them. Noah was a little shaky as the Fed lifted the crime scene tape out of the way. He ducked under it, still reeling.
“Noah.”
That deep, familiar voice had Noah’s head snapping up.
Beckett was heading straight for him from the waiting ambulance, that dark, somber stare locked on him. Jase was right beside him. Beck gave a tight smile. “Hey, brother. Need a hand?” He reached out as though he would take Poppy but Noah shook his head and twisted away, moving her out of reach.
“I’ve got her,” he rasped out. No one was carrying her but him.
Poppy let out a tiny cry that tore at his heart as he shifted his grip on her. “Shh,” he murmured, shredded inside at how traumatized she was.
She had completely shut down, both mentally and physically. She was practically catatonic as he carried her over to the waiting gurney, Beckett and Jase flanking him, watching closely and ready to step in at any time.
