Chosen To Die

by Lisa Jackson

  Driving like a madman down the long, twisting road to Chilcoate’s house, he turned north.

  Ivor Hicks, that old nutcase, had spilled the beans. But he wasn’t the culprit, he wasn’t the one who had to fear the damned “scorpion’s wrath.” It was his son.

  Hard to believe.

  Billy Hicks was the killer?

  It had to be! Had to!

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  “Damn, damn . . . damn,” Santana said as the snow and gravel crunched beneath his tires as he wound through the thickets of drooping fir and stark, skeletal birch trees.

  In his mind, over the ever-increasing frantic feeling of panic for Regan, he tried to roll back the years to when they were all kids—he and Billy, Padgett and Brady. He flipped on the wipers and damned the falling snow, though patches of blue hinted that the storm was nearly over.

  It had been true that Billy Hicks had felt proprietary toward Padgett Long, back in the day, like a number of others, as well. Santana had witnessed that need to possess her himself. All the horny high school boys had been hanging around her back then. She was beautiful, smart, and different from the girls they went to school with. Rich, sophisticated, and slightly naughty, Padgett only came around in the summer or at Christmas break.

  “Fresh meat,” one of the kids, Gerald Cartwright, had said, ribbing Billy once. “And, hell, in my book, she’s USDA prime!”

  Billy had knocked Cartwright flat. He’d ended up in the emergency room with a broken nose. At the time, Santana had thought Cartwright had gotten off lucky. As a kid, Billy’s temper had gotten the better of him, but as an adult, he’d seemed to keep it under control.

  Santana pushed his truck onto the county road. Rising in the distance was Mesa Rock, a flat-topped mountain butting up to the abandoned Kress Silver Mine and Hubert Long’s Lazy L, where Santana worked.

  “Right under your goddamned nose,” he said,

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  cutting a glance at his reflection in the rearview mirror. His jaw was set, his eyes dark as obsidian, the corners of his mouth pinched in disgust. If he’d pieced this together earlier, if he’d looked in the right places, Regan might never have been abducted. He silently cursed himself as the road began a series of sharp switchbacks. Traffic was light; he hardly saw another vehicle. Good.

  Shifting down, he thought of Brady Long. What a prick. He and Billy had been acquaintances, nothing more. But that had been a lifetime ago. What had set Billy off now?

  Who the hell knew?

  He had to call the police. Alvarez was out, so, with one hand, he punched in 9-1-1.

  Before the second ring, the phone was picked up by a female operator. “Nine-one-one dispatch. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “This is Nate Santana. I’m looking for Detective Alvarez or anyone on the task force! Now.”

  “Sir, is there an emergency?”

  “Hell, yes, there’s an emergency. I know who the damned Star-Crossed Killer is and where he’s located.”

  “Is anyone injured?”

  “Five people have been killed already!”

  “Sir—”

  “Just get a message to Detective Selena Alvarez or Sheriff Dan Grayson of the Pinewood County Sheriff’s Department! Tell them that I’m on my way to the Kress Silver Mine, out on the south side of Mesa Rock. I think that’s where he’s got them. His next victims are in the mine, and Billy Hicks, he’s the damned Star-Crossed Killer!”

  “If you’ll stay on the line—”

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  Through the windshield he spied a minivan coming from the opposite direction and seeming out of control. The running lights were on dim, but they were heading right toward him. Damn!

  He dropped the phone on the passenger seat. The minivan’s tires were gripping, trying and failing to gain traction, as the vehicle slid across a patch of ice.

  “Shit.”

  Running lights bore down on him.

  With both hands, Nate eased his truck toward the shoulder, keeping his speed steady.

  “Don’t do it,” he warned. “Lady, don’t hit me!”

  The driver was worried, a woman with a van filled with kids. The nose of the van crossed the center line, if it could have been seen, her wheels bumping out of the twin set of ruts left by previous vehicles. Santana didn’t have time for an accident or anything slowing him down. He pushed his truck to the limit of the road, his right tire precariously close to where he knew there was a ditch. It was filled with snow now, the edge indistinguishable, but he had to get past her car!

  He saw the minivan’s fender heading straight for him.

  He punched the accelerator, his truck fishtailing as he shot past the van. With an effort, he straightened out the wheels and jumped forward. With one eye on the rearview mirror, he watched as the van wove across both lanes once, twice, then found its grip and lane. “Get home,” he muttered under his breath and felt a fine sheen of nervous sweat between his shoulder blades. “It’s Christmas Eve!”

  The minivan disappeared from view and he

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  picked up the phone again, but he’d lost the call. His wipers scraped against the windshield, rubber screeching on dry glass. He snapped them off and pressed hard on the throttle.

  There was still nearly ten miles of twisted, icy road before he reached the silver mine and Regan. And what then? When you get to the mine, what will you do? How will you find her? There are miles upon miles of tunnels running beneath the acres that consti- tute the mine. How the hell will you locate Regan before it’s too late?

  He knew the answer to that one.

  He’d start with Billy’s house.

  From there he might get a clue as to where the creep was holding his victims.

  He might not tell you.

  Wrong, he thought, his mind imagining just what he would do, if he had to.

  Billy would spill his guts under the right kind of persuasion.

  Usually, Santana was a nonviolent man, a person who could understand animals, commune with them with only touches. But when it came to humans, especially those who exacted their own torture and cruelty, Santana knew just what to do. Compliments of the U.S. Military.

  The bitch isn’t giving up.

  I run after her, steady, barely breathing hard. I’ve got her and she knows it.

  I watch as she stumbles, then falls down the embankment. Stupid woman. Didn’t she see that potential slide? She falls faster and faster down a ravine as I jog around the lip of the ridge, keeping her in 422

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  my line of vision, staying on the deer trail that cuts along the edge of the hill.

  She cries out and something flies from her hand. A stick . . . no, the bitch had a knife in her fist! One of mine! Now it’s gone. Lost in the snow. This is getting worse and worse.

  More and more out of control.

  Rage thunders through me.

  She thinks she can steal from me?

  Then cut me with my own blade?

  She deserves everything I give her and more!

  While she tumbles toward the bottom, I find the path that angles deep into this depression and never once let her out of my sight.

  She finally slows, stops, and forces herself to her feet, but she’s unsteady. Dizzy. And I’m closing the distance as she staggers away.

  For the first time I feel a bit of satisfaction. She can’t last forever.

  And the snow has stopped falling, patches of blue above. I vault over a frozen log, and a weasel, a blur of white with a black-tipped tail, scurries away deeper into the undergrowth. I take that as a good sign.

  Yes, in many ways, it’s a perfect day for her to die. Of course, I would prefer to break her spirit. To make her depend upon me.

  To have her think she’s in love with me. To want me.

  To offer herself up sexually.

  I would love to see the hope in
her eyes as she imagines me mounting her the way that bastard Santana does.

  Oh, I would make her forget him!

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  Fuck her within an inch of her life.

  Leave her sweating and panting and hurting with the feel of me.

  Not that I would do it. It’s not part of my plan, and I’ve made no exceptions in that area. Yes, I left two in the forest in one day, Brandy earlier than Elyssa, which was a slight alteration, but I couldn’t leave Brandy alone too long. She had too much fight in her, even as she turned to me.

  As for breaking Pescoli’s spirit, it would have taken too long, been too dangerous. This is better, in a way. This chase. I can be satisfied leaving her in the forest now. I have my camera in my jacket, along with a small hammer and the note. I keep a copy of them with me—in my killing jacket—always. I shift the coil of rope on my shoulder and feel a little zing of anticipation in my blood, a rush of adrenaline that keeps me going, my legs striding easily, my lungs beginning to burn with the cold, dry air.

  How will Grayson feel when they finally discover her?

  Desperate?

  Disheartened?

  Furious?

  All of the above?

  Good!

  Bring it on. I can’t wait until the cops find one of their own, naked and dead. Then they’ll get the message: Everyone’s vulnerable. Even you, Grayson, you sanctimonious prick. Now do you think I’m not good enough? Just the pathetic son of an old lunatic and a whore of a woman who left them?

  “Beware the scorpion’s wrath,” I say softly and 424

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  the warning seems to slither through the icy trees and across the frozen streams, making the forest shiver with anticipation.

  How often did my bitch of a mother whisper those very words before she hit me across my bare buttocks with a slim belt that stung and bit into my flesh? How many times did she force me to stand waiting, trembling in the corner, without a stitch on? Oh, I quivered and cried, anticipating her attack. And as she struck, she told me about Orion and the sting of the scorpion which had killed the great hunter. Oh, yes, she repeated the story with great relish, savoring it, as much as the beating she inflicted.

  Sick, horrid woman!

  And I took it. All of her wickedness and wrath while dear old Dad turned a blind eye, then poured himself into a bottle so far and so deep that his sanity fled. Oh, yes, Mother. You finally delivered your punishment until, at twelve, I turned the tables. I was as tall as you were, and as strong. I refused to strip. Grabbed that belt and swore I would kill her if she ever tried to hit me again!

  But then, you had one more trick up your sleeve. One more humiliation in store for me.

  You walked out of the house and died less than a week later. Got the last laugh by leaving me alone to live with a drunken old man who believed in aliens. And I got to suffer the pity and scorn of the community. I’ve heard them talk behind my back all these years. Whisper to each other. Laugh about the old goat and his sorry boy.

  My jaw aches now, thinking about you.

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  I surface as if from a dream. I’ve spent too much time thinking about the past while running after Regan. Caught in my reminiscence, I’ve run on instinct, following her, but not closing the distance. No more!

  Now, I focus.

  Run faster.

  Feel my heart beating and the coil of rope jostle with my strides. My grip on the hilt of my knife never lessens and I start closing the gap, running faster, dragging cold air between my teeth, my gaze as always, centered upon my prey:

  Regan’s athletic backside.

  She’s sexy in a very earthy, darkly feminine way. But now she’s really slowing. Laboring. Those long, athletic legs straining.

  This, I realize with a deep sense of self-satisfaction, is going to be easy.

  Brandy Hooper was already dead, her skin blue, the gouges in her flesh attesting to her struggle against the rope that bound her to the tall, lone fir tree. A star had been carved into the bark of the tree above her head, and with it a note had been nailed into the trunk. Alvarez read it as a gust of frigid wind caused the page in her hand to flap and moved the stiff, frozen strands of the dead girl’s hair. As predicted, this message was identical to one Manny Douglas had received.

  “God save us,” Alvarez said, feeling a quiet rage simmering deep within. Instinctively, for the first time in a long, long while, she made the sign of the cross over her chest, an automatic response from her childhood. As soon as she realized what she’d 426

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  done, she felt embarrassed, flushing even in the harsh cold.

  What the hell was that all about?

  It’s Christmas and you’re scared to death. She cleared her throat as she observed the dead girl, a woman who had intended to become a doctor, whose life work was to be healing people. “This means that Elyssa O’Leary’s dead, too,” Alvarez said and heard the fatalistic note in her voice.

  “We don’t know that.” Grayson’s expression was hard and he shook his head slightly, as if denying what was so obvious.

  And Pescoli, what about her? Alvarez couldn’t stop thinking about her partner. Where was she? In what condition? Oh, Jesus. She had to stop herself from making the sign of the cross again. This case was eating at her, digging at her from the inside out. The crime scene team was on its way, the area cordoned off by deputies.

  “I’ve seen enough,” she said, turning away, sensing the grains of sand slipping through the hourglass. There was nothing left to do for Brandy Hooper, but maybe they could still save Elyssa O’Leary. Who are you kidding? You just said she’s dead. You know it! But Regan Pescoli. She was still alive. Oh, God, she hoped so. And they had to find her.

  “Billy Hicks did this,” Alvarez said, knowing it deep in her heart, urgency propelling her. Hicks was upping his game. What if he decided to kill again? What was to stop him?

  “We’ll go to his cabin,” Grayson said.

  The skies had cleared enough that the helicopters were up and Grayson had ordered the pilots to search the area near the old Kress Silver Mine. But it wasn’t enough for Alvarez.

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  “We need evidence,” Grayson reminded her as they headed for her Jeep. “Linking Billy to the crime.”

  “We’ll find it.” She was already opening the driver’s door. “Let’s just get to his place.”

  “Make it fast,” Grayson stated grimly.

  Oh, God, oh, God, don’t give up. Don’t! Regan was gasping for air, her mind racing as she tried to think of a way to save herself. Hicks was closing in on her; there wasn’t much time. The snow had stopped and she could see farther, though the sun against all the whiteness was blinding and she still didn’t know where she was. In a physical struggle with him, she would lose. Since she’d lost the knife, she had no weapon aside from a screwdriver.

  She had to outwit him.

  Somehow.

  But inside she was shredding.

  The physical toll was too much, draining her mentally as well.

  Gasping, her heart feeling as if it would burst, she slogged forward, downward to God only knew where. The trees had given way and she was in an open glen, it seemed, and ahead, an extremely flat area, rimmed by the forest.

  What? Why was the ground so perfectly even? A lake!

  Frozen solid.

  Snow covering the ice.

  If she could reach the place before he caught her, the frozen water, maybe she could lure him out on it. He outweighed her by at least seventy pounds, 428

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  and the rope was heavy, adding even more weight. There was a chance he would fall through first. This is a crazy idea. You’ll fall through the ice and drown.

  But so will he.

  And she was running out of options. Fast. Better to try anything than let the son of a bitch kill her without a fight.

  Br
ing it on, Billy. I’m ready! Chapter Thirty-One

  I shouldn’t be surprised.

  As I run after her, I know she’s a cretin. Pescoli, the supposedly smart detective, is just like the others in that inept sheriff’s department that rejected my application. Well, take that, Grayson. How does it feel? To be the laughingstock of the whole damned country! That’s right, asshole, the press, from as far away as Nashville and LA, are looking at you and your ridiculous force being made to look like imbeciles by me, someone not good enough. Well, put that in your pipe and smoke it!

  What the hell is she doing running straight at the lake? Another stupid decision!

  No doubt Regan Pescoli laughed at me, too, over and over again. All those times I came to pick up my loser of a father from the cell where he was held,

  “sleeping it off.”

  Yeah, she had some fun at my expense. Bitch! So 430

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  much like all the others. Common, brainless, cruel whores!

  The only kind woman I ever met was Padgett. My throat closes at the thought of her. Beautiful.

  Sophisticated.

  With intelligent blue eyes and loving hands. She hadn’t laughed.

  Hadn’t avoided me because I was crazy Ivor Hicks’s son.

  Even when her father had banned us from seeing each other, she snuck out to be with me. At the time, so long ago, I wondered if her interest was only an act of defiance. But I hadn’t cared. I’d won the prize! She was the only bright spot in my otherwise dreary, pathetic life. I smile at the thought of her, sliding a bit, and I catch myself. I’m getting a little winded, my legs beginning to cramp. I have to end this soon. For me.

  For Padgett.

  I promised her then, as we made love under the summer stars, that I would always keep her safe. Of course, it had turned out to be a lie. How was I to know that Brady followed us? Took pictures of us in each other’s arms? Snapshots of Padgett’s naked breasts, of me holding her as I came? Who would have thought he would have taken something so beautiful and made it so ugly and dirty, showing the photographs to Padgett’s father? The old man had been beside himself, had banned us from ever seeing each other again. If that hadn’t been bad enough, Padgett had made the fatal mistake of going boating with her brother. And she nearly died.