by Brenda Novak
“That’s really the best offer I can make you,” he explained as glibly as if they were discussing an innocuous business transaction. “I can’t let either of you go. I won’t insult your intelligence by pretending otherwise. But I’ll do you the favor of getting rid of her in as painless a fashion as possible. Then it’ll be just me and you, all week.”
“Colin, you’re making me regret this!” Tiffany said. “Let go of me.”
“No.”
“Let go of me!”
Colin pushed Tiffany closer to Zoe. “Come on, hit her.” He used his chin to indicate Tiffany’s face. “Right here.”
“And what will you do?” Zoe asked.
“I’ll stay out of it. This is pure entertainment for me. I’ll give you three punches. Then you’re on your own and whoever wins, wins. If that happens to be you, I’ll show you some mercy.”
“Colin, stop!” Tiffany squirmed, but he held her fast.
Colin waved at his wife again. “Here you go, Zoe. You wanted to fight her a minute ago.”
Zoe hadn’t wanted to fight anybody. She only wanted to get away. His perception of everything was all screwed up.
“Hit her,” he taunted. “Give her a black eye. Think of how she’s treated your little girl. Feeding her nothing but dog food. Making her wear a choke chain. Chaining her to the ground. She’s a cruel bitch.”
Anger at the thought of Sam being treated in such a fashion made Zoe feel powerful enough to attack anyone.
“She’s the one who took her, you know,” he went on. “She coaxed her over to the house and locked her up while you were at work. You sure have a gullible child, but I guess most kids would think they could trust a face as pretty as Tiffany’s.”
“You did that?” Zoe spoke to Tiffany. Somehow, it was even more of a betrayal coming from another woman. “You’re just as bad as he is.”
Tiffany couldn’t meet her eyes. “I did it for him!”
Colin jerked on his wife’s arms, still twisted behind her back, and caused a grunt of pain. “Oh, and now you turn on me again.”
Evidently, Colin could say anything he wanted about Tiffany but couldn’t tolerate her slightest offense.
“Let me loose.” Tiffany struggled some more, but he laughed and continued to restrain her.
“Maybe I should take you both to Chester, force you to torture each other. That would be interesting. Forget Sam. She’s useless, as good as dead.”
Terror clutched at Zoe’s heart. What had he done to her?
“I’m not going to Chester,” Tiffany said. “Not now.”
“You’re a real downer, Tiff. You should be glad that adding Zoe to the mix makes you exciting again. Without her, you can’t even get me hard anymore.”
Tears streamed down Tiffany’s cheeks. “You don’t love me. I should’ve seen it before.”
“You asked for this,” he said. “Now shut up and you’ll get what you want in the end. I’m just having a little fun.”
“You’ve been snorting coke again! I hate what it does to you!”
“And you hate me. Yeah, we heard.” He dragged her toward Zoe. “Hit her.”
“As hard as I want?” Zoe asked.
“As hard as you want.” He held his wife to the left of his body in anticipation of a right-handed punch. But Zoe wasn’t right-handed. And it wasn’t Tiffany she wanted.
Making a fist with both hands so she wouldn’t telegraph her intentions, she punched Colin as hard as she could.
* * *
“It’s about time someone realized that son of a bitch is crazy.” Glen Hagen propped one massive, tattoo-covered arm on the car window and continued to chew on the toothpick he’d kept in his mouth ever since Jonathan had met him at the gas station in Nyack. Glen felt confident he could find the cabin, but he couldn’t give verbal directions beyond the general vicinity. “It’ll only get you lost if I try,” he’d said when Jonathan had pushed him on it. “You think you’ll know where to go if I say to turn right at the granite outcropping and left at the crooked tree?”
It was a good point, so Jonathan had waited for him, but the hour he lost hadn’t been easy to give up. Every minute that ticked away heightened his anxiety. His terror at the thought of what Zoe might be going through told him he cared more about her than he’d wanted to, more than he’d ever intended. Which wasn’t a pleasant realization, considering what had happened with Maria.
It didn’t help that Detective Thomas had been so late getting into the game. He’d been out on another case most of the day, a grisly murder-suicide, but returned Jonathan’s many calls a few minutes ago. He’d said that Paddy Bell’s ex had contacted the Sacramento police to demand they investigate Colin in connection with his father’s disappearance.
If only Jonathan had received that information earlier…
“How’d you know he was crazy?” Jonathan weaved through traffic. Their exit was coming up.
“Shit, can you slow down?” Glen said. “I’d like to live another day.”
Jonathan ignored him. He’d lost too much time. “How’d you know?” he asked again.
“We met after Colin was an adult, but I’ve seen him often enough to know he’s a sneaky little bastard. Puts on a front, tries to be something he ain’t. If he doesn’t feel he needs you, you’ll see more of the real Colin.” He paused. “He pretty much steers clear of me. I don’t have anything he wants, being blue-collar and all.” He shook his head. “And the way he treats his wife…”
“That badly?”
“Not so much in front of people—although if you watch closely you’ll see it. All he has to do is shoot her a look, you know? And she’ll shut up or leave or do whatever it is he wants. I can imagine what goes on behind closed doors. I once heard him talkin’ to Tiffany in the back bedroom at my mother’s place, and I tell ya, I’d stab the prick, if it were me.” He patted the pocket of his T-shirt. “Jesus, why’d I have to choose this week to quit smoking?”
Jonathan navigated his way through a handful of slow-moving campers.
Frowning over the absence of cigarettes, Glen braced himself against the dashboard as Jonathan whipped around another semi. He opened his mouth to complain about the near miss, but Jonathan interrupted before he could. “Why didn’t Colin’s father see what he was?”
“Because Paddy was too busy blaming himself. No parent wants to acknowledge that their kid’s a bad seed. They have to trace everything that’s wrong with junior back to what they did to cause it, or what they didn’t do to fix it. And then the guilt sets in. My mother still blames herself for me not finishing high school. But like I told her yesterday, it was my choice.” He chewed on the toothpick. “Man, I’ve done some shit I’m not proud of, but nothin’ like this. Nothin’ that makes me a freakin’ pervert.”
Colin flipped on his blinker just in time to slip between a sports car and a Lexus sedan. “Where do you think Paddy is?”
“I don’t have a clue. Colin tried telling my mom I must’ve done something to him. Can you believe it? He knew Paddy and I weren’t gettin’ along, so he pointed the finger at me. He uses stuff like that, works it to his advantage.”
“Why was there bad blood between you and Paddy?”
“We owned a lawn-mower shop together and it just…didn’t work. We’re too different.”
There it was. The Truckee exit. As Jonathan shot through the gap between a trucker and a Prius, Glen let loose with a fresh string of curses. “You’re gonna kill us both.”
“I go left here?” Colin said.
“Yeah, left.”
“How were you and Paddy too different?” he asked as he made the turn.
Glen swayed into the door until Jonathan straightened the car. “He was way too controlling for me, man. I couldn’t miss a day, couldn’t ever expect him to lock up. He had a comment for every damn thing I said and did, watched every move I made. So we exchanged a few words, and I walked out.” He shrugged. “I haven’t seen him since.” He pointed at the next street.
“You want this one.”
“What happened to your real dad?”
He braced himself again as they veered around another corner. “Died of a heart attack ten years ago.”
“If Colin’s done what I suspect, your mother might’ve lost another husband.”
“You’d think she could catch a break,” he muttered.
They didn’t talk any more after that. Jonathan was too focused on reaching the cabin, and Glen was too intent on navigating. They wound into the mountains on one narrow road after another. Jonathan recognized the first two turns as ones he’d taken before, but the third was different and the fourth road was barely visible.
“This thing all but disappears in spring,” Glen said.
“Who maintains it?”
“No one. That’s the problem.”
“Are there other cabins in the area?”
“Not for miles.”
“Does Colin come up here very often?”
Glen glanced over at him. “All the time.”
Jonathan swerved to avoid a deep rut and entered a small clearing with a rough-hewn log cabin, a stone firepit, an outhouse and a shed. Fresh tire tracks testified to the fact that someone had recently been here. There were granola-bar wrappers and an old blanket in the shed.
But that was all.
* * *
Zoe woke in the trunk of a car, her head pounding in rhythm with the thrumming of the tires. She’d tried to use those few seconds of surprise after she’d coldcocked Colin to get into Tiffany’s car, but he’d recovered too quickly. He’d pulled her out by the hair and punched her repeatedly.
After the first blow, she’d been too dazed to feel much. Fortunately, he’d been in a hurry, or she’d probably be dead. She must’ve passed out, and then he must’ve dumped her in his trunk and driven off, because she didn’t remember the middle part.
If only his trunk was a little bigger….
With a groan, she attempted to take stock of her injuries despite the cramped conditions. It wasn’t just her head that hurt. She was pretty sure she’d broken her hand when she hit him. And she was pretty sure he’d broken her jaw when he hit her. Not a good showing for her first fight.
So what was she going to do? Even if Jonathan managed to find the cabin, she was no longer there. Would she ever see him again? Would she ever see anyone again? And what about her poor daughter?
Tears of helplessness, frustration and fear ran into her hair. She couldn’t let Colin win, couldn’t end up as another sad statistic.
The car slowed and stopped. Zoe held her breath, expecting the trunk to open, but it didn’t. From what she could hear, they were at a gas station. Someone unscrewed the gas cap, inserted the nozzle and began the fueling process.
Zoe smelled gas fumes. Then footsteps echoed on pavement as whoever it was—Colin, most likely—went to the cashier or the minimart or the bathroom…somewhere. And that was when she heard it. Sam’s voice. Her daughter was calling to her from inside the car.
“Mom? Mommy, are you okay?” She broke into a sob. “Did he kill you?”
Such relief overwhelmed Zoe she could hardly speak. Not only was Sam alive, she was close. “Sammie, I’m okay.”
“Mom? Are you there? Answer me!”
She hadn’t spoken loudly enough. Steeling herself against the pain of moving her jaw, Zoe tried again. “Don’t cry, baby. I’m fine. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“You’re alive? Oh, thank God!”
What kind of condition was Sam in? “How are you, honey?”
“Sick.”
Zoe drew a deep, steadying breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I wanna go home.”
“We’ll go home, baby. We just…we need to get help.”
“He’s crazy,” she said on a sob. “He’s going to kill us!”
“Not if we don’t give up. Can you get out of the car?”
Nothing.
“Sam?”
“No.”
“Can you roll down the window? Push the button that’ll release the lid of the trunk? Anything?”
“My hands are—” she hiccuped “—tied.”
“Can you scream, baby? Draw some attention? We’ll both scream together. You ready?”
“It won’t do…any good, Mom. No one…else is here, except…except the clerk in the minimart, and…he’ll never hear us.”
Of course he wouldn’t. Colin wouldn’t have stopped here if there was any risk of being caught.
“Where’s he taking us?” Zoe asked.
“I don’t know. Someplace called by a—a man’s name.”
“You’ve never heard of it before?”
Another hiccup. “No.”
“What about his cell phone? Did he leave it behind?”
“Yes, but…I—I can’t reach it. And it’s a—a BlackBerry. I don’t…know how to work it.”
“You gotta try, baby. Use your feet, your mouth, anything.”
There was a long silence.
“Sam?”
“He’s coming!”
CHAPTER 36
Sam stared out the window as Colin got into the car. She’d nearly had to choke herself in order to do it, but she’d managed to reach his BlackBerry with her mouth. She’d even pressed some random buttons using her chin. Apparently, it’d been enough to call somebody because she could hear a tinny voice saying, “Hello?…Hello?”
Lucky for her, Colin was too preoccupied to hear it above the crackling of the sack he dropped at her feet. He put his soda in the cup holder and started the car without even glancing at the phone on the console.
Sam wanted to cry out for help, but she couldn’t explain where they were, and as soon as she spoke, Colin would disconnect the call. If whoever it was called back, he’d say it was a joke or cover in some other way. He was too good a liar for one crazy call to give him any problems.
So how could she get the person on the other end of the line to help them?
Now that her mother was so close, she felt a huge surge of energy, of hope, despite the situation. They’d been through tough times before. They’d get out of this. Somehow.
“Colin?” She prayed whoever it was wouldn’t hang up.
“What?”
“Where…are we?”
He was in a particularly foul mood this afternoon. Probably because of his nose. It was swollen and kept bleeding. And it made him talk funny. “In the mountains.”
That wouldn’t tell the person on the phone anything. “Where are we…going?”
He scowled at his reflection in the rearview mirror and gingerly touched his nose. “What is this, Twenty Questions? I thought you were sick.”
Samantha had never felt worse in her life, even that time she stayed home from school with the flu and barfed for three days straight. But she had her mother back now. That was worth fighting for. “Are you going to…to kill us?”
“What do you think?”
She purposely avoided glancing at the phone. “I think you are.”
“Someone has to pay for this.” He motioned toward his injured face.
She wished he was more badly hurt. “You…already…killed Rover, right?”
“Shut up,” he groused. “I don’t want to talk about Rover. I don’t want to talk at all. I can barely breathe.”
Struggling to bear up under the weakness and fatigue, Sam closed her eyes. “Why do you…why do you do it?”
“Because I like it, that’s why.”
She couldn’t hear that voice on the phone anymore. Had whoever it was hung up? Please, no…“I thought…I thought a lawyer who worked for…what’s the name of that place?”
“Scovil, Potter & Clay. They’re one of the most powerful firms in Sacramento.”
“Right, I remember.” How could she forget? He talked about it all the time. You’d think he’d won the freakin’ lottery the day they hired him. “…Aren’t you…afraid of going to prison?”
“Nope.”
“Why not?
”
“Because that’ll never happen.”
Keep talking. She had no idea if it was helping, but it was her only chance. She had to get him to divulge as many details as possible. Maybe the person on the phone would call the police. “How do you know…they won’t…catch you?”
“Because they’re not smart enough to put it all together.”
“You told me…you said you killed your…” She was so dizzy. What had she been saying?
His father. That was it. “…your father.”
“So what if I did?”
“I guess…that means…you’d kill anyone.”
He didn’t respond.
What else could she talk about? “Where’s Tiffany?” she asked.
“She’d better be at the cabin, telling the police what I told her to say.”
“Does she always do…exactly what you tell her?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
He laughed. “Because she doesn’t have the self-confidence to do anything but follow my lead.”
Sam felt herself slipping toward unconsciousness. She’d already given everything she had. “What…what would happen if…if she didn’t obey?”
His answer didn’t surprise Sam. “I’d kill her.”
“Don’t you…love her?”
“She’s just a piece of ass,” he said and turned on the radio.
What she’d overheard a minute ago hurt so badly Tiffany couldn’t breathe. Dropping her cell phone, she clutched at her chest and must’ve swerved into the next lane, because a car coming up on the right side honked and nearly ran her off the road. She’d almost crashed, but she didn’t care. She wanted to die. Without Colin, she had no one. Not her mother, who hadn’t wanted her anyway. Not her brother, who’d cared more about revenge than sticking around for her. Not the lousy kids who’d made fun of her in high school.
…I’d kill her….
…Don’t you love her…?
…She’s just a piece of ass….
Surely Colin hadn’t meant those words. He was putting on a show. He did that sometimes, liked to shock people.
But deep down, Tiffany knew she was just making more excuses, the same kinds of excuses she made for him whenever he disappointed her. It was easier to do that than face the truth, but right now the truth was staring her right in the eyes and she could no longer deny it. He was self-destructing and taking her down with him, and he didn’t even care.
