by Jane Graves
She opened the door. Rick was standing across the room with his back to her. He turned around slowly and gave her yet another up-and-down look that said he couldn’t wait to get on with it.
“Come on over here, honey.”
Damned lighter!
Alex shook it again. Flicked it. No flame. He had a hair-sprayed bale of hay and not a damned thing to ignite it with. He’d even found a half-full can of gasoline, but without a spark to set it off, it was useless.
He ran out of the barn and grabbed the backpack off the hood of the pickup truck. He threw the dead lighter inside, then pulled out a flashlight. It was going to take him several minutes to approach that house and get inside unnoticed, then take Rick out and escape with Val. But he had to do it on the sly, because Val was right: if he stormed in there right out in the open, he could get them both killed.
He stopped for a moment and listened to the receiver, straining to hear what might be going on in that house.
Nothing.
What was that bastard doing to her?
The guy was an ex-con. In Alex’s experience, prison generally made bad men into worse men. Val had told him she could handle the situation, but he knew better. Rick had already said he was willing to rape her to get what he wanted. What else might he be willing to do?
Nice tits, honey. Really nice.
Alex thought about the crude remarks he’d made to Val back in that motel room in Tinsdale, and he wanted to die. He wanted to beg her forgiveness, then swear to God in heaven that he’d never say anything like that to her ever again. And one thing was certain: if he went into that house and found that degenerate so much as breathing on Val, he was going to kill him with his bare hands.
Then he saw them.
On the dashboard of the pickup, scattered amid other debris, he saw a pack of Marlboros. A book of matches was stuck down inside the cellophane wrapper. With the bales of hay already drenched with hair spray, a single spark would be all it would take to send them up in flames. And he could get a fire going faster than he could make his way into the house.
He tossed the backpack down again, yanked on the handle of the driver’s door, and found it locked. He ran back into the barn, grabbed a rake that was leaning against the wall, rushed back out to the pickup, and smacked it through the window. The glass shattered, and he hoped the music would drown out the sound. He threw the rake aside, reached inside, and opened the door. He grabbed the cigarettes, extracted the book of matches, then opened it.
Three matches. Only three.
They would have to be enough.
Val walked over and stood in front of Rick, nausea swirling through her stomach. As he reached for her blouse, she froze, trying her best not to back away. He unbuttoned one button, then two. He fumbled with the next one with no success.
“Damned buttons,” he muttered, finally taking hold of her shirt and ripping the rest of them from their buttonholes, leaving it gaping open.
She gasped. “Y-you didn’t have to—”
“Shut up. I’m paying you plenty. Buy another one.”
She wished she’d worn a bra, but this shirt hadn’t allowed for it. It wouldn’t have mattered, though. It wouldn’t have mattered at all, because he’d have ripped that right off her, too.
She stood there, teeth gritted, while he put his hands inside her shirt and curled them around her breasts, squeezing sharply. If a roach had crawled over her, she couldn’t have been more disgusted. Tears filled her eyes, and she prayed he couldn’t see them in the darkness of the bedroom.
He reached down, caught the hem of her skirt, and pulled it up all the way to her waist, insinuating his hand along her thigh. Val sucked in a sharp breath, but he seemed not to notice, concentrating instead on grabbing and groping her, turning an act that was supposed to be something beautiful into a horrible nightmare. She felt her mind becoming dark and blurry, and she willed herself to stay focused. If she faltered, he’d know she didn’t belong here.
“We’ve got all night,” she said breathlessly. “What’s the rush?”
“That’s right. We’ve got all night. And I intend to use every minute of it. You’ll earn that hundred bucks, believe me.”
And that was when she knew once wouldn’t be enough. He would keep her here. He’d keep touching her, forcing her to breathe the god-awful smell of cigarettes and alcohol, doing things that sickened her to her very soul.
And she knew Alex could hear every word he spoke.
Please, Alex … stay where you are … please, please don’t come in here.…
But she had the terrible feeling that he was going to come bursting through the door any minute, taking away any chance she had of planting those bugs and tapping the phone once she was free. She was so afraid he was going to risk himself to save her, and that was the last thing she wanted. She would survive this. But she knew what could happen to a cop in prison, and no matter what this man did to her now, she refused to risk Alex’s life when she had the power not to.
Then, to her surprise, Rick backed away. She felt a jolt of hope, a momentary reprieve.
“Take your clothes off,” he said. “Everything.”
Oh, God.
In a minute, she would be naked. She tried to concentrate, to keep her wits about her. But she couldn’t. Her mind went hazy again, and she felt herself slipping back into that subterranean depth that she’d fought so hard to claw her way out of all those years ago.
“Move it,” Rick said.
Slowly she let her purse drop to the floor beside her. The air in the bedroom was hot and stagnant. She couldn’t breathe. She was trembling so hard that she could barely take hold of her shirt, and suddenly all the memories she’d fought so hard to bury came back to her in a blinding rush—the violation, the defilement, then the god-awful disbelief she’d felt when she realized she really was alone in the world with nobody left to trust.
In a daze, she took off her shirt and let it fall to the floor. His disgusting look of approval made her want to yank it right back up and cover herself again, but she couldn’t. If she tried to take away what he’d already bought and paid for, there was no telling what he would do.
Then she heard the scream.
Outside where the party was going on, the country music fell silent. She heard another scream. Voices. People shouting.
What was going on?
Rick turned immediately and went to the window. He pushed the curtain aside.
“Shit! The barn’s on fire!”
One match had done it. One match tossed onto that hair spray–doused hay bale had sent it up in flames. But Alex hadn’t stopped there. He’d grabbed the half-full can of gasoline and heaved it onto the fire, causing the flames to spread quickly to other bales. Then he’d thrown open the back door of the barn, causing a huge influx of air, and the fire went wild.
The moment he heard the woman scream, he knew the fire had been spotted. He grabbed the backpack, threw it over his shoulder, then disappeared into the woods behind the burning barn.
Reichert raced to the barn, turned on a hose, and started spraying, but the fire was already too far gone, and he might as well have had a squirt gun for all the good it did.
As Alex moved through the trees, heading back to their rendezvous point, he kept glancing toward the back of the house.
“Come on, you asshole,” he muttered. “Come on …”
Finally the door flew open and a bearded man rushed out, heading toward the burning barn. Alex almost collapsed with relief. Thank God. Thank God he wasn’t in there with Val anymore. He just prayed that she was making a similar exit out another door.
He yanked the receiver off his belt and shoved it hard against his ear as he strode along.
“Talk to me, Val,” he murmured, even though he was sure she wouldn’t stop to put the earpiece back in so she could hear him. “Please talk to me.…”
He thought he heard her footsteps. A door opening, then slamming. But there was so much commotion over the fire
that he couldn’t be sure.
Why wasn’t she saying something?
His heart was beating frantically. He had a longer way to go than she did, and every step he took was filled with apprehension. He started to jog along the edge of the clearing, ducking some tree branches and swiping others aside.
She wasn’t talking. Why wasn’t she talking?
Moments later he saw her through the foliage, leaning against a tree trunk, breathing hard. Relief spilled through him.
“Val!” He strode up to her and took her by the shoulders, turning her around to face him. “I was going crazy wondering what was happening! Why didn’t you tell me you were out of there?”
She just stared up at him. “I-I don’t know. I—”
Then he realized that her face was tearstained. Looking down, he saw that her shirt was torn completely open.
“Val? Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right. Tell me he didn’t—”
“No,” she said, sniffing. “Of course not. I’m okay.”
“Look at your shirt! What did he do to you?”
She pulled the sides of her shirt together, then tied them in a knot at her waist to keep it closed. Her hands were trembling. “Nothing. It was really nothing.”
“Val, clearly it was something. What did he do?”
“Alex, stop it. It doesn’t matter. The worst thing is that I didn’t—” She exhaled, refusing to meet his eyes. “I didn’t get the bugs planted. Or the phone tap. I’m sorry. But by the time he finally left, I was so …” She paused, tears coming to her eyes again. “I guess I thought maybe he was going to come back in. He wouldn’t have with the fire and all, so I shouldn’t have run. I guess I just … you know. P-panicked a little.”
“I don’t give a damn about all that! Just tell me he didn’t hurt you!”
“For God’s sake, would you shut up about that?” She pulled away from him, wiping her eyes with her fingertips. “As you can see, I survived just fine.”
I survived just fine. The same words she’d used when she’d talked about her mother and stepfather. He’d doubted them then, and he sure as hell doubted them now.
She turned away, kicked off her high heels, and picked up one of her tennis shoes. She brushed off her foot and slipped it on.
“Look at what a mess those shoes are now,” she said, nodding toward the pumps. “Guess one more pair bites the dust.” She put a foot against a tree to tie the tennis shoe. “And this shirt, too. Oh, well. At least they’re deductible.”
Her words were flippant, but her voice was tight. Strained. Christ, she must have been terrified. Why was she trying to make him believe that she hadn’t been?
She put on the other shoe and tied it, too. “Well, I guess we’d better start looking for that elusive plan B. Any ideas?”
She looked up at him, and tears filled her eyes again.
“Val?” he said softly.
She stared at him a long time. Then her face contorted, and for a moment he thought she was going to cry.
“Don’t, Alex,” she whispered. “Don’t look at me like that. Please. Just get me out of here.”
He started to get an inkling of what was happening here, and he felt a tremor of foreboding. Right now she was refusing to talk about what had happened to her in that house. He just hoped it was because they were still so close to where everything had happened, and not because she was afraid to talk to him.
He had to find a place for her tonight. Someplace warm and protected, with a hot shower to wash it all away. He thought about some cabins for rent that they’d passed on the way here. They were relatively secluded, and at least twenty miles outside Tinsdale. Stanley hadn’t talked, so nobody should recognize them if they stayed there tonight.
They started back through the trees. Alex took one last glance over his shoulder and saw that the barn was going to be a total loss. In the orange glow of the fire, he saw that the girls were hurrying back onto the bus, evidently in fear of law enforcement of some kind showing up. The men were still trying to get water on the flames, but it was clearly hopeless.
Then he looked back at Val, striding purposefully through the trees ahead of him. He had no idea how to deal with this, what to say, how to act. He only knew that before the night was out, he had to find a way to make her feel safe again.
* * *
Half an hour later, Alex was driving down the gravel road that ran through Lakeshore Village, the key to cabin sixteen in his pocket. The manager hadn’t liked getting roused out of bed at nearly eleven o’clock at night, but she seemed to like the extra twenty dollars that Alex gave her for her trouble. He asked for the most secluded cabin she had, adding a little smile and a wink to make her think that they were just a couple who wanted to be alone.
Val hadn’t spoken the whole way there. She merely sat in the passenger seat of the van, holding her shirt together with her hands, staring out the window. Several times he’d almost said something to her, but everything that came to mind sounded stupid or trite or completely useless, so in the end he’d just kept his mouth shut.
He pulled up to the cabin, parking the van beside it so the vehicle was only slightly visible from the road. He unlocked the door and they went inside. He flipped on a light, glad to see that while the place was rustic, it was comfortable, with a green-and-gold–plaid sofa in front of a fireplace, a small kitchen and dinette, and a bedroom with a double bed.
Val stood in the middle of the room, as if she didn’t quite know what to do next.
“Why don’t you take a shower?” he told her. “I’ll bring our stuff inside and put some clean clothes outside the door for you.”
She nodded wearily, then disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Alex stood there for a moment, wishing he knew what to say, what to do. He’d been in more difficult situations over the years than he cared to count. Some of them threatening. Some of them life-threatening. He’d once stared down the barrel of a drug dealer’s gun, and his life had literally flashed before his eyes.
But nothing he’d ever faced before—nothing—had made him feel as completely helpless as he did right now.
chapter twenty-two
Val clicked the bathroom door shut. Forcing back tears, she looked at her face in the mirror, at the wig and the makeup she wore that made her look like the prostitute that man had thought she was.
She yanked the wig off and tossed it on the floor, then grabbed a washcloth and soap and turned on the water and scrubbed her face until she’d annihilated every molecule of the makeup. She rinsed out the cloth, then threw it aside and turned toward the bathtub, desperate to wash the awful experience away, to scrub her skin right down to bone and muscle. She took a few steps, then felt the tears coming again.
She leaned against the wall, sobbing, then slowly slid down until she was sitting on the floor, her knees hugged to her chest. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to block out the memory of the way that man had touched her, but she just couldn’t. His face, his hands, his voice kept coming back to her, looming in her mind like some kind of monster, striking one horrific chord after another in her memory until everything she’d fought so hard to forget came rushing back in a torrent of fear and loathing.
But this time Alex had been there. Just tell me he didn’t hurt you.…
She’d wanted so much to fall right into his arms, to hold on to him, to believe that he really did care about her, and that somehow he’d help the terrible feelings go away. But could she count on him? And if she could today, would she be able to tomorrow? That was always the question. What looked so real right now could just be an illusion. How many times in her life had the people she should have been able to trust left her out in the cold?
Five years ago she’d tossed Alex into that category of people who would betray her without so much as a backward glance. But now she saw something in his eyes when he looked at her, something that said he’d go to hell and back before he would ever hurt her again. So why couldn’t she shake
the feeling that the man she wanted so desperately to reach out to, the man who said he cared, would turn out to be just one more person who broke her heart?
Minutes later Alex carried a change of clothes to the door of the bathroom. He thought by now Val would be in the midst of a long, hot shower, but he didn’t hear water running. He put his ear to the door. She was crying.
“Val?”
Silence.
“Val? Are you all right?”
“Of course. I-I’m fine.”
He opened the door. She was sitting on the floor, her knees pulled up to her chest. The long black wig was lying on the floor, her own hair falling in a wild cascade down her back. She glanced up at him, then looked away again, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Please leave me alone.”
“No. Not this time.”
He put her clothes down on the counter, then turned and looked down at her.
“I-I took off that awful makeup,” she said, her voice still choked with sobs. “Then I was—I was going to take a shower, but I guess I just …”
“Just what?”
“I-I don’t know,” she said with a weak shrug. “I just …”
He sat down on the edge of the bathtub. She shrank away from him.
“Talk to me, Val.”
“There’s nothing to say.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes again, then started to rise. He took her arm and pulled her back down. She turned to face him, her chin quivering, and when she blinked, more tears slid down her cheek.
“What happened?” he asked. “You can tell me.”
“It wasn’t as bad as you’re thinking,” she said. “The fire was in … in time.”
Alex froze at the echo of the words she’d spoken earlier that day. “But I guess it was bad enough, huh?”
She swallowed hard. Then her face crumpled. She bowed her head, her hand against her mouth, and a second later her shoulders jerked with silent sobs.
He slid down to the floor beside her and pulled her into his arms. She buried herself against his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck in a desperate hug. He whispered calming words to her that were probably all wrong, but it was all he knew to do. And through it all, his stomach was in turmoil because he felt so damned helpless to do anything but hold on to her and let her cry. A long time passed before her sobs wound down, and his shirt was wet with her tears.
