A car suddenly pulled up screeching to a halt from the opposite direction, blocking Emily’s path back to her open car door. The window rolled down. “Hello, Girlie Franklin. I’m ready for you.”
Emily’s eyes darted to the gully next to her, filling fast with water and the hill below it she’d have to run down. The man could catch her. The car itself was no longer an option, blocked by his. She picked up her umbrella as her only defense. “Leave me alone. Go away. I’m not what you want. Leave me alone.”
He laughed, and the sound of his loud ear-shattering voice, more like a moan, flooded around her on the rain-soaked air, like the dull whack of a hammer, pounding on her chances of escape. But to try to evade him was her only alternative.
Umbrella in hand, she splashed through the running water, her foot catching on the soft dirt. It crumbled under her feet, dissolving into a river of mud as she fell, feet first down the steep incline, riding on a mud slick, her mouth drowning in a gulp of gritty water as she upended, face down in the muck. Destined for her downfall into hell.
“I’m going to have you, Girlie Franklin.”
She tried to upright herself, gain her footing, as she continued to slide in the thick ooze of the mud. Clawing on the side of the bank, she desperately grabbed for hold and came up wanting.
The dark bear of a man, now out of his car, jumped the water, tumbled down the hill, and came back running at her, as she finally, in a last ditch effort, got to her feet, and sliding still as she ran, tried to escape across the field, dashing for the trees. She ran like it was the last sprint of her life, like the fire of the gates of Hades licked at her heels, like it was her last chance at redemption.
He tackled her, catching the bottoms of her muddy pant legs with his arms, and brought her down, face first, against the oozing batter of mud and rain soaked wetland.
As he eased up her body, he groped her. His breath came in quick gulps. Hot acrid breath blew on her neck and a tongue circled her ear and then stuck inside. He chuckled and whispered as he spoke into it.
“My, my, sweet darling. Nothing like playing hard to get.”
****
Nick turned as Millie walked through the entrance to the family room. “I thought you’d be Emily. Didn’t she come home with you?”
Millie frowned. “No. She left way before I did. She hasn’t been home at all?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t get a call either. She must be broken down somewhere.”
Millie sighed. “Good luck on finding her. The rain is pouring so hard it’s difficult to see ten feet in front of you.”
“You didn’t see her anywhere along the way?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nope. But I came in from the town road and turned off. I had to go back and check on the pharmacy for a sec. Emily probably came in down the little country road. She has a tendency to use it, and it would have been a shorter distance from Cindy’s.”
Grady walked in from the kitchen with a bowl of ice cream. “Something the matter out here?”
Nick nodded. “Millie just told me Emily left a long time before she did, but she hasn’t made it home. We think she broke down somewhere.”
“This may be a silly question,” Grady said, “but wouldn’t she have used her iPhone?”
Nick stood up. “Yes. Hell, now I’m really worried. I’m going to look for her.”
“I’ll go with you,” Grady said. “Let me get rid of this bowl.”
“Where’s Carlos?” Millie asked.
Nick nodded. “Eating ice cream at the table.”
“I’ll stay and take care of him. You two go on. I’ll call if she shows up or I hear anything.”
Minutes later, Nick and Grady drove down the back road toward the highway, going fifteen miles an hour. Rain pelted the car sideways and the wind blew near tropical force, making it difficult to steer. Nick clutched the steering wheel in a death grip. “Can you see anything, Grady?”
His friend rubbed the window with his handkerchief. “It’s hard to see period. The air out there is so much colder than the car. This cold front is blowing in here fast.”
“Jeeze,” Nick said. “The water’s getting so deep, we may have to park the car and go on foot. The last thing we’d want to do is stall or get swept off the road by a quick rising current.”
“Hello!” Grady said. “What makes you think we’d do better on foot? We weigh less than a two-ton vehicle.”
“Good point.” Nick pulled over to the side of the road. “At least let’s get out and see if we can spy anything better once we’re out from under fogged windows.”
Grady pulled the hood up on his work slicker. “Don’t want to but guess we gotta.”
Nick pulled his raincoat tight around him, grabbed the night binoculars Millie had loaned him, and exited the car. No use for an umbrella now that the wind had picked up. Looking to his right, all he saw was a quickly flooding field. He stared at the road. If they weren’t careful, they couldn’t make it back. No time to stay out here.
“Up here, boss!”
Nick squinted against the stinging rain as the wind pelted him across the face and followed the sound of Grady’s voice. A person was lucky to see fifty feet in front of him, even on foot, especially since it was now almost totally dark. He walked slowly that way, following the yellow color of the man’s slicker.
“What do you see, Grady?”
His friend pointed. “Out there!”
He looked to his left and saw it. The faint outline of a car. He looked through the binoculars. Emily’s car. Already floating in a lake of water. The driver’s door was open.
“Shit. She must have run off the road.”
Grady shook his head. “No brake marks, just simple tire prints, like it was rolled over the edge of the bank.”
“How did it get way out there?” he asked.
Grady shrugged. “I don’t know, unless another car pushed it off and it just drifted.”
Nick looked through the binoculars again. “Sure doesn’t look like anyone’s inside. Where’s Emily?”
“Somebody took her home?” Grady asked.
Nick shook his head, as he stood, transfixed on the object bouncing on top of the water. “I think someone took her okay. But not home.” He handed Grady the glasses.
“Oh my God, it’s a…”
Nick nodded. “A head. Call 911.”
****
Emily woke up, confused and woozy. The room swam before her eyes. She struggled to focus. All she saw was the color, pale green. Everything else was foreign. She tried to think how she got here. It wasn’t her house or her bedroom. With a stab of reality, she remembered being caught. Of the man’s hot breath on her neck, his tongue in her ear. Of the way he’d turned her over and ripped off her blouse, squeezing a nipple and laughing. Then, all she saw was darkness.
Until now.
Shifting her weight, she found her arms and her legs confined. She winced when she pulled her arm. Cool metal dug into her wrists. Pulling one leg up, she gasped, as the same metal gripped her ankle. Slowly, she tried to lift her head. Staring downward she sobbed, seeing her bare body lying on a cot, only a bottom sheet below her.
In desperation, she jerked her head to the left, now aware sunlight poured in the window. A sharp contrast to her current dilemma. “Where am I?” she mumbled to herself, only to be answered by the sudden scream of a woman from the next room.
“Shut up and take it,” the man’s voice screamed, the same voice that had whispered in her ear. “The babe next door is passed out,” he said, followed by a whack. “Open up your fucking legs or I’ll do it for you.”
Emily closed her eyes and wept as she heard the struggle, the woman’s screams, and then the whimpers. She wept. He’s going to do that to me. She closed her eyes and willed the tears to go. If she pretended she was still out, pretended really well, at least she had a reprieve.
****
Police cars, state and county, swarmed around the site of the flooded car
. Nick stood with Blue and Chris, staring at the men and shaking his head. “At least the rain has slowed,” he said, “but they look like crazed ants making a bridge across the water as they’re coming back from the floating plate of cake.”
Blue stared off in the distance. “Dang if they don’t. All in a straight line like somebody’s gonna drown.” He shook his head. “They ought to know by now this land perks pretty well. Water’s a lot lower now than it was an hour ago.”
“Good thing,” Chris said. “Otherwise neither we nor they would have been able to get to this spot.”
“Where did Grady go?” Blue asked, looking around.
Nick took a deep breath. “I told him no reason for everybody to be miserable, so why didn’t he just go back to the house and I’d let him know how things are going.”
A state police officer approached them. “We’re through for now folks. Nobody down there, but we have all the information you could give us and we’ll put out an APB. One thing I need to stress is not to take matters into your own hands. Let the police do their job. We don’t need anyone else to go missing or get injured. Understood?”
Nick opened his mouth but stopped when Blue elbowed him in his side.
“Yes, sir, Officer Blaine,” Blue said. “You have our word we aren’t going to do anything stupid.”
The man looked at Nick and Chris. At Chris’s nod, Nick did the same. As he walked away, Nick stared at Blue. “Why did you promise not to do anything?”
Blue chuckled. “I didn’t. I promised we wouldn’t do anything stupid. I think it’s plumb smart of us to find Emily as soon as possible.” He kept a plastered smile on his face as the last man got in his squad car and pulled off the muddy side of the road.
Blue waved. “Keep smiling…keep smiling.” He exhaled. “Okay, all that bullshit is over. Now, down to business. What do you think happened to Emily?”
Nick closed his eyes as nausea swept his gut for at least the tenth time. “I think that maniac, the one who was watching her, kidnapped her. I don’t know if he did it for the sex ring or his own disgusting pleasure. I just pray to God he hasn’t…” He choked, almost puking.
Blue placed a hand on his shoulder. “Wipe the bad stuff from your mind. Look, even if he does violate her, that she can get past, in time. My own wife had to. But pray that she’s alive and when we find him, he won’t be that way for long.”
“Where do you think he’d take her?” Chris asked.
Nick held out his arms. “I don’t know.”
“Well.” Chris sighed, placing one thumb in his jeans pocket. “Wesley said the women were being kept in a place that would shock and surprise the locals, so I suggest we start with checking around Lyle Burton’s property. That’s where the green car was last reported being seen.”
Nick stared at him. “Surely, if they were there, Lyle would have them moved after he knew we were onto him.”
Chris shook his head. “Like my coworkers used to say, ‘The moment the bad guy is convinced he’s far superior to all others is when he shows most brilliantly how stupid he really is.’”
“And your former coworkers used to be?” Nick asked.
Chris smiled. “None of your business. Let’s go.”
****
Lyle slammed the door of the guesthouse open and stared at Monstruo as he was still zipping up his pants. His eyes darted to the woman in the floor. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked. “These women are mine. Who the hell was screaming?”
His eyes dropped back to his Lolita, as he called her, wrapped in a ball and still chained to the wall, sobbing. “You dirty scum.”
Monstruo shrugged. “I couldn’t fuck Girlie Franklin. Not yet.”
“That’s the reason I’m here, you idiot,” he growled. “The police scanner just reported her missing. Seems her car is floating in a field not far from her house. And a head is bobbing in the water. Or at least it was.”
Monstruo snickered.
“It’s not funny.” Lyle’s body shook with barely leashed fury. “What possessed you to tie her to the murders of the men?”
“Just sounded like a fun thing to do.”
“A fun thing to bring our whole operation down.” His face burned with anger. “Where did you take her, for God’s sake? And if you did, why the hell are you here taking advantage of my women?”
Monstruo’s eyes darted to the door against the back wall.
A chill ran down Lyle’s spine. “You didn’t bring her here? I told you not to,” he snarled.
Monstruo laughed, low at first, rising quickly to a high-pitched screech. “You’ve been telling me to do a lot lately, but you ain’t been doing anything yourself except getting fat on everybody else’s work. I’ve been talkin’ to the guys who pick up the deliveries. No reason for you to be in charge anymore. I can do it.”
“The hell you can,” he screamed. “You don’t have the finesse to stay undetected. Hell, you even botched today. What makes you think you can cut me out?”
Monstruo laughed again, this time like the sound of a hyena at full moon. He pulled out a gun. “This.” He fished out a knife from his other pocket. “And this.”
Lyle chuckled. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, but I am.” Monstruo pulled the trigger, nailing Lyle between the eyes.
****
“Did you hear that?” Nick stared over at Blue and Chris from their position crouched in the bushes behind the guesthouse.
“Hard to miss a gunshot,” Blue said. “Sounded like it came out inside the building.”
“Surely, they aren’t keeping women there.” Nick stood. “If they are, do you think it’s even possible Emily’s in there too?”
“Can’t be. They’d have to be crazy to do that,” Chris said.
Blue stared at him and shook his head. “They are. Do you think sane people cut off people’s heads and stake them in graveyards or leave them bobbing in flood water?”
Chris pulled up the back on his windbreaker. “Good point. I’m used to sane killers.”
“Anybody feel like rushing into the building?” Nick asked.
Blues smiled, like a man who had a devious plan. “You don’t rush out and expose yourself, son. You plant a decoy.” He pulled a bottle out of his jacket pocket.
“Where did that come from?” Nick stared at it. It was half full of fluid.
Blue shrugged. “When at war, come prepared.”
“You had that in your pocket the whole time?”
Blue fished a handkerchief out of his jeans back pocket. “Whatcha think the police were going to do? Search me?”
Nick nodded, his head bobbing up and down like a kewpie doll. “Well, yeah. They could have.”
“I’m just an old hillbilly, son. Why mess with a man fifty?” He uncorked the bottle and stuffed the rag into the top of it.
“I haven’t made one of those since I was sixteen.” Chris nodded his approval.
“You two are actually enjoying this.” Nick stared back and forth between the two men, wondering how many crazies were actually out here.
Blue stood up. “You know what? You talk too much. Chill out while I go set this on fire.”
Nick took three steps back. “You’re not going to try to blow the door off, are you?”
Blue chuckled. “Hell no, just get a lily-livered coward to show his real spots. Positioning is the key.” He sneaked forward.
Chris grabbed Nick’s arm as he started to follow Blue. “Trust the man. He’s been doing underhanded things since before you were in the crib. Guaranteed he’ll lure out whoever shot that bullet.”
Minutes later, Blue slipped back into place with the two men behind the bushes. “Moonshine does make the best bottle rockets.”
“Moonshine?” Nick stared between the two men again. “Where’d you get that stuff?”
They both laughed with gusto.
He shook his head. “Never mind. I guess I know all I need to.”
A thunderous expl
osion incinerated the air with smoke and fire. Nick held his hands over his ears. “Hell. You weren’t kidding.” At the sound of fire crackling, he knew more than just an explosion had happened.
“Must’ve gotten too close to the trees,” Blue said. “Hope the volunteer firemen are ready for a run.”
Nick darted him a glare. “You better hope there’s a problem in that building or we just got time in the big house.” At the sound of a door opening and a man screaming, he shut up. “One thing’s for sure. The guy sounds like a lunatic.”
****
The hulk of a large man came rushing out of the door, running across the drive with all his might, a severed head hanging from one hand.
Nick felt his breath catch in his throat as he focused on the head. Relief swept over him as he realized the hair was short. It wasn’t Emily. Anger built inside him like lava in an erupting volcano. He launched himself forward running behind the man and dove at his ankles, just like he’d done the day of his high school football final. Grasping his hands around the man’s ankles, he fell to the ground with a resounding crash, the head falling from his grasp and rolling backward toward Nick. Seconds later, as he looked up, he stared into the lifeless eyes of Lyle Burton.
The giant growled like a wild animal, and thrashed under Nick’s grasp, then produced a gun and raised up.
The retort of a bullet split the air, and the gun went spinning out of the maniac’s hand as he screeched in pain, blood gushing from his wound.
“Great aim, Blue.” Chris said. “You’re having all the fun.”
Blue chuckled. “Come on, Chris, Nick made the tackle.”
“Oh shit!” Chris yelled. “Nick, the carriage house is on fire from the bottle rocket.”
“I’m gone,” Nick said, scrambling to his feet. “Don’t let the shit get away.”
He raced to the entrance of the carriage house. Inside, women screamed in horror. He stared at the nude bodies shackled to the wall or simply in chains. With relief, he saw the ring of keys hanging on a nail just inside the opening. As smoke began to invade the space, he quickly ran to the wall where three women were shackled. Fumbling with the keys, he located one that worked all three locks and released them. “Get out of here,” he yelled. The women ran for the door, as he rushed to the sides of the other two, who sat still holding up their hands. He bent to their ankles instead. Unlocking them there, he screamed, “Outside. I’ll get your wrists outside.” He helped each to their feet. They struggled to a standing position, shuffling out of the smoke-filled room. Coughing, he opened the door to the back room and saw Emily on the bed, her eyes wide, but tape across her mouth. Quickly he unlocked her ankles. She pulled her legs back together. Then he rushed to the top of the bed. Coughing, he unlocked her wrists. Once she was free, she grabbed the tape across her mouth and screeched in pain as she pulled it free from her face. “The window,” she gasped. “Fresh air.”
Unforgettable Heroes II Boxed Set Page 152
