In the distance, I thought I heard Stone calling my name. I lay still, pretending to be asleep again and listening. Please be Stone. Oh God, please let me hear his voice. Nothing, but I’d heard it in my soul. Tears rolled from my eyes as I considered my options: lie there and be still, waiting to die, or make as much noise as possible in hopes of being rescued.
Waves.
Waves splashed.
Oh. My. God.
Nausea rolled through me as I realized I lay in the bottom of a boat. The waves came in sequence. The bastard was rowing across Cotton Wilson’s lake. He could toss me overboard, and I had nowhere to go but to the bottom. In all the years I’d lived in West Tempie, I’d never been across the lake, but I knew for a fact there was not a residential site anywhere close, just acres of empty land.
“Avery!” There it was again. I hadn’t imagined it. So far away, Stone called for me.
I squirmed hard, crying out behind the tape as loud as I could.
Please hear me. Please hear me!
The rowing stopped and his large booted foot stood on my hand, crushing it to the floor. I yelped, but it sounded more like that of a mouse. The crushing trauma felt as though my thumbnail tore from the bed, and he only dug his foot deeper into my skin. When he lifted his foot, instead of sitting down and rowing, he kicked me between my shoulder blades. A blast of pain shot through me, stealing my breath.
His hands found my hair through the cloth and jerked me by the roots, bringing me close to his mouth. “You make another sound and I’ll cut your fingers off, one at a time. Your boyfriend ain’t going to save you. He can’t see us now.”
I knew we must be behind the small island in the lake; it was the only place that would hide us in the wide-open space.
Fear crawled through every pore of my body. Barely able to catch my breath after his kick, I wriggled my fingers. Thankfully, they didn’t seem broken, but I felt a warm wetness rolling across my skin and I knew I was bleeding. Behind the gag, I coughed, trying to ease the shearing pain in my back as I prayed my ribs weren’t broken.
Trembling, I lay still as he’d commanded, but my mind ran rapid-fire trying to figure out how to get out of the mess I was in. This maniac was going to kill me, and I knew in my gut it was going to be slow and painful.
“Avery!” In the distance, Stone called out. He sounded miles away.
I shook my head, trying to shake the fabric from my eyes. A quiet evil chuckle prickled my skin, and my captor clasped my bound hands, dragging me up against his legs.
Roughly he jerked the covering from my head and grabbed my ponytail, holding my head above the rim of the boat. Nothing. No moonlight. No stars. Nothing but darkness surrounded us.
“Look for him, bitch!”
I frantically roamed my scared eyes across the way. I whimpered behind the seal, seeing nothing but darkness.
“Keep looking!” he growled in my ear, yanking hard on my hair. I bit my tongue to keep from making too much noise. With a hard tug, he turned my head in the right angle. Through the brush on the small island, I saw the four-wheeler lights moving around. “He’s still there looking for you. If you make another sound, I’ll drop you over the edge of the boat, and I’ll go back for your little girl.”
I stilled, and my heart even stilled in my chest. I had no breath to release. He’d broken any hope for rescue. I surrendered.
My Savannah Faith. He’d threatened the one thing I’d trade my life for. I’d give my last breath to make sure my sweet baby girl was unharmed.
He gave another hard yank on my ponytail, pulling me toward him again. His stale breath against my face made me want to hurl. Tears flooded my eyes in disgust as he pressed his cracked lips to my cheek. “You’re all mine now. Say goodbye to your pretty boy.”
I nodded. Glancing in the direction of the lights, I tried to make out a shadow, tried to see Stone’s silhouette. I prayed for one last glimpse of the man I’d given my heart to, but the underbrush blocked the view and I was only afforded glimpses of the lights from time to time.
“By the time help arrives, we’ll be long gone. Then I get to decide what I’m going to let you do first—suck me off or shove your titties in my face while you dance for me like the whore you are.”
Goose bumps covered my skin from head to toe. He’d seen me dance. He’d seen me naked. He’d watched us have sex. Rancid bile rose in my throat.
He released his hold on me, letting me fall to the hard surface. I peered up, trying to get a good look at him, to see his face. He had a large build, rough hands, and a foul smell. I couldn’t make out his facial features, other than that he hadn’t shaved in several days. His kiss had disgusted me so much, I hadn’t felt his mangy whiskers when they rubbed against me.
The monster rowed, stealing me away from promises for tomorrow. Part of me panicked, but the other part felt broken and empty. There was no hope in Stone saving me. Not now. We were too far away in a mouth of water about to swallow me whole.
He moved about, and I flinched, afraid of his booted feet. Afraid of his large calloused hands. Afraid of what came next. He must have sensed my fear because he let out an evil little chuckle.
“Be still.” He roughly slipped the hood over my face and secured it around my neck with a tie. It wasn’t enough to feel strangling, but it was tight enough that it wouldn’t slip off easily. “We’re almost there.”
I wriggled my hands and the small tap of metal against metal caught my attention like an awakening slap. Savannah’s birthstone ring, the one I wore all the time, hit the metal boat. I had to leave something of mine, a clue. I didn’t know if he planned to leave the boat in the water or load it in a vehicle, but I knew I had to try. I managed to slide the ring free, and it fell to the surface underneath my body.
Echoes of sirens drifted across the wide openness. Help was beyond my reach, but a small piece of comfort washed over me knowing they were looking.
My body lunged forward as the boat hit the shore. In a quick move, he jumped over me, and in seconds, he pulled the aluminum boat onto land and jerked me up by the hair with his rough hands.
“Get up!” he yelled in my ear. “Stand up, you dumb bitch!”
I tried balancing myself, but with the way he had my ankles fastened, I wobbled. He let out an eerie, nightmarish laugh. I shook my head, trying to tell him I couldn’t.
“That’s right, you can’t.”
Struggling, I fell into him. His smell made me gag, and I wished I could claw out his eyes. Like a savage, he slung me over his shoulder as he climbed the bank of land. After a few seconds, he tossed me inside what I suspected was a vehicle. My face bounced across a hard surface, maybe that of a console, and I wriggled to sit up. The engine roared to life, taking me away from the life I’d known and straight into the pits of hell.
Fear sliced through me. I had to be strong and not struggle. I had to save all my energy for when I was going to need it most, and I knew that time was coming soon.
Endurance. I had to hold on to endurance for a chance of survival. Evil reeked in the air.
“My dick is hard, girlie. I don’t know how much longer I can wait.” He reached over, grabbing one of my breasts in his revolting hand. I jumped out of my skin at his touch, trying to shuffle toward the door.
He laughed, loudly this time. With no one around to hear, he didn’t have a reason to be quiet. “You can’t run from me. They all tried, but never got far.”
They?
Oh God. He was a serial…what? Rapist? Murderer? Both?
He kept laughing and kept talking. “Before it’s over, you’ll say thank you. You’ll beg me to fuck you. The longest any bitch held back was three days. You? I think you’ll like it so much, it won’t even take you a day to break, not with the way you like to fuck. I saw you ride him like the whore you are.”
I was glad the hood was over my eyes so he couldn’t see my fear. I breathed in through my nose with long, deep, cleansing breaths. I hoped he kept talking. Though his words sca
red the hell out of me, they also prepared me to keep him from ruining me.
He slipped his hand inside the top of my shirt, feeling the skin of my breasts above the red lacy bra. “Soft, like I like ’em.”
I squeezed my eyes closed, listening to his breathing quickening. There was no one to save me, not even myself. Praying for a miracle, I thought of Stone. I wondered what had gone through his mind with me disappearing in the blink of an eye. I made myself concentrate on anything but the disgusting touch on my fair skin. My parents, the sadness in their hearts when they learned of my disappearance into thin air, and Savannah—she would never understand why her mama didn’t come home.
The ring of a cell phone came from his direction. “Dammit!” His hand left my skin and I breathed out a sigh of thanks.
“Yeah? Me and the boys are fishin’…ain’t never said I was taking Junior…be home in three days…you better have supper waitin’ for me.”
Something banged against the steering wheel, I assumed his fist. “Damn fat-ass woman. That’s the trouble with you nosy bitches, you can’t keep your nose out of a man’s business. She thinks I’m fishin’, well I’m fishin’ all right—fishin’ for new pussy. Can’t bring little Daryl with me when I’m teachin’ a whore how to properly suck a dick, now can I?”
Junior. Little Daryl. The monster sitting next to me was none other than Daryl Kline. What he’d done to our lives all those years ago seemed trivial now. This man was a rapist and probably a coldblooded killer. He was a soulless monster.
My eyes widened. In the rush of everything going on, I’d forgotten about my own cell phone hiding in my back pocket. I almost whimpered in relief as hope soared through me. I swallowed hard, feeling the last hope I had for refuge.
Faith. I held on to faith.
Love. I held on to the love in my heart for my maker, Savannah, my parents, my Dovie, and my forever love, Stone.
I smiled behind the tape. My father’s teaching in his sermons came back to me in a surge. Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. All three were going to get me through this. I had a chance, however small it may be. I had a chance to survive.
Chapter 33
The sound of the vehicle coming to a stop caused the hairs on my neck to rise. My pulse ran rampant, coursing alarm through my bloodstream. The phone in my pocket dangled like a like a carrot in front of a starving rabbit. My fingers itched to reach for it, but steadfast, I held on to better sense. He turned off the engine and slammed his door closed, and I swallowed hard.
My heart shuddered. I knew he was coming for me but still flinched when the door on my side suddenly opened. Grabbing my ankles, he twirled my body so my feet hung off the seat toward the ground then sliced through whatever shackled my ankles together, freeing them.
“Won’t be needing anything keeping your pretty little legs together. I want ’em wide open, wrapped around ol’ Daryl’s back. Don’t be stupid and try to run, little girl.” His voice prickled every single one of my senses. He yanked the hood from my head, tossed it aside, and then roughly jerked the tape from my lips.
I squealed in pain, sucking them inside my mouth. Swallowing hard, I took in every feature of his ugly face in the light streaming from the roof of the raggedy truck. He roughly cupped the side of my face but rubbed his calloused fingers in a tender motion along my jaw. Shivers crawled all over my skin as bile crept up my throat.
“If I tell you to suck my dick, you will. Fighting will only make me harder, kitten.” Like he knew I wasn’t going to go down without a fight, his taunting brown eyes narrowed with laughter dancing full circles in them.
I blinked, calculating what I should say, how to answer to buy time.
Whack!
Out of nowhere, the hand he’d been using to caress my face reared back and struck the side of my cheek with an open palm. I fell backward, falling against the console between the front seats as a stinging fire pelted my skin, and my temple felt as if it burst on contact. I scooted back as far as I could to put space between us.
He grasped my legs, pulling me back to him, forcing me to spread my knees with his body. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. My little whore, you answer me when I speak to you. Won’t tolerate you thinkin’ you’re better than me. Now open those legs, let me see what you got.”
I squeezed them tight, refusing to obey, fear and fury breathing from my lungs. Endurance seemed like the last thing I had in me. I couldn’t withstand a single touch from his slimy hand or mouth without waves of nausea rolling in my stomach.
“Why are you doing this?” I’d tried to keep my mouth shut—I knew predators like this monster wanted you to be afraid, thrived on the smell of fear, rejoiced in seeing it—but I couldn’t help myself.
Whack! Another blow to the same side of my face with a closed fist. “’Cause I can. ’Cause your boyfriend made me. He shoulda never hired that man. Shoulda never crossed me, gettin’ the police involved. I can’t have them snoopin’ around.”
Because you’ve raped and killed women.
“I can make him leave you alone. I can talk him into dropping the whole thing,” I whimpered, offering my desperate plea.
He grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me off the seat then forced me to walk toward an old cabin. I etched everything surrounding me into my memory. Woods encompassed the small worn-down structure, and a rusty tractor was parked next to a tree. Broken pieces of latticed woodwork skirted around the edges of the porch, and there were two windows on each side of the door.
I estimated we’d driven only about thirty minutes since leaving the lake, and I prayed I had phone service in the desolate place. Blood crusted my fingers, but I didn’t feel any fresh trickles. My heart lurched, dreading climbing the stairway to hell.
Once inside, I knew the looming terror would begin, knew I’d yet to experience anything compared to what he had planned for me behind the decrepit door. Tension knotted in my stomach as he pulled me across the threshold and dropped my bruised, abrasion-covered body to the floor.
Kicking me in the hip, he snarled. “You run, you die, and so does that little girl of yours. We clear?”
I nodded helplessly and went limp, silence reigning. I had to brave the unimaginable things he had in store for me for Savannah, until by God’s grace, I was rescued. I watched every step he made as he lit a kerosene lamp that sat on the rickety table before shoving a fire poker through a chain on the door for a makeshift lock.
He turned toward me, eyes glinting. “Crawl to the bed, slut.”
I surveyed the space, finding a dirty mattress with no sheets on a bedframe across the room. Booted footsteps made their way toward me, and I knew he was going to either kick or hit me again for not obeying.
Quickly getting to my knees, hands still bound behind my back, I crawled. His burly hand slapped the back of my head. “Get down and crawl!”
“My…hands…I can’t.” Maybe, just maybe he’d undo my hands. “Please, undo my hands and I’ll do whatever you ask.”
He threw his head back, laughing. “I thought an uppity girl like yourself would be harder to break. You’re one of them eager ones. I bet you’re wet just thinking about what I’ve got zipped up in my pants.” He massaged his crotch, disgusting me almost to the point of retching.
“Please, Daryl. I need to go to the bathroom. Please let my hands go so I can freshen up for you,” I begged, lowering my lashes in a poor performance of seduction.
“There ain’t no bathroom.”
Shocked, I raised my eyebrows, frantically looking around. “Where can I…uh…go?”
He titled his head toward a five-gallon bucket in the corner. “Get used to it. That’s it until I decide I’m done with you.”
“Can I please have some water? I need to freshen up…for you. I promise to be good and please you, I promise.” I tried to sound convincing, looking straight at him with big innocent eyes.
“I don’t like it when women don’t fight.” He ran his large hand through his hair, seemingly agitated
and bored. The last thing I needed was him to lose his patience and finish me off too soon.
“Please,” I whimpered. “Please let me go home. I’ll never tell a soul about you. Please let me go.”
Like the flip of a switch, his eyes went wild, flickering my way. His breathing picked up, and I swallowed hard. I didn’t have to pretend to be scared. He had shifted his gaze to the rancid stained mattress when his phone rang, lighting up his flannel shirt pocket.
Who wears flannel in the heat of summer? Idiotic crazy bastard. He held up his finger. “Don’t make a sound, or she dies. Stay kneeling, and don’t move.”
He hastily strode to the single chair at the dusty table with cobwebs on the legs. “This better be good…woman, do it yourself…lazy ass, change the fucking tire, I aint’ gonna be home for a few days…don’t call me again. I need this fishin’ trip to clear my head.” He looked at my breasts heaving up and down and licked his lips. “I’ll be comin’ home horny. You be waitin’ for me…and have them brats asleep.”
Knees throbbing, I stayed still as he instructed. He smiled a wide grin, showing his crooked, tobacco-stained teeth. I cringed at the thought of what went on in his sick mind. He barreled out of the chair, opened a cabinet in the kitchen, and retrieved a shiny padlock.
“These are startin’ to cost a small fortune. That’s twelve since I started coming here.” I wondered what he did with them, where he hid their bodies.
My heart stammered in my chest as I watched him walk toward me. Reaching underneath the mattress, he drew out a lengthy chain. Placing a tie wrap through one of the links, he fastened it around my ankle. I swore it was so tight, the circulation to my foot had been compromised. Then he cut the ties around my wrists. I folded my arms over my chest, rubbing the strain and ache from them.
I cried in relief, and he wiped a tear from underneath my eye. “I like ’em when they cry. They’ve all cried, every one of ’em.”
The crazy bastard gave the chain a hard jerk, checking the resistance from where it stretched from under the bed. With a satisfied nod, he moved the white bucket closer to me. “Don’t get any ideas. You’re tied to a bolt in the floor under my bed. It’s looped through the springs. You move, the chain rattles. Use the bucket if you gotta go.”
Chasing Wicked (The Mitchell Brothers - Wicked Series Book 1) Page 23
