Hunt the Dawn

by Abbie Roads

  “Where’s the Strategist? You’ve been in contact with him. I smell him on you.” Lathaniel’s volume wasn’t affected by his proximity to Dr. Jonah. He probably didn’t even know he was shouting.

  The muscles in James’s neck fisted into a knot of certainty. It felt like time had slowed down, but James recognized that his brain was actually speeding up. This situation could play out in at least ten different ways that had nothing to do with fingers being pointed at him. But there was still a chance, and a chance was one chance too many.

  James slipped out the door nearest him, then walked across the hallway and outside. He knew what he had to do. Escape.

  The years of planning and preparing for this moment flooded into his mind, giving him clarity of thought, guiding his actions, and shutting off his emotions.

  He strolled to his car, ensuring his gait was slow and smooth and not attracting attention.

  If, by chance, no one pointed an accusatory finger at him, he needed to be able to explain his sudden absence. He dialed his father’s cell number, knowing the phone was turned off. When voice mail picked up, he forced weakness into his voice. “I had to leave early. Not feeling well.” He left the number for a car service, then hung up.

  If they were on to him, they could track him via his cell. He pried the SIM card from his phone, snapped it in half, turned his phone off, and dropped them both in the bushes.

  The professionals used many ways to classify killers, but James had his own system. Killers landed in either of two categories: the ones who thought themselves so invincible that they’d never be captured or the ones who were so chaotic in their kills that they didn’t worry about being caught. James had created a new category.

  Each of his kills was designed around his escape route. First, he chose a subject by random means. Next, he planned primary and secondary escape routes. Finally, when all the pieces were in place, came the kill.

  He approached his silver Toyota Camry. He could afford a better car, but the Camry figured in his escape. It blended in among the nearly three thousand other Camrys in the area. Eyewitnesses notoriously had a hard time distinguishing between gold, silver, and white.

  The most important thing was maintaining invisibility. Act stupid, and everyone would notice him. Act innocent, and people looked right through him. He was familiar with invisible. He lived invisible. Odds were, somewhere nearby, someone in a Camry was acting stupid and getting noticed. That person’s behavior would buy him extra time.

  He knelt next to the dent beside the license plate on the back bumper and ran his hand over and over the blemish. Anyone watching would see that action. With all the skill of a professional magician, he slid the magnetized license plate off and into his jacket. A fresh plate resided underneath. Something else to confound anyone looking for him.

  Out on the road, he adapted to the flow of traffic.

  He drove past suburbs full of cookie-cutter houses all trying to compete with one another for their worthiness in the neighborhood. He drove past country estates with miles of fencing showing off the prosperity of the owners. He drove until he reached the real country where people lived miles apart and had a silent understanding of enforced privacy.

  Out here, the woods became thicker, the farmland sparse. He pulled down a one-lane gravel road bordered on both sides by forest. In the spring, the blooming redbud and dogwood created the sensation of driving through a bouquet. But now the leafless, lifeless woods held no wonder for him.

  He followed the lane to the end where he turned into the driveway of a tidy little cottage. Behind the home was a garage.

  On paper, Mr. Franks, the owner, was very much alive. His social security checks were deposited every month into his account. He paid all his utilities on time, and he even subscribed to AARP. But no one had actually seen Mr. Franks since the day James killed him years ago.

  James parked in the garage. Next to the Camry was a gold Honda Accord. Mr. Franks’s car. A year from now, it’d be James’s getaway vehicle.

  It was unlikely the FBI would ever find this place. Even more unlikely that they would ever link it to him. But he still switched the Camry’s vehicle identification number. He’d had the engine replaced so it wouldn’t match the VIN. Anyone who cared to examine the car would run into dead end after dead end trying to link it to any one person.

  Behind the garage were acres and acres of forest. He forced himself to yawn twice to suck in oxygen, then ran. A full-on sprint.

  The path through the barren woods was nearly invisible. Animal trails were more distinct. Branches reached out and slapped at him as he ran, but he didn’t duck, didn’t dodge, didn’t want to affect his running time.

  He hated running, always had, but it figured in his plans so he forced himself to train, then maintain. Never in all his years of practice had he experienced that elusive runner’s high, until this moment when the pounding of his feet against the dead leaves and the muffled sound of his breathing mixed with the rhythm of the world, connecting him to plane and planet in an elemental way. He knew without even glancing at his watch that he was clocking the best run of his life.

  The trail ended abruptly behind his shed. Hide in plain sight, in the bunker underneath the shed. He didn’t spare a glance at the house he’d lived in for nearly a decade. It never mattered to him; it had always been just a piece of his plan.

  They’d live better when they started over. They—he and Evanee. Right now, he could walk away from it all and be content. Because of her.

  He felt around in the thick grass until he found his hold and lifted the heavy panel. The seventy-five-pound door was six inches thick with a soundproof core. With the grass he’d carefully cultivated to grow over the top, the door weighed nearly a hundred pounds. Inside, he secured the steel with a series of heavy metal bars running up and down each side of the door. No one would ever get in without using explosives.

  * * *

  Evanee heard the muffled sound of the hatch being closed and then James’s soft gasp.

  “Evanee…” James knelt beside her. “I knew you were going to try it.” Resignation and acceptance lowered his tone. “Why do you want to die?”

  “It hurts too much to live.” She sobbed through the total destruction of her soul. James grabbed her shoulders and pulled her up to him, tucking her face between his neck and shoulder.

  “Cry, Evanee. Cry right now for everything lost and stolen from you. For the life you were going to lead. For the love you were going to have. Cry it all out. All of it.”

  If she thought she’d experienced grief before, she was wrong. Grief was a full-body-contact emotion. No padding. No safety gear. No escape. A cage fight. For her life.

  A violent, piercing wail burst from her mouth. The sound contained her entire world of pain. Every vicious and vile thing she had ever endured was a blade protruding through her soul. Every wicked or wrong decision she’d ever made shoved the blade deeper, killing that special little spark of energy that had created and animated her, until there was no her anymore. She was gone. All that remained was the body. Bones that scraped at the confines of skin. Innards that threatened to hemorrhage. Lungs and heart that cruelly pumped life through the body.

  “Evanee. Evanee.”

  From far off, she heard James calling her name. She tried to ignore him, tried to maintain the numb nothingness, but he invaded the space she hid in.

  “Enough.” His word commanded her, and suddenly she was staring directly into his eyes, unable to look away. “From this moment on, you are done with the past.” James’s voice contained a quiet force that bent her will to his. “You will not think about it. You will focus on being here right now—in this moment.”

  …this moment, the only moment that matters. Those words, Lathan’s words, spoken to her in her dream, floated into her consciousness, carrying a heavier meaning than they had when uttered. Maybe, wherever
Lathan was, he continued to watch over her. Maybe he’d sent James to her. Could he be speaking through James, trying to teach her how to go on without him? Live. Without him.

  James gathered her to him again. “In this moment, you are in my arms. Feel them around you.” His arms tightened, pushing her further into him, toward the lifeline his words offered.

  “Feel my skin against your face. Smell it. Taste it.” His tone was barely a whisper, but it captured her complete attention.

  Despite her nose not working, she inhaled, then touched her tongue to his neck. The intimacy of her action registered, but she pushed it out of her mind.

  “Feel my clothes against your bare legs.” He shifted, scraping the fabric of his pants against her. “Feel it all, Evanee. Feel the power of being right here. Right now. This is the only moment. There is no past—no pain, no sorrow. There is no future—no expectancy, no might-have-beens. There is only right now.”

  “Right now.” She tested the words on her tongue. They felt good. “I’m here. I’m with you, right now.” It suddenly occurred to her that she had never really looked at James. She’d been too lost to see the path right in front of her. She eased back to see him.

  The way his neck cradled his head lent him a dignified, almost regal air. His features weren’t sharply chiseled, but neither were they sunken and weak. Tender mahogany colored the irises of his eyes, highlighting his face with warmth and kindness. But there was something elusive underneath the surface of his gaze, something that made her think he was a lot older than he looked. It took her a moment to recognize it.

  Pain. The stain of having endured something horrific. She herself carried that wary, scarred look. “Something bad happened to you. I can see it in your eyes. What was it?”

  * * *

  Without warning, the answer to her question shoved into his mind. He moved away from her, stood, stared at the room around them, and tried not to let those bad things from his past—things he’d never dared to think about—overwhelm him.

  “I’m sorry. That was too personal.” Her voice was small and thin and laced with hurt. Rejection.

  He sat down amid the mess she’d made of the kitchen and leaned his back against the cupboards. “This is personal.” He motioned back and forth between the two of them. “I’ve bathed you, wiped you, fed you. If this isn’t personal, I don’t understand the definition.”

  A flush worked its way up her neck and spread across her face.

  “Evanee. Come here.” He shoved a colander out of the way and patted the spot beside him.

  Without hesitation, she moved in next to him. If she’d exhibited the slightest hint of reluctance, he’d never have considered telling her. He’d never told anyone.

  There would be benefits to divulging his greatest pain—binding her to him even tighter. Would she look at him differently? See him as a weakling? He suspected not. There was a very clear power hierarchy between him and her. He carried her sanity, which was too heavy for her at the moment. That implied strength on his part. What better time to tell her?

  The scared little boy inside him feared speaking of it, but he was a powerful adult man now. The past could no longer hurt him. If it tried, he’d kill it.

  He stared across the room to the ladder leading up to the hatch. A thickness gathered in his throat. “My dad loved me, but he was a busy man. An important man. As a child, I tried not to bother him. I spent all my summers outside, doing those nonsensical things kids do. Busting open rocks to see what was in the middle. Playing down in the creek. Exploring the woods behind our home.”

  “Where was your mom?”

  “She died shortly after I was born. Brain tumor.”

  “I’m sorry.” Evanee reached for his hand. He had plenty of time to move away from her, but he allowed her to grasp him, to gently squeeze, as if giving him courage. He couldn’t help wondering if she chose that gesture because some unconscious part of her brain connected with him holding her hand and it soothing her.

  “One day I came across a man camping in the woods. I was scared at first. Dad never allowed hunters or campers on our property. But Stanley was friendly. He offered me a pack of his dehydrated food. I was a kid. I was curious. So I hung around. Stanley was like a new toy to me. I could ask him anything, and he’d give me an adult answer, not the Wait until you’re older or You’re too young to understand kind of answers my father always gave me. During the first two weeks, he taught me how to track animals, how to kill and clean them, how cook them over a campfire. I learned more from him than I ever learned from my father.

  “I remember the innocent excitement of those first weeks. Stanley gave me my first beer. I was eight. Didn’t enjoy the taste, but I felt so grown-up sitting around his campfire sipping that beer. As an adult, I learned there was a name for what he was doing. He was grooming me.” He swallowed. “The first time he—” A wad of fear and shame choked off any words he could say to describe what happened. So he skipped that part. “I was so scared I would’ve told Dad, but Stanley said he’d kill him, then me. He could track and knew how to kill, and I believed him. Stanley made me visit him every day that summer. Then one day he just disappeared. I never told anyone until now.”

  The pressure of her hand around his tightened to an almost painful grip that was oddly reassuring.

  “I know what it’s like,” she whispered.

  He didn’t look at her, kept his eyes focused straight ahead. “I know you do. That’s why I told you. It was your stepbrother, wasn’t it?” His voice was as soft as hers.

  “Yes.” She spoke the word with a resolve that surprised him.

  “It changed us, made us different from everyone else. I couldn’t let anyone get close to me. I was afraid they’d hurt me like Stanley did. Or hurt my dad. I started studying my dad’s research books in order to distract myself.” A partial lie. He did need a distraction from what he’d been through, but the real reason he’d started studying Dad’s books was to figure out how to capture, then kill Stanley. Somewhere along the way, his goal had gotten warped.

  The lights blinked once, then an alarm sounded. His motion sensors had been activated.

  They had been after him.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Someone is outside.” James stood, pulling her up with him, and pointed toward the dresser. “Get dressed. Warm. Layers. Lots of layers. We’re going to be outside most of the night.” He was already at his computer desk calling up the video feed from the hidden camera trained on the door.

  Chapter 18

  Five days earlier

  The mineral stench of blood choked up Lathan’s nose. He snorted and wheezed through the sadistic smell, but it was inside him propelling him toward consciousness, insisting he remember every brutal second.

  Where was Honey?

  He worked at forcing his eyelids open. Each one suddenly weighed ten pounds. Face mashed in a pool of blood—his and Junior’s. Scarlet. Everywhere. He tried to speak, but the memory of watching Junior bite Honey’s breast clogged Lathan’s throat.

  He concentrated on the scent of blood. No honeyed undertones. Not hers. A small measure of relief. Where was she? He inhaled deeply, searching beyond the obvious odors of blood and death for her. She was there. Faint. Too faint. An echo of where she’d once been, but was no longer.

  Another smell mingled with hers. His brain sorted and categorized—the same process as always. Vanilla. He smelled vanilla. That wasn’t right. Couldn’t be right. He refused to believe the message his nose was relaying to his olfactory region. He sucked in another breath, tamped down on the rush of pain in his chest. Vanilla again.

  He’d only encountered that potent smell clinging to the evidence of forty-one murders. Please. God. No. Let me be wrong, he prayed to a god he wasn’t sure existed.

  The Strategist.

  A rigid pole of panic rammed up his spine. He
cried out—Honey—but didn’t feel any vibration in his throat. No vibration, no sound.

  The Strategist. Here. How? Didn’t matter. Had to find Honey. Find her. Find her. Find her. And he could. His goddamned nose was a miracle. A blessing. Given to him for just this moment. He’d track her.

  He moved his hands to his sides into push-up position, pressed his palms to the floor, and lifted his torso. Pain feasted on his heart, chewed, and swallowed him into unconsciousness.

  * * *

  The scent of sterile commercial cleaner combined with the rot of sickness to burn Lathan’s nose. Hospital. He was in a hospital—they all smelled the same. What was he doing in a hospital?

  Burning. Aching. Thrumming pain in his chest. Junior shot him. Hurt Honey. The memories flared through his mind, giving him a tail fire of adrenaline. He bolted upright. Something violent and wrong ruptured inside his chest, stealing his ability to suck air. He fell back, clawing at the bandage over his heart. His vision frayed around the edges. Consciousness became a disintegrating string, but one he clung to by sheer resolve.

  Motionless on the thin mattress, he forced oxygen into his lungs, then pushed it out. Didn’t matter how much pain he was in; he needed to find Honey. The Strategist could be torturing her at this very moment. He needed to find her. He was the only one who could save her. No one else.

  A nurse entered the room and spoke to him, but his brain was on turtle speed and couldn’t process the movement of her mouth. She checked the bags of fluids plugged into his body. The moment she turned to check the monitors, he ripped out the tubes tethering his hand—felt no pain. Except for the constant roar in his chest. Blood dripped down his fingers. The scent of it triggered cruel memories of pain, both physical and mental, at having to watch Junior hurt her and being fucking helpless.

  His ears picked up frantic sounds from the nurse, and then she was reaching for him. He batted a floppy—not quite cooperating—arm in her direction, then tried to stand. She pressed a button on his bed and started yelling. He wasn’t even trying to listen to her.