The Masked Man

by B. J Daniels

  She’d wanted him to kiss her. For a moment at the door, she thought he might. But she knew if he did, she’d only want more.

  When she got back upstairs, Brenna was pacing. “Okay, what is it you’re dying to tell me?”

  “He was married.”

  “Mac?”

  “They met his last year in college.”

  “And?”

  “And she died. Cancer.”

  Jill sat down. “Oh, how awful. She must have been very young.”

  Brenna nodded. “They’d been living in Denver, but he left right after that. The people he worked with at a private-investigations office there said he was devastated by his wife’s death. His whole personality changed. He started keeping to himself, moving a lot and became bitter and cynical. I guess he avoids relationships big time.”

  “That explains why he seems so…afraid of what happened between us. So determined it won’t happen again.”

  “Maybe it shouldn’t,” Brenna said.

  Jill sighed. “I don’t know. I just know that what happened between us wasn’t just great sex. Something clicked, something…big. And I’m afraid this sort of thing only comes along once in a lifetime. I don’t want to pass it up. I want to see where it takes me.”

  “What about Mac?” Brenna asked.

  “He’s determined to keep me at arm’s length.” The phone rang, making Jill jump. She went to answer it, worried about Mac and Shane.

  It was her father. “I’m fine,” she told him. “Brenna is here with me. Catch any fish?”

  “We got a few.”

  We? “Who went with you?” she asked.

  Silence. “Darlene. I’ve been wanting the two of you to meet.” Silence.

  Jill felt tears burn her eyes. She’d caught the sound of happiness in her father’s voice. “I would love to meet her.” She could almost feel his relief over the phone line.

  “Oh, Jill, I can’t tell you how glad that makes me.”

  She was crying softly. “Dad, I like it that you’ve found someone. I don’t want you to be sad anymore.”

  “I’ll see you in the morning, then,” he said. “Sleep tight, sweetheart.”

  “You too, Dad.”

  As Jill hung up, she dried her tears and noticed the answering machine blinking. She pushed Play and was startled to hear the other Scarlett’s voice. Only, there was another layer to it. Fear.

  “It’s Rachel. I have to talk to you.” She was whispering as if she thought someone might be listening in. “Call me. It’s urgent.” She left a cell-phone number.

  When Jill looked up, Brenna was standing in the doorway. “Our missing Rachel? She sounds scared.”

  Jill nodded. According to the answering machine, Rachel had called shortly after the funeral this morning. Jill dialed the number, her fingers shaking. As horrible as the woman had been to her after the funeral, what could she possibly want to talk to her about?

  The phone rang and rang. Jill was about to hang up when someone picked up. She could hear breathing on the line and held the phone so Brenna could listen, too.

  “Rachel? It’s Jill.”

  Silence. Then, Rachel crying, her voice breaking. “He’s going to kill me. Oh, God. I need money to get out of town. You have to help me. No cops.”

  “Who?”

  No answer.

  “I lost him, but he knows the cops are looking for me. If they find me, he’ll know.” She was crying harder now.

  “Where are you?”

  “Waterside. Hurry.” The line disconnected.

  The old Waterside Campground was down the lake road about twenty miles. It hadn’t been open in years. Jill looked at her watch, then at Brenna.

  “You told Mac you wouldn’t leave,” her friend reminded her.

  “I have to go. You heard her. She seems to think whoever is after her has some connection to the police,” Jill said, remembering how Arnie had found out about her mystery lover through his cousin at city hall. “The killer might have a scanner.”

  Brenna nodded. “I still don’t like this.”

  “I don’t, either, but you heard her. She’s scared and in trouble. If I send the sheriff’s deputies, the killer could get to her first.”

  “Well, I’m going with you,” Brenna said. “Better leave a note for Mac.”

  Jill and Brenna climbed into The Best Buns in Town van and started down the lake road. Only occasionally did the moon peek through the clouds. A cold, damp blackness had settled in and the air smelled of rain.

  They left Bigfork behind. There was little traffic this time of the night and this late in the summer. The pines gave way to cherry orchards and long stretches of nothing but trees and darkness.

  Just past an abandoned orchard, the right front tire on the van blew.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jill gripped the steering wheel, fighting to keep the van on the narrow road as she braked to a stop. Fortunately she hadn’t been going fast, but then, she couldn’t on this stretch of the highway.

  At a wide spot she pulled off the road, the tire thumping, the van listing forward and to the right.

  “I can’t believe we have a blowout now,” Brenna said as she climbed out with the flashlight from the glove compartment.

  Jill got out, glanced at the flat, right-front tire and went around to the back of the van to get the jack. She was digging it out when she heard Brenna say, “That’s funny. The tire has a hole in it. Almost looks like a bullet hole.”

  “A bullet hole? Like someone shot it?” Jill hauled the jack to the front of the van but didn’t see her friend. The flashlight lay on the ground by the tire. “Brenna?” A cold wind blew off the water. The dark pines swayed, the limbs moaning softly.

  Where had she gone? Jill looked down at the flat tire, saw the perfect hole in the sidewall and felt a chill. “Brenna?” She stared up and down the road and saw nothing but darkness. On either side of the pavement the bare limbs of the abandoned orchard were etched black against the night. “Brenna!” Her voice was lost in the wind.

  Jill put down the jack and walked around to the driver’s side of the van, fighting the urge to run. Brenna wouldn’t just walk off. Someone had shot out the tire. Someone had taken Brenna. Someone was still out there.

  Her hands shaking, she hurriedly climbed in and reached for her purse with her cell phone inside. It wasn’t between the seats where she’d left it.

  Get out of here! Fear made her limbs numb, useless, her movements slow. She could still drive on a flat. To get help she would do whatever she had to. She reached to turn on the ignition.

  The keys were gone!

  Her pulse pounded. Behind her, she heard the whisper of a sound and for just an instant thought it might be Brenna. Her gaze flew to the rearview mirror. She saw a pair of eyes glittering from a black ski mask as a man lunged at her.

  A gloved hand brushed her arm, but didn’t find purchase as she threw open the van door and jumped out.

  The moment her feet hit the pavement, she took off at a run, remembering another night long ago when she’d done the same on this very road.

  She heard her assailant come crashing out of the back of the van. She ran down the middle of the road, knowing she didn’t stand a chance of disappearing into the stark trees of the old cherry orchard, nor could she run down the steep mountainside.

  She didn’t dare look back as she ran up the long incline, praying a car would come along. Her side ached and her legs felt numb. On one side tall pines made a dark wall along the edge of the narrow road. On the opposite side the land fell away, dropping radically the half mile down to the lake.

  In the distance she thought she heard the sound of a car engine. Suddenly the glare of headlights blinded her as a vehicle came up over the rise in the road, answering her prayers. She could hear the roar of the engine. She waved her arms frantically. “Stop! Please help me!”

  THE OLD CHERRY-PACKING plant loomed up from the road, dark and massive against the night sky. Mac cut the lights
and engine, coasting to a stop fifty yards away.

  He waited for a moment, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, then he quietly opened his door and stepped out, pulling his weapon from his ankle holster as he headed toward the building.

  He hadn’t gone far when he saw movement. Shane stepped out of the shadows.

  “Uncle Mac, man, he’s trying to kill me.”

  Mac motioned for Shane to be quiet until they reached the truck. The kid loped along beside him, looking over his shoulder, obviously scared.

  Once back in the pickup, Mac holstered his weapon, started the engine and headed back to town, keeping an eye on his rearview mirror. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “It never is.” Mac was glad he was driving or he might have torn the kid limb from limb. “Tell me about the coins.”

  “Trevor ordered Marvin and me to be ready one night. We didn’t know we were going to rob someone. I’m telling you the truth. And I think there was something else in that metal box beside those coins.”

  “Like what?” Mac asked.

  “I don’t know, man. Something that got Trevor killed.”

  “Did you have anything to do with Trevor’s death?” Mac asked, shooting a look at his nephew. “Don’t lie to me, Shane.”

  “No way, man! No way!”

  Mac let out a sigh. “There was a surveillance camera that caught you on tape. You, Trevor and Marvin. Who was the other guy? The one who was inside during the burglary?”

  Shane looked scared. “I think that’s the dude that’s been trying to kill me.”

  “What’s his name?” Mac said, losing patience.

  “Arnie. Arnie Evans. He was Trevor’s best friend, but I gotta tell you, I think he killed Trevor.” Shane was nodding. “I know it sounds crazy, them being best friends and all, but I think the dude killed him, man.”

  AS JILL WAVED her arms, the car came to a screeching halt just feet from her in the middle of the lake road. She shielded her eyes, trying to see past the bright headlights. “Please, help me!” she cried again, hearing the hysteria in her voice.

  “Jill?”

  Arnie? She rushed to the driver’s side of the car. “Oh, thank God, Arnie. There’s someone…” She looked back down the road toward the van. No one was behind her. “Brenna. I can’t find Brenna. And there was this man—”

  “Get in,” Arnie said, turning his headlights to bright. The van, back down the road a short distance, was visible in the light, its right-front tire flat. There was no movement around it. Just darkness. “Hurry,” Arnie said.

  She ran around the front of the car to the passenger side. Arnie already had the door open. She leaped in and slammed the door after her. She heard the click of the automatic lock.

  “We…we had a flat. Brenna got out to look and then…” Jill was gasping for air, her heart hammering and her body shaking so hard she was having trouble speaking. “Someone shot out the tire and now Brenna is gone and there was this man in the back of the van…”

  “Easy,” Arnie said.

  “He was wearing a black ski mask. We have to look for Brenna. Where’s your cell phone? We have to call for help.”

  “I don’t have a cell phone.” He let the black sports car coast slowly down the hill past the van, his expression grim. “You’re sure you saw a man in a black ski mask?”

  “Yes.” Why wasn’t he asking about Brenna? Why wasn’t he racing into town for help? “Arnie, we have to get to town. We have to get help.” She started to cry. “I’m so afraid something terrible has happened to Brenna.”

  As they passed the van, she saw that both its back doors were open, the dome light was on, and it was empty.

  Arnie looked down the road and suddenly spun the sports car around highway-patrol style and started back up the hill he’d just come down.

  “Where are you going?” she cried. “Town’s the other way.”

  He glanced in his rearview mirror and swore. “There was someone waiting for us down the road.”

  “I don’t see anyone,” she said, looking back.

  “Someone’s following us with his headlights turned off.” Arnie sounded scared as he sped up.

  She swiveled around in the seat to look back, but saw nothing but darkness.

  “We have to try to lose him,” Arnie said. “Hang on.”

  She buckled up her seat belt. “Arnie, I don’t see anyone back there. Please, turn around. Let’s go back to town to the sheriff’s department. If there really is someone following us—”

  “We’d never reach town,” he said as he pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The sports car took off, pressing her back against the seat. The car shot down the road, the tires squealing as he took the curves of the narrow, steep road, driving farther and farther away from town—and help.

  Arnie glanced in the rearview mirror again and swore. “He’s staying right with us.” In the dash lights, she could see beads of sweat on his forehead, his knuckles white on the steering wheel, his eyes wild.

  “Arnie, what are you doing?”

  “This is the only way,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “This is all Trevor’s fault. I hope he’s burning in hell.” The bitterness in his voice shocked her. “You can’t imagine the things I did for him. The secrets I kept. I should have known I couldn’t trust him.”

  Her heart jumped to her throat. Oh, my God. She was shaking her head, telling herself this wasn’t happening.

  “And now I’m the one who has to pay the price. He took Rachel from me after taking my father’s last dime. It killed him, you know, losing everything.” He looked in the rearview mirror again. Fear seemed to deform his face. She could hear him breathing heavily.

  She started to turn in her seat to look back again to see if anyone was following them, but suddenly Arnie hit the brakes. The sports car went into a sideways skid in the middle of the road, tires screeching, smoke billowing. She could see out over an old cherry orchard, see the lake way down at the bottom of the steep mountainside past the orchard.

  Jill let out a scream as Arnie hit the gas. The sports car leaped forward and then dropped over the edge of the pavement. For a moment she thought he’d lost his mind. But then the tires came down hard on a dirt road that cut through the trees of the orchard and down the mountain.

  Jill felt as if she was falling as the sports car roared down through the tunnel of trees, the headlights flickering on the dark green of the branches, dust boiling up behind them.

  Clinging to the door handle, she shot a look at Arnie. His face looked feral in the dash lights, eyes wild, teeth bared as he wrestled the wheel, fighting to keep the car on the dirt road between the trees.

  Moonlight flickered through the clouds, and she saw the lake coming up fast—and the cliff at the end of the road, dropping to the water below.

  “Arnie, don’t do this! For God’s sake!”

  But Arnie didn’t slow. In fact, he kept the gas pedal to the floor. “This is the only way.”

  “My God, what are you doing?” she cried over the roar of the engine.

  The car continued on down, the cherry trees blurring past. Her pulse thrummed in her ears.

  “I told Trevor,” Arnie said. “Please don’t get my dad involved in any of your schemes. I begged him. ‘No, buddy, I wouldn’t take a chance with your old man’s retirement. Come on, what kind of guy do you think I am?”’ The perfect mimic of Trevor’s voice startled her. “I trusted him. My dad invested everything, thinking Trevor was going to make him rich. It killed him. When he realized he’d lost everything, his heart couldn’t take it. All those years of working under some guy’s car, grease under his fingernails, all those years…”

  The limbs of trees smacked the windshield and scraped the roof loudly.

  “Trevor deserved to die.” Arnie went on. “He got what was coming to him.”

  A weapon. She had to stop him. She grabbed for the wheel and he backhanded her, knocking her against the door. She r
eached the latch on the glove compartment. The compartment door flopped down, spilling everything. A black ski mask tumbled out and landed on the floor at her feet.

  “It was you,” she whispered hoarsely, then looked up to see that they were about to go over the cliff and plunge into the lake below.

  At the last minute, Arnie turned the wheel and hit the brakes. Jill saw the cherry trees coming at her. A large branch hit the windshield, shattering it. She could hear the limbs slamming into the car, feel the car start to roll in the soft earth between the trees, then flatten out, still moving.

  When at last the car stopped, Arnie threw open his door and stumbled out. Shaken, she groped for her door handle, pulled it. The door fell open and she was out and running almost before her feet hit the ground.

  She heard the pounding of his feet behind her. He was close, very close. She could hear his ragged breath, almost feel it on her neck.

  She stumbled and almost fell. She felt the brush of his hand through her hair and dodged to the right. The wrong way. It led to the cliff.

  He tackled her and took her down hard, knocking the breath out of her as they fell. He quickly got up, dragging her to her feet and pulling her toward the cliff—and the lake below.

  “This is the only way out,” he said as she tried to fight him with her fists and kicked at him.

  “No!” she screamed. It couldn’t end like this. Mackenzie Cooper’s face flashed in her mind and she cried out for him.

  His arm around her chest, his free hand covering her mouth, Arnie dragged her the few yards to the edge of the cliff.

  They teetered on the rim and she looked down, feeling the cold, wet air blowing up from the water. She thought she saw a light below her in the water, but realized it was lightning—a storm was approaching. Thunder rumbled somewhere out on the lake. Just like the night Trevor was murdered.

  She tried to stop Arnie, but he was too strong. He picked her up and held her out over the edge of the cliff, out over the water, then he swung her body outward and released her.