by JB Lynn
“I saw what Pop did to you,” Billy continued in a singsong voice.
“What I’m going to do again.” The older man’s voice was hoarse with a lascivious anticipation Emily recognized.
Her palm burned in response.
His son shot him a look like he should know his place. Chastised, the elder O’Neil cast his eyes downward, confirming Emily’s suspicion that the father wasn’t the one in charge. No wonder the wimp preyed on girls. He was a pathetic excuse for a man. A real man, a man like Bailey, would wipe the floor with him.
If only she could keep them talking. She had to give the cavalry, assuming there was going to be a cavalry, time to get there. Bailey would know she’d left with his dispatcher. He’d have alerted the FBI. They would find them. “Why me?”
Dad looked to his son for permission to answer.
“Tell her, Pop.” He sounded like a little kid requesting his favorite bedtime story.
Dad obliged. “You were a sweet, pretty girl despite the fact that your old man is a first-class jerk. He shows up one weekend, while I’m doing work for your mom and he catches Junior here dissecting minnows on your picnic table. He had the nerve to tell me he was going to insist my brother do something about Billy’s sadistic behavior. As if every fisherman who uses minnows for bait doesn’t do the same thing!” He sounded outraged by the remembered slight.
“Pop, the story’s supposed to be about Emily, not about her dickwad dad,” Billy interjected, his annoyance palpable.
Oliver O’Neil exhaled slowly, trying to recover his equilibrium. “I remember the first time I knew I had to have you. I was doing some odd jobs for your mother, building display cases for those dolls of hers. I’d never seen anything as beautiful as that collection. They were perfect. That’s why I keep trying to make them.”
“You were the best, Emily.” Billy sounded almost reverential as he said it. “I watched you back then. I’ve watched them all, and none of them was quite like you. I’ve tried to find one. One that’s so pure of heart, but full of fight. That one’s at least got the fight.” He pointed at Anna.
Instinctively, Emily scooted over protectively, to stand between them.
He laughed at her.
“But now, now I can have the real, genuine article. After all these years, I finally get to have you. Not so pure anymore, but you’re still a fighter, and that’s what I like best. We are going to have so much fun together.” The singsong quality of his voice freaked her out and sent a chill skittering down her spine.
She stared at him, trying to imagine the ten-year-old boy he’d been when he’d witnessed his father’s depravity. She cast about, searching her soul for some pity for that child, but all she came up with was hatred. It burned in her gut, hot and strong.
He cocked his head and smiled as though he could read her thoughts, as though he relished her hatred for him.
She looked away. Engaging this one was not a smart idea. He was the smarter of the two, crazier of the two, the more evil of the two. She had no doubt about that. He seemed to be feeding off the fear in the room. She switched her attention to the other man, trying to kill time, as she waited for her chance to make her move. “Why did you come back?”
“Sonny boy missed it. Enough time had passed that no one, not even his uncle Freddy or cousin recognized him. All I had to do was lay low. The only person who ever saw me was Zelda, and nobody ever believes her about anything anyway. But then Freddy got suspicious, which is why he had to have his ‘accident.’”
“You should have seen Bailey’s face when he got to the wreck,” Billy interrupted with a chuckle. “Besides it was time to start the game again. Just you and us this—”
A groan interrupted them.
Oliver pulled out a gun and headed toward the door.
Realizing the sound had been the third step from the top of the stairs, Emily called out loudly, hoping to warn whoever it was, “Where’d you get a gun?”
“Shut up!” Billy whispered the warning, pulling out a large hunting knife and slicing the air inches from her face.
Emily gulped. Her tiny kitchen blade would be no match for that weapon. Still, it was all she had. As the two men eyed the door, she slipped the paring knife into her palm, readying herself. Adrenaline pumping, heart racing, she forced herself to stay still, to wait for her chance. She couldn’t blow this. It would be the only opportunity she’d get to save her sister.
A quick glance at Anna, told her that she’d seen the movement. “Closet,” Emily mouthed. Anna nodded her understanding and curled her fingers around Laurie’s arm.
Emily inched forward, so that she stood closer to the kidnappers.
“Is somebody out there?” Oliver called out in a voice filled with blustering bravado.
Silence.
“I’ll check it out. You stay here.” The elder O’Neil crept out into the hallway in search of what, or who, had made the noise.
Emily prayed that whoever was out there was ready.
His son peered out after him, his back turned to the room.
This was it, her chance. Every muscle in her body coiled.
Emily launched herself at Billy, propelling him forward with her body weight, and plunging the knife into his shoulder. She managed to catch herself on the doorframe as he fell forward, onto his knees, howling his pain. Staying upright, she kicked at him, her sneaker connecting with his left butt cheek, sending him sprawling. She slammed the bedroom door closed.
“You bitch!” he roared, throwing his body against the other side of the door. “You’re going to pay for that!”
Fingers trembling, Emily forced the top deadbolt into the locked position. Glancing back at the bed, she saw that Anna and Laurie were already off it, and headed for the closet. For once, she was glad she’d been so paranoid after her abduction. Not only had she installed the three deadbolts on the bedroom door, but she’d also put one on the inside of the closet. “Hurry!” she urged. Her hands shook as she tried to slide the second deadbolt across.
He slammed against the door again, making it bounce on its hinges.
She knew the door wouldn’t hold up to that kind of assault for much longer. Throwing the bottom lock into place she rushed to the closet. The two teenagers had crammed themselves in, but there was no room for Emily.
“Lock it from the inside, and be very quiet,” Emily ordered the wide-eyed girls, thrusting her purse at them. “There’s pepper spray in there. Find it. Use it if you have to. I’ll trick them into thinking we all went out the window. No matter what you hear, be quiet. Do you understand?”
They nodded their agreement.
He slammed into the door from the outside again. It made a terrible crunching noise, and all three women flinched.
She closed the door. “Lock it!” she whispered.
She heard metal scrape against metal, as they bolted themselves inside.
“Tell Bailey the frog will keep me safe.”
“The frog?” Laurie sounded so scared, so young.
Leaning her cheek against the door, Emily whispered, “I love you, Laurie.”
A gunshot was fired downstairs, and she could hear men shouting. The sounds of a struggle echoed through the house. The cavalry had arrived!
But Billy was still at the door. “I’m going to kill you, you little bitch!” He slammed against the door again and again.
Emily flew to the window and threw it open just as the door splintered off its hinges.
Throwing one leg out the window, she screamed, “Run! Run!” as though the girls were already outside. He barreled toward her. She was almost out when he caught her arm and yanked her all the way back into the room. She hit the floor with a thud that knocked the breath out of her. Lying there, her cheek against the hardwood floor, she finally remembered where her mace was. It was under the bed. It had rolled there one night when she’d knocked it to the floor after a nightmare.
He looked out the window, peering into the darkness, searching for Laurie and Anna, before turning h
is attention back to Emily. “You stupid bitch.”
Instinctively she rolled away from the kick he’d aimed at her head. It glanced off her shoulder. She kept scrambling to get away. She headed for the bed. It would provide cover, if she could get under it, and with any luck, she could find the mace.
The shouts and shots continued downstairs, so she knew she couldn’t expect to be rescued any time soon. She scuttled under the bed, hands outstretched, blindly searching for the can. Her fingers closed around it as he ripped the bed away, sending it careening against another wall.
He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her to her feet. She yelped, as the pain tore through her scalp, but she didn’t let go of the mace.
“Think you’re so smart, don’t you?” he mocked. “Well who’s the one in charge now?”
“Me!” She aimed the mace at his wildly darting eyes, and depressed the trigger. Nothing happened. She pressed it again. Nothing.
He laughed at her. “Loser!”
Eyes. Nose. Throat. Groin. Eyes. Nose. Throat. Groin.
She switched her grip on the can, so that she was holding it like a knife, and jammed it right into his throat.
Gasping in pain, he loosened his grip on her hair. She kneed him in the groin, and he let go altogether. Moving quickly, she headed for the window. Despite his injuries he followed closely behind.
When she’d been a little kid, she’d liked to climb out on the parapet that stretched below her window. For the first time, she was glad of her father’s penchant for excess. While the parapets looked foolish on a lake house, they might just offer her a means of escape. She clambered outside, as he reached for her. Arms outstretched like an acrobat in a high-wire act, she tentatively picked her way toward the large oak tree that almost reached the house. The tree was old and strong. If she could jump onto its branches, she hoped it could support her weight.
She heard him coming after her, his breathing labored, his footsteps heavy, but she didn’t dare to look back. She kept moving forward, toward freedom. She led him farther and farther away from the girls.
Chapter 29
Bailey was breaking the glass of the kitchen door, when he heard the gunshot. His heart stopped, but his body kept moving. Blindly he fumbled for the handle of the door, unlocked it and swung the door open. Weapon drawn, he raced through the house toward the sound of splintering furniture.
At the top of the stairs, Chase was attempting to wrestle to the floor a man who looked a lot like Bailey’s dad. Animalistic rage contorted Oliver O’Neil’s features, an expression Bailey had witnessed all too often on his own father. He was gaining the advantage in the hand-to-hand combat with the older FBI agent.
Unable to get a clear shot, Bailey holstered his gun and ran up the steps, not even pausing to check on Sebastian who lay slumped against the stairs, his shirt soaked with blood.
Using the potent mixture of anger, fear and shame that coursed through him, he tackled his uncle with a bone-jarring crunch. Oliver tried to scramble away, but Bailey held on to him.
“Where is she? Where’s Emily?” he shouted, shaking the older man so hard that the back of his skull bounced against the floor.
“Stop!” Chase, having staggered to his feet, tugged at Bailey’s arms, trying to get him to release his grip. “Let him go. If you kill him we’ll never find her.”
Bailey shrugged the other man off him, determined to make Oliver talk. He could see the fear in his uncle’s eyes.
“Bailey! Bailey, this isn’t how you do things!” Chase reminded him, breathless from his exertions.
Bailey hesitated. He’d always taken pride in the fact that he had control over his emotions and that the O’Neil family temper had never gotten the best of him, but in this moment, with the woman he loved in mortal danger, he was about to explode.
Disappointed with himself, with the man he’d almost become, he loosened his grip.
“Cuff him,” Chase urged.
Oliver offered no resistance as Bailey flipped him to lie face-first on the floor, yanked his wrists behind him and snapped on a pair of handcuffs.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Chase limp over to his partner. “I’m calling an ambulance. I’ll keep an eye on the suspect. You go find the sisters. He came out of the second room on the right.”
Bailey looked to where Chase was pointing. Emily’s room. Of course, with all the locks on the door, she would have thought it the safest place in the house.
Pulling his service weapon out, he crept down the hall, hoping against hope he wasn’t too late.
Gun drawn, he burst into her room, but there was no one there. Hearing a sound in the closet he swung his weapon in that direction. “Come out with your hands up!”
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” The voice was definitely young and female.
“Anna, is that you?” Relief flooded through him. She was still alive!
Metal scraped against metal and the door slowly swung open, revealing Laurie and Anna huddled on the closet floor. Anna brandished a can of pepper spray.
“It’s okay, girls. You’re safe.” Realizing Emily wasn’t in the closet too, Bailey asked. “Where’s Emily?”
Lowering the spray, Anna looked toward the open window. “She led him away.”
“She said to tell you the frog would protect her.” Laurie’s lower lip quivered and tears streamed down her face.
The Snack Shack. The only other place she felt safe. Bailey spun back around. “I know where she is.” He just didn’t know if he could get there in time.
That fucking bitch!
He was going to kill her.
He was going to enjoy killing her.
He was going to enjoy killing her more than he’d ever enjoyed killing anyone.
Ever.
Even more than he’d enjoyed killing his own grandmother. He’d just killed her to shut her up. He’d liked her screams the best.
He’d thought he liked the fight in Emily Wright, but now he wasn’t so sure. It was not part of the plan to go chasing after her in the dark. It was definitely not part of the plan to jump into a tree while two stories up, but he couldn’t let her get away.
He had to have her.
He had to own her.
He had to be the one to snuff out her life.
“I’m coming for you, Emily! You can run and hide, but you’ll never get away from me!”
Chapter 30
The branches clawed at her body, and the rough bark tore at her skin when Emily launched herself into the tree. She was falling, bouncing from limb to limb, desperately reaching for something to hold on to. Everything was slipping through her fingers. Miraculously, she teetered for a long moment on a particularly sturdy limb and was able to get her balance. She lay there for a long moment, trying to catch her breath, but a crash from above told her he was closing in on her. She swung herself lower and lower on the tree, ripping her hands open in the process. If she could just get her feet on the ground, she could run. She was a runner. She would be able to get away.
She dropped the last few feet to the ground, ready to take off. She hadn’t counted on the acorns. Her feet slipping out from under her she wrenched her ankle, and fell to the ground. Scrambling to get away, she stood up, and immediately fell down again, getting the wind knocked out of her.
Looking up, she saw him climbing down the tree. She hauled herself upright.
She limped, ignoring the pain that threatened to cripple her, down the path that led toward the lake. It was her only escape route. He’d catch her if she tried taking the road to the Snack Shack. She had to keep moving. She had to get him far away from her sister. She’d run marathons. She could deal with a little discomfort. Her body could handle this. She’d been training for this race for half her life. She could beat him.
The tree cover made the now-unfamiliar path pitch-black. Emily stumbled down it, falling a few times, but refusing to stop moving. He was getting closer. She could hear his footsteps which were even louder than her p
ounding heart approaching.
She pushed herself to go farther. Faster. Her old mantra came back to her, and she started saying it under her breath. “I am not going to die. I am not going to die.”
The path was getting lighter. She must be getting near the end. “I am not going to die. I am not going to die.”
The lake came in sight, reflections rippling like silver droplets on the surface. Stumbling across lawns and docks she raced toward the Snack Shack, knowing that if she could make it there, she’d be safe.
Finally she hit the sand of the public beach. The finish line was in sight. She could make out the shadow of the cement frog that Bailey had told her the key was hidden in. She’d made it!
And then Billy was on top of her, tackling her to the ground. The air left her lungs in a painful whoosh. She kicked. She scratched. She kneed. She clawed. She fought like a wildcat, but still he hung on to her. She bit him.
He backhanded her. The pain radiating from her cheek through her head was excruciating. She couldn’t even lift her head off the ground.
He rolled her over so that she was looking up at the stars. He straddled her, his weight pressing down on her diaphragm, making it hard to breathe. She took short, shallow breaths, trying frantically to take in air.
Brandishing his knife with one hand, he wrapped the other around her neck. “How’s it feel, Emily? Scared? Am I the one scaring you now?”
This was it. He was going to kill her.
“You were so scared when you were a kid. I used to watch you. There were all those secret passages in that basement. I watched you all the time. You knew it, didn’t you? Sometimes you’d look right at the wall I was hidden behind, like you knew I was there. You could feel me. Just like you can feel me now.”
She beat at him with her fists ineffectively. She couldn’t get any leverage.
“You cried like a baby. I’ve watched you at night. You still cry a lot.” He squeezed tighter.
She couldn’t breathe. She was dying.
“I’m the one who brought you home. Wasn’t that hard. Just topped off the tank of the good doctor’s boat with some bad gas and before he knew what was happening it stalled smack-dab in the middle of the lake. He was dead in the water. Just didn’t know it. I’d attached a small explosive to the boat. Remote controlled. One flip of a switch and BOOM!”
