by Cari Hunter
“Did you ever love him?” she asked.
“No,” Leah said simply. “My father pushed me into marrying him. The Deakins were a powerful family and my father had never been anything. My mom knows, she knows what Caleb does to me, but she can’t even leave my father, so what can she do to help?” She tilted Sarah’s chin. “You need to drink some.”
Sarah swallowed another mouthful but started to retch. Leah lowered the bottle, and a pack rustled as she opened it.
“Here, try this. They’re good for sickness.”
The cracker was dry and crusted with salt, but nibbling at it helped alleviate Sarah’s nausea. She studied Leah in the half-light, noting the careful way she sat and moved, and gradually forming a connection with what Leah had just said.
“How far along are you?”
Leah clearly understood the allusion; she drew her knees to her chest as if to protect her baby. “About fifteen, maybe sixteen weeks.”
“Does he know?”
“Yes.” The admission dropped like a stone, both of them silent for a moment as they contemplated a man who would involve the mother of his child in such violence. “You delivered a baby, didn’t you?” Leah said, her voice wistful. She dampened a piece of gauze from a cheap first aid kit and used it to clean the blood from Sarah’s face.
“Yes, a girl.”
“What was it like?”
“Terrifying.” Sarah smiled at the memory, even though Leah had inadvertently confirmed that it had led Deakin to their door. “Terrifying for a little while and then just lovely.” She winced as Leah pressed too hard on a sore spot.
“Sorry.” Leah had to pause to dry her own eyes with her sleeve. “I don’t think I’m going to make it that far,” she said, and there was nothing but hopelessness behind her words.
The chain binding Sarah’s wrist clinked as she held out her hand. Leah stiffened and glanced toward the firelit space beyond the wall, listening intently for any sign that Deakin was awake. Her posture relaxed as he snored loudly. She dropped the gauze onto the floor and closed her hand around Sarah’s.
*
The back room was cold. Caleb had built a small fire in one corner of the outer room, but very little of its heat was reaching them. Leah considered going to look for a blanket but didn’t want to leave Sarah, who had been quiet for so long that Leah thought she had fallen asleep. It was difficult to tell whether her eyes were open; one of them was swollen almost shut anyway and the poor light cast the other into shadow.
When she spoke, her voice unexpectedly strong, she startled Leah. “What happened to Lyssa?” she asked. “You saw what he did to her, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.” Leah pushed herself a little distance away, uncertain how Sarah would react. Since that night, the murder had replayed a thousand times in her head and in her nightmares, but nothing she did ever changed the outcome. “She tried to fight him, she ran, but he had the knife and he was too strong.”
Sarah nodded in sharp little jerks. She took several labored breaths, as if building up her courage, before speaking again. “Did she suffer?”
“No.” Leah answered automatically, though she knew that a lie would be of little comfort. “I think she must have been scared at first, but it happened so quickly. She can’t have been aware of much.”
Sarah appeared to accept that; her expression relaxed somewhat and she rested her head against the wall. “He’s going to try to bring Alex here, isn’t he?” she said.
“Yes.” Leah had no doubt as to what Caleb’s plan entailed. For the last two years, he had taken pleasure in describing in detail what he would do to Sarah and her girlfriend when he found them. The finer points of his fantasies would vary depending on his mood, but there was one constant: they were always together at the end.
“She’ll be okay, though,” Leah said. “The police will be able to protect her.”
Sarah’s laugh made Leah feel like ants were scurrying across her skin. “A man did the same thing to me, back when Alex and I first met,” Sarah told her. “Well, similar. He took me hostage and left a trail for her to follow. She could’ve run the other way, she bloody should have, but she tracked us down armed with nothing but a stick.”
She didn’t seem to know whether to smile or weep. Leah touched her gently on her cheek. “What happened?”
“She killed him and saved my life.” Sarah’s voice weakened as her composure finally left her. “And I know she’ll come running straight in here as soon as Caleb tells her to.”
“She’ll really do that?” Leah found that strength of bond hard to comprehend, but Sarah answered without a hint of doubt.
“Yes, she will. She’s a bloody idiot.” She smiled. “But then, I’d do it for her.”
*
There were hundreds of photos stored on Alex’s cell phone, all of them taken in the last two years, and she knew that the worst thing she could do right now was scroll through the gallery. She was right; she didn’t even make it past the first image. Framed by a perfect blue sky, Sarah waved at the camera. Sea salt had made her hair stick out in all directions, her cheeks were pink from running along the beach, and she was dressed haphazardly in tattered shorts and a tank top co-opted from Alex because she liked the color.
“Damn,” Alex whispered. She stared at the photograph until her phone timed out and clicked to black. Aware that the image would still be there, she dared not reactivate the screen; she couldn’t face seeing it a second time.
The agent sitting opposite her shuffled in his chair, obviously conscious of her distress but not knowing what to say for the best. He eventually resorted to offering her a cup of coffee. Only seconds after he left the room, Castillo rushed in.
“Deakin contacted the hotline,” he said without preamble.
“Jesus.” Alex tried to stand but abandoned the attempt. “What did he say?”
“He demanded the number for your cell, said he had something to send to you. That was enough to make Emerson twitchy. He managed to run interference, told Deakin we needed proof of his identity and bargained him into accepting my number instead.”
That Castillo was so sure it had been Deakin on the line made Alex’s next question obsolete, but she asked it anyway. “He sent you proof?”
A muscle jumped at the corner of Castillo’s jaw but otherwise he gave nothing away. She hadn’t noticed that his cell was already in his hand; when he set it in front of her, he left damp fingerprints around its casing.
“It’s not pretty,” he warned her.
“Okay.”
It wasn’t okay, she certainly wasn’t okay, but with his hand firm on her shoulder, she was able to look at the message he opened.
Five words: Your bitch is a screamer.
Underneath the text was a photograph of Sarah that made Alex recoil.
“Oh God.”
Deakin had had to hold Sarah’s head up to take the shot. She seemed barely conscious, unaware of what he was doing.
“Alex, shut it down.”
The only color in Sarah’s face came from the blood and the bruising, purple and red around her right eye, her cheek swollen with it. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Alex said. She calmly passed the phone back to Castillo. “If you don’t give him my number, I will.”
*
Even though every touch felt like someone was taking a jackhammer to Sarah’s leg, she managed not to make a sound as Leah tightened the bandage below her knee.
“Should I stop?” Leah asked.
“No, no, keep going. One more near my ankle should do it.”
At her suggestion, Leah had found two flat pieces of wood and fashioned a splint to stabilize the fracture. It was possible that Deakin would tear the thing off as soon as he saw it, but Leah had been willing to try, and the support from the wood reduced the near-constant grating as the bones moved.
“That feels better. Thank you.” Sarah kept her voice to a whisper; this was the
first time she had had any relief from the pain and she didn’t want Deakin to come in and spoil it. “Should you be getting back?”
Leah shook her head, retaking her place by Sarah’s side. “He’ll come for me when he needs me.”
Deakin had been checking on Leah at intervals, but he hadn’t interfered so far, and she had continued to sit with Sarah. Sarah was unsure whether his confidence stemmed from an assumption of Leah’s loyalty or from the fact that neither woman could escape. Having gotten to know Leah a little over the last few hours, she suspected it was more a case of the latter. As Leah was effectively imprisoned, it was of no consequence to Deakin which room she chose to wait in. In any case, Sarah was glad of her company.
In a hushed, hurried monologue, Leah had explained that he wouldn’t let her go near the bag containing the weapons, and that he kept the key to the handcuffs in his jacket. Although she hadn’t seen what he’d wired the door with, she knew he’d kept plastic explosives in their garage at home.
“Did these help any?” she asked Sarah, fishing the box of Advil from her pocket.
Sarah shrugged. “They got rid of my headache. Not sure they do an awful lot for broken bones, though.”
“No, they don’t.” Leah sounded like she spoke from experience. She gave Sarah two of the pills and waited, her expression pensive, as Sarah swallowed them. “I was never one of those women, you know,” she said quietly.
“What women?”
“Like my mom. She thought she could change my father. For years, even when she was hurting so bad she couldn’t stand up straight, she thought she could change him. And then she started making excuses for him.”
“A lot of abused women fall into that trap.”
“Sometimes I wish I had,” Leah murmured. “At least that explains why she stayed. I don’t even have that as a reason.”
The chain snapped taut as Sarah grasped Leah’s arm. “He would have killed you if you’d left him. That’s reason enough.”
“No, it’s not really. I’ve just never been brave.” The admission obviously cost her. She kept her head bowed as she continued. “I read a little about what you did in the mountains. I can’t imagine fighting like that or surviving out there on my own.”
“I wasn’t on my own.” Sarah smiled in spite of herself. “I had Alex to help me.”
“You love her very much, don’t you?” There was a simple curiosity underlying Leah’s question. When Sarah looked at her, a faint blush colored her cheeks.
“Yes, I do. I’m guessing Caleb does not approve.”
The blush deepened and spread as Leah shook her head. She opened her mouth to say something but then seemed to think better of it. Her reticence made Sarah take pity on her.
“You surprised I don’t have horns and a tail?”
Leah’s hand flew to her lips, and it was only belatedly that Sarah realized she was trying to cover a smile.
“Proves how little he knows, huh?” Sarah said.
Leah’s eyes widened, but she was starting to nod hesitantly when a sudden call from the next room made her startle.
“I have to go.” She scrambled to her feet, then leaned low and spoke into Sarah’s ear. “Try and snap the bracket,” she said, and moved Sarah’s hand onto the pipe.
*
Alex’s chair was more comfortable, the technology was of a higher spec, and the coffee didn’t taste quite so much like it had been sitting in the pot for the last week, but otherwise nothing except the location had changed.
Following Deakin’s initial contact, the signal on his cell phone had been triangulated, placing it in Holyoke, Massachusetts. Even as technicians worked to pinpoint the location, agents and police officers were searching the city, combing through the streets in a grid pattern. Alex and Castillo had relocated to the FBI’s Boston field office, to find a team of agents invigorated by an influx of new information and leads. Upon their arrival—and despite Castillo’s obvious misgivings—he had forwarded her number to Deakin. Forty-four minutes ago, she had received a message stating that he would call her within the hour. She was under strict instructions to facilitate a trace by keeping him on the line for as long as possible, but she suspected that he would save them the trouble; if he was ready to speak to her, he was almost certainly ready to be found.
The technician sitting at her side stopped drumming his fingers on the desk as she turned away from the bustling office. She smiled nervously, her teeth working on the skin at the side of her thumbnail. When her phone rang, she bit down so hard she drew blood. She recognized the number as Deakin’s, and the technician raised his hand, his eyes fixed on his computer as he used his fingers to count down. After a few seconds, he nodded and gave her a thumbs-up. She sensed movement to her left and heard Castillo’s murmur of encouragement prompting her to answer the call.
“Hello?” The standard greeting seemed completely inappropriate, but she didn’t know what else to say.
There was a low rumble on the line as Deakin laughed at her. “Guess you must be Alex,” he said with a slow, soft intonation that reminded her of his father.
“Yes.” Her throat felt dry, her tongue thick, and she took a sip of the water that Castillo nudged toward her. She couldn’t remember what she was supposed to ask Deakin, her thoughts filling instead with variations on a single question: Can I talk to Sarah?
As she stalled, the technician made an impatient rolling gesture with his hand, urging her to keep Deakin engaged. She ignored him, fixing her eyes on a blank section of wall.
“What do you want?” she said.
Deakin chuckled again. “Cutting right to the chase, huh? The feds not looking to fix a trace on this?”
“You know they are. But I think you’re probably done hiding.”
“You know what I want then.” His voice had changed, hardened, the amusement vanished from it in an instant.
“Yes.” She tried to keep the tremor from her reply but didn’t quite manage it. “You want me.”
“On your own. Unarmed, no tricks. Remember, I know what you look like.” He took a breath and the air shuddered from him when he released it. Not fear, she realized, but excitement.
“Where do I go?” she said. “I need to know where you are.”
“Second level canal, Holyoke,” he replied without hesitation, and she heard a flurry of activity in the next room as the details were passed through. “In this case, X does not mark the spot.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You’ll, they’ll figure it out. I’ll give you three hours.”
She could visualize him checking his watch, marking the time as if he were arranging a first date. She wanted to scream at him. Instead she agreed to the deadline and then closed her eyes. “Let me talk to Sarah,” she said. “I’m not going anywhere unless I know she’s alive.”
“Didn’t you see the photo?”
“I saw it.” She had to work hard to unclench her jaw. “That proved she was alive then. I want to know she’s alive now.”
“Fair’s fair,” he said affably. She heard something crunch as if beneath footsteps, and then his voice again, but faint, the words indistinguishable. Crackles sounded over the line, and a rub of friction as the phone was shifted.
“Alex?” Sarah’s voice, shaky and weak but unmistakably hers.
“Hey, sweetheart,” Alex whispered.
“Don’t come here,” Sarah said. “Please don’t come here.” She gasped and then groaned, the noises becoming quieter as the phone was taken from her.
“Three hours, Alex,” Deakin reminded her in a singsong tone, and the line went dead.
Chapter Twenty-two
Sarah had been left on her own since the phone call. A hint of something savory drifted in from the next room, and every so often metal rang against metal as if someone there was eating or stirring a meal. Her stomach churned in response, torn between hunger and nausea. She drew her good leg toward her, bracing herself for what she was about to do. On a silent c
ount of three, she grabbed hold of the pipe around which she was cuffed, and wrenched it as hard as she could.
Just as it had on her last four attempts, the pipe wobbled in its brackets but remained attached to the wall. She hadn’t noticed until Leah pointed it out, but the bottom end of the pipe wasn’t connected to anything. All she needed to do to slip her hands free was detach the lowermost bracket.
“Fuck.”
Forgetting that she needed to be quiet, she kicked at the floor, which made her dizzy and achieved nothing. Each time she hauled at the pipe, it was taking longer for her to recover, and every delay brought Deakin’s deadline closer. Her fingernails were ragged from using them as improvised screwdrivers; it was only when that tactic failed that she had switched to brute force. She had no plan for what she would do were she successful, but anything was better than sitting chained to a wall and waiting for Alex to surrender.
She bowed her head to wipe the cold sweat from her face onto her sleeve. Then she took hold of the pipe and tried again.
*
“No.”
The man standing in front of Alex was almost as tall as Castillo, and his biceps bulged when he folded his arms. It was a posture meant to intimidate, but she was too frantic to back down. As he turned in dismissal, she grabbed hold of his arm, not caring that he was the leader of the SWAT team, only that he was wasting time by arguing with her.
“What the fuck do you mean, ‘no’?”
“I mean I’m not going to allow an unarmed civilian to walk straight into the middle of a hostage situation,” he said. “You do that, and you double the number of people my team has to worry about.”
