That was the moment she noticed the sofa was really more like an ancient futon, the seat supported by wooden slats. Some of which were broken. One not very far from her hand had broken in the middle, leaving two sharp, pointed ends.
If I can stab a man with a knife, I can stab him with a wooden spear.
She made herself move, as if she were trying to struggle up to her hands and knees, except she groped for the slat with one hand. She took hold of it, but it was still anchored to the sofa on the near end. She made her struggle to get up more theatrical as she fought to free the piece of wood.
A kick connected with her belly and sent her sprawling again.
“Where is it?”
He sounded almost bored.
She was just a job to him. Nothing out of the ordinary.
I want to kill him.
*****
Colburn frowned at his phone and lifted it to his ear. “Yeah?” Pause. “Turned which way?” After another moment he said, “Okay,” then stowed his phone. “That was Holbeck. Deputies are knocking at every business stirring to life on the highway. A cook came into work about the right time. Says he saw a light-colored sedan leaving town just as he parked. Took a right on the highway. Noticed it because it didn’t belong to any of the other people he sees going to work that early, and not many tourists set out while it’s still dark, and especially heading south.”
Adam closed his eyes. Travelers returning to Portland went north from Cape Trouble. South, there was nothing for miles. Dense, wet coastal forests. The creep could have a campsite fifty feet off the highway, and no one would see it. Or, with Naomi safely stowed in the trunk, he could keep driving, go on for miles.
A campsite during the day wouldn’t be seen, he corrected himself. In the dark, though, the guy would need to use a flashlight or start a fire, turn on a lantern. He’d know any small flash of light from the woods would give them something to go on.
And, unless he was deep in the woods…screams tended to carry.
Fear gripped his body. Block it out, God damn it. Think!
“The old resort,” he heard himself say.
“I sent one of my officers over there last week when we were first trying to figure out where he could be staying. The officer insisted there was no sign of occupancy.”
Adam turned that way. The street dead-ended at the river. He saw only impenetrable darkness.
“Did he go inside?”
“Looked through windows.”
Instinct tugged at him. “It’s a possibility. He might not have been staying there, but he’d hear talk, know it was empty and that there are no neighbors to hear anything.”
Daniel barely hesitated. “Worth a look,” he agreed. “But put on your vest first.” Of all men, he must understand Adam’s desperate need to take positive action. And doing something was more useful than nothing. He could keep taking phone calls, and they wouldn’t be far away if there was a contrary lead.
By the time Adam returned, Colburn was done snapping out orders to his men and was instead talking on his phone. “I’m blocked in,” he growled. “You drive.” As he jumped in the passenger side of Adam’s Tahoe, he went back to his phone conversation. “Yeah, the state patrol,” he was saying. “In case this guy keeps going. If he has Ms. Kendrick unconscious, he could plan to drive for an hour or more.”
Unconscious. Adam’s hands tightened on the steering wheel until he heard the plastic creak. It took every bit of his considerable self-control not to speed.
Daniel ended the call. “We have every jurisdiction up and down the coast watching for him.”
Adam didn’t say anything.
“The cabins are falling down. The few intact roofs leak. It’d have to be the lodge.” His tone was strange. “You heard about last summer?”
“Yeah.”
“Place is haunted, as far as I’m concerned.”
Adam almost asked if they were sure they’d found all the bodies buried over twenty years ago by a serial killer, but thought better of it. He didn’t want to think about dead women right now.
They reached the highway and at last he could accelerate, his headlights piercing the darkness. There was no other traffic.
“Look for the turn as soon as you’re over the bridge,” Daniel said. “Entry should be blocked. Let me out and I’ll pull it aside.”
The river was nothing but deeper darkness beyond a low railing. Adam slowed, watching tensely for the driveway. He found it, and his headlights picked out first a No Trespassing sign, then a second that declared No Hunting Allowed. He strained to see something else in the undergrowth, then realized it was the remnants of a rotting wooden sign. He also saw that a saw horse had been pushed aside, allowing room for the Tahoe to squeeze through.
More adrenaline peaked. “He’s here.”
Daniel grunted. “Everyone ignores the No Trespassing sign. Could have been somebody walking their dog on the beach today.”
The lights of town were to the right, across the river, woods to the left. Ahead, Adam spotted the first cabin, rotting back into the soil like everything made of wood did in this climate.
“Turn your headlights off,” Daniel said suddenly. “Better yet, park. If he’s here, let’s surprise him.”
Adam braked where he was, shoved the gear into park, and turned off the engine. He paused only long enough to switch off the dome light, then rummage in the glove compartment for a flashlight. The two men jumped out, neither closing his door, and without exchanging another word, jogged down the track.
*****
“Where is it?”
The board came loose with a noise Naomi tried to mask by lurching half to her knees and falling against the sofa. She drew the slat beneath her. Would he let her slowly push herself to her feet, for the pleasure of knocking her down again?
Maybe. Maybe not.
She turned her head so she could see him through the one slit of vision remaining to her. He was bending over, she saw, pulling up his pants leg. A sheath… Oh, God. It was a knife. She hadn’t thought she could be any more scared, but she’d been wrong. The blade was wickedly long. If he started slicing her…
I have one chance, she thought with sudden clarity. I have to thrust the jagged end into him with everything I have, and then run like hell.
That was assuming she could stagger to her feet at all.
Into the belly. Up beneath the rib cage. Done it once. Can do it again.
“Where is it?” He sounded like a broken record. Same intonation. Over and over.
She kept scrabbling, trying to look more disabled even than she was. Feet under me. Get balanced on them. Then spring. Have to get him dead on.
Dead. Funny.
She gathered herself.
*****
The unending roar of the Pacific Ocean filled Adam’s ears. This close, he saw shimmers of white ahead, where surf crested then foamed. Clouds were breaking up. It wasn’t just his eyes adjusting; he was catching fleeting glimpses of a half moon between scudding clouds.
The rutted lane curved to the left to follow the beach. Some cabins were still recognizable as such, while others were little more than skeletons with odd angles jutting out. Adam lost sight of the ocean and realized sand dunes blocked his view. The lane climbed toward a slightly higher elevation.
Now he could see the black bulk of the lodge. No lights, no vehicle. Could be around the side or back.
Another shaft of moonlight let him realize that he was actually looking at the side of the massive old lodge. The broad porch with peeled log supports faced the ocean. The soil beneath their feet was hard and gritty now.
Daniel suddenly gripped his arm. Adam slowed, then obeyed a hand signal and slid into the greater darkness close to the porch. Both had their guns in their hands now as one moved forward, followed by the other.
Adam reached the foot of the stairs first. For an instant he thought he was delusional. Blink and you’ll see that slipper. He moved forward, crouched, and felt baby-soft fluff under his hand.
She’d dropped her second slipper out here, trusting him to find it.
Pride and rage filled him to overflowing. “She’s here,” he murmured.
“I’ll take the back door,” came the near-soundless whisper. “I know my way. Give me the count of thirty.”
Adam nodded and silently mounted the steps.
*****
He grabbed a handful of hair and yanked her head up. “Where is it? Last chance, or I start cutting.”
Now.
Naomi leaped to her feet, driving the crude stake at his belly with all the force she could muster. She couldn’t even tell if it penetrated his shirt, but he yelled and fell back. She kept shoving, shoving, shoving, and heard herself screaming like a banshee at the same time. He slammed against a wall and she kept shoving, even as he grabbed the slat with both hands, pushing back toward her.
Cutting through her scream came a sharp, “Police! Hands up!” He looked past her, forgetting her for a foolish moment, and she gave another thrust that had him doubling over with a ghastly, gurgling sound.
“Naomi.” Adam’s voice this time. His hand closed on her arm. “Let go. We have him now.”
“I want to kill him.” The words were so slurred through her swollen mouth, she didn’t know if he would even understand them.
But he did, because he said gently, “I know. But let us take care of him now.”
She sagged. Began to tremble as, finger by finger, she let go of the wooden slat. Amazing that she could feel her hands sting. Splinters. She didn’t know who was with Adam. She could hardly see the monster, only enough to know he was still bent over, clutching the piece of wood.
The knife. Where was the knife?
The shakes intensified. She tried to back away, but her knees seemed to be folding. A hard arm caught her before she went down, and then Adam swung her off her feet and carried her to the sofa.
He was swearing now, a non-stop litany. Another man passed him, a gun held in rock-steady hands.
“Turn around. Face the wall.”
She knew the voice – Daniel Colburn’s.
“Bitch tried to kill me,” he snarled.
A smile was beyond her, but, oh, she tried.
Her mouth formed a word. “Buffy.”
“What?” Adam set her down and crouched in front of her.
“Vampire slayer,” she whispered, and this time she could tell he made out the words, because he grinned, edgy and dark. Then he cupped her chin with one hand, turning her head so he could survey the damage. Through the slit allowed her, she saw the terrible look in his eyes.
“I want to kill him, too,” he said.
“You found me.” Even her tongue was swollen.
“Followed the bread crumb.”
“Slipper?”
“Yes. God. My fault.”
She tried to shake her head, but it hurt too much so she gave up. She seemed to be listing sideways, even though the last thing she wanted was to find her cheek pressing into that disgusting fabric again.
“Get in here!” Adam called, and moments later he stood back and she knew vaguely that she was being transferred to a gurney.
Suddenly Daniel was there, bending over and peering at her face. “Naomi. Did he say who he works for?”
“Greg.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand. Can you say it again?”
Behind him came Adam’s voice. “Greg. She said Greg.”
“Is that right?” Daniel asked, and she nodded, the tiniest possible bit.
Daniel gave a fierce grin. “It’s time to arrest that son of a bitch, before he finds out what happened here tonight.”
He stepped back. Naomi turned her head, trying to locate Adam, succeeding when he gripped her hand.
“I’ll be right behind the aide car. See you in a few. Okay?”
“’kay,” she whispered, and let her swollen eyelid sink closed.
*****
Adam spent most of the next few hours prowling the halls of the small community hospital. Naomi was examined, subjected to X-rays, wheeled off for a CAT scan which took time because technicians had to be roused from bed and given time to come in. Eventually she was sedated for an endoscopy to look via her sinuses for damage.
Her kidnapper was brought in, too. Turned out she’d done some damage with her make-shift stake. Not much, unfortunately, but the point had penetrated the skin and left splinters as well as significant bruising.
Daniel told Adam quietly that the stop here at the hospital was part of a plan to drag their feet, giving Weismann time to arrange to have Greg Cobb arrested before his boy here got his one phone call.
“Naomi sounded okay,” he said, gaze on Adam’s grimly set face. “The swelling makes her injuries look worse than they are. He says he barely ‘tapped her’.”
Adam imagined the creep estimating how hard he could hit her without knocking her out or – God forbid – killing her before he got the information he’d been sent for.
“Gutsy woman,” Daniel commented with satisfaction.
Oh, yeah. Adam was still stunned by the sight of her trying to drive that broken slat through the big, muscular man’s belly. She would have failed, but…damn. She’d held on. Kept fighting. He remembered setting eyes on her for the first time and thinking there was no way she could have taken down Frank Donahue. What did he know?
By the time they tucked her into bed, she was done for. He wasn’t about to leave her, however curious he was about what was happening at the police station or in Los Angeles. He sat in a chair at Naomi’s bedside, close enough to hold her hand, laid his head back and allowed himself to court sleep.
*****
Naomi woke up and discovered she couldn’t see. She cried out and struggled to sit.
“Hey.” Hands on her shoulders restrained her. “Naomi. You’re okay, but the doctor wants you to relax. What’s wrong? Can you tell me?”
Adam. She quit fighting. Slumped back against the pillow, she tried to dampen lips that felt huge and strange with her tongue. “Blind.”
“Not blind,” he said. “Your eyes have just swelled shut, honey. Swelling always gets worse before it gets better. The nurse is putting ice on your face off and on. It’ll go down.”
“Sure?”
“I’m sure.” His voice was kind.
“Happening?” she asked.
“Ah. You’re in the hospital. Guess you figured that out. Because you lost consciousness, the doctor wants to keep you under observation for at least twenty-four hours. He’d have really liked to get an MRI, but the closest that can happen is Seaside or Lincoln City, and he wasn’t crazy about the idea of having you transported. Since you weren’t displaying any confusion, he decided to wait and see.”
She wished she could see.
“You have hairline fractures in your cheekbones. Broken nose, too, thus the tape across your nose.”
She reached up and touched it, noticing for the first time her hands were wrapped in gauze.
“A couple of teeth are loose. The E.R. doc thinks they’ll, uh, settle back in on their own, but you may need to see an orthodontist.”
Maybe it was just as well she couldn’t see. She must be hideous.
“They’ve got you on pain meds, of course, plus a decongestant to keep your sinuses from swelling. A steroid, too, to bring down the inflammation.”
She had a vague memory of the doctor telling her some of this, but it hadn’t really sunk in. “Surgery?”
“He doesn’t think it will be necessary. It appears Cobb’s guy was trying to scare the shit out of you while not doing so much damage, you wouldn’t be able to think and talk.”
She bit her lip, then winced. “Knife. Said…cut…”
A foul word escaped Adam. After a moment, he said, “Greg Cobb is under arrest.” He sounded hard now, all cop. Except he held her hand in a gentle, reassuring grip, and he was here, at her bedside, instead of being part of the action. “Turns out Greer was flying home to California today
from D.C. Agents plan to meet him at the airport.”
“Stay here?” she managed to ask. No, beg.
“You know that’s not possible,” he said regretfully. “Once you’re able, you’ll have to decant everything you know, probably over and over again. And keeping you safe is still going to be the priority.”
Only because they wanted her testimony in court, she knew. She wondered if he’d told Sam yet about her killing Frank. She couldn’t bring herself to ask. So, am I going back to L.A. in cuffs, or not?
Instead, she turned her face away from him.
“Naomi,” he murmured, his fingers momentarily tightening, but she ignored him.
It had hurt, walking away from her restaurant in southern California, but she thought she’d miss the cafe even more. It had been…not so much an achievement as a refuge. Comfort cooking, she thought.
She wondered when she’d have a chance to do it again.
*****
Maybe it was the ability to see again that gave her the courage to ask hard questions. The swelling was receding, allowing her to open both eyes a slit.
Adam had finally left for a few hours, time she’d spent sleeping, and she could tell he’d showered, shaved and changed clothes while he was gone. His midnight dark hair, brushed back from his face, was still wet. He stood at her bedside, his eyes clear and intensely focused on her.
“How do you feel?” he asked her.
“Better.” Her mouth was working, more or less. “When will I be released?”
“Probably tomorrow.”
“And…and when will I go back to L.A.?”
“Not until the doctor clears you to fly.”
A reprieve. She almost would have liked to get it over with sooner. “Are you leaving right away?”
Shock showed on his face. “Am I leaving—? For God’s sake, Naomi. I’m not going anywhere until you can go with me.”
She blinked. “But…what about Sam?”
“He’s taking off in the morning, prisoner in custody.”
“Oh.”
Adam’s expression softened. “You’re going to L.A. with me, Naomi. You’ll be staying with me.” His mouth compressed. “If you trust me to keep you safe, after I let you down last night.”
See How She Runs (A Cape Trouble Novel Book 2) Page 23
