by Karen Rose
“Whatever happens,” she murmured, “thank you.”
He set her off his lap and rose, tall and strong despite his ordeal. He held out his hand. “We don’t have much time.”
She stood on shaky legs. “What are we going to do?”
He smiled again, approval in his eyes. His eyes were warm and brown. She’d remember that, whatever happened. He handed her what had been a chunk of rock, about four inches long, its edge sharpened to a razor finish. “This is yours.”
She stared at it, wide-eyed. “You made this?”
“God made the rock. I just sharpened it. You hold on to it. You may need it if we get separated.”
“What will you do?”
He went to the corner of his cell and brushed at the dirt until he pulled out a sharpened stone, easily three times bigger than hers. “Have you slept at all?” she whispered, and he smiled again.
“Catnaps.” He spent the next ten minutes showing her where and how to pierce an assailant’s body to do the most damage.
Then a door slammed open in the hall and her eyes flew up to his. He looked grim and she was suddenly more afraid than ever. “He’s coming,” she said, shaking.
Beardsley smoothed his hands over her arms. “Then he’s coming,” he said with finality. “We’re ready. Right?”
She nodded.
“Then go curl up over there in the corner. Make yourself as big as you can. You’re supposed to be me.”
“I’d need two of me,” she said, and one side of his mouth lifted fleetingly.
“Three, actually. Bailey, you can’t falter. And if I give you an order, you obey me without question. Do you understand?”
He was coming closer now, opening a door, then firing a single shot. She heard screams from where she’d only heard the weeping before. Horrified, Bailey met Beardsley’s eyes as more doors were opened and more shots fired. The screaming faded as the voices were silenced one by one. “He’s killing them.”
A muscle twitched in Beardsley’s jaw. “I know. Change in plan. You hide behind the door, I’ll stand on the other side. Move, Bailey.”
She obeyed and he took up position next to the door, his big dagger in one hand. A second later the door flew open and she covered her face to keep from being hit. Bailey heard a strangled cry and a gurgle and then a thump.
“Let’s go,” Beardsley said. She stepped over the body of one of the guards she’d seen one of the times he’d taken her back to the office. Beardsley wiped the dagger against his pants, cleaning off the blood, then he was running, dragging her behind him.
But her knees were weak and her legs so bruised she kept stumbling. “Just go,” she said. “You run. Leave me here.”
But he didn’t let go, dragging her past one cell, then another. Some were empty. Most were not. Bailey gagged at the sight of the girls, chained and bleeding. Dead.
“Don’t look,” he barked. “Just run.”
“I can’t.”
He picked her up and tucked her under his arm like she was a football. “You’re not dying on my watch, Bailey,” he gritted, running around the corner.
Then Beardsley stopped and she looked up. He stood in the middle of the hall and he had a gun. Beardsley tossed her and she landed on her knees. “Run,” he barked.
Then Beardsley plowed into him and knocked him against the wall. Bailey made herself get up and run while the two men grappled behind her. She heard the sickening sound of bone hitting the concrete wall, but she kept going.
Until she saw the girl. She was battered and blood oozed from a hole in her side and a second, glancing wound to her head. She’d clawed her way across her cell and had stretched out one arm into the hall. But she was still alive.
Weakly the girl lifted her hand. “Help me,” she whispered. “Please.”
Without thinking Bailey grabbed the girl’s hand and dragged her to her feet. “Move.”
Dutton, Friday, February 2, 2:35 p.m.
Daniel stood on the front porch of his family’s house, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. It was here he’d stood, nearly three weeks ago, with Frank Loomis. Frank had told him his parents “might be missing.” Of course they were already long dead. But Daniel’s search for them had led him to Philadelphia and Simon and the pictures. His search for the pictures had led him right back here.
“Déjà vu all over again?” Luke asked softly and Daniel nodded.
“Yeah.” He unlocked the door and pushed it open and found his feet wouldn’t move.
Alex slipped her arm around his waist. “Come on.” She tugged him over the threshold and he stopped in the foyer, his eyes doing a sweep of the place. He’d hated this house. Hated every brick of it. He turned to find Susannah doing a similar sweep. She was pale, but as she had during the entire ordeal in Philly, she was holding up.
“Where?” he asked.
Susannah pushed by him and started up the stairs. He followed, holding Alex’s hand as tightly as he dared. Luke brought up the rear, alert and watching.
Upstairs, Daniel frowned. Doors he’d closed the last time he was here were opened and a painting on the hall wall was askew. He pushed open the door to his parents’ bedroom. The room had been ransacked, the mattress slashed.
“They’ve been here,” he said flatly. “Looking for Simon’s key.”
“This way,” Susannah said tightly, and they followed her into what had been Simon’s room. It, too, had been ransacked, but there had been nothing in the drawers or under the bed for them to find. Daniel’s father had disposed of that a long time ago.
There was, he thought, an evilness hanging in the air. Or perhaps it was just his imagination. But Alex’s face had taken on an uncomfortable cast.
“It has kind of a presence, doesn’t it?” she whispered, and he squeezed her hand.
Susannah stood at the closet door, her hands opening and closing into fists at her sides. She was still pale, but she squared her shoulders resolutely. “I could be wrong. There might be nothing here,” she said, then opened the door. The closet was empty, but she walked inside anyway. “Did you know this house has hidey-holes, Daniel?”
Something in her voice had the hairs rising on the back of his neck. “Yes. I thought I knew them all.”
She knelt, feeling around the baseboards. “I found the hidey-hole off my closet one night when I was hiding from Simon. I’d huddled up against the wall and I must have pushed the right way because the panel opened and I rolled behind the wall.” She steadily worked as she talked. “I wondered if all the closets had these hidey-holes. One day when I thought Simon was gone, I tried to see if I could open his.”
The flat finality with which she’d said it twisted his stomach. “He caught you.”
“At first I didn’t think he had. I heard him thumping up the stairs and I ran to my room. But he had,” she said, quietly now. “When I woke up with a whiskey bottle in my hand, it was inside my hidey-hole. He’d stuffed me in there.”
Alex smoothed her hand down his arm and he realized he’d been holding her hand too tightly. He let go, but she held on, comforting him.
Daniel cleared his throat. “He knew about your hiding place.”
Susannah shrugged with a matter-of-factness that broke his heart. “There was nowhere to hide,” she said. “Later, he showed me the picture he’d taken of me with…” Again she shrugged. “He told me to stay out of his affairs. After that, I obeyed him.” She pushed the panel and it gave way. “After he died, I just wanted to forget.” She leaned into the hole, then reappeared, dragging a dusty box. Luke took it from her and put it on Simon’s slashed-up bed. “Thank you,” she murmured and gestured to the box. “I think that’s what you’re looking for,” she said.
Now that he had them, Daniel was almost afraid to look. His heart beating hard, he lifted the lid. And wanted to throw up.
“Dear God,” Alex whispered beside him.
Friday, February 2, 2:50 p.m.
“Come on.” Bailey tugged the girl’s hand,
dragging her through the dark hallways. Beardsley had pointed this way. He couldn’t be wrong. Beardsley. Her heart clenched hard. He’d given up his freedom… for me. Now he’d die. For me.
Concentrate, Bailey. You have to get out of here. Don’t let that man have given up his life in vain. Focus. Find the door. After another few minutes, she saw light.
Light at the end of the tunnel. She almost laughed, but dragged the girl harder with a spurt of new energy. She opened the door, expecting a loud alarm or barking dogs.
But there was silence. And fresh air and trees and sunshine.
And freedom. Thank you, Beardsley.
And then it all shattered. Standing in front of her was Frank Loomis. And he had a gun in his hand.
Chapter Twenty-four
Dutton, Friday, February 2, 2:50 p.m.
The box was filled with photographs and drawings Simon had made. Some Daniel recognized as identical to the pictures his father had burned, but there were many more. Hundreds more. Grimly, he pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and began to pull the pictures from the box. These photos showed the faces of the young men as they’d committed their obscenities, and somehow they’d managed to make some of their lewd acts seem consensual, just as Annette O’Brien had said. He tightened his jaw as he shuffled through each handful. He’d known what he would see, but the reality was far worse than he’d imagined. He stared at the boys’ faces, horrified and physically ill.
“They’re laughing,” Alex whispered. “Goading each other on.”
Rage surged, and with it a pagan urge to choke the life from their vile, despicable bodies. “Jared O’Brien and Rhett Porter. And Garth Davis,” he said harshly, remembering how concerned the mayor had been that night at Presto’s Pizza when he’d demanded answers about the man murdering the women of Dutton. “Sonofabitch. He was at Presto’s. He let Sheila serve him food, all the while knowing what he’d done.”
“Throwing the book at Garth Davis will feel damn good,” Luke said grimly.
Daniel moved to the next picture. “Randy Mansfield.” He thought about the bad news he’d had from Chase as he’d waited outside the house for Luke, Susannah, and Alex. Mansfield had raped young girls. Now Daniel knew he was a killer, too.
Beside him, Alex flinched when he showed the next picture. Wade. With Alicia.
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said, sliding the picture to the back. “I didn’t want you to see it.”
“I already had,” she said in a low voice, “in my mind.”
Daniel continued shuffling through the photos, then came to a dead stop when he saw Susannah. Young. Unconscious. Violated. His hands jerked, reflexively flipping it over, and he stared at the back of the hideous photo, his emotions churning.
He’d left her here, alone. Unprotected. With Simon. Who’d done… this. His roiling stomach heaved. He hadn’t known back then. But it didn’t change the fact that it had happened. Simon had allowed… No, he’d encouraged those animals to violate his own sister. My sister. She’d been scared and abused and I did nothing.
Bile burning his throat and tears burning his eyes, he slid the picture into his suit pocket, away from the others. He looked away. “I’ll burn it,” he whispered hoarsely. “I’m sorry. God. Suze.” His voice broke. “I’m so sorry.”
Nobody said a word. Then Susannah took the picture from his pocket and put it with the others. At the back of the stack, but with the others all the same.
“If I’m going to take my self-respect back, I have to stand with them,” she said with a calm that cut him in two. Unable to reply, Daniel only nodded.
Luke moved to his side and took over the task of sorting through the pictures while Daniel gathered his composure. He and Luke worked on in silence, and by the time they’d finished, they’d identified five young men, monsters all.
“Garth, Rhett, Jared, and Randy,” Alex said quietly. “And Wade. That’s only five.”
“Number six was Simon, who took the pictures,” Daniel said, frustration eating at his control. “But we still don’t have the seventh. Goddammit.”
“I thought Annette said they had pictures of everyone,” Alex said. “That that was how Simon kept control.”
Luke stripped off his gloves. “Maybe she was wrong.”
“She was right about everything else.” Daniel forced his mind to think, to piece together what he knew. “But someone else had both keys to that box, or we would have found the pictures in there. The last access to the safe-deposit box was six months after Simon left twelve years ago.” Daniel pointed to the box. “These pictures have been here all this time, so we have to assume there were at least two sets to begin with.”
Luke nodded, understanding. “Simon lied about everyone being equally implicated. He had a partner. The seventh boy.”
“Whose name we still don’t have,” Daniel said bitterly. “Dammit.”
“But you have Garth and Randy,” Alex said urgently. “Bring them in. Get them to talk. Get them to tell you where they put Bailey.”
“I already did,” Daniel said, putting the top back on the box. “While I was waiting for you to get here, I had Garth’s tail pick him up.” He hesitated, dreading what he had to tell her. “But Mansfield… Alex, the agent who was following him is dead.”
Alex paled. “Mansfield killed him?”
“It looks that way.”
Anger flashed in her eyes. “Dammit, Daniel. You knew about Mansfield yesterday. I begged you to pick him up. If-” She cut off the rest of her accusation, but it still hurt.
“Alex, that’s not fair,” Luke murmured, but she shook her head hard.
“Now Mansfield knows you know what he’s done,” she said raggedly. “If he has Bailey, he’ll kill her now.”
Daniel wouldn’t insult her intelligence by denying her words. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Her shoulders sagged in defeat and his heart clenched. “I know,” she whispered.
Luke picked up the box. “Let’s get this back to Atlanta and start questioning Garth. He knows who the seventh boy was. Let’s get him to roll.”
“I’ll give my statement,” Susannah said, glancing at her watch. “My flight’s at six.”
She was following Luke out the door when Daniel got hold of himself. “Suze. Wait. I need… I need to talk to you. Alex, can you give us a minute?”
Alex nodded stiffly. “Can I have your keys? I’ve got a migraine coming on and my Imitrex pen is in my purse.”
He could see the pain behind her eyes and wished he could erase the stress that had put it there. Instead, he fished out his keys. “Stay with Luke.”
Her jaw clenched as she snatched the keys from his hand. “I’m not stupid, Daniel.”
“I know,” he murmured after she was gone. It didn’t change the fact that he worried about her constantly. Like he should have worried about Susannah, back then. Daniel forced himself to look into his sister’s eyes. They were carefully blank. She looked delicate. Fragile. But he’d learned that Susannah, like Alex, was neither delicate nor fragile. “What made you come back?” he asked, and she lifted a slim shoulder.
“The others will testify. What kind of coward would I be not to do the same?”
“You’re not a coward,” he said fiercely.
Her lips curved sardonically. “You have no idea what I am, Daniel.”
He frowned. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She looked away. “I have to go,” was all she replied as she turned to go.
“Susannah, wait.” She turned back, and he forced himself to ask the question he needed to know. “Why didn’t you tell me? Call me? I would have come to get you.”
Her eyes flickered. “Would you have?”
“You know I would have.”
Her chin lifted, reminding him of Alex. “If I’d known that, I would have called. You left, Daniel. You got away. The first year you were at college, you never came home, not once. Not even at Christmas.”
He remembered that first
year of college, the overwhelming relief of getting away from Dutton. But he’d left Susannah to the wolves. “I was selfish. But if I’d known, I would have come back. I’m so sorry.” The last was a helpless plea, but her expression didn’t soften. There was no contempt in her eyes, but neither was there forgiveness.
He’d thought he’d needed atonement, to bring justice and closure to Simon’s victims. Now he just wanted forgiveness from the one person he could have saved, but didn’t.
“It is what it is,” she said evenly. “You can’t change the past.”
His throat thickened. “Then can I change the future?”
For several seconds she said nothing. Then she shrugged. “I don’t know, Daniel.”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. He wasn’t sure what he had the right to ask for. She’d given him honesty, and that was a start. “All right. Let’s go.”
“Are you all right?”
Alex glanced up at Luke as she found her migraine medicine in her purse. For a few hours, she’d had hope of finding Bailey. Now that hope was dashed. “No, I’m not. Turn around, Luke.”
His black brows bunched. “What?”
“I have to shoot this in my thigh and I don’t want you seeing my underwear. Turn around.” Coloring slightly, he complied, and Alex lowered her slacks enough to jab the pen in her bare thigh. She adjusted her clothes, then looked at Luke’s back. Even from behind him she could tell he was scanning the countryside, alert and watching.
Mansfield was still out there, and he’d killed one man. Maybe more. A shiver ran down her back as the hairs on her neck lifted. It was probably just the house scaring her, she thought. Mansfield was probably miles away. Still, as she’d told Daniel, she wasn’t stupid. She looked at Daniel’s keys in her hand and knew what she’d do.
“Can I turn around?” Luke asked.
“No.” Alex opened Daniel’s trunk, retrieved her gun, and awkwardly slipped it behind her waistband. She closed the trunk, feeling no safer. “Now you can turn around.”
