Honor Bound
Page 18
“Or killing him. Gunderson has never left any loose ends.”
Across the way, she watched first Murph come out with a box of what looked like file folders. She got in her car and drove off. Finally Gun came out of the hotel and walked toward his car. “We’re movin’.”
* * *
AINSLEY CAME TO in darkness. She blinked, confused as to where she was and what was going on. A strange smell made her wrinkle her nose. She tried to sit up, but with a stab of horror, she realized her wrists and ankles were bound to a bed. She tried to open her mouth to scream and couldn’t. What little sound she’d been able to make came out muffled from the duct tape over her lips.
Her terror rose as her eyes began to adjust to the blackness. She was in a stark, small room. The windows were covered with dark cloths that kept out the light. She knew immediately that she’d never been here before.
Last night came to her in a miserable, terrifying wave. Her throat ached, and her voice broke as she tired to cry out for help. She heard a sound beyond the room. A moment later, the door opened.
At first all she saw was a dark figure silhouetted against the daylight. For a moment, she thought it was Sawyer come to rescue her—until she was reminded of how he had betrayed her. Sawyer wouldn’t be coming for her. He was with Kitzie.
The man turned on an overhead light, blinding her momentarily.
She blinked in surprise when her gaze lit on the man. She’d seen him numerous times over the past few days, but she hadn’t paid any attention to him. He always had his earbuds in, his baseball hat on backward. When they’d passed each other, he would nod and she would do the same. He’d appeared...harmless before. He didn’t now.
“So you’re finally awake,” he said as he stepped into the room. “I can’t tell you how long I have been waiting for this moment. I’m sorry. We haven’t officially met. Let me introduce myself. Jason Bowman. I’d shake hands but...” He shrugged, indicating her bound wrists. He no longer was wearing his baseball cap on backward, just as he no longer was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with some band’s name on it. The earbuds were also gone.
He looked much older in slacks and a button-down shirt. All the other times when she’d glimpsed him following her, he’d been wearing a cowboy hat. He’d stayed in the shadows all these months. But even before he’d become the delivery guy, if she had passed him on the street, she wouldn’t have recognized him. The man was so...average. Just as she hadn’t recognized him as her stalker when he’d shown up at the commercial shoot as the man who delivered the groceries.
He stepped forward. “I’m going to remove the tape from your mouth. I just want you to know it won’t do any good for you to scream. No one will be able to hear you down here.”
An icy sliver of fear raced up her back to curl around her neck. Had she been the first to wake up in this bed? She had a bad feeling she hadn’t. She cringed as he leaned forward, grabbed the end of the tape covering her mouth and ripped it off.
Ainsley had told herself she wouldn’t make a sound, but a cry of pain escaped her lips anyway. She swallowed. Her mouth felt dry as dust. She licked her lips and found her voice. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because you failed. I spent all that time hoping you wouldn’t disappointment me, but ultimately you turned out to be like the others. Now you have to be punished.”
“You’ve been following me.”
He smiled down at her. “I couldn’t help myself. You probably don’t remember the day we met. It was in Livingston. I had dropped a bunch of papers, and you stopped to help me pick them up.” He stared down at her as if hoping she would remember. She didn’t, and he must have seen it in her expression, because he instantly looked upset. “I didn’t expect you to remember, but it would have been nice.”
“I’m sorry.” She hated the weakness she heard in her voice, in her words.
“So am I,” he said with a sigh as he ran a finger down her cheek.
Ainsley flinched in spite of herself, and he drew back his finger. His eyes were dark with a sick hatred. She didn’t kid herself. The man could profess how much he wanted her to like him, but he was a predator, and she was his defenseless prey.
She tried to fight her panic, but it was useless. The pounding of her heart was deafening. She felt cold, her weak limbs trembling. She couldn’t have been more terrified.
That’s when she saw the baseball bat leaning against the wall. Her eyes widened in alarm at the dark spots on it. Blood. Her pulse jumped with the realization. Jason had killed the security guard, Lance Roderick.
He followed her gaze to the baseball bat and smiled. “Another casualty, I’m afraid. I could tell right away he was suspicious of me. I’d seen him taking photos with his phone but hadn’t thought much of it until that night at the restaurant. He knew. I can’t imagine how, but he knew I wasn’t who I appeared to be.”
Jason Bowman was a killer. Worse, he had some crazy idea that she needed to be punished. Punished before he killed her? Her blood ran cold at the thought.
“I couldn’t let him spoil everything,” he was saying as he stepped over to the windowsill and picked up a cell phone. “Not just that. He’d taken photos of you.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t have that either. You have to understand. I still had hope that you would come to your senses.” He laughed, an odd, high-pitched sound.
She realized she’d heard it before and not on her job at the cabins. “I do remember you from that day in Livingston.”
He looked skeptical. “You don’t have to pretend—”
“No, you were wearing a uniform.”
He nodded, looking delighted. “I was working as the city dog catcher. I quit my job that afternoon. I had to go wherever you went. I had to know if you were the one.”
“The one?” she managed to ask around the lump in her throat. Again she tested the tape binding her.
“You mustn’t keep doing that,” he said, looking down at her wrists bound to the bed frame. “You’ll chafe your soft, tender skin.” He ran a finger along her bare arm, stopping at the tape.
Bile rose in her throat at his touch, but this time she didn’t flinch. “You have to let me go.”
“I can’t do that. Like I said, I had to know if you were the one. The one woman I would be proud to take home to my blessed mother if she were still alive.” He met her gaze. Something dark and damaged lived in those eyes again. “Unfortunately, you failed me. You aren’t the one. And now you’re going to have to be punished. Mother wouldn’t want it any other way.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
KITZIE KEPT GUN’S large black sedan in sight as he drove out of the mountains along the narrow dirt road that wound along the creek. Clouds scudded across a pale blue fall sky. Gusts of wind made the older model SUV she was driving shudder. A tumbleweed cartwheeled across the road. She dodged it, telling herself it would have been bad luck to hit it today.
She’d never been superstitious, but today she wasn’t taking any chances. Excitement rippled through her. This would be the biggest bust of her career. Instantly, she thought of Sawyer.
He should have been the one she celebrated with later tonight. Instead it would be Pete. Or maybe she would be alone in her apartment in Billings.
That thought was like a bucket of ice water on her excitement—until she reminded herself how envious Sawyer would be when he heard. She knew he hated being sidelined with his injury.
He must be pretty down right now. He’d lost Ainsley, and he hadn’t been the one to bring down Ainsley’s stalker. Someone else had ended it for him when they killed Lance Roderick. She almost felt sorry for him. That reminded her that she should keep a safe distance from Sawyer until he got over her little...trick she’d pulled on him.
She was smiling again when her cell rang. “Tell me something is happening at your end,” she said to
Pete.
There was a smile in his voice. “He just came out. Yep, there’s a car pulling up now. Three men. I can ID at least two of them from the photos you took of them. Looks like Nathan Grant is driving and the one with the ponytail, Clark? He’s riding shotgun. Or at least he was. He’s getting out.”
“Should be Clark, Grant, the nephew LeRoy and Hale. Are you sure there isn’t a fourth man in the car?”
“Yep, Clark got out to let Harry Lester in the front seat. There’s a heavyset guy in the back with the nephew.”
“Don’t lose them,” Kitzie warned. “I’m still on Gun. He’s headed that way. Won’t be long now once we get out of this mountain pass.”
She disconnected as the road narrowed even more as it cut through the narrow winding canyon. There was no other traffic on the road and in the canyon she was out of the wind. She didn’t realize how much she’d been fighting it until she got to release her death grip on the steering wheel.
Only now she had to slow down because of the curves in the snaking road—and she was only getting glimpses of Gun’s sedan when he came out of a bend ahead of her.
That made her a little nervous, but there was nowhere for him to turn off until they got out of the canyon. Also, she knew where he was going, and Pete had Harry Lester. The two of them had this. She just needed to relax. She moved her shoulders, sitting back and taking a breath. Soon, she said to herself. Soon.
Kitzie thought she was seeing things when the first boulder came bouncing across the narrow dirt road to crash down into the creek. She hit her brakes as another boulder followed and then another. One landed hard in the middle of the road just inches from her bumper.
What in the...? With a jolt of panic, she suddenly remembered what Sawyer had said about Ainsley’s stalker almost killing her in a rock slide.
She threw the SUV into Reverse and had turned to look behind her when a huge boulder crashed into the side of the SUV, caving in the roof and sending glass flying as the side windows exploded. She was slammed against her door as the rock drove the SUV several yards toward the creek.
Stunned by the blow, it took her a moment to realize what she had to do. She quickly unbuckled her seat belt and grabbed her door handle, telling herself she had to get out now! If she didn’t, she could end up in the creek and drown or be buried alive in rocks.
She jerked on the door handle. Nothing happened. It was jammed! More boulders were slamming into the side of the car, throwing her around like a rag doll. She could hear more rocks coming down.
The windshield smashed when one of the boulders bounced off the hood. A shattered web, the windshield was still intact. She tried to push it out with her hands. Failing that, she managed to get a foot up as more boulders crashed into the SUV, driving her closer and closer to the creek.
All it took was one kick before the entire windshield dropped out onto the dented hood. Another boulder crashed into the car, pushing the SUV off the road.
Now leaning precariously over the creek, she climbed up on her seat to look up the mountainside where the boulders had been coming from. She spotted a figure and hesitated a moment too long because of her surprise. Murph?
An avalanche of boulders and dirt came careening off the side of the mountain. Kitzie started to scramble out, but it was too late.
The landslide hit the car, and the next thing Kitzie knew she was lying on the headliner of the SUV in the creek bottom and ice-cold creek water was rushing in.
Dazed and bleeding, she managed to get her cell out of her pocket and key in Pete’s number. “I’m in trouble. You’re on your own,” she cried into the phone an instant before a huge boulder crashed into the car, jostling the phone out of her hand and knocking her unconscious.
* * *
“YOU NEED TO let me go,” Ainsley said, trying to keep her voice from cracking. She’d never been so afraid, and yet a part of her mind warned herself to keep calm. She couldn’t afford to panic. If it was possible to reason with this man... “My family will be looking for me.”
Jason shook his head. “No, they won’t. That is another thing that I loved about you. Your independence. I would imagine they aren’t expecting you until election night. Maybe if you didn’t show up then, they would start looking for you. So we have lots of time.”
She feared he was right. No one would be looking for her. Especially not Sawyer, who was probably still with Kitzie. Ainsley shoved that thought away, recoiling from the pain it brought.
“Just tell me what you want from me,” she said.
“If only it was that easy. You were the kind of woman I wanted to take home to my mother, God rest her soul. I watched you for months. You were so nice. You didn’t dress trashy like so many other women. You were a hard worker. You were kind to others. I could see us having children together. We would raise them like my mother did me. She only punished me when I deserved it. She would cry, saying punishment had to hurt and leave scars, or what was the point?”
She shuddered to think how Jason had been raised, let alone what his mother had been like.
“But then that cowboy came along.” He shook his head, his expression bitter. “Sawyer Nash.”
“Nothing happened between us,” she said, feeling the weight of those words.
“But look how you behaved. You were...were...wanton.”
Ainsley almost laughed. No one had ever called her wanton. Or ever would again—if she managed to get away from this obviously psychotic man.
“That red dress! It showed...everything.” He shuddered, but she saw naked lust in his gaze. That scared her more than waking up bound to this bed. Her heart began to pound harder, her mouth going even drier. If she hadn’t realized how much trouble she was in before, she did now.
“It wasn’t mine. That dress. Kitzie—”
“Oh, yes, Kitzie. You should have seen what she had in her closet. Tramp.”
She felt her eyes widen. “You were in her cabin?” Of course he was. He had been waiting in her own cabin for her. “How did you—”
“Get the master key?” He laughed. “You really underestimate me. I brought Murph her favorite treat—chocolate and caramel ice cream. I would bring her a gallon, so she would sneak down to the kitchen to get more. She didn’t want anyone to see her eating it so she’d hurry, leaving the office door open. It was our little secret.”
And while she was gone, he would take the keys.
Ainsley told herself not to underestimate him again. He was smarter than she’d thought. He’d spent months trailing her and had been within inches of her without her being any the wiser.
“I cut that red dress to pieces, slashing and slashing and...” He stopped as if realizing how crazy he was starting to sound. “I left it for your cowboy to find. Imagine what he thought when he saw it.”
“I hate to disappoint you, but I doubt Sawyer saw it. Like I told you, nothing happened between us. He wouldn’t have come looking for me, so he wouldn’t have seen the dress.”
If he had, would Sawyer think that she had cut up the dress after seeing him with Kitzie? If so, then he didn’t know her at all. Just thinking about him brought tears to her eyes. If only she’d gotten that one night with him.
“I don’t want to talk about him,” Jason snapped. She flinched at his sudden touch as his finger traced along the inside of her arm. “Mother used to find those sensitive places on my body when she punished me,” he said in a singsong voice. “She always said that punishment should hurt in a way that a person never forgot.” His gaze came up to meet hers. “Don’t you agree, Ainsley?”
* * *
SAWYER FELT LIKE an insane man. He’d driven too fast out of the mountains earlier, taking some curves on the narrow canyon road so erratically that he thought he’d end up in the creek if he didn’t settle down.
He had to find Ainsley.
Frank had come back with more than he’d expected. “A little over two years ago he was working as an animal control officer in Livingston, Montana. He quit one day without any notice.”
“About the time Ainsley said she felt someone following her.”
“About the time Sarah returned and the Hamilton family was in all the news,” the sheriff said. “Only known relative was his mother, Clare, deceased a year before that.”
“By any chance, was he still living in his mother’s house when he worked as a dog catcher in Livingston?” Sawyer asked, betting money he still did.
Frank read him the address of a property under the name of Clare Bowman. He knew the area. Livingston had been a railroad town. Many of the buildings had small houses behind them that had been constructed for railroad workers. Clare Bowman’s house was on one of the alphabet streets.
“I’m on my way there,” he said.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to send backup?” the sheriff asked.
“I’ll call you if I need it, but I don’t want to take that chance with Ainsley’s life. This man is obsessed and angry with her. He won’t kill her unless he is forced to. I don’t intend to give him that option.”
* * *
“KITZIE? KITZIE!” called a young female voice.
“I wouldn’t go any closer,” warned another young woman. “She’s got to be dead. It’s going to be so gross. Can’t we just call someone? Or maybe—”
Kitzie thought she must be dreaming. It sounded like the two teenagers she’d hired to work in the kitchen.
“Help!” Her voice came out like a hoarse croak. “Help me!”
“See, she’s alive. We have to help her. I think the two of us can move this rock if we both push.”
There was a lot of grunting. Metal creaked and groaned. Something large fell into the creek with a splash that sent small waves across the headliner of the SUV and Kitzie lying on it. But Kitzie could see light from where the boulder had been moved out of the way.