“I just do … look, I don’t need water. I need a cell phone, a gun, and a ride into town.” She stood with care, bracing her hand on the rear fender of the car to steady herself.
“The battery on my cell is dead, and this is the only piece I carry,” he said, dropping his hand to the butt of a 9mm. “But I can give you a lift back to town. You want to check the cabin for a phone before we head out?” He moved toward the squat log structure even before she answered, leaving her little choice but to follow him.
He walked a few steps ahead of her, his gait sure and confident, his hand resting on the butt of his gun, the holster snap thumbed open to ensure an easy draw in case they ran into trouble. Another gust of wind swept through the clearing, kicked up dust, blew it into her eyes.
She stopped in her tracks. “Shit.” She reached up to shield her face from the assault. After years of wearing them, it took her only a second to realize, as she was rubbing her eyes, that there was no synthetic slide of plastic against her eyes. Her colored contacts were gone.
He had seen her. Stood no more than a few feet from her. Looked into her eyes while he talked to her. He was a cop. A trained observer. He had to have noticed the sudden color change—but he’d said nothing, displayed no reaction whatsoever. Her heart stalled in her chest, her hands dropped away from her face, her discomfort forgotten.
“Wade.”
She said his name quietly, but it was enough to stall his stride. He turned to look at her and she felt the rolling nausea that’d been plaguing her swell inside her gut, but this feeling had nothing to do with the drugs. This had everything to do with the way he looked at her. Head cocked in a predatory tilt, a slight half-smile lifting the corner of his mouth.
She could see just how easily he’d fooled them all.
He closed his eyes for a moment, dragged a deep breath into his lungs, and let it out on a sigh.
“Finally.”
Seventy-eight
Michael looked up at Tom. “Go get Ben—the kid. Go get the kid.” Tom took off for the back.
Carson had lost a lot of blood. A Band-Aid and a lollipop wasn’t gonna cut it. “Did you and Wade go to Caddo?” he said.
Carson hesitated, looked like he was going to hold on to the lie. Michael shook his head, applied pressure with his foot. “Lying? Not a good idea right now. Did you and Wade go to Caddo?”
Carson groaned and shook his head. “I went but not Wade. He’s got a side-piece in Shreveport. He sees her every few weeks or so.”
“What’s up?”
He looked up to see Ben coming at him. “I need a field dressing.”
“So much for playing nice,” he said and hurried back into the kitchen.
Michael lifted his foot to check the wound. The towel was completely saturated. He reapplied pressure. “Where’s Wade now?”
“Out on an early call—trespassing. He was still gone when I got back to the station. He radioed in, told Zeke he caught a call from a trooper that said he spotted Lucy’s car on I-80, so he was going to check it out.”
He stopped, thought about what was logical. If Wade had Sabrina, he’d need somewhere to keep her. Somewhere secluded. “Wade has a place—somewhere he goes to be alone. Where is it?”
“What? No—no. You think Wade killed … no. No way.” Carson shook his head, tried to sit up.
“Think about it.” He felt the pieces fall into place, could actually hear them click together. “You told Sabrina that you found Melissa in Yuma. Who did you tell?” he said, and Carson started to shake his head again. “Look, no way you kept that to yourself. That’s something you’d tell a best friend. Something you’d tell her brother.”
Carson went still—his face pale as much from blood loss as it was from the blow the truth dealt him. “Oh God … ”
“Who told you Melissa was missing? How’d you find out?”
“I … Wade. I was back at college in California. He called, told me she was missing … Lucy’d come to his dad and told him she hadn’t called in weeks.” Carson blinked slowly, his words began to slur and drift.
Where the fuck was Ben?
Carson opened his eyes. “I came home for Christmas break—that was when they found her … I never went back. I stayed here … for her.”
Just then, Ben brushed past him with a stack of clean towels and roll of plastic wrap. He uncuffed Carson and used his tactical knife to cut his shirt off at the shoulder. Ben examined the wound, looked up at him. “He needs a hospital. This’ll slow it down, but he’s in pretty bad shape.”
“I know—just do what you can.”
Ben padded his shoulder with the towels and used the plastic wrap to bind them tightly to the wound. Finished, he clapped Carson on his wounded shoulder. “How’s that feel, Mayberry?”
“Fuck you.” Carson looked up at him. “Is it her? Is she Melissa? Please, just tell me … ”
“Yes.” He had to force the word out and had a hard time looking Carson in the eye when he did it. He could feel Tom behind him, knew he’d heard. “Yes, it’s her.”
Carson closed his eyes. He’d thought he finally passed out, but then he opened them, looked up at him. “A hunting cabin—used to be his dad’s. Billy used to take us there when we were kids … fifty miles north of here. If he has her, that’s where he took her.”
Seventy-nine
Sabrina’s eyes darted around, looking for an exit. There was none. She looked at the cabin behind him, knew without a doubt that if he managed to get her into it, she would never get out. The 9mm on Wade’s hip promised that her chances of running for it were slim.
“Look at me, Melissa,” he said, and suddenly it was a voice she recognized, one that haunted her nightmares. “Look. At. Me,” he said again. He lifted his gun from its holster, pointing the muzzle downward, but the implication was clear. She looked up, found his face, unable to comprehend what she was seeing—stubbornly refused to believe it. It wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be him—not him.
Anyone but him.
“You’re my—” She gagged on the last word. It snagged on her tongue and refused to leave her mouth.
“Brother,” he said with a shrug. “That’s what makes us perfect for each other.”
She needed time to think—would need to stall him for it. “My mother?”
He laughed. “I’d been a regular of hers since I was fifteen. Pretty sure she enjoyed the irony of it all.”
“You killed her.”
He cocked his head to the side and winced. “She no longer served a purpose—so, yeah.”
“And our—Billy … ”
“Well, now—ol’ daddy-o didn’t leave me much choice. He caught me with a Waffle House waitress from Texarkana in my trunk.” His smile broadened. “But you … you killed Pete all by yourself.”
That night was a blur, one she tried not to think of. “He’s really dead? Kelly said—”
“Kelly said and did whatever I told her to. A bit of misdirection to keep you guessing. Couldn’t have you figuring it out before I was ready. Pete’s been dead since you pulled a Barry Bonds and cracked his egg with that bat of yours. Jed, Dad, and me, we buried him in these woods—was supposed to bury the bat too, but I kept it. I’m sentimental that way.”
“You used it to kill Sanford.” She thought of Sanford—his crushed face, covered in blood. Time. She needed more time.
He shook his head. “No. I’m pretty sure it was all the stabbing that killed him.” He took another step closer, but not close enough for her to go on the attack without catching a bullet for her trouble. Her gaze drifted to the gun in his hand.
“You think I’m gonna kill you?” he said and laughed. “Where’s the fun in that?” He matched her movements as she slid along the body of the car, just a fraction of an inch, toward the trunk. “To tell the truth, I hate guns. Too impersonal.” He winked at her. �
��You remember what I like, don’t you, Melissa?”
“I remember you’re a sick, twisted son of a bitch who can’t get it up unless he’s in the middle of killing something,” she said. He took a few steps back before he stopped and smiled at her.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he said, feigning hurt moments before he lifted the gun and pulled the trigger.
Eighty
The bullet tore through the flesh of her thigh, ripping muscle as it punched through the other side. The force of it knocked her off her feet and into the dirt, flat on her back. Teeth gritted, she refused to cry out as white-hot pain seared her leg from hip to toe. She stared up at an impossibly blue patch of sky surrounded by green treetops and tried to remember how to breathe.
Wade holstered his gun and leaned over to examine her thigh but kept his distance. “Yup. That ought to do it.”
She refused to look at him. “Fuck you.”
“It’s a through and through, what’s the big deal? You’re a badass, remember? I’m just a dumb hick cop—had to level the playing field.” He grinned down at her.
“Gutless piece of shit,” she hissed through gritted teeth.
He came toward her, two steps closer than was prudent, and had no time to stop the attack. Her good leg whipped out, the heel of her boot hammering into his kneecap, and he dropped like a stone.
She fisted a hand in his hair and drove her knee into his face, but it struck the hard bone of his forehead instead, doing little damage. Her other hand grappled for the gun in his holster, her fingers closed around the butt of it. Before she could pull it clear he stopped her cold, landing a heavily-fisted blow to her thigh, dead center on the hole he’d put in it.
A scream tore through her throat, taking her fight with it as it rushed up and out into the sky. She went limp, her vision going gray around the edges while she fought to stay conscious.
“I gotta hand it to you, you’re a helluva lot feistier than I remember,” he said. Standing, he leaned against Lucy’s car. “That’s good. I like it. Most girls I bring here just cry and beg me not to kill ’em … sooo boring.” Wade looked down at her, the corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. “Don’t worry, Melissa, I thought about you the whole time. You know what they say—you never forget your first.”
She rolled onto her side in the dirt, clutched her thigh, and said nothing. The nausea from the drugs was nothing compared to the pain that crowded her, pushed in and crushed her from all sides.
He stood up straight, taking a glance at his watch. “Alright—enough lollygaggin’,” he said, giving the bottom of her foot a playful kick. “We’re gonna play, you and me. I want you to run.”
He wanted to chase her, run her down like an animal. “Eat shit, you crazy hillbilly.”
“Crazy … okay.” He point the gun at her other thigh and pulled the trigger. The bullet slammed into the ground, bare inches from her leg, kicking up a plume of dust that stung her eyes. “Consider that a warning.” He sighed. “You’re either gonna run, or I’m gonna make that hole in your leg a matched set. Then I’ll drag you by your hair into our little love nest, and you’ll never see the light of day again. Maybe I’ll hop a plane and go get us a new playmate. You think little Riley is ready for some fun and games?”
She thought about her baby sister. About how bright and innocent she was. About the things he would do to her if ever given the chance. Rage and hate flashed, white-hot, in her gut, blinded her for just a moment. Gripping the bumper, she pulled herself up, leaning on the car, favoring her injured leg.
A steady river of blood flowed from her thigh, into her boot. The tacky warmth of it between her thighs ignited a hellish nightmare of memories that flashed in front of her, random and out of sequence.
“Nearest neighbor is ten miles from here—just a short stretch of the legs for you, which is why I had to slow you down a bit. I’ll give you five minutes and then it’s game on. I’ll even leave the gun behind, maybe you can circle back around and get to it in time,” he said.
“Why? Why not just take me inside and get started?” More time …
she needed to steel herself against the pain that would careen through her body the moment she applied pressure to her leg. The smile perched on his face tightened around his mouth, drawing it into a sneer.
“Because you need to remember what you are,” he said. “You’re mine. No matter what you do, no matter who you try to become, you can’t change that.” He looked at his watch and then back at her. “Four minutes.”
Without warning, she spun on her good leg, dug the heavy sole of her boot into the soft earth of the clearing and pushed herself away from the car. She did the only thing she could do. She ran.
Eighty-one
She won’t let you.
Wade watched her run into the trees. Truthfully it was more of a hobbling lurch, but Lucy’s words stuck with him. They’d been pushing him since she’d said them, worrying him that maybe she’d been right.
She’d changed. No helpless cowering. No begging for mercy. He realized that he’d had a hand in her metamorphosis. That it’d been the pressure and pain he’d applied during their time spent in the dark that had changed her.
She was different. She wasn’t his Melissa anymore.
That fucking trooper had ruined it all—spotted him in Lucy’s car on I-80 and called it in. With the trooper about to investigate, he had to leave her in the trunk and double back to the main road in the JPD Blazer. He cut the trooper off at the pass, assured him that he’d patrol the area and keep him informed. It had taken longer than expected. By the time he’d gotten back to the cabin, he wasn’t sure she was still entirely under the influence of the Ativan Kelly injected her with. He left a bottle of water laced with GHB in the trunk, but he had little hope that she’d actually drink it.
He’d thought of popping the trunk and hauling her out at gunpoint but knew doing so would be a mistake. He’d seen her in action, knew how dangerous she could be in a close contact situation. He decided to err on the side of caution and called out to her under the guise of potential rescuer. If she responded, he’d let her out of the trunk and lure her into the cabin. If not, he’d know she was still out cold and just drag her inside. She’d been awake and it had gotten messy. Things hadn’t gone as he’d planned, but they were still salvageable.
He frowned down at the gun in his hand, momentarily regretting his decision to challenge her. His daddy’s words came back to him: Nothing good ever comes easy, boy.
His daddy was right. The truth was that he could never look at her, touch her, hurt her, unless he knew for sure that he was the thing to be feared. Not a piece of metal. And she had to know it too.
He ejected the clip from the gun and thumbed the bullets into the dirt before slapping it back home. He popped the last bullet out of the chamber and laid the gun on the lid of the trunk as promised. He found his knife folded up in the pocket of his khakis and flicked it open. He looked at his watch.
Time was up.
“Ready or not, here I come.” He tilted his head back and yelled it to the sky. Suddenly, he felt strong. He felt ready. His Melissa was in there somewhere, hiding.
He just needed to peel back the layers until he found her.
Eighty-two
Sabrina ran. Every step she took made her feel like a coward and a weakling, but she ran anyway. Survival was the only thing that mattered. She thought of Riley, of what would happen to her sister if she was dead, or worse—captured. The only way to save Riley was to kill Wade. Survival was key.
The moment she hit the trees she changed direction, traveling for a few steps before changing directions again, this time traveling for a few hundred. Weaving this way and that, blindly through the brush—low-slung branches slapping at her face and arms as she rushed forward in a blind panic. Her only thought was to get as much distance between her and Wade as possible
before her leg gave out.
Wade …
The thought of him, gun in hand, grinning down at her pushed renewed power into her legs but she knew it’d be short-lived. She was bleeding badly, her thigh coated in it, the loss making her dizzy, but she pushed on. Her initial burst of speed lagged to a shuffling lurch and she fought to keep her feet beneath her. What should’ve been easy now took every ounce of strength she possessed. She changed directions even though she knew she couldn’t outrun him, not with a bullet hole in her leg. She needed to find a place to hide, assess the damage done to her leg. But she was too close to the clearing to stop and dress the wound.
She’d never make it, even if he were telling the truth about the neighbors. Ten miles might as well be a hundred in her condition. Every step was agony. A pain so intense that every footfall brought her to the brink of unconsciousness, but she’d learned long ago how to pull away from it, to float above the pain. She did so now, thinking of nothing else but putting one foot in front of the other.
Four minutes. She had four minutes to get as far away as possible, and that was only if Wade played fair. His face, handsome and earnest, shoved its way to the forefront of her mind.
It was Wade. Her brother.
She heard him call out, tease her that he was coming, that her time was up. Her heart sank.
He sounded so close.
She wasn’t far enough to keep running and expect to survive. Without the hole in her leg, she would’ve been nearly a mile away by now, but she hadn’t even managed to cover a quarter of that distance. If she kept going, he would simply run her down. Scanning the area, she spotted a fallen tree a few yards ahead and gunned for it. Diving behind it, she hunkered down in an effort to conceal herself.
With shaky hands, she stripped her shirt off in favor of the black tank she wore underneath. Her shirt was red and would be easily spotted, even through the dense screen of trees she hid in. Next she unbuttoned her cargo pants, sliding them down to mid-thigh in an effort to survey the damage to her thigh.
Carved in Darkness Page 28
