Break (Lakefield Book 3)

by Jennifer Vester

  No time like the present.

  The drive looked a lot better. Possibly even better than when Sam did it. He was sweet enough to do it on his own though so I wasn’t going to be replacing him anytime soon. He also didn’t knock on my door randomly and then scurry off to his plow like some weirdo.

  My boots made crunching noises as I walked over to the plow. I narrowed my eyes, trying to see inside but couldn’t tell if he was in there or not.

  I went to the driver’s side and knocked on the door. “James?”

  There wasn’t any movement inside that I could tell. When I knocked again, it was the same result. No answer, no movement, no sound.

  Turning back to the cabin I wondered if I had imagined the whole knock to begin with.

  I walked around the back of the truck and still didn’t see him.

  There was a frigid tingle that crept up my back and into my neck. If this was a joke it wasn’t incredibly funny. I was tired of playing this game.

  Logan could deal with him when he got back. I walked to the other side of the truck just to be sure that I wasn’t missing anything. The exhaust plume, partially obscured my vision as I passed through it. Then I tripped.

  My hands immediately splayed out in front of me and I hit the packed snow. It wasn’t a terribly hard fall but the landing jarred me as I came down on my hip. The impact was likely to form a sizeable bruise.

  I looked back to see what I had tripped on and saw blood on the snow. Not much, but enough to make me scramble backwards on my butt as I continued to look.

  Had James hit an animal?

  Standing up I kept my eyes on the patch of red on the ground. It was possible and more likely that James had thrown out a red drink of some sort. Other than a few rabbits and birds, there weren’t too many creatures that would be out in the colder weather.

  The exhaust fumes kept obscuring my view so I couldn’t quite get a good look at it.

  I walked back around to the driver’s side of the plow and opened the door. I felt like I was invading his personal space in a way but I didn’t care at this point.

  The cab was very clean and had a large styrofoam cup in the drink holder. I turned the key and shut the vehicle off. When I did, the world around me became extremely quiet. The white smoke on the other side of the vehicle dissipated.

  I took a small glance around from this height and still couldn’t see James or anyone else for that matter.

  When I climbed down, I headed around the front of the truck to get a better look at what I had tripped on.

  My boots came to a stop before my mind did. My eyes were even slower to catch on to what I was seeing. On some deep level, I knew something wasn’t right and I physically couldn’t take another step.

  There was a small pool of blood. It wasn’t a big one, just enough to know that something bad had happened. And something definitely had.

  James was slumped on his side and nearly under the truck. He had a deep gash on the side of his head and he was bleeding around his chest as well, although the wound wasn’t apparent.

  I approached slowly. Not entirely sure what to think about what was in front of me.

  Was this a joke?

  When I got close enough, I nudged him with the tip of my boot.

  He groaned but didn’t say anything else. I went around him to get a good look and see if he was injured anywhere else.

  “James?”

  Another groan.

  I bent down and put my hand on his shoulder. Gently pushing him, I rolled him to his back. The gash on his head was bleeding quite a bit when I finally got a good look at it. It wasn’t terribly deep, just enough to cause a lot of blood flow.

  The wound around his chest was still a mystery but I saw that part of his huge parka was ripped slightly.

  “Kate,” he mumbled.

  “James, I’m going to call for some help. I think you need a hospital.”

  His hand shot out and gripped my wrist so hard that it hurt.

  “Oh! James, let go.”

  My eyes moved from the death grip he had on my wrist to his eyes.

  They were staring at me with an intensity that was frightening and I tried to pull back. The blood on his face seemed to accentuate the mad look he was giving me. His scar was pinched in a way that was menacing. He simply looked diabolical to me.

  “Murder Kate,” he hissed and tried to sit up.

  I leveraged my feet into the ground and twisted away from him. I started panting hard from the fear that slammed into my body.

  On the last twist, my wrist came free and I scrambled and crawled in panic toward the road.

  He cried out like he was furious and began to pull himself up using the truck.

  My eyes went wide and my breath caught when he turned to me. He looked like he had crawled out of hell.

  “Kate!” he yelled and started walking toward me. “Stay!”

  The hell if I was staying. Not with hell’s spawn lurching toward me.

  Backing up several steps I kept my eyes on him. Then it hit me.

  He said he had traveled to several northern states for work. “Of a sort” had been his comment. He was a drifter in a way. Someone with no ties that he mentioned. He was trying really hard to get me to go to town for lunch with him.

  That murdered woman didn’t show up until he had. Was he the person Mitch was looking for?

  The way he was scowling at me looked serial killer-ish.

  My options were few however. He and his truck were blocking my escape toward the cabin to call someone. The only alternatives were to run toward the road and possibly make it to Sam and Peg’s house, or try to find a path in the woods.

  Choices.

  Julia would probably take the woods, which seemed like a terrible idea. Andi would try punching him but I wasn’t as mean as Andi. Liv would probably find some genius way to talk herself out of this. They all had this uncanny ability to do extraordinary things when in a jam.

  But I was, well, me.

  What superpower was built from losing your parents, grandmother, home, having your lavender bush die, talking to a cat like she was a person, and having your long-time crush turn out to be an asshole addict for a time?

  I wasn’t broken but I certainly wasn’t insane enough to take on a man twice my size either.

  So, what to do? Poke him with a stick?

  He took a step toward me. I turned and ran.

  Live to fight another day was quickly making a lot more sense to me than anything else.

  Making it up to the road I looked back and saw James leaning a hand on the side of the truck. He looked like he was holding himself up but I wasn’t going to trust it. He had a strong enough grip on my wrist earlier that suggested he wasn’t as hurt as he might have seemed

  My heart was pounding as I stepped out on to the road. Unfortunately, due to both the weather and the fact that my cabin was so far from the main road into Hope, there weren’t any cars coming or going. If there had been a single car I might have had a chance to reach safety.

  I started half jogging and sliding toward Peg and Sam’s turnoff.

  Move to the woods. It’s a great cabin. There’s a chance you could run into a killer.

  I was regretting my choice in isolation.

  The air around me was cold and crisp which made each breath feel icy. I heard the plow start up in the general direction of my house. Doubling my efforts, I tried not to fall as I started getting close to their drive. My chest felt like it was going to explode. It was one thing to go for a walk in the altitude and another to try running in it.

  I reached Peg and Sam’s drive just as the tip of the plow cleared my driveway.

  My feet were going as fast as I could safely manage without dumping myself into a ditch. Luckily, Sam’s drive had recently been cleared. Maybe James had made his way over here at some point during the day. Hopefully the older couple was at home and had a weapon.

  My side was starting to hurt the closer I got to their place. I sa
w a stream of smoke coming from the top of their chimney.

  I heard the plow behind me but didn’t bother to turn back and look. The cabin was incredibly close.

  Peg stepped out on the porch with a puzzled look on her face. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking. The crazy girl from next door was running for her life and being followed by a plow driven by a crazy killer.

  “Peg!” I half wheezed, half yelled.

  “Call the police! Get inside!”

  She looked startled and scared at the scene in front of her but turned back toward the cabin.

  The plow was nearly on me then I heard it stop.

  I looked back and felt extreme alarm. The plow was less than five feet from me and James was climbing down from the cab.

  “Kate, stop!” he yelled and then started walking toward me.

  I turned back toward the cabin then heard a loud THUMP and a grunt behind me.

  Looking back again, I gasped, took a wrong step and fell on my backside.

  James was frozen in mid-stride. His body was shaking and his eyes were rolled back. Blood was flowing profusely down his face from a wound in his head. The wound was from a large axe that was buried in the side of his temple. It had nearly cleaved the entire top portion off and was being held by Sam.

  It was like watching something in slow motion. Sam pulled the axe back, then swung it into James again, but this time it landed in his chest. The air left my lungs just as James coughed blood all over both of us. The snow between us was soaked.

  Sam looked back at me and grinned.

  Grinned!

  What the fuck?

  The Sam I knew wasn’t present in his eyes. He was a husband, a friend, and a well-known person in our community with deep ties. Everyone loved him. Except this man wasn’t Sam. This Sam was a killer.

  I scrambled back and screamed.

  James was dead or nearly there and his body slumped forward over Sam’s axe, taking it to the ground with him. I watched as Sam’s hands slid down the handle and lost their grip in all the blood that was pouring out of the chest wound he had just inflicted.

  His eyes were mad. Insane. Detached but gleaming. He raised his hands in front of his face to look at them then he turned his focus on me. His normally gentle face was smeared with blood and his graying hair was a mass of red. His coat had dark red splotches all over it.

  “Sam?” I whispered to myself.

  What I was seeing couldn’t possibly be what I was seeing.

  It was like he had transformed into someone hideously disturbed.

  “You’re all whores. All of you,” he growled.

  I opened my mouth to speak but couldn’t. It was so confusing. James, the crazy looking plow guy was dead. The one with the scar and the flirty creeper vibe that had just chased me. Now Sam was looking half crazed and was talking about whores.

  Was this what the mountains did to people eventually?

  I slowly started to scoot back by sliding along the snow.

  “You just had to have your man with you that day,” he said as he stepped forward.

  “What?”

  He grimaced at me. “The day the plow broke down. Just had to have that asshole with you. Thought I might come by and show you what a whore you were. Pregnant. Such filth.”

  I shook my head. “Sam, I thought we were friends. I don’t understand.”

  He pulled a gun out of his coat.

  His face was contorted into a sneer. “Such a shame, I really wanted to run you down with the plow. Then it broke down and that man is constantly there now. I had to wait. Then he calls and says you’re all alone. But you weren’t really.”

  He gestured behind him at the corpse of James behind him. The movement caused tiny droplets of blood to drop off his hand into the snow.

  “Alone but with James. I told you he was strange but did you listen? No, don’t listen to me. None of you ever do. Is he secretly the father? You can tell me Kate, I’ll take it to my grave, which won’t be anytime soon. All those girls were sniffing around him every time I went to the diner. I didn’t think you would be one of them.”

  I shook my head. “He’s not the father. Logan is.”

  “LIAR!” he yelled. “You were pregnant before he even got here. You’re exactly like the rest of them, Kate! You go from one to the other like people your age do. Your grandmother would be ashamed. That’s okay though, I’m going to absolve you and make sure that your children will never grow up to become you.”

  I look over at the body on the ground. The axe is wedged under it in such a way that I wouldn’t be able to get to it even if I lucked out and had a chance to.

  Sam scowled at me and wiped his face with the back of his hand. It did nothing other than transfer more blood to his face.

  “Now this has just become messy. I hate mess, Kate. I knew dumping that body so close to home was a mistake but I was fine. They didn’t suspect a thing. Now we’ve got blood everywhere and Peg is going to have to be put down too.”

  “Sam, I don’t know what’s happened but I’m sure we can get you some help.”

  “Right,” he spat. “I don’t need any help Kate. I’m fine. I enjoy what I do. It’s too bad though. I thought you were a good girl.”

  He raised the gun slowly toward me. I couldn’t think of a logical way out of this situation. If one had presented itself I would have taken it without hesitation but I was hopelessly at a disadvantage.

  His gun fired and I felt a sharp sting in my arm.

  He grinned again when I cried out. The adrenaline in my body lessoned my pain but my eyes looked into his and I knew he was going to shoot again.

  My babies. Logan. My hand went to my stomach and I closed my eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  What I heard next was deafening.

  I didn’t feel any pain, which was surprising. It was a relief, but also not something I expected from being shot. In fact, I didn’t even feel like I had been shot at all. The vets at the clinic had told me many things. A great deal of their own personal stories on being shot in combat. None of those stories said that it would be painless.

  I would have thought I was dead already, except that I smelled an acrid scent all around me and I could taste bile in my mouth.

  My eyes opened in time to see Sam pointing his gun toward the trees. He pulled the trigger and the loud blast went off again. I heard a loud male voice cry out.

  I cringed at it.

  He stepped forward toward whatever had his interest and I took my chances by rolling away in the opposite direction.

  Crawling toward the truck, I managed to slip around the blade and hide beside one of the large tires. Sam was muttering to himself and cursing at the forest.

  Whatever he was shooting at was allowing me an escape path and it was my lucky break. I didn’t have any faith that he would remain distracted for long.

  I crawled under the truck and started making my way toward the back. The snow was icy cold and my hands were becoming numb. The jeans I had put on earlier were soaked and freezing. The only warmth I felt was from the thick coat that I had thrown on at the house.

  I inched along toward the back of the vehicle. Crawling and keeping my eyes toward the end of the truck, I tried not to think about the noise behind me.

  There was another shot. Then there were two more and a tremendous BOOM.

  Each sound made me jump in anticipation that my location had been discovered.

  Putting my forehead down on the packed snow, I covered my head and stayed still for a minute. Someone was yelling and then I heard what I thought might be Peg yelling.

  My arm throbbed and I could feel the blood trickling down my skin under my heavy coat.

  I could hear sirens in the distance but growing louder.

  Then I heard something I would never in a million years have expected. Bells meowed right up against my ear.

  Turning my head, she leaned into my face and rubbed against me.

  What the hell?


  I blinked a few times at her and nearly burst into tears. I couldn’t fathom how she had gotten so far from our house. The distance seemed too great for her to actually be sitting in front of me.

  I scooped my arm around her and pushed her toward the bumper. My head swung back toward the front of the vehicle to see if I could see Sam’s location but my line of sight was obscured by the big blade.

  Bells pawed at my face and walked around in a half circle. Her tail swished as she walked in the direction of the front tire. There she stuck her nose out from under the vehicle as if to check for Sam as well, then walked out and sat down on the snow.

  Her eyes looked into mine, then she began cleaning her paw.

  I envied her sense of calm

  Grimacing, I crawled toward her and looked out toward the road. If I could get a running start on it, I might be able to escape and find help before Sam spotted me.

  Just as my shoulders cleared the front, I heard the heavy footfalls of someone approaching on the right. Then I saw a pair of large boots stop in front of me.

  My heart pulsed in fear at the sight of them.

  I tried backing up quickly but a hand reached out and grabbed the back of my coat. My hood fell over my face and I could only partially make out what was on the ground directly in front of me.

  There were boots, legs and my cat.

  Screaming, I started hitting the legs of whoever had me. If this was finally it I wasn’t going to go down without making some noise.

  “NO! Let go of me, you asshole!! You’re fucking insane! Just wait until they catch you!”

  Bells started rubbing on the legs I was hitting.

  What the hell was wrong with her?! Stay away from the serial killer.

  Two arms wrapped around me and caged me in.

  “NO, get off!!” I yelled.

  I swung an arm at Bells to chase her away from this evil man. My legs cleared the end of the vehicle and I started digging in to pull away. Then I stomped on one of the boots and punched at a kneecap.

  “Ow, Kaitlyn, it’s okay. I’ve got you,” Logan’s voice said.