White Roses Calling

by Hudson, Dakota

  The ringing of Alex’s cell phone broke the silence several minutes later. Sydney let go of her hand as Alex retrieved the phone from her jacket pocket and took her eyes off the highway just long enough to look down at the caller I.D.

  “It’s Regina,” she said. The glance she gave Sydney was somewhat nervous.

  “Well, you better answer it,” Sydney said, squeezing her arm reassuringly. “She may have that information you were asking for.”

  Alex nodded then pushed the button to receive the call, putting Regina on speakerphone.

  “Yeah, Reg,” she said. Having had no reason to use their cell phones in the last twenty-four hours, neither woman had realized how bad the reception was along the less developed northern shore of the lake. It became evident as they barely heard every third word spoken by Regina.

  “...lex...formation you...”

  “Reg, the reception is terrible here. Let me get to a landline and call you back in a little while,” Alex said as she leaned forward toward the wheel.

  Sydney looked out the window and saw the snow beginning to fall more steadily, now impacting visibility on the roadway. She was relieved they only had a short distance to go to get back to the hotel. Regina’s voice cracked through the speaker again.

  “...need to...important...” Sydney was frustrated with the incomplete and garbled statements and saw Alex reach toward the phone to hang up when one partially complete statement came through and chilled her to the bone. “...nclaire has a twin...” The phone connection died immediately after that.

  It all clicked into place for Sydney at that moment. The comment she heard Garvis make repeatedly during the attack came back to her.

  “He told me I could have her first.”

  That statement had been stuck at the edge of her mind for days now, not making sense. But now it did. Sinclair had a twin. Garvis had been a pawn. Sinclair’s twin was the “he” in that statement, and he was still out there. The threat was still there.

  “Oh my God!” Sydney said. “I wasn’t imagining things at the elevator—it was Sinclair’s twin. The flowers, the pictures. It’s been him all along.”

  Alex stuffed her phone back into her jacket pocket and reached once again for Sydney’s hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

  “We’ll get back to the hotel and I’ll get all the details then we’ll make some phone calls. This could mean nothing.”

  “I know,” Sydney said. “Or it could explain—”

  “What the hell is this asshole doing?” Alex exclaimed as a large dark SUV pulled up beside them as if attempting to pass on the thin mountain roadway. The truck suddenly swerved to the right into their lane, forcing Alex to swerve toward the shoulder in an effort to avoid a collision.

  ALEX HEARD SYDNEY scream as she attempted to maintain control of her truck when the wheels hit the loose dirt on the shoulder. She almost made it, but the driver of the dark SUV swerved to the right again, this time actually colliding with her front door and quarter-panel, forcing her completely off the pavement. The wheels on the right side of the truck caught in the soft gravel at the far right of the shoulder where the edge began to drop off steeply.

  Alex fought to keep the truck on the solid portion of the shoulder and roadway, but knew it was a losing battle as the truck began to drag to the right and tilt dangerously. In the end she had no choice but to turn into the drop, hoping to at least keep the vehicle upright and avoid as many large trees as possible as it barreled down the ravine. But luck was not with her in that effort as the left front tire finally hit a large boulder, sending the front left portion of the vehicle airborne and flipping it onto the passenger side. Alex felt the truck make almost a complete roll as the vehicle continued forward and down. What she could see of the earth spun through the windshield as first the passenger side hit the ground, then they turned completely upside down, sliding on the roof for what seemed like seconds. They came to a bone-jarring stop when the bottom of the car collided with a large tree, halting the truck as it now lay on its driver’s side.

  Neither of them moved for several minutes. Alex closed her eyes against the dizziness and felt the now all too familiar sensation of warm blood trickling down the left side of her head. She knew she’d reopened her head wound. She eventually heard a voice calling to her. Alex opened her eyes and looked to her right, which was now up, and saw Sydney suspended above her, restrained by her seatbelt. Sydney’s concerned eyes looked back at her.

  “Sydney?” Alex said, somewhat frantically as she reached for her own seatbelt release. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes,” came the shaken reply. “I think so.” Alex saw Sydney struggling with her seatbelt.

  “Not yet! Let me get up and help.” Alex released her seatbelt and carefully stood, her feet actually on the now shattered driver’s door window and her upper body well into the suspended passenger seat area. She ignored her own pain and put her arms around Sydney to take her weight, and as Sydney released her seatbelt Alex was able to ensure she was lowered carefully to a standing position with her. They both stood there in each other’s arms for a moment.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” Alex said, pulling back and inspecting Sydney for any evidence of injury. “Does anything hurt?”

  “Nothing serious. I just got the breath knocked out of me, I think. What about you? I thought you were fading out on me for a minute there.” Then Sydney caught the dark blood streaming down Alex’s face. “Your head! You’ve re-opened your stitches.”

  “It’s okay. I just banged my head on the window or the door frame when we rolled. Let’s get out of here and make our way to the road for help. I wonder if the idiot who ran us off the road stuck around.” Alex began kicking out the already cracked windshield, which eventually fell away in a full sheet of safety glass and the two of them stepped out into the night. The snow was now falling more heavily.

  Alex looked up the hill and was surprised at how far off the road they had traveled. She looked the other way, down the hill, noticing they had traversed the steepest portion of the hill and come to rest as the ground began to even out and the trees became more populated. She knew somewhere beyond those trees was the lake, but they were too dense to allow the water to be seen.

  Alex’s gaze returned to the hill once again. It was going to be a difficult climb back to the roadway in the snow. The hill was quite steep and the snow was growing deeper by the minute. But they had no choice. No one would to see them from the road at night, and by morning the car could be covered in a blanket of snow. She knew they weren’t dressed for being stuck outside on a night like this. They had to make it to the road and hope to flag down a passing car.

  Alex reached for her pocket, finding her cell phone missing. Then she reached for her rear waistband. The holster that was usually tucked into her pants there was missing as well. She figured both must have been jarred loose during the violent rolling of the vehicle.

  Alex gave Sydney’s hand a quick squeeze. “Give me a quick second,” she said, then stepped back through the open windshield into the cab of the truck and began feeling around, almost blindly, for her weapon, her phone and anything else that may be important or useful.

  Alex was bent over, feeling around under the driver’s seat and beneath the dashboard below the steering wheel. That lucky position likely saved her life. She suddenly heard the sound of gunshots, then heard Sydney scream. The first round fired pierced the thin metal of the roof about two feet above her head, right about where her chest would have been had she been standing. The second round passed through about ten inches lower and slightly to the left.

  “Run for the trees, Syd!”

  A third round came through the roof, still lower and this time slightly to the right. It became clear to Alex the shooter intended to stitch a continuous pattern of bullet holes until he eventually got lucky. A moment of relief came over her as she also realized he seemed to be concentrating on her, so Sydney had hopefully escaped and was out of sight and behind cover
. All of this passed through Alex’s mind in a few seconds, closely followed by her determination that she had no choice but to make a break for it. She launched herself out through the open windshield before the next round was fired.

  Alex saw Sydney running into the trees and moved to follow. She was two steps out of the truck when the sole of her insulated hiking boot hit the unseen sheet of glass that used to be her windshield. Her foot slipped along the wet and snowy glass and she fell. That slip saved her life, as the fourth round sailed past where her head had been a fraction of a second before. She hit the ground and rolled to her right, past the front of the truck and behind it. To follow Sydney now would mean Alex would have to expose herself to her assailant. Instead, she backed into the trees, keeping the bulk of the vehicle between her and where she believed the shooter was. She maintained that cover, keeping low and pausing momentarily behind large tree trunks to listen for movement. She would attempt to circle toward the lake in the direction Sydney had taken, hoping to find her before whoever was out there did.

  SYDNEY HEARD ALEX’S shouted order and complied without further thought. Not sure where the shots had been fired from, she dashed down the remaining slope for the cover of the nearby tree line, assuming Alex was close behind her. She heard another round fired and again strike the truck. Somewhere in her conscious mind she realized the gunfire was not focused on her, but on Alex. As soon as she reached the heavier trees she stopped and listened for Alex, thinking she must have been behind her when she ran. She heard and saw nothing and suddenly realized she hadn’t heard anything after the fourth shot. Was Alex lying back there in the snow, possibly wounded?

  Sydney wasn’t going to go on without her. No matter how terrifying this was she had to go back for Alex. She began to slowly make her way back in the direction she believed the truck lay, slowing as the trees grew thinner, pausing occasionally to listen. She was sure she had to be close when she crouched behind a particularly large pine tree trunk. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to raise the courage to move on, knowing she was becoming more exposed. At the last minute she heard the soft crunch of snow beneath boots behind her and to her right. She began to turn when the open-handed blow caught her in the side of the head, sending her reeling to the ground.

  He was on her before she recovered, shoving the gun against her chin as he roughly lifted her off the ground. It was then she recognized him and the terror almost caused her to collapse again. It was Sinclair. Sinclair’s twin actually, her mind registered from somewhere. At that moment Sydney had no doubt she was about to be subjected to all the horrors she had been witness to during Sinclair’s trial. The rape, the torture, the death. She couldn’t keep the tears from falling as he pushed her up the incline and slightly to the right, back in the direction the gunfire had originated.

  As they progressed he talked.

  “I’ve been watching you since my brother’s trial. You were very impressive, Ms. Rutledge. Very professional.” Even with the almost overwhelming sensation of terror, Sydney’s mind was putting it all together. They were clearly identical twins, so the DNA would be the same, only the fingerprints would be different, and those are more easily hidden or protected by a smart offender.

  “Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that you had no business being in that courtroom. If you were smart you would have stayed in your place, in your proper world. You’re a woman, you should be a mother, not trying to do a man’s job in a man’s world.” He began to rant quietly and Sydney started to gain a deeper understanding of the sociopathic thought process that had led to the murderous crime spree.

  “But you took it even one step further than that, didn’t you?” he continued. Sydney sensed he was possibly working himself into a dangerous frenzy. This belief was confirmed when he suddenly slammed her into the trunk of a tree, turning her around and taking her by the throat again, the gun pushed painfully into her ribs and his body pressing against hers. Sydney could feel his erection against her abdomen.

  “You and that other woman,” he continued. “That sergeant. She’s worse than you are, thinking she has any business in that line of work. And you two violate the natural order of things. You flaunt your violations for the world to see. You both deserve the ultimate punishment.” He shoved his hips into her crotch, physically making his intentions clear and smiling at the tears that ran down her face. “I’ll take care of her first though. I’ll make you watch while I kill her. Maybe I’ll play with her a bit first while you watch. But when that’s over you and I are going to spend a long time together.”

  His next order surprised her. “Now scream.”

  She looked at him, unsure how to react. Suddenly a fist crashed into the side of her head, knocking her to the ground once again. He was immediately standing over her, shoving the handgun into his waistband and reaching for the front of her jacket, pulling her off the ground and raising his hand to hit her again. “I said scream, bitch!” he ordered again then slapped her.

  “No! Stop!” Sydney let out a strangled cry.

  “Again!” This time he shook her and again raised his hand, this time in a fist.

  “Stop it! What do you want?” Sydney raised an arm in an effort to defend herself, now half sobbing she closed her eyes.

  The blow never came. She opened her eyes to see him looking back the way they had come. He appeared to be listening carefully. She soon heard the sound of someone crashing through the trees, moving toward them in the forest. She saw the sinister smile develop on his face and he pulled her roughly to her feet.

  “Good. Now we keep moving.” He once again removed the handgun from his waist and grasped her by the back neck of her jacket, propelling her forward. Sydney suddenly realized what was happening. She was being used as bait. Bait for Alex. He intended to follow through on his threat to torture and kill Alex in front of her, then rape and kill her afterwards. And she was powerless to stop him. Ten minutes later Sydney was still being pushed forward at gunpoint as snow continued to fall. The Sinclair twin prodded her to continue her progress, occasionally adjusting their direction of travel. As she tripped over a branch and fell hard to the ground she looked back at him as she rose and noted he was looking at a handheld GPS device. He put the device back in his jacket pocket then pulled her roughly to her feet.

  “Scream again. Scream for help,” he ordered.

  Now knowing what he planned, Sydney was determined not to help him lead Alex into a trap. She shook her head in refusal.

  “Don’t try and play games with me.” The open palm connected with her left cheek. Sydney would have fallen to the ground had he not been holding her by the front of her jacket. The world spun momentarily as he pushed her back up against another tree. “I said scream,” he said with menace.

  “I won’t help you,” Sydney said quietly.

  Sydney saw him reach into his back pocket, then gasped and flinched when the switchblade knife clicked open just inches from her eye. She took a deep breath and once again shook her head in refusal. She couldn’t help but notice the dangerous glint of anger that flashed through his eyes.

  Sydney closed her eyes, unsure of what would happen next but determined not to help summon Alex. She flinched and tried to pull her head away as the cold steel touched her cheek below her left eye. He dragged it, relatively gently, down her cheek and jaw to her neck. She felt the sharp edge held across her neck as his other hand roughly unzipped her parka then ripped her shirt open, tearing the top several buttons off. The sudden cold and the instant up-tick in fear caused her to gasp.

  Sydney had an immediate understanding of what might be about to happen. She had seen the photos and vivid written descriptions of the torture and knew exactly what Sinclair’s victims had been subjected to. She kept her eyes clenched shut and sobbed quietly, but still she didn’t scream.

  The point of the knife trailed down her neck. The pressure increased at her collar bone and she bit her own lip to keep from crying out as the sharp edge cut into
her skin, getting deeper as it inched down across her sternum toward her breasts. She knew the warm wet sensation was her own blood as it trailed down her now exposed chest. She held on as long as she could, but the pain and fear was soon overwhelming and a terrorized cry eventually escaped from her lips, growing louder and then ending in a wracking sob as the knife was withdrawn and Sydney fell to the ground crying.

  The Sinclair twin returned the switchblade to his pocket and leaned down, again grasping Sydney by the arm, pulling her to her feet and resuming their forward progress. Within a few minutes they entered a clearing containing a large cabin with a gray Ford Taurus parked nearby. Sydney noticed the cabin was on a slight rise above the water, with what appeared to be a boat ramp traveling along the side of the cabin and down to the shoreline. She briefly glanced at what appeared to be the top of a set of stairs on the lakeside of the cabin leading down the shore and a small wooden dock.

  “Get inside,” he ordered as he dragged Sydney across the clearing and up the front porch of the cabin. Once inside Sydney observed a surprisingly well-equipped modern living area. She was pushed into the middle of the large main room. Suddenly feeling very exposed in the relative light of the interior, she pulled her jacket closed about her, covering her torn shirt.

  “So now,” he said with a sadistic smile. “We wait. And you stay out of trouble.” He drew his arm across his body and brought his fist forward in an upwards-backhand swing, striking Sydney before she could react or prepare for the blow. She was lifted off her feet and thrown backwards, crashing through a wooden coffee table, which splintered beneath her. Then blackness overcame her.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  ALEX MOVED THROUGH the woods, working her way around to the left in the direction she believed Sydney had gone. She paused at one point, thinking she’d heard a woman’s muffled cry.