“Dancing in the dark. Got it.”
“Good girl. Hang on. Here we go.”
She almost laughed when she realized she’d pinched her eyes closed tight. As if avoiding opening them and seeing that she couldn’t see a thing—not even his broad back, which was one inch from her nose—would make this all go away.
Inch by inch, Baby Blue led them deeper into the cave.
“Head down,” he warned in a whisper. “The ceiling drops to about four and a half feet here.”
She ducked, then stopped, midstep.
“What?”
“I . . . think I heard something behind us.”
In the next second a beam from a flashlight confirmed it.
“It’s okay. We’re almost to a switchback. We’ll wait for him there.”
“And do what?”
“He may have the gun, but I have the advantage. He doesn’t know where he’s going; I do. And the dark is on my side. You still with me?”
If she could draw a full breath, she would have whimpered. Her ankle throbbed and burned like fire where the rock fragments had nailed her. Blood ran into the sole of her sandal, making her foot slide on the leather and walking tricky. And God help them both, if a bat dive-bombed her, she’d probably faint dead away. But she was still with him.
“Where else would I be?”
He covered the fingers she’d linked together around his waist like a set of locks, squeezed in reassurance. Then he made a sharp left, swung around in a 180, and stopped, taking them out of the approaching flashlight’s range and plunging them into darkness again.
“Not a sound,” he whispered against her ear. “It’s going to end here.” He pressed her a little deeper into the unrelenting blackness. “Don’t move. No matter what happens. Don’t move.”
Then his solid warmth and protection left her. She bit her lower lip. Reached out into the void in front of her and felt only air. Cold, damp, dank-smelling air. Beside her, her right hand encountered rock. Because it was the only thing tangible, she moved into it for support, wishing the unyielding stone felt as comforting as Baby Blue’s warm back against her cheek.
Please, God, don’t let anything happen to him.
Then she heard it. The sound of footsteps. She held her breath as the faint beam of a flashlight cut into the absolute dark. Made herself breathe when Baby Blue’s silhouette took shape a yard ahead of her where he crouched at the edge of a wall of rock. Waiting for Edwin Grimm and his gun.
Waiting with what looked like a knife.
She felt her first inkling of relief. He was armed. But as the light grew closer, casting an eerie, shifting glow on the wall facing them, she could see that it wasn’t a knife at all. It was a rock. Long and narrow and marginally tapered.
God. He was going to fight a man wielding an automatic rifle with a rock. A dozen deadly conclusions to that scenario formed in her mind when a narrow beam of light bent around the corner.
This was it. One way or the other, this was all going to be over soon.
Heart hammering, she waited, waited, waited for an eternity of seconds. The silence suddenly became as thick as the darkness of moments ago.
Grimm was waiting, too. Considering. Deciding if he was walking into a trap. Just when she thought she’d die from the suspense, both the light and the nose of a rifle poked around the corner, not six inches from Baby Blue’s face.
It was the moment he’d been waiting for. With an echoing growl, he stood, chopped at the gun barrel with a swift, downward hack.
A burst of blinding light was followed instantly by the ear-splitting report of a rifle. Her eyes were still traumatized by the fire flash and her ears still ringing when she heard a groan, the thud of a body connecting with the cave floor.
Adrenaline pumped through her blood at the speed of sound—she could hear it in her ears along with the ringing, feel it in her throat. Finally, her pupils dilated and she could make out the faint glow of the flashlight, its beam cocked at an unnatural angle toward the ceiling of the cave.
Where hundred of bats hung upside down and had started to stir.
Oh, God.
She dropped to her knees, shrinking herself as small as possible. She wanted to call out to Baby Blue. She wanted to run toward the light—and that’s when she realized the flashlight was less than three feet away.
Holding her breath, she inched slowly forward on her hands and knees. Six inches. She could almost touch it. And she almost did. At the last moment, she pulled her hand back, followed the wide swath of the beam where it flared downward—and saw Grimm’s dark silhouette standing over Baby Blue, rifle in hand, ready to fire.
She forgot all about the bats; she forgot about her fear of the dark. With a roar, she shot to her feet. Startled, Grimm swung toward her, but she was already in motion. She kicked high and hard, clipping him in the jaw.
He screamed in pain, dropped to his knees, and the rifle went flying. Sheer instinct had her scrambling for the weapon when it skittered toward her. She grabbed it and drew it to her shoulder.
“Don’t move.” Terrified, she hardly recognized her own voice. He stood and took a step toward her. “I said don’t move,” she shouted, near panic.
When he stopped and held his hands up above his head, her breath came out in a series of ragged hitches. She couldn’t see his face in the dark. Couldn’t distinguish anything but his hulking silhouette. She didn’t have to see him. His face had fueled nightmares for four years; she remembered every inch of it.
And now she had another nightmare to thank him for. Baby Blue lay lifeless at her feet.
Be alive; be alive, she begged him. Just as she knelt to check, Grimm lurched forward. She raised the gun to her shoulder, fired wildly. The recoil knocked her backward, set her on her ass. She fired again.
Her ears were still ringing, her eyes still blinded by the fire flash, when she looked up, struggling to find Grimm, and fire again if she had to. But she couldn’t see anything. And all she could hear was the horrible ringing in her ears. All she could feel was Jason Wilson’s lifeless form beside her.
Long moments passed before she realized they were alone in the cave. Alone with the bats. Finally, her sight adjusted. And her mind clicked out of panic mode when she heard the distant roar of an engine.
She rose to her knees, bent over Baby Blue—and almost wept when she felt his breath against her face, his pulse against her fingertips.
She lifted his head and cradled it in her lap. It didn’t take long to find the bump on his temple. But it took what felt like forever for her to rouse him.
“Grimm?” he mumbled.
“Gone,” she said.
Then and only then did she cry. And curse. And laugh until she started crying again.
He lifted a hand, cupped her head, and shushed her.
“I’m okay. I’m okay, babe.”
She’d thought he was dead. Because of her.
She’d thought they were both going to end up dead.
But they were alive.
Thank you, God, they were alive.
That was the good news.
The bad news: Somewhere out there, Grimm was still alive, too.
20
One thirty a.m., Saturday, July 22nd
“I wish to hell I knew,” Jase told No as he tossed his duffel on the bed in his old bedroom on the second floor of his parents’ house.
His head throbbed like a bitch. But he wasn’t seeing stars anymore, so that was a plus.
In Jeremy’s room, Janey was also packing her things. Damn, was she something. He’d been out cold for the grand finale. Must have hit his head on a rock when he’d tackled Grimm.
That was the last thing he remembered. If Janey hadn’t kept her head and gotten Grimm’s assault rifle, they’d both be dead now. He’d deal with the ego hit later. Right now, he had to get her out of here.
“Somehow, some way, Grimm is tracking her,” Jase told No. “And the sonofabitch has stepped up his game.”
He wedged his cell between his shoulder and ear, checked the cylinder on the Ruger that his dad kept around to chase off coyotes.
“Her cell phone?” No suggested.
“I checked it. It’s clean. Hell, I’ve checked everything I can think of. Her clothes. Her purse. Makeup. Nothing. It’s spooky as hell.”
“So is Dallas’s latest find.” No’s voice was stone-cold.
Jase felt his stomach, which was still queasy from the blow to his head, sink like a stone. “Don’t tell me we’ve lost another woman on the list.”
“Make that two more. One in Florida and one in Texas. With Alice Perkins and the woman in Illinois, that makes four—all within a few days of each other.”
Jase tucked the gun into his jeans at the small of his back and shouldered the duffel. “Still nothing to tie them together?”
“Actually, there is. We’ve traced them all back to Mississippi. They all lived within thirty miles of Alice Perkins about twenty-seven, twenty-eight years ago.”
“So she might have known them. Anything else?”
“Yeah—Dallas has a lead on the fourth woman. In South Dakota of all places. He’s catching a plane in the morning—with some luck, she’ll be able to fill in some blanks for us.”
“Okay, look.” Jase checked his watch—it was almost one-forty-five—and zipped up his duffel. “I’m getting Janey out of here. I didn’t have much choice but to fill my old man in a few minutes ago. He can handle himself if Grimm shows up after we leave, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. The bastard wants Janey. He backed off tonight, but I have no doubt that he’ll come after her again.”
“Where are you going?”
Jase grunted. “People keep asking me questions I don’t have answers for. All I know is I’ve got to get her out of here and away from my parents. I don’t want them caught in the middle of this.”
“I’ve got an idea,” No said.
“I’m all ears, man.”
“How far are you from Chicago?”
“Three, three and a half hours with a tailwind.”
“Head for O’Hare. Grimm wouldn’t dare make a move with airport security as tight as it is.”
“Which means I’ll have to ditch my piece.”
“Don’t worry; where you’re going, there will be plenty of weaponry and ammo.”
“And where might that be?”
“On the off chance Grimm’s got a line on this conversation, let’s just keep that part a surprise for now.”
“Let’s keep something else a surprise, too,” Jase said, in complete agreement with No. “Our mode of transportation. I’m beginning to think there might be a GPS transmitter planted on Janey’s jet.”
“Fine. You’ll fly commercial. I’ll arrange to have tickets waiting when you get there. When you get to O’Hare, call. I’ll let you know what airline. You’ll be long gone before Grimm can catch up.”
“Roger that.” Ignoring the headache, Jase shouldered the duffel, and headed out the door toward Jeremy’s room.
“Jase—there are a couple of other things.”
“Of course there are,” he said wearily, and sagged against the wall in the hallway. Something told him he didn’t want Janey to hear all of this. “Okay. Shoot.”
“Has Janey ever said anything about Max Cogan having a gambling problem?”
That stopped Jase cold. “Whoa. Max? No. She’s never mentioned it. I’m not sure she would though, even if she knew. She’s pretty loyal. Come to think of it, I did notice that Max hit the casinos pretty hard when we were in Atlantic City.”
“Yeah, well, he likes the horses, too. And sports bets. Word is he dropped a bundle a few weeks back and some not-so-nice guys have been leaning on him pretty hard to pay up.”
Just what Janey needed. To find Max floating facedown in a river somewhere. No wonder Jase had sensed Max was off his game lately. And Max had been eating antacids like they were candy.
“Max loves Janey,” Jase said aloud. “I can’t see him putting her in the middle of his problems.”
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice. According to his bank records, he’s tapped out. His condo is mortgaged to the hilt and his credit is for shit. The big boys might figure Janey is Max’s ticket to pay them off.”
“Christ.” Jase felt weary to the bone suddenly. “I don’t like the direction this is going.”
“Then you’re not going to like this, either. Janey’s friend? Neal Sanders?”
“Yeah?”
“As of last night, Sanders is missing.”
Missing?” Janey felt marginally better after she had taken a very quick shower and dressed in clean jeans and a tank top. At least she had felt better until Wilson had made his announcement about Neal.
“What does that mean? Everybody scattered after Boston to take advantage of the two-week break. I think Neal said he was heading back to NYC.”
She ran a pick through her damp hair as she sat beside Baby Blue in Bruce Wilson’s borrowed truck. The Mustang wasn’t drivable—something, Baby Blue had announced with a dark scowl, that Grimm was going to pay for, big-time.
He checked his rearview mirror and pulled out onto I-80 heading east. In the pale light of the truck’s cab, she could see the bump on his temple. A reddish-purple bruise covered a knot the size of a quarter and radiated down to his eye. After fussing over his arm and head injury, Bev Wilson had helped Janey clean and dress the cuts on her ankle.
“Yeah. Well, he didn’t show. Didn’t make his flight. Never checked into the hotel he’d booked.”
“So he had a change of plans. He does that sometimes.”
“Janey—he never checked out of the hotel in Boston, yet all of his things were left in his room. The maid alerted management when she went to clean, because he was supposed to have checked out.”
It was easier, sometimes, to avoid the truth than to deal with it. “He’s probably holed up with his woman of the week somewhere.” But even as she said it, she knew she was reaching.
Jase shook his head. “Apparently the room was trashed—and not just because Sanders is a slob. Seems there might have been a little scuffle. It’s starting to look like maybe he didn’t leave willingly. He left his wallet behind, his stash of weed, all of his clothes.”
She closed her eyes, dropped her head into her hand. “So you’re thinking what? That someone abducted Neal? That’s crazy.”
He was quiet for a while, then glanced her way. “Okay, I know you don’t see this, probably don’t want to hear it, either, but Sanders isn’t a very nice guy.”
“I’ll admit that he’s changed some lately,” Janey said reluctantly. “And not for the good. But he was my friend when I needed one most. I’m not going to forget that. Besides, you don’t understand him,” she said, automatically coming to Neal’s defense.
“What I understand is that he’s a leech.”
She knew Jase was right but didn’t want to fully embrace the truth. “He’s insecure.”
“He’s a prick.”
“Who might be in some trouble,” she pointed out angrily.
He let out a deep breath. “Who might be in some trouble,” he finally concurred.
Janey looked out the window. Frustrated. Exhausted. Done in. “Okay, this is going to stop sometime, right?” An overwhelming sense of helplessness coupled with fatigue and threatened to overtake her. “I’m going to wake up in the morning and all of this is going to be like some Ex-induced dream and I’ll be back in charge of my life again.”
Didn’t matter that she’d never done drugs and never would; she had to figure that this was what it must feel like to live through a bad trip.
“I mean . . . it’s too much. On top of everything else, this is just too much.”
“Yeah,” he agreed softly, then surprised her by reaching out and covering her hand with his. “It’s way too much.
“And so,” he added with a meaningful squeeze, “are you. You were really something . . . you saved my sorry hide in tha
t cave.”
Yeah. She had. And she was still amazed that she’d kept it together, because when she thought about it she came damn close to falling apart.
“I . . . I can still see him . . . standing over you. He . . . he was going to shoot you.”
“Hey—don’t think about it, okay? It’s over. And so is his little reign of terror. There was a trail of blood leading out of that cave. Too much blood to have come from your ankle. You got him, babe. Put him in a world of hurt.”
She knew it had been a shoot-or-be-shot situation, but still the idea of hurting another human being—even an animal like Grimm—well, it was hard to think about.
“Nolan notified all the police departments involved. There’s a nationwide APB out for Grimm now. Sooner or later, he’s got to come up for air—he’s probably already on his way to an ER somewhere. And if not now, he’ll show up in one soon. Then they’ll get him. And this will all be over.”
Over. Yeah. More than anything in the world, she wanted this to be over. She wished she could believe he was right. Just like she wished she was right about Neal. That he’d show up soon.
Somehow, though, she had a feeling that maybe she’d gotten all the wishes she’d been allotted for one life. Wishes and prayers, both of which had been answered when Baby Blue had opened his eyes in that cave—a little battered, a lot bruised, but alive.
Near sundown, same day, outside of Jackson Hole, Wyoming
“Who did you say this place belonged to?” Janey asked as they pulled up to the mountain retreat a few miles north of Jackson Hole.
“No’s wife, Jillian. It’s her parents’. Guess the Kincaids rarely use it,” Jase said as he got out of the rented SUV. “Man. I’d be here fifty-three weeks a year if I owned a place like this.”
Which he never would, he reminded himself as he opened the rear door of the SUV and lifted out their duffels. Just one more reason to remember that wealth on the scale of publishing moguls like Jillian’s father, Darin Kincaid, and rock stars like Sweet Baby Jane separated them from the working class.
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