Love You Still

by Kat Bammer

  The car stopped and Lisa hadn’t even realized it until the driver turned around and looked at her. He didn’t leer or something—he just looked at her, in eerie silence, with slightly off eyes. Maybe he was on something?

  “Did you get my flowers?” he said. “I really liked you. You seemed nice. But then you had to go and show whatever your crazy father had collected to the cops. And you chose Peter over me. That is not nice. Good women don’t behave like that.”

  Lisa’s chest tightened, and she grimaced. What the hell was he talking about? Flowers? She didn’t get any flowers—just the ones after her father’s death. But he couldn’t mean them, could he? And why was he so interested in the documents in the shed?

  “I didn’t see your flowers. I’m sorry. There were so many after Dad died.”

  “Oh, but you did. They were sitting on your kitchen table. Weeks before your dad died.”

  Lisa’s eyes narrowed. The flowers. “But they were from Alan; they were signed in his name—”

  The man in front bared his teeth. “No, they weren’t. They were signed with A…for Anton. How dumb are you?”

  He spit out the words and Lisa flinched back. There was stuff going on all along and she had no clue. How dumb was she really?

  “So, what exactly in your father’s shed had the FBI up in arms? It was him and his friend at the Gazette. I always knew they had their suspicions. They connected the dots. Didn’t they? But I’m smarter. A lot smarter.”

  Lisa’s eyebrows shot up. Oh shit.

  “Do you remember when we first met?”

  Lisa nodded. He had told her, when they met in the woods.

  “Small talk, just plain, polite, small talk would’ve sufficed, but you couldn’t care less on the way to the hospital and then, in the woods. You looked like you wanted to run from me until your hotshot boyfriend came along. Then you went all hero-worshiping on him and dismissed me immediately. You are not a nice girl. My mother was right. And your father wasn’t nice either. He was always so suspicious. Not friendly, like he was with others.

  Who? What? What the hell was he talking about? Yes, she had been preoccupied that day and in the woods—she had been downright frightened of him and his dog. Apparently for good reason.

  Maybe her intuition hadn’t been all wrong. The way he was talking—about her and her dad, and his mother. He was mental. And he had been inside the Inn. Cold shivers ran down her spine. Get rid of the ones that aren’t nice—that’s what he muttered in the car. He would kill her.

  Anton left the car and opened the back door; Lisa couldn’t react fast enough, before he dragged her out of the car by her hair. A fiery pain spread out over her scalp and she cried out. As soon as her feet hit the ground, she struggled, but he just chuckled while dragging her away from the car.

  “Shit, forgot the bag,” he murmured before he forced her back to the car.

  Bag, what bag? Lisa’s imagination ran wild—did he mean a body bag or her bag?

  He thrust her against the car.

  He pressed his nose against her temple, a knife against her throat and his mouth against her ear. “Stay here and don’t move an inch or I’ll cut you.”

  Lisa’s breath hitched, and she froze. He took a step back and removed the blade from her throat. The knife wasn’t huge, but the jagged blade reflected the moonlight and Lisa saw black spots.

  She stood frozen and watched him turn around to the back of the car.

  He had an accent. It wasn’t very predominant but the way he pronounced the “L” was—off.

  When he opened the trunk, she could feel the handle of the driver’s door on the small of her back. Maybe she could get in and lock the doors somehow. Better than standing here, waiting for whatever he pulled out of that trunk.

  Lisa turned slowly until she could touch the handle with her bound hands.

  If she could get in, maybe she could even drive away. Steering with her bound hands should be possible. Luckily he hadn’t bound them at the back.

  She cracked the door and waited for Anton to come running, but he was rummaging in the trunk and talking to himself again.

  She opened the door just wide enough to slide inside. Slow, fluid movements. No noise.

  The keys rattled when she bumped her knee against them. And Lisa froze. Keys. She hadn’t thought of them before. He had left them in the ignition!

  She frantically searched for the button to lock all the doors. This car must be modern enough to have something like that.

  Fast, faster—he could be done any second.

  Where the hell was the button?

  Lisa frantically scanned the whole dashboard and finally found it on the driver side door.

  Then it all happened simultaneously.

  Anton found what he was searching for and closed the trunk.

  Lisa threw the driver’s door closed and engaged the locks just a millisecond before Anton was at her door. He violently rattled at the handle. The whole car shook with his efforts and he screamed.

  Lisa stared out the window at Anton, paralyzed with terror and unable to move. Tears fell from her eyes. Finally, Anton abandoned the handle and kicked at the driver-side window.

  The bashing pulled Lisa out of her stupor and into high gear; she turned the key, started the car, and leaped forward.

  “Shit, shit,” she screamed while putting the car in reverse and slowly moving backward.

  She wasn’t going fast, because she couldn’t see a thing in the rearview mirror—it was too dark, and the tears filling her eyes clouded her vision. But the car steadily inched backward. The pace was too slow to shake Anton who still screamed and bashed against the window.

  She had to go faster or turn the car around. Anton smashed his elbow against the window again; it wouldn’t take long until it broke.

  She needed to turn the car around, now. She would have to use the headlights—she wouldn’t make it, driving in reverse along the cliff.

  35

  Peter smiled when his gaze met with Blake’s. It was good to see all his buddies together again. That was the hardest part for him. Leaving his team, leaving his boys behind. He had gotten lucky when Blake made the decision to relocate into his area, but the others. All three of them were still on active duty. Filling their lives with constant training, constant stress, and mostly unhealthy relationships to both women and adrenaline.

  “Hey, where did your lovey go?” Christo sat down next to him.

  “Don’t call her that—she has a name, you know.”

  Christo laughed. “Full-on protection mode, hah. So, this is real—you really, finally got back the one who got away. Do me a favor, don’t fuck it up this time, will ya? We were all sick of you moping around all these years.”

  Peter laughed. He had missed the constant ribbing of his guys. He really hadn’t been moping constantly, but he had regretted how it all went down, and honestly, he had missed her. A lot. Not that it had kept him from other women, but he had compared a lot of these women to Lisa.

  “So, where is Lisa?” Christo asked again.

  Peter looked around. The last time he had seen her, she said she had a call to make, but that was almost an hour ago. Maybe she was with the girls. He got up and found them chatting at the bar. “Hey, have you seen Lisa?”

  They all shook their heads.

  Shit, where the hell. Peter got out his phone and called her. The phone was ringing, but no answer.

  Peter’s heart sped up. He searched the whole bar, the parking lot, and even the restrooms. She was nowhere to be found. He asked Claire again, but she didn’t know anything and hadn’t seen her for at least an hour.

  “What’s wrong?” Blake clasped Peter’s shoulder and stared into his eyes.

  “I can’t find her anywhere. She won’t answer her phone.”

  Blake narrowed his eyes. Then he placed his fingers into his mouth and the piercing sound brought the place to a standstill.

  “Missing person. Lisa Reynolds. Search.”

&nb
sp; Everybody searched the whole place again with the same result.

  No Lisa.

  Peter asked random customers, holding up a picture of her on his phone, but nobody could remember seeing her.

  Peter called the Inn, but no one answered there either.

  He called the sheriff’s department and told his boss.

  Peter knew the MO. He knew how Grace Ketley went missing. Too similar for his own taste. She had just vanished—nobody ever saw her alive after that, and it had been a night club. What if Lisa was the next victim?

  What if he had lost her already? He started deep breathing and shut down his fear. He couldn’t go down that route. Maybe it was something else; maybe she was on her way home or something like that. But deep down he couldn’t believe she would have left without telling anyone anything.

  36

  Her phone rang.

  Peter.

  Maybe he was already searching for her. Why hadn’t she just asked him to go with her? She had to get that phone.

  Lisa loosened the grip of her right hand on the steering wheel but didn’t move her eyes from the rearview mirror. She fumbled around until she grabbed her purse from behind the seat. She had to stretch, and her foot slipped off the petal. The car slowed down. Lisa jerked at the bag. It flung forward but got caught somewhere so she jerked again.

  Anton, who was still at her side, crashed his elbow against the window and the pane rattled violently.

  Lisa flinched away.

  The slack must have loosened her purse because Lisa got hold of one handle and hauled it to the front. Her jolt was strong enough, so the handbag flew over the car seat in a high curve and landed upside down on the passenger seat. Sadly, all the contents spilled right over the seat and onto the foot area.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” She would never find her phone, if it was wedged anywhere down there.

  But Lisa got lucky. She took her eyes off the mirror for a second and looked sideways. Luck was with her. There it was. Smack dab on the passenger seat, the screen lit up with Peter’s call.

  Lisa swiped at the screen and grabbed it. Then the world stopped, and she was flung forward.

  When her head connected with the steering wheel, everything turned black.

  * * *

  “You crashed my car, you stupid bitch. Why did you do that? Oh, I can’t believe it. How will I get home afterward? We are in the middle of fucking nowhere. You bitch, I knew you were no good, but you are fucking insane.”

  Lisa opened her eyes and blinked. Anton’s face loomed right above her. A vein on his neck stood out, and he was shouting at her. But the ringing in her ears drowned him out completely.

  Then Anton grabbed her hair and pulled her out of the car.

  Lisa whimpered. Fiery pain singed her nerve endings, and her legs were like Jello when they hit the ground. She swayed for a second when Anton released her hair and grabbed her arm.

  Why did the door open?

  When Lisa turned her head to the car, coldness roared through her veins and she locked her knees. She’d crashed the car. Had steered it right into a big tree. Fuck. She blew her only chance to escape. And her phone? She must have dropped it?

  Pain speared her chest, and she shook her head which made her dizzy. So close. She had her phone in her hand—she could have told Peter—she would have had a chance of being rescued. Now, it was all over. She would die here and who knows when someone would find her body.

  “Move, right toward the cliff, enjoy the scenery.” Anton sneered and shoved her forward in the direction where the car’s headlights had illuminated the ground.

  Lisa took a step but cried out. A sharp pain seared through her left leg, as soon as she put weight on it. Lisa swiped at the sweat on her forehead. It was trickling down over her face. But her hand returned red. Blood. She was bleeding.

  But Anton didn’t care. He just dragged her forward.

  Lisa whimpered and took stock. Her neck hurt with every movement and she bled from the head. Her left knee was killing her, and she felt increasingly dizzy.

  On the other hand, she would die here. So none of that mattered.

  Anton marched her toward the cliff; the moon had come up and illuminated the gravel road Lisa had just driven down. She really hadn’t made much progress.

  After a long walk, the trees thinned out, and the cliff came into view.

  Lisa discovered the bag Anton had taken from the trunk of the car.

  What was in it? More stuff to kill her? Had Mrs. Ketley been raped before she was murdered? What about Sophie? Lisa’s thoughts were scattered. She wouldn’t survive this, but how much worse could it get?

  Lisa longed for the car. It had been her only real chance of escaping this lunatic, but she blew it. Now what? Could she fight him? She at least had to try.

  Anton stopped their forward motion, to pick up the bag.

  Lisa didn’t consciously make the decision to fight him, but when he bent down, her knee connected with his nose. His grip loosened, and she broke away from him. A blinding pain hit her in her back, but it didn’t stop her.

  She ran into the trees. Away from the cliff, away from Anton, as fast as she could.

  37

  Peter closed his eyes and let his head fall back when Lisa finally picked up the phone, only to tear them back open when he heard her crashing a car. He could hear the impact. Metal screeching and a bump, then the motor howling. After that a soft groan.

  It took Peter a second to realize what he was hearing, what the hell was going on.

  Then a man’s voice screamed in a rage. “You crashed my car, you stupid bitch. Why did you do that? Oh, I can’t believe it. How will I get home afterward? We are in the middle of fucking nowhere. You bitch, I knew you were no good, but you are fucking insane.”

  And a whimper from Lisa.

  Peter’s face must have shown his alarm, because his teammates, who’d just come out of the bar to where he stood outside, gathered around him immediately.

  What exactly was going on? Adrenaline rushed through Peter’s body and he clenched his jaw. Don’t jump to conclusions. Wait until you know what’s happening. He could say this mantra all day long, but his imagination was running wild and the simmering panic that had settled into his stomach an hour ago rose exponentially.

  Where was Lisa and who was she with? It was a male voice that had said: “In the middle of fucking nowhere.” But Peter didn’t recognize the voice and nowhere could be anywhere around here. A five-minute drive out of town and into the woods and you were in the middle of fucking nowhere.

  There was some shuffling on the other side, another whimper. Then the voice again. It was farther away from the phone now.

  “Move, right toward the cliff, enjoy the scenery.”

  Peter’s heart missed a beat, before it settled into a racing rhythm. Got you, asshole. The cliff, Dragon Wall Cliff was the only cliff near Moon Lake.

  He stayed on the phone but there was only silence. Peter made eye contact with Blake and covered the speaker.

  “Guns.”

  Blake instantly hurried into the bar.

  All the other boys got into motion too. But Peter concentrated on the call. The only connection left.

  Blake came back to his side with a small arsenal of hunting rifles in his hands. “What now, buddy?”

  “They’re at the cliff.” They both turned and looked across the lake—the cliff rose in the distance. Massive and white, bathed in moonlight.

  “Shit.”

  The other men circled back with the car they had all crammed themselves in. “Come on, let’s go, what’s the holdup?” Lucas asked from behind the steering wheel.

  “Change of plan,” Blake answered, before he marched toward the boat that lay moored on the small dock behind the bar.

  The others exited the car and Lucas parked it and then came toward Peter. He tapped Peter on the shoulder before he hurried after the others.

  Peter just stood—mesmerized by the cliff. It had been eas
y for him to flip the switch. Get into the mindset he needed for a mission. This time was different. Lisa was up there, facing God knows what, and he was helpless. He knew they would never make it in time—it would take them forever to cross over the lake and then, there was the wall. He had climbed it once. But he had been a reckless teenager back then, and it happened in broad daylight. And still, as he recalled, it wasn’t easy.

  “Peter.” Blake put his hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Breathe. Stop overanalyzing. One step at a time.”

  Peter took a deep breath. He and Blake could hear the sob that came out with it.

  “She’s my life, Blake. I can’t lose her.”

  Blake squeezed his shoulder. “Then fight for her, like your life depends on it.”

  Peter nodded, and they both ran toward the boat where the others were anxiously waiting for them.

  Everybody had already taken position. Lucas at the helm, ready to gun the motor.

  38

  Lisa stumbled through the wood. The dense canopy of the trees filtered the moonlight, but it was enough to help her find her way. She stumbled over a root and with her hands still bound in front of her, face-dived onto the ground.

  Lisa suppressed a groan and turned around and got up again. She wiped away the earth and leaves from her forehead and stumbled on. Luckily Anton didn’t have a flashlight either. But she could hear him behind her.

  Lisa stopped and leaned against a big tree trunk. She just needed a second to catch her breath.

  She jerked back when her back made contact with the bark. Something had happened to her back. It hurt like hell, and the copper smell of her own blood was predominant in her nose.

  Lisa tried to control her breathing, but it raced along with her pulse.