Rita’s piercing scream was cut short as their truck rocked briefly onto two wheels before slamming back onto the ground.
The massive tow truck reversed away from them and stopped.
Cole fumbled for the steering wheel and gas pedal. His truck didn’t respond.
The silver beast stopped retreating at twenty feet away and shifted loudly with powerful bursts of torque. Broad black tires crept toward them like a predator.
Cole cranked the ignition with all his might. The thing was going to run them over. “Rita?”
She was slumped against the passenger door, unmoving and covered in pebbles of busted glass.
“Rita!”
The angry squealing of tires drowned his best efforts to wake her as the attacking truck raced forward once more.
The resulting collision sent Cole rolling into darkness.
* * *
RITA WOKE TO the steady pounding of her head and throbbing of her shoulder. Her hands dangled over her head thanks to the topsy-turvy position of Cole’s truck. She struggled to make sense of her new view.
They’d been in an accident!
Beside her, Cole hung limply in his safety belt, fingers resting on the ceiling, trickles of blood racing in crimson rivulets from the gash on his chin, climbing over his nose and closed eyes to his forehead. “Cole!”
She reached for him, uselessly, unable to make contact. Her arms were too short and her seatbelt unforgiving. Pain flashed through her head in bursts of blinding light.
Suddenly, the door at her side swung open with a sickening groan.
“Help him first,” she called. “Help the driver. He’s not moving. There’s blood!”
A man in a deputy’s jacket lowered onto his knees outside the open door. “Hello, Trouble,” he said.
“Cole!” Rita screamed as the shooter reached for her with black leather gloves. He held her easily in place as he sawed through her seat belt with a giant pocketknife.
Cole’s eyelids flickered open as her restraint broke free, dropping her onto her head in the upside-down cab. Her legs and feet crashed over her, connecting sharply with the dashboard and the side of Cole’s face.
“Rita.” He choked out her name.
Tears blurred her vision. “Help.” She forced the word out, knowing there was no help for her. This was it. The killer had won.
Cole swung an arm in her direction, then called out in pain. “No!”
Her assailant shoved his head through the open door and clamped leather-clad fingers around her arms, jerking her roughly toward him. “Time to say goodbye.”
Rita scrambled to tether herself to anything, but the jagged shards of broken glass tore through her tender flesh with each desperate move.
“Rita!” Cole struggled behind her, swearing and yelping as he worked to unlatch his seat belt.
“Gotcha.” The attacker locked his hands beneath her armpits and hauled her into the rays of the setting sun.
She screamed and fought as he dragged her along the road toward the black sedan parked nearby.
A driverless tow truck sat empty beside Cole’s pickup, its bumper lying on the ground below a cracked and broken grille.
In the distance, a man in unmarked coveralls climbed into the passenger side of another sedan.
“How many of you are there?” Rita asked, suddenly realizing that today’s shooter may have been someone else entirely. “Are you the one who almost killed my brother? Did you leave the note at the hospital?”
He wound an arm around her ribs and pulled her tight against his chest, pressing the air from her lungs. With his free hand, he produced a black key fob.
The sedan’s trunk popped open and memories of the blood and guns rushed back to her. This time, the space was empty but lined in heavy plastic.
“I’m not getting in there,” she insisted, applying every self-defense technique her father had taught her for getting away. Unfortunately, her fuzzy head and wobbly limbs rendered her efforts useless.
He shoved her forward with a jolt, pressing her thighs against the car’s open trunk and himself against her backside.
“No!” The pressure of his body forced upon her sent Rita into desperation.
He leaned harder into her, forcing her body to jackknife. One gloved hand covered her mouth, the other was anchored against the plastic-lined trunk floor, leaving her no room to fight and no hope of escape. “Get in.” Hot, stale breath washed over her face, sickening her further as she tried not to think about the way his body assaulted hers.
“No.”
In one shocking heave, Rita was off her feet and on her back inside the cramped space of the sedan trunk. Scents of carpet cleaners and stain removers bit at her nose and eyes. She clawed at his gloves and jacket as he held her down, wishing she could somehow fill her fingernails with his DNA or at least a useful thread to hang him by when her body washed up at the river tomorrow morning. “Don’t do this,” she cried. “You don’t have to do this.”
The man gave a final shove, expelling the oxygen from her lungs once more, then reaching for the trunk lid. “Yes. I do.”
Chapter Nineteen
The space inside the trunk was hot and confined. Mixed with the strong chemical scents and darkness, Rita’s head screamed for mercy. She traced the trunk with trembling hands, searching for the escape button, but the emergency release handle inside the trunk had been disabled. She couldn’t help wondering if Minsk had taken this same ride to his death. Had he gone through the same motions? And, if so, how could she survive if he hadn’t?
To make matters impossibly worse, there was nothing available that she could use as a weapon when the car finally stopped. The trunk held not a single item other than her and the plastic, slick with sweat beneath her palms.
Think. She pressed her fingertips hard against both temples and squeezed her eyes shut for clarity. If the car stopped, she could scream for help, pound on the trunk and hope someone heard her, maybe another car or a jogger. So far, the car had barely slowed.
Rita rolled into the fetal position, fighting against the rising panic. A pinch at her hip sent her heart aflutter with new hope. Ryan’s phone! Her aching, terrified, addled mind had forgotten the most obvious of tools. A literal help line.
She wiggled the device from her pocket and swiped the screen to life. The backlight burned her eyes, and she squinted against the sudden pain. Rita dialed the only number she could think of, the one she’d memorized just days before. Cole’s cell phone.
Her call went to voice mail.
His phone, like hers, was at the bottom of the river.
She didn’t know the number to Cole’s flip phone.
Nine-one-one. She dialed the new number with growing hope.
“Nine-one-one,” a raspy female voice answered. “What’s your emergency?”
“This is Rita Horn.” She nearly sobbed the words. “I’m in the trunk of a car. I was taken from an accident. Cole Garrett is hurt.” Her rambling thoughts spilled through trembling lips.
“Ma’am,” the voice interrupted. “You’re breaking up. What’s your emergency?”
Rita swallowed a whimper. Her bubble of hope nearly gone. “I’ve been abducted,” she screamed the words. “Help me!”
“Miss Horn?” The strange voice perked. “Rita Horn?”
“Yes! Yes. It’s me. We were in an accident. I don’t know where I am.”
“I’m patching you through to the sheriff.”
Rita wiped her eyes. Scents of motor oil and exhaust seeped into her senses, mixing with the heat and chemicals, churning her stomach into a vortex.
“Rita?” West’s voice crackled through the line.
“Yes!” The Garretts would save her. They were a pack of small town superheroes. She was going to be okay. Everything would be okay.
“I can’t he
ar you,” he said, an edge of frustration in his voice. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes!”
“If you can still hear me, stay on the line. I won’t hang up. We’re starting a trace now. Cole’s on his way to the hospital.” West’s voice cut out. The air went still. Background noise and rustling wind through the receiver. Gone. Snatched away when she needed them most.
“West?” She jerked the phone away from her ear and stared in disbelief.
The phone’s timer ticked upward, tracking silent seconds as the call continued, her ability to communicate gone.
Tears poured over Rita’s cheeks.
Cole was going to the hospital. What if he was badly hurt? What if his injuries were worse than she’d imagined? What if he was seriously, permanently injured, or worse?
The steady hum of the sedan’s tires on pavement eventually changed into the loud crunching of gravel, and the mostly smooth ride grew intensely rough and bone rattling.
She gritted her teeth against the pain as her aching body jostled and bounced inside the hot trunk. Rita listened closely as the car’s engine soon settled and a door opened and shut. Footfalls ground through the rocks outside before a quick beep released the trunk lid.
Rita slid the phone up her coat sleeve and curled her fingers around the hidden device. She shut her eyes and went limp.
Sunlight rushed over her face. The sharp golden glow was a hammer to her throbbing head. “Wake up,” the man growled.
Rita feigned a coma. Dead weight was harder to carry, and he couldn’t force her onto her feet again if she was unconscious.
“Come on.” Angry hands circled her biceps and yanked her upright.
She let her head loll over one shoulder, determined to pull off the con. If she was lucky, he’d skip shooting her and simply toss her into the river where she’d have a fighting chance.
The man leaned closer and patted her cheek sharply, stinking up the already rank air with his nasty breath. Wherever they were, it didn’t smell like the docks. It smelled like manure.
“Up you go.” He jammed his shoulder into her ribs and tipped her over him like a sack of potatoes.
“Stop!” Rita screamed and kicked, realizing her plan to slow him down by being still was foiled by her small size.
New plan. She thumped his back with both fists and wailed into the endless countryside.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Knock it off or I’ll knock you out.”
Rita went still. Her chest heaved with desperation. Could West hear her pleas through the phone tucked up her sleeve? How long could she hold on to her lifeline before the caveman beneath her took it away?
She let her lids close on a silent prayer, then gave one more wild round of squeals and kicks. When her assailant began to threaten and complain, she released the cell phone, aiming it toward the sedan.
Ryan’s phone collided with the gravel and bounced before rolling to a stop beneath the car.
“What are you doing?” He flipped her off his shoulder, wrenching her arm behind her back and surely dislocating her shoulder. “Walk!” He gripped her neck with hot, meaty fingers and shoved her forward along a dirt path.
Rita strained for a better view of her surroundings. Where was the river? Everywhere she looked were overgrown fields and rolling hills of long-abandoned farmland. An armless scarecrow hung cockeyed on a wooden stake, impaled long ago and left to guard against nothing but the wind.
There would be no chance of swimming to shore now. No chance at surviving or being found. They weren’t at the river. They were in no-man’s-land.
A dilapidated old barn rose on the fiery horizon, its weathered boards dark with age and neglect. Its concave roof gaped with a hole the size of a tractor.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said, trying those words again as she dug her feet into the hardened earth.
The man shoved her forward in giant bursts of force, eventually knocking her through the yawning doorway and into the ominous structure.
Rita batted her eyes, adjusting to the dimmer light. The sinking sun bathed the space in eerie shades of crimson and scarlet, casting long shadows over the floor and illuminating dust motes like falling embers ready to set her world ablaze.
Bits of ancient hay swirled along the ground, caught in the breeze blowing in from the field. Dirt and animal hair floated in the air, peppering her senses with the overwhelming scents of death and decay. A rickety wooden chair stood in the room’s center.
The man stepped away then. He removed a handgun from beneath his jacket and pointed it at her middle. “Sit.”
Rita stopped. “Cole will find me,” she warned. And he would.
Though whether he’d find her alive or dead was yet to be known.
“I don’t think so.” Her abductor smashed one large palm hard against her shoulder, eliciting a yelp and successfully bending her knees. The chair rocked with the shock of her collapse upon it. “He was a little tied up last I saw him.”
“Then the sheriff will find me,” she said, “or another deputy, another Garrett, but someone will come, and you’ll pay for the things you’ve done.” Newfound bravery worked through her core and pushed free of her lips. She had nothing to lose, and delaying her death might mean saving her life.
He kneeled beside her and produced a length of rope. “Quiet.”
Rita slid her hands deep into her sleeves and gauged the distance to the barn door. Her mind raged with impossible questions. Could she outrun him? Would he shoot her if she tried? Was she willing to find out? “You should let me go and spend your time getting out of town before you’re arrested. This could be your last day as a free man. Is killing an office clerk really how you want to spend your time?”
“Not really. Hands behind your back. Unless you want a hole in your forehead like the others.”
The others. Like Minsk and his poor maid.
Rita dropped her arms at her side. “My shoulder,” she winced, biting into the thick of her lip. “I think it’s out of the socket. I can’t move it any farther.”
He yanked it back for her.
She screamed in agony. Black dots danced before her eyes and her stomach rolled. “I’m going to be sick.”
“You’ll feel better soon.” He tightened thick scratchy rope around her wrists with speed and precision.
“Why are you doing this?”
He rose to his feet and stared blank-faced at her for a long beat. “Family.”
Family? What did that mean? “Well, you don’t have to. Whoever’s making you do these things is just using you, and you can stop. The Garretts can help you.”
He blinked through a sudden look of remorse. “No one can help me.”
“Give us a minute.” A long shadow stretched toward them. The slow Southern drawl crawled over Rita’s skin. “Finally, we meet.”
Her abductor tucked the gun into a holster on his side and walked out the way he’d come in, giving the new arrival a wide berth.
Curiosity and defiance stiffened Rita’s spine and narrowed her eyes.
The newcomer was tall and broad, a faceless silhouette. The waning light rode slowly over him with each new step, illuminating shiny black shoes, then gray suit pants and a dress shirt that stilled Rita’s heart. His shape and stride confirmed her worst nightmare. This was the man with the bloodstains on the docks.
“Hello, Miss Horn.” He tipped his head in greeting.
“You,” she seethed. This was the man pulling the strings. The one who’d called the shots that nearly killed her brother. And Cole. And her.
“Who are you?” she asked. He wasn’t the mayor or the governor; she’d easily recognize both, and he was neither. “What do you want from me?”
“I tried to scare you off,” he said. “Tried everything, but nothing worked. You had to show up that night. Become a witness. Steal evidence,
then run. You stopped going to work. Stopped going home. If only you would have cooperated.”
Rita squinted at the middle-aged stranger. There was something familiar in the line of his jaw. The set of his eyes. Had they met before?
“You really don’t know who I am?” he asked.
“A sociopath?” she guessed.
He pulled his chin back, looking significantly put off by her answer. “Think harder, Miss Horn. You work at the municipal building, don’t you?”
Her jaw dropped. Recognition hit like a bat to the forehead. “Senator Sayers?” She’d walked by his portrait, hanging beside the ones of the president and governor, many times a day for several years.
He smiled. “See. I knew you were smart.”
So, they had been right to suspect an elected official’s involvement. They just hadn’t thought far enough up the food chain.
Rita shored up her nerve and prayed to look more composed than she felt. Something about the senator told her that he’d have little patience for a panicking woman who shed tears and begged forgiveness. “Why are you doing this?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.” Rita forced back the bile pooling in her throat. Pain, fear and nausea circled in her gut and lightened her head by the minute. Scents of rotting wood and hay stirred with sunbaked animal hair and excrement. It was only a matter of time before she was sick or passed out.
If it came to that, would he kill her while she was unconscious?
The senator chuckled. He locked his hands behind his back and looked briefly at the ceiling, as if debating where to begin.
“I’m sure you weren’t always like this,” she prompted, her voice warbling with fear.
“I made a bad decision ten years ago.” He stared past her, apparently lost in thought. “Sometimes it’s impossible to put bad things behind us.”
“What kind of bad decision?” she asked, hoping to stall the inevitable. Rita worked her wrists against the restraints, resolving to break free and make a run for it. Better to die trying than sitting helpless in a chair. “What’s haunting you, Senator?”
Shadow Point Deputy Page 18
