by Jen J. Danna
The air inside the shelter was damp and cool but Leigh knew the shiver running along her spine was due to more than the sudden drop in temperature. The hair along the back of her neck rose in response to something unseen but still sensed. Eyes darting, she searched the shadows to find nothing tangible to explain her sudden nervousness. Perhaps it was just a response to the atmosphere inside the shelter—the air was thick and stale, almost wet, but heavy with the metallic smell of dried blood, acrid sweat, and human waste.
It was the scent of fear.
She took another two steps inside, sensing Matt’s presence close behind her when everything suddenly went to hell.
With an ear-piercing shriek followed by a heavy clang, the door slammed shut, trapping them in suffocating darkness. Behind her, Leigh heard a hard blow and a ragged exhalation from Matt, followed by the sound of a body falling heavily to the floor.
Leigh spun toward the door ready to shoot at anything she could see. But all she could sense was darkness and silence. She cursed herself for leaving her flashlight in her car.
What just happened? Who else was in here?
Clearly, Matt was down. Was he unconscious? Was he dead?
For a moment, Leigh heard only the roar of her heart pounding in her ears as adrenaline flooded her system. Then she heard a low satisfied chuckle to her left. Gooseflesh rose as if an icy finger stroked over her skin.
Leigh knew that laugh. The last time she’d heard it, it had floated over a fence as the man she pursued had evaded capture. She knew with certainty that the man in custody was not Neil Bradford. Neil Bradford was here with her in the dark.
She swung toward the sound, but it faded into the blackness. She pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket and, shielding the screen to block the light, started to call for backup.
No bars. Her cell phone wasn’t getting a signal so far inside the fallout shelter.
There would be no backup. They were on their own.
She dropped to a crouch and quickly jammed the useless phone back into her pocket. Still clutching her gun in her fist, she reached out with her left hand in the direction she’d heard Matt fall. Her fingers touched flannel. His shoulder. She shook him hard, but he didn’t respond. She reached over further, found his hair. Moving her fingers toward his face, she felt the wetness of blood. She jerked her hand back from the wound.
If he was dead, he was beyond her help, but she wouldn’t even consider that. It was up to her to protect him.
She had to save them both, trapped in the dark with a man who’d proven time and again that life meant nothing to him and human suffering was a thing to savor. The words from his letter echoed in her head—Be careful, or rather than leading the case, you’ll be the next victim.
She crouched down low, making herself as small a target as possible. “I know you’re here, Bradford,” she called out.
Another low laugh. “Very good, Trooper Abbott. I knew even you’d figure it out eventually.”
Even though Leigh expected to hear his voice, she still flinched at the venomous tone. She forced her whirling thoughts to settle. Focus.
She looked back toward the door—no light was visible around the edges. Then she realized she could see faint horizontal lines in the wall to the right. The ventilation system. Using it to mark her orientation, she concentrated hard, mentally going over the room as she had seen it in that quick flash of dim light before everything went dark.
Metal table with restraints. Wooden crates. Shelving. Worktable …
There were weapons on that worktable. She had her gun, but she didn’t have a backup weapon. And if this came down to hand-to-hand fighting, an extra weapon for close-quarter use would come in handy. She had no idea what weapons Bradford might have. So far, he hadn’t tried to shoot her, but he owned a gun. And with all these sharp implements at hand, he must have something. The question was … what?
Staying low, she started to inch toward the far wall.
“I told you to stay away.” The taunting voice floated toward her in the dark. “I told you what would happen to you if you kept going.” The voice went cold and flat. “You were warned.”
The sudden absence of all emotion in Bradford’s voice gave Leigh pause, solidifying her gut instinct that he wasn’t going to think twice about killing her the moment she was in reach. If she couldn’t subdue him, it was going to be a fight to the death.
She forced the fear down, knowing it distracted her, but her hands still shook. She continued across the room, crouched down, her left hand outstretched. She breathed a sigh of relief when her fingers touched the rough wood of the worktable.
She laid her gun on the floor in front of her and shimmied out of her blazer, stuffing it under the worktable before picking up her weapon again. She stretched out her hand, her fingers searching over the table.
She touched metal and closed her hand over it. She bit back a cry of pain, jerking her hand back as the razor sharp edge of a knife bit into the pads of her fingers. She clenched her hand into a fist, feeling the warm dampness of blood against her palm. Stretching her hand out again, she explored the weapon carefully—a knife: straight blade, wicked point, jagged serrations near the hilt. She ran her fingers over the handle and a small button depressed under pressure. A spring-loaded folding tactical blade. Perfect.
She picked up the knife and quickly closed it, bracing the back of the blade against her thigh, hearing the quiet snick as the blade folded into the handle and locked into position. She hesitated for a moment, unsure where to put the knife since neither her dress pants nor shirt had pockets. Inspiration hit, and she tucked it up the right sleeve of her shirt, under the cuff where a quick shake would have it sliding into her hand if she lost her gun, or she could pull it out with her left hand for a two-fisted approach.
Time to get him talking. She was helpless in the dark if she didn’t know his location. But she knew with certainty this was risky for both of them. Bradford’s voice gave away his location, but she would be giving hers away as well.
“Nice place you have here, Bradford.” Her voice sounded suddenly loud in the silence, carrying more bravado than she felt. “I love what you’ve done with it.”
“It suits my needs.” The voice came from directly across the room and Leigh realized he must be further inside the shelter, beyond one of the two doorways that she had previously seen.
Keep him talking. “Let’s talk about those needs, Bradford. Why did you torture those women?”
The laugh that answered her showered over her flesh like icy barbs. “You really don’t understand, do you? You don’t understand at all.”
“Then explain it to me. I want to understand.”
Closing her eyes against the near total darkness, Leigh tried to imagine the room again. Light would even the playing field and a switch would logically be located near the door. She started to inch back across the room, trying to avoid giving herself away.
“I wanted to influence them. I wanted to see if I could make them do something that even they would normally never do.”
Leigh froze in place, confused by his words. “The women?”
Another laugh, this one full of derision. “Not the women.
They were simply a means to an end.”
Fury filled Leigh at his careless tone. She knew that he considered women to be beneath him, but the proof that the victims really hadn’t mattered to him at all infuriated her. They were simply tools in his eyes.
“It was the men I tested.” It was almost a hiss.
Pieces of the case, pieces that hadn’t made sense before were starting to fit together in her head. As she crept further across the floor, the toe of her boot suddenly hit something solid and she stopped to feel what was in front of her. She caught Matt’s scent, that now familiar hint of spice, just before her fingers touched his outstretched hand. Her gut clenched in fear again. He seemed so cold and he hadn’t moved. But the door had to be close now and with it the hope of light. She moved to
the right to avoid stepping on Matt, placing each foot carefully to avoid tripping, keeping her left hand outstretched.
She was rewarded seconds later with the cool metal door suddenly beneath her fingers. She ran her fingertips over the door, quickly moving past the frame. She ran her hand up the wall and quickly found a switch plate. Bingo.
As her fingers found the switch and she started to push it upwards, she had the brief thought that she didn’t know where Bradford was. But it was already too late.
Leigh swung around, gun extended as light flooded the space, but Bradford was already in mid-air. She had a brief glimpse of angry blue eyes in a thin, pale face before he hit her mid-body, sending her sprawling to the ground under the ventilation unit, her gun flying from her hand and sliding under the wooden shelves against the far wall. Air whooshed from her lungs as she was pinned to the floor by his weight. She wedged her hands between them and shoved as she rolled left, throwing him off.
She rolled to her feet, crouching in a defensive stance just as Bradford got up. They eyed each other, well out of reach, both breathing hard. Her gun was gone, but his hands were empty too. Leigh kept the knife hidden. She wanted the aspect of surprise in close quarters. By the time he spotted the weapon, it had to be too late for him.
She had to keep him talking, keep him distracted. “So you were testing the men? Why?”
His smile was one of pure malice as he rocked on the balls of his feet. “I chose them because they were weak. Then I molded them to my will. And in the end, they all killed for me.” His eyes narrowed, dark anger filling his face. “Except one.”
And there it was—the lever she could use to keep him off balance. “John kind of messed it up for you, didn’t he? Was he just not good enough?” Leigh taunted. “You picked badly, Bradford. You were the one in control. You’re the one who’s responsible for your own failure.”
As Bradford bared his teeth and opened his mouth to respond, Leigh took advantage of his momentary distraction, launching smoothly into a low kick, moving between his braced legs to strike the inside of his left knee. The knee buckled and he went down hard, landing on the blood-stained floor only inches away from Matt’s head.
Leigh firmly planted her left foot and drove her right knee into his solar plexus, hearing his breath forced from his body by the blow. But Bradford recovered quickly, grabbing her knee and twisting her off balance. Leigh tumbled hard to the floor, rolling away from his grasping hands into the leg of the worktable.
An ice pick rolled off the table, just grazing her hip.
Leigh grasped the pick as she scrambled to her feet, sizing up her opponent. He was tall and lanky with short hair, wearing worn jeans and a faded black sweatshirt. He didn’t look very strong, but he moved surprisingly fast. And the light of insanity in his eyes made him look terrifyingly reckless.
Bradford was shifting his weight from foot to foot before her, his eyes fixed on the ice pick. Then he charged, head down, ramming into her stomach. Leigh managed to partially step aside, but the blow was still brutal. As the air left her lungs, she brought the ice pick down, feeling it sink cleanly into the flesh of his shoulder, hearing his roar of pain. But he wrapped his arms around her, carrying her down with him to the floor as the ice pick spun away across the floor.
Leigh fought free, then took advantage of his face-down position to get her knee into the small of his back before punching him in the kidney. Bradford reached over his shoulder to grab her arm, using her inertia from the next punch and her already unbalanced position to yank her over his shoulder.
With a crash, she landed against the legs of the metal table, unable to stifle a small cry of pain. Struggling to her feet, she staggered upright just in time to see his right fist coming toward her face. He clipped her hard on the lower jaw and she staggered backwards, arms outstretched. She almost had her balance but then one last step had her tripping over something on the floor.
Her last thought as she fell backwards was Matt …
Then pain exploded in her head and everything went black.
Leigh blinked rapidly in the bright light, momentarily stunned. Then a dark shape eclipsed the light. She forced herself to focus on him. Bradford.
He grinned at her. “Comfortable, Trooper Abbott?”
Leigh suddenly became aware of her body. She was flat on the table and when she tried to sit up, she found herself strapped down. Frantically turning her head, she found her wrists bound by bloody chains. More restraints bound her ankles. She was gagged, a length of material jammed brutally between her teeth and tied tightly behind her head.
She struggled against the chains, but while there was some play in them, the ends were secured firmly. Closing her eyes, she pictured the table and the attached chains as they’d looked from the doorway. The chains were bolted under the tabletop, near her shoulders. Her arms had about six inches of play up or down the table from breast to just above her shoulder, but she couldn’t lift her hands more than an inch off the table. She pulled against her restraints again, trying to free her wrists, but only succeeded in digging her own handcuffs into the small of her back as she struggled. Craning her neck at a painfully awkward angle, she tried to look for Matt. She finally found him, still motionless by the door.
“You should stop struggling,” Bradford said mildly. “You’re mine now.” He grinned. “I always let the others take the lead when it came to killing. But this might be fun. Now I get to try it.” He held up a Walther P22 pistol, molded of dark carbon fiber except for the bright nickel slide on top. The gun Matt saw … Grinning, he rubbed the barrel against her cheek. “I could have just shot you in the dark, but what would be the fun in that? That would end the game too quickly. This way we get to play together for a while. That will be much more satisfying.” His eyes suddenly filled with fury. “That’s the least you owe me after spoiling my fun with John. I was just getting started. You made me stop much too quickly.” He took a deep breath, and gained control of his anger. Leaning forward, he tapped the gun lightly against her gag. “Too bad I can’t take this off you, but we wouldn’t want the neighbors to hear. We never want the neighbors to hear.” He smiled again, and pleasure lit his eyes with an almost unearthly glow.
Neighbors? Not likely, she thought, then wondered about the Crime Scene techs. Had they arrived and would they be able to hear anything from inside the bunker? Leigh futilely pulled against the restraints again and tried to speak through the gag, but all that came out was a low, unintelligible gurgle.
“I like your spirit, Trooper Abbott.” He cocked his head to look at her, considering. “But maybe I should call you ‘Leigh.’ We’re going to come to know each other very well, so we shouldn’t stand on formality. If you’re as good as some of the other girls, we’re going to play for hours. Maybe even longer. So, I’ll call you Leigh. And you can call me Neil.” Suddenly he laughed, a sound full of cruelty and sadism. “Or you could if I took off the gag.” He leaned forward, his breath rushing hot over her face, making her lip curl with distaste. “Which I won’t.”
He straightened and casually walked around the table. “No one will find you, you know. The police from earlier are gone. And they never found this place anyway. I heard you say that techs are coming, but we’re practically invisible in here. You wouldn’t have found me if I didn’t want you to. If anyone else comes by, we’ll just be very, very quiet.” Her expression went mutinous and he leaned in low again. “You will be quiet,” he insisted, suddenly pivoting to point the gun directly at Matt’s head. “Or he will die. I have no problem with killing him.” He curled his lip. “He’s road kill, totally disposable. And I have a silencer, so they won’t even hear the shot.” He spun back to look at her with half-wild eyes. “But you will. You’ll hear him die.”
Leigh latched on to his words with a frenzied hope. “You’ll hear him die.” Maybe Matt was still alive. Then harsh reality set in, hope dying away to leave her even emptier than before—Matt was still on the floor by the door; he hadn’
t moved. If he was alive, Bradford would have tied him up. He was simply using Matt as leverage to ensure her cooperation.
She was going to die with him.
“Now …” Bradford wandered over to the worktable. “Where to begin? So many choices … I could break both your arms to start like John did with the last one, but that took too much of the fight out of her. I like the fight.” He sounded thoughtful, like a man who was serious about his work. The man was a psychopath, and she was completely at his mercy.
While his back was turned, Leigh frantically scooted to one edge of the table, extending her left arm as far as it could go so that she could drop her right arm off the edge of the table. Giving her arm as much of a shake as she could manage, she felt the folded knife in her sleeve shift and then stop, butting up against the restraints. Damn it, come on! She shook again, hard, and the knife started to slip. It slid out of her sleeve, skittering off the outside of the chain and she desperately caught it, nearly losing it as the chain redirected the forward motion almost out of her grasp.
“Ah, yes,” she heard him say, almost reverently. “Let’s start with this one.”
Breathing a desperate sigh of relief, she clenched the knife in her fist and shifted back to the middle of the table, positioning her right hand down as close to her waist as she could manage until the chain tore painfully into the skin at her wrist. She buried her fist against her side hoping that would keep him from spotting the knife. She continued to rock back and forth, so when he turned back, it simply looked like she was still struggling against the restraints.
“Fighting won’t help, you know,” he stated. Her eyes fixed in horror at the knife in his hands. The five-inch blade was razor sharp and dark with old blood. He held the knife up, turning it back and forth, admiring the curved blade in the light. “This is one of my favorites. I didn’t have it for John, so I had to make do.” He looked down at her, and his eyes were full of malicious glee. “This is my best skinning knife. It’s so sharp, you’ll hardly feel it.” He started to laugh. “Well, maybe only for the first second or two.”
