by Cate Conte
The elevator arrived with a chime, and the door swooshed open. We stepped in. Just as the doors started to close, an arm slid between them. “Going up?” Zach McConnell asked pleasantly, stepping in behind me.
Chapter 60
I didn’t even think—I just reacted. I tried to elbow my way past him out of the elevator, but he was fast. And strong. In one quick move, he had both my arms locked behind me and my cell phone out of my pocket and into his own. I was strong, too, but I couldn’t get out of his grip, no matter how much I tried to buck and kick my way out. Shoot. This wasn’t how I’d planned it.
“Try to alert the woman at the desk and I’ll break your neck,” he said, quietly, as the doors slid closed in front of me.
I remembered his multiple black belts with a sinking feeling. Still, I had to keep the brave face on. “You have got to be kidding me,” I said. “Do you know how many people know I was coming here?”
He ignored me. “I’m so glad you came,” he said, as if I’d been invited over for tea. “This is going better than I planned. Now. We’re going to walk out the door together holding hands, just like we’re in love. And if you try anything stupid, I’ll break your arm. And then your neck. Got it?” He smiled pleasantly, but the darkness in his eyes left me cold.
He led me back out through the lobby, smiling at the woman behind the desk. She waved. “Try to have fun! The weather’s getting better,” she chirped.
I glared at her, hoping she’d be able to read my mind or at least see on my face that I wasn’t going under my own free will. When we got to the door and McConnell paused to push it open, I turned back to her and took a deep breath.
“Call the po—!” I tried to scream, but the last word never made it out of my mouth because his arm was around my neck, squeezing so hard I felt all the air stop moving through my body. That giant bicep pressed into my mouth, and I closed my eyes and braced myself for the snap that would end it all. I wondered if it hurt to get your neck broken.
But the snap never came. Instead, he dragged me to the black sedan I thought was Lexie’s and nearly threw me in the back seat, slapping me hard enough across the face that it stunned me into stillness. I tasted blood in my mouth.
He yanked my arms behind my back and had them tied with some kind of scratchy rope in seconds. He must’ve been a freakin’ Boy Scout, too. Great.
“Stupid,” he said through gritted teeth. “Stupid, stupid, stupid girl.” He got in the front driver’s side, locked the doors, gunned the engine, and took off.
I shook my head, trying to clear it, and touched my tongue to the spot on my lip that was bleeding. Aside from that, my face seemed to be in one piece. I rubbed my neck. He hadn’t snapped it, but ouch.
“You are going to regret that,” he said, his eyes flicking to me in the rearview mirror. “Good thing I already have all the information I need. I don’t need to keep you alive to get the stupid notebook anymore.” He buzzed his window down halfway. I almost cried when I saw my cell phone go flying out of it.
“In case you’re hoping someone will track you down,” he said.
I bit my busted lip hard to keep the tears back. I’d much rather bleed than cry in front of this psycho. “So it was you who tried to break into my house.” I inched my bound hands over and tried to jack up the door handle, just for the heck of it.
He saw me. “Childproof locks. For the windows, too. You’re out of luck. And of course it was me. I know he left his research there. I tracked him to your place that day. I knew he was working there and I knew he left in a hurry when the subject of his research came in. He always was kind of a wuss. Didn’t want to face the music.”
“Thea,” I said. “What about her? Why was he so focused on her?” Part of me really wanted to know, and the other part of me wanted to keep him distracted while I tried to figure out what to do next. Plus, I was trying to keep an eye on the direction he was driving. We were heading away from downtown, which wasn’t good. If he took me out to the deserted roads by the beaches, that could be bad. Although I hoped most of them weren’t passable.
“You really don’t know? I thought you would’ve figured that part out already, since you’re so smart.” He yanked the steering wheel to take a corner extra hard. I assumed it was so he could get a kick out of watching me fly across the seat because I had no hands to brace myself.
“She’s the key to what’s going to be a huge boost to my writing career. A true-crime story, finally solved forty years later.” I could see the self-satisfied smile play across his face and wished I could get free just to smack it off him.
“Solved? How are you solving anything?” I asked with a sniff. “You’re just taking the work Jason did and trying to pass it off as your own.” I could hear Grandpa’s voice in my head—Don’t poke the bear, Madalyn—but I couldn’t help it. This piece of crap wasn’t going to do this to me. And if he did, it certainly wasn’t going to be easy.
We’d driven out of Daybreak Harbor now and were on the outskirts of Turtle Point. Near the beaches. Where was he taking me?
He definitely didn’t like my comment. The smile disappeared. “Shut up or you’ll go in the trunk with the other one,” he warned. “The only reason I didn’t put you in there in the first place was because I didn’t want to attract any more attention after your little stunt.”
I was immediately on alert. “What other one?”
“The almost-ex Mrs. Holt,” he said with some amusement.
I knew this was her car. The dread that had been spreading through my body congealed in my stomach. “Why is she in the trunk? Did you … kill her, too?” I tried not to feel nauseous at the thought of her dead body rolling around in the trunk right behind me.
He glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Not yet,” he said seriously. “I mean, I should have. She couldn’t even divorce the guy. Wanted to go back to him after everything she promised me. Nope, his tragic death was all me.”
Everything she promised him. Looked like Damian’s source had been right. He sounded like a scorned lover. We all know what they say about when a woman is scorned, but really, psychotic men being scorned had the potential to turn out a lot worse. Clearly.
He stomped on the brake and turned again, heading down a road I was unfamiliar with, but I guessed it led to a beach.
And suddenly I knew exactly where we were going.
Chapter 61
Leopard Man’s little trailer/house sat at the end of the beach road. The rusted-out, falling-apart truck parked next to it must be the one from the junkyard he’d mentioned he used to transport it to different areas of the island.
McConnell stopped the car in front of the trailer. I really started to panic. And get angry at the same time. I had no idea if this guy had a weapon beyond his own body. Or if Lexie Holt was really alive in the trunk. Or what I would find inside that trailer, unless I never made it inside. What if he broke my neck out here and stuffed me in the trunk, then drove the car into the water or something crazy like that?
I had to figure out a plan, and fast. I had way too much ahead of me to let this guy take it away from me. No way was I letting McConnell kill me tonight.
He turned the car off and turned to look at me. I returned his gaze with my best steely glare.
He seemed to be pondering his options. In the end, he probably decided it was best to keep me in his line of sight until he decided what to do with me, because he got out of the car, unlocked the door, and pulled me out by my bound hands.
“You better be on your best behavior in here,” he warned. “I have to finish this business and then I’ll figure out where to get rid of you and my ex.”
I said nothing. I noticed he hadn’t locked the car, though. Which gave me an idea. I muttered something that could’ve been agreement. He gave me a yank to make me start walking, and I pretended to stumble, pitching myself awkwardly to the ground in hopes of landing somewhere near the back of the car.
“Get up!” He jerked me back to my feet.
“I need a minute! I don’t feel well. I might throw up.” I sagged against the car, dropping my head to my chest.
He immediately stepped back, apparently afraid I was going to puke on his shoes. I felt around behind me for the trunk latch, prayed for it to be silent, and jerked it up just slightly so it released. If Lexie was alive in there and had half a brain, she’d get herself out of the car and go for help. If she was even conscious. It was a long shot, given where we were on the island, but worth a try.
I bent forward, gulping air, then stood up. “Okay. I’m sorry. I get carsick sometimes,” I lied.
“Great. Good thing we won’t be driving back together.” He grabbed my arm so hard I thought he pulled it out of the socket, and began dragging me toward the trailer.
I prayed that Leopard Man wasn’t dead in there. I don’t know why that was the first thought that jumped into my mind, but I didn’t have an especially sunny outlook at the moment. Zach dragged me up the one metal step to the door, pushed it open, and pulled me inside.
The surroundings assaulted me all at once—we were in a tiny room with a kitchen area, a chair with a leopard throw on it, and a couch. A raised platform behind it had a bed. A small door off the kitchen led to a bathroom—I could see the shower through the cracked door. Thea Coleman was on the couch. Her hands and feet were bound. She was gagged, and it looked like she’d also been hit in the face, with dried blood from her nose and lip staining the scarf tied around her mouth. She’d been crying.
But worst of all, Leopard Man was on the floor. He was tied up, so I assumed he wasn’t dead, but he was definitely unconscious. It made sense. McConnell was strong, but Leopard Man wasn’t a small guy. McConnell would’ve had to put him out of commission first.
“Well. We’re all here,” McConnell said, in that creepy tone he’d used in the elevator, like this was some grand reunion. “Don’t worry. I won’t keep us long. I wanted to give you two some time to think about my proposition. Although he doesn’t look like he’s thinking very hard right now.” He toed Leopard Man, who didn’t respond. I wondered what he’d done to him, and now I was even angrier.
He shoved me across the room so hard I almost fell in Thea’s lap. I managed to keep myself upright.
“Sit,” he commanded. “Not that there’s any other way out of here, but I don’t want to have to worry about you. So.” He turned to Thea. “What do you think? Am I getting my five million to stay quiet about your story? You think your boyfriend over here will come through?” He inclined his head in Leopard Man’s direction.
I stared at him. What on earth was he talking about? Five million dollars? This guy was off his rocker. Thea Coleman and Leopard Man wouldn’t be my first choice of people to bribe.
But Thea nodded, new tears spilling down her cheeks. McConnell stepped over and ripped the gag from her mouth. “I can’t hear you!”
“Yes!” she cried. “Yes, he’ll pay you.”
My mouth dropped open. “How on earth is he going to come up with that amount of money?” I asked. “And shouldn’t you wait for him to weigh in?”
They both stared at me. I shrugged. “Just saying.”
“You really don’t know who he is?” McConnell laughed. “You’re not as smart as I thought you were. That’s Carl Torrence.”
“I knew that,” I said, trying to hold back the anger rising in my body. This murdering psycho was being critical of me? Seriously?
Thea turned to me. Her eyes dead, as if any remaining light had left them today and was never going to find its way back. “The Torrence family is one of the richest families in horse racing,” she said. “He left them, but he still has his share of the money. And they’re still making it, so he’s still getting it.”
Wow. That, I hadn’t thought of. I’d just never thought of Leopard Man and millionaire in the same context. Who could blame me?
“And you’re volunteering him to pay this lunatic off? Why would he do that?” I asked. I was angry at her, too, for coming out here and bringing all of this with her. If she hadn’t come here, maybe Jason Holt would’ve done his research somewhere else and none of us would’ve had to be part of this.
“To protect me,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper as she started to cry again.
“From what?”
“So he won’t write the book and tell my story.”
“She killed Curtis Krump,” McConnell said triumphantly. “Jason found out, and he was going to write his first true-crime novel about it. With eyewitness accounts and interviews from these two, who fell off the face of the earth forty years ago. And he was going to keep me out of the deal, even though I was the one who’d suggested we do a book about this case years ago.”
“So you came here and killed him,” I said, my voice full of contempt. “And now you won’t even write the book because it’s easier to take blood money than actually do the work like he would have.”
Thea flinched. I saw why. McConnell came right at me and backhanded me across the face so hard I saw stars. And he started yelling something at me that I couldn’t understand, but it was good that he was yelling because it meant he didn’t hear Lexie Holt coming up behind him with the tire iron until she’d already hit him once. It took her three tries to knock him out, but she did it. Then she sank down on the floor next to him and started to cry.
Chapter 62
“Are you sure he’s going to be okay?” I hovered outside the door of Leopard Man’s hospital room later that night with Grandpa and Craig. He’d regained consciousness, but he still looked frail and very un-Leopard-like in that hospital bed, without his traditional garb on. I mean, he didn’t even have his leopard blanket that had been in his trailer. I wished I’d thought to bring it for him. Grandpa had insisted we give him some time to rest, so we’d left him alone.
As for me, the past few hours had been a blur. After a shell-shocked Lexie had knocked out McConnell, I had her untie me. Together, we tied him up, then I told her to stay put and went out to the main road to get help. My luck had prevailed—it wasn’t long before a car actually came by and stopped for this disheveled, crazed-looking girl with a bloody lip. But that was a perk of being from the island—the driver was one of Grandpa’s old friends and recognized me. He called the police and then stayed with me until they got there less than ten minutes later.
Luckily, they’d already been on the case. Craig had alerted the troops that there might be a problem at the hotel, and when officers had gone there the woman at the front desk told them about the “very strange girl who’d been with the cute guy.” Apparently I’d been acting like I was “off my meds” and why I wasn’t happy about being with such a hottie was beyond her. I sincerely hoped she had a guardian angel looking out for her when she was out on the dating scene. But since my cell phone had gotten tossed and there was no way to track us, they’d been operating blindly until the call came in.
McConnell was also in the hospital under heavy police guard. Lexie had hit him hard enough that he’d still been unconscious when the cops arrived. His head injury was apparently pretty serious, which I thought was fitting. Thea and Lexie had been checked out and released. Grandpa and my dad, who had still been at work when the ambulances had roared in, insisted I get checked out, too, despite my protests. Aside from a fat lip, I was none the worse for wear.
“Leopard Man’s going to be fine,” Grandpa assured me, putting his arm around my shoulder and hugging me. “And I’m going to wait until tomorrow to tell you how foolish it was to go to that hotel when you had no idea what you’d find.”
“Hey, I tried to tell Craig and ask for backup,” I defended myself. “And I tried to talk to you, too. But you wouldn’t include me in anything.” It still stung.
“She did,” Craig said. “I couldn’t get away. I was literally stuck out on Pinehurst monitoring a tree that had fallen and was on a wire. But I called and got someone on it right away.” He looked at me. “I’m sorry I didn’t get there in time.” He looked p
retty shaken up about it still.
I knew how he felt. When I thought about what could’ve happened … But it hadn’t, we were all still here, and I just wanted to get on with my life. Welcome my boyfriend home and enjoy the holiday.
I couldn’t wait.
Grandpa sighed but kept his arm around me. I knew he was thinking the same things. “Maddie. I wish you had waited for me.”
“I wanted to,” I said. “But it seemed really urgent that McConnell didn’t get off the island.”
Grandpa regarded me seriously. “What you did was very dangerous. But if it wasn’t for you, things could’ve turned out a lot worse. Carl is very grateful.”
I felt tears start to pool in my eyes. I couldn’t stop thinking of McConnell ambushing Leopard Man, then luring Thea Coleman there under false pretenses—telling her that he’d found Holt’s research, that parts of the story had already been socialized with agents and publishers, but he wanted to protect her and offer her a partnership in the book. She’d agreed out of desperation but hadn’t realized McConnell had a whole scheme cooked up to blackmail her and Leopard Man. In the end, she confessed everything to the police—killing Curtis Krump not only because he’d endangered horses, one of which ended up dying, but also because his scheme had sullied her good name and ruined her life.
“So Leopard Man didn’t know?” I asked Grandpa now. “That she was the one who actually killed the jockey?”
He shook his head. “He told me once that he always thought his brother did it. Thought that was why Joe killed himself.”
I found the whole story incredibly sad. A part of me even felt sorry for Thea Coleman now. But maybe I felt charitable because there was no way she’d be coming after JJ anymore. “And he’s rich,” I said. That was the kicker for me. The guy everyone thought was homeless was rich. Like, really rich, if $5 million would’ve been pocket change.