Dangerous To Love

by Toni Anderson, Barbara Freethy, Dee Davis, Leslie A. Kelly, Cynthia Eden, J. Kenner, Meli Raine, Gwen Hernandez, Pamela Clare, Rachel Grant

  “All right, Ms. Nolan. I’ll meet you at the high school. Look for my car, a black SUV with tinted windows.”

  She subdued a triumphant exclamation. “It’ll be crowded, so park in the far north lot, away from the field. And speaking of black, can you maybe dress a little more, umm, cheerfully than you were earlier? You and I are going to draw enough attention as it is.”

  “The two outcasts of the town, hmm?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Mightn’t people just assume we wanted to watch the ball game?”

  She couldn’t prevent a snort. “Mightn’t people also just assume you’re an undertaker? Look, face it, you’re not the small-town-football-fan type and everybody and his mother will know I’m there because another girl has gone missing. So I’d rather not draw any more attention than necessary. Meaning, I’d appreciate it if you’d lose the head-to-toe black ensemble and try to blend with the sea of denim and flannel, especially since you want your involvement to stay off the record.”

  He sighed again. “Fine. I’ll meet you in the parking lot; we can talk inside my car before we go in.” He sounded thoughtful as he added, “And from our anonymous vantage point, you can point out everyone I need to know about. Including this infamous Chief Dunston.”

  “Sounds good. See you then.”

  Lexie disconnected, meeting Walter’s eye. “I think he’s in.”

  If he was going to a high school football game in the middle of Nowhere, GA, the man was definitely in.

  “Excellent,” her boss replied. “I’d love to go with you, but Ann-Marie’s just not up to it yet and I hate to leave her alone after being at work all day.”

  “I totally understand.”

  His expression grew more serious. “Listen, Stan’ll be at the game tonight.”

  She expected nothing else, since his son played for Granville High. Since his divorce a couple of years ago, during which his teenage son had asked to stay with his mother, Stan had been trying to make up for being a total waste as a father throughout the boy’s childhood. Too little, too late, in her opinion, but she had to give the man props for not giving up.

  “If anyone asks,” he added, “say I sent you out there to do a human interest story. The girls tell me tonight’s game is being dedicated to the memory of Coach White.”

  She vaguely remembered the man, who’d led his team to a state championship some years back. He’d died in a single-car accident and was still hailed as a local hero. “Okay.”

  “And, Lex, do me a favor, would you?”

  “Anything.”

  He answered not as her boss, not even as her friend, but simply as a concerned father. “Keep your eye on my girls tonight, would you?”

  “I will.” She leaned over and patted his hand. “But don’t worry, this guy isn’t grabbing his victims from big, crowded events. He’s taking them when they’re alone in secluded places.”

  “I know.” He glanced toward the door through which the twins had gone. “That doesn’t mean I’m not scared to death and won’t do everything I can to keep my daughters safe.”

  Lexie nodded in agreement. “As should every parent in town.”

  Chapter Five

  Friday 6:45 p.m.

  Vonnie didn’t think she was going to last much longer. How long could someone survive without food or hydration? Food, probably several days. But if she didn’t get some fluids into her body, her organs were going to start shutting down.

  It had been more than a day since she’d taken her last sip of warm, rusty water. Now she was so thirsty, she probably would have tried licking the dampness off the cement walls.

  But she couldn’t even do that. Not with her mouth duct-taped closed.

  Oh, he had been angry that she’d screamed for help. Far from being rescued, her last-ditch effort to save herself had earned her only more abuse, and enforced starvation. When the bastard had returned from wherever he’d gone—without any strong, heroic rescuer storming in behind him—he’d burst into her cell with a big roll of tape. He’d wrapped it around and around her head, sticking it to her face, her hair, her mouth, her nose.

  She’d felt certain she was going to suffocate. He’d let her think it, too, watching her closely from behind the awful, smiling king mask. She’d been writhing on the cot, her body struggling for air, her lungs burning, when he finally pulled out a long, slim metal skewer and held it up in front of her terrified eyes.

  Vonnie had screamed behind the tape when he moved the skewer to her face, sure he was going to stab it through her eye, up into her brain. Instead, he’d poked a hole in the tape beneath one nostril for her to breathe through, then another on the other side.

  The holes were small, the air they allowed in barely adequate to keep her alive.

  Yet she was still breathing. Still breathing.

  “I suppose you’re thirsty.”

  She didn’t turn toward the door at the sound of his voice, not surprised she hadn’t even heard the metal panel sliding open. She couldn’t hear much of anything anymore, except the slow, sucking rasp of her inhalations, which were never enough to really fill her lungs.

  “I might be persuaded to take off the tape and let you have something to drink. That is, as long as you promise you’re going to be a good girl.”

  Vonnie nodded, willing to promise anything if she could just get the tape off and take one long, deep breath. Suddenly that seemed even more important than taking a gulp of water.

  The door opened and she turned toward it, seeing only his big, dark form enter. He didn’t approach as he closed and locked the heavy metal barricade behind him, remaining on the other side of her cell, melting into the shadows. He could be holding a knife, an ax, anything over there, just waiting for the right moment to leap forward and use it.

  “Do you know what the witch did to Rapunzel to keep her from calling for help from up inside her tower?”

  That singsong voice. Another damn story. That told her his mood wasn’t as bloody as it had been since she’d screamed for help. So maybe he wasn’t here to kill her after all. Whether that was a good thing, or a bad one, she just didn’t know. Part of her desperately wanted release, even if that release came because she’d lived her last moment.

  Another part, the hard, determined core of her that had taken on so much, fought so hard, was suddenly desperate to stay alive, if only to keep him from winning. Funny, she didn’t mind so much losing—dying. But oh, she did not want him to win.

  “Well?”

  She answered with a shake of her head, not wanting to do anything to antagonize him.

  “The witch chopped out the ungrateful girl’s tongue and fed it to her dog. Do you think I should do that to you?”

  Is the dog as hungry as I am?

  That answer came from the old Vonnie’s brain. The sassy Vonnie. Not this beaten, broken one.

  She replied with another negative head shake. Finally, he came closer, the white king mask emerging out of a dark corner into her line of sight like a pale skull out of a crypt. The plastic smile was as insane as the person behind it.

  He was holding two things. In one hand, a big plastic cup with a lid and a bendable straw. In the other, a small knife. The knife wasn’t so small it couldn’t be used to slit her throat, but Vonnie suspected he hadn’t come here for that. For some reason, he wanted to keep her alive.

  She wished she knew more about his other victims—how long they’d stayed down here, how long he’d kept them imprisoned. But there was no way to know. None of them had carved any words into the wall to journal their tortured, final days.

  “I’ll show mercy,” he said, “because I like you.”

  He liked her. She’d hate to see how he treated those he didn’t like.

  “You remind me of myself, you see, the way I reacted to being down here in the dark. The others were so stupid. So weak. But not you. You’re so smart—always thinking. You don’t cry, you don’t plead. You play along and don’t do anything until you t
hink you have a chance, like when you screamed yesterday. Very naughty, but a good effort.”

  Now that his anger had faded, he sounded almost approving, admiring even. Like he’d been glad she’d bided her time and done nothing, waited until she had an actual chance of rescue before crying out.

  The truth washed over her. She had been involved in a game of wits with the man from the very start.

  He had no pity, so all the others who might have pleaded for help had earned nothing but his disdain. Because she hadn’t, because she’d been smart enough to know that would never work, she was still alive. Though probably not for long.

  “You haven’t once begged me to kill you and get it over with,” he added.

  If only he knew how often those words had repeated in her mind.

  “You haven’t even begged me to stop, or to let you go. I never begged, either. Not for myself, anyway. Hmm . . . would you beg for someone else, like I once did? What will it take to crush you completely, pretty Vonnie?”

  Something in the tone told her he looked forward to finding out. His next words confirmed it. “The anticipation of it has me quite excited. What will be the final straw that breaks your pretty back?” He chuckled behind the mask. “We have to get you stronger so we can start playing our games and find out.”

  Oh God. Please help me.

  Her tormentor finally drew closer. “And it’s not just that you’re smart, you know. You’ve pleased me in other ways, too.”

  Vonnie didn’t take her eyes off the knife, knowing that when he cut the tape away beautiful, blessed oxygen would fill her lungs. Who cared if it was painful, if the tape ripped out her hair and tore her skin? She just wanted to breathe.

  “Did you hear me?” he prompted, his voice hardening. “I said you’ve pleased me in other ways.”

  Not wanting to drive him away now when he appeared on the verge of giving her what she needed, she focused on what he was saying. She tried to swallow, but there was no spit left in her mouth and her dry throat screamed with the pain of it. But even as she grimaced, she concentrated on tugging her brow down harder over her eyes, hoping she looked puzzled.

  He got the message and laughed. “You don’t know how, I understand. But if you think about it long and hard, I bet you’ll remember. You’ll recall how you pleased a lot of people.”

  Not giving her a chance to dwell on it, almost as if he didn’t want her to remember just yet and had only intended to tease her, he knelt beside the cot. The knife came up, but she couldn’t muster any terror, not even when he ran the flat blade along her forehead, just above her eyebrows. She was wise to him now, knew he wasn’t going to plunge that knife into her eyeball or any other part of her. Not now when he’d started this new game of figure-out-how-you-know-me. He liked his games and he wanted her lucid enough to play.

  She was proved right when he moved the knife to the tape covering her mouth and started to cut. He sawed carefully, layer by layer, as if not wanting to nick her lips—strange since they were probably still swollen and fat from when he’d punched her. Within a few moments, he’d created a small opening.

  Vonnie couldn’t hold back, immediately sucking in a deep breath. The oxygen hit her lungs and shot through her blood, her heart sending it in every direction to nourish all the starving cells of her body. Nothing in her life had ever felt as good as that one long inhalation.

  He watched approvingly from behind the mask. Lifting one hand, a hand she didn’t recognize, that could belong to any white man she knew, he carefully poked the hole a little, widening it. He took his time, blocking her oxygen again with his finger, just to fuck with her, she had no doubt.

  “Ready for your drink?”

  She nodded, for the first time wary of the plastic cup. There could be anything in it.

  It’s water. Just the same nasty water he was bringing you before.

  Or it could be drain cleaner.

  She prayed that whatever it was it didn’t hurt as he slid the opening of the straw into the hole. Live or die, she just didn’t want to hurt anymore.

  “Sip slowly. You don’t want to throw up. I don’t know if I’d be able to stick around to get the tape off before you suffocate. I have somewhere to go and will be out late.”

  She did, tentatively drawing the fluid up the straw. It hit her mouth, cold and sweet, and she realized he’d brought her some kind of energy drink. Just as that one deep breath had been the best she’d ever inhaled, so, too, was this mouthful of liquid the best she’d ever tasted. As difficult as it was, she sipped slowly, feeling the icy relief slide down her scratchy throat. It landed in her empty stomach, which churned but didn’t rebel, and then she sipped again.

  With every taste of that sweet drink, a truth hammered home in her brain, causing her both hope and despair. He could have given her water. Instead, he was giving her something with nourishment. Something that might help fend off starvation for a little while longer than mere H2O would have done.

  Which confirmed what he’d been telling her all along. He wasn’t ready for her to die yet.

  Because he wasn’t finished playing with her.

  Friday, 7:40 p.m.

  Aidan arrived at the local high school about twenty minutes before his arranged meeting time with the Granville Sun reporter. Parking in a far corner of the athletic field lot, he watched as cars poured in, many of them spilling laughing teenagers out into the evening. Many also, however, contained adults. Middle-aged couples, families, chubby businessmen. Lexie hadn’t been kidding when she’d called this one of the social highlights of Granville’s year.

  Something else he noticed. For every jaunty Prius, there came a rusty, smoke-belching car owned by someone who lived in a very different world. These, he assumed, were the people from the Boro, who ranged in ethnicity but not in economics. Poor didn’t have its own color.

  Talk about class warfare, the have-nots of Granville resenting the haves. Only, in this case, the have-nots did have something: a slew of murdered girls and a community full of fear. While the other half of the town had remained immune, protected, safe in their cocoon of money with their oblivious police chief and their complacent officials.

  Until Vonnie, the girl who’d somehow managed to straddle the line between them.

  Hearing a tapping sound on his passenger-side window, he glanced over and saw Alexa Nolan standing outside, hunching close to the vehicle as if not wanting to be seen. He flipped the automatic lock and she got in, quietly closing the door behind her.

  “How did this start?” he asked immediately. “Go back to the beginning.”

  “Well, good evening to you, too.”

  He cleared his throat, suitably chastened. He hadn’t done the social thing in a long time and barely remembered the rules of it, one of which was, on occasion, to say hello. “Sorry. I don’t get out much these days. Guess my conversational skills are a little rusty.”

  “It’s okay. I’m a pretty no-nonsense person myself.”

  “Pushy one, too,” he couldn’t help muttering.

  “I’ll cop to that. Just don’t call me perky. Ever. I hate that word.”

  He gaped. “You? Perky?” He didn’t see that at all. Stubborn, tenacious, inquisitive, yeah, all of the above. But not perky. She was too dark and sarcastic to ever be something so cutesy.

  “I’ve seen perkier pit bulls.” He meant that as a compliment. Sort of. Maybe.

  “I know, right? Crazy. My mother always used to say if I wanted to get the right boys to like me, I needed to try to be more perky. Which, I think, is why I went out of my way to be a scowling bitch throughout high school.”

  Scowling bitch? That he couldn’t see, either. Despite her in-your-face toughness, the woman was soft underneath. She cared about people and took things personally. Still, part of her comment amused him. “Not interested in boys, huh?”

  “Not the ‘right’ ones.”

  He didn’t doubt it. He suspected Lexie had rebelled at anyone who tried to put her in a nice, go
od-girl box from the time she was old enough to ask Why? “Yeah, I somehow picture you as a bad-boy magnet.”

  “You got it. And bad boys aren’t interested in perky chicks.”

  “Got it. Perky is right out. No problem. If I had to choose an adjective that starts with the letter P to describe you, I can come up with several more. Pushy is much better. Or persistent.”

  “Persistent I can deal with. You could even have called me a pain in the ass.”

  “The evening is still young.”

  “Fair enough; consider me warned.” She shifted in the seat to look at him, bending one leg and tucking it under herself. “As it happens, I think of persistence as a good quality, especially when someone as no-nonsense as me is willing to go begging for help from a guy who dabbles in the supernatural.”

  “I don’t dabble in anything,” he replied flatly. “What I do is just part of who I am.”

  “What do you do?” she asked. “I mean, exactly?”

  He should have known that by opening the door an inch, she’d kick it in and storm through. Not knowing this woman for long didn’t mean he couldn’t figure her out. And it didn’t take any psychic skills to know she would be like that pit bull after a buried bone when it came to getting at a bit of juicy information she wanted. Like all her kind.

  She’s not like all her kind. After reading through her files, he knew this story was more than a big-news feature to Alexa Nolan. It had become personal—he could read that in every line of her articles, in her hand-written notes and in each question she’d asked. Especially her jotted speculations about the unanswered ones.

  The files had changed his perception of her. Before, he’d seen a tenacious, attractive young woman. Now he saw that same woman—with a heart. It was a stunning combination. He’d spent a long time this afternoon thinking about it, about all the different sides to her. Though a stranger to him two days ago, she had succeeded in doing something even his oldest friends had been unable to do: get him involved again. That alone made her pretty unique. When combined with all the rest, she became fascinating.