Tears ran down her cheeks as she felt herself losing the battle.
She was so close, yet so far.
She just didn’t have enough left in her to do it.
And then, her fingers closed, almost reflexively, around the handle and she pulled the knife free.
She would have screamed in joy as she finally grasped the handle in her fist, but she wasn’t able to breathe, much less make a sound. For a very brief instant she held the blade up before her eyes in her trembling hand just so that she would believe she truly had it in her fist.
And then, her eyes closed.
She no longer had the strength to keep them open.
Eyes closed, she clenched her teeth, straining the muscles in her neck in an attempt to keep the noose from crushing her windpipe and from cutting off the blood supply to her brain. Once she had stretched her arms above her head, she held the rope with her left hand as she started dragging the blade across the rope with her other hand. Her knives were always razor sharp. She heard some of the fibers make a snapping sound as they tore. That sound urged her on to find the strength she didn’t think she had to keep sawing at the tough rope.
Even though Angela sawed as fast as she could, it wasn’t very fast, and consciousness continued to fade away. Tears of frustration seeped from her closed eyes.
Then, when the blade had cut partway through, the rotting fibers of the rope that were left couldn’t hold her weight and they suddenly ripped apart.
Angela dropped heavily to the ground. Her legs were unable to hold her weight. She collapsed to her knees.
The pressure was off, but she found that the rope was still choking her. When they had hoisted her up it had tightened the rope around her neck as well as the knot.
She was horrified to realize that cutting herself down wasn’t enough. She still couldn’t get any air. Her eyes felt like they were bulging out of her head.
She told herself that she had done her best.
It just wasn’t good enough.
With that thought, she remembered the smug faces of the men as they looked back at her as they were leaving, knowing that they had won.
She didn’t want that to be it. She didn’t want them to win.
On her knees, bent forward, Angela felt blindly behind her neck until she located the knot. With the trembling fingers of her left hand she guided the blade onto the knot. She carefully but urgently worked with both hands to saw back and forth to cut the knot, the fingers of one hand grasping the sides of the blade and helping to push as she pulled the knife back and forth with the other hand.
The fibers of the straining rope finally started to pull apart. She could feel it in her neck when some of the strands popped apart; then at last they all separated, undoing the knot and finally releasing the pressure on her throat.
Angela flopped back onto the moving pad, arms splayed out, loudly gasping in breath after breath.
She lay there for a long time, simply breathing in and out, with hoarse gasps, letting the life come back into her. Once she had gotten the air that she so desperately needed, she was finally able to pull the remainder of the noose away from her neck.
The men had left her to die. Instead, she was alive—in crippling pain, but alive.
TWENTY-FIVE
For quite a while, Angela lay on the greasy moving pad where she had been raped, gasping in air, sucking in life, getting her breath, both from the hanging and from the sheer terror of the ordeal.
Tears ran down her face but this time they were tears of joy. She had beaten her would-be killers. She had beaten all four of the bastards.
After a time, she made herself get up on wobbly legs. She couldn’t straighten up all the way because her abdomen hurt so much from the blows. She feared something inside was broken. Blood dripped from her chin to the concrete floor, leaving growing pools of vivid red. Her face throbbed in pain. She looked around and finally saw her shorts and panties lying against one of the shelves where Miguel had thrown them.
Angela shuffled over to her clothes. She pulled a blanket from the gray metal shelf. Blood was splattered all down her legs from the beating.
She stood for a few minutes to regain enough strength, then used the blanket to wipe off the semen running down her thighs before she pulled on her underpants and shorts. Her top had been torn off. She put it on with trembling hands and tied the front shut as best she could.
She almost shouted with excitement when she found the keys to her truck still in the pocket of her shorts. She wasn’t sure she could drive, but she knew she had to.
The door grated on the buckled concrete when she slowly pushed it open just enough to carefully poke her head out. She was worried that one of the men might have remained behind to stand guard.
She didn’t see anyone. It was dark and lonely outside. Her truck was still there.
The craziest thought came into her head. Barry would be wondering why she wasn’t at work. He had always been good to her, treated her well.
She pushed the door open a little more so she could put her head out farther into the night and get a better look around. She didn’t see any of the men. Their car was gone. They must have all left. They wanted her dead, but they hadn’t stayed to see her die. She supposed that they figured she didn’t have a chance in hell of escaping.
The abandoned factory area was dead quiet and pitch black. She didn’t see any lights anywhere. Overhead the moon shone down on her all alone among the ghostly buildings, giving her enough light to see.
Angela unlocked the truck and with an effort climbed up into the driver’s seat. Her abdomen cramped in pain, her face throbbed, and her throat burned with every breath.
Her phone was in one of the cup holders where she’d left it. She briefly thought about calling the police, but she knew they would take forever to find her. That would waste a lot of time.
Angela didn’t think she could afford to waste any time.
Her fingers were shaking so badly it took her several tries before she was finally able to get the key into the ignition. She turned the key and her faithful truck roared to life—her chariot ready to carry her away and help her escape. She backed away from the building, put the truck in drive, and laid rubber away from the death trap.
Her fuzzy thoughts kept wandering. She didn’t know where she was going. She was having trouble focusing enough to keep a train of thought as to how she had found the address in the first place. It wasn’t long before she realized she was completely lost. Nothing looked familiar. In the dark, the dark shapes of the buildings all looked the same. Getting lost in the old industrial complex was easy enough to do in the day, but at night, without any lights or landmarks, it was easier to lose your way. On top of that, she was in so much pain she was having trouble thinking at all.
Angela leaned forward against the steering wheel at the end of every building, looking left and right for the four-door Toyota Camry the men were driving. The last thing she wanted to do was get caught by them again. Of course, if she was in her truck, they would never be able to catch her. But if they were armed they could shoot out her tires, or more likely, shoot her. Being in the truck was no protection from guns. Her truck wasn’t bulletproof. She wasn’t bulletproof.
But now she had a gun and she could shoot back.
The industrial district wasn’t laid out with regular streets. The entire area was acres and acres of concrete with buildings placed in what seemed like random places. The expanses of concrete were broken, cracked, and overgrown with weeds. Even though it seemed random, there was a pattern to the way the buildings were laid out, such as to take advantage of the rail lines, and routes among them with occasional streets.
The problem was, Angela wasn’t familiar enough with that pattern. Here and there larger buildings blocked the way she thought she needed to go, making it necessary to detour around them. Without streets among the maze of old buildings, and in her foggy mental state, it was maddening trying to find her way out.
At last she saw a familiar building in the moonlight. It had a partially collapsed roof. Beyond that building she found the road she knew led back into town. She wanted to go home to her cabin in the woods. That was all she wanted to do. Go home and shower off the filth from those men.
But she knew that wasn’t the smartest thing to do. Instead of heading for her place, she headed into Milford Falls. It was a relief when she reached streetlights again and areas she knew well.
She encountered traffic but it was light because of the late hour. In a way, seeing other cars was a relief, because for a time it had seemed like she was the only person left in the world. When she saw no cars at intersections, she rolled through stop signs and red lights. She didn’t want to waste time to stop unless she had to.
When she finally saw the glowing red sign for the hospital, she pulled in and came to a crooked stop at the emergency entrance. She knew there was no parking allowed where she stopped. She didn’t care.
The emergency entrance had double glass doors. She could see activity inside. She didn’t see any patients. She knew that the emergency department was usually quiet this late at night. The drunks who had been in car accidents or fights had already been treated, so the hospital usually quieted down until the early-morning rush started in.
Angela slid out of the driver’s seat. When her feet hit the ground, she found she was so dizzy she didn’t know if she would be able to stand, but the light from beyond the glass doors drew her onward. She made up her mind that if it was the last thing she did, she was going to make it inside. If she could get inside, someone would help her.
The automatic doors slid apart as she stumbled through the entryway. Once in the light she saw that she was dripping blood all along the tan linoleum floor. She could feel it dripping off her chin and running all down the front of her.
The chairs for patients coming in with an emergency were empty, but there were people ahead at the desk. She knew the place well from picking up courier packages. She knew many of the people who worked in the hospital.
They would recognize her. They would help her.
When the nurse at the desk saw her shuffling in, she immediately called for help and then rushed out from behind her desk. Two more nurses emerged from a side hall. An orderly poked his bald head out from behind a curtain. None of them ran in a panic, but they all hurried with professional familiarity with medical emergencies.
One of the nurses came up and put a hand under Angela’s arm and the other around her waist just as she started sinking toward the floor. The orderly shoved a wheelchair at her from behind and helped pull her into it.
“Good lord, young lady—is anyone else with you?”
“I’m alone,” Angela managed. Her voice sounded garbled. Her tongue felt swollen.
The orderly started wheeling her toward one of the treatment areas, a nurse to each side.
“What’s your name, dear?”
Angela looked up. “Julie, it’s me.”
“Me? Me who?”
“Angela.”
The woman looked stunned. “Angela? Angela Constantine? Our courier?”
Angela nodded. She realized her face must be pretty messed up for Julie not to recognize her.
“What happened? Were you in a car accident?”
“No. I was raped by four men,” she said. “They tried to kill me.”
Angela was only dimly aware of being lifted onto a bed in the treatment room as people rushed around. Everyone seemed to have a job and knew just what to grab.
A short Asian woman leaned in. Angela realized she recognized her. It was Dr. Song. One nurse put a blood-pressure cuff around her left arm as another worked at getting a needle into her other arm. Once the nurse had taken her blood pressure, she bent in with a pair of scissors and cut off Angela’s shorts and panties, then quickly unlaced her boots. She pulled off the boots and set them aside.
“What happened to your neck?” Dr. Song asked while listening to her heart.
“They tried to hang me.”
Dr. Song turned to one of the nurses. “Call the police. Ask for a female officer. Then get a rape kit.”
Angela started to cry.
One of the nurses patted her on the shoulder. “No need to cry, Angela. We’re going to take good care of you.”
That wasn’t why Angela was crying.
She was crying because she was at last safe.
TWENTY-SIX
Julie glided into the room like a ghost, or maybe an angel, and touched her fingers to Angela’s shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
“What’s going on?” Angela asked in a weak, hoarse voice as she squinted up at the nurse.
“They had to give you some medication to relax you. It put you to sleep for a while.”
Angela had never seen Julie doing her job as a nurse, caring for patients. She had only seen her with paperwork for samples that needed to go to a lab. She seemed so professional, so competent and caring as she looked over the readings on the monitors.
Julie reminded her of Carrie Stratton. She had been a nurse here, too, until Owen had murdered her. They were about the same age and their hair was similar.
Angela’s throat hurt. Her jaw hurt. Her abdomen hurt. In fact, she hurt all over. Her voice sounded raspy to her.
She looked around and realized she was in a hospital room, rather than the emergency ward. She was aware that she had been in and out of consciousness. She remembered the exam, and the CT scan, but little else. She didn’t remember being brought up to the room. She vaguely recalled them injecting something into the IV line they’d put in the back of her hand, and then the world fading away.
“If you need more pain medication, Dr. Song left orders that you could have it,” Julie said. “Just ask.”
Angela nodded. “My cheeks feel numb. There’s something crusty inside.”
“You’re feeling the stitches. They had to stitch up the inside of your cheeks,” Julie said.
Angela squinted in disbelief at the woman. “What?”
“They got cut on your teeth when you were hit. The doctor used medication to numb the area where she had to put in stitches, so it’s going to feel a little strange for a while.”
Angela remembered the way the men kept punching her as if it were a game. Even though she was still in pain, she didn’t want any more drugs. The ones they’d already given her were probably what was making her feel nauseated. She hated drugs. She had been born a freak because of drugs.
Angela was more than glad to be finished with the embarrassment of the examination. She had immediately agreed to it. In fact, she had insisted on it. That was a main reason she had come to the hospital in the first place. She wanted those men to be prosecuted. To do that, the police would need DNA evidence. At least the CT scan had been easy enough. Now, after the ordeal of the examination, she just wanted to be left alone so she could go to sleep.
As Julie was making notes on a chart, Dr. Song appeared at the side of the bed. “How are you feeling? Is the pain better?”
Angela reached up with her right hand to touch her left shoulder. “My left shoulder hurts. Did they break something?”
Dr. Song smiled as she rubbed Angela’s arm in a reassuring manner. “No, your shoulder is fine. That’s referred pain from your spleen.”
“My spleen?” Angela found it hard to believe. “That can’t be it. Are you sure?”
“Yes, the CT scan showed that you have some bruising and possible injury to your spleen from blunt-force trauma to your abdomen. That is what’s causing the pain you’re feeling in your shoulder.”
Angela found it difficult to believe that a problem in her abdomen could cause such aching pain in her shoulder.
“We need to keep you here under observation for a couple days,” Dr. Song said. “I want to do another CT scan after twenty-four hours, and then, depending on the results, possibly another one the next day to make sure your spleen isn’t ruptured and that everything is okay. We’re hoping to avoid the
need for surgery. The best news is that the CT scan didn’t show any internal bleeding and your brain doesn’t show any signs of injury.”
“I want to go home.”
Dr. Song smiled. “Don’t worry, we want to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
“The police are waiting outside,” Julie said to the doctor. “They want to know if it’s okay for them to talk to her.”
“I think so,” Dr. Song said. She looked down at Angela. “Is that okay with you?”
Angela nodded. Julie checked the flow on the drip and then left. Dr. Song went out to update the police.
After a few minutes, the female police officer came in. Her expression creased with concern when she saw Angela’s condition. Angela wasn’t sure what she looked like, but the alarm on the woman’s face gave her a pretty good indication. Angela could see a male officer out in the hall, talking to a nurse at the station.
The female officer, in her late thirties, looked both impressive and authoritative in her uniform. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. When she approached the side of the bed and leaned over a little, Angela saw that her service weapon was a Sig Sauer.
“Ms. Constantine, I’m Officer Denton. Can you tell me anything about the men who did this to you? Do you know who they were, or their names?”
She sounded professionally sympathetic. Angela didn’t want sympathy. She wanted the bastards caught and put in jail forever.
Or else down the hell hole.
“They came into the bar where I work, once.” Angela’s voice sounded strange to her. “Do you have a pad and pen?”
Officer Denton pulled a small pad out of a pouch in her black leather equipment belt and handed it over along with a pen. Angela wrote down the names of the four men—Miguel, Emilio, Juan, Pedro—and the license number of their car.
She handed the pad back to the woman. “That’s their names and the license number of the car they’re driving.”
Officer Denton looked at the pad a moment, then looked up. “Okay. Do you know the kind of car, or at least the color?”
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