Monday, December 18
Amy headed home right after breakfast. I told her it was only a week until Christmas and she should go have fun, because I wouldn’t need her again until after the holidays.
Midmorning, I dropped Misty off at her house to pack. She was still pissed that I tried to make her sit in the backseat so Myrtle could have her place of honor up front. I did give in, but only after she accused me of loving my dog more than my family.
However, she was the one who insisted on taking Myrt with her to keep her company while she packed. I had some fast and furious shopping to do, and neither of us wanted the poor dog sitting in the car alone waiting for me. Not that Myrt would mind. My vehicles were her homes away from home. I think she was missing riding around in the T-Bird with the top down. But it was winter. What could I do?
I was being careful. Watching my rearview mirror as I drove, keeping track of any cars that I saw more than once. But deep down, I didn’t feel anything but good. I’d been gearing myself up to feeling good all night long, instead of moping that I wouldn’t get to see Mason the entire time I was gone—which was the biggest downer, even though there was the strong possibility that a killer was after me, looking to gouge out my eyes. I know. Pathetic. I took a page from my own book—pun intended—and started counting everything good about this situation. First and foremost, it had brought Mason back to my door, and he was clearly still interested. He’d even admitted he’d had trouble staying away. Sort of. That was good, right?
I thought it was, even though I wasn’t yet sure where I wanted this thing with him to go.
Second, this trip would give me time to think about that very thing. Where I wanted us to go. Was I ready for a real relationship? And what the hell did that mean, anyway?
Okay, to keep this trend going, my third silver lining was that I would get to do something really special for Misty. I had wanted to, had been racking my brain to think of something to make up for her missing the Bahamas and getting dumped by her useless boyfriend, so this was good.
Oh, and fourth! I was going to learn to ski.
And, of course, I’d be safe from any potential eyeball-hunting serial killers.
There really wasn’t much to be bummed about after all.
I pulled into the Oakdale Mall’s giant parking lot, using the same entrance I always used and parking in the same area I always parked in, no matter what store I was going to visit. It was near the spot where the taxi or Amy always used to drop me. Some habits died harder than others, and the lifelong need to do new things in the same way every time—because being blind meant I had to memorize everything just to get by—was one habit I was having a hard time breaking. I kept reminding myself that I could see. I could park anywhere I wanted and get around just fine. But no, my inner blind chick liked her routines. So I just gave in. At least I would never forget where I’d parked.
I had no doubt the mall would have everything I needed. Misty had assured me it would be faster and easier to rent my skis and all that went with them at the lodge. My main goal today, she’d insisted, was to get hot-looking ski-bunny clothes. To be precise, she’d ordered me to find “ski pants and a matching jacket that don’t make you look twenty pounds heavier, and a cute as hell hat and scarf.” She would have come with me to tell me what qualified as “cute as hell,” but since she insisted it would take her a minimum of two hours to pack and we were short on time, I was on my own.
And it took a while. But I finally found what I needed. A pair of very thin, very lightweight black ski pants guaranteed to keep me warm at temps down to twenty below, and a black-and-white jacket that matched the one I bought for Myrtle. (Naturally I’d shopped for her first.) I headed back to the Subaru and got in, slung my bags onto the passenger seat and cranked her up. I was debating whether to get some takeout on the way to pick up Misty as I headed onto 17, whipping through traffic until I hit 81, and then taking the Whitney Point exit a half hour later. Almost home.
I decided at the last minute to grab us some subs and told my dashboard to call Misty as I took the left into the village, and sat waiting at the light.
“How’d it go?” she asked in lieu of a greeting.
“I think you’ll approve. The hat is red—but you’ll see it soon enough. I’m in the Point.”
“Already?”
“Yeah, you almost done packing?”
“Close. Are you bringing anything to eat? Our fridge is bare.”
“That’s why I’m calling. You want Subway?”
“Tuna,” she said. “Toasted. You know my veggies, right?”
“Lettuce, tomato, spinach and pickles?”
“Right. And some chips. Baked ones, okay?”
“Got it. I’ll see you in ten. Maybe fifteen.”
“Cool.”
I got our subs, which took almost no time at all, and then I was back in the car and heading into traffic, past my road and on out the other end of the village, then turning onto the twisty side road that wound uphill to my sister’s place.
I glanced up at my rearview mirror and saw something: a dark, hooded form rising up from my backseat, and I swear to God my blood froze and my heart tried to break out of my chest. I jerked the wheel and cringed toward the passenger side, away from the phantom, as one of its arms came around my neck. My momentum carried me though. I ripped free of the attacker’s grip and felt something sharp jabbing me in the shoulder, right through my jacket, and then the car was rolling and I was being snapped left and right, up and down against my seat belt. My head hit the side window, and I didn’t know anything else.
CHAPTER 6
Monday, December 18
I woke with a sudden gasp, my eyes flying wide. I was suspended at an odd angle, up in the air, my seat belt keeping me from falling toward the passenger door. Through that window there was only the snowy ground. Through my own window, sky. I jerked my head toward the backseat, but there was no one there. The rear hatch was open, showing me a view of a rocky stream bed. But I couldn’t see the entire backseat.
Was my attacker still there, crouching, waiting to spring on me?
I was shaking, and then I remembered the needle and quickly looked to my shoulder to see it still there, the tip embedded in my flesh but the plunger still extended. Carefully I grabbed it and pulled it out, sucking air through my teeth as I did, not in pain, but in fear some of the drug would seep into my flesh. I didn’t want to toss the needle, but I wasn’t going to pocket it, either, and risk injecting myself by accident. I aimed toward my shopping bags, which had landed against the passenger door, and dropped the needle into one of them.
I had to get help. I had to get out of this car. I had to make sure the killer wasn’t still in the car. I didn’t know what to do first.
I thought of my phone and thanked my stars I kept the thing clipped to my waistband. Still there. Thank God.
I pulled it out, found Mason’s number and texted 911. Then I hit the “send location” button and sent it.
Snapping the phone back onto my hip, I tried to make as little noise as possible as I wriggled around to get my legs and feet more or less between me and the passenger side window, which was down to my up. I wanted to land upright once I got free of the seat belt, so I could get out of the car as fast as possible, and I didn’t want to make any noise and rouse the possibly unconscious killer who might or might not still be in my backseat.
I hope he’s fucking dead back there.
The car was still running. What a trooper. I could get out faster if the window was open, so I risked waking my attacker by hitting the button. The driver’s side window began to open, and I let go of the button to let it continue down on auto while I quickly reached for the seat belt buckle. The belt was currently supporting my full weight, so I pressed one leg to the dash, the other to the back of the passenger seat to lift mys
elf a little, and I wrapped one arm out the window and up over the roof of the car. Then I hit the release. The buckle snapped loose and I dropped a little, but I managed to catch myself. Frantically I wriggled out of the shoulder harness, my eyes glued to the backseat, though I still couldn’t tell if the killer was back there. I got my other arm out the window and pulled myself through. Once I managed to hook a foot in the steering wheel—don’t hit the horn, don’t hit the horn, don’t hit the horn—it went faster. I pushed up and out, hit the horn and scared myself shitless, and finally got clear, pulling my feet out behind me like the devil was going to grab them. I ended up facedown on a steep slope, my feet on the fender of my car, which was lying on its side. I strained to see into the backseat, but the sun reflecting off the glass made it impossible. I looked around outside. Where the hell was he? Where was the killer?
I wasn’t waiting around to find out. The slope to the road was steep, but I was determined. I started clawing my way up. As I went, I noticed the snow was turning awfully bloody. My head, I thought, but I didn’t have time to worry about that now. I felt like someone was pursuing me, that tingle up the spine that makes you walk super-fast when you come up the basement stairs in the dark, only to the power of ten. I was scrambling like a king crab in mating season, scuttling up that slope like Spider-Man on crack. Making up metaphors like a writer having a panic attack.
And pretty soon I was dragging my sorry ass over the gravel on the shoulder of the road and onto the pavement. I saw shiny black shoes attached to legs that came running toward me, and I screamed.
“Easy, miss, easy now. You’re okay.” The legs crouched, and I saw the uniform. A cop. Mason had sent the cavalry. I was safe. Thank God.
* * *
By the time Mason arrived on the scene there were three cruisers and an ambulance on the side of the road. He pulled over, spotted Rachel’s SUV at the bottom of a massive drop and damn near threw up.
A big hand clapped his shoulder. Rosie. “Easy, Mace. She’s over in the ambulance, see?”
Mason breathed again and jogged to the back of the ambulance. A medic was cleaning the blood from a small cut on the left side of her forehead, and she was wincing in pain—until she glimpsed him. Everything in her eased when she met his eyes. Made him feel ten feet tall when he saw that.
“I need to talk to the detective,” she told the medic. “Can you give us a minute?”
Mason had to force himself not to pull her off the stretcher and hug the crap out of her, because he didn’t know how badly she was hurt. He settled for touching her face with one hand, her shoulder with the other.
“I’m sorry it took so long. I was doing a final check of that crime scene. Are you okay?”
“I think so. Mason, it was him. It was the organ thief.”
Shock jolted him in the chest. He’d thought it was a simple car accident. “What happened?”
“He was in the backseat. He tried to jab me with a needle, and I—”
“Easy, Rache. Easy now. We need to go slow. I need to get everything. This person was in your car with you?”
She nodded, and he noticed her pupils were dilated. She was still shaken up.
“Did he get out?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t see into the backseat and the hatch got ripped open, so I don’t know.”
“Hold on. Okay?”
He backed out of the ambulance, put his fingers to his lips and whistled. Two uniforms and Rosie gathered around him. “All right, we have a murder suspect who was inside the car before it went over. Fan out. Rosie, call it in, get a couple of roadblocks in place.”
“We have a description, Mace?” Rosie asked. The other cops paused in what they were doing, awaiting his answer.
He looked in at Rachel. She shook her head. “Dressed in black and wearing a ski mask.”
He nodded. “Ski mask, that’s all we’ve got. Go.” He nodded at the two uniforms. “Check the car, but be careful. The suspect is armed and dangerous. And the car’s a crime scene, so don’t contaminate it. Check for the suspect, then tape it off.”
The two men nodded and started down the slope.
He moved back into the ambulance with Rachel. “I need to know how this person got into your car. Where were you?”
“I was at the mall. But I locked it. I was careful.”
He nodded. “Did you stop anywhere else before you headed up this road?”
“Yeah. Subway. In the village.”
“Did you lock the car then?”
She thought back, lowered her head, then shook it slowly. “No. No, I was in a hurry to get up to Sandra’s to pick up Misty and—” Her head came up, eyes widening. “Misty! She’s alone, her and Myrt, at Sandra’s house.”
“I already called her, the minute I saw where your text came from,” he said. “Figured she should know you’d been in an accident. She was fine. I sent a uniform up to keep her posted, and I stayed on the phone with her until he arrived, just to make sure she wouldn’t panic. She’s safe. Worried about you, though.”
She nodded. “I should call her.”
“Yeah, we’ll get to that. So you stopped at Subway. And then what?”
She swallowed hard, her eyes meeting his. He felt her fear. Hated it, but felt every ounce of it. And that was a lot. She didn’t scare easily. She hadn’t been this scared even the last time a killer had stalked her.
“I glimpsed this masked face rising up behind me in the rearview. It was a split second before he grabbed me, and that gave me time to lurch to one side. I jerked the wheel. He jabbed me with a needle, and then the car was rolling. I hit my head and blacked out.”
“You keep saying he. Are you sure it was a man?”
She frowned hard at him. “It happened so fast I…I don’t know. I’m assuming.” She touched the cut on her forehead and winced. “How bad is it?”
“Not bad. You’re gonna be okay. What about the needle? Are you feeling any side effects?”
“I don’t think anything went into me. It barely broke the skin, and he never had the chance to depress the plunger. When I came around I pulled it out, and the plunger was still fully extended. I left it in the car. I managed to drop it into one of my shopping bags. I didn’t stick around long, though. I was afraid he was still in the car, so I climbed out the window and got up the hill as fast as I could.”
He knew that much. Had seen the bloody smears in the snow all the way down. “I don’t know if I could have made that climb without a head injury.”
“Sure you could.”
Another cruiser pulled to a stop, and Misty dove out, sprinting for the ambulance. “Aunt Rache!”
Rachel gripped his arm. “I don’t want her knowing what really happened. Tell the officers—”
“Aunt Rachel!” Misty climbed into the ambulance opposite Mason and hugged her aunt.
Mason gave her a nod and left the two of them arguing over whether or not Rachel was going to the hospital. He turned back. “I want you to go, Rache. Please.”
“It’ll take up my entire afternoon,” she said.
“You know what can happen with a blow to the head. Better than it taking up your entire life, right?”
* * *
I wanted out of that curtain-draped E.R. cubicle even more than I wanted the chocolate bar Misty brought me from the machine in the waiting room. But I took the chocolate anyway. I’d been in here for over an hour and apparently was now just waiting for someone to look at my CT scan before I could get the hell out of there.
“Mason went out to check on Myrtle,” Misty said as I bit into the Kit Kat bar and let it improve my mood. Slightly. It was after 2:00 p.m. The day was all but shot, and…okay, might as well admit it. I was afraid to go home. And I was afraid if I was here too long, it would be too late to hit the road out of town. And how was I
going to do that, anyway, with my new car currently lying on its side at the bottom of a ravine?
I was scared, I’ll admit it. And it pissed me off to be scared. “Myrt’s been cooped up in Mason’s car for entirely too long,” I said, because it was better than giving voice to my darker thoughts.
Misty started to say something just as my curtain whipped open, and a bald guy with glasses stepped in, carrying a clipboard and looking at it, not at me. “Ms. de Luca?”
“Present.”
That brought his eyeballs off the chart. “Okay, it looks like you’re going to be fine. You’ve got a mild concussion. That means—”
“I know what that means. Bruise on the brain. Could swell or bleed. I need to limit my activity for the next forty-eight hours and come back immediately if I have any odd symptoms, like a headache that doesn’t get better with Ibuprofen, dizziness, passing out, change in sleep patterns or sex drive, or—”
“Are you in the medical field, Ms. de Luca?”
“No, but my friend Siri’s a freakin’ genius.” I held up my smartphone. “Web MD,” I clarified.
He sighed and handed me the chart. “Read it, sign it and you’re out of here.”
“Thanks. How seriously do I need to take the ‘no strenuous activity’ thing? I’m about to leave on a ski trip.”
“I wouldn’t do any skiing for the first twenty-four hours. After that, if you feel all right, you should be fine.”
Nodding, I scratched my official signature, not the one I used for autographs—every author knew those two should be as different as possible unless you used a pseudonym. Then I said, “Sorry if I was bitchy. This really messed up my day.”
“I understand that. You’ll be happy to know that your blood work didn’t show—”
“Hold up a second, Doc.” I glanced at Misty. “Would you go see what’s taking Mason so long? I’m worried about Myrtle.”
She looked at me, then at the doctor, then at me again, and compressed her lips. “Okay.”
Once I was sure she was gone, I said, “She doesn’t know about the attacker in the backseat.”
Brown and de Luca Collection, Volume 1 Page 43