More whispers. They sounded as if they could be instructions, but Ed couldn’t be certain.
Their captor’s voice boomed. That same deep timbre that made the bars of the cage quiver. “Stand with your back to the bars. Slip your hands through the loops. Quickly.”
“Please… I’m sorry. I—”
“Do it.”
Sounds of movement. Then silence.
Ed listened. All he could hear was his blood thumping in his ears.
What was going to happen to Virginia? What had she done wrong? He thought of Marco with the grinning slit in his throat. The blood. The image came blasting too of Cardinali toppling off the stool to hang by his neck, jerking, choking.
Had their captor grown bored with Virginia?
Then he heard a sound. It was the swish of an object moving fast through the air.
Thwack.
A stick or a belt.
Swish.
Thwack!
“Uh! Please!”
Virginia pleaded with the invisible sadist. But still the beating went on. Swish. Thwack. Then Virginia’s sharp gasp. She panted. Moaned. Cried. Still the blows fell. A blistering snap of a weapon against soft flesh.
Later, when the lights came on, Ed saw Virginia lying facedown on the foam mattress. She was completely naked. Her hair fanned out across the floor where she’d thrown herself down.
Ed blinked.
Saw the injuries.
Saw a dozen or more cruel red lines that seemed to burn bright across the soft rising mounds of her bare buttocks.
She winced as she moved.
Gingerly raising her head, she looked at Ed. Her eyes brimmed. “When you get your chance, don’t hold back. You’ve got to hurt the bitch. Hurt her. Do you hear me?”
He nodded.
All he had to do now was wait.
It would happen soon. He knew that. Felt it in his bones. Endgame.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Cody thought: This is crazy. Who on earth is Grace following out there? He paused as he ran up the wooded incline. Maybe that’s it. Maybe Grace is crazy. The incident with the guy with the gun back in the parking lot might have sent her over the edge.
“Slow down, you big lummox,” Pix panted. “I can’t keep up with you.”
“You should have stayed in the pickup.”
“Yeah, and waited for the next oral-fixated weirdo to come ambling by? Think again, Cody, you simpleton.”
“Pix, shush.” He held his finger to his lips.
“What you mean shushing—”
“Ssh. Pix, I’m trying to listen for your sister.”
He stood for a moment, shining the flashlight ahead through the trees. Listening for the sound of footsteps. Where was Grace? She took off after the strange-looking gal like a missile. Now she was out in the woods alone. Hell… who knew what might happen to her out there?
This canyon was such an out-of-the-way place.
Might be bears?
Or Hell’s Angels ready for some fun?
Or backwoods boys who were bored of making pigs squeal?
Hell.
Might just get killed out there.
“Cody?”
“What?”
“I don’t like it out here. I wanna go back.”
“You should’ve stayed in the pickup.”
“I wanna stay with you.”
“Make your mind up, Pix.”
“I wanna stay in the pickup with you.”
“We’ve got to find your sister.” He scanned the forest. All he saw were boulders, tree trunks, and a glimpse of stars through the branches.
“Cody?”
“What is it now?”
“Will you hold my hand?”
“No.” He looked at her, startled by her suggestion.
“Please.” Suddenly shy-looking, almost demure, she held out her hand.
He shook his head. “Pix, just stick close behind. I think she went this way.” Without waiting for a reply, he struck off through the trees, shining the light in front of him. He was sure Grace had headed along the path. He walked quickly, not looking back.
He knew Pix followed.
Was positive about it.
Heard her whispering, “Please, Cody. Hold my hand… please… please…”
Grace hurried along the woodland path. It zigzagged down the hillside. She followed the figure that moved downhill in front of her. The figure had long red hair. It clutched something pale to its chest. Its arms and legs were very thin.
It was difficult to see clearly in this mixture of moonlight and shadow, but Grace was sure it was a woman. What’s more, the woman seemed to be clutching a baby.
But the stick-thin woman appeared odd. Seemed to move strangely. There was something about the gait. Something stiff-jointed.
And what would a woman be doing out here in a godforsaken canyon at two in the morning? She had to be in trouble. She might be on the run from a bullying, abusive boyfriend.
After what had happened tonight to Grace, after she had been forced into oral sex with the armed stranger, she was determined not to sit back and let innocent people suffer. The world couldn’t be such a cruel place. There had to be times when good people did the right thing—they had to help people in need.
She moved down the sharp incline at something like a run, catching hold of tree trunks to steady herself. Her feet raised puffs of dust that showed as white clouds in the moonlight. Sometimes branches caught at her clothes, her hair, but she surged on breaking free.
If she could break free of the memories of the past few hours.
Break free of that salt taste that still clung to her lips.
If she dedicated herself fully to helping the poor woman with the child, then maybe that would be enough to make her forget. Once she thought she heard Cody calling her name. Only there wasn’t time to stop. Once she’d caught up with the woman she could go back.
Grace saw herself in her mind’s eye leading the dazed (maybe even battered) woman and babe back to the pickup truck. Then they could drive her to a women’s refuge where she’d be safe from the abusive rat who’d made her flee in the middle of the night.
Grace was sure her imagined scenario about the woman was right.
Yet the woman did look strange. There was something about the round shape at the front of her head. It was almost skull-shaped.
Of course it has to be skull-shaped, you’re seeing her head, stupid.
But it’s more like a skull bereft of flesh…
No… that’s your imagination, she told herself panting as she ran down the hill. Imagination and a trick of the moonlight.
There goes a woman in trouble.
Your mission? To help.
You’re gonna do this. By saving her you’re gonna save yourself from those memories. Those dirty, corrosive memories of the… of the way he filled your mouth… how he pushed in so deep you thought you’d choke on his—
No.
She snapped off the thought.
Save the woman and her baby.
She ran harder through the near-darkness.
And ran straight into the arms of a phantom. They closed round her. A leering face with a twisted nose pressed hard against hers.
The phantom held her tight. Bony fingers pressed into her shoulders, seeking her throat.
Struggling, panting, she fought to free herself.
As she pushed herself away, a shaft of moonlight fell through the branches.
Her attacking phantom was a tree. Nothing more. The phantom’s arms were branches; its face marks in the bark where a branch had sheered off.
Stupid runaway imagination, she scolded herself. Stay focused.
Taking a deep breath, she found the path again. Scuff marks in the dirt showed that the woman had passed this way. But that was odd. Grace squatted down to look closer at the dry dirt. She saw something that made the hairs on her head stand on end. There was a footprint. But it was a bare footprint.
Could the woman
have walked all this way along the canyon without some kind of footwear?
Or perhaps she’d lost a shoe walking down the steep slope, and was too exhausted or too frightened to stop and put it back on?
This was getting stranger by the minute.
Grace hurried along the path. Soon she reached a break in the trees that afforded her a better view of the canyon ahead. In the distance she saw a lone house.
In the distance, she also glimpsed the slight figure of the woman. She seemed to be making for the house.
Okay… me too, Grace told herself.
CHAPTER FIFTY
“It’s not gonna work.”
“It is.”
“Not.”
Ed wished she’d shut up. They’d been on this subject for a long time. Too damn long. Damn pessimist.
He glared at Virginia.
“Don’t look at me like that, Ed Lake.”
“I’ll look at you how I damn well please.”
“Look,” she began. “It’s because we’re getting tense about the whole situation.”
“I’ll say we’re tense.”
“Eddie—”
“We’re locked up here in cages. We’re used as sex toys. We’re probably gonna be murdered.”
“Eddie—”
“We’re probably gonna wind up in a shallow grave out in the woods.”
“Eddie, you haven’t thought it through, you’re missing—”
“I haven’t. I’ve got the harpoon.” He brandished the stool leg. “I’m going to use it.” His face burned. “And another thing, don’t call me Eddie.”
“I thought you might like it.”
“I don’t. Eddie reminds me of some dog from a comedy show.”
“Okay, Edward…”
“Ed. Please.”
“Okay, Ed.”
“That’s better.”
“Sheesh.” She touched her forehead as if she’d lost her train of thought. “You’ve told me the plan. You impale the woman. The barb holds her in place. You have her trapped, right?”
“Right.”
“But that doesn’t get us out of these cages, does it?”
“But she’ll be no longer a threat.”
“And you’ve forgotten something else.”
“What?”
“We think there’s two of them.”
“Shit.” He slapped his forehead. Holy Christ, I’m an idiot. A gold-plated idiot.
“The one we’ve nicknamed the warder. What’s she going to do when she sees her partner squirming on top of that pole?” She fixed her green eyes on the stake in Ed’s hands. “She’ll probably get hold of a gun and… well, for you and me: Los Endos.”
“Holy Christ. I just didn’t think. Virginia, I’m an idiot. But I was so sure about this. I thought I saw a way out.”
Virginia looked him in the eye. “Ed. I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m just stressing that the end result might not be what you expect. But…”
“But?”
“But if you want to go ahead and do it, do it. Okay?”
“You mean at least nail one of the bitches?”
Virginia nodded. “And you never know, you might hurt the Sex Queen so bad that her friend panics and runs for it.”
“So we sit here then and starve.”
Virginia gave one of those little hops of her shoulder. “Can’t say that everything will turn out rosy for us. But you never know. We might get lucky. Sex Queen might have the keys to these padlocks. Then we’re free as birds.”
“So you’re with me on this?” Lightly he pressed the lethal point of the stake with his thumb. “Even though it might not work out one hundred percent?”
“Go for it, Ed. It’s getting so we’ve nothing left to lose.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
There is someone out there, April told herself with a growing sense of wonder. Someone’s coming through the trees toward the house.
Her years of blindness had developed in her an acute sense of hearing. She listened.
Heard the nighttime breeze running in hissing swirls along the canyon to play among the trees. Depending on her mood, it could be such a lonesome sound. Now it had become strangely thrilling.
It seemed to be whispering to April. “They’re here, they’re here, they’re here.”
Here is my savior.
Someone to banish loneliness.
She tilted her head to one side, feeling the breeze fingering her long hair. It stroked her neck, tugged lightly at the hem of her negligee, sending a delicious shiver up her thighs.
Concentrating now, she filtered the sounds.
The cry of a bird.
The breeze in the branches. The groan of a tree trunk. Rustling grass.
A whispering through the potted shrubs on the roof terrace, where she stood with her hands on the terrace wall that separated her from the twenty-foot drop to the driveway below.
She heard another sound too. Faint but distinct to her sensitive ears. A rhythmic scrunch, scrunch.
That was a pair of feet advancing along the gravel drive to the house. Even though very light, there was something purposeful about the stride. She lifted her hand to push back her hair from the side of her head. Turned it slightly, so she could hear more.
Sometimes she could even hear the respiration of the visitor. Occasionally she could even catch their scent too. But not tonight. The breeze was too strong. It would carry the visitor’s scent away down the canyon before it could reach April’s delicate nostrils.
She imagined what her caller would be like. From the lightness of step she pictured someone young and slightly built.
Even though she couldn’t imagine their looks, she knew one thing.
Her visitor would be beautiful. A divine spirit had brought them here to put an end to her loneliness.
The scrunch-scrunch of feet on gravel grew louder as they neared the house.
April Vallsarra waited. Almost here. Almost…
Then a moment later the footsteps stopped. There was no sound but the breeze in the trees, whispering, sighing.
Her caller—her savior—would be standing there below her in that magical radiance that sighted people called “moonlight.”
April waited. She was patient now. She sensed that her caller might be nervous or even afraid. She didn’t want to say anything that would frighten them away. Perhaps they’d spent days trying to pluck up courage to make this trip to the remote house in the middle of the night.
So, nice and easy does it.
Take your time.
Don’t rush.
Make them feel comfortable.
She smiled down in the direction of the figure, even though she could only guess at where they stood. But it must be close. She heard a crackle of stones beneath their feet when they shifted their balance.
Even so, they must be standing still. Gazing up at her. Perhaps tongue-tied.
A young man?
Shy, but quite beautiful.
Was he as lonely as she had been? Spending solitary nights praying for a companion? Another person to love and to be loved by?
Softly, April spoke. “Don’t worry. I can’t see you but I know you’re there.” She paused. “My name is April Vallsarra. Have you come here to see me?”
There was no reply. Her visitor was so shy as to be tongue-tied. She hoped they wouldn’t flee in a fit of nerves.
So she spoke reassuringly. “It’s a lovely night. I wish I could see the stars, but I guess you’ve already noticed. I’m blind. Can you describe the stars to me?”
No reply.
“Don’t worry. I can imagine them. I imagine them as little round cushions that are soft and warm to touch, if only one could touch them.” Her laugh came as a light trill. “That sounds absurd, I know. But I’ve never seen them, never seen anything, come to that, so when people try and describe what objects look like, I have to translate it in the only way I can. The sun I think of as being pointed to the touch and quite hard. The moon for me is soft
and cool. Stars are soft and warm and if one could touch them they’d tingle against your fingertips.” She smiled downward. “And I imagined as a girl if you listened hard enough, you could hear them singing… small, light voices that sang sweet rising harmonies. See?” She shrugged. “If something as profound as sight is missing from one’s life, it’s hard to replace it with a substitute.” She paused, thinking. “The same goes for love. If you don’t have someone to love in your life, you try to find substitutes. But they’re only clumsy facsimiles of the real thing, because there is no genuine substitute for real love.” She paused, suddenly feeling awkward. “See, there I go. You can tell when someone lives alone, they start talking too much. What about you, tell me about yourself?”
No reply.
“You can’t live that close. The nearest houses are three miles away. And I didn’t hear the sound of a car…”
Silence.
“Did you walk?”
Nothing.
“Then I guess it must be a nice night for a walk. Nice and cool now.”
Again a faint crackling, as if her caller shifted their center of balance on the gravel drive.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said gently. “You don’t have to talk. I understand.” She smiled. “It’s nice to have someone here. Believe me, incredibly nice.”
She felt the breeze stroke her bare shoulders. It pressed her negligee against her body. It felt like cool hands, gliding down her back.
Lovely sensations.
She shivered. A kind of thrilling shiver that made her tingle all over.
“We’ll talk here as long as you want,” she said. “Or if you wish you can come inside.”
Grace could see what was happening but couldn’t get through. Between her and the driveway to the house in the wood was a thicket of thorn bushes. She’d be torn to shreds if she tried to force a way in.
Instead, she would have to walk along the path for a further two hundred yards into the wood, then, she figured, double back somehow in order to bring herself to the entrance gates.
But she saw. What she did see didn’t make a lot of sense. Leastways, there was something strange about the scene.
In the moonlight, a good hundred yards or more away, stood the figure she’d been following.
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