“Go to the police!”
“He is the police, Amy.” In the mirror the SUV bounced out of the driveway, and the headlights glowed like devil eyes in the rain-darkened night. “You think they’re gonna believe us over him? He’ll say it was all a big misunderstanding.”
“Where are you going?”
Jim slowed enough to yank the steering wheel right and turn onto Crescent Road, a narrow secondary road that connected Valley to State Road 117. The wheels lost their traction on the wet asphalt, slid the tail end of the car to the left, but quickly regained traction and pushed the vehicle ahead. “Gonna try to lose him first.”
“Then what?”
Jim tossed her the phone. “Call someone.”
“Who?”
“Anyone!”
“The police?”
“No. Maybe Jake.”
Behind them the SUV made the same turn. Peevey was gaining on them already. The Toyota was a good car, reliable and responsive, but its two-wheel drive was no match for the SUV’s four on these rain-slick roads. And Peevey had been trained in the finer points of handling a vehicle at high speed. He would soon be upon them, and then Amy’s question would be there again: Then what?
“No bars,” Amy said.
“It’s this valley.”
Jim glanced in the mirror at Amy and Louisa. “Louisa, now’s a good time for praying.”
She said nothing, but the look on her face told him she was already sending petitions heavenward.
Crescent Road was not a route Jim normally took; in fact, it had been months since he’d last driven it. He wasn’t familiar with all the turns and bends, and with the rain muting the light of the headlamps, visibility was very poor. He had to slow or risk driving right off the shoulder. On either side the road was lined with grassy meadows that extended a hundred feet or so then butted up against wooded hills. But even as he slowed, the road turned sharply to the left and caught him by surprise. He stepped on the brake and the tires locked, but the car didn’t slow. The tail end drifted and caught the gravel on the road’s shoulder. From there things deteriorated quickly. Jim tried to straighten the vehicle’s front end by turning the wheel to the left, but the tires did not cooperate. Momentum pulled the car farther off the road and into the grass. The vehicle continued to spin and finally stopped facing the opposite direction, directly at the oncoming SUV.
Jim knew there was no getting back onto the road. The grass was knee high and wet, and the rain-soaked ground was soft. The tires would never gain traction
“Out! Out!” The SUV was closing the distance quickly. His only hope was to see Amy and Louisa off safely, and he’d stay and delay Peevey.
All three of them jumped out of the car.
“Head for the woods,” Jim told Amy. “Take Louisa and find help. I’ll stall him.”
“He’ll kill you,” Amy said.
“Just go. Go!”
She took off running, pulling Louisa beside her, just as Peevey and the SUV skidded to a stop.
Peevey exited the SUV like a man with one thing on his mind and rounded the front.
Jim looked back at Amy and Louisa—they were halfway to the woods—then faced the oncoming Peevey.
“What are you doing, Peevey?” he hollered.
When Peevey was within ten feet, Jim charged him. Peevey drew from his hip and had something in his hand that looked like a gun. He fired, but there was no muzzle flash, no gunshot.
In an instant the world went black, and every muscle in Jim’s body contracted, pulling him inward and tightening more and more, as if he’d been wrapped in a steel cord and drawn tight with a winch. And even as he tried fruitlessly to focus his mind, to make sense of what was happening, he lost all voluntary control and crumpled to the wet ground.
Chapter 51
SECONDS LATER—SECONDS that seemed to be hours, maybe days, where time stood still—the contraction stopped, and Jim’s body went flaccid. He lay on his side in the grass, the rain pattering on his face, his mind reeling, unable to move. Thoughts circled through his head, the drive in the car, the thunderstorm that had passed, the darkness of the sky, but one that kept looping through, passing like a painted horse on a carousel, was Amy and Louisa on the run for the woods. He tried to focus on that thought, to jump on the carousel and grab that horse, but it was always just out of reach.
Jim blinked rapidly. He could feel saliva slipping out of his mouth. He wasn’t sure if he’d lost control of his bladder or not. Peevey was close, he could sense him standing nearby, gloating.
Still uncertain what had happened, whether he’d been shot in the head or sprayed with some neurotoxin, Jim tried to move his arm and found he could. He lifted it to place his hand on the ground and discovered two thin wires attached to his shirt. And just when he realized what had happened, that he’d been Tasered, the jolt came again.
Thousands of volts ripped through his body, putting a firework display of lights and flashes in his head, drawing every muscle taut until he had no more control of his limbs and they curled inward like a squashed spider. Again the shock lasted only seconds, but the impact was profound. Jim’s muscles twitched and ached, his eyelids fluttered and lips quivered. His mind was in a fog with only vague outlines of thoughts visible. Amy and Louisa were there again, but he didn’t even know why. There was a great urgency, though, a needing. And he could do nothing about it. He would die here in the grass with the rain pelting him, soaking his clothes.
Before he could regain movement again, the hit came again and seized Jim in a paralyzing contracture. This time the pain was almost unbearable, and he could only think of death. Third time was the charm. He writhed in the grass until his muscles tightened to the point that they felt as though they’d rupture from their bony attachments. The jolt lasted longer this time, only a mere eternity, until it finally faded and left him limp and wasted. His brain stuttered on Amy’s name, like a bad television reception tuned to the wrong channel. The world around him was shrouded in profound darkness—such darkness that the first cohesive thought he formed was that he’d died and this was the afterlife, or some holding room before being escorted to the final judgment.
It wasn’t until he felt the rain again, cool on his skin, that he realized he was still alive and still on his side in the grass. Seconds passed, then what seemed like minutes, until he could move his eyes, his mouth, turn his head. Slowly, like the awakening of a butterfly from its cocoon-sleep, Jim regained motion and discovered his right wrist was handcuffed to his left ankle.
When Doug Miller steered his cruiser into the driveway of the Spencer home, the place looked quiet with sleeping occupants. Only one light was on in the front windows, one of them covered with thick plastic. The garage door was open and the garage empty, but Jim’s truck was in the driveway. He’d talked to Peevey and read his report, talked to Lorenzo also; he knew what had transpired at the home just hours ago, the hopped-up crowd, the brick tossing, the girl, Peevey.
After shutting off the engine, he climbed out of the car and walked up to the front porch, not sure if he wanted to knock and disturb the Spencers or not. Stepping up onto the porch, he reached for the doorknob expecting it to be locked but instead found it turned easily. He cracked the door and listened. The house was quiet, what would be expected if everyone was asleep in their beds. But something wasn’t right; he could sense it. Virginia Mills was a quaint town, and the Spencers lived in a fairly rural neighborhood outside of town, but no one left their garage door open and doors unlocked at night. Maybe thirty years ago they did, but not now. Of course, it could be that with all the excitement tonight they simply forgot about the door. But no matter how many excuses he gave himself, no matter how much he tried to talk himself out of this queer feeling, it remained, warning him, putting his police instinct on high alert. He’d been a cop long enough that he knew to trust that instinct, for it was right far more times than it wasn’t.
With the door already open a good foot, Doug knocked on it and said, �
��Hello?”
When no reply came, he pushed open the door the rest of the way and entered the house, half expecting to see the Spencers and little Louisa dead on the floor with more of the alphabet carved into their chests. But the living room was empty. As were the kitchen and dining room. In fact, after a quick search of the second floor he found the entire house empty, even the basement and garage. Odd. He knew the Spencers had two cars, and only Jim’s truck was in the driveway. Why would they go out at such a late hour? Even more odd was that there was no sign of forced entry, no sign of struggle. It was as if they’d gone out for a late-night snack and merely forgot to lock the front door.
Doug was about to conclude that his discovery at the office was just coincidence as he’d hoped, that the Spencers had possibly gone to sleep in a hotel for the night, not trusting the plastic on the front window to ward off any more visitors bent on stirring up trouble, and that his police instinct had been wrong, as unlikely (but possible) as that was, when his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the caller’s number.
Doug hit the talk button. “Chief Miller.”
“Derek Peevey’s in trouble.” It was a female, but he didn’t recognize her voice.
“Who is this?”
“He’s going to do something terrible.”
“How did you get this number?”
“The dispatcher gave it to me. It’s Alicia.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m . . . I was Derek’s girlfriend.”
Doug paused to collect his thoughts and make some sense of this conversation. “How do you know he’s in trouble?”
“I can’t tell you how I know, but I know. He’s going to try to kill someone.”
Goose bumps puckered the skin on Doug’s arms as if a sudden arctic wind had blown through the house. At any other time he would have dismissed such a bizarre call as a revengeful ploy of a disgruntled girlfriend. But not this time. Everything made sense: The fact that Peevey had had contact with every victim, whether it was arresting Billy Cousins or Buck Petrosky for disorderly conduct or pulling over Clint Efforts or Ron Harman for traffic violations. Lorenzo’s description of Peevey’s odd behavior after the girl brought him back. His volunteering to watch the house. The missing Spencers and their missing car. Doug’s instinct rang the high-alert bell.
“Okay,” he said, but he barely heard himself voice the words. “Stay where you are, you hear?”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Do you know anything else?”
The girl on the other end of the line hesitated; she seemed frightened, and why shouldn’t she be? “He’s a monster.”
“Do you know where he may have gone?”
“No.”
Then, as if he were putting together a complex puzzle and finally found the one piece he’d been missing, the answer found Doug. Of course. He should have seen it before, but there was no way he could have. Clenching his free fist, he said, “I do.”
Chapter 52
THE RAIN HAD slowed but continued to fall and soak Jim’s clothes through to the skin. Shivering now, he pulled himself over and onto his knees. Peevey’s SUV was gone. The Toyota was still there, but with no way to drive it he was stranded. He looked around, peering through the falling rain and into the darkness for any sign of Amy and Louisa. Jim had no idea how long the Taser’s multiple jolts had blanked his brain. It could have been minutes or even hours. He checked his wrist for the time, but he wasn’t wearing his watch. He had no memory of taking it off, but his brain was still operating in fits and starts, jumping from one line of thought to another, skipping tracks as easily as a hobo hops trains.
But one thought he kept landing on was what had happened to his wife and Louisa. Had they escaped into the woods and Peevey grown tired of looking for them? Had he captured them and taken them away? Had he killed them, and their bodies were now lying somewhere in the meadow, concealed by darkness and wild grass? If anything happened to them . . .
In a panic Jim turned in a complete circle and said his wife’s name. When no response came, he called it louder. There was no danger of Peevey hearing him. The evil cop with a fetish for Tasers was no doubt long gone. But still no reply came.
The more time that passed, the clearer Jim’s head grew, and the clearer it became, the more he feared the worst. He remembered his phone he’d taken from the kitchen and tossed in the Toyota’s center console cup holder. He could call for help. But who would he call? He didn’t know if he could trust the police. Either they were just as malevolent as Peevey, or they wouldn’t believe him anyway. Chief Miller seemed to be a good man, but Jim didn’t know him that well. Cops were professionals when it came to appearances, making you see them the way they wanted you to see them.
In a manner as awkward as a two-legged turtle, Jim crawled to the car and opened the door. The phone was right where he thought it would be. Slumped in the driver’s seat, he flipped it open—one bar, it had to be enough—and scrolled down through his contacts, dialed the number.
Three rings later: “Hello? Jake here.”
“Jake.” Jim choked out the name of his old friend. Tears of relief sprang to his eyes. At last something this evening had gone right. “They’re gone. I can’t find them.”
“Whoa, slow down there. Is this Jim?”
“Yes. They’re gone, Jake. I think he took them.” The words tumbled out of his mouth like blocks.
“Who, Jim? Amy and the girl? Who took them?”
“Peevey.” He almost shouted the name.
“Officer Peevey?”
“He’s not . . . he’s not who you think he is.”
There was a brief pause on the other end, long enough to cause Jim to panic. “Don’t hang up, Jake. Please.”
“I ain’t goin’ anywhere. I’m just tryin’ to figure out what you’re goin’ on about.”
“Peevey, he Tasered me then took them. I’m handcuffed here.” He strained at the cuffs, trying to slip his hand through it, but it was much too tight.
“But why, Jim? I ain’t followin’.”
“She knew. Oh, God, protect them.”
“She knew what?”
“That he was the one, the killer.”
“Jim, where are you?” Jake sounded exasperated.
“I’m . . . ” He couldn’t think where he was. There was a road just a few yards away, but his mind couldn’t recall which road. He’d come down Valley Road, he remembered that much. “I’m . . . off Valley Road, on, uh . . . God, please. Crescent.”
“Jim, you hold tight. I’m coming there. Okay? I know just where you are.”
“Just hurry. He’s got them.”
Jim clicked off the phone and, leaning against the steering wheel of the car, slipped it into his pocket. How would they ever find where Peevey had taken them? They could be anywhere. He shut his eyes. A prayer came easily then, a cry from his heart, pleading for the life of his wife and the girl he’d come to love.
Five minutes later he saw headlights approaching from the direction of Valley Road, only they weren’t the lights of Jake’s truck.
He was lying there in the grass. Like he was dead. Amy had walked right by Jim, and he had been soaked, so pale and motionless. She had no idea if Peevey had killed him or not. She and Louisa had almost made it to the edge of the woods when Peevey caught them. She tried to fight him, but he was much stronger and had threatened to shoot them. They didn’t stand a chance. And as he dragged both her and Louisa back to his SUV, she’d asked several times if he’d killed Jim, but he gave no reply. Her only hope—and prayer—was that Jim had somehow survived his confrontation and was even now looking for help.
But despite her best intentions, she doubted it. Why would Peevey let him live? He had no use for Jim.
Peevey had shoved them both into the SUV, her in the driver’s seat and Louisa in the back with him. He had held his handgun to Amy’s head and said, “Drive where I tell you to and nowhere else, or I’ll blow the kid’s brains to kingdom
come.”
Now, after driving several miles, she broke the silence.
“Did you kill my husband?” she asked.
“Shut up and drive.”
“Not ’til you tell me.” Her boldness surprised even her.
Peevey grabbed a handful of Amy’s hair and yanked her head back against the headrest. The cold steel of the gun’s barrel pressed against her skull. “Keep driving or I’ll blow your brains out, and then the girl will be all mine.” He put his mouth to her ear. “I’d like that.”
For the first time since fleeing the house, tears pushed behind Amy’s eyes, and her throat constricted. She couldn’t leave Louisa alone with this beast. She had to be strong. They both had to make it through this alive. She nodded and tightened her hands on the wheel.
Fifteen minutes later, the rain slowing to only a sprinkle, he directed her to pull onto a gravel lane and cut the headlights. The darkness was so thick, so shroud-like, she couldn’t see a thing beyond the glass of the SUV’s windows. And they’d taken so many turns getting here that she’d quickly become disoriented and had no idea where they were.
“I can’t see the lane,” she said.
“You can hear it, can’t you?” he said. “Feel the gravel under the tires? It’s a straight shot, just keep the wheel where it is.”
They came upon a slight rise in the terrain, and when it leveled, she saw in the near distance, maybe a hundred yards off, the dimly lit windows of a house.
Chapter 53
THE HEADLIGHTS GREW closer, and when they stopped along the side of the road, Jim noticed they belonged to a police cruiser. The door opened and cab lights blinked on. It was Miller. Jim tensed and his heart began to race. He was so vulnerable sitting in the car, his wrist handcuffed to his ankle. There was no way to defend himself. He was totally at Miller’s mercy.
Rain on the windshield blurred Jim’s view of Miller as he made his way through the tall grass to the car and rounded the front of it. He stopped by the passenger side door and bent over to look through the window.
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