Hunted (Reeve Leclaire 2)

by NORTON, CARLA

  Flint glances over his shoulder. “Why?”

  “You can’t leave it here.”

  It takes a minute for the men to work out the details. The man in the wool cap will meet him at the dock with the boat and they’ll exchange keys.

  Flint nods at the SUV. “You should paint it.”

  “You don’t need to tell me how to do my job.” The man holds Flint’s eye for a moment, then looks down the path toward the boat dock. “You’ll need to carry your gear down. There’s a flashlight in the backpack. It’s a little tricky in the dark.”

  “Like I said, I’ve been here before.”

  “Okay, I’ll meet you down there. Those pills will keep you awake, just pay attention and keep well clear of the islands. And remember, you gotta be gone by sunrise. And I mean plenty gone. Out to sea.”

  “So hurry up then, why don’t you?”

  The man gives Flint that sour look again. “Just don’t screw up,” he says, before climbing into his pickup and driving out the gate.

  SEVENTY-FIVE

  She listens to the other vehicle drive away, wondering what conversation was swallowed by the howling wind. Then the SUV door opens, and there’s a weight shift as Flint climbs back inside and slams the door.

  He drives forward, gravel crunching beneath the tires. It’s not long until the vehicle turns and comes to a halt.

  She takes deep breaths, feeling cramped and hot and feverish.

  He gets out and comes around to the back. The tailgate opens and cold air rushes in. The tightness loosens, the blanket comes off, and fresh air meets her nostrils.

  She squints into the glare of the dome light. He looks different without his beard; the stubble on his cheeks seems almost obscene.

  “Hello, my little cricket. Did you miss me?”

  His comes so close she smells the stink of his breath.

  “Sit up,” he says, and when she does, he grasps her ankles and pulls her roughly toward him. “Are you going to behave?”

  She nods, making a noise in her throat.

  “You’re not going to scream, are you?”

  She shakes her head, thinking she must do as he says and try to lull him into a false sense of security.

  “Okay, then.” He grips the back of her head in one hand. “No one can hear you, anyway. But no screaming. You know I don’t like that.”

  He rips the duct tape from her mouth in one fast move that makes her eyes water and sets her face burning. Then he looks at her closely, saying, “Mine again. How sweet is that?” and presses his lips hard against hers.

  Revulsion rises like bile in her throat.

  He quickly shifts his grip to the back of her neck and folds her forward so that he can stroke the scars on her back.

  Her gut twists but she tries not to respond.

  The next instant, he jerks her toward him and cuts the ties from her ankles, telling her to stand up and walk. Her boots find the ground, and an icy wind turns her skin to gooseflesh.

  “You cold?”

  She shivers and tries her voice. “Yes, c-cold.”

  “Hurry up then.”

  He grips her arm tightly, yanking her forward, and she stumbles along the walkway, scanning the moonlit surroundings, desperate to get her bearings. They’re heading toward a concrete building, a two-story box with a metal roof, hard edges, and narrow windows. Ugly as a bunker.

  “Where are we?” Her voice sounds small and weak.

  “Don’t worry about it. We’re safe and sound.”

  Grasping at an idea, she repeats it back to him, “Safe and sound, safe and sound, safe and sound.”

  He looks at her sharply, and she smiles in a way that she hopes is disarming. When he looks away, she stretches her fingers, wrenching against the ties toward his pocket, angling for the stun gun, but it stays out of reach.

  The building rises before them like a prison, gray and ominous. He ignores the metal front door and steers her around to the back, where the concrete is covered with dark moss.

  Her eyes dart left and right, searching for some means of escape, seeing only a ragged field rimmed with forest. “Where is this place?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re only staying here until the boat’s ready.”

  “B-boat?”

  “A boat for Plan C. Canada. Cricket. Three Cs.” He coughs a dry laugh and grips her arm tighter.

  A boat to Canada? The idea seems chillingly plausible. Puget Sound offers the perfect escape route to the sea. Her knees weaken as she pictures the FBI searching Nikki Keswick’s house for clues while Flint is loading her up and smuggling her out like small cargo.

  He forces her toward a metal staircase that zigzags upward. The cold wind whips around them. Clouds scud across the sky and the moonlight falters as they start to climb, their boots ringing on each metal step. She needs to stall, needs to distract him, but her teeth are chattering and she can’t form a single sentence.

  Panic rises in her chest as they climb higher into the blackness. They reach the landing, turn, and continue climbing. His grip on her arm is tight as a tourniquet.

  Another few steps and they’ve reached the top landing, which seems narrow and perilous as a diving platform. She looks down, suffering a rush of vertigo.

  Flint retrieves a ring of keys from his pocket.

  Hearing that fateful clink of keys, she’s again a child chained in the dark, and the horror of those years howls around her like the wind.

  He faces the door, releases her arm, and bends close to the lock, straining to find the keyhole in the dark.

  Her heart pounds, and in one fast desperate move she shifts her weight and swings her knee up, smashing it hard against his face.

  He grabs his nose and she turns to run but he seizes her hair and she falls, landing hard. He looms over her, but before he can strike, she kicks out, cracking the sole of her boot against his shin. He yelps, bending to grab his leg in pain, and she kicks again, catching his chin with the toe of her boot. He staggers backward as she jumps to her feet and leaps toward the stairs.

  Her boot soles beat out a staccato as they carry her down. She reaches the landing, hears Flint behind her, panics, and misses a step. She’s in the air, tumbling, and lands hard, but Flint is coming fast and there’s no time for pain.

  She scrambles awkwardly to her feet and runs across the open field, heading for the trees. She races blindly into the night, her hands still bound and her knees pumping. The ground is slick as ice, and her pale skin is like a beacon in the moonlight.

  She sets her sights on the dark perimeter, hears him gaining ground behind her, and runs faster. Her feet fly across the ground. The wind snaps and howls, the moon casts shadows that dance with menace.

  As she nears the trees, she glances back and nearly runs headlong into a fence.

  She stops, gasping, and looks back to see Flint charging on fast. A wail escapes her throat as she clumsily leaps onto the fence, using her bound hands together to shimmy up and over. She falls to the ground on the other side, where she jumps to her feet and runs on.

  The terrain turns rocky. She hears Flint scale the fence, thud to the ground, and come charging after her.

  She sprints through a clearing without looking back, then dodges through brush and trees, keeping to the shadows. Her heart hammers in her chest. Her lungs are on fire.

  The ground suddenly slopes and she’s hurtling downhill, slipping and sliding on wet leaves, trees flashing past. She hears Flint curse behind her, but doesn’t dare look back. She pushes herself to keep running, sucking air, desperate for somewhere to hide.

  She catches a toe and stumbles, but stays upright and keeps running.

  “Give it up,” he calls in a raspy voice. “You won’t make it far.”

  Gasping for breath, she escapes into the brush. Limbs snatch at her hair and scratch her skin. She hurries forward, crouching low until she finds a path.

  The moon disappears and the night deepens. She rushes forward, and then the ground abruptl
y stops and she nearly falls. She latches onto a sapling and teeters on the edge, her heart thudding as moonlight glitters on the water below.

  His voice rises from the darkness behind her. “You might as well give up. There’s no way across those rapids.”

  She inches away from the steep drop and hurries alongside, searching for a bridge, a log, any means of escape. The noise of the wind and the rushing water cover the sounds of her footfalls.

  She glances back to see Flint lurch out of the brush. He stands in the open, eyes shining, as she hunkers down beside a fallen tree, trying to catch her breath.

  “There’s no bridge, I’m telling you. There’s no way across. You might as well come out. I know this place, you don’t.”

  She hunches lower beside the dead tree, unseen but trapped, with nowhere to go.

  Flint steps closer, looking in all directions. “Come on out now. You know I’ll find you. You know it’s hopeless.”

  She backs closer to the edge and looks down at the fast water below. Dampness rises to her face, carrying the water’s fresh, metallic scent. The rapids have cut a deep gorge. How far is the drop? She peers down, calculating a jump, but sees only disaster. She cranes her neck, trying to see a way down the cliff face, but knows she couldn’t manage even with her hands free.

  Her mind reels as he looms closer. Wind gusts around them. The clouds part, moonlight cuts through the night, and a slice of brightness falls across her pale skin.

  He spots her instantly and smiles, showing his foul teeth. “There you are.” He closes the distance. “I knew you’d come back to me. I knew you couldn’t resist. I knew, I knew, I knew.”

  Panic knots in her throat.

  “We’ll start all over again in Canada,” he says. “There’s a place up there, all set up, all part of the plan, you’ll see.”

  She backs away from him, trembling as he lifts the stun gun from his pocket and holds it high.

  “Don’t make me use this,” he warns.

  “Y-you don’t want to do that.”

  “No? Because you’re going to behave?”

  She watches his hands. “You won’t want to carry me. It’s a long way back.”

  He glances over his shoulder. “Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have to carry you, because once this thing wears off”—he says, waving the stun gun—“you can walk, can’t you? I’ll just wait. I’m awful good at waiting.” He smiles and takes a step closer. “I waited a long time to get you. You don’t know how long.”

  “W-what do you mean?” she asks, desperate to keep him talking while she casts around for a stick, a rock, any kind of weapon.

  “The first time I saw you, you were with your sister.”

  She freezes. “With Rachel?”

  “Yeah, we were after her at first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Wertz liked her. And we almost got her, too, one night.”

  She fixes her eyes on his and a white-hot hate combusts inside her.

  “But once I saw you, I knew you were the one I had to have,” he says, coming closer. “So then it was just a question of waiting until I had my chance. I told you, I’m good at waiting.”

  Her focus narrows until nothing exists beyond the darkness between them.

  He lunges at her but she sidesteps, seizing his wrist with her bound hands, wrestling with him, hooking a heel behind his ankle and frantically trying to swipe him off his feet.

  He laughs, his breath hot on her face, and suddenly she’s thrown flat on her back beside the tree.

  “You shouldn’t have done that,” he says, raising the stun gun. It crackles and sparks as he jabs it at her, but she rolls onto her stomach, seizes a tree root, and swings away.

  She dangles over the edge for a split second before the root slips through her hands and she falls, landing on the rocky shore with a bone-splitting jolt that sends stars bursting behind her eyes.

  Flint stomps and swears on the outcropping above. She tastes blood, but stays immobile. He shouts at her to get up, but she concentrates on keeping still. He rants that she has ruined everything, cursing and fuming while the frigid water soaks her clothes. The rocks are like ice beneath her, but she doesn’t move.

  At last his voice falls silent. She waits a long while, playing dead until she’s certain that he’s gone. Then she painfully gets to her feet and staggers upright. It hurts to breathe. She fingers a painful knot below her left breast, fearing a broken rib.

  Clouds churn overhead as she stands ankle-deep in fast water, shuddering with cold and fear and looking all around. Flint seems to lurk in every shadow, but she shakes herself and heads downstream.

  She stumbles and falls, stumbles and falls, cracking a knee this time, bruising an arm the next. She moves along the shore until it becomes impassible, then pushes herself to wade in and out of the freezing stream, slipping on the rocky bottom.

  The elements—water, wind, stones—are her only company, save for a fat slice of moon that winks through the trees overhead. The water speaks ceaselessly, now murmuring comfort, now urging her forward, now daring her to chance a stretch of rapids. She wades through them with a dogged mindlessness.

  The wind is brisk and sucks all remaining warmth from her body. Her sodden boots make every step an effort, and she scarcely realizes that she’s limping.

  She trips over a branch, pitching forward, landing heavily on hands and knees. Tears flood her eyes as she rests there, panting like an animal on all fours.

  As she starts to rise, a searing pain shoots down her side. A jagged rib can puncture a lung, tear flesh, cause internal bleeding, but these thoughts merely flit through her mind. She gets to her feet and trudges on, dazed and unthinking. She keeps looking behind her, but Flint does not reappear.

  How long has she been walking? It feels like hours.

  The trees gradually thin and the landscape opens before her. The creek bed widens and the water grows shallow, burbling over the rocks. The moon reappears, and the rushing stream glitters like tumbling diamonds. Up ahead, the stream spills into a large expanse of water. Puget Sound.

  She’s approaching the shoreline when a dog barks in the distance.

  Reeve snaps to attention. She searches for lights, a roofline, but sees nothing beyond trees and darkness. She’s listening, waiting, hoping the dog will bark again so that she can get a fix on its location, when a sound behind her makes her heart jump.

  She whirls around to see a figure with a flashlight.

  She stares hard, recognizing Flint’s gait. He is coming downhill, yards away. Reeve is exposed. She goes rigid with fear, comprehending that her long hike downstream has done nothing but circle around, returning her to danger.

  SEVENTY-SIX

  Daryl Wayne Flint aims his flashlight down the path and shoulders the backpack, which reminds him of college and makes him feel young. He’s buzzing with the pills, having taken two already, and feels a pleasant surge of confidence. Everything can begin again in Canada. And everything is going as planned, except for the major aggravation of losing the girl. A damn waste. All that work he put into her . . .

  He’ll have to start over with a new one once he gets set up. Young skin, a blank slate.

  He steps onto the wooden boat dock, and his boots make a loud, pleasant sound with every step. He stops beside the boat and taps his toe three times before stepping aboard.

  Setting the backpack on the captain’s seat, he takes a look around, getting reacquainted with the boat. It’s a good-sized fishing boat, thirty feet, not too old. He sets down his flashlight and switches on a light.

  Down below, a cabin runs all the way forward. A musty odor rises off the old mattress. There’s a sink filled with dirty dishes, a cushioned bench, a head. The basics.

  He climbs three steps back to the helm, puts the key in the ignition, and scans the familiar controls. Turning around, he notices that Wertz has replaced the old outboards with new 225 horsepower Yamahas. Sweet. To clear the fumes before switching on the engines, he
switches on the blower and decides to leave it running while he heads back uphill to get the rest of his gear.

  Reeve sees Flint’s flashlight aiming back toward shore and drops into a crouch.

  The dog barks again, somewhere behind her, and she holds her breath, afraid that Flint will turn toward it and see her. But he doesn’t seem to hear the dog and continues uphill. She doesn’t move as the flickering glow of his flashlight disappears through the trees, where she can just make out the roofline of the house.

  Her eyes return to the boat. Flint has left a light on, which glows a dim yellow. Which means he’ll be back. Soon. And then he’ll launch his escape to Canada.

  Behind her, the dog barks again.

  She turns toward the sound, filled with longing. She pictures a warm house, a phone. She searches the dark hillsides, but there’s no welcoming porch light, no happy pooch bounding toward her.

  She turns back toward the boat’s yellow glow, and suddenly hears her own voice: “If I can stop him, I have to try.”

  The words fill her with despair.

  Milo Bender.

  Nikki Keswick.

  The dog barks again, as if calling to her. She looks in its direction for a long moment before turning her back.

  The anguishing truth is that she has no choice. Because she’s certain that Flint will never stop. He will catch another girl and etch himself into her skin. And she’s certain that her nightmares will never cease, that her life will never be her own, as long as Daryl Wayne Flint runs free.

  It takes all her resolve to put one foot in front of the other and walk toward the boat. Her legs are rubber and her feet are leaden. Driftwood litters the shore. She stumbles forward, intent on getting aboard the boat before Flint sees her, praying that she can find some means to stop him.

  She has no plan as she steps onto the wooden dock. She moves with little stealth, limping along, repeatedly looking over her shoulder to check for the flicker of his flashlight.

  Every nerve burns with cold. She’s exhausted, and the closer she gets to the boat, the weaker she feels. But now there’s no going back.