by Cynthia Eden
I learned how to save myself.
“Dammit, Dean, I thought this was what you wanted! I know what he did to you. This is your chance for payback. Ricker is in the city. We have solid leads. The FBI is closing in.”
Yes, once, he had wanted this. He’d wanted to see Ricker tossed in a cage and locked away for the rest of his miserable life.
But . . .
His hands fisted at his sides. “I want her more.”
And that was all there was to say.
SHE HURT.
Groaning, Emma opened her eyes, but there was only darkness around her. A thick, complete darkness.
Pain rolled through her in waves so intense, she thought her head was going to explode. She lifted her hand, and when she touched the left side of her head, she felt the sticky wetness of blood.
“Dammit,” she whispered. She was kind of foggy on a few things . . . like where the hell she was, but she remembered being in the cemetery. Trying to get out of the cemetery. But she hadn’t made it out because someone had caught her.
She probed the wound at her head and hissed out a pain-filled breath. Yeah, someone had definitely caught her.
Her hand moved away from her wound. She was lying down, so she needed to get up and figure out where she was.
Emma sat up, moving slowly, and her head hit something before she’d even lifted more than a few inches.
“What the hell?” Now her hands were up. Patting the area around her. Something hard was right above her. Like . . . stone.
Her breath heaved out faster. Her hand flew to her left side. Touched more rough, hard stone.
Emma knew she was lying on the stone, she could feel it beneath her, and, with fear knifing through her, she reached out to her right—
But she didn’t touch stone then. She touched a soft cloth. She reached over a bit more. The fabric was around something. Something long and hard. Something that curved a bit in places. Fumbling in the dark, now both of her hands were flying over this new discovery. She reached out, touching blindly and felt—
Oh, God.
There were sharp edges beneath her fingers. When she moved her hand, she could have sworn that she was touching . . . teeth. Because there were several of them, very distinct, as if—as if she was touching a person’s open mouth.
Long and hard. Fabric . . . fabric wrapped around . . . bones?
And my hand, my hand is in a mouth?
Emma screamed then, as loud as she could. She screamed because terror was clawing right through her.
Stone was all around her. A skeleton was beside her.
She’d been trying to get out of the cemetery, but the killer had caught her. She hadn’t escaped, not at all.
He’d put her in one of the tombs and locked her inside with the dead.
THE BAR WASN’T empty this time. There weren’t just two motorcycles in front of the place—there were easily twenty. Music pumped, filling the air, and bodies spilled outside the place.
Dean pushed his way through the crowd. A glance to the left showed a half-naked woman sliding up and down the stripper pole. A group of men were cheering her on.
To the right, he saw Carlos standing near a door marked “Private.” Carlos had his arms crossed over his chest, and the fierce look on his face said he’d take no shit from anyone.
Good, cause Dean wasn’t in the mood for shit.
He marched right toward Carlos. The guy saw him coming and stiffened.
“Where is he?” Dean demanded.
Carlos cast a quick glance toward that closed door. “He’s in a meeting right now.”
“I need to talk to him.” Because if Emma hadn’t come to that guy, then Dean didn’t know where she could have gone.
Unless Ricker has her.
He slammed the door shut on that thought.
Dean had already wasted hours searching at the cemetery. Night had fallen, and he’d turned to this place—Emma’s old haunt—hoping to find her.
Carlos put his hand on Dean’s chest, blocking him from advancing. “You don’t want to go in there now, amigo. Just sit at the bar. I’ll send him to you soon.”
“I don’t have time to waste.” Not when it came to Emma. “I’m looking for Emma.”
And then . . . he saw it. The faint widening of the guy’s pupils. A quick, guilty glance toward the closed door.
A dead giveaway.
She’s in there.
“Move the hand,” Dean ordered.
“You don’t want to go in there—”
Too late, because Dean had already kicked in the door. The sight before him had Dean snarling and leaping forward.
A woman with long, dark hair leaned over Jax. She was naked from the waist up, and that hair—shit— “Emma!”
The woman laughed even as Jax swore.
Her laugh had Dean stumbling to a stop because . . . that wasn’t Emma’s laugh.
“We’ll be done soon,” she said, and she glanced back at him. Her face was similar to Emma’s, but . . . rounder. And her eyes were smaller. A warm brown shade instead of Emma’s brilliant blue. “But not . . . too soon.”
Dean had to shake his head. This had better not be what the fuck it looked like.
It looks like the asshole gets off on screwing women who look like Emma.
“What the hell do you want?” Jax demanded. He still had his arms around the woman who was very much not Emma. “I’m busy.”
“I’m looking for Emma.”
Jax narrowed his eyes on Dean. “She’s not here. Obvious-the-fuck-ly. Last time I saw Em, she was running out of here with you.”
Dean whirled away and started pushing his way back through that crowd.
“Wait!”
No time for that. Emma isn’t here.
He shoved the bar’s door open and headed back outside. The moon was rising, a full moon that made the dark sky look all the more ominous. His heart was racing too fast and hard in his chest, and the uncomfortable knot in his chest—yeah, Dean knew that knot was fear.
Did you vanish on your own, Emma? Or did he take you?
Had Ricker been watching Emma’s apartment? If he had, the guy could have followed her and Kevin to the cemetery. When Emma broke away from the FBI agent, Ricker could have seized his chance to take her.
“Stop, dammit!” Jax’s voice blasted him about two seconds before the guy grabbed Dean’s arm and spun him around. “Where is Emma?”
“If I knew,” Dean threw back, “would I have come to you?”
Jax’s eyes shot pure fury at Dean. “I thought you were keeping her safe.”
“The FBI took her into protective custody.” He should have stopped them. He never should have let her out of his sight.
Dean had worried about his control. He’d worried that Emma pushed him too close to the limits of that control.
He’d been wrong. Without Emma . . . hell, he had no self-control. With every moment that passed, his fear grew worse. His fear and his rage, and they were mixing in a deadly combination because he couldn’t stop imagining her out there, hurting.
Being hurt.
Tortured.
While he did nothing to help her.
“If the FBI has her—”
“They don’t.” He rolled back his shoulders, but that did nothing to relieve the tension racing through him. “She gave the agent the slip in the St. Louis Cemetery. That was hours ago. Unless you’re lying to me”—and he actually wanted the guy to be lying—“then no one has seen or heard from her since then.”
Jax’s face hardened. “You think that bastard hunting out there—you think he took her?”
Yes.
“What can I do?”
Dean shook his head. He didn’t think he’d heard right—
“What? You think you’re the only one she’s ever gotten to? What. Can. I. Do?”
Dean swallowed. “We need to check with other friends she has in the area. See if she’s contacted any of them. See if she’s hiding with them.”
“Emm
a doesn’t have other friends. Just Lisa.”
And she’d lost her.
“I already called the crystal-shop owner,” Dean said. “She hadn’t heard from Emma.”
Carlos was walking up behind Jax. The guy’s expression was grim, and Dean could see the worry in his eyes.
“You know Emma’s old hangouts,” Dean said. “Maybe . . . if she’s running, she could be looking for someplace familiar. Maybe she’s just pissed at me and trying to run to somewhere that makes her feel safe.”
“Emma doesn’t have places like that.”
Yes, she did. Her apartment. Or she had felt safe there—before that bastard came in and wrecked the place. But Dean had tried to fix it all for her. Only Emma hadn’t gotten to enjoy her home, not before the FBI had swooped in.
“I don’t know that Emma has ever felt safe.” Jax looked down at his hands. “She sure didn’t with me.” When his hands clenched, the tattoos across the backs of his fingers seemed to darken even more. “But I’ll send out my people. They’ll hit every damn place I can remember her staying.”
Dean nodded. “Thank you.” Later, later he’d punch the guy’s face in for that shit he’d seen in the back room. The fixation on Emma has got to go.
But right then, he needed Jax’s help.
He needed all the freaking help he could get.
NO ONE COULD hear her screams. That was obvious. She’d screamed until her throat hurt, and no one had come to help her.
Screaming wasn’t helping. And . . . what if she only had a limited amount of air?
Emma was already close to hyperventilating as she lay trapped in the stone coffin—is that what this is? Some kind of stone coffin? It feels that way. She’d shoved up with her hands again and again, but she couldn’t get the stone above her to move.
Emma tried to hold her body totally still. The sound of her breathing was far too labored around her. She had to calm down. She had to think.
Then she felt it. When she was totally still. The faintest stir of air near her left thigh. Emma reached down, slowly, tentatively. Her hand touched the stone and . . . the hole there. One that she could poke her fingers through.
She might have sobbed then. A hole meant air, right? She wasn’t going to suffocate.
Of course, you’re not going to suffocate. Ricker has you. And Agent Cormack said that Ricker keeps his victims alive. He tortures them.
She didn’t want to be tortured. Emma didn’t want to die. And Emma knew that if she didn’t get out of that prison, she would die. Because Ricker had stashed her there, no doubt because too many tourists had been around. He’d thrown her in that tomb, and he’d left her . . . until he could come back. Probably in the middle of the night, when he thought no one would see him. He’d come back for her then. He’d take her away. Then the real hell would begin.
Her fingers fumbled in the hole again. He’d put her in that prison, so that meant there had to be a way out. She just had to find it. And she wasn’t going to find it by panicking.
Emma pulled her hand back up. She shoved aside the skeleton. Don’t think about it! Don’t!
Then she tried to twist her body. Pushing with her arms hadn’t helped, but she did some kickboxing at least twice a week. A girl had to stay in shape.
Emma lifted up her legs. She braced them against the stone over her head.
She shoved.
And not a damn thing happened.
So she shoved harder. With her hands. With her legs. She pushed on that stone.
And not a damn thing happened.
She screamed, but this time, the sound was filled more with fury than fear.
DEAN WAS BACK at the cemetery. The place was supposed to be closed for the night, but screw that shit. The cemetery was pretty much his only link to Emma. He was going to search that place. Again and again, because he would find her.
“Dean.”
That was Sarah’s voice. He wasn’t particularly surprised to find that she’d tracked him. But when he glanced over, he saw she wasn’t alone. Victoria was with her. Wade was there. And, hell, even Gabe Spencer was there.
He hadn’t realized the LOST boss was in town.
“What can we do?” Gabe said simply.
Dean pointed to the cemetery. The gates were barred to them, but they’d just jump over those gates. “This is where Kevin saw her last.”
And that was what the LOST team did. They retraced the steps of the missing. They searched. They found. They had to view Emma just as they viewed the others.
Someone they would find.
The cops weren’t looking for Emma. The FBI wasn’t looking. They thought she’d run away.
They also had believed that Julia had run away until the LOST team had found her.
“Ricker could have already taken her away,” Sarah said as she turned on the flashlight she held, “but we can look for clues. There are always signs left behind.”
The others turned on their lights. They’d all come prepared.
Dean glanced down at the flashlight in his hand. He didn’t know what the fuck was happening to him. All he could think about was Emma. Getting her back.
Was this what it had been like for Gabe? He knew the other man had lost his sister. Amy had been taken from him, and Gabe had moved heaven and earth to find her when the cops had given up.
But Gabe had found her too late. He’d only recovered Amy’s body.
Gabe’s hand slapped down on Dean’s shoulder. “You know Ricker doesn’t kill his victims right away.”
“He killed Lisa Nyle right away.” And that hadn’t fit. Not with the way Ricker worked. Or had worked. “He’s changed.” That change was obvious to Dean, and when he saw Sarah nod, he realized that she thought the same thing, too. They weren’t facing the same killer. Ricker had evolved, transformed into something else.
“You have to keep hope,” Gabe said. “Sometimes, it’s the only thing you have.”
And when you lost hope, what then?
The team moved forward. The locked gate was no impediment to them. In moments, they were inside the cemetery. Their lights swept over the area.
“Maybe he kept her here,” Sarah said as she walked ahead of the group. Already thinking like a killer, that was Sarah. “He wouldn’t have been able to drag her out, not in the middle of the day. This place would have been tourist central then.”
Dean had thought the same thing. That was why he’d gone back and checked there first, only he’d turned up nothing.
Then he heard voices. Low. Muttering. Adrenaline spiked through him, and he shot forward. His light bobbed as he raced into the darkness, and—
Candles. Dozens of them. They surrounded a tomb that was etched with red Xs. About five people were kneeling in front of that tomb, whispering still and ignoring Dean completely.
“Marie Laveau,” Victoria said as she huffed to a stop behind Dean. “I heard her tomb was here though I’m not sure if the lady herself is actually buried there.” Her light swept over the scene. “I think a lot of these old tombs are actually empty.”
And that was it. He caught her hand in his. “Which ones?”
“Uh . . .”
“We need to figure out which ones are empty.” Because if you were going to stash someone, wouldn’t you put her in a place that wouldn’t be visited by folks? A place that was empty?
“I-I don’t know which ones are empty. I just . . . remember reading that online someplace.” Victoria’s voice was weak. “I’m sorry.”
“We should look for older tombs,” Sarah said, obviously catching Dean’s suspicions. “Ones that haven’t been kept up. Broken doors. Broken windows. Families would make repairs to places like that. Ones that have just fallen . . . well, those are the ones that might be empty. If no one is inside, then there is no family to care what the place looks like.”
Now they were getting someplace.
“Wade, you come with me,” Sarah said. “Dean, you and Victoria and Gabe can search one-half of the cemetery,
and we’ll take the other half. We can cover more ground that way.”
The people in front of Marie Laveau’s tomb were still muttering. Dean thought he saw one man push a coin forward, sending it near the base of the crypt. He reached out and touched the man’s shoulder.
The guy whirled toward him.
Dean’s flashlight hit the fellow’s face. A college-aged kid, from the looks of him, with short, red hair and eyes that currently looked terrified.
“Have you all seen anyone else out here tonight?” Dean demanded.
The guy shook his head.
“Heard anything? Maybe from one of the crypts?”
The redhead laughed then. “Are you kidding me, man?”
Dean kept the light on him. The guy’s laughter slowly faded away. “N-no, we haven’t heard anyone.”
Dean pushed him away.
The other LOST members were waiting for Dean. He knew he had to get a grip. He had to get the job done. Emma was out there, and she was counting on him. He couldn’t let her down. Not again. He felt like he’d already failed her once before.
Not this time.
Old crypts. Broken doors. Broken windows. They’d search all night long. If she was there, they would find her. He wasn’t going to give up on Emma.
“Let’s do this.”
And they got to work.
Dean knew the law. They all did. They couldn’t just break into sealed tombs. But tombs with doors open . . . with windows that gave them access so their flashlights could sweep inside and look for Emma, hell yes, those places were all fair game.
He searched. His gaze swept into dark crevices, into tombs covered by dust and time. He called for Emma. They all did. Their calls seemed to echo around him as he kept looking for her.
Emma had to be close.
At least, he hoped she was.
If Ricker had already taken Emma away . . .
IN THE MOVIES, people were always strong enough to get out of buried coffins. They were clever enough to escape from any prison or trap that the bad guy set up for them.
She wasn’t in the movies.
And no matter how hard Emma strained, she couldn’t get the stone to move. She was trapped there, with the skeleton. A prisoner, for however long that bastard Ricker wanted to keep her there.
Tears were on her cheeks. Her voice was hoarse from crying out. Since she’d found that small space for air, she’d been screaming again. If air could get in, then her voice could get out, right? Only . . . maybe there was no one out there to hear her screams. If night had fallen, the cemetery could be empty.