Into The Night (Killer Instinct)

by Cynthia Eden

  “Jonah, I’ll call the rest of the team.” He didn’t mention anything about the team’s growing suspicions or what they’d found at Jonah’s home. “You’re at the ranger station with Zack Douglas, right? That’s what you said?”

  “Y-yes...”

  “Stay there. We’re coming to get you.”

  Macey was at the foot of the bed.

  Jonah had hung up.

  “What’s happening?” she demanded.

  “Jonah’s at Ranger Douglas’s station. He wants help.” He dialed Samantha and, despite the insane hour, she answered on the second ring. “Samantha, Jonah just called.” And he rattled off the details as fast as he could.

  His gut was clenched, his hand too tight around the phone, and he still wondered...

  What the fuck is really going on here?

  “Tucker and I will get a team from the PD and get en route,” Samantha said, her voice sharp. “You and Macey get there, too. I want all hands on deck for this one.” Her words were grim. Tight. “I don’t like this... Be on guard...every moment, got me?”

  He understood exactly what she meant.

  He and Macey had mistaken Curtis Zale for a victim. But he hadn’t been. As for Jonah...

  “Understood,” Bowen replied quietly. Then he was jumping from the bed and grabbing his clothes as quickly as he could. Macey had already dressed and gotten her gun from the other room. They hauled ass out of that lodge and jumped into the SUV. It was dark outside, but a thousand stars seemed to glitter overhead.

  They rushed down the winding roads, heading for the mountains, easing toward the ranger station, and Bowen’s hands were fisted around the wheel as he tried to navigate those tight, twisting roads in the dark.

  “Victim or killer?” The words burst from him.

  Macey had gone dead silent.

  “He called for help,” Bowen said, “but everything we’ve learned since Jonah’s disappearance... Damn it! Damn it!” Everything makes him look like a suspect and not one of our own.

  “We go in and we treat him as both.” Macey’s voice was soft. “Victim and killer, that’s what we have to do, until we learn more.”

  The road branched up ahead. It was so dark that he almost missed the right turn. He slammed on the brake and jerked the wheel, and then they started heading up, up the mountain. Reflectors were on the side of the road, warning of a steep drop-off as they glinted on an old guardrail. It was barely a two-lane road. More like just one, and he was damn glad no other cars were headed his way. His headlights cut through the darkness.

  Higher, higher they went. He could feel his ears popping.

  The earth seemed to have fallen away on the right...on Macey’s side of the car.

  It was the only path to take in order to reach the ranger’s station. It was—

  He heard the growl of an engine, and then bright lights were suddenly right in front of him. He could see the frame of an oversize truck, one with tires that were too big and headlights mounted on the roof of the vehicle. That truck came right for him, swerving to hit him.

  “Bowen!” Macey screamed.

  But there wasn’t any time to stop. There was nowhere to turn, the road was too narrow, and that truck...it was as if it had been waiting for them.

  The truck slammed into him, as hard as it could, and Bowen’s SUV flew toward the reflectors—the reflectors that had warned of danger, the weak guardrail that wouldn’t keep them safe.

  The SUV crashed right through that flimsy old railing.

  His head turned, not toward that fucking truck, but toward Macey. She’d screamed his name. She’d sounded so afraid. He tried to reach for her.

  But the SUV was rolling, tumbling down that mountain, over and over and the screams he heard then...they were the screams of metal as the SUV crashed.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE LIGHT WAS in her eyes, blinding her. Macey couldn’t see past that too bright light. She squinted, trying to see the man behind the light, because she knew he was there.

  The monster was always there.

  She was trapped, strapped onto the operating room table—

  No, no, I’m not fucking on that table.

  Macey blinked, but the bright light didn’t vanish. She was trapped, all right, but not on Daniel Haddox’s table of torture. She was pinned in the SUV, still held in place by her seat belt. Her door had twisted inward and metal seemed to surround her. Broken glass was on her clothes, in her hair, and she could feel blood sliding down her cheek.

  The light was still in her eyes. She squinted, trying to see past it.

  “Macey, you’re going to be all right!”

  She knew that voice.

  “Oh, God, Douglas, hurry the hell up!” that familiar voice shouted. “She’s still alive but, God, he isn’t.”

  That was Jonah’s voice. High and desperate. Shouting out for help from—Ranger Douglas?

  But then his words registered.

  She’s still alive but, God, he isn’t.

  Her head turned to the left. The light pouring into the car let her see Bowen. Bowen—with blood all over him. Bowen, with a deployed air bag slowly sagging beneath him. A giant chunk of metal hung from his chest.

  “Bowen?” Macey whispered.

  He didn’t move. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing.

  “Bowen!” Frantic, she began clawing at her seat belt. It wouldn’t give. She was trapped, strapped down. Her arms were bleeding from a dozen cuts, the metal from her bent door dug into her side and she couldn’t get free to help Bowen. He was right there, inches away, and all she could do was put her hands on his face. “Look at me!”

  But he didn’t. His eyes didn’t open. And he felt...cold.

  “Macey!” Jonah’s voice snapped like a whip. “I’ve got to get you out of that vehicle. It’s not stable. The fucking thing could keep rolling any moment.”

  What? Weren’t they already at the bottom of the mountain? She wasn’t sure. Her temple ached, and she knew she’d hit her head. A deployed air bag was near her, too, but it had slit open in several spots.

  “A tree stopped your free fall, but the trunk is already cracking. You have to get out!” Then a knife was reaching through her broken window.

  Macey screamed.

  But the knife just cut through her seat belt.

  Had he used the knife to cut into the air bag, too? Was that why it was flat now? Or had the chunks of sharp metal done that?

  “I’m pulling her out!” Jonah suddenly yelled. “Douglas, get your ass over here! We’ll haul her to safety, then we’ll get Bowen.”

  Yes, yes, they had to get Bowen. She was still touching Bowen. Now that her seat belt was gone, she could move more and her fumbling fingers slid down his throat. She felt his pulse—

  Beating. Slowly, but still beating.

  Bowen was alive!

  “Got you,” Jonah said. His arms curled around her and he hauled her from the wreckage. The metal scraped over her hip and she felt the rise of more blood soak her clothes. His hold was tight as he got her out, and then he still held her in his arms, hurrying for safety as he called out to Douglas for help.

  Only... Douglas wasn’t there.

  It took a few moments for that unsettling truth to set in.

  “I saved you,” Jonah said. He lowered Macey to her feet. The bright light was gone. He must have dropped it or shoved it into his pocket when he’d pulled her out. “You’re going to be okay.”

  She didn’t speak for a moment, straining to hear—to hear some small sound that would tell her that Zack Douglas was actually there.

  “You left your weapon in the car, Macey.”

  Her hand flew to her side.

  “Or rather, I cut the holster off you. Didn’t even see that coming, did you?” He backed up a step and the light was shining on her again. Bright. Right in her eyes.

  She lifted her hand and turned her face away. “Douglas isn’t here.”

  “No...” He laughed. “Zack Douglas isn�
��t here. No one is here but me and you.”

  And Bowen. He’s still here.

  “I’m glad you survived the crash, Mace.”

  Mace. He was using Bowen’s nickname for her, and her skin crawled.

  “Wasn’t sure you would, but that was a chance I had to take. I mean, how else was I going to get close enough to take out Bowen? There he was, rushing so fast to find me, and I knew it was perfect.”

  She tried to see into the darkness around her. He’d been telling the truth when he said that the SUV hadn’t fallen all the way down the mountain. It was perched halfway against a tree, and if that tree snapped, Bowen would keep falling.

  I have to get him out.

  “The feds know, don’t they, Mace?”

  “Know what?” Her voice was trembling. She wanted him to think that she was afraid. That she was weak. Then he’d never see her attack coming.

  But he sighed. “They know about me. That dick Tucker gave the game away back at the museum. I mean, shit, I’d just proven myself. I’d shot the bad guy—and believe me, Peter Carter was bad. Did you see that shit he did to his girlfriend? He kept her skull at his museum. Obviously, he was psychotic.” He paused. “And that’s why I don’t get it. You had the chance to put him out of his misery, but you choked. Again. Tucker didn’t want me on the team but you—the woman who couldn’t carry out a kill when it was deserved? He and Samantha both waved you in with open arms.”

  She took a step toward the SUV. The light followed her.

  “Tucker tipped his hand. The guy had always ridden my ass, but that day he just came out and said he thought I was a killer. He said that shit.”

  She stared at him and took another slow step toward the SUV. You are a fucking killer.

  “Knew trouble was coming,” Jonah muttered, “when he said I couldn’t empathize with the victims. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That was the one word. Shrinks always use that word. Empathize. No, I can’t empathize. I don’t feel shit for them. But I still do the job, don’t I? I still get the work done.”

  Macey’s breath slid out. “That’s why you hacked the files at the FBI. You...you mimic, don’t you?” Oh, hell. That was a coping mechanism that psychopaths often used. They didn’t feel the way normal individuals did, so they just mimicked the behavior. They acted as if they got angry, as if they were hurt, as if they loved. But it was all just acting.

  He hadn’t known how to act like the other agents in the team, so he’d cracked into their files so that his responses would become like theirs. She could see now. Finally.

  “Asshole said I wasn’t acting right because my hands weren’t shaking. I mean, hello! I was doing what good agents do, you know? Standing calm in the face of danger. That’s how Bowen always acts!”

  Another step brought her even closer to the SUV.

  “But Tucker fucking Frost was standing there judging me. Saying I was off with my response. Like he can talk! The whole world knows what a screwup his brother was. But the guy...he started asking about my family. Saying I’d just stood there, waiting to watch Peter Carter kill himself, the same way I stood there and watched my family die.”

  “He was wrong,” Macey said, forcing those words past lips that felt numb. It was cold out there, and she was still bleeding from so many cuts. Her body ached. Her temple throbbed. Nausea rolled in her stomach and she knew that she was staring at another monster.

  “Yes.” Jonah seemed pleased. “He was wrong. He didn’t get me at all, did he? I loved my father. Was I supposed to hurt him?”

  As he killed everyone else?

  Maybe that was when Jonah had stopped being able to feel. Maybe he hadn’t been born without emotions. Maybe they’d just died when his family had.

  “He loved me, too. Said he loved me the most. That was why he smiled right before he shot himself. Because he’d saved me.”

  No, he hadn’t saved you. He just hadn’t killed you.

  “Tucker was asking about my program, saying that seemed like the perfect way for our perp to find the serials.” He laughed. “On that, he was right.”

  “You told me the program didn’t work,” she rasped out even as she inched closer to the SUV. As long as she kept him talking, he didn’t seem to even notice her movements.

  “I lied.”

  The light was still on her.

  “It worked. I found Daniel. Gale Collins wasn’t the first to die in that little North Carolina town. She was just the bait I sent in for him. I found him, a doctor practicing off the grid, giving pain pills out like candy, using a new name and still slicing and dicing. I sent Gale to him. I told her it was an undercover FBI operation, but it wasn’t. She was just some hick girl who thought she was doing something big—when she was the one who was the pawn to get our game in motion.”

  Another tremble rolled through her body. This one was only half faked. “She had my eyes.”

  “Yes! Yes—and I knew that he would have to grab her. So I waited in town, I watched, and the instant he had her...I had him. I let him have his fun, seemed only fair, and when he was getting ready to finish her up, I snuck up behind him with my hammer. One hit. Bang. And he was down.”

  She licked her busted lips. “And Gale?” Because he’d said getting ready to finish her up.

  “I slit her throat. I mean, I couldn’t very well have her admitting to anyone that she knew me, could I? That would just screw everything up.”

  She was close enough to the SUV. Macey spun and ran for the driver’s-side door. She yanked on it as hard as she could and it popped open.

  “Macey, fuck, get away from him! The SUV will roll! Stop it!”

  She fumbled inside, shoving against what was left of the air bag, grabbing for Bowen as she hung half in the vehicle.

  But Jonah’s arms closed around her waist and with a loud growl, he yanked her back against him. “I’m trying to save you! It’s all been for fucking you!”

  She kicked out at him, slamming back with her heels to hit his legs and throwing her head back to ram the bastard in the nose. He howled in pain, but didn’t let her go.

  If anything, his hold tightened.

  “I killed Haddox...for you! I knew you’d never do it on your own, and I wasn’t going to let him stay out there after what he’d done to you!”

  She stilled.

  “My program worked! I could find those bastards! I found Remus!”

  She didn’t struggle at all. When she struggled, he just tightened his hold. When she stilled...

  His hold is loosening.

  “He killed his girlfriend’s stepmother,” he whispered, his breath blowing over her ear. He seemed to be hugging her now, not restraining her. “I knew it was him. And the dumbass just trotted right up here to me like a lamb to a slaughter.”

  “How did you know about Curtis Zale? Your program?”

  He laughed, the rumble shaking her. “I knew there was a killer here. Had to be, but I didn’t know where he was hiding his victims. Not until I got a little help.”

  Had she just seen movement in the SUV? The door was open. Yes, yes, she thought Bowen was moving on the inside.

  “Help,” Macey repeated. “You mean help...from Wesley Kaiser?” Because she knew he had to be part of this mess.

  “No, actually, I don’t mean him at all. My help came from someone else entirely.” He laughed. “But I’ll never tell.”

  Fuck him. He’d made the mistake of easing his hold and the dumbass hadn’t even realized...

  Macey spun toward him and the chunk of sharp metal that she’d palmed right before he’d yanked her out of the SUV? She swiped that makeshift weapon at him, and it sliced across his hands.

  “Blood on my fucking hands!” Jonah yelled.

  “Yeah, there’s plenty of that.” Then she hit him again. Only this time, she drove that metal at his stomach. She twisted it, jerked it up and—

  His fist slammed into her face.

  Macey didn’t let that stop her. She stabbed him again, and he was screaming and yelling a
nd—

  “You’ll want—” Bowen’s voice growled “—to get the fuck away from her now.”

  Jonah stilled.

  Macey didn’t. She kept a grip on her makeshift weapon and rushed back toward Bowen’s voice, thinking she needed to protect him—

  But there was enough starlight for her to see the gun he gripped in his hand. Metal was still in his chest, and that terrified her, but Bowen was on his feet. And his weapon was aimed at the wolf who’d been among them all along.

  Only Jonah started to laugh. Again. “You used the Haddox trick!” He sounded...impressed? “The Doctor stayed alive because he didn’t take Macey’s knife out of him. He would have bled to death if he had. Haddox waited and got a friend to stitch him up. Did you know that, Mace? Another doc at the hospital stitched him up that night and never said a word to anyone. But don’t worry, that fellow is on my list, too.”

  “Stop,” she ordered.

  He didn’t. “You used the Haddox trick,” Jonah said again. “Keep the metal in...and you can live longer. Take it out...you’re dead. You bleed, bleed, bleed. And that metal—it’s in you far deeper than that knife was in Haddox. I can tell. It’s so deep I bet...I bet you’re a dead man walking. You don’t even know...”

  “Where is Zack Douglas?” Macey demanded.

  “At the ranger station. Just like I said. He really did find me.”

  Goose bumps were all over her arms. “What did you do to him?”

  “He should have noticed all those hikers were making a pattern. If he’d noticed sooner, lives would have been saved.” Jonah’s bloody hands were at his sides. “I figured he deserved what he got.”

  “You staged your abduction from the museum,” Bowen snarled.

  “No!” A roar from Jonah. “That fucking twit Wesley did that! He came to me for help! No one else at the FBI would give him the time of day. He came to me—we worked on that fucking program together! And then...then he didn’t like the results. He was trying to stop me. Hit me with the hammer...tied me up... His mistake. I got away. And he’ll be next.”

  “No,” Bowen rasped. “You will be.”

  Jonah laughed at those words. “Are you gonna do it? Right in front of her? Kill me in cold blood? I gave you the chance, over and over, to prove you were the better agent. You failed every single time. Now you won’t even be the better man. You’ll shoot in cold blood, hitting an unarmed man. The same way you hit an unarmed man when you killed Arnold Shaw, right? I mean, hey, I read the file, I could see the bullshit. You planted that knife on him, didn’t you? And that poor desperate victim on the scene, she was so grateful she lied for you.”