The Surviving Girls

by Katee Robert

  He was going so fast, they almost missed the turn. Dante slammed on the brakes and hit the gravel in a skid. The car rolled to a stop and he exhaled. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be.” She bounced her leg as if considering bolting out of the car and running the rest of the way to the house, so he crept forward, hoping the momentum would be enough to keep Lei in the car. They drove the quarter mile through the forest, the trees seeming to crowd closer than they ever had before. Dante was all too aware of the way the headlights left them blind to everything not directly in their path. Berkley’s MO didn’t point to him as a sharpshooter, but they couldn’t take anything for granted anymore. “Lei, sit back.” He knew without asking that telling her to put her damn head down would be met with resistance.

  “Don’t tell me to—”

  He let the car roll to a stop. The sheriff’s cruiser sat in the middle of the driveway, the driver’s side door open and the dome light on. “Stay here.”

  “No way.” She opened the door before he had a chance to argue, her handgun flashing in the low light.

  “Damn it, Lei.” He followed her, drawing his own gun and keeping an eye out for an ambush. They reached the cruiser in seconds, and he tensed, half expecting to find the sheriff’s body.

  It was empty.

  She let out a shuddering breath. “Let’s keep going.”

  It would take too much time to move the cruiser and drive the last couple of hundred yards to the house, so he just shut the door and followed her through the darkness. Every step of the way, Dante was sure Travis would melt from the shadows and strike.

  Nothing happened.

  They reached the house safely, and Lei opened the front door and stepped inside. “Emma? Tucker? Saul? Here, Saul!”

  The silence in response was deafening. Dante grabbed her elbow when she went to move forward. “Don’t you dare.” He pulled her back and nudged her behind him. Dante pointed to himself. “Federal agent.” He pointed to her. “Civilian. Stay behind me, and we’ll clear the house.”

  Her lips thinned, but she finally nodded. “Okay.”

  They moved through room after room. Empty. Empty. More empty. With each missing sign of people, Dante’s worry grew. Tucker was a big man and trained in multiple ways to take out a suspect and defend both himself and anyone around him. Berkley shouldn’t have been able to get the drop on him. If he had . . .

  It didn’t bear thinking about it.

  Both the women’s rooms and the spare were empty. Dante looked askance at Lei. “Safe room?”

  “We have to check.”

  He didn’t imagine Berkley was huddled in the safe room, waiting to strike, but Dante still kept close as Lei keyed in her code, and then he wrestled the door open. Something moved in the darkness, and he had his gun halfway up when Lei shoved his arm to the side. “Saul!”

  “And Tucker,” came a groan from deeper in the shadows. “And Prince.”

  The dog whimpered, his tail wagging and then not, as if he wasn’t sure of his welcome. Dante waited for Lei to go down on her knees and wrap her arms around the animal before he skirted around them to where Tucker was. He pulled out his phone to get a better look at his friend and winced. “Fuck, Tucker.”

  “Got the drop on me.” One of Tucker’s eyes was completely swollen shut, and he had a nasty gash down the other side of his face. He didn’t seem hurt otherwise, but Dante was careful helping him to sit so he could cut through the zip tie around his wrists. “Did you get a look at him?”

  “It was Travis fucking Berkley.” Tucker shook his head and rubbed his wrists. “Like being attacked by a ghost. I went for my gun, but I hesitated because he surprised me.”

  Lei let go of Saul. “Where’s Emma?”

  “He took her.” Tucker lumbered to his feet. “That bastard took her.” He pointed to the still-active monitors. “He didn’t drive off, though. He went through the woods. North, I think.”

  Lei nodded. “That monitor shows the running trails leading north.”

  The same trails where she’d found the purse a couple of days ago. Was it only a couple of days ago? It feels like a hundred years. Too much had been crammed into too few hours.

  Dante helped Tucker stand but had to work to keep the big man from tilting over. “Concussion?”

  “Not sure.” He touched his eye gingerly. “I think I lost consciousness for at least a minute or two, so probably.”

  “Let’s get you downstairs.” If he was still dizzy, then Dante wasn’t going to leave him to navigate the narrow stairs alone. “Lei, I’ll be right back.”

  “I’ll be down behind you.” She knelt next to Saul and ran her hands over his big body, probably checking for injuries. Prince nudged her shoulder, whining. “I know, boy. I know.”

  “Okay.” He watched her for a long moment, but the eerie calm that had fallen into place when Berkley had called hadn’t so much as faltered. She was poised to explode, and Dante had to make sure he was there to protect her when she did. “We’ll find her.”

  “I know.” Still too calm. She should be screaming or shaking or something, but she just kept checking the dogs and not looking at Dante.

  There was nothing for it. He had to get Tucker downstairs, and he had to call and update Britton so his boss knew what they were walking into. At least Berkley hadn’t killed Tucker. He could have. He should have, if only to keep from being followed before he was ready.

  That he hadn’t meant Tucker served more purpose alive than dead. Slowing us down, Dante realized. Berkley had every reason to believe Lei would tear after him the second she got there and realized Emma was gone. Even if he’d been haunting the forest around this house, Lei had spent eight years traipsing all over it while training Saul and the other dogs she’d worked with. She knew the area in a way no one else could.

  “What did he look like? Berkley?”

  Tucker grunted as he sat in the kitchen chair. “I didn’t get a good look, but he looked normal. The kind of guy normal people nod to on the street instinctively.”

  It lined up with both what he’d seen of the man’s pictures and interviews and the surviving sorority girls who saw him at that fund-raiser. They hadn’t thought he was creepy or deranged-looking—just old.

  Which supported the suspicion that Berkley must have been living a life somewhere in Seattle or a nearby area this entire time. He hadn’t been camped out in the forest while he stalked Lei. He’d been accumulating his technical knowledge so he could hack past Emma’s firewalls and security setup.

  And that meant Lei and Saul would have the advantage in the forest.

  Dante glanced at the stairway, but she hadn’t followed them down yet. “Call Britton and tell him what’s happened.” He didn’t think Lei would scale the outside of the house with Saul in tow, but he couldn’t trust that she was thinking clearly right then.

  Dante found her in her room. He stood in the doorway and watched as she slid a large knife into her boot sheath and stuck three ammo clips onto a belt she hadn’t been wearing before. Handguns were checked and double-checked and then went into the shoulder holster. “Lei.”

  “If you’re going to tell me that we have to wait for Britton, you might as well save your breath. Travis set this up on purpose. I’m not going to risk Emma’s life while we wait for the FBI, and then wait some more while they bicker with local police on the best way to track a serial killer through the woods. I can do it. I was always meant to do it.” She straightened, and he realized Saul had a vest on now. The dog sat at her feet, waiting attentively. “We’ve trained for years for this.”

  “You train to track cadavers. Emma is still alive.”

  She gave a bitter smile. “You underestimate our paranoia. Just because Saul is good at tracking corpses doesn’t mean he can’t track live people. We already covered that with the last search.” She moved to the bed and picked up three tank tops that he hadn’t noticed before then. Two went into a pouch at her waist, and the third she kept a hold of. “What wil
l it be, Dante? Are you going to try to stop me? There isn’t a damn place in this house you can lock me up to keep me from following them. She’s trusting me to save her. Emma is all I have left in this world, and I’ll be damned before he takes her from me, too.”

  She’s not the only thing you have in this world.

  He didn’t say it. Couldn’t say it.

  Lei was right. She was better equipped than any of the agents currently rushing this way. There was also the added fear that if they took too long and didn’t play by Berkley’s rules, he would kill Emma.

  If Dante let Lei do this, Berkley might kill them all. “Lei—”

  “There’s something else.” She walked to her dresser and picked up a simple white envelope. Without another word, she handed it to Dante and waited.

  He wouldn’t like whatever it held. He spent one eternal moment arguing with the part of him that wanted to throw it away, toss Lei over his shoulder, get in a car, and drive as fast as they could away from this horror show.

  That wasn’t who he was. It wasn’t who she was.

  There was no turning away from this.

  He opened the envelope. Inside were two Polaroid-like photos. One depicted Emma, a thin rivulet of blood trailing from her temple, her blue eyes wide and mindless with terror. Her hands were tied in front of her, and she wore a similar outfit to the one she’d had on yesterday when they’d left.

  The other picture was of Clarke.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Lei should have prepared Dante for the shock of seeing Clarke tied and bloodied in a photograph obviously left by Travis. She should have told him the second she realized Travis had left the dare behind, the taunt written in his bold hand. Tag. You’re it.

  There were a lot of things she should have done.

  But she saw the way he was leaning and knew that he’d err on the side of safety and waiting for reinforcements. It was the wrong call—the call that would get both Emma and Clarke killed. If they hadn’t been already.

  No, she couldn’t think like that.

  He slid the photos back into the envelope. “It could be an old photo.”

  “It was taken in my kitchen. It’s not an old photo.” She shook her head. “You have to follow protocol. I understand that. I don’t. Please move out of my way.”

  She stepped toward him, but the look on his face stopped her. It was like staring in the center of a hurricane, his rage and frustration threatening to suck them both down. Dante blinked and leashed it, but she was struck again by this man’s hidden depths. She would have liked to have spent time exploring them, getting to know his ins and outs and what made him tick.

  So fitting that Travis had managed to ruin yet another good thing in her life.

  Finally, Dante stepped back. “I’m going with you.”

  “Dante—”

  “If you think I’m going to let you walk into those trees alone, then you’re thick in the head. Tucker can stay here and monitor our progress so Britton and the rest of them can follow when they get here.”

  “Fine.” Easy enough to agree. It would be over by then. “But we leave now.”

  Dante took a quick detour to get Tucker and Prince set up in Emma’s office, which was just fine. She needed a few minutes with Saul before they got moving. Lei led him outside and in the general direction Travis must have taken the women. Clarke hadn’t looked like she was in good shape, but he’d still have his hands busy trying to herd both her and Emma. It made it less likely that he’d stash one of them somewhere.

  He knew she’d track him—track Emma.

  It was most definitely a trap.

  Lei didn’t give a fuck. Let him spring the damn trap. No matter what he thought, no matter what research or stalking he’d engaged in over the years, he didn’t know her anymore. He might think he did, but she’d prove just how dead wrong he was.

  She went to one knee before Saul, his cue that it was time to work. He sat, nearly quivering with excitement. Lei held out the first dirty tank top she’d pulled from Emma’s hamper. Saul knew Emma, but if they were tracking a specific scent, she needed something fresher and more specific than Find Emma. “Find.”

  She heard Dante come out the front door and pad down the stairs to stand behind her. She let Saul sniff his fill and stood as he turned in the direction of the north trail. Lei glanced back at Dante. “Stay behind me. The trail is fresh, but it might get confused at some point. Just . . . follow me.”

  “I’m here.” Just that, the steady truth that he’d have her back no matter where this trail led.

  And maybe even after . . . if there is an after.

  She turned back to her dog. She was putting him in danger by bringing him on this search, but she didn’t have his nose, and she was only a passable tracker—and only during the day.

  It felt like fate spinning out before her, every decision she’d made bringing her to this point, to this search. To one final confrontation with Travis. One of them wasn’t walking out of the forest today, though she couldn’t begin to guess who would prevail. He won last time. He won’t win again. It ends here. Now.

  “Search, Saul,” Lei said, never taking her eyes from the path. I’m coming for you, you son of a bitch.

  Saul took off on his active searching pace. The scent trail was strong and true here, with little to distract from it. If Emma had spent any time at all outside the house, Lei would have started the search at the trailhead where it left the grass, but there would only be one scent trail from her, and it would be the one that started tonight when Travis dragged her from the place she’d spent the last eight years.

  Lei couldn’t think about how scared Emma was—how scared she was. Instead, she focused on Saul, her own personal compass. No matter what else was going on, her dog only cared about following the trail to its natural conclusion. Between him leading her forward into the darkness and Dante’s comforting presence at her back, she could almost believe that good might triumph over evil tonight.

  Almost.

  During the day, the jogging path felt almost spacious, the sunlight filtering through the trees overhead and continual sounds accompanying every footfall and breath.

  Tonight, there was none of that. The darkness hid potential threats, and the entire forest seemed to be holding its breath. Every shadow promised danger, and the interlaced tree limbs overhead didn’t let in nearly enough of the waxing moon.

  Lei did semiregular practice searches with Saul at night because they rarely knew what conditions they would walk into when they were contracted. Most of the time, searches could be scheduled during the daylight hours, but sometimes that wasn’t possible for one reason or another. Lei was a big fan of being prepared for any given situation.

  I wasn’t prepared for this.

  No one could have been prepared for this.

  Saul paused, his nose a few inches off the ground, and Lei held up a hand to let Dante know to stop. Saul started moving back and forth, looking for the scent cone. Travis must have taken her off the trail here. Lei took her eyes off Saul long enough to check the surrounding area. They’d made good time, moving well past the point where she’d found the purse before.

  The darkness disoriented her, making it hard to gauge distances, but she thought they must be nearing the edge of their property. She usually turned before this point to loop back around for her five miles.

  Saul pawed the ground, his sign that he’d picked up the scent again. She shifted nearer, following him off the path. The trees grew close enough together that she had to turn sideways to get through them, and Dante had to actually squeeze, but once they were through the copse, the space opened up again. It was hard to see in the low light, but . . . “This is another path.”

  Dante held up a hand and moved farther down the path while they waited. He disappeared for a couple of seconds, and then he was back, his expression grim. “Hard to tell in the dark, but it looks like it runs parallel to the one we were just on.”

  Their property ra
n tall and narrow, stretching roughly five miles north and northwest and maybe two miles wide. They bordered state land to the west, which gave Lei plenty of ground to cover in her practice searches with Saul, so she was careful not to trespass on their neighbors to the east. The trees were thick enough that she’d never seen anyone on her runs or when she spent time outside, but it sure as hell looked like this trail was used to mirror hers.

  So someone could watch her.

  So Travis could watch her.

  She swayed, anger warring with terror. Saul shifted restlessly, reminding her that the search wasn’t over and they hadn’t found their target. Emma. She had to keep it together for Emma. “Stay close,” she whispered. Lei had anticipated a long and drawn-out search when they first started, but now she was suddenly sure that danger was so much closer than she could have dreamed.

  Saul led them along the second path, turning almost directly east at the point where Lei suspected her property stopped, and down a sloping decline in the direction of the highway. If he managed to get both Clarke and Emma into a car, that’s the end of it. Saul is good, but no dog can track that.

  But Saul didn’t head for the highway. He looped south again, still following the trail, and picked up his pace. We’re close.

  The trees gave way unexpectedly, and she dived for Saul, grabbing his vest and hauling him back. “Hold, boy.”

  Before them stretched a perfectly manicured lawn. It was twice as large as Lei and Emma’s, and there was what looked like a pool lurking a couple of hundred yards to the south, next to the house situated in the middle of the open ground. It wasn’t insanely large, but even at this distance she could tell it reeked of money. Bright lights poured out of the floor-to-ceiling windows that showcased an immaculately decorated living room in what could only be called mountain chic. A large fireplace dominated the room, and oversize furniture practically screamed that a manly man lived there, even if he wasn’t the type of man who actually knew a damn thing about roughing it.