by J. E. Neiman
He looked down from his new advantage point and saw the safe house. The windows glowed with light; however, it was pitch black outside. What did the tour bus driver say? Oh . . . Sedona is proud of its dark skies. A break for me, Jake thought. I can sneak up close and personal— with ease.
He leaned against the well and removed his left sock, pulling it over the right one. Jake hoped the extra layer of fabric would offer some protection from the rocks and thorns. As he put his left shoe on, a flash of lightening revealed the trail to his left that he should have taken in the first place. It would be the easiest way to finish the short distance to the road, opposite the safe house.
Falling a few times on the wet, slippery path, Jake arrived across from the site unnoticed. Leaves sounded like wads of paper crunching under his feet and a few twigs snapped like toothpicks as he crossed the dirt road. The rain and wind helped disguise the noise. Jake stood motionless behind a row of thick juniper trees, twenty-five feet from the house.
The front door opened. He hid behind a tree and saw Allie standing at the door while stud-man Foley, walked outside and down the steps. The crippled twin must be inside, he thought, and the other agents are probably in the garage or the backyard at the river embankment.
For a second he thought Allie had seen him before he ducked, but she quickly had slammed the door shut. Bitch, he thought, she's losing her touch.
He watched Foley enter the side door of the lit garage and could hear him talking on a phone. Jake darted to the rear of an SUV parked near the building and listened. He determined the agent was alone.
"Everything's fine," Foley said. He seemed to be standing just inside the door. "Bates and Cretan are guarding the embankment in the back. I've got the house covered."
Jake removed the small climbing axe from his belt loop and raised it above his head. He leaned tight against the outside of the garage where the shadows hid him well.
"Besides, I bet Tansey's half-way to Mexico." Foley stepped out the door and stood under the eave. "Take your time, Westcott." He clicked his phone shut.
"Hey—" Jake said, as he slammed the curved pick into Foley's back.
The agent fell to the ground without a sound. Jake pulled the axe from Foley's body and twirled it in his hand. He smashed the blunt side of the tool against the man's head.
He stood over the body for a few minutes thinking how easy the kill had been. Opening Foley's jacket with the pick, he saw the agent's gun. He stuck it into his waistband and moved toward the creek embankment with axe in hand.
"Two more agents to go . . . then the twins," he said, as a crack of lightening hit a tree in the canyon below. It startled him and he threw himself down into a puddle of mud. He peeked up, wiped the muck from his eyes and saw the two men looking down at the fiery scene.
"Shit. That was close," one agent yelled with a nervous laugh.
The taller man moved nearer to the embankment and looked down at the small fire. "Hope it hit the perp," he laughed. "That'd be a joke."
"A real fuck'in joke," Jake whispered. He stood slowly and moved toward the nearest man.
Chapter 75
Sedona, Arizona
Allie hurried into Madison's bedroom. "Are you okay?"
"Someone's out there." She pointed to the window. "I felt it."
"Me too." She picked up Madison's cloths from the floor and tossed them at her. "Get dressed. I'll be right back."
Allie hurried into the living room and grabbed her jacket from an easy chair. Reaching into the inside pocket, she found the evidence bag from the trauma room and rushed back into Madison's room holding the piece of sunflower printed cloth. "Let's use this to focus."
As Allie sat beside Madison, she noticed how small her sister looked in comparison to the huge four-corner post bed. The ponderosa pine logs that held it together were six inches in diameter. The rustic structure was complimented with a handmade quilt. Too bad, we can't enjoy this place, she thought.
Each woman held one corner of the evidence bag in front of them and gazed through the clear, plastic envelope. They were silent for a few minutes.
Madison cleared her throat. "I'm ready."
"Give me a second." Allie concentrated on some of the core words they used: Divine to visualize, Wait to reveal secrets, Reach to find—
"Okay," Maddie said, breaking the silence. "Divine . . . brought the image of the purple building where Jake tortured Dawn." Madison's voice broke. "Then I saw someone hiding behind trees . . . I think he's close by. Did you get the same thing?"
"Yes. I may have even seen him a few minutes ago. However, I don't understand how he could already be here."
"Allie, the agents think he will come up from the river in the east. I saw him sliding down a hill and I think it's to our west. Bates and Cretan are by the embankment now. Where's Foley?"
"With them, I think. He's been gone ten minutes. I'll call him on my cell." Allie reached to the floor and handed Madison her shoes. "Put these on. We're getting out of here."
"Where too?" Madison pulled her portable wheelchair closer to the bed.
"I'm not sure. But we can drive out of here and let the agents handle this psycho."
Allie held her cell phone to her ear. Foley didn't answer. She called to Madison, "I'm going to find Foley."
"Be careful. I'll be in my chair, waiting in the entryway." Madison flinched when she heard the front door slam shut.
Pulling a flashlight from her bag that hung in the entryway, Allie sneaked out the front door and down the steps with her revolver to her side. The darkness and falling rain swallowed her small beam of light. She moved to the side of the garage and saw the small door open. "Foley," she called.
She tripped on something solid lying in the path and tumbled hard against the concrete and flagstone. Her light bounced out of her hand and rolled down the slope. Somehow, Allie managed to hang onto her gun.
She sat up and felt with her free hand to identify what had made her fall. A flash of lightening illuminated the shape of a man's body just as she touched a bloody head of hair. It was Foley. She trembled and tried to make sense of it all. Did he fall, she thought. She felt a pool of blood seeping out from beneath the body. No, she thought, this is not an accident.
Two gunshots exploded from the backyard. It brought Allie to her feet and she ran into the garage, slamming the door. She dialed 911 to report the emergency and called Westcott. After she told the agent about the gunshots and that Foley was down, Allie said, "Madison and I are getting the hell out of here." She didn't wait for an answer.
She shut the lights out in the garage and slowly opened the door to listen. All she could hear was the wind howling and distant thunder. Crouching down as low as possible, she moved slowly out the door and up the steps to the house. The front door stood wide open.
"Madison," Allie screamed. Running from room to room, she called out to her sister. Madison and her wheelchair were gone.
Chapter 76
Sedona, Arizona
After shooting Bates in the back, Jake saw a flash of light and heard a bullet whiz by his left shoulder. Lightening revealed the agent who’d shot at him, now crouched at the edge of the embankment. Jake charged at the man and pulled the trigger two times. Cretan grabbed his chest and fell backwards down the canyon wall.
Jake peered over the rim. Seeing nothing but the blue flame of a tree burning far below, he turned toward the lights of the house.
Moving through mud holes and rocks, he reached the stairs to the porch, mounted them and tried the sliding door. "Of course it's locked, idiot," he laughed at himself. He threw a lawn chair at a window. It shattered into hundreds of pieces and he climbed into a small living room. The house appeared empty except for Madison rolling out the front door in her wheelchair.
He ran across the room and screamed, "Where's your sister?"
She didn't answer and kept moving.
He grabbed her long hair, ripping some from the roots. "Doesn't matter. I got you, bitch." He h
it her just below the ear with a sharp, chopping blow. Her head flopped to the side.
Jake opened the front door and pushed Madison in her chair down the ramp. He maneuvered through the SUV's on the driveway to the private street. "You're sister won't wait for help," he muttered. "She'll follow our tracks. Then I can kill you both and dump your bodies never to be found." He snickered, "Then . . . Mexico."
He pushed the chair the fifty-yards to the mesa trailhead and stopped. Breathlessly, he leaned over Madison's slumped head and said, "Gimp, I can't push you up the hill. Wake up!"
After pulling stickers out of the socked foot, he placed the revolver in his waistband and lifted Madison's limp body out of the chair. She didn't appear to be breathing. He whispered in her ear, "I wanted you to suffer, not dead already."
He grunted when he threw the woman's body over his left shoulder and kicked the wheelchair into the ditch. He guessed she weighed less than a hundred pounds, but with only one shoe and the stomach wound, it was a struggle crossing the ditch.
Climbing up the incline, he laughed aloud when he heard Allie screaming her sister's name. "Follow the tracks, oh psychic one."
The trail was steeper than he remembered. The dead weight on one shoulder hindered his balance and several times, he nearly fell backwards. Once he over corrected, falling forward to the ground. Maddie slipped off his shoulder, and he had to rest a few seconds.
"Be easier to throw your ass down the side of the mountain," he said. "But I want you to rot in that concrete tomb. Besides, you’re bait to pull your sister in, and then I'm free."
He floundered as he put the woman back on his shoulder. Puffing and breathing heavily, he stood then moved up the incline.
A flash of lightening illuminated the water storage tank ahead to his left. He stepped over a broken barbwire fence, dropped Madison's lifeless body to the ground, and waited for another streak of light to ascertain the easiest route up the vessel.
Pulling his backpack off, he found the coil of rope he had packed earlier in the day. He wound it underneath Madison's arms and around her chest. Tying the other end to his waist, he climbed carefully up the wet stones. When he reached the top, he straddled the rim and hoisted the body up the side. He had to hurry as he saw Allie's flashlight flickering below and could hear her calling out for her sister.
Madison's limp body reached the edge. He pulled her over the lip of the tank, untied the rope from his waist and tossed her in. He listened to the loud splash when she hit the water below.
He began to climb down the structure. Halfway, his shoeless foot slipped like butter and he fell to the ground, rolling a few feet away. When he recovered, he realized his gun was gone from his waistband. "Damnit," he said as he crawled around on his hands and knees, trying to find it.
A flashlight beam in his eyes caught him off guard and a bullet zoomed over his head. "Holy Shit," he muttered.
"Where's Madison?" Allie yelled.
"She's dead," he screamed. He scrambled in the direction of the water tank for cover, and then scurried up the trail.
Chapter 77
Sedona, Arizona
"Madison!" Allie called to her sister. "Madison!"
She knelt on the ground where she had last seen Jake crawling around. She hoped to find some trace of Maddie. A cold dread washed over her as she shinned her light in a wide circle.
"What's this?" she muttered as she maneuvered over to a round structure made with stones embedded into concrete. Shining her light to the top, she saw that it was at least eight foot tall. Jake disappeared in this direction, she thought.
With her revolver drawn, she cautiously moved around the large vessel. An old fence post placed close to the structure stopped her. She listened to the wind and heard the rain pouring down harder than before. Leaning her head on the side of the tank, she shut her eyes and focused.
"Maddie, tell me where you are," she whispered. An image of a dirty pool of water with an outstretched arm reaching upward flashed into her mind. Touching the side of the structure, she realized that Madison was inside. She looked at the large stones on the side of the tank. I can climb this, she thought.
Placing her revolver and flashlight in her jacket pockets, she crawled up the side. When she reached the rim, she heard sirens. Thank God, she thought, help is on the way. But, they don't know where to look. Straddling the rim, she found her cell phone and dialed 911. No service.
She found her flashlight and illuminated the inside of the well. There was something there, a bundle of clothing perhaps? The shape moved and she heard a cough.
"Maddie! Is that you?"
"Yes. I'm . . .," the voice sputtered and hacked.
Allie saw Madison try to stand but her legs were useless in the cold water. "Are you okay?"
"I think so."
"How deep is it?"
"Two feet or so. I don't know how I got here." Madison made splashing sounds and coughed again. "Did they get Jake?
"No. I think Foley's dead and Jake may have killed the other two agents on site." Allie hesitated. She should not have shared the grim details of their situation but felt she had no choice. Madison would focus in on it anyway.
"I followed him up the mesa and nearly shot him. He said you were dead. Then he ran."
Madison voice became stronger, and her coughing had stopped. "He punched me after he crashed through a window—" She paused. "I hear sirens. Help's coming. Go get Jake before he escapes."
"I can't leave you."
"Yes, you can . . . wait . . . he's hurt. I see him resting up the hill. You got your gun?"
"Yes . . . but—"
"No buts . . . I'm fine."
Allie leaned over the water tank's edge once more. "How deep is it now?"
"The same as a minute ago." Her voice echoed against the circular walls. "Go — don't let him get away."
Allie stepped carefully down the side of the vessel using the river rocks set into the concrete. She felt the solid ground at her feet, leaned her head against the tank and questioned the decision to leave her sister. She could not rescue Madison without proper equipment or help, and she needed to stop Jake.
Her shoes slipped on small rocks as she moved around the base of the structure until she located the path and headed up the incline, eyes straining for any sign of him. She pulled her revolver out and flexed the handle.
The juniper and pine trees became sparse as she climbed up the trail in the direction Jake had fled. She tried to use her cellular one more time but no signal.
A bird shrilled, and she jolted at the fluttering of wings. It flew past Allie's head and was gone. She stood steady and turned her flashlight beam to where the bird had just been. Nothing but the wind and rain moved the branches of a cat's claw bush.
"Oh God," she muttered, and then remembered that studies had proved that these two words are the first thing a victim says, when they believe they are going to die. She pushed the thought out of her mind.
Allie trudged forward and then paused to listen—ears straining— past the sound of rain falling on leaves and stones. She heard a rustling sound and stepped off the trail below a large pinion tree. A snap, a crunch and a loud crash revealed a coyote that now stood still and stared at her. He was scrawny, perhaps sick, with matted hair. The animal darted away when she put the beam of light directly into his pale-gray eyes.
Her breathing became labored, as the path was steep. She wanted to sit down for a few moments to catch her breath but somehow found the strength to keep moving.
The flashlight beam danced over trees, red rocks and different kinds of bushes she had never seen before. Each seemed to reach out with thorns and grab at her arms and legs. With a shiver of fear, she stopped and leaned against a tree to allow herself to breathe. Goose bumps covered her body as she stared into the darkness.
The hand came out of nowhere and latched onto her shoulder, then a strike to the head. Allie's knees collapsed and she fell to the ground. The gun and flashlight flew out of her hand
s. She tried to force her arms and legs to move but couldn't. She saw a bright white light, then darkness.
When she opened her eyes, she wasn't sure how long she'd been out. Her eyes focused and she saw Jake looming over her with an evil, contorted grin. He started to kick, heavy, viscous blows that landed against her stomach and ribs.
To avoid the next assault, Allie tucked herself into a ball and rolled away. She struggled to her feet, turned slowly with eyes darting. An arm flung out and caught her on the nose. She stumbled away. He yelled something and darted toward her. She knelt on the ground, plunged one shoulder forward and caught him at the knees. He grabbed her on the way down, knocking them both onto a large boulder.
He climbed on top of her and wrapped his hands around her throat. Jake was going to strangle the life out of her while Madison drowned in a forgotten storage tank.
Adrenaline jump-started her body. She put her arms through his and broke the chokehold. They tumbled down an incline together, crashing into chaparral and boulders. She clawed at the bushes, trying to break her fall, prickles dug into her skin. At the bottom, her head hit something metal and round. She reached a hand around a flashlight.
As he lunged forward, she hit him in the face connecting with his nose. Before he could react, she hammered at him. Allie saw sparkle's behind his head. She squinted. At least ten beams of light were flickering on branches and the ground in the distance. She'd never seen anything so wonderful in her life.
She screamed, "Over here!"
"Coming!" It was Westcott's voice in the distance.
Enraged, Jake reached down, scooped a fistful of dirt and shoved it into her face. Wet earth gritted her teeth. She thrust her palm directly upward into his chin, knocking him to the ground.
She ran behind him, clicked on her flashlight and found her gun near a tree. Fingers clamping around the revolver's grip, she grew instantly calm. Aiming it straight at Jake, she said, "Don't move or I'll shoot."