by Lee Taylor
“Sounds charming,” Sage answered, and he applied the sarcastic comment to both himself and Judd.
“He probably keeps the town safe for tourists and residents.”
“Unless you happen to be a girl who gets kidnapped,” Sage muttered.
Or gets herself into something unsavory, Ben silently added, because he wasn’t going to torment Sage with that observation. He still didn’t know what was going on here, and he had to keep all possibilities open.
At eleven they turned on the local news, but there was nothing relevant.
“It’s like Laurel doesn’t exist,” Sage muttered when the newscast concluded. “I mean, when women go missing, aren’t there usually big news stories?”
“Your mom isn’t making a big deal of it, and the cops are treating it as a runaway.”
“I could do a big interview with a TV reporter. They’re always looking for news. They’d be glad to get the story from the worried sister’s point of view.”
“I wouldn’t advise it. Better to keep a low profile while we’re investigating.”
Her frustration made her argue. “We’re not that low a profile. We got noticed as soon as we got to town. According to you, before we got to town.”
“We’ve got to consider what we gain and what we lose by going public. Don’t you think a media circus might detract from the investigation?”
“It would add a sense of urgency,” she shot back. “That older woman at the Crab Shack wanted to tell us something. Maybe she’d come forward.”
“Or maybe she’d be even more afraid.” He gave her a direct look. “And you have to consider that we might scare the kidnapper. Suppose he kills Laurel because we went to the media.”
She sucked in a quick breath. “I didn’t think about that.”
“It’s a possibility.”
“You’re thinking a couple of steps ahead of me,” she admitted in a low voice.
“It’s my job. In the morning, we’ll think about our next move.” He looked across at her. “You should go to bed.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll stay up for a while. If they’re going to attack us here, the most likely time is around two in the morning.”
“Why?”
“That’s when people are at their most vulnerable. It’s probably something to do with biorhythms. Plus, there are fewer witnesses. I’ll get some sleep after three. You should go to bed now.”
“I can’t sleep.”
“You may be surprised.”
oOo
Laurel tensed as she heard the sound of a car pulling up outside the house where she was being held. Taking her lower lip between her teeth, she put down the book she’d been trying to read. A Nancy Drew mystery that she’d enjoyed years ago. Like the other books in this frilly room, it was for a kid. But it was better than having nothing to occupy her mind.
Straining her ears, she heard a door opening. Footsteps. He was home. Walking around the house, getting ready to come back to her. He stayed away for long periods. Because he was at work, she guessed. Now he was off.
Of course, she couldn’t be sure what time it was. Night, she thought, judging from the lack of light peeking in through a crack in the boards covering the only window in the room.
He didn’t come right to her room. Because he wanted to make her suffer with anticipation? she wondered. Or because he was putting on that spooky costume he always wore when he came to her?
oOo
The man who was about to put on a black hood stood in front of the mirror trembling with anticipation—and uncertainty. He’d already put on the black shirt and slacks. The black shoes. His gloves were on the edge of the sink. And the black hood itself. With a hand that wasn’t quite steady, he fingered the material, feeling the soft texture. He didn’t really want to wear it, but it was necessary. At least for now, until Wendy could accept him for what he was.
He ran shaky fingers through his hair, combing it back from his face. He pressed his hand against the top of his head, trying to hold onto the here and now, but his vision blurred and his mind drifted away.
With a curse, he fought to bring both back into focus.
When he felt steadier, he stared in the mirror, cataloguing his features, zeroing in on eyes that were chocolate brown and worried.
“You’re okay,” he told himself, then said his name aloud. Another touchstone.
Finally he felt calmer. Everything was as it should be.
Wendy was waiting for him. His pretty little blond daughter. He’d thought he’d lost her, and he’d missed her so much. But he had her back again. Only it wasn’t quite right. It was never quite right.
The face in the mirror swam in his vision for a moment, and he squeezed his hands into fists as he fought to hang on to the essence of himself.
His head spun. His mind took gigantic leaps, from the present to the past. Once again the horrible picture surged into his mind. His wife with her hands around Wendy’s neck. His panic as he tried to tear her away. Then his sick realization.
Only none of that was real. Not at all. It was only a scary scene he’d made up to terrify himself.
Long seconds passed, and he breathed out a sigh of relief. He was back to normal. He could go in and give his daughter dinner now and spend some quality time with her. She’d be anxious to see him. Even if he still had to wear the hood when he was with her.
oOo
The lock turned, and Laurel faced the door, watching as he came in carrying a tray, studying him but trying not to be obvious.
His appearance didn’t disappoint her—if that was the right word. He was wearing the same outfit he always wore. Black slacks. A black shirt. Black shoes and a black hood that covered his face, with only holes for his eyes and a slit at his mouth. And leather gloves. She didn’t know which was worse, the mask or the gloves. He didn’t want her to see his face. And he didn’t want to leave fingerprints.
“I brought you dinner, Wendy,” he said.
Wendy. Did he have her mixed up with someone else? Should she correct him? She’d considered it. But then she’d thought about how he’d dyed her hair and dressed her up. She must be a character in his fantasy.
“Thank you,” she answered. She was hungry, and the aroma of the meal drifted toward her. “It smells good.”
“Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you.”
He put the tray on the floor out of her reach, then pushed it forward with a stick. She ordered herself not to move too quickly. Climbing off the bed, she reached for the tray and pulled it the rest of the way toward her, then put it on the bedside table and removed the cover.
The smell of the food overwhelmed her. Picking up a chicken leg, she began to eat.
Her captor sat down in an easy chair across the room, watching her. It made her feel like the act of eating was dirty, but she was too hungry to stop.
When the leg was cleaned of meat, she forked up some mashed potatoes. There was also a can of Coke, which she opened and took a couple of swallows.
“Do you like your room?”
“Yes.”
“I hope you’re comfortable.”
“I’m fine.”
“Good.”
She kept eating, glancing at him from time to time, trying to figure out what he wanted. There was something weird about him, something she couldn’t pinpoint. Maybe about the way he walked or the way he sat in the chair.
He could be nice. Then she’d say something she thought was okay, and he’d start to scream at her, his voice going high pitched and tight.
She wanted to ask his intentions, but she was afraid to be so direct. Was she the first girl who had been in this room? If not, what had happened to the other ones?
“You’re very kind to bring me such good food,” she said.
“Don’t try to say what you think I want to hear.”
“What should I say?”
“You’d better figure it out
.”
While she was eating, he reeled in the slop bucket and set it outside in the hall, then pulled another one from outside and pushed it toward the wall where she could reach it.
“It would be easier to talk if I could see your face,” she said, totally reversing what she’d thought about his getup.
“That would ruin everything.”
She wanted to ask why. She wanted to find out why she was here. She didn’t have the guts to voice the questions. And probably it was dangerous to probe.
“What do you like to do for fun?” he asked.
“I don’t have much time for fun. I mostly study and work.”
“You’re a little girl! You don’t work.”
“Oh. Right.” She filed that away for future reference. Little girl. Check.
“What do you like to do?”
Her gaze flicked around the room and landed on the toy shelves. “Play with dolls.”
“I got lots of dolls for you.”
“Yes. Thanks.”
“Are you sure you like the dolls?”
She nodded.
“Which one do you like best?”
She got up and crossed to the shelf, turning her back on him as she studied them. Some were life-sized baby dolls. Others were smaller Barbies. And there were Madame Alexander dolls in elaborate costumes.
“I like the princess one.”
“I want to watch you play.”
Even as she nodded, she wracked her brain, trying to think about what kind of game he wanted to see.
oOo
Feeling awkward, Sage grabbed her overnight bag and took it into the bathroom. She hadn’t considered that she might be sleeping in the same room with anyone, so she hadn’t brought pajamas. But she did have a long tee shirt that would work.
After taking a quick shower and drying her hair with the dryer provided by the motel, she put her bra back on, along with clean panties and the big tee.
When she came out of the bathroom, Ben was sitting in the same place he’d been before. His gaze flicked to her and then away, and she knew he’d been listening to her getting ready for bed. How could he help it? There was only a thin door between the bedroom and the bathroom.
“How’s your head?” she asked.
“Okay.”
“You’re sure you don’t want me to, uh, take guard duty when you go to sleep?”
“I think we’ll be okay.”
He’d left on the light on the bedside table. She slipped into the bed opposite his and turned away from the light, still feeling his gaze on her. Or was she imagining that?
It had been a long time since she had spent the night with a man. With anyone, for that matter.
He’d said he wouldn’t come on to her, but she was all too aware of his masculine presence occupying the bed a few feet away. She had only met him that morning, but they’d been thrown into a pressure cooker together, and the turmoil had driven them closer in ways she didn’t want to think about too much.
If she turned would she find him staring at her?
She decided it was better not to find out.
When he got up, she tensed, but he was only going into the bathroom. This time it was her turn to listen as he used the toilet and showered. As he came out again, she watched him through slitted eyes. He had taken off his slacks and was dressed in a dark tee shirt and dark briefs. Apparently he hadn’t counted on having a roommate either.
The scent of soap and man drifted toward her as she rolled to her back and tried to do relaxation exercises.
Exhaustion and the nerve-wracking day were catching up with her, and she finally drifted off.
oOo
Ben had planned to stay awake, but the blow to his skull had taken too much out of him. Despite his best efforts, he drifted off.
And almost immediately, the dream grabbed him. The one he’d been having for months. The details varied, but the basics were always the same.
He was in a field of straggly weeds that stretched as far as his eye could see. And he walked among the dead. They came toward him, each of them alone. Men and women. Some were recognizable as human beings with pale skin and large, questioning eyes. Others were mere skeletons. And worst of all were the ones that looked like they’d climbed out of a six-month-old grave.
He pressed his palms against his sides, willing them to stay there, but it was impossible to stop from reaching out and touching some of them as they passed, catching their last earthly thoughts before blackness closed in.
Fear. Panic. Sadness. Shock.
A boy dressed in swimming trunks walked toward him with jerky steps. As he passed, Ben touched him and learned he’d dived into the shallow end of a pool and hit his head, water filling his lungs as his paralyzed body refused to respond.
Next was a man in a business suit who had stared at the black hole in the barrel of an automatic pistol before the muzzle flash and a moment of blinding pain.
After him was an eighteen-year-old woman, her thoughts swallowed up by panic as a truck careened toward her car.
And then the worst of all. A slave girl from the Windward. She’d called herself Jewel, and he’d never known her real name.
She’d been petite, with olive skin, long dark hair and hazel eyes. Nothing like his sister, yet she’d reminded him of Erin. Naive. Eager for adventure. Eager to please. Ben had found her in one of the dungeon rooms, dead. A man who took pleasure in giving pain had tied her down and tortured her. The guy had crossed the line, and there had been no one to stop him.
Not Ben Walker or anyone else.
In the dream, Jewel’s eyes met his. He’d touched her in the morgue. Now she reached out toward him, and he reared back. He didn’t want to watch her final moments. Not again.
Somehow he clawed his way out of the dream and lay panting in the bed, his body covered with perspiration.
Glancing over, he was relieved to see that Sage was sleeping. Not watching him relive part of his life that he longed to forget.
He clenched his fists, willing the wisps of the dream from his mind. Sitting up, he pulled off his undershirt and used it to mop the sweat from his face and neck, then tossed the shirt on the bed beside him. He was thinking about getting a drink of water when he heard a noise outside. A car pulling up.
He was off the bed with his gun in his hand before the engine cut off.
oOo
Something woke Sage from sleep, and her eyes snapped open. The bedside lamp was off, but dim light filtered in from around the drawn curtains. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. Then it all came back to her. Laurel missing. Decorah Security. Ben Walker.
He was standing by the window, wearing only the dark briefs he’d worn to bed, and holding the gun as he pulled the edge of the curtains aside to look out. Tension radiated through his well-muscled body. The muscles of an endurance runner, not a weight lifter.
She sprang out of the bed, and he whirled toward her, the gun pointed in her direction.
Chapter Seven
Sage froze as she stared down the barrel of the automatic and beyond it to Ben’s tense face.
“Christ!” He lowered the weapon. “I’m sorry.”
“What happened?”
“I woke up when I heard a car pull into the lot outside. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t someone coming after us.”
“Who was it?”
He made a dismissive sound. “A man and woman on their way in from a late night.”
She shivered in the cold. She’d been staring at the gun. Now she stared at the man, at his well-toned body, his narrow waist, the dark mat of hair that spread across his chest, split by an eight-inch-long scar.
“You should go back to bed,” he said.
That was the truth. She should. Instead she walked toward him. He’d said he’d been shot. Thank God he’d recovered.
Reaching out, she wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face against his shoulder.
“Don’t.” The word was a low rumble in his chest.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re in a fragile emotional state, and you’re reacting to danger instead of thinking rationally.”
She blew off the flat, emotionless statement. “I’ve been trying to think rationally ever since Mom called to ask if Laurel was at my house. It’s not working. Too much is happening too fast.”
“I scared you,” he muttered.
“Not you. Everything.”
Unable to stop, she pressed against him, warming herself with the heat of his skin.
To her relief, he put down the gun, then lifted his arms and folded her close. One of his large hands played with her hair, combing through the strands. The other stroked her back and shoulders in small circles, working the tight muscles.
He made a muffled sound deep in his chest as he reached down, slipping his hand under the hem of her shirt and sliding it upward, splaying it against the bare skin of her back, sending prickles of heat through her body.
Heat that warmed her from the inside out.
She closed her eyes, wanting to focus only on the man who held her in his arms. Tonight she’d come to him for comfort and discovered she wanted a lot more than that. No, she’d known it when she climbed out of bed, but she hadn’t been able to admit it.
When she lifted her head, he went very still.
Reaching up, she clasped the back of his head and brought his mouth down to hers. Their lips met in a kiss that turned hot the moment they touched.
The contact drove all the uncertainty from her mind. She forgot everything but his taste, his touch. And her own out-of-kilter response.
She needed to get closer to him, as close as she possibly could. If she had ever felt such desperation, she could not remember when. All she could do was lean into him, caught by the steamy pleasure of the contact.
“Sage,” he murmured against her mouth, nibbling with his lips before settling into a more steady pressure.
She liked the way he kissed and the way he said her name with an edge of the desperation she felt. It made her reckless, made her feel as if she was a prisoner of forces that held her in their grip.
Wrapping her arms around Ben, she felt the hard shaft of his erection between them. When she moved against it, his hands went to her hips, pulling her more tightly to himself.