Hell's Hilltop

by J. A. Dennam

  “Sit with who?”

  As he began their long descent to the ground, Ty felt Rena push against his back and rear upward. “Isn’t she pretty?” she asked in a long, drawn out sigh. Then, she yelled out suddenly, “Hey, love the dress! Call me!”

  “Shhh!” Ty gave her rear end a slap.

  Danny, who was taking the other flight of steps with Derek, stopped momentarily to look behind them. “Rena, who are you talking to?”

  Rena plopped back down again and pointed a finger in Danny’s direction. “You!” Then she burst into a fit of giggles.

  Ty rolled his eyes.

  “Is she hallucinating?” Danny asked as they continued their descent.

  “She’s a rag doll,” Ty answered, “and, if my guess is right, her blood pressure is probably rising.”

  “Are you worried?”

  “This reeks of some dissociative drug, like PCP or Ketamine. Rafferty probably just wanted her pliable for now.”

  “Just enough to get her back home to the good drugs,” Derek guessed with a dark scowl.

  It was a grim thought, one that made Ty want to kill the man a second time. “Something like that. I should get her to a hospital, just in case.”

  Their footsteps rang over metal as Derek looked at him from the other side of the tracks. “You know what that would mean.”

  Yes, Ty knew what that would mean. “It’s not worth risking her life, Derek. I’m only guessing about the drugs, she needs constant monitoring at the least.”

  “Frost has the equipment for that in his lab, right?”

  Seriously? “I’m not a doctor and I’m sure as hell not what she needs.”

  Danny, who followed her brother, had a clear view of the woman dangling over his shoulder. “You’re whom she’d want,” she said thoughtfully. “Right, Rena?”

  Instead of answering, Rena only swayed with each step.

  “She’s looped,” Ty grumbled, “and my nuts can’t take another hit like the last one in case she comes up swinging.”

  Derek sucked air through his teeth. “It’s no fun getting sacked by your woman. Mel introduced her knee to my boys the other night, but it was all a big misunderstanding. See, she thought I was just another ghost because some prick told her I was dead.”

  That again…. “Yeah, yeah, you made your point this morning.”

  Austin was waiting at the base of the lift hill, his grim focus solely on his wife. “I’m guessing no one was hurt except the steaming pile on the grass.”

  Danny had the decency to look sheepish as she climbed down from the tracks. “Rafferty injected Rena with something before he went over.”

  It was a clear distraction technique. Austin gave Rena’s dangling body a mere glance as Ty made it to the ground. “She okay?”

  “She will be,” Ty said with determination.

  And the man’s attention was back on his wife. “You and I need another go-round,” said with a pointed finger. Then, Austin turned and stalked away.

  “Hoo-boy,” Danny muttered, holding her stomach. “I’m gonna get it later.”

  In Ty’s opinion, the whole exchange justified his determination to remain single.

  “Wait a minute,” Danny said as her husband disappeared in the direction of Rafferty’s body. “Where’s he going?”

  “To clean up,” Derek answered, pausing to recoup before jumping to the ground. “And we need to do it fast before our distraction is gone.”

  Danny’s mouth fell open. “So, that’s the plan? We sweep this under the rug?”

  “Just until we figure out what to do next.” Derek moved to follow Austin. “Go with Ty. Get Rena to the car, we’ll meet you there shortly.”

  In his wake, Danny yelled, “Wait! I dropped my phone up there. It’s probably broken, but….”

  “I’ll find it,” he threw back.

  Rena began to struggle. Ty put her on her feet just long enough to sweep her up into his arms. “Time to go.”

  As they cut behind the rows of food and game shacks, Danny kept up in earnest. “I’m a little behind,” said with a modicum of guilt.

  In other words she wanted him to fill her in. “Only because you didn’t stay put like you should have.”

  “Your disgust with me is duly noted, but I knew I could help. When I saw that roller coaster in the photo, something just… spoke to me. I had to come.”

  Another woman who couldn’t ignore the voices in her head. Ty shifted Rena’s weight as they hurried down the pathway. “You’re going to be a mom, Danny. You aren’t just putting yourself at risk anymore.”

  Her chin lifted a notch. “I know that.” She chewed her lip for a moment, clearly pondering something unsavory.

  Ty noticed. “What?”

  “I’m sure it was all for the baby, but Rena was clearly giving me a window to escape.”

  “Because she isn’t a killer. Her protective instincts are as strong as yours.”

  Danny nodded. “Okay, you’re making a point. But you didn’t see her stand on that railing, Ty. It was a crazy move and she looked every bit the lunatic I remembered from the night of her arrest. She was going to kill herself and that was before the drug kicked in.”

  “I saw,” he growled. In fact, he’d been running up those steps, watching in horror as she’d looked toward the sky, her willowy figure open to the stars. In that moment, he knew she was going to jump. “It was a desperate move to prevent something she thought was inevitable,” he explained, knowing how frantic she’d been to break Rafferty’s hold.

  “Because she didn’t know Rafferty had been cured,” Danny surmised.

  “That’s right. Because she didn’t stick around long enough to find out when I did.”

  Danny rolled her eyes, shot him a disgruntled look. “How did you find out?”

  As they crested a hill, Ty shifted his load and kept going, despite his need for rest. The gate was just ahead, past the water cannons and ghost-themed pirate ship. “My gut told me Frost knew more than he was letting on. I mean, why would he risk his life for a dead man? But when I thought about it, Rafferty wasn’t dead yet, and neither was Crystal. So I called Derek to get his take and, sure enough, Crystal was coming out of it.”

  Danny’s smile was fresh, brilliant. “So she’s going to be okay?”

  In that split second, Ty understood perfectly why Derek kept her guarded from their rowdy circle of friends back in the day. He fought the urge to smile back. “Which you’d know if you stayed put.”

  Ignoring the reprimand, Danny said, “I thought tetrodotoxin was a lethal poison.”

  The woman didn’t look the slightest bit humbled and Ty felt a sudden shaft of sympathy for Austin. “It is, but not if you’re on Nexifen. When I went back to the cave to confront Frost about the Plan B pill, I found him in the tunnel attempting to leave. I cornered him, and he confirmed the pill was a cure. The first thing I did was look for Rafferty, but he’d already recovered and was gone. Turns out, Frost was just keeping me out of the lab so that asshole could sneak out the back way.

  Shock registered in Danny’s big brown eyes. “I thought Frost was on our side!”

  Just a few more yards…. “It’s amazing what one will do for family.”

  “Family?”

  He told her about the relationship between the two men while Rena slept in his arms. Her eyes would open occasionally and she’d snuggle closer to his chest. The faster they got to the car, the faster he could monitor her vitals, but her slight movements reassured him.

  Danny wanted to know more about Plan B.

  “All I know is it contains a highly lethal dose of toxin,” Ty answered, the burn of his strenuous workout requiring he stop and rest, but he bravely trudged on. “The toxin is needed to counteract the enhancing properties of Nexifen, and they sort of cancel each other out. It works fast, the withdrawal process is completely bypassed… Frost described it like a reset button.”

  Enthralled, Danny walked backwards as they talked. “And Rafferty had no cl
ue?”

  “None of the ghosts knew. What good is a chemical leash if they know it can be broken?”

  Danny shook her head and flipped around to walk forward again. “If Sophie already had a cure, why did she still want that sample so bad?”

  Ty repeated what Rena had told them days ago. “She wasn’t after a cure, she wanted a flawless alternative to steroids that wouldn’t be rejected by the FDA. The chemical properties in that sample would have eliminated the most dangerous side-effect of Nexifen withdrawals.”

  “Which is killer anxiety,” Danny deduced for him. “In the literal sense.”

  “According to Derek, it’s worse than being burned alive.” Though Ty couldn’t imagine anything worse than that.

  They reached the maintenance gate, thank God. As Ty waited, muscles straining against Rena’s growing weight, Danny prepared to jump it.

  “Hey.” He jerked his head toward the swinging door to their left. “That way.”

  Almost kid-like, Danny stuck her finger out and pulled the rope. The latch lifted and the door swung open. “Oh,” she said with a shrug. “Well, that’s handy.”

  “How is Frost holding up?” Austin asked from the back seat.

  Ty disconnected the call and looked in his rearview mirror. Rena’s eyes were wide open, her head propped on the other man’s shoulder. “Mac said he’s doing surprisingly well. He was sitting in his living room when they got there.”

  “They?”

  “Crystal’s with him playing nursemaid,” Ty explained. It was still hard to believe considering how the woman had looked last time he laid eyes on her.

  Austin returned his attention to whatever passed by the window. “I still can’t believe Crystal recovered that fast.”

  Ty could relate. It was tough taking Derek’s word for it until he could see Rena’s sister with his own eyes. Then again…. “Rafferty recovered just as quickly,” Ty reminded, visualizing the man’s curled up corpse in the trunk behind them. “How’s Rena doing?”

  Austin put two fingers against her neck, waited a few seconds. “Seems fine other than that creepy look on her face.”

  She’d been eerily prone since leaving the amusement park and Ty didn’t like it. “We should be taking her to a hospital.”

  “None of us can afford for her to get caught right now,” Austin argued, “especially you.”

  “Derek’s the one who risked everything to break her out.”

  “You made your fair share of sacrifices, something that could definitely catch up with you later.”

  Ty’s grip went white on the steering wheel and he glanced one more time in the rearview mirror.

  Rena’s inky black hair blended with the darkness, leaving visible only her hauntingly beautiful face and blank stare. What was going through her mind at that moment? Was she absorbing any of their conversation, or was she in a world of her own?

  Wherever she was, it wasn’t by choice. Knowing it didn’t improve Ty’s mood.

  He parked the Camaro in the woods a good fifty yards from Isak’s A-frame house. As he and Austin got out into the balmy night air, Danny pulled up in the truck just long enough for Derek to exit the passenger side.

  As she pulled away, Ty jerked his chin. “Where’s she going?”

  “Probably avoiding our go-round,” Austin grumbled, glaring at the retreating taillights of his truck. “But it’s coming.”

  “She’s going back to your house,” Derek told him with a reassuring nod. “I didn’t want her around Rena, either.”

  Austin seemed pleased by that, but far from placated. “So, what now?”

  “I’m going to check it out first,” Derek said, leaning heavily against the trunk housing Rafferty’s dead body. “Make sure it’s clear before we take Rena down to the lab.”

  “You expecting trouble?”

  A quirk of the eyebrows. “Always.”

  Ty moved to follow. “I’m going with you. You look ready to fall over.”

  Austin’s scowl deepened. “Why can’t you stay with Rena? I’ll go with Derek.”

  Ty turned and held out his arms in a show of grandeur. “She’s always happy with you, Cahill.”

  It wasn’t jealousy that made him a prick. Ty Ferguson didn’t get jealous. It was the fact that Rena’s health had somehow become more important to him than his comfort.

  When the fuck did that happen?

  Ty stood at the bottom of the basement stairs and soaked in the environment Rena had called home for almost nine months before her arrest. Besides the standard buildup of discarded crap, it had nothing to offer but bare concrete walls, a hideous armchair and a single bed. This was where she’d been held. Drugged. Manipulated. Used.

  Good God. The condition in which he’d found her earlier scared the hell out of him, but it was a typical scene for every first responder. Now that he knew the details….

  Derek came down the stairs and stood behind him, clutching the bannister in a white-knuckled grip. “This is where he kept her all that time?”

  Ty nodded.

  The man moved around him and stood on the cracked concrete floor, took in the same details as Ty. “Looks like Hell to me.”

  The basement door opened behind them. Mac poked his head through it. “We’re all in the cave if you care to join us.”

  The man’s jovial mood clashed with the solemnity of theirs. Ty understood it, knew Mac was celebrating Crystal’s recovery, but the timing sucked. He left the basement, along with his desire to set fire to the place.

  Outside, Derek grilled Mac about Crystal’s progress while Ty tried dialing Austin’s phone.

  No answer. That was strange. While the other two men entered the cave, Ty yelled after them. “You two go ahead, I’m going to get Rena.”

  But while he trekked back up the hill, a strange feeling gnawed at his insides. Maybe it was the time of night, or the moving shadows that hid unexpected things from sight. Predators were everywhere, but the most dangerous ones—namely the ghosts—were gone.

  Unless they weren’t all gone.

  Ty moved to the street, forgoing the woods for now. The chances of a car coming were pretty slim, anyway.

  Something crashed deep in the woods. Heart pounding, Ty stopped, shined his flashlight toward the sound. A flash of blue moved, then disappeared.

  “Austin? That you?”

  Heavy breathing, then a pained groan.

  “Shit.” Ty dove into the woods, cutting the shadows with his meager beam of light. The undergrowth nearly ripped his shoes off twice, but he managed to make it to Austin in no time.

  The man’s denim shirt stretched tautly over wide shoulders as he rose up on hands and knees. He coughed, reared back with pain etched deeply on his face.

  Ty went down beside him, already in rescue mode. “Talk to me, man. Where’s Rena?”

  “She kneed me in the goddamned nuts!” Austin hissed, clutching his groin.

  It was a position Ty had been locked in not too long ago, right before he found Rena in the arms of her ex. It was a hell of a thing, to be sacked by a woman on a mission.

  So why did Ty feel like smiling?

  “Where’s Rena?” he repeated instead.

  “I don’t know. I was blind when she left. Holy God!”

  “Need me to call an ambulance?” said with a touch of humor.

  “Fuck off. Go find her, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Knowing Austin wasn’t exempt from Rena’s wrath somehow made things better. Not that they were. She was on the loose with drugs in her system. No telling what she’d do next.

  On his way to the cave, Ty took out his phone and dialed Derek’s number. Of course there was no signal in the cave, so he wasn’t surprised when no one answered. Derek and the rest of them would be oblivious to Rena’s escape.

  But Derek would be able to find her, hear her, and see her in the dark better than anyone. So Ty went to search him out first.

  Halfway through the cave’s tunnel, his flashlight began to flick
er. Ty banged it against his hand a few times, but the thing finally went out. Bathed in darkness, he fumbled for his phone, used it to light the rest of the way to the lab door.

  When he got there it was to find it sealed shut. He knocked, shouted Derek’s name.

  A muffled voice came through it. “We’re locked in!”

  “What? How?” Ty looked around and saw nothing barring the door.

  Isak’s voice. “There’s a trigger for it in the basement of the house! A safeguard in case the authorities come snooping around! Someone must have tripped it from there!”

  “It must have been Rena! She’s missing!”

  Derek shouted next. “Seriously? Can’t anyone keep that woman contained?”

  At least the finger couldn’t be pointed at Ty this time. With that small comfort, he asked about the tunnel Rafferty had used to slip past him earlier. Muffled curses and some rustling ensued, then grew distant. Assuming they were all headed for the back exit, Ty turned and made his way back through the tunnel.

  Up ahead, gently lapping water echoed off the rock walls, filling the narrow passage with sound. A scuttling noise, barely perceptible, had him turning around to inspect the tight quarters behind him. At that moment, the light from his screen dimmed, threatening to go dark altogether. He woke it back up just in time to see movement on the ground.

  “Shit!”

  But it was only a large black beetle, blindly feeling its way toward what Ty knew to be a dead end. Willing his heart to slow, he resumed his trek through the tunnel. Of all the weird crap he’d been exposed to over the past week, he’d just allowed himself to be spooked by a freakin’ insect. “Time to check your man card at the gate,” he mumbled to himself as he finally reached the water.

  The motorized raft bobbed and tugged against its ropes at the base of the dock. Aged wooden planks thumped and creaked beneath his footsteps. As soon as Ty cleared the mouth of the cave, he barely had time to register the oar that came out of nowhere before it slammed against his temple.

  CHAPTER 20

  Pain shot through Ty’s skull. He hit the ground hard, rolled into the tepid water. When he resurfaced, two dark figures hovered over him. A shake of the head cleared his vision and the figures merged into one before it then disappeared into the darkness.