Deathtoll (Broslin Creek Book 8)

by Dana Marton

  How many more pictures did Asael mean to send?

  How much more was he prepared to hurt Emma before he deemed Kate “ready” to hear him?

  Kate thought about their parents, who would be arriving in less than twenty-four hours. She was supposed to pick them up at the airport, then take them to the bed-and-breakfast on Main Street.

  They could get an Uber.

  She hit Reply on her phone and typed with trembling fingers. Me for her.

  Not because she thought Asael would let Emma go if Kate gave herself into his clutches. For one, Emma had probably seen his face, so she was currently in the same predicament as Kate. Asael couldn’t let either of them live.

  BUT… Two were better than one. And Kate had years’ worth of self-defense training from Murph. She’d imagined facing Asael a million times, had mentally and physically prepared for it. Between her and Emma, they might be able to come up with a plan to escape. Kate certainly wasn’t going to leave her sister alone with a killer.

  She drew a slow breath to calm her racing pulse as she typed a quick follow-up message. Let’s trade.

  * * *

  Asael

  Asael smiled at the message popping up on his phone.

  The police weren’t dictating it to Kate. She was alone in the back of the house. He could see this morning’s police protection in the kitchen window.

  He waited a minute, just to make her sweat, then typed If you want to see your sister alive, do exactly as I say.

  The key to a good trap was the right bait. You had the right bait, and you could catch anything.

  Her response was immediate. I will.

  Go to her room, he wrote back. Stand in front of the window.

  Less than thirty seconds passed before she appeared.

  Now open it and climb out, he texted. Quietly. If I see the cop in the kitchen move, your sister is dead.

  The man in the kitchen window did not move. He kept watching the street, clueless.

  When the window was all the way up, Kate Bridges sat on the sill, swung out one leg, followed by the other. Then she jumped to the ground, without hesitation. She even had the presence of mind to turn and close the window behind her.

  Asael sent his next text. Go into Tony Mauro’s house from the back. The door is open. If you’re seen, the game is up.

  She looked both ways before pulling into the cover of a hydrangea bush on her side. Then she darted into the cover of a large lilac bush that had lost most of its leaves already, but had enough gnarly branches to provide coverage.

  He noted the slight limp. Must have landed too hard on that ankle. It didn’t matter at this stage.

  Asael walked through the house to the back to open the door. He stepped aside to let her in. “Hello, Kate.”

  For a second, they stood a foot apart, the closest he’d ever been to her. She’d evaded him for years. If he wasn’t as vain as he was, he would have admired her.

  She scrambled away from him, as far as she could go, until her back hit the dryer.

  He hadn’t realized how much it would excite him, how much the personal angle added. He found her proximity…arousing. Not in the way a man might find a woman arousing, nothing that basic. But the way the sighting of the perfect prey aroused the hunter.

  “Where is Emma?” she demanded, legs slightly apart, bracing for a fight, struggling to hide how scared she was. “Is she here?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you in this house?”

  “Convenience.” Asael gestured at her. “Why don’t you put your phone on the washer and then pull up your shirt so I can make sure there’s nothing tucked into your waistband?”

  She did as he instructed. He didn’t deem a pat down necessary. She wore close-fitting yoga pants.

  He stepped to the window and opened it. “Go ahead. There’s a van outside in the next-door neighbor’s driveway. No worries, they’re not home. The van’s side door is open. Close the door behind you. I left a blindfold in there for you. You put that on.”

  She did as she was told, with grim determination. The cop who sat up front in his cruiser couldn’t see her. Tony Mauro’s garage hung forward, blocking his sight.

  Asael went after her. He locked her into the back, then slipped behind the wheel.

  As he backed out of the driveway, looking as if he’d just delivered a package, he was whistling.

  When he stopped at the Stop sign on the corner, he said, “You probably think you could take that blindfold off and attack me from behind. You could. But keep in mind, if I don’t take you to your sister, you’ll never find her.”

  She stayed quiet. Good girl. She was one of the smart ones. She’d eluded him for years. She’d survived multiple previous assassination attempts. She understood that she was beaten. Asael appreciated that.

  Ten minutes, and he was at his destination. He drove right into the building. He turned off the van and went around to open the side door. Checked the blindfold. “Give me your hand.”

  She didn’t struggle. “Where is Emma?”

  “You’ll see her in a minute.”

  He led her to the basement door. And when they were halfway down the stairs, the door closed behind them, he said, “You can take off the blindfold.”

  He let her go, allowing her the use of both hands. Then he walked down the rest of the stairs after her, waited for her reaction, so eager for it that his fingertips tingled.

  When she reached the bottom step and her breath caught—that quick, shocked intake of air—the way she froze on that last step, that fed him.

  “Emma! Are you all right?”

  He was close enough behind her to smell her fear, the sharp scent of sweat. He didn’t stop her as she ran to her sister.

  For a long time, almost a minute, the sisters paid attention to nothing else but their embrace. Then Kate looked around, taking in their surroundings at last before her gaze snapped to his. “What is this place?”

  “A workshop. Woodwork, metalwork. All these tools…” Asael gestured dramatically because he liked drama. Life was better with flair. No need to be basic. “Enough to outfit three torture chambers, aren’t they?”

  Kate paled as she rose. “Please let my sister go. You have me.”

  Really. “Don’t disappoint me now, Kate. You couldn’t have thought I would go through with the trade.”

  She stepped in front of her sister and had her hands out to the side in a sweet if desperate gesture, like a mama bird protecting her nest. “But it’s me you want.”

  “That’s the thing about wants and needs, isn’t it? No matter what you have, you always want a little more. Think you need a little more. Life is not a board game where the rules forever stay the same.”

  He didn’t duct-tape her mouth shut. He’d even removed her sister’s gag earlier. He knew how he wanted to end them. It wouldn’t do if they suffocated too early.

  “Over to that pipe.” He pointed. “Sit down. Hands behind your back.”

  In a minute, he had them tied up side by side, then he walked upstairs, satisfied with himself.

  He’d used Emma as bait to catch Kate. And now he would use Kate as bait to catch Murph.

  He liked it when a plan came together.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Kate

  “You’re an idiot,” was the first thing Emma said once Kate told her that she’d come voluntarily. “And I don’t mean a village idiot. I mean on a global scale. Why? Oh my God. Are you out of your freaking mind? I’m so mad at you right now.”

  Asael had gone upstairs, leaving them tied to water pipes, side by side.

  Kate wanted nothing more than to hug her sister again, but that would have to wait. “He’s alone. We’re together. We’re going to escape.”

  “We’re going to die.”

  “Then we die together.” Kate’s gaze dropped to the bruise under Emma’s eye. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course I’m not all right. And now you’re not all right either. I don’t
want you to die for me! I don’t want you to risk yourself, and I don’t want you to risk the baby. Are you crazy? Why would you do this?”

  Kate was so focused on scanning their windowless prison and staring at a workbench set up like an operating table—sharp tools laid out on the sides, a human-size empty space in the middle—that a second passed before her sister’s words caught up with her. “I’m not pregnant. I told you I wasn’t.”

  “Really? You’re sticking with that?” The anger in Emma’s voice mixed with disappointment. “I’m your freaking sister. Just tell me already.”

  “I’m not pregnant!” They didn’t have time for nonsense. “How are we even arguing about this right now? Don’t we have better things to do? We need to figure out how we’re going to escape. Listen…” She trailed off as the look on her sister’s face morphed from anger to stunned disbelief.

  Then Emma shook her head and looked like she might cry. “You didn’t know. Seriously? You seriously didn’t know?”

  “There’s nothing to know.” Beyond the prepped workbench under the neon lights there were others, cluttered with tools. If only Kate could get to them. She scanned the walls and ceiling. No cameras that she could see. At least that one thing was in their favor. Asael wasn’t watching them.

  Emma bumped Kate’s shoulder with her own to force Kate to look at her. “I thought you just weren’t telling me because you wanted to tell Murph first, and you and Murph are on the outs right now.”

  What? “We need to get out of here. I swear, I’m not pregnant. Focus! Did you see the building from the outside when he brought you in? I was in the back of a van, blindfolded. I didn’t see anything. Do you know where we are?”

  “Have you gotten your period?”

  “I think I’m in perimenopause. I was supposed to get some blood work, but then Mr. Mauro was in that hit-and-run and all the issues with Ian McCall… I forgot.”

  “How many have you missed?”

  “Two.” Kate shrugged. “As of today, technically three.” Which meant nothing. She was under a ton of stress. “I think we’re in Broslin. I was only in the back of Asael’s van for a few minutes.”

  “White van?”

  Kate nodded.

  “That’s how he got me too,” Emma told her, then gave her the whole story.

  Unfortunately, that didn’t mean that she was off the pregnancy topic.

  “When did your stomach troubles start?” she asked.

  “A couple of months ago. But it’s been much better since I cut out the dairy and the gluten. I haven’t had any nausea in days.”

  “Because you’re entering the second trimester,” Emma said with exaggerated patience.

  “Murph wears protection. Where in Broslin do you think we are? One of the old factories that shut down?”

  “Every time? Not one broke? Not ever?”

  “Once.”

  “Let me guess. Three months ago?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe? About that. This is not the basement of a house. It’s much bigger. What kind of business needs half a dozen workbenches? Repair shop?”

  “You’ve been moody as fuck.”

  “Okay!” Kate stopped inspecting the basement and faced her sister fully. “Can we stop with that topic, please? I’m not moody!”

  “So, you’ve been picking fights with people you love for fun?”

  “I haven’t been picking fights.” But, honest to God, right at that moment, she could have choked someone.

  “You kicked me out of your house.”

  “I’m sorry, all right? This was exactly what I was trying to avoid. I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

  “You got mad at Murph because he proposed to you.” Emma looked like if her hands were free she would have been tearing her hair out. “Can you say hor-mo-nal? Can you just once pretend that I’m not the baby of the family who knows nothing, and listen to me? Oh my God, I hate you so much right now.”

  “You can’t hate me. We’re sisters.”

  “I wish we’d been twins so I could have eaten you in the womb!”

  For a long moment, they stared at each other.

  Then the mood in the basement took a one-eighty in a split second, and they burst out laughing. But then Kate’s emotions took another turn, and she was suddenly on the verge of crying.

  “Just stop.” Emma’s obstinance was seriously driving her nuts. “I can’t do this right now. We have to…” She blinked away some idiot tears.

  She freaking hated how emotional she’d been lately.

  As that thought settled on her mind, the world spun with her. Stopped.

  Hor-mo-nal.

  Kate stared at her sister.

  She was seeing the room and herself and Emma in it from above, an out-of-body experience. And overlaid on that image, she could see a movie montage of odd little moments from the past three months, the nausea and lack of appetite, the exhaustion and brain fog, her emotions all over the place, fighting with Murph, fighting with Emma…

  The movie ended and Kate snapped back into her body, still staring at her sister, except she was finally seeing the truth in those clear brown eyes. “I—”

  Kate’s gaze dropped to her flat belly, feeling as if she hadn’t been simply shoved onto the stained cement floor minutes before but had been dropped from a great height, from outer space. Every bone in her body, every thought in her brain, felt rattled.

  A tear rolled down her face. “Oh God.”

  Emma misted up too. “Right?”

  “Murph just broke up with me.” The words tore a hole in her chest.

  * * *

  Murph

  Murph drove back to Kate’s place from the mechanic shop where Mordocai used to work. It wasn’t empty or abandoned, but he couldn’t think of any other place to check. Neither the owner nor the mechanics had seen any strangers lurking around. Nobody had been asking questions about Fred Kazincky.

  Traffic slowed for something up ahead. For a few seconds, Murph was stuck in front of his old house. The Victorian he’d sold from witness protection, via proxy, was finally fully renovated. He noted the gingerbread trim: pink, cream, and tan. Fancy. Although, he liked Kate’s house just as much if not more, the clean lines and the possibilities it hid.

  Traffic cleared, and Murph moved on. He drove around Kate’s block. He went through a mental map of Broslin in his mind, east to west, anyplace he could think of that could be a hiding place. At the same time, he scrutinized every car he saw. Nothing stuck out. No strange males around forty slowing or stopping.

  When his phone rang, he grabbed for it. “Agent Cirelli.”

  “We found Emma’s car abandoned by Route 743,” the agent said. “Just outside of Hershey. She must have decided to take the scenic route. No sign of struggle. I tried to call Kate, but her phone is turned off. Everything okay?”

  “We had a fight,” Murph told her. “She probably turned off her phone because she doesn’t want to talk to me right now.”

  “Local police are still watching her house?”

  “Three-man team. Three-person team,” he corrected. Gabi was watching the back.

  “I’m assuming you’re also there, fight or no fight?”

  Murph cleared his throat. “Yeah.” He hated to be so pitifully predictable, but there it was. “So Emma’s car was just sitting by the side of the road?”

  “In a parking lot. I’m looking at the spot right now. Nothing but a skeevy motel on one side and a roadside market on the other. Nobody remembers seeing her. If she parked closer to the motel, we could have caught her on the security cameras. The market doesn’t have any. The guy behind the counter says she could have been there, he might not remember. It’s been a busy week, people picking up their Halloween pumpkins, fall wreaths, and whatnot. He does a brisk business selling fresh cider, has signs for it all down the road. Could be what pulled Emma in.”

  “Could she have gone to the motel?”

  “Not according to the front desk clerk. And, like I said, she
’s not on the security cameras.”

  “Do you think Asael took her?”

  “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think there was at least a possibility. Asael turns up alive, then both of Kate’s neighbors have accidents, then her sister disappears. All in one week.” The agent paused. “But still, it could be a coincidence. Emma is a beautiful young girl, traveling alone. There are people out there who would consider her prey. Plenty of women disappear in this country each year. You know the statistics.”

  He did. He’d been an officer of the law for long enough to learn them.

  “I’ll let Kate know about the car,” he said.

  “I’d appreciate it. She can call me if she has any questions, but I don’t have anything more right now. Okay. That’s it. I want to call Captain Bing to let him know that I’ll be in Broslin at one point this afternoon. I’ll see you then?”

  “See you then.”

  After Murph thanked her and they hung up, he dialed Hunter.

  Hunter picked up with “What’s up?”

  “Kate has her phone turned off.”

  “She’s taking a nap. She didn’t sleep last night. Want me to knock on her door?”

  Cirelli’s message wasn’t time sensitive. Whether Kate found out right then or an hour from then that Emma’s car was located wouldn’t make a difference. And maybe, by that time, the FBI would have more information.

  The last time Murph had seen her, she’d been on the edge of falling apart. She needed rest. “Let her sleep.”

  “You sure?”

  “The FBI found Emma’s car,” Murph told him, then filled him in on the circumstances. “When Kate wakes up, just let her know. If she has any questions, she can call Cirelli. For now, there’s nothing urgent.”

  * * *

  Kate

  “I’m pregnant,” Kate said for the third time, still stunned. “I’m going to be a mother.”

  “That’s nothing.” Emma grinned, her eyes still misty. “I’m going to be an aunt.”

  “Seriously, I’m pregnant.”