by Boone, Lisa
She pressed her hand to her mouth.
“Madison.”
It was a soft whisper, barely audible, but it caused her to spin around, her heart hammering painfully in her chest.
“Madison.” The voice was a bit louder, more singsong like this time, but with a decidedly mechanical sound, as though he was speaking through some sort of device.
Panic began to set in as she spun around, searching for a weapon. Spotting a bloody wrench on the floor, she picked it up as she reached into her pocket for her cell phone.
“Oh, Madison, where are you?”
She started to dial 911 when something crashed through the office window causing her to drop the phone. She gripped the wrench with both hands and backed up against a filing cabinet.
“You better get out, Madison.”
Her throat tightened as a white haze began to fill the interior of the body shop.
“You’re going to burn, Madison.”
Just then, the fire alarm went off.
Spotting a door off to the side of the room, Madison yanked it open and stepped into a small bathroom, making sure to lock it behind her.
She fell against the sink with a terrified scream, when a fist struck the door, shaking it in the process.
“Please open the door, Madison,” the voice begged as the doorknob rattled. “I’m scared of the fire. I promise I won’t hurt you…too badly.”
Forcing her fear to the back of her mind, she turned her attention to the small window above the toilet. Kicking the lid down with her foot, she stood on top of the toilet and tried to unlock the rusted window.
It opened an inch and wouldn’t budge any further.
“Madison, please let me in. The fire is getting closer.”
Using the wrench, she slammed it against the window sending glass everywhere. She slid the wrench along the edges making sure to get the shards of glass out before turning around and yanking a couple of hand towels off the rack. She placed the hand towels across the bottom of the window and put a foot on the back of the tank.
“Madison,” he called out, still with that horrible mocking singsong voice, “I’ve got the keys to the door.”
She scrambled through the window as the door flew open. She was half way out when she felt hands grab her feet.
She screamed, her mind going numb as she tried kicking her way free. His fingers bit into her calves causing her to cry out in pain. She tried to turn around in order to get a better position, but when she did, he suddenly released her, causing her to fall.
She let out a painful grunt as she hit the ground.
Rolling over, she looked up at the window, expecting to see Alex looking back at her. When he didn’t appear, she grabbed the wrench and then shakily rose to her feet, ignoring the pain in her arms and legs.
She backed away from the building and towards a wood fence that separated the body shop from the train tracks.
She glanced to her right.
Dead end, she thought, turning her attention to the left and toward the inn. She started to run but slid to a stop when she noticed a man’s shadow at the edge of the building.
Fearing it was Alex standing there waiting for her, Madison turned around and headed for the end of the alley. Once there, she stacked some boxes together, climbed up, and scrambled over the fence.
Trying to catch her breath, she pressed her back to the fence.
“Don’t run, Madison,” the voice said from behind the fence. “I promise I won’t hurt you. You’ve got three more days. You can trust me.”
She picked up the wrench she had dropped when she climbed over the fence and painfully came to her feet. She looked up above the fence. She could see the lights from the inn shining down at the far end of the field. If she could just make it there, she could slip through the gate leading to the parking lot and from there it was only a few feet to the inn’s doors.
She picked up her pace, running as fast as she could. She was almost there when the gate slowly creaked open.
Her breath coming in painful gasps, she bent over at the waist and held her side.
“What are you waiting for, Madison?” the voice said from behind the gate. “You’re so close.”
With a groan, she closed her eyes for a moment before turning and running toward the abandoned train cars.
She ducked behind one of the cars and turned her attention to the open gate, wondering if he was still behind the fence or if he had slipped through the gate as she ran away.
She looked up as a siren sounded in the distance.
Feeling pain shooting up and down her arms, she glanced down at her hands. Bright red blood flowed down her fingertips to the ground.
“Hey, what do we have here?”
Madison whirled around and held up her wrench.
A big man with a potbelly, short-cropped dirty brown hair and even dirtier clothes stood behind her. He held up his hands. “Sorry,” he said with a laugh, “didn’t mean to frighten you.” His smile fell as he continued to stare at her. “Are you okay?”
Gulping in air, Madison lowered her hands a few inches. “Someone’s trying to kill me.”
He looked around. “I don’t see anyone here but you.” He raised up on his toes and looked over her head. “The body shop’s on fire,” he said in amusement. “Winters is going to be mad when he finds out. Do you hear those sirens?”
She nodded. “Do you have a phone? I need to call the police.”
“What for?”
She looked at him suspiciously. “I just told you. Someone just tried to kill me.”
He focused his gaze back on the fence. “Those sirens are so loud.” He looked back down at her and smiled. “I bet they’re so loud that no one could hear you scream.”
Before Madison had time to react, the man jerked the wrench out of her hands and slammed her against the train car.
Madison winced as her head hit the metal car and she slid to the ground. Stunned, she blinked, trying to focus in on the figure standing above her laughing.
“You kind of look like little Red Riding Hood in that purty red coat of yours,” he said as he reached behind his back and pulled out a knife.
Madison turned her head as the sound of the siren grew louder and louder.
“Go ahead and scream. No one’s going to hear you.”
She turned back toward the man just as something slammed into him, throwing him to the ground.
Dazed, her vision swimming, she rolled to her hands and knees and tried to crawl away.
A few seconds later, someone grabbed her from behind. She lashed out blindly, scratching and clawing to get away.
“Madison, it’s me,” Ethan said turning her around.
Madison immediately stilled in his arms. “Ethan?” she whispered as she tried to focus on his face. When she couldn’t make her eyes focus in the dim light, she lifted her hand and cupped his cheek. “Ethan.” Shaking, she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, desperately trying to get closer to him.
“Shh,” he whispered into her hair as he cradled her in his arms. “Everything’s okay. He’s dead. You’re safe now.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
TWO
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 30TH
11:33 A.M.
Madison leaned over and zipped her boot up. She stood, testing her ankles. Thankfully, nothing was broken, and other than a slight concussion, a few bruises, and a couple of deep cuts she had received when she climbed out of the bathroom window, she felt fine. Better than fine, in fact, she thought as she adjusted her white cashmere sweater over her brown slacks.
Her lips quirked up slightly, suspecting the pain medication the night nurse gave her a few hours ago had something to do with that.
She glanced over at Ethan who was sprawled out on the green armchair next to her hospital bed and she smiled.
Ethan hadn’t looked at her yet. For the last few minutes, he sat scowling at the hard linoleum floor, lost in thought.
He rubbed at his eyes tir
edly for a moment but then returned his tired gaze to the floor. Dark shadows hung underneath his eyes. She noticed that one shadow was a bit darker than the other, testament to the fight he engaged in at the train yard last night.
Poor guy, she thought, her heart swelling with emotion.
Once he had her in his arms last night, he had refused to let her go. He stayed with her throughout the night. Even when she was admitted into the hospital for observation, he wouldn’t leave her side, choosing to sleep in the hard uncomfortable looking chair next to her bed than going back to the inn.
She glanced at her suitcase lying in the corner of the room, wondering when he had left to pick up their things. It must have been sometime after four in the morning when she awoke in a panic, still trapped in a nightmare. She remembered him slipping into the bed next to her and holding her tightly until she fell back asleep. When she woke several hours later, she noticed that he had changed out of the charcoal slacks and white shirt he had been wearing and into a pair of jeans and a baby blue Oxford shirt that matched his eyes.
He had beautiful eyes, she thought. She shifted her gaze to the side as his gaze came up to meet hers.
“I don’t understand,” he said shaking his head, “why you’re so positive that guy wasn’t Alex. I saw him push you into the train car.” He swallowed hard as his voice grew rough with emotion. “I saw him take out a knife. I heard him laugh as you tried to get away from him.”
“Yes, but he wasn’t Alex.”
“Baby,” he said, his voice softening, “you said Alex was in the body shop. He called you by name. He told you that you had three more days left.”
“Exactly.”
He rubbed his hand across his eyes once again before running his fingers through his dark brown hair.
“I have three, well, two days left. Alex wasn’t going to hurt me. He had plenty of chances while we were in the body shop to hurt me, but he didn’t. He’s waiting until New Year’s to kill me. The man you killed last night had no intention of waiting for anything. That’s how I know he wasn’t Alex.”
Ethan leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. “He chased you out of the body shop and cornered you in the train yard. Who knows, maybe you’re right and he wasn’t going to kill you last night. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to kidnap you and hold you until New Year’s.”
“Alex had no intention of capturing me, at least not last night.” She kneeled next to his chair. “The entire time we were in the body shop, he never let me see him. Not once did I get a glimpse of him. He could have attacked me right then and there but he hung back. He hid in the shadows. Even when I ran into the bathroom, he didn’t come in until he realized I was crawling out the window. He gave me time to escape. Then he grabbed my legs. He had a good enough grip he could have pulled me back in, but he didn’t. He just held on for a second and then let me go. Don’t you see? He was playing with me. He had no intention of confronting me out in the open.” She gripped his wrist, bringing his attention from the ceiling back to her. “Plus, he was trying to disguise his voice.”
“What do you mean?”
“For one, his accent kept changing. For another, his voice sounded mechanical. Why disguise his voice if he was just going to jump out at me a few minutes later?”
“The man wasn’t stable.”
“He’s not that crazy. He has planned this for months… years…ever since his brother died. He’s not suddenly going to chuck his plan out the window. He’s having too much fun to do that.”
Ethan’s eyes narrowed. “If he went through that much trouble disguising his voice, that must mean he thought you might recognize it.”
“Which means I’ve met him and not just casually. Zach told me that Alex likes to steal people’s identities. He kills them and then becomes them. I think Alex is someone I know. He’s just pretending to be someone else right now.”
Ethan laced his fingers with hers as he thought about what she was saying. “I spoke to Neal last night.”
“What did he have to say about Alex?”
“Neal said that they don’t really have much to do with him. The last time he saw Alex was around April of this year when he escaped from a mental institution Todd had put him in.”
“Todd put him in?”
“That’s what Neal said. Todd had him committed after he discovered that Alex had killed Laura Ladd. Neal wasn’t sure where Alex went, but he said he was gone for several years. Neal thought he went to some private institution half way across the country somewhere. He didn’t know much more. I got the impression that Neal and Allison have tried very hard to keep themselves in the dark about what was going on in Todd and Alex’s lives. He did tell me that Alex has a bunch of different aliases. When he’d get in trouble using one name, Alex would just adopt another and move out of town. When it got bad, his brother would hide him. And when it got really bad…”
“Todd would place him in an institution,” she ended for him.
Ethan nodded as his fingers played with the charm bracelet around her wrist. “Todd would always find some way to convince him to go in and then Alex would stay there for a while, but eventually he’d get out. If you’re right about Alex disguising his voice and trying to hide from you, then that means he must be someone that you met after April.” He raised his eyebrows. “Anyone come to mind?”
“Jamie,” she said without hesitation. “I’ve been thinking about it all night. He’s got long blond hair.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Hair means nothing. It’s too easy to change.”
“Well, it’s not just the hair. He’s always around lately. He was the first one to find Rory after he went missing and he was there when Paul died. I gave his name to the deputy last night so they should be checking him out as we speak. Hopefully, they’ll find something that ties him to Alex. Don’t you see?” She squeezed his arm. “He fits Alex’s profile.”
“I haven’t ruled him out as a suspect. In fact, he’s on the top of my list too, but let’s not write anyone else out at this point. Remember, we were pretty sure it was Paul doing all this at the beginning. Think hard. Is there any other men—in their twenties or thirties—that’s only recently come into your life?”
Madison glanced up at the ceiling. “Let’s see, Keith started working for us in May. Derek started in June. Then there’s…” She shook her head. “They’re really the only other men I can think of. Out of the three, I’d have to say Jamie is the more likely suspect. He’s anti-social. He doesn’t seem to have a job. He—”
Ethan took her hand and shook it a bit. “You were about to mention someone else before you stopped. Who was it?”
She smiled. “Not worth mentioning. I trust him with my life.”
Ethan looked confused for a second before returning her smile. “That’s good to know.” He cupped the back of her head and brought her closer until he was cradling her against his chest. “I thought I was going to lose you last night.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She lightly traced her finger across the light bruise on his cheekbone. “It’s a miracle you found me.”
“Thank God I did.”
She propped her elbow on the back of the chair as she settled into his lap. “How did you find me last night?”
“I saw you running across the train yard from the hotel window. On my way to get to you, I broke the glass door when I pushed it open and knocked over a potted plant.” His lips turned up in a smile. “We’re no longer welcome at the inn.”
She glanced over at their bags. “They threw us out?”
“Roger was kind enough to deliver our things this morning.”
“I hope he’s going to be okay. If Alex finds out he was trying to help us…”
“I warned him to watch his back when he dropped off our things. He said something about surprising Ivy with an early anniversary present. He’s going to take her out to visit their son in California.”
“Good.” She frowned slightly, as her mind
went over the events of the night once again. “Ethan…”
Distracted by Madison’s warm body pressed against his, Ethan smiled as he traced the curve of her waist with his hand. “As soon as this is over, we should take a trip somewhere. Somewhere warm.”
She placed her hand over his before she lost her train of thought. “Didn’t you get my text last night?”
“Hmm?” he asked as his hand moved to her hip.
“My text,” she repeated. “I sent you a text telling you I was at the body shop.”
He moved his hand up to her face and traced the line of her jaw. “It came in when we got to the hospital. Reception’s been spotty ever since we got to town. Low signal strength.”
“Oh,” she said as his thumb brushed against her lips. She kissed the tip of it before it slid away to cup her cheek.
“Next time, wait for me.” His eyes, which had been bright and warm suddenly darkened with worry. “Don’t go off on your own.”
“Zach had a picture of Alex and he was leaving for the weekend. I had to go.”
His hand tightened in her hair. “It’s too dangerous for you to be alone right now. He’s tracking you. There’s no guarantee that he won’t kidnap you like he did Quincy.”
“How did he find us?”
He dropped his hand from her hair and stared toward the window. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “No one’s been following us. There was a moment when we hit town that I thought maybe, but…I just don’t know.”
“Could he have a tracker?”
“Car’s clean,” he said with a shake of his head. “It’s possible he’s tracking you through your phone.” He looked back at her. “Have you used your credit card?”
“I used it at the inn. Why do you ask?”
“If he has your login information, he could find out where you’ve used your card.”
She made a face. “I don’t hand that information out to just anyone.”
“It’s not that difficult to get. You download the wrong attachment from an email you think was sent by a friend and all sorts of information could be stolen.” He turned his head back to the window with a scowl. “We’ll have to be more careful in the future.”