by Shari Copell
Well, duh, Nicks. He won’t be able to let her go. He’ll have to kill her too.
“Mr. Marius, please! Let Lindsay go. She’s just a little girl.”
He stared back with those lifeless eyes.
“At least let me get her a sweatshirt or something. For God’s sake, she’s nearly naked!”
“Have it your way, Miss Sorenson.” Marius turned toward Lindsay and raised the club into the air over her head. Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut and huddled against the basement door.
Nicks lifted her hands, a plea for calm. “No! Please. I’ll do it, damn you.”
Shivering, she dropped to her knees. She tried desperately to come up with a way to prevent Marius from taking them from the house, but she simply couldn’t think.
When she felt the handcuffs bite into her wrists, she knew she and Lindsay were screwed.
At least Marius put them in the back seat of the Mustang together. It wasn’t because he was trying to be thoughtful, that’s for sure. He was afraid someone would see Nicks sitting in the front seat with him as they pulled out and drove away.
Teeth chattering, her sister shivered against her. The poor thing was froze. Nicks wished she could find a way to get her hoodie off to drape around Lindsay’s shoulders. The best she could do was try to curve her body around the barely-dressed girl to provide warmth.
“Shhh. Be brave, Linds. I’m here.” Nicks talked as low as she could so Marius couldn’t hear. Her comforting words were for her sister’s ears only.
She stared at the back of Marius’s head and tried to think. This was unreal. The man was the fucking principal of Oakland High School!
Stone. Dead. T.J. Dead. What the hell...?
The day had started out perfectly. T.J. had lit the birthday candle on her waffle. It’d been about to end perfectly. In Stone’s arms. All gone now. Dissolving into hysterics was an option she briefly considered, but she didn’t want to scare her sister.
“Shhh. It’s going to be okay. Someone will find us.”
Lindsay shook her head against Nicks’s shoulder as she cried softly.
Though said with the best of intentions, Lindsay was too practical to be fobbed off with comforting lies. She knew better.
“You’re right, sweetheart. I won’t say anything like that again.” Nicks huddled against her sister then closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle.
The storm continued to rage as they drove. Jagged blue lightning flashed across the sky followed immediately by loud cracks of thunder. Rain pounded against the windshield of Nicks’s car, as though trying to break in and prevent whatever evil Marius had planned for them.
It felt like they’d been driving for hours. Lindsay had been motionless against her for the past ten minutes. Nicks thought...hoped...her sister had fallen asleep.
“Where are you taking us?” Nicks asked, not really expecting an answer.
“To the high school,” Marius said without hesitation. “Or more accurately, the maintenance garage behind the high school. I have the basement all set up there.”
“Set up for what?”
“Student punishment and rehabilitation.”
Anger surged inside her. “What’s your problem anyway? Lindsay hasn’t done a damn thing to deserve your fucking ‘student punishment and rehabilitation’. She’s only thirteen, for fuck’s sake!”
They’d stopped. She could see the blurry outline of a red traffic light several cars ahead of them. Marius, humming softly, turned to face her and put the end of a pistol against her forehead. He took his sweet old time pulling the hammer back. The grinding sound it made had the same effect on her nerves. What else did he have hidden in that fucking coat?
“Would you like to rephrase that statement? No?” He moved his hand and pointed the pistol at the side of Lindsay’s head.
“I’m sorry!” Nicks blurted. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded!”
“I didn’t think you did.” Marius turned and dropped the pistol on the seat beside him. “I didn’t expect very much from you, Miss Sorenson. Your mother Chelsea was a whore too. I liked her. Beautiful girl. Until she took up with that sinful Asher Pratt.”
“What? What did you just say?”
“Asher Pratt. They all loved him. Wanted him. He cast a spell over the entire school. Totally corrupted your mother.” He shifted his eyes to her in the rearview mirror. “Don’t think I don’t know. He’s your real father, isn’t he? I see him every time I look at you. I knew you were no good the moment I laid eyes on you. The spawn of the whoring Chelsea Whitaker and the devil Asher Pratt. Women like you must be dealt with.”
Whatever the fuck that means.
“Deal with me then, but let Lindsay go. You can certainly see she’s Tage Sorenson’s daughter.”
Marius chuckled, a sound straight from the pits of hell. “You know, your mother always thought she was better than me. I wonder how the haughty Chelsea Whitaker will feel when she discovers she’s lost three of her precious children in one night? And who knows? Maybe someday I’ll take Reese and Aimee as well.”
Nicks struggled, tried to pull her hands through the handcuffs, but they were too tight. “They’ll find you first,” she said through gritted teeth. “And put you away for the rest of your disgusting life.”
“It hasn’t happened yet, Miss Sorenson. It’s been years.”
Nicks slumped in the seat, suddenly exhausted. Newsflash: The principal of Oakland High School was an evil, degenerate fuckwad who killed people for fun. No one would ever guess he’d kidnapped her and Lindsay. Marius wouldn’t be caught unless he slipped up somewhere, and he’d been pretty damned meticulous so far.
This night, like the storm, was only getting worse.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Chelsea leaned forward and dug her fingers into Marybeth’s shoulders as they pulled into the driveway. The garage door was up. Nicks’s car was not there.
“Nicks said she’d come home. She knows T.J. is afraid of storms. She wouldn’t have deliberately ignored me.” In full panic mode now, Chelsea threw the car door open and raced across the driveway toward the garage.
Tage caught her halfway there. “I’ll go in first.”
“The hell you will.” She tore herself from her husband’s grasp.
The first thing Chelsea saw when she stepped into the kitchen was Stone lying face down on the floor. One arm was bent at a weird angle beside him.
Then she saw the blood trickling away from his head.
“Stone!” She dropped to the floor and rolled him over. Clotted blood matted his hair. What scared her the most was the sickening yellow tone of his skin and the fact that his eyes were half open. Open enough that she could see they were rolled back in his head.
He’s dead. She shook her head. He couldn’t be dead. Stone was her daughter’s boyfriend. It was Nicks’s birthday. Bad things didn’t happen on birthdays.
She pressed two fingers into his neck and felt for a pulse. Yes, it was there. Weak and intermittent, but it was there. Stone wasn’t dead yet. But he was dying.
“Jesus Christ! T.J.!” she heard Tage shout hoarsely behind her. His panicked tone sent a chill racing up her back. She turned away from Stone to see her precious baby lying in a pool of blood on the other side of the table.
Things seemed to happen all at once then, garbled and in slow motion. The brain slowing things down to prevent one from sinking into madness. Marybeth screamed behind them, clamping both hands over her mouth. Tage lost all color as he turned to her and got to his feet, his hands smeared with the blood of their son. “He’s been stabbed in the chest, but he’s still alive. Marybeth, call 9-1-1! Call the police!”
“And call Willow!” Chelsea wanted her best friend with her. For God’s sake, Willow was godmother to all of her children. If anyone could fix this, it would be her best friend.
Marybeth dutifully turned and went out into the garage, dialing as she moved. Tage sprinted into the family room and up the stairs, screaming for Lindsay and N
icks.
Chelsea got to her feet and went to her son, dazed. Dazed by so much blood. There couldn’t be a drop left in the little guy. She picked his head up and pushed blood-soaked hair off his forehead, staring down into that pale face, willing him with a mother’s heart to live. “Please, T.J. Don’t die. Mama is here now. We’re going to get help for you.” His eyes were half open like Stone’s. She didn’t like the way his head lolled in her hand.
Tage appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, panting, even paler than before. “Nicks and Lindsay are gone. Someone has taken them.”
“How do you know that?” She wanted him to be wrong, but she knew he wasn’t. Someone had wanted both girls bad enough to kill for them.
“Lindsay’s room has been ransacked. She fought with whoever did this.” Tage lifted his hand and opened it to reveal a small, blue-and-red sequined bra. It was ripped into three pieces.
Though Chelsea had never seen it, she knew instinctively this was part of Lindsay’s Halloween costume. The sexy fairy.
A blade of horror pierced her soul. Someone had torn it from her daughter’s body.
Numb, but not numb enough. Chelsea wanted to be in the ambulance with Stone and T.J., but there wasn’t enough room. Not being able to stop traffic with a siren and whirling red lights, they trailed far behind the ambulance in the Lexus. Marybeth and Willow were directly behind them in Marybeth’s Malibu.
They’d told the police as much as they knew then left them at the bloody crime scene so they could go to the hospital to be with their loved ones. The cops said they needed to gather evidence. What evidence? Stone and her son were the only people who could tell them what happened, and they couldn’t speak.
Maybe they’d never be able to tell them what happened. Maybe they’d never find Nicks and Lindsay. Or they’d find bodies. Or pieces of bodies.
Chelsea covered her mouth with her hand to keep from vomiting.
Tage had told the police about Seth and Emily, the girl who’d tried to kill Nicks nearly two Saturdays ago, but she had a feeling Emily hadn’t done this. A woman wouldn’t have torn the clothing off of a young girl that way.
She pressed her face into her hands and began to weep again. Tage usually tried to stop her when she cried, but he didn’t say a word this time. Instead, she heard him gasp loudly.
Thank God she’d had the presence of mind to buckle her seatbelt. He slammed on the brakes and steered the car, squealing and on two wheels, into the parking lot of the strip mall they were passing. He parked under a light and turned to her with wide eyes, pale as the driven snow.
“What?” She furrowed her brow. “What’s wrong?”
He inhaled and let it out slowly. “Take the rearview mirror in both hands and turn it. Point it at the backseat.”
“Why?”
“So you can see what’s back there.”
“What’s back there?”
He swallowed again, moved his gaze to the rearview mirror then returned it to her. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but Asher Pratt is sitting in the back seat of your car.”
Goose bumps made every hair on her body stand erect. Tage was not given to seeing things. Her solid, reliable husband didn’t make shit up. If he said Asher was sitting back there, he most certainly was.
“Do it,” Tage ordered.
Reluctantly, she reached up and turned the mirror, positioning it between the front bucket seats. She shifted her gaze to the mirror and took a look in the back seat.
Yep. There he is. Asher Pratt. Sitting in my car.
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, thinking maybe the trauma of the night had caused her to go temporarily insane. But if she’d lost her mind, so had Tage. He’d seen him first. If they were both insane, would they see the same things?
Barely breathing, she opened her eyes and watched Asher in the mirror for a moment. He was staring nonchalantly out the side window, his hands relaxed in his lap. There was no emotion on his face. He was wearing the same shirt he had on in her—and apparently Nicks’s—dreams. The one they’d buried him in.
He was there for a reason. She didn’t have to guess what that reason was.
“Where are the girls, Asher? Do you know?” she asked.
He turned his head slowly to look at her in the mirror. “Help them.”
“I know. Someone took them. Who? Where are they?”
Asher leaned forward in the seat. Sheer horror transformed his face. “Please. Where are they?” Chelsea begged.
“He…took them. M...m...m...” Asher pulled at his collar. He kept trying to swallow.
“Who took them?” Tage asked. “C’mon, buddy. Spit it out!”
“Marius!” The name exploded from Asher’s mouth. He dug his fingers into his throat, as though something had been wound tightly around it.
Nicks had told her the night they’d come home from the trip—the last time Asher had spoken to anyone—that it seemed as though something was trying to prevent him from speaking. It certainly looked that way now.
“Fight, Asher! Where did he take them? You have to tell me before he hurts them.” Chelsea was on the verge of hysterics. Knowing who’d taken them was only half the battle. They had to find the girls before Marius...
“Main...mainte…nance...ga...rage.” He was clearly struggling with whatever was around his neck. “Behind...sch..school. Base...base...ment. Help them.”
“That old falling-down garage behind the high school? Do you think that’s what he means?” Tage asked Chelsea.
“I think that’s exactly what he means.” Chelsea kept her eyes glued on the man in the mirror. “Right, Asher?”
He started to flicker and fade to gray, but not before he gave her the most terrifyingly urgent look. “Y...y...yes. H...h...urry!”
“We’ll find them. Thank you, Asher,” Tage said.
The tap on the passenger-side window caused Chelsea to jump. It was Willow. Marybeth had pulled into the strip mall behind them.
Chelsea rolled the window down. “You guys all right?” Willow asked.
Tage was already out of the car, calling the police, directing them to the maintenance garage behind the high school.
“I can’t explain things to you right now because it’s just too weird.” Chelsea fumbled in her wallet for her insurance cards then handed them to Willow.
“What are these for?”
“Tage and I have to go.”
“Go where?”
“To the high school. Get to the hospital and make sure Stone and T.J. get the best care. You have my permission to make decisions. Whatever they have to do to save them.”
Rain dripped off Willow and into the car as she bent forward to peer in the open window. “They’ll never let me do that, Chelsea. I don’t even have power of attorney for T.J., let alone Stone.”
Chelsea grabbed the pen and small notebook she kept in the console. “Then I’ll write you a fucking permission slip! Please, Willow. I need you to do this for me. Someone needs to be there for them.” She scribbled down her consent to do whatever was necessary to save their lives.
She included Stone on the note, though she didn’t really know a damn thing about him or his family. She couldn’t let him die though. If they found the girls alive, she didn’t want to be the one to inform Nicks that the love of her life hadn’t made it. She thrust the paper into Willow’s hand. “Go!”
“Okay! Okay!” Willow ran back to the Malibu. Chelsea watched lights bounce off the rearview mirror as Marybeth turned and pulled out into the street.
She glanced into the back seat one more time. Asher was gone.
A huge purple ball of lightning skittered across the parking lot, hissing as it flew just feet in front of the Lexus. She could see it rolling, churning like a ghostly tumbleweed. Thunder immediately rocked the car.
She stared forward as the ball of lightning dissipated in a colorful, soundless explosion. This was no ordinary storm, in duration or intensity.
Had Asher used the
storm’s energy to show himself to them? Or was this storm a direct result of him doing something he shouldn’t and upsetting the cosmic balance—like making contact with the living to save his daughter’s life?
And on Halloween, no less.
She smiled a little. He’d broken every rule he could in spectacular fashion while alive. Why would he be any different now that he was dead?
“Jesus Christ!” swore Tage. “I know I already said it, but I’ll never doubt another thing that comes out of your mouth.”
“Good. You need to get us to that maintenance garage as fast as you can, Tage.”
“The police are on the way there as we speak.” Tage spun the car around and headed back in the direction they’d come. “They better get there first because I’m going to kill that son-of-a-bitch Marius when I get my hands on him.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The red brick maintenance building behind the high school had been abandoned long ago, even before her mother attended Oakland High. Nicks had never given it a thought. It was just…there.
The building was actually a little scary. Most of the windows had been broken out. Weeds and other vegetation had been threatening to swallow it for years. A cracked and broken macadam led from one corner of the school parking lot to the ruins of the garage out back, but it was being overrun by weeds as well. No one traveled that driveway anymore.
Well, almost no one.
It was the perfect place to torture and kill two terrified girls.
The rain had slowed a bit, but it didn’t matter. It was still pitch black outside. The only clues Nicks had to their location were the landmarks she occasionally saw in the headlights.
Marius pulled behind the garage and drove down a sloping driveway. He got out and opened a rickety pair of wooden doors then pulled her car inside. Her heart sank. There was now no evidence anyone was back here.