by Rachel Lee
*
Kylie emerged from the nightmare relatively soon. As she came back to the present, those ugly memories receding, she sat up and looked at the clock. Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes had passed. Not so bad.
But what had triggered all of this? Remembering not being able to step out the front door worried her at least as much as her memory loss. What had caused that? Did she have a new problem to deal with? How could she return to work or move forward in any meaningful way if she could be overwhelmed like that and unable to move? What if she’d been treating a patient in severe trouble?
God, she wanted to just cry. Her entire life messed up by one madman they couldn’t even find. Each time she began to see a way forward, something threw her back again.
Someone knocked on the door. She peered out the peephole and saw Todd. What was he doing here? Had something happened to Ashley?
Forgetting all the warnings Coop had given her, she flung the door open.
And felt again that sense of creeping horror. What was wrong with her? Her body seemed to have developed a mind of its own, backing up and away from Todd.
“Where’s Ashley?” she asked hoarsely, her heart galloping wildly.
“She’s still searching. She was worried about you, though, so she sent me back to check that everything’s okay.”
“I’m fine. You can go back to searching.” She brushed up against the hall table and looked down, seeing the tarnished arch that Todd had given her. For some reason, she picked it up, aware that she was breathing too rapidly, that darkness seemed to be hovering around the edges of her mind.
None of it made sense. She shouldn’t be reacting this way. Desperate to appear normal, she held up the arch. “I like this, Todd.” She sounded as if she had just run a marathon.
He smiled. “I’m glad.” Then he closed the door behind him.
“You can...you can go back to searching,” she said again. All of a sudden the image of the flashing knife entered her mind again. Without even understanding why, she threw the arch at Todd and caught the side of his face. A streak of blood appeared almost instantly.
Some functioning part of her didn’t even wonder why he failed to look startled. Why he smiled.
“I guess you’ve remembered,” he said, and swung his arm.
Her entire world turned black.
*
A half hour later, Coop saw Ashley with Julie, whom he’d met only once. What was Ashley doing here? He trotted toward the two women, worry for Kylie beginning to blossom alongside his fear for Connie’s son.
“Ashley?”
She paused and looked at him. “Hey, Coop.” Then she appeared to squirm a little before he could even ask. “I swear, Kylie told me she’d be fine and I should come down here with Todd. She insisted. She’s in a locked house, isn’t she?”
Of course she was. He tried to let go of the crawling sensation that everything was very wrong—this hunt for a child, Kylie being left by herself... “Where’s Todd? How did you link up with him?” Some alarm at the back of his mind began clanging.
“Oh, he just stopped by. Kylie had decided she wanted to join the search and insisted we’d be fine if we stayed together. But then Todd dropped in to say he was also going, and Kylie backed out at the last second. She told me to come with Todd.” Ashley shook her head. “I don’t know where he is, though. I guess he joined another group.”
But Coop hadn’t seen Todd anywhere, and he’d been patrolling the streets as rapidly as he could, keeping an eye on searchers, helping to direct them to the places the sheriff’s people wanted them to go first.
And he hadn’t seen Todd.
All of a sudden things slammed together—Kylie’s hesitancy around him, the little ways she seemed to avoid him. Todd dropping by to tell Kylie he was searching. How nice if he could have persuaded her to search with him, but Ashley had been there. As soon as the ugly thought appeared, he wanted to wipe it away. It couldn’t possibly be...
Opposing needs began to shred him—his need to find James and his need to protect Kylie. This whole situation stank. The likelihood that two creeps were working this small town at the same time?
He turned from Ashley and Julie, and pulled the radio off his belt, calling in. “This is Coop,” he told the sheriff. “I need to go to the house to check on Kylie. She’s alone.”
“Go,” said Gage Dalton’s rough voice. “Want any help?”
“You need everyone on this job. I’m just checking.”
“Okay, then. Call if you need us.”
He ran. Not right, not right... The words hammered in his brain with his pounding feet. Why had Ashley walked away after promising to stay with Kylie? Because she didn’t believe Kylie could be at risk in a locked house and apparently Kylie had assured her she’d be safe. That was probably true, but something he wasn’t prepared to trust, torn as he was by this whole situation. His cousin needed him, but so did Kylie. Hell, he should have brought Kylie with him to search, but he was afraid they might get separated, leaving her alone and unprotected. A locked house and a friend had seemed like a better choice.
Until this very moment.
Then there was Todd. He scanned every face he passed, hoping to find the man. He’d come out here to search, too, Ashley had said. But even though Coop was seeing many faces more than once, he had yet to see Todd.
He could run fast when he needed to, and he ran fast now. Like the wind. All he could think of was Kylie’s sweet face, her terror, what that beast had done to her. She filled his brain.
But sitting firmly on the burner beside her was little James. Two lives at risk, and he was only one man. With any luck he’d get to the house to find Kylie was fine, and he could resume the hunt for Connie’s son.
He’d been caught between conflicting concerns many times. In this case he judged the hundreds of people hunting for James would hardly miss him for the few minutes it would take to check on Kylie.
But if Kylie was in trouble, right now she’d have no one to pin her hopes on except him. That definitely tipped the scales, no matter how uncomfortable it made him to think of that little boy.
But his situational awareness, honed in many tough places over the years, goaded him. Something was very, very wrong. Something that extended beyond James’s disappearance. He managed to push out another burst of speed, wishing he hadn’t been at the far end of town. But there he’d been, like some kind of sap, assuming Ashley would take him seriously about not leaving Kylie alone. Or that Kylie would. She probably felt safe behind locked doors. And maybe she was.
Then he’d go back to helping with the hunt for James.
He took the front steps in one leap, his hand reaching for the key in his pocket. But then he saw something that froze everything inside him.
The door was ever so slightly ajar.
*
Todd loved those plastic handcuffs. He’d bound Kylie’s wrists and ankles so she couldn’t give him any trouble when she came to. And he wanted her awake. She didn’t remember the first attack, which he hadn’t worried about at the time because he was sure he had killed her.
But now he wasn’t going to make the same mistake. He wanted her awake so he could enjoy her terror and pain, and then he was going to make sure she was in a deep hole she would never emerge from. Never.
He glanced at his watch and at the unconscious woman beside him. Maybe it was time to let the sheriff know where the kid was stashed. He had what he wanted, and he knew from experience how scary it could get for a little boy left in a closet alone, even with food and a light turned on. It had been cheaper than a babysitter when his parents wanted to go out for a night of drinking and dancing, but a little boy’s mind could fill all that silence and an empty house with all kinds of horrors.
Yeah. Once he got to his place, he’d call with that burner phone he’d bought a while back in Denver. Not traceable.
The rest, though... A traitorous thought popped into his head again. Maybe he hadn’t thought this through
well enough.
Except time had proved him right. He had Kylie, and no one would know where to look.
Because everyone knew he was her friend.
*
What now? Coop wondered. An empty house, no idea where to begin looking. Everyone who might have seen anything moving up and down the streets of this town calling for a little boy, checking vacant houses for him.
Surely if someone had seen something unusual happening here, they’d have called it in. Few people were stupid enough to ignore something suspicious even if they were wrapped up in looking for James. They knew Kylie’s story.
They also knew she’d known Todd all her life. But Todd was suspiciously absent from the search he’d said he was joining. Except how the hell could he be sure of that? He might have missed seeing any number of people out there tonight. Todd could be anywhere.
He swore and looked around, hoping for any clue, however small.
Then his gaze lighted on that tarnished arch Todd had given her. It lay in the entryway, on the floor, too far from the table where it had been earlier. Someone had thrown it.
Bending, he picked it up and saw faint traces of blood and skin.
Dear God!
Closing his eyes a moment, he settled his mind as best he could, pushed his roiling emotions to the side and gathered the bits and pieces into a partial picture. Todd, whom Kylie had said was always on the fringe. Which meant something about him bothered people, even those supposedly his friends.
Two dates and then she called it off. She couldn’t quite say why. The refusal to go to the prom with him. Todd showing up here almost the instant she got home, then later with flowers. Kylie’s subtle avoidance, her carefully hidden distaste for him. Oh, she’d been good at covering, but Coop had felt it. Todd coming by again with a lame gift after his trip to Saint Louis. Almost as if he were checking up on something.
Checking up on whether she had remembered anything? Coop searched his brain, and realized Todd had asked her if she’d begun to remember anything. Far from confiding, Kylie had said no. Even though she had.
She didn’t trust him.
That was enough for Coop. He pulled the radio and called the sheriff. “Have you seen Todd Jamison tonight?”
“Give me a minute.” The sheriff clicked off, probably checking on the frequency the deputies were using. A couple of minutes later he came back. “No. He could be around, but no one recalls seeing him.”
“Then tell me how to find his place.”
Gage Dalton’s voice sharpened. “Why?”
“Kylie’s not at home and...I got a feeling.”
“You want me to send someone?”
“I want you to find Connie’s son. I could be all wet. Just let me check it out. And radio me if anyone sees Kylie.”
So the sheriff gave him directions and made him swear he’d call if he needed help.
Yeah, thought Coop, like there was anyone left to help. Feeling grimmer than he had since coming home from Afghanistan, he set out to find Todd Jamison. And maybe that’s where he’d find Kylie.
As he drove toward Todd’s place, a certainty fell like a pall over his heart. If anything happened to Kylie, he’d never be able to live with himself.
*
Kylie woke long before she stirred. She could tell she was in a car and bound, and she remembered Todd being there just before she blacked out.
Todd? Really?
Icy realization settled over her. Memory or no memory, her old friend had probably been behind everything that had happened to her. She didn’t need to remember anything because the truth of it filled her heart and stomach with lead.
In fact, she didn’t want to remember, for fear memory would paralyze her as it had before. She couldn’t afford that now. She needed her every wit about her to try to get out of this mess.
She felt really stupid, however, for not heeding Coop’s concerns more closely. Safe in a locked house? Not when you opened the door to a friend. Not when you acted impulsively because you saw the guy out there and wondered why your best friend wasn’t with him.
Worry about Ashley had opened that door. Instead of answering it, she should have gone to the phone and called someone. Coop would have come instantly. Ashley would have answered her cell. There were a dozen smarter things she could have done.
But she had opened the door to a familiar face, ignoring the very instinct that had inexplicably caused her to freeze on the threshold.
And now she was in serious trouble. No one would know she was gone or where she was. If memory overtook her, she’d be worse than useless, a helpless quivering lump ready to be slaughtered for good.
She hoped her quickened breathing hadn’t given her away, hoped it was drowned in the sound of the car engine. Todd’s aftershave filled the confined space, nauseating her. Why had she never before noticed how much she hated that aftershave?
But with her awareness of it came a memory of having smelled it before. In Denver. During the attack.
No! No memories now. She had to be able to deal with this situation somehow. At the very least, she had to try. No one was going to save her, no one could find her. That left her.
Maybe she could talk him out of this somehow. Maybe she could even lie and say she had remembered and she’d written it down, so everyone would know who to look for if she disappeared. Or maybe that she’d sent an email to the police that they’d read before long.
Each idea sounded thin, but if that was all she had...
God, she wished he hadn’t bound her ankles, as well. At least then she’d have a chance of running. Whatever, she had to find a way of making this as difficult for him as possible, because the longer it took for him to kill her, the more chances she would have of finding some way to prevent it.
Think, Kylie. Think!
*
By the time Coop reached Todd Jamison’s place, murder filled his heart. An errant part of him hoped he was wrong about all this, that he’d just find the two of them having coffee, but no part of him really believed that.
At this point, he was willing to bet that Todd had something to do with James’s disappearance, as well. It had crossed his mind before, that scaring the kids might be a diversionary tactic, or that sending the black rose to Kylie might serve the same purpose. One actor who wanted forces divided and attention misdirected.
He hadn’t quite succeeded. But before he killed Todd he was going to make sure the man revealed where he’d put James. And God help him if he’d hurt the boy or hurt Kylie. No mercy flowed in Coop’s veins right then. None at all.
His consciousness had shifted to battle mode. The rules of the civilized world no longer held sway. He had two people to protect, a mission to accomplish and absolutely no compunction about how he accomplished his goals.
He parked a hundred yards out from the structures and switched off the radio the sheriff had given him. The last thing he needed right now was for the damn thing to squawk. Then he hurried across open ground, a dark sweatshirt and jeans his only concealment. A knife in his boot, a gun on his hip. It was more than he had sometimes carried.
He reached the house. Lights were on, a car was parked out front, but he quickly circled the building and realized no one was in there. That focused his attention on a barn about fifty yards away, and he saw the slivers of dim light seeping out between some of the aging boards.
There. Using a broken step, so as not to sound like a person approaching if anyone heard him, he hurried across the greening grasses of spring and the brown earth that had been worn by the years.
When he reached the barn, he put his ear to the wall.
He heard voices. Todd. Kylie.
He slid over to a dirty window and used fingertips to wipe clean a peephole. They were both in there, and Kylie was bound at her wrists. Worse, there was a hole in the barn floor right behind her.
Rage overtook Coop then, the rage that had been useful so many times in his job. It was clear-sighted, but an irresistible propellant.
He was going to kill that guy.
*
Kylie had remembered, and what she remembered was making her furious. The terror and the paralysis that had hit her before didn’t come as memory returned. All that came was an anger she could barely contain.
This was the man who had tried to kill her, who had nearly destroyed her life, and now she could see the images in her mind, remember the awful moments. No longer did she wonder, she knew.
As he cut the ties around her ankles and dragged her out of the car toward the barn, she remembered. She remembered being grabbed from behind, stunned by a hard blow to her head. She remembered the world fading away, then slowly awakening on her back. Gravel bit into her, the stench of nearby Dumpsters nearly concealed the familiar aftershave.
Some of her clothes were already off. A knife flashed and rested against her throat. A face she knew all too well hovered over her, adding shock to her confusion. A gruff voice warned her not to fight. What...?
She recalled the awful moments when he had tried to rape her and failed, recalled holding perfectly still because of that knife at her throat, wondering if she would even survive. Then the terrifying knife, rising and falling again and again, feeling like hard painful blows to her torso. Thankful, so thankful, when the darkness closed in again.
Now she faced him again in that barn. Aware that he meant to end it all here. He was afraid of her, she realized. Afraid that she would recall he had been her attacker.
Well, now she had and this time, instead of being frozen, she was enraged. But first things first.
“Why’d you take the boy?” she demanded. “He had nothing to do with this.”
“He got Cooper away from you. I knew he would.” But Todd wasn’t smiling. He was licking his lips, looking edgy, troubled.
“Let him go.”
“Aren’t you the bleeding heart? I’m going to kill you and you’re worried about a kid. He’s okay, not that it should matter to you. And as soon as I’m done with you, I’m calling the cops to tell them where he is.”