by Joyce Lamb
Shocked realization made her mouth drop open. “You think my Mark had something to do with what happened to her?”
“I’m afraid his disappearance has become a part of the investigation into her attack, yes.”
“Why?”
Chase hesitated before deciding the poor woman didn’t need to be shocked if the news ended up in the paper because of a department leak. “Your son’s body was buried at the same site where the baseball bat used in the attack was found.”
“But that doesn’t mean—”
“Of course it doesn’t,” Chase interrupted, giving her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “We’re just covering all our bases. I hope you understand.”
“I can’t imagine Mark had anything to do with what happened to her,” she said. “That was . . . it was just vicious and brutal, and Mark might have been an angry young man, but he wasn’t . . . he wouldn’t . . . he couldn’t have hurt anyone like that, especially a defenseless girl. I’m sure of it.” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. “Do you think the people who attacked her killed my son?”
“We don’t know, but we’re going to find out.” He paused as she blew her nose again. “Do you know if Mark knew or hung out with Quinn McKay?”
Her bloodshot eyes narrowed. “That’s her brother, isn’t it?”
Chase nodded.
“I saw those stories in the newspaper. He’s the one who tried to cripple her, if you ask me.”
Chase imagined the entire jury pool of Kendall Falls was similarly tainted. Not that he could do anything about it now. “Did you ever see Quinn and Mark together?”
She thought about it for a long moment. “Maybe.”
Chase doubted it. At this point, the woman just wanted to cast the shadow of guilt off her own child. Which meant he’d gotten all the information he could from her. “Mrs. Hanson, do you have a photo of your son from just before he disappeared?”
Rising, she chose a framed photo from the top of the TV and faced him, her gaze imploring. “Will I be able to get it back?”
“Absolutely. I’ll make copies and return it to you right away.”
Her hands shook as she worked the photo out of the frame and handed it over.
Chase studied it briefly, taking in the dark brown eyes, brown hair, acne and braces. The guy didn’t look the least bit familiar to him, but he would have been a senior when Mark was a freshman, so that wasn’t unusual.
“I often wonder how he’d look with straight teeth,” she murmured.
43
KYLIE WAS FINISHING UP MAKING THE BED— stalling, really, before venturing out of her room to face Chase—when she heard a phone begin to ring somewhere else in the house. It wasn’t a regular phone, though. Someone must have been calling Chase on his cell. But even the ring tone sounded unfamiliar. When it continued to ring, she went to the bedroom door and pulled it open. The house beyond was silent until the phone rang again, coming from the kitchen.
“Chase?”
She walked down the hall, wondering why everything was so quiet. Surely Chase hadn’t left her here alone. Had he?
In the doorway to the dining area, she paused, surprised to see a uniformed police officer sitting at the table, his back to her, his head down on the newspaper spread before him, as if he’d fallen asleep in the middle of the Sports page. The cell phone sitting near his hand chirped, but he didn’t stir. Chase must have been called to work, she thought, and called in an officer to stay with her.
Or perhaps he’d decided he couldn’t stand being near her anymore and bailed. She wouldn’t blame him. She’d irritated the hell out of herself in the past few days. And, really, him not being here made things easier anyway.
“Hello?” she said, then raised her voice when the cop still didn’t wake up. “Officer?”
She took another step, intending to shake his arm, but that was when she noticed what looked like thick, red syrup dripping off the edge of the table under his arm.
Her brain stalled, refusing at first to attach meaning to what that viscous liquid could possibly be. Blood? No way. Blood?
“You’re kinda dense, aren’t you?”
The voice came from behind her. Close behind. She whipped around, and several things registered at once. Smooth, black ski mask. Black jeans. Black shirt. Bloody knife.
Bloody knife!
She stumbled back with a gasp, her hip slamming against the police officer’s chair as terror and nausea surged into her throat. Behind her, the officer’s body shifted and slumped. She whirled toward him, horrified, reaching out to try to break his fall. She caught his dead weight, but it was too much and she wobbled to her knees, unable to keep him from pitching face-first onto the hardwood floor. Terrified—thinking oh, God, he’s dead, oh, God, he’s dead—she threw her weight against his side, trying to turn him over to check, to see, knowing as she did it that it was crazy, that it didn’t matter. What mattered was the guy with the knife.
Then an arm hooked around her throat from behind and jerked hard, tearing her fingers free of the cop’s shoulder and cutting off her air.
“I’ve been delivering messages for weeks now,” the man imprisoning her said, grunting between words as he dragged her toward the living room, “and you haven’t been getting it.”
Choking, fighting the stars bursting in her head, she grabbed on to the assailant’s arm as her lungs started to burn. Air. She needed air.
“All you have to do,” he growled, “is get the fuck out of town and don’t look back. But, no, you’re too clueless. I fucking hate clueless.”
She reached back with one hand, groping for something, anything to grab on to, perhaps eye holes she could jab her fingers into, to get him to loosen his hold, to let her breathe. When her hand skidded across the front of the cotton mask, she hooked and twisted her fingers into the material, hoping to get a hunk of hair, and yanked. The mask came free in her hand, followed by the attacker’s gasp. “Shit!”
He let her go, and she dropped to her knees with jarring impact. The knife fell right in front of her, bouncing and skittering on the floor. She flung out a hand to reach for it, but the intruder swept his foot sideways, sending the blade on a long, smooth slide into the wall board several feet away.
She looked up at him and froze, realizing with a jolt that she could clearly see his face: pasty, unhealthy skin, with dark circles under red-rimmed eyes that were so light blue they were almost clear.
His panicked eyes locked on hers before popping wide with crazed disbelief, and he stumbled back as though she’d spit acid at him. “Fuck!”
Pacing like a wild animal now, he let out a tortured groan between his teeth. “Stupid bitch. Stupid, stupid bitch!”
She didn’t plan to stick around to see his next move. Pushing to her feet, she lunged toward the living room and the fastest way out. He came after her in a heartbeat, the thud of his feet heavy as he chased her toward the front door and escape. He gained on her quickly and gave her a hard shove from behind, pitching her forward and off balance.
She hit the floor, palms skidding across the carpet, but didn’t stay down. She scrabbled up and whirled to face him, panting and assessing. He lunged at her, and she feinted to the left, then surged right and past him, tearing back toward the kitchen and the back door. Any way out. That’s all she needed. And a break.
Strong fingers dug into the back of her shirt and jerked backward. She stumbled back as seams gave, and as soon as the shirt ripped free in his hand and cool air washed over her back, she shifted balance and kept going.
She’d taken two more steps when he swept her feet out from under her. She went down hard on her hip, gasping at the agony that shot down her leg and instinctively curling forward around the pain. In the next instant, he was on top of her and, wrestling her desperately wriggling body onto her back, fell across her. He locked her in place, using his entire length to hold her down.
Fighting the panic constricting her lungs, she slapped at him, hitting at anything she could get at, all th
e while screaming for help in a voice that had already gone hoarse.
He reared back and backhanded her.
Pain burst in her jaw, and she went still, black spots bleeding across her vision.
As she lay there, stunned and tasting blood, he trapped her hands above her head and leaned over her, his breath hot on her face. Eerie eyes, glassy and unfocused, pupils huge, squinted at her from beneath sweaty blond hair.
Oh, God, he’s high.
“You can identify me,” he said, calm now, deadly. “Now I have to kill you.”
44
“IT’S RED!” SAM SHOUTED.
Chase slammed on the brakes, stopping with a screech of tires several feet into the intersection. Throwing the SUV into reverse and checking the rearview mirror, he backed up a few feet. “Thanks. I didn’t see it change.”
“No shit. I don’t know why you didn’t just stay at the safe house with Kylie. I could have handled talking to Mrs. Hanson on my own.”
“Kylie will be happier with me gone. She doesn’t want me there.”
Sam snorted. “Right.”
Chase couldn’t help but think about the last time he’d seen her—red-eyed from weeping but staring at him with that infuriating expressionless expression. He’d thought he’d had her, thought he’d reached her in a way that no one else had. But just when it seemed he’d broken through her defenses, wham, she’d pulled back and left him dangling in the wind. They almost had it. They could have had it all. And, damn it, he hadn’t handled the disappointment well at all.
Gripping the steering wheel, he swallowed against the ache in his throat. “I hurt her, Sam. Deliberately. She rejected me, so I hurt her back. And then I walked out on her like a total dick.”
Sam studied him for a long, silent moment. “You guys are never going to get it together, so why do you keep trying?”
Chase glanced at him with a rueful, sad smile. “I love her, man. This Quinn thing has fucked up everything. And what was that business from Mrs. Hanson about Jane?”
Sam shrugged. “Sounds like something worth pursuing, in my opinion. Two siblings ganging up on another. It happens.”
Chase studied his partner for a moment. The guy didn’t even seem engaged in the conversation, as if he didn’t give a crap one way or the other whether this case got solved. But, hell, Chase had no one else to bounce his ideas off of. “Do you think Mark Hanson could have gone after Kylie to gain favor with Jane? It was no secret back then that Jane resented Kylie as much as Quinn did.” But then he shook his head. “But, damn it, it doesn’t make sense. Yeah, the three of them didn’t get along all that great, but they were teenagers. Just because there was angst doesn’t mean it had to lead to violence. And if Mark was one of the attackers, who was the other one and how the hell did Mark end up with his head bashed in?”
“Want to hear my theory?” Sam asked.
Finally. “Yes. My head’s spinning.”
“Quinn wanted to take his sister down. He got Mark to help, telling him that would impress Jane. Afterward, Quinn feared Mark would rat him out and killed him. Buried the bat and the body separately on the grounds of the Bat Cave and thought that was that. Fast-forward ten years, and his prodigal sister comes home with plans to build on the site where the evidence is buried. He freaks and does everything he can to keep it from being found.”
“What about Jane?” Chase asked. “Does she know?”
“Could go either way. Maybe she was in on it, maybe not. We’d have to question her.”
Chase nodded. Sam made good points. Chase didn’t like them, but they were still valid. But, damn, Kylie was irked enough by his focus on Quinn. Once he turned his attention to Jane—
“I know I’ve said it before, but I think you should back off on this case,” Sam said. “You’re not objective. And Kylie’d be happier. Hell, you’d both be happier.”
“She’d still probably consider it guilt by association as long as I’m part of the police department investigating her family. No matter what I do, she’ll find an excuse to push me away.”
Sam sighed. “Then do whatever the fuck you want to do and quit bitching about it.”
Chase cast a quick, surprised glance at him. “What’s up with you? You’ve been off lately.”
Sam rubbed at his eyes. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve got enough on your plate.”
“Sam, come on. I need you focused, and you’re—”
“Tina left me. She took the boys.”
Chase stared at him, stunned as Sam lowered his head and stared down at his fidgeting hands. “What happened? I mean, Jesus, Sam, I’m sorry. When? Where did she go?”
Sam gave an almost undetectable shrug. “A couple of weeks ago. They’re staying with her parents in Orlando.”
“A couple of weeks?” Jesus, no wonder the guy hadn’t been himself. And Chase had been so wrapped up in his own drama that he hadn’t noticed his friend was hurting. Way to go, bonehead. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I thought she’d be back by now.”
“What happened?”
“I messed up. I messed up, and she left me.”
Ah, hell. That didn’t sound good. Chase didn’t know what to say to that. Had Sam cheated? He couldn’t imagine. His partner seemed so devoted to his wife and kids that Chase had admired, and envied, him at times.
“She’ll come back,” Sam said suddenly, adding a nod of conviction and shaking his hands apart as though to rid them of nerves. “She has to. She can’t keep my kids away from me.”
Chase sensed an undertone of despair in the words, and then Sam glanced at him, a sheen of something—tears?—in his eyes.
Chase shifted in the seat and grabbed his cell phone off his belt to call Kylie. He already knew what he’d say: I’m sorry I was such a dick.
KYLIE, BREATHING HARD AND TRYING NOT TO panic—focus, focus, focus—waited, trapped by the weight of her attacker and unable to move.
She was going to die. Like this, right now, right here, and her first regret had silky dark hair and piercing green eyes. She’d wasted so much time, so much . . . everything. Chase loved her, and all she’d ever done was push him away and hurt him. What was wrong with her? She was the biggest, blindest, most stubborn idiot on the planet to run away from love, especially with Chase Manning. She should have run toward it, toward him. As fast as she possibly could. Now it was too late.
Her attacker changed his grip and shifted to grind a growing erection against her hip. “Before I kill you,” he hissed near her ear, “what do you say we have us some fun?”
Her heart stopped—oh, God, oh, God—but she forced herself to stay still, not daring to breathe, biding her time for the perfect moment to fight back. She had to do this right. He’d already proved he was stronger and faster. To survive, she’d have to outwit him.
“You’re going to scream when I come,” he breathed, his nose in her hair.
Her muscles twitched, and when he released one of her wrists and started to fumble with the button on her jeans, stark, raving fear took control and she began to fight him blindly, biting, scratching, hitting, until he reeled back and partly off her, letting her remaining wrist go and raising his hands to protect himself. She shoved and pushed, grunting with the effort, until she could roll over onto her stomach. Just as she lurched to her feet, the cell phone on the dining room table began to chirp again, making her attacker roll to his knees and twist toward the sound, strange blue eyes wide with surprise.
Kylie dove for the phone on its second ring.
He rammed into her from behind, and they both skidded across the top of the table, crumpling the newspaper and smearing through the police officer’s congealing blood, and tumbled to the floor. The attacker landed on top of her, hammering the air out of her lungs.
She fumbled the phone and, paralyzed and gasping for breath, watched it smash against the wall and break apart in the middle of its third peal.
Damn it!
Before she could gulp in air
or even begin to struggle, her assailant hauled her to her feet and dragged her, kicking and squirming, into the living room, where he slammed her back against the wall hard enough for black and red spots to splotch her vision. Bracing a bloodied forearm against her throat, he leaned hard into her until everything began to gray.
“You’d better behave or you’re dead right now. I’ll fuck you dead. I don’t give a shit. You’ll still be warm and wet.”
Terror spiked right into her brain. She couldn’t breathe . . . couldn’t . . . “I’ll behave,” she choked out, fighting the spreading dark. “Please, I’ll behave.”
He eased back, his grin spreading, turning lecherous as he squeezed her right breast through her bra. “That’s my girl. Relax, it’s going to be the best you’ve ever—”
Sudden, frantic pounding on the front door jerked his head around.
“Kylie!”
Chase. Thank God!
Kylie brought her knee up with lethal aim and nailed the son of a bitch right in the dick. Howling in pain, he dropped back from her and to his knees, hands cupped around his crotch as his face faded from bright red to dead white. “Bitch!” Spittle flew from his lips.
She edged sideways along the wall, focused entirely on Chase shouting her name, not ten feet away on the other side of the front door. But the intruder blocked her way, and as she tried to slip by him, he lurched to his feet, yelping in pain, and lunged at her.
CHASE JAMMED THE KEY INTO THE LOCK AND drove his shoulder against the front door. Kylie’s scream, followed by a loud thud and silence, rang in his ears. “Police! Open up!”
Behind him, Sam frantically called for backup.
The door flew open, and he and Sam roared through it in tandem, guns drawn.
Chase’s heart stopped when he saw Kylie on her back on the floor, unmoving, her head turned away from them. Blood was all over her. White noise began to roar in his ears.
A crash from the kitchen snapped Chase’s head around and sent Sam tearing in that direction. “I’m going after him,” Sam yelled.