Since he’d beaten her, all she could hear were haunting flashbacks of his wild screaming as he’d delivered another jab to her ribs, another sharp kick into her side, a stomp to the face. She’d felt like he was warming to her, that he could somehow become a friend in all this. That all he was doing was because it was necessary.
After all, he’d promised he wouldn’t hurt her… hadn’t he?
Where is he now?
The hours had dragged by since he’d left her, and she was getting no stronger. The cold nibbled at her with ferocious intensity, sending shivers all over her bruised and delicate body. The hunger was beyond control, leaving her faint and weak. Her stomach churned with a need for food.
All she could do, lying on her side, then her back, then rolling back to her side because of the pain, was hope that Blake would come for her. That Val and Jackie would be close behind him, smiling and cheering and hugging her. Whispering softly in her ear: we found you, Rachel. You’re safe now. She pictured him holding her close until she truly did believe what he was telling her.
Here, alone in the cold, isolated darkness, that was the thought she held on to—the thought that was keeping her alive.
For now.
Last Hunt
Chapter One
Rachel thought she was dying. And maybe she was. Her heart rate had slowed right down in the heat of this dark space. Every now and then there would be a spike in its frantic pace, and she would feel it banging inside her chest like a Girl Scout pounds on doors to sell cookies. Soon, it would slow again, leaving her with a feeling of helplessness, her body weak and unable to manage so much as a slight jerk.
Footsteps.
Oh, how she’d longed to hear those. Rachel licked her dry lips. Whoever was nearby—even if it was Greg—could give her something to drink. She was bright enough to know that if anyone was coming back, it would only be to help her. Leaving her here would be enough to finish her off, and the energy to cry for help had long since left her. She let that sit in her mind for a moment as she dreamed up the image of someone handing her a nice pitcher of orange juice. Letting it fall down her throat in big, flooding gulps.
The heavy footfalls snapped her from her trance as they squished in the soggy gravel outside. Where was she now? Rachel remembered Greg hauling her outside. And then being dumped into something that shook under her weight. She thought she had a strong clue, felt around her just to be certain. Yep, she thought. The trunk of a car. And then suffocation as she realized how confined a space she was in. She could die here, lying on the felt-coated metal with nobody around to help her.
Only there was someone, and she wouldn’t let that opportunity pass her by. Screw that. She would use whatever reserves of life she had left and bang against the steel of the trunk door, even if it killed her.
Even if it killed her…
Rachel banged hard against the metal, almost punching it. “Help!” she screamed, desperate and thirsty and sore and hot and… and cold? Yes, it was winter, and the chill was evident in the air, even in LA. But that didn’t stop her sweating from the tyrannical grasp of dehydration. “Help!” she tried again. She could feel her knuckles bleeding.
The footsteps were coming closer. They stopped, but she didn’t. Even if it kills me… “I’m in here!” she tried again. If it was Greg outside, then he must know she was there. But she wanted that orange juice. She wanted it more than she’d ever wanted anything in her entire life, and so she banged even harder still.
Just as her fist was about to connect, the trunk sprang open and daylight flooded in. It blinded her. The image standing before her was nothing more than a black shape, one arm held out at the door. Her salvation.
“Rachel Lawrence,” the figure said. The voice of a man.
Rachel tried to speak, but only hot gasps fell from her mouth as she sucked in large breaths of air. She hadn’t noticed how stuffy it had been until now. Cold winter air washed over her skin, refreshing but harsh. She enjoyed it for a moment—it wasn’t like she could move anyway. She couldn’t even summon the motivation to raise a hand and shield her eyes from the torment of the sun.
“Come on.” The figure loomed forward, shifted his hands under her body, and hoisted her out of the car. There was something paternal in his touch. Something that swore an endless commitment to taking care of her. The hands of a doctor, perhaps.
Her eyes inched open, and she tried to get a look at her surroundings, but the light was still painting everything in a shiny yellow that assaulted her. For now, she kept them closed and waited to be put down in an ambulance.
Yes, she could feel it now, the soft embrace of the gurney as he laid her down on it and then the sound of the door closing. Rachel heard him climb into the front seat, and the engine choked and sputtered as it rumbled its way to life, and then the ambulance was moving. The road below was bumpy, jolting her up and driving pain into her back. What happened to my body? Just as she was asking herself that question, the memory came flooding back to her, the way dreams trickle in throughout the day.
But it wasn’t a dream. That was clear to her.
“You’re okay now, Rachel,” the man said from the front of the vehicle.
All she could think about was the orange juice.
“I’m taking you somewhere s-safe,” he said to comfort her.
Just the orange juice, she thought as they continued over bumpy ground.
Rachel understood that she would be taken to a hospital and that the police would soon be in contact with her. When the police came, the Agency would, too, and then she’d be back to square one.
If they didn’t kill her, that was.
OJ, with pulp. Or not. I don’t care.
The thought of the hospital was welcoming. Anything was better than dying, she figured as the vehicle rolled onto smoother ground, and the engine hummed as it picked up speed. It was a soothing sound, a gentle one that rested her on the cushioned (juice, no bits) seat and sent her into a light sleep.
How long was she like that? Long enough not to have noticed the engine stop. Her eyes adjusted to the light as if she hadn’t been in the dark at all. What she saw—as one eye flicked open and the other strained to catch up—was that she wasn’t in an ambulance at all. It was merely a car. An old-fashioned one with ugly fabric covering the seats and crispy, old McDonalds packaging spread out across the floor. She hadn’t noticed the smell until now, and it made her feel starved, if nothing else.
The car stopped. The man climbed out and opened the door beside her head.
“Who…” she tried to ask, but she was still too weak.
“Shh,” the man calmed her, and his voice was soft and trustworthy enough to listen to. “Everything will be a-a-all right, Rachel.”
She believed him.
This man—whoever he was—slid his arms under her armpits and dragged her from the back seat of the car. Her arm got tangled up in the seatbelt, and he fidgeted to set her free, like a fair-game hunter setting loose a rabbit from a snare—minus the blood, of course.
When she was out, he fussed to close the door and hoisted her over his shoulder.
Orange ju…
All she could see around her was the car—a beaten, old rust machine, a fading red—and the cracked, dry mud laced with white from a frost. The sun was still too bright to allow her any more than that, but it was returning to her.
Then there were his footsteps, echoing across wooden planks. They came into view as she lay slumped over his shoulder, her gaze on nothing but the floor to avoid the light.
Pulp. No pulp…
A door creaked open, and he carried her through. It was darker inside, gloomy. A relief to her eyes. This was much better. He took her further inside and shut the door. Everything reeked of dust and stale cereal, the kind of smell that ran straight up your nostrils and attacked your brain. If she’d had the energy, she would have gagged.
“It’s a-all right now,” came the man’s voice again. The accent was easier to pick up now:
southern. Like trailer trash from the movies, but calmer. Gentler. More soothing.
Rachel was expecting to be put down on the couch, or set into a chair and offered (juice) something to drink and maybe something to eat. Could she eat? She thought so.
But none of that happened.
Instead, the man continued to take her farther into the house, into a dank corridor that was freezing cold and stank of humus. Past a wall of photo frames that had no pictures in them. Who keeps frames but not the photos? she thought as he continued through the creaking hallway.
And then there was the board. It was a large pin board that stood on legs with small wheels at the bottom for easy portability. But that wasn’t what had made her heart catch in her throat. No, it was the picture of Blake Salinger—a newspaper clipping and something about losing his mind. Below that, a photograph of herself that she’d once used as a Facebook profile picture (her hair had been black then—a thoughtless experiment gone horribly wrong). Rachel was close to reading the headline that ran alongside her name, but then a door opened, and he hauled her through it like a store mannequin.
The man yanked on a cord, and soft, orange light lit up the bottom of a staircase. Slowly and steadily, he stepped down, still carrying Rachel over his shoulder with ease. When they reached the bottom, Rachel caught a glance around the room, shuddering as she thought she heard something squeak.
“You’ll b-b-be all right here, I reckon. Nice and cozy. I can’t believe I stumbled upon… Wow.” He set her down on the cold, hard ground and rummaged around in the corner. There was enough junk in this basement to fill up a used goods store and probably turn a decent profit.
Rachel held her own arms and trembled in the cold. “Where am I? What was…” Her words trailed off into a frosty puff of air and then dissipated into nothingness. She was still too limp to speak.
Huffing and panting, the man returned with a large mattress turned up on its side. He gave it a slight shove, and it toppled down, slowly at first and then speeding up before it hit the concrete floor. A cloud of dust exploded into the air. Whoomph.
Who the hell is this guy? Rachel could feel her heart pounding, all of a sudden caring less for the pitcher of juice and more about ever seeing daylight again. There was something about this man who had—what—rescued her? Brought her here into this cold, smelly basement and left her with nothing but a dirty old mattress to sit on?
“S-Sit there. I’ll get you a d-drink.” But he didn’t move. He only looked at her expectantly.
Rachel took the hint and, although it was only to please him, crawled over to the moldy mattress and sat on it. A spring was trying to poke through the fabric and into her skin, like an angry worm. “Wa… Wat… Water…” she tried, pointing to her mouth like a tired old drunk who was on the verge of passing out.
The man twitched his head, his eyelids rattling around as he semi-nodded. He made for the stairs, holding onto the banister with one hand and picking his nose with the other. “Won’t be l-long, Rachel. You’re all right now, just like I said, all right?”
And how does he know my name? She wanted to ask him, but then she remembered the board outside the room. Which raised other alarming questions: why did he have their pictures strung up on a board? Why had he brought her here instead of to a hospital? What was with the stuh-stuh-stutter? Rachel heard the door close and realized she was all alone down here, with a basement full of dust and a head full of questions.
Chapter Two
For Blake, the furnishings were somewhat different.
Charlie showed him into a room that had polished oak flooring, perfectly sanded and graced with a scarlet rug. The walls were red-bricked, and there was enough greenery in the room to make it feel like home. It was spacious, sure, but the thing that really caught his eye was the absence of windows. “What’s that about?” he asked, still trembling all over from having shot a man. The image of Greg’s twisted expression sprang to mind, but he dismissed it. It was all he could do.
“Oh, the walls? It’s to protect you. It’s unlikely it would happen, but if a sniper wanted to take your head off, it wouldn’t be too difficult through a pane of glass.” Charlie scratched his scarred throat with one fingernail.
For one instant, Blake wondered how he’d come to be cut there in the first place.
“This will drive me crazy,” he protested, knowing his own mind. He’d spent time in enclosed spaces before. When he was in his twenties and travelled around the country with his friends, he’d stayed in hostels and tents, and it was quite paralyzing for him to be cooped up tight like that.
“I wouldn’t worry. You won’t be spending much time in here anyway. Get some rest.”
God, Blake knew he needed the rest. After having put a bullet through Greg, he’d stayed up through most of the night with Charlie, talking over what could be done to help him and showing him around the headquarters of the Agency. Charlie had tried his damnedest to explain why Val Salinger was a target. It had made perfect sense to Blake, too. Only it was harder for him to admit. That was why Blake tried to speak shortly and abruptly to him, as if he was betraying his own good morals by talking to him at all.
The sun must have been coming up now, and Blake wished he could see it.
Charlie stepped toward the door but was stopped short by an urgent voice.
“Wait!” Blake called, though he was barely in a position to be making demands. “You promised I could see the file on my mother.” He’d wanted to ask all night, but all he could see was the surprise on Greg’s face. That frozen image seemed to stain his mind.
“You will,” Charlie said. “All in good time. Just enjoy the room and relax. Clean yourself up and rest. You start combat training at noon. And if you need anything…” He pinched his fingers together and shook them like he was ringing an invisible bell.
“But—” Blake was interrupted by the closing of the door and the sliding of the lock. Am I a prisoner? No, he couldn’t be. Charlie had welcomed him with open arms, and that was why he’d suddenly found the courage to squeeze the trigger at Greg—the image flashed again, a lifetime of suffering frozen in an instant of fear.
Blake shook it off and walked around the room. He was delighted to find his own en-suite with a spacious shower that he wasted no time in turning on. The water showered into the plughole, inviting him with wafts of steam that reached up like guiding hands. Blake removed his clothes. How long had it been since he’d last had a decent shower? Six weeks? Eight? He climbed in, trying not to look at the blood on his hands. Greg’s blood, not his.
The water was heavenly, and he could feel his sins washing down in red trickles and spinning in a hurry before they got sucked into the drain. Blake kept his head down, staring as the water spun in a whirlpool of red. As the seconds moved by, the water became paler, clearer.
If only his soul could be cleansed so easily.
Blake flicked off the water and climbed out. Reaching for a towel, he thought about where his father might be, what had happened to Rachel and Jackie and how things had become so utterly fucked up in the past few weeks. He wiped the mirror with a squeak and saw splashes of red still covering his cheeks. Rushing, trying not to cry, he hurried back into the shower and scrubbed at his face. He rubbed until it hurt, and then kept on rubbing.
It wasn’t until he climbed into bed—briefly admiring its comfort—that he thought again about his mother’s file. Nothing was more urgent to him than finding out exactly what had happened to her. For years his father had told him it was the cancer, but now Blake thought back on it, he hadn’t seen her suffer. Every time he’d tried to approach the bedroom or to visit her in hospital, his dad had stopped him in his tracks and given a brand-new excuse; “She’s sleeping, son” or “She wants to talk to me alone.” And now Blake realized he hadn’t seen her on her deathbed at all. She was simply there one day and then, a number of weeks later, he was at her funeral, tears filling his eyes as he stood alone, and suited men shook hands with his father while he
looked down at the ground. He remembered Rachel’s soft hand cupping his.
The next few hours were spent like that; staring into nothingness and lingering on the fact he’d asked for the files from Charlie, and that he’d been refused. Was he hiding something? There must have been something wrong, something that kept him from revealing the truth like he’d promised.
There was a knock at the door, and before Blake could shout to allow entry, the lock groaned open, and a fat man poked his head through the door. “Salinger? Get up. We got work to do.”
Without hesitation, Blake climbed to his feet and grabbed a fresh set of pressed clothes off the hanger. “Coming,” he said, not quite knowing what to expect from the afternoon. But there was one thing he was sure of; Greg was dead, and he damn well deserved it.
Chapter Three
Six weeks later
Robbie Parker stood leering over their marital bed watching them sleep.
He’d been silent when he’d entered the house after hours of waiting, surveying the scene. They knew they had to exercise extreme caution, so they left Val to pick the lock and grant them access to the man’s house. Once inside, they’d crept from room to room. The building was new, and nothing creaked under the weight of their feet. Together they’d moved with grace, mere shadows in the midst of the night.
Val Salinger was to his left, and he gave a curt nod to signal that he was ready. Then he drew the gun out from under his jacket. Robbie acknowledged the signal and walked around the bed, fumbling for the bedside lamp in the darkness. When he located the switch, the light came on, and the sleeping man jumped to alertness.
“Quiet,” Robbie warned him, seeing his eyes widen as he spotted the gun in Val’s hand. He looked as if he’d been caught with his pants down. He did, in fact, have his pants entirely removed and folded neatly on the chair beside the bed.
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