Two days into the trip, Lynn had already figured out that she hated cowboys. Especially phony ones. Every time the Feldmans and their crew swung into the saddle, she half expected to hear a hidden orchestra strike up the theme song from Bonanza.
Rory, though, was eating it up. She had already pointed Owen out as a potential playmate for Mom. As for herself, Rory said, she preferred the younger brother, Jess.
The memory made Lynn frown. Where was Rory? And where was Jess?
“Lots of people get saddle sore the first day out,” Owen said, apparently attributing her grim expression to chagrin at wimping out. “Just rub this on your—affected part—and you’ll feel lots better by morning.”
“Thanks, I will.” Lynn slid the shoe-polish-size can into the pocket of her blaze orange windbreaker—new for the trip, the color chosen to prevent some gung-ho hunter from mistaking her for a moose—and stood up. The insides of her knees screamed a protest. Her butt ached. The backs of her thighs throbbed. Trying not to wince at the pain, Lynn glanced around the camp. “Have you seen Rory? Or your brother?”
Owen smiled, the tanned skin around his eyes crinkling just the way the tanned skin around a cowboy’s eyes was supposed to crinkle, and stood up too. He topped her five-foot-two by almost a foot. Central casting couldn’t have chosen better, Lynn reflected dryly.
“Rory’s your daughter, right? The little blonde? She and a couple of the other girls wanted to learn how to cast. Jess volunteered to demonstrate before chow.”
“Oh, great.” Lynn couldn’t help the tartness of her tone. While Owen obviously had no problem with his brother taking a gaggle of impressionable young girls off somewhere alone, Lynn did. Jess Feldman was not cut from the same leather as his older brother. Utterly reliable didn’t even begin to apply. “Which way did they go?”
She reached for a humorous tone and didn’t quite make it. Owen’s gaze sharpened.
“Come on. I’ll show you,” he said.
“I don’t want to take you away from anything you need to be doing.” Though there was a grain of truth in her answer, the larger reality was that Lynn was simply not comfortable accepting even such small favors from anyone. She had been alone for so long, battling her way through the world so that she and Rory could have something better than the nothing with which they had started, that she had grown to like it that way. Never depend on anyone, was her motto.
Especially fake cowboys.
“Bob and Ernst are on chow detail. Tim is seeing to the horses. There’s nothing I need to be doing at the moment.” Owen smiled at her. “Come on.”
Lynn returned his smile reluctantly, but fell into step beside him as he headed through the campsite toward the thick lodgepole forest that climbed the steep slope on the other side of the clearing. Towering pines had shed enough needles over the decades to make the ground soft underfoot, as if, Lynn thought, she were walking on a thick carpet.
Most of the girls sat together in a semicircle on burlap sacks thrown on the ground, singing. Pat Greer and Debbie Stapleton, the other mother chaperons, glanced up from their self-appointed task of leading the impromptu sing-along to watch as Lynn passed by with Owen.
“… and if another bottle should fall, there’ll be eighty-seven bottles of milk on the wall.…”
Milk.
It was all Lynn could do not to gag. The determinedly cheerful and even more determinedly G-rated warble made her want to barf. Pat and Debbie were Tipper Gore clones: they would never permit their young charges to sing about anything as age-inappropriate as bottles of beer.
Lynn liked beer. If there had been one available, she would have chugalugged it on the spot just to annoy her fellow mothers.
Because they were annoying hen their cheerfulness, their nosiness, their perfect-motherness.
Lynn could feel the weight of their combined gazes stabbing her in the back as she walked past. Stylish suburban matrons comfortably married to successful men, Pat and Debbie seemed to harbor an instinctive distrust of her. As a single working mother who lived on coffee and cigarettes and had a high-profile, demanding job, Lynn supposed they considered her from a different species than themselves.
And she supposed, withsome reluctance, that maybe they were right.
“You have any other children?” Owen asked as he stopped to hold a branch aside so that she could enter the woods ahead of him.
“Rory’s it.” Lynn strove to lighten her mood as well as her tone as she stepped past him onto a well-worn trail. It was dark and gloomy under the trees, and ten degrees cooler. Moss covered everything, from the rocks to the tree trunks to the path. The smell was damp, like somebody’s basement. “My one chick.”
“She looks like you. I would have known her for your daughter anywhere.”
Lynn walked smack into a nearly invisible spiderweb suspended across the path. Shuddering, she wiped the clammy threads from her face and kept going.
“She does, doesn’t she?” Concentrating on responding intelligently to Owen, Lynn tried not to think about the spider (she hated spiders!) that went with the web. Rory and she did look alike. Both of them had blond hair—though Lynn admittedly gave nature a hand in keeping her chin-length shag bright—pale complexions, and large, innocent-looking blue eyes. Both were less than tall (she despised the word short), their lack of stature compensated for by slim builds. The difference was that for the last several years Lynn had had to work hard to keep her weight down, while for Rory such slenderness was still effortless. “Poor child.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Owen was behind her. Lynn couldn’t see his expression, but his tone told her that he admired her looks. Lynn made a face. She hoped he wasn’t going to hit on her. Ruggedly handsome or not, he was going to be disappointed if he did. She had no interest in a vacation fling, and no fantasies about bedding a faux cowboy.
“Do you have any children?” Lynn asked, for something to say. The path sloped upward, away from the rocky plateau where they would spend the night. Roots and the protruding edges of buried stones made it necessary to watch where she put her feet. Ahead, Lynn could hear the splash of tumbling water. Cracklings and rustlings and chirpings from living things about which she refused to speculate were nearer at hand.
“Nope.” Owen sounded as if he smiled suddenly, although as he was walking behind her Lynn couldn’t be sure. “No wife, either. My brother says I’m not a keeper. Once they get to know me, women end up throwing me back.”
Lynn was surprised into glancing around. “Surely you’re not as bad as all that.”
Owen’s eyes twinkled at her. “That’s what I think. But Jess was pretty positive.”
Lynn walked on. There was something about that rueful smile that made her wary. It was too charming, almost practiced. Part of the shtick. He might very well be lying to her. For all she knew, the rat could be married with a dozen kids.
Not that she cared whether Owen Feldman was married or not. But it was irritating to think that he might think she was dumb enough to succumb to a smile, blue eyes, and a cowboy hat She had her faults, but stupid wasn’t one of them.
A sudden bright shimmer of light ahead drew Lynn’s attention. Through a frame of swaying branches, sunlight bounced off the surface of silvery water. As she walked toward the light, her view broadened to take in a wide stream, a slash of sunny sky, and the brown and green wall of the forest climbing the mountain on the other side of the stream. A well-fed muskrat sat up on a smooth-surfaced gray rock rising from the middle of the current, whiskers quivering as it stared at something the humans could not see. As Lynn watched, it dove beneath the surface with scarcely a ripple, its sleek brown body disappearing from view.
Enchanted at the display, Lynn stepped out from beneath the overhanging foliage into a scene of breath-stealing beauty. A wide darkish green creek flowed over smooth stones toward a rocky staircase some fifty yards away. There it tumbled about twelve feet in a noisy, misty froth of white before continuing its quiet journey down the mountai
n. Perched on boulders overlooking the waterfall were two slender, jeans-clad teenage girls. A third, blond and petite and laughing, was thigh-deep in the center of the stream just above the waterfall, legs braced apart, blue T-shirted back resting securely against the white T-shirted chest of a tawny-maned, bronze-skinned pretty-boy.
Rory and Jess Feldman. Lynn’s eyes narrowed. Despite all appearances to the contrary—she was a hair taller than Lynn now and her childish wiriness had recently been augmented by budding curves—Rory was still a child at fourteen. A boy-crazy child.
Jess Feldman, on the other hand, was no boy. He had to be at least thirty. And, unbelievably, the no-good so-and-so had his arms around Rory.
Books by Karen Robards
Ghost Moon
The Midnight Hour
The Senator’s Wife
Heartbreaker
Hunter’s Moon
Walking After Midnight
Maggy’s Child
One Summer
Nobody’s Angel
This Side of Heaven
Forbidden Love
Sea Fire
Island Flame
KAREN ROBARDS is the author of twenty-three historical and contemporary romances, including her most recent national bestsellers Ghost Moon, The Midnight Hour, and The Senator’s Wife. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with her husband and their three sons.
Read on for an excerpt from
THE LAST VICTIM
by Karen Robards
Published by Ballantine Books
CHAPTER ONE
If Charlie Stone hadn’t drunk the Kool-Aid, she would have died.
But in the random way the world sometimes works, the seventeen-year-old did drink several big tumblers full of Goofy Grape generously mixed with vodka, courtesy of her new best friend Holly Palmer. As a result, she just happened to be in the utilitarian bathroom off the Palmers’ basement rec room, hugging the porcelain throne when the first scream penetrated her consciousness.
Even muffled by floors and walls and who knew what else, it was loud and shrill and urgent enough to penetrate the haze of misery she was lost in.
“Holly?” Charlie called, lifting her head, which felt like it weighed a ton and pounded unmercifully.
No answer.
Okay, her voice was weak. Probably Holly hadn’t heard her. Probably the scream was nothing, Holly’s little brothers fighting or something. Seeing that it was around two a.m., though, shouldn’t the eleven- and thirteen-year-olds have been asleep? Charlie had no idea: she knew nothing about tweenie boys. God, she should have followed her instinct and just said no to the booze. But as the new girl in Hampton High School’s senior class, Charlie hadn’t felt like she was in a position to refuse. From the first day of school, when they’d found out they were sharing a locker, sweet, popular Holly had taken Charlie under her wing, introduced her around. For that, Charlie was grateful. The veteran of seven high schools in just over three years, Charlie knew from bitter experience that there were a lot more mean girls out there than nice ones.
A late August Friday night in this small North Carolina beach town meant the movies. Four of them had gone together. The other two had moms who were reliable about picking their daughters up after. When Charlie’s mom hadn’t shown (typical), Holly had invited her to spend the night. They’d wound up sneaking out to meet Holly’s boyfriend, Garrett—a total hottie, who had to work till midnight, which was past Holly’s curfew—and go for a ride in his car. Since he’d had a friend with him—James, not quite as hot as Garrett, but still—it had actually worked out pretty well, except for the whole toxic Kool-Aid thing.
They’d driven to the shore, plopped down in the sand, and shared the concoction Garrett had mixed for them while they talked and watched the waves.
The good news was, Charlie might actually have gotten a bead on landing her own boyfriend. The bad news was, as soon as Garrett had dropped them off and they’d crept back down to the basement where supposedly they’d been watching TV all along, Charlie had had to rush straight to the bathroom. She’d been in there for what felt like forever, being sick as a parrot.
She’d be lucky if Holly ever invited her over again.
The second scream definitely did not come from one of the boys. High-pitched and shattering, it smashed through the ordinary sounds of the babbling TV and humming air-conditioning and thumping dryer in the next room like an axe through Jell-O. The fear in it was enough to make the hair stand up on the back of Charlie’s neck. Until it abruptly cut off, she forgot to breathe. The ensuing silence pulsated with … something. Tension, maybe. An electric kind of heaviness. Shooting to her feet, she swiped her long brown hair back from her face with one hand and headed for the door. Knees weak, battling a disorienting attack of the woozies along with the worst taste ever in her mouth, she grabbed the cold-from-the-air-conditioning brass knob.
“Teach you to ignore me …” The words were followed by the sharp sound of a blow. It was a man’s voice, low and deep. Mr. Palmer? Had he found out they’d snuck out?
Charlie froze, her hand still on the knob. She could see herself in the mirror over the sink. Average height, maybe a little too plump. Her face, cute, round, currently rosy from her mostly futile attempts to tan, had gone utterly white. Her blue eyes were the approximate size and shape of golf balls. The yellow T-shirt she wore with jeans looked neon bright in the drab space. Tonight there would be no blending in to the background for her. Earlier, standing out was what she had wanted. Her yet-to-be-proven theory was that, unlike birds, brilliant plumage on girls helped to attract boys. Whatever, James had seemed to like her.
“Don’t go anywhere,” the man said. At the ugly note in his voice, Charlie let go of the knob and took a step back. Pulse pounding, she stared at the raw wood panel. The tiny bathroom with its plain white toilet and sink and unpainted concrete block walls seemed to shrink as she stood there. There was no window, no way out except through that door.
Her heart thudded so hard she could feel it knocking in her chest.
A moment later the unmistakable creak of the door to the rec room told her it was being opened. She didn’t hear it shut, but then she didn’t hear anything after that. No footsteps, no voices. What was happening? Was he gone? Where was Holly?
All Charlie knew for sure was that she wasn’t about to just open that door.
Instead she dropped to her knees and tried looking beneath it, through the crack between door and floor.
The overhead light was still on, just like it was when she’d run for the bathroom. She could see the rug, a tan kind of Aztec print laid down over the concrete. She could see two legs of the coffee table, and a sliver of the tan leather couch. And Holly’s feet. Yes, definitely Holly’s feet, bare like her own. Slim and tanned, toenails painted bubblegum pink, poking out from beneath the fashionably raggedy hems of her jeans.
Judging from their position, Holly was lying on her side on the floor between the coffee table and the couch.
Charlie wet her lips. Something bad had happened. Something was really wrong.
Even as Charlie watched, Holly’s toes curled, straightened, curled again. Then Charlie heard a moan, low and drawn out. Her stomach bunched into a big knot. The moan came from Holly, no mistake about that. Whatever had gone down, Holly was hurt. She needed help. Had her dad beaten her up?
Mr. Palmer—Ben, all Holly’s friends called him, although Charlie, who’d only met him twice, hadn’t quite gotten there yet—was a lawyer. He seemed nice, not like the type who’d hit his daughter, but in Charlie’s experience of men, you just never knew.
The door to the rec room was open, she could see that much. There was no sign of the man, no sound from him. In her gut Charlie felt he was gone.
Standing up, Charlie took a deep breath. Then slowly, carefully, she eased open the door.
Just a crack. Just enough to see.
As she had thought, Holly lay on the floor, on her side. Her taut, tanned, cheerleader-worthy midriff was
visible from the top of her hip bones to halfway up her rib cage because her hot pink tee was pulled way up. It was pulled way up because her arms were raised above her head in the most awkward-looking position ever. Charlie’s heart stuttered as she took in the silver bracelets circling Holly’s wrists, recognized them as handcuffs, and registered that Holly was handcuffed to the black plumbing pipe that rose along the room’s concrete block outer wall.
Oh, my God.
Holly’s dad hadn’t done that.
A swift glance around assured Charlie there was no one else in the room. So nervous she almost vibrated with it, Charlie hesitated. But what else could she do? Pulse racing, she flew to her friend’s side, nudging the coffee table out of the way, careful not to make a sound. Holly’s eyes were closed, she saw as she crouched beside her. Blood trickled from a cut just above her temple. The thread of bright scarlet sliding along Holly’s cheekbone horrified Charlie almost as much as the two strips of gray duct tape plastered over her friend’s mouth.
Oh, God. Oh, no. What do I do?
Panic tightened her throat, but she did her best to force it back. Cold sweat prickled to life around her hairline, beaded her upper lip.
“Holly.” Charlie’s whisper was urgent. She grabbed Holly’s arm, shook her. Whatever had happened, this was something way outside her experience. Way outside her ability to deal with. Casting terrified glances over her shoulder, she frantically felt the smooth metal handcuffs, felt the cool strength of the chain linking them, felt the solidity of the iron pipe they were wrapped around. No way were they coming off without the key. Her friend’s hands felt warm, but they were limp and almost colorless except for the pink of her nail polish. “Holly, wake up.”
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