by Herron, Rita
“Come. I have something to show you.”
Liz kept her hands at her sides but slowly walked behind him. Keys jangled from his pocket as he limped forward. The lights were off, but candles flickered from a wooden table in the kitchen area, giving her just enough light to see that they were alone.
She quickly glanced around, searching for possible escape routes. They appeared to be in an older cabin. The floors were rustic, the walls knotty pine. A fireplace glowed, wood crackling.
The windows were boarded up, locks on the door.
The scent of garlic wafted to her, making her stomach curdle, and she spotted a cutting board on the butcher block counter, a sharp kitchen knife resting atop it beside meat that looked raw, bloody.
He shoved her into a chair, and once again she scanned the room for a way out. There were multiple locks on the wooden door that led outside. Locks that needed a key.
A key that was on that key chain on his belt.
“You said you had something to show me?” she asked, gauging the distance to the knife.
“Yes.” He gestured to the left at a computer he’d set up on the sideboard, then flicked a remote. A video appeared on the screen.
Liz gasped. Her mother was in the same room where Liz was now.
“Please, I have a daughter,” her mother pleaded. “She needs me.”
Laughing bitterly, Harlan gripped her mother by the hair and held her head back as he forced her to look at photos of his other victims. Three other women he’d killed, the blood running down their necks, their eyes wide with the horror of death.
“You helped the whores keep their kids so they could put them to work on the street. You threw other kids in foster homes where the parents beat and raped them.”
Liz’s mother shook her head in denial, tears streaming down her face. “No! I tried to help them.”
“You didn’t help them—you gave them over to animals like Blackwood. Then you had to get nosy.”
Liz’s gaze shot to her abductor. His face was scarred, his skin puckered and ridged. But it was him.
Harlan.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The explosion rocked the night, fiery bits of the helicopter flying in all directions, the bulk landing in the woods by the hospital.
Rafe and Jake had both been blown backward by the blast. Nick raced onto the roof, his expression shocked.
“Did you see the Commander get in the chopper?” Jake yelled over the noise.
Rafe hesitated. “I’m not sure. Mallard was in there, though.”
Nick ran a hand through his hair. “We have to confirm that the Commander is dead.”
“I’m calling Maddison,” Rafe said as he punched Lieutenant Maddison’s number.
Nick and Jake both walked to the edge of the roof, looking out at the debris and burning parts scattered across the woods. Two security guards raced outside.
“What happened?”
Jake relayed the situation to the guards. “We need a list of the staff on board, as well as the pilot of the chopper.”
“What’s going on now?” Lieutenant Maddison asked.
Rafe filled him in.
The guards jumped into action, radioing the central security station to explain.
Nick’s phone buzzed, and he stepped aside to answer it.
“I’ll dispatch teams to the area asap, along with explosive experts,” Maddison told Rafe.
“I’ll call the chief and tell him about the secretary of defense. We’ll get warrants and search all his properties and computers to confirm his involvement.”
“You think it was accidental?” Lieutenant Maddison asked.
“This was no accident,” Rafe said. “I’d bet my life on it.”
“Who would you guess was responsible?”
“They had too many enemies to pick just one.”
Maddison ended the call to dispatch the team.
Nick approached him. “Rafe, that was Brenda. She’s worried about Agent Lucas.”
Rafe jerked his head up. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“They were supposed to meet at the sanitarium about some lead she had regarding the experiment.”
“What kind of lead?”
“Something about there being more than seven subjects. But Liz hasn’t shown, and she isn’t answering her phone.”
“Is Brenda at the hospital now?”
“Yes, but no sign of Liz anywhere.”
Dammit, what was going on?
He checked his phone and saw a message from Liz. “Rafe, it’s Liz. We have to talk. Call me as soon as you get this.”
He sucked in a breath and punched Liz’s cell number, anxiety knotting his gut as it rang and rang. But no one answered.
Dammit to hell. Liz might be in trouble.
“What are you talking about?” Liz asked Harlan.
“Your mother, she caught on to what the Commander was doing to the children.”
Liz’s mind raced. “You killed my mother because she found out about the experiment?”
He nodded, his sinister laugh filling the air. “She knew about me, and planned to expose me.”
“Expose you as a killer?”
“And one of the Commander’s pet subjects. I know you’ve been looking for me.”
“You’re Six?”
Harlan simply grinned, but a scream from the taping jerked Liz’s head back to the video. On the screen Harlan raised the knife to her mother’s neck. The terror on her mother’s face made her tremble. With one quick swipe, the monster slashed her throat.
Liz gasped as blood flowed down her mother’s neck and the life drained from her. She jerked her head away, unable to bear any more.
Her mother had begged him to spare her life for her daughter, just as Liz had begged him for hers.
But he’d killed her mother anyway to protect the Commander.
She met his cold, sadistic look with one of hate. The emotion fueled her courage, and she lunged around the table and grabbed him by the throat. Her fingers dug in, squeezing, choking, but he was a big man, and he swung his fist into her stomach, just as he had the first time he’d kidnapped her.
Her breath rushed out at the blow, and her grip loosened enough for him to push her arms away and come after her. Liz leaped to the side and raced for the knife on the butcher block counter. If she could get it, she’d stab him to death without blinking an eye.
But he caught her by the shoulders just as her fingertips brushed it. Liz swung an elbow back to dislodge him, but he aimed a blow at her kidneys, and her legs buckled as pain disabled her.
Gulping back a sob, she fell to her knees but kicked her right foot backward, hoping to connect with his knee. Another blow to the back of her head knocked her to the floor. She tasted blood, and the room spun.
He grabbed the knife from the counter, pulled her head back by her hair, and pressed the blade to her neck.
Liz’s life flashed in front of her.
Harlan was going to kill her, and she’d never get to tell Rafe that she loved him.
Rafe drove like a maniac, the lights of other cars flashing by in a blur as he sped past them. The fifteen-minute drive took him ten minutes but felt like a hundred.
Nick veered toward the road that snaked up into the mountains toward the sanitarium, but he decided to check Liz’s house first.
He waved his badge out the window toward the security guard as he slowed near the gate. “Have you seen Agent Liz Lucas?” Rafe asked
“No.”
“How about anything suspicious?”
The guard’s brows knitted together. “No, why? What’s going on?”
“I’m worried about her,” Rafe said. “I’ll check her house.”
The guard waved him through, and Rafe pressed the accelerator. A minute later
he parked by Liz’s, jumped out, and jogged toward her front door. A lone light burned in the hallway. He rang the doorbell and knocked a dozen times, but no one answered.
His heart hammered as he raced around to the porch. They’d found one woman’s body here already.
An image of Liz lying dead, mutilated, flashed in front of his eyes, and he froze, his lungs straining for air.
Liz couldn’t be dead.
He flexed and unflexed his hands as he fought for calm. Postponing the search wouldn’t help.
He climbed the porch steps, shining his flashlight across the lawn and steps. Nothing stuck out, so he opened the screened door and inched inside, gun at the ready.
He waved the flashlight across the porch but everything seemed in order. So far, no blood . . .
He wiggled the doorknob leading to the interior, cursing at the fact that it was unlocked. Not a good sign.
Inching through the door, he panned the living area and kitchen, but no one was inside. Shoulders tense, he listened for sounds of an intruder.
Footsteps? A breath? The wind whipping a branch against the house. Windowpanes rattling.
Moving quickly, he checked the laundry room, then went to Liz’s room. If she’d been abducted, had it been from here?
There were no signs of a struggle.
But something in the middle of Liz’s bed caught his eye.
The red scarf she’d worn earlier.
On top of it lay a pair of silver earrings, the silver rings encasing glass that changed colors in the light.
Liz’s mother had worn earrings like these.
The earrings had gone missing when she was abducted. Police thought the killer had taken them.
God . . . Sweat broke out all over Rafe’s body. Liz had said she’d smelled garlic in her house. That she’d found white roses in her car.
And a pair of earrings just like her mother’s missing pair lay on her bed.
He yanked latex gloves from his pocket, photographed the earrings, then gently picked them up in the palm of his hand.
God. Liz had been right all along. Harlan really was back from the dead.
Liz forced herself to draw a shallow breath. If she moved too quickly, Harlan would sever her carotid artery and she’d bleed out in minutes.
She had to beat the son of a bitch.
He tightened his hold, the blade pricking her skin. “Don’t worry, I’m not ready to kill you yet,” he murmured against her ear.
What did he have in mind?
He reached for a rope from the duffel bag in one of the chairs. She tried to run again, but he slashed her arm with the knife. Liz cried out in pain as he shoved her into the chair.
This time he tied her arms and feet to the chair. Blood dripped down her forearm onto the wood floor, and she gritted her teeth to keep from crying as it began to throb.
Breathing heavily now, as if he’d taxed himself, he angled his computer toward her again.
“We have more movies to watch.”
Liz blinked back emotions as he punched play, and pictures of his other victims appeared on the screen.
Apparently he’d videotaped each one of them from the time he’d kidnapped her to the time of her death. He’d kept them in the same room where she was now.
He’d forced them to dress like whores and called them names and made them eat his poison food.
His job had been to clean up after the Commander. But he’d taken a perverse kind of pleasure in punishing the mothers who’d given up their children. Even if those women hadn’t known they were turning their kids over to Blackwood.
Fear immobilized Rafe for a brief second. Was Liz still alive?
His phone buzzed. Nick. “Did you find Liz?”
“No, she’s gone,” Rafe said in a gruff voice. “I think Harlan has her.”
A tense heartbeat passed. “How do you know?”
“I’m at her house. The earrings that Liz gave her mother, the ones that went missing with her, they’re here on Liz’s bed.”
“Jesus.” Nick sighed. “I’ll get a team together.”
Rafe hung up, his mind spinning as he tried to decide where Harlan would take Liz. Details of the case nagged at him. Harlan had kept his victims for three days before killing them. Long enough to beat them and punish them for what he considered their transgressions.
At first police hadn’t known where he’d kept them, but three months after Rafe threw Harlan into the river, they’d located the house. It was miles from nowhere, tucked so deeply in the foothills that no one could hear the girls scream for help.
The police had searched for evidence, but Harlan was missing, presumed dead, so they’d put the evidence into a file and stored it at the TBI.
Harlan might take Liz to that house.
Rafe jogged out to his SUV, tires screeching as he drove across the parking lot. He slowed at the security gate just enough to tell the guard to call him if he saw Liz or anything suspicious, then hung a sharp left and roared toward the mountains.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Rafe fought images of Liz bleeding and beaten, as he flew up the mountain. Ridge after ridge swallowed him as he drove deeper into the hills. More rain fell, slowing him as he negotiated the switchbacks.
The engine rumbled, gears grinding, rain swishing off his tires. He turned up the graveled road, bouncing over ruts and potholes, keeping his lights on bright to show him the way.
Driving on autopilot, he swung around a curve, then dodged a clump of tree limbs that had fallen into the road. Through the leafless trees he spotted the dilapidated house on top of the hill. His headlights illuminated the road, but he flipped them off, not wanting to alert Harlan if he was at the house.
He prayed Harlan was there. If not, Rafe had no idea where to look. Harlan could be anywhere in the acres of wilderness.
He swung the SUV to the right and parked between some trees. He grabbed his gun, then slowly opened his car door and closed it, scanning the property ahead.
Rain sluiced down his neck and jacket, mud squishing beneath his boots as he wove behind the trees toward the house.
His flashlight illuminated the way enough for him to see that the house had been boarded up. But a car was parked to the side, under a giant oak.
Why had Harlan brought Liz here? Didn’t he know the TBI had found the place after his disappearance?
Wind blew rain across the path, and the answer hit him.
He could be setting a trap.
All his senses straining, Rafe continued up the path, scanning the outside until he neared the house. There was a rustle behind him, and he pivoted.
He raised his gun but didn’t have time to fire it. A shadow moved, the butt of a gun slammed into his head, and he fell to the ground.
Another blow, and he tasted dirt and blood. Then the world went dark.
Liz watched in horror as Harlan dragged Rafe inside the house and hauled him into a chair.
Fear engulfed her as he sagged unconscious in the chair. Blood dripped from the side of his head, where Harlan had struck him.
Harlan made quick work of tying Rafe to the chair, then filled a pitcher with water, walked over, and dumped it on Rafe’s head.
Rafe jerked his eyes open and looked up, disoriented for a moment.
“Rafe?” Liz said, striving for calm. “Are you all right?”
Slowly he angled his face toward her. “Yeah. Are you?”
Liz nodded.
“Well, well, well, isn’t this a happy little reunion?” Harlan said in a singsong voice.
Rafe pulled his gaze back to Harlan, but Liz saw him visually sweep the room, sizing it up, looking for escape routes just as she had.
Unfortunately they’d have to free themselves before they could fight Harlan.
Harlan stepped over to the computer,
with a sinister grin. “Looks like you’re in time to watch the show with us, Hood.”
Rafe’s look could have cut glass. “Show?”
Liz gritted her teeth as Harlan pressed the play button. Her own face flashed onto the screen.
“Stop it!” Liz said as she realized that he’d filmed himself beating her during her captivity.
Rage filled Rafe’s eyes as he stared at the scene. Harlan had tied her up just as he had now, and was telling her how he’d killed her mother and the other women because they were bad mothers.
Then he’d attacked her, sending blow after blow to her midsection. Liz had sobbed, begging him to stop.
“Please don’t,” she cried. “I’m pregnant. You’ll kill my baby!”
Rafe’s body went completely still at her cries. He inhaled sharply before cutting his gaze toward her.
“Liz?”
Tears blurred her vision. “Rafe, I—”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, his voice raspy with pain.
“I . . .” Liz’s throat clogged with emotions. “I’d just found out . . . I didn’t have time . . .”
“Enough lies!” Harlan slashed the ropes restraining Liz in one quick motion, then dragged her up from the chair and hauled her toward the door.
His shrill laugh rent the air as he raised the knife to Liz’s throat.
Rafe struggled with his bindings as Harlan teased Liz’s neck with the tip of the blade.
He’d managed to reach inside his back pocket for his knife as the bastard forced him to watch that video of Liz begging for her life.
Liz had been pregnant with his baby.
The realization both stunned and enraged him. Hurt that she hadn’t told him mingled with fury that Harlan had robbed them of the chance to meet their child.
He would not get away with it.
Blood trickled down his arm, but he ignored it, sawing faster as the bastard pushed Liz toward the door.
“Maybe we should go down to the river. You know that’s where I left your mother.”
Liz suddenly threw her foot up and kicked Harlan in the knee, at the same time jabbing her elbow into his side. Harlan grunted and loosened his grip slightly, and she spun around and swung at his arm, sending the knife skittering across the floor.