Dead in Her Tracks

by Kendra Elliot

  He went back to his knots, a small smile on his lips. “Here and there.”

  Stevie wondered how far she could push him. “Did Bob kill Vanessa? We know it was her on the video.”

  Donald frowned. “No. Just because he killed Amber Lynn it didn’t mean he would do it again.”

  “So who killed her?”

  “Thought you police were working on that.”

  “We are. We’re working on Bob’s murder too. You know, he didn’t have anything nice to say about you when he was put in his cell. He kept claiming you were selling illegal prescription meds,” she lied. “I found it amusing that you said earlier that you were friends. Bob didn’t seem to feel the same way.”

  A flush filled his face and his movements with the rope became jerky and short. His lips moved.

  “What? I didn’t hear you.”

  “Asshole got what he deserved.”

  “Sounds like it,” said Stevie. “No one seemed to be upset when he died. Whoever killed him practically did the town a favor.”

  Donald smiled.

  “You killed him, didn’t you, Donald?”

  “You’ll never know.”

  The smug look on his face told her everything she needed to know.

  He stepped closer to the bed, the knotted rope in his hands. “Lift your head.”

  A green light next to the door started to flash, its brightness startling Stevie.

  The flashing caught his attention, and he turned to stare at it. “Damn it. Maybe they’ll go away.”

  It didn’t stop.

  Stevie realized it was the same type of light she’d seen in a hotel room. An indicator for the hearing-impaired that someone had rung the doorbell. Donald’s mother had been deaf at the end of her life.

  Her heart leaped. Someone knows I’m here.

  Zane watched Kenny turn away from the front door and stare into the shadows of the woods, searching for him.

  Damn it. Don’t stop now. Be the pain in the ass.

  Kenny pushed the button several more times, and Zane exhaled in relief.

  Three minutes passed. Donald’s sedan was parked under the adjacent carport. He was home.

  Stevie had to be in there.

  We have to go in.

  He jogged out of the woods and into the bright glow thrown by the numerous outdoor lights. Kenny saw him coming and let up on the bell. “He’s not answering, Zane.”

  “I noticed. We’re going in. I’m going in,” he corrected. “You stay here.”

  “Like hell you’re going in alone.” Kenny dashed down the steps and popped the trunk of the patrol car. He pulled out a small battering ram and took the steps in one leap to stand by Zane. “Let’s do this.”

  Zane grabbed one side and they swung it into the wood near the knob. One blow blasted the door open.

  “Donald? Are you okay? Solitude police!” Zane shouted. He and Kenny both drew their weapons and moved carefully into the home. The lights were on in all the rooms. “Donald?”

  Kenny nodded at a door off the kitchen. “That’d be the door to the basement,” he whispered.

  Zane pulled it open and shouted down the steps. He could see the beginning of a hallway with at least two other doors.

  No answer. Faint sirens sounded from out on the road.

  “Go meet the county guys,” Zane told Kenny. “I’ll wait right here.” Kenny nodded and dashed out the door.

  Zane looked back down the basement stairs, wondering if Stevie was behind one of the doors.

  He froze as all his hearing focused on a faint sound from the basement.

  Stevie is screaming.

  He stepped silently down the stairs. He couldn’t wait.

  Stevie sucked in a breath and screamed again.

  Donald had taken a step back with fear on his face at the first burst from her lungs, but now he was angry. She didn’t care. The green light hadn’t stopped flashing. Someone was still ringing the doorbell, and she would scream her lungs out while she had the chance.

  He lunged at her and tried to wrestle the rope around her neck as she jerked her head back and forth, never letting up on her screams. He bent over the bed, his face close to hers, and spit flew out of his mouth as he shouted at her to hold still. She thrashed, jerking her bound hands and feet, wishing she could get a fist or toe into his ribs. Behind his thick lenses, his eyes were crazy.

  Eyes of a killer.

  Yanking her hair, he looped the rope around her neck and pulled it tight.

  Her screams were cut off. She couldn’t breathe. The rough rope burned her neck as he tightened it again, and her vision immediately tunneled, leaving only his face. The skin on her hands ripped as she tried to tear her hands out of the shackles. She felt the metal dig into the tendons of her hands.

  Donald grinned, knowing he’d won.

  She didn’t want his face to be the last thing she ever saw.

  Behind him the door crashed open and Zane stepped in the room, his gun and glare leveled at Donald. Stevie turned her head, the rope mangling her neck, her tunnel vision finding Zane. She breathed in the sight of him, committing it to memory.

  “Drop the rope.”

  Donald spun around and held up his end of the rope like a weapon. “Put down your gun or she dies now.” He started a steady pull, strangling her. Her vision shrank to nothing and Zane’s face vanished. She wrenched her head, sinking the last of her energy into finding a way to breathe.

  The rope held strong.

  Zane! Shoot him!

  She heard the single gunshot.

  “Stevie!” Zane’s hands were on her throat, yanking loose the rope. She sucked in a deep breath, ignoring the pain in her neck, and blinked hard as her vision abruptly returned.

  Zane’s face was inches from hers, terror in his eyes.

  “Donald?” she asked.

  “He’s down.”

  Several pairs of boots thundered down the basement stairs. Shouts of “Medic!” and “He found her!” filled the room as the county deputies entered. Stevie tuned them out.

  Zane didn’t break eye contact with Stevie. “You’re going to be okay,” he said three times, running his shaking hands over her face as if comforting a child.

  She knew he was saying it for his own benefit, reassuring himself that he hadn’t been too late.

  “I know I am.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “When’s the wedding, you two?”

  Stevie smiled. “Sometime this summer,” she repeated. Nearly every person at the town party had asked her the same question. Zane simply nodded at the curious local and then spun her away on the dance floor of the grange. Stevie had rushed to get ready for the New Year’s Eve party, needing a shower to scrub the odor of illegal fireworks from her hair and skin. She and Carly had initiated Brianna into their secret rite a few hours earlier, explaining how their father had always taken his daughters far out of town to set off fireworks on major holidays. After his death, the tradition had evolved as they moved the launch site near his grave.

  Brianna had been delighted to be included, and they’d made her formally swear not to share their ritual with the male members of the Taylor clan.

  Now two mirrored balls scattered a thousand pieces of light through the hall, and Bruce’s band played a slow country tune. Bruce sat in a chair on the stage, his fiddle blending with the other instruments. Her heart swelled with happiness to see him finally play again after Amber Lynn’s death.

  New Year’s Eve. A time for new beginnings and a chance to put the past behind us.

  Donald Montgomery hadn’t survived Zane’s bullet to his chest.

  Stevie wanted never to think about him again, but the horrors that had been discovered inside and behind his mother’s home kept coming back to haunt her. The bodies of six women had been found buried
behind the home. Three had been identified. Samantha Lyle and the two missing Medford women. The other three were being compared with data on missing women in southern Oregon and Northern California. Zane speculated Donald had placed Vanessa Phillips in her motel room to empty the police station, knowing how few people would be working Christmas Day, creating an opportunity to silence Bob Fletcher. Somehow the meek Donald Montgomery the town had always known had grown bold enough to believe he wouldn’t be caught. It wasn’t the first time hubris had tripped up a criminal.

  Next to Donald’s bed, investigators had found a small box of jewelry. Vanessa Phillips’s missing bracelet had been identified, along with Stevie’s engagement ring. Zane had handed it to her, asking if she wanted a different one, worrying that it was associated with bad memories.

  Stevie had slipped on the ring and stared at it on her finger as different emotions battled inside her chest. “No. I’ll keep it. It’s a reminder of what we’ve been through. And it’s proof that we can overcome what life throws at us.” A battle scar.

  Her doctor was concerned that she’d have permanent scarring on her neck and hands. Currently it looked like she’d been burned. The rough, knotted rope and shackles had ripped away the top layer of her skin. If they did scar, it would be another reminder of the strength of her and Zane’s connection.

  A special connection.

  Zane had studied the room that Donald had locked the women in, noting the extensive soundproofing, and then asked Stevie to return with him that morning. She hadn’t wanted to go back to the house, but she’d humored him. A wave of panic had swept over her as he closed her inside the basement room with directions to scream while he stood at the top of the stairs. She’d sat on the bed and screamed her lungs out. Fifteen seconds later he’d opened the door and she’d lunged into his arms, needing out of the enclosed space. His face had been white, and he’d said he hadn’t heard a single sound even when he’d stood right outside the door.

  How did he hear me that night?

  Her mother had told her not to question it.

  The master bedroom in Donald’s home appeared not to have been disturbed in the two years since his mother had died. Her bathrobe lay across the foot of the bed and her hearing aids sat on her nightstand as if waiting for her to wake.

  Donald had slept in a twin bed in a small bedroom. It was bare of decor and reminiscent of a jail cell with its metal bed frame and single chair. In this room they’d found a small stash of loose oxy that Zane theorized had been stolen from Bob Fletcher’s home. He believed Donald had broken into Bob’s home after his death to remove any possible links to himself. A large hunting knife had also been found in the bedroom, a small spot of dried blood on its handle. Stevie had no doubt that testing would reveal it to be Bob Fletcher’s blood.

  “Stop thinking,” Zane ordered as he pulled her tighter to him on the dance floor.

  She gratefully obeyed, resting her head against his shoulder. “I’m so happy, Zane.”

  He moved his face to her hair. “That makes two of us.”

  “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”

  His chest vibrated in a chuckle. “Most people don’t consider seven months to be too long. I’d rather have you confident in your decision instead of always wondering.”

  She lifted her head and met his gaze, overwhelmed with love for her man. “I’m confident.”

  As if on cue, fireworks lit up the sky outside, flashing colored light through the windows of the grange. Everyone stopped dancing to look through the giant windows. Zane looked behind him, studying the crowd.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Looking for your fireworks partner in crime.” He gestured at Carly, who was watching the fireworks with Seth’s arm around her shoulders. “I thought maybe this was the Taylor women at work, but it looks like you guys took a night off.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Stevie replied, avoiding his gaze.

  “I love you even though you’re a lawbreaker.”

  She looked into his dark eyes and adoration for him flowed through her. “I love you too.”

  His smile melted her heart.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The Rogue River and Rogue Winter Novella Series started as an idea proposed to us by our editors at Montlake Romance. So we’d like to thank JoVon Sotak and Kelli Martin for putting the concept of writing a joint project in our heads. Writing is normally a very solitary occupation. This type of collaboration was a whole new experience for both of us. We discovered that the only thing better than having writer buddies is having one to help you plot murder. On paper, of course.

  Melinda Leigh

  Kendra Elliot

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photograph © 2014 Marti Corn Photography

  Born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, Kendra Elliot has always been a voracious reader, cutting her teeth on classic female heroines like Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, and Laura Ingalls. Kendra won the 2015 and 2014 Daphne du Maurier awards for best Romantic Suspense. She was an International Thriller Writers finalist for Best Paperback Original and a Romantic Times finalist for best Romantic Suspense. She still lives in the rainy Pacific Northwest with her husband and three daughters but looks forward to the day she can live in flip-flops.