All I had was the small pamphlet I’d received with my admission ticket. According to the pamphlet, the trail wound on for miles. I pulled my jacket tight and moved forward. Fresh snow dusted the ground beneath my feet. I tugged at my hair, too short to keep my neck warm. I hadn’t brought a scarf or gloves. We’d left the apartment in a hurry.
As I crunched through the frozen grass, the canal came into view ahead of me. The trail wound along it in both directions. My map indicated I was close to the beginning, so I went the other way. I walked and walked, every moment expecting to run into Nicholas. I could’ve been miles from where Amber Laney was found, for all I knew. I was looking for a needle in a haystack, and I didn’t have a plan.
What would I do if I found them?
According to my watch, it was a few minutes after four. The sun had already begun its descent. Once it set, I’d have no way to see. Lighting along the trail was sporadic at best. I hastened, remembering a report of coyote attacks in the metro parks. The exposed gray bark of the trees was a reflection of me. Their stark winding branches reached into the white sky like gnarled fingertips of warning. The forest wasn’t enchanted. I didn’t live in a storybook. What awaited me in the dimming winter light was a very real monster.
A twig snapped.
“Hello?” A chuckle echoed through the growing darkness. “Hello?” Only the sound of leaves in the wind answered.
I took a step off the trail, creeping forward in the direction of the laughter. My stomach retched. My heart hit the frozen ground with a coiling thump. Not twenty feet from the trail, Sara lay on the ground near a tree. Her hands and feet were pulled back in an unnatural posture. She didn’t move. I slipped on snow-covered leaves in my hurry to reach her. I fell twice, pulling myself up the small incline toward my friend. She was tied up. My stomach rolled into my spine. I ran the final steps to her side and pulled at the rope that bound her. She still didn’t move.
Low chuckles echoed around me, edging closer. I hastened my attempt to wake or free Sara. Her cold skin scared me. I didn’t want to think of what it meant. “Sara,” I urged. “Sara.” No response. I fought to keep my head clear. It is supposed to be me. It should’ve been me. I yanked on the ropes, working my frozen fingers into the knots, begging Sara to wake up.
A branch snapped behind me, and he appeared.
Chapter Thirty-One
“You,” I whispered.
Directly before me stood Miles Thomas Wade. He wore a brown leather coat and khaki slacks. His loafers seemed inappropriate for a woodland murder.
“It’s nice to meet you. Officially.” The voice. I squinted hard at his face. My heartbeat crashed in my chest. “I’m Miles. I’ve wanted to introduce myself to you for so long.” He stepped closer, outstretching his hand.
The man from the Francine Frances library stood as close as ever. My head worked to match his voice with the picture on the television. He was older than he was in the photo. His hair was darker and moppy, hanging in his eyes. No longer worn close to his head. He was clean-shaven. No longer blond or bearded. I never would’ve known. He’d made me so uncomfortable that I’d avoided eye contact. Look where that had gotten me.
“I suppose that was rude of me. Of course, we’ve met before.” The look in his eye added fear to my physical pain. “Unofficially.”
“I don’t understand.” I wanted to keep him talking. Adrenaline surged, bringing clarity to my situation. My skin heated from the inside.
“Uh.” He sighed, indicating that he had a long story to catch me up on. A long story was good. In a few more minutes, I might be able to call out for help or be discovered by the Marshals. Maybe even run.
“I made a promise. You for her.”
I looked back at Sara lying motionless on the icy ground. I didn’t know if she was dead or alive. I hadn’t had a chance to check for a heartbeat. What would happen if I left her? I couldn’t take her with me. We needed help.
“Come with me, and the Austins can go on. Your entourage will be here soon. Choose.”
I teetered. Could I stall long enough?
“You’re a clever girl. I counted on that, too. Here you are. Now, what will it be? You or her?” He moved to Sara’s side, squatted beside her, and pulled a giant hunting knife from his inside coat pocket.
“Where will we go?” My eyes scanned the area. Could I leave a trail? I didn’t have time or materials.
“Someplace you love.” He lifted Sara’s limp torso by her hair. She didn’t flinch. Her arms hung loosely at her sides. Nicholas would blame me if she died. I would, too. This was my chance to be someone’s hero. My turn to look out for someone else. After a lifetime of others protecting me, I owed the Austins this much.
“Don’t hurt her.”
He released her hair and she flopped to the snowy ground. “Off we go then.” He motioned for me to walk. A helicopter chopped the air above us, swaying evergreens and leafless trees alike.
“No place to land.” He didn’t sound upset. At least the Marshals were close. Sara wouldn’t freeze to death, and I had a chance.
“Through the thicket.” He pressed his body against my back, and a sick feeling washed over me. He forced me through dense, thorny vines and low-hanging branches that clung to my clothes and stung my cheeks. His breath filled the air around me, and his knife punctured my jacket when I stopped to move a batch of brush.
“Ah.” I whimpered. His knife had broken the skin on my back.
“Keep moving or it goes deeper.”
I wrapped one arm around my waist, pinching my side where the skin burned. Beyond the thicket was an abandoned lot, overgrown with weeds and filled with tents and lean-tos. Two dozen homeless men and women huddled, warming their hands over fires in brown rusty barrels. Miles directed me to a beat-up Chevy and unlocked the trunk.
“Get in.”
The trunk reeked of gasoline and motor oil. Tears blurred my vision. Another helicopter beat in the distance. None of the men and women made eye contact with us. Surrounded by people and no one helped. I climbed over the crumbling bumper and lowered myself into the filthy space.
He nodded in approval.
“I’m claustrophobic. I can ride in the car. I won’t be any trouble,” I pleaded, using the calmest voice I had. He hadn’t bound me. I could get away if I was vigilant. Careful. Fast. Seated in the trunk, I wished I’d made a run for it instead of complying. I could’ve run into the crowd and begged them to take notice. He couldn’t kill them all and at least then someone would have seen me. Instead, I was a ghost, the whisper of a girl passing through and then gone.
“This will help with the ride.” He pressed a cloth to my face, and I fought against the tide of sweetly scented material until my mind floated away from my body and the world went black.
“Your dad’s not the leave-a-key-under-the-mat kind.” Miles leaned me against his body and closed the trunk. My muscles ached like I’d been beaten or in a terrible car accident. My head hurt. How much damage had the chemical on the cloth done to my brain cells, not to mention inhaling gasoline and oil fumes for who knew how long? The sun had just set when I climbed into the trunk. The world around me was near black now.
“Move, or I’ll carry you,” he whispered against my cheek before planting a kiss in my hair.
My dead feet shuffled forward. We stopped at a too-familiar door and Miles jammed his elbow through the window. “No key,” he added by way of explanation. He reached into the window and the knob turned.
The door swung wide, revealing a thousand bittersweet memories. My tummy coiled and my heart clenched. “Our cabin.”
“Poetic, I think. He brought you here to keep you safe. I did not.” Miles shut the door and shoved me onto the couch, barely a silhouette in the night-darkened room. “My turn to make some memories with you.”
He powered up the lantern near the door and returned to me. He tied my right arm and leg to the wooden framework of the couch that my great granddad had made. My mother’s afghan lay across the back.
>
His fingers worked over the twine around my wrists. I recognized the knot he made. My dad had used it when we camped.
“Time for a fire. Where do you keep the matches?”
“Kitchen.” He would’ve found them anyway. I wanted him to trust me. See me as a person, not a conquest he had chased for a decade. I struggled against the ties, blinking through tears. Why did he have to bring me here? This was my place. My safe place. Mom had been here.
The fire started with some coaxing. Orange and blue flames licked into the chimney, casting an evil glow over everything in sight, soiling my sweet memories. I couldn’t die here. Absently, I wondered if I did, would I be with her again?
Another thought shot through me like gunfire. He had known about this place all along. No one would look here for me. Hope died in my chest. At least Sara was safe.
“I waited a very long time for you to grow up.” Miles slid into the seat beside me and placed my free hand in his lap. I swallowed back vomit that filled my mouth. “You were a sweet girl. What happened to you? You hold hands with lacrosse players and kiss federal agents.” He tsked with his tongue. “That’s the way it starts. A little hand holding.” He laced his fingers with mine. “A kiss.” He leaned toward me, pressing his mouth to mine.
I cried out, whipping my head away from his.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Your father interrupted my work. There’s so much work to do, Stella, and he messed that up for me. That’s your name, by the way. Stella, not Gabby or Elle or whatever it is they all call you these days. Your name is Stella.” He fiddled with the cushion between us like it was just another day in the life of crazy.
“You look like your mother. Did he ever tell you that?”
The mention of my mother stirred something else in me. He killed her. He robbed me of a life with her. He robbed her of life. Fire burned beneath the searing pain in my head. My vision sharpened, adjusting to the dim light. A large pair of scissors lay in his right hand. The scissors were for me. I blinked, unable to figure out where they had come from. My thoughts were muted in my head.
“I like to take my time. He’s ruined that, too. I had special plans for you.” He shifted in his seat, tugging at his pant legs and weighing the scissors in his grip.
“I spent days with my first, trying to teach her how wrong her life was. I erased all the things that defined her. No one wants to be a whore, Stella. I shaved her head. Dressed her in bags. Withheld food so she’d understand that labels don’t make someone a better person. They just emphasized what a total abomination she really was. She resisted. The mission failed.
“The only thing left to do was to get rid of her before she ruined another home. I tossed her into a ravine. I like to make a point.” He tapped his temple with one finger.
“She was no one. The best part of the entire week was tossing her body. An enormous weight was lifted. I did something good. I wanted to do it again.”
I closed my eyes, praying for a clear thought. He dragged the point of his scissors down my chest, pressing the material of my jacket between my breasts. I sucked in a breath.
“You like that.” He unzipped the jacket, watching his hands instead of my face. Nicholas always watched my face. Nicholas loved me. He was kind and good, everything the monster beside me was not, and yet it was this beast who touched me. Desperation filled my chest and I sobbed against the pressure of his hands. The rape came next. I knew. I’d read. I’d rather die than live through that. How do women live past something so evil?
Miles pressed the scissors against the inside of one knee and dragged them up my thigh.
I squeezed my eyes shut again.
“You look like a filthy whore in that getup. What would your mother have said? All dressed in black like that obnoxious roommate of yours. Is that where you learned to whore?” He spat at me. Then he leaned in close, arranging the scissors in his right hand. “Let’s get you out of those clothes.”
My mind worked at a frantic pace, unwilling to give up, rejecting this as my future or my end.
He worked my jacket off one arm and looked at me with disgust. Carefully, he removed all he could from half my body, tossing my boots near the fire. Leaving me exposed and shaking despite the fire before us. “Will I be your first, Stella?”
Yes. “Please, don’t.” I squeezed my eyes shut, praying for clarity. My tongue thickened in my desert-dry mouth.
He rolled my shoulder away from him, forcing my arms together and my back to him. His fingers wound into my too-short hair and the scissors chopped and pulled at my new style. I slipped my left hand under the sleeve bunched up on my right arm and worked the ties as he worked on my hair. I wiggled the binding until my hand could slip through.
He pulled me back for a look at his handiwork. A length of black bangs fell into my eyes.
“I wanted your mother, too, but he ruined that. Your father ruins everything. He’s ruining my life!” His eyes went wild. “Your mom was old for my taste, but you look like her. Feels like I get a second chance.” My skin tightened with goose bumps in the icy winter air. The fire struggled in the hearth, fighting against the chill clinging to the walls and air around us. Fear and understanding froze me to the core.
Miles never took his eyes off my body. He dipped his face toward my breasts, and I shoved him away. When he raised his eyes to mine, I smashed my head against his nose with all the force I could muster. A sickening crunch led to a guttural roar.
“You broke my nose, you bitch.”
His fist whipped forward, punching me in the mouth. My head whipped back, and the world shimmered. Miles grabbed a poker from the fireplace and swung it at my head.
I woke some time later to piercing pain. My head ached. I pressed a palm to my hair. It came back warm and wet. Blood. I moved to rub my hand against my clothes. They were gone, hacked off roughly, leaving only my sleeve where he hadn’t bothered to untie me. My clothes had been replaced by a black trash bag cut open at the bottom like a dress and cinched under my arms. I tested my right ankle. He hadn’t retied it.
The fire was almost out. My skin burned from the cold. Shards of yellow light streamed in through the front window. A new day. I had lived through the night and escaped my impending rape for one more day. My tummy knotted with hunger. Through squinted eyes, I watched Miles toss the last scraps of kindling into the fire. The scissors poked out of his back pocket. He hadn’t finished my hair. Of course not. He’d wait for me to wake up and participate as his victim. Where was the fun of torment without a good fight?
He shoved the poker around the fire, cursing. Dad and I hadn’t been to the cabin since the summer. We didn’t stock firewood inside. Dad kept a seasoned pile outside. Miles turned to me and let out a slew of vulgarities and curses. I feigned unconsciousness.
“When I get back, we’ll get started.” He crushed my jaw in his iron grip and my eyes opened. “Thanks to all the trouble you gave me and the posse out looking for us, we’ll have to start right away.” He released my face, and blood rushed under my skin to the dents left behind by his cruel fingers. “Hair, nails, fingerprints.”
“You don’t have to rush. I won’t cause more trouble. I promise.” My voice cracked on every word. Fear encased my heart in ice.
Miles grinned. He grabbed my thighs in his hands and locked his eyes on mine. I wished he hadn’t. Suddenly I prayed he’d turn his gaze back to my body instead. Squeezing my bare skin in his hands, he stared into my eyes. A slow, easy smile spread over his face and I realized I’d given him what he wanted. He wanted the fear. The submission.
“I’ll be the Reaper of that.” The Reaper.
My chest heaved with stuttered breaths.
“I promise to take the important things nice and slow.”
He pressed my legs apart and I trembled. My teeth chattered until my limbs rocked with cold and sheer terror.
“The best things are worth waiting for.” He licked his lips and walked away, holding my gaze. I shut my
eyes.
The door sucked shut behind him and he ambled off the porch. When I no longer saw him through the window, I yanked my wrist free of the loosened strap and forced my body upright. I hobbled to the back door and unlocked it with shaking hands. Wind whipped through my hair, pasting the plastic bag to my skin. Snow flurries added sting to the air.
Confusion darted and skipped in my mind. I’d been in these woods a thousand times, but sunlight blinded my eyes. My brain beat inside my skull. My lips ached from his punch. My head throbbed from the blast he had given me with the poker. It hurt to open my eyes wider than a squint. I scurried into the trees behind the cabin and fell. My feet slid on wet, frigid leaves. Resting on my knees in the blowing snow, I cried silently. This was how it would end for me. The Reaper had taken my clothes, touched my body, seen me. Vomit pressed its way up my throat. Tears formed as I pictured my father finding me outside our cabin dressed like the other victims. The Reaper would finish me off and go into town for breakfast. He was dressed for polite company.
I was dressed for disposal.
I pulled myself up with the help of a nearby tree. I had no shoes or clothes. I was bleeding and dressed in plastic.
“Stella.” His voice echoed through the trees.
To stay was to die, brutally. To go was unknown. Agents were looking for Miles. They were out there somewhere, nowhere near here, but if I made it to town, I could call for help. Heavy footfalls thumped behind me, cracking branches and shuffling leaves.
“No one can help you,” he taunted, drawing nearer.
I jogged, forcing my body forward.
My eyes adjusted to the light and I looked through the bare trees. I had nowhere to go. My head jerked back. His fingers were in my shorn hair, curled into the few swaths he had left.
“I’m building a fire. Where are you going?” He screamed into my face.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He stroked my head. “Don’t be in such a hurry. I’ll bring you back out here later. When I’m done.”
He released my hair, and I ran. He caught me around the waist and threw me on the ground. “Why are you trying to ruin this for me?” he snarled.
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