by Raven Snow
By the time Rowen got the phone to stop ringing, it was far too late to actually believe no one had heard it. Wasting no more time, Rowen scrambled to her feet and began to run. Behind her, she could hear the sound of someone scrambling out through the brush.
Rowen didn’t waste time looking back. She ran and kept running, swerving between trees and bushes. She wasn’t sure where she was running exactly. For all she knew, she was headed deeper into the woods and not in the direction she had come from. It didn’t matter. What was important was that she get as far away from Edward and that killer as humanly possible.
Rowen ran until her legs burned. She ran until she was out of breath and a stitch ached in her side. She no longer heard footsteps behind her. She hadn’t in awhile. Rowen slowed to a jog and then to a walk.
She looked around and realized that, nope, she definitely had no clue as to where she was. Fortunately, she still had her phone in hand. She hadn’t been so careless as to drop that during her escape. Did she dare call someone while she was trying to avoid a killer, though? Rowen wasn’t sure what other option she had. It was either that or wander these woods indefinitely. They had never looked quite this thick from the outside.
Fortunately, Rowen still had a signal. She stopped walking and went through her contact list. She found Ben’s number. Her finger was centimeters from the call button when something collided with her head from behind. Rowen saw a burst of black.
She hadn’t even heard him coming.
Chapter Twelve
It was difficult for Rowen to sort out much of anything when she first woke up. Her head ached. Her vision was fuzzy. The ground was hard beneath her and her limbs felt tight.
The first thought that came to Rowen’s mind was that she had fallen asleep at the office. Sometimes she did that. Sometimes she worked long hours and woke up sprawled out across her desk.
It was when Rowen felt the ropes around her wrists that everything came rushing back to her. She had been pursuing a killer, and that killer had outmaneuvered her. Stifling a whimper, Rowen looked around.
It was dark. The ground beneath her was damp and gritty. It didn’t seem so much a cave she was in as a very large hole - an old tree well, maybe. Rowen heard movement. She turned her head toward it and saw that a man was hurrying this way and that, packing up a backpack with jars and folded sheets of paper and the like.
Rowen didn’t recognize this man. There was a lantern behind him. She could, more or less, make him out. He was a large man with light hair and a full beard. His shoulders were broad and his clothes were rather dirty. It looked like he had set himself up a little camp down here. He must have heard Rowen wake, because he looked back at her after a moment.
“Good morning,” he said, the corners of his mouth quirking into a smile beneath his beard. “You were out for awhile. Which is, entirely, my fault. My apologies. I couldn’t let you call anyone and turn me in. You understand.”
Rowen didn’t speak. She looked this way and that, hoping to spot Edward or one of the other prisoners that he had mentioned. She seemed to be alone with this man, though. That frightened her more than anything.
“Of course, now I have to leave anyway,” continued the man with a sigh. “You might have contacted someone before I got to you. I can’t have that. Can’t be interrupted by the police right now. I have too much to do.”
Rowen tried to swallow. Suddenly, she found that her mouth seemed entirely too dry. “Who are you?” she managed, finally. She fully planned on making it out of here alive. Once she did, it would be a good idea to have a name.
The man in question stopped what he was doing. He looked genuinely surprised to hear her ask that. “You don’t know who I am?” He took a step closer and crouched down in front of her. “It’s me,” he said. “Dakota.”
Rowen looked the man over. She thought back, wondering over the name. Did she know anyone named Dakota? She didn’t think so. Maybe she had gone to school with one, but this guy looked much too old to have been in a class with her back then. Rowen didn’t tell him she didn’t recognize him. This guy seemed unstable. He had to be. Upsetting him would likely be unwise.
Dakota seemed to gather that she didn’t recognize him regardless. His smile fell. He looked genuinely hurt. “You don’t know who I am.” He heaved a sigh. “Well, I know who you are, Rowen,” he said. “Your mother told me all about you. You were one of her very favorite subjects to talk about.”
“My mother?” Rowen repeated.
Dakota nodded at that. “Of course,” he said. “She was the love of my life. Excuse me. Is the love of my life… And I’m hers. She was living with me until just recently.”
Rowen stared at the man before her, realization slowly coming over her. “You’re the naturalist.”
“Naturalist?” Dakota snorted. “I live off the land, if that’s what you mean. I’d just call that living, myself. Glad to hear she has talked about me, though.” He turned and went back to packing.
Rowen watched him for several long moments, trying to piece all of this together. She just couldn’t. It made no sense. “I don’t understand… Did you… Did you murder all of those people?”
“I wouldn’t necessarily call it murder,” said Dakota, though he didn’t seem too worried about semantics. “It’s just survival of the fittest. Whatever label the police want to put on it doesn’t really concern me.”
If Rowen had any say in the matter, it would concern him very soon. “Why did you kill them, though?”
“Which one?” asked Dakota. He worked as he talked. He had very nearly packed up everything already.
“Ursula,” said Rowen, starting at the beginning.
“I’d followed you to the restaurant she worked at. When you and your family came in, she headed out back. She refused to wait on you. You should have heard the things she was saying about your family.” Dakota shook his head. “It’s not just your mother I care about. I care about your whole clan. I consider myself a part of it. Disrespect to you is disrespect to me.”
Rowen wasn’t sure what to say to that. She wasn’t sure if she was more horrified by his reasoning here or that he considered himself a Greensmith. “What about Jason?” she asked.
“I started looking into your family,” said Dakota. He didn’t seem to be shy about answering questions. He didn’t seem to view Rowen as a threat at all. Rather, he seemed to view her as an eventual ally. “You’re not popular around town, you know? I had no clue. Killing Ursula showed me that, maybe, your mother left because she was worried about you lot, the Greensmiths. I had to secure your place in town, right? I had to make sure people respected you, didn’t talk trash about you. That way she would feel comfortable stepping away from you all again. That business with your grandmother really shook her up. Can’t have a repeat of that.”
So, what? He thought he was doing them a good turn by killing off anyone who had ever wronged the Greensmiths? Living alone for so long had really done a number on this guy. He seemed completely detached from the realities of human interaction. This was the man her mother had spent several years living with? “And Roland?” she prompted.
Dakota raised an eyebrow. “Do I really have to explain that one?”
Rowen thought back to the signs and the number of times he had stood outside their office with them. “Nevermind.” She thought of a better question instead. “Were you the one who shot at me?”
That got Dakota’s full attention. He stopped what he was doing and went to crouch down in front of her again. “You’re very disrespectful to your mother,” he said. “It was never my intention to kill you - only scare you, make you think.”
“It made me think someone was trying to kill me,” Rowen muttered. She still wasn’t wholly convinced that wasn’t the case.
Dakota chuckled at that. “Edward thought the same,” he said, standing back up. “I assume he was the one you followed here.”
“Where is he?” asked Rowen. She had been wondering that since she woke up.
“Gone back to work, I imagine,” said Dakota. “He brings food. That’s it. He happened upon me when I was taking a shot at you.”
“And he didn’t call the police?” Rowen found it difficult to believe that a man like Edward would have been just fine with happening upon a shooting. He didn’t like her much, sure, but that still seemed extreme.
“He started to,” said Dakota. “But I talked him down from it, made it clear I was just trying to scare you. He seemed on board with that. Between you and that Roland fellow, apparently he blames you for a lot of lost business.”
It sounded like Edward had gotten in over his head. He hadn’t realized he was throwing in his lot with a murderer until much later, it seemed. Of course, by then what was he supposed to tell the police? ‘Sorry, I just thought he was threatening people with bodily harm and death, not inflicting it.’ Apparently, Edward wasn’t a murderer, but he was a coward. Rowen wondered what his end game was. No wonder he was so stressed out. If Dakota wasn’t caught, he was indirectly responsible for a bunch of murders. It Dakota was caught, that meant jail time for Edward.
“Who else do you have tied up right now?” Rowen asked, remembering what he had said when she had been eavesdropping.
“Oh, I forget their names,” said Dakota, hefting the bag he had just packed. “You’ll see them soon. Come on.”
Dakota was a strong fellow. He quite successfully steered Rowen out of his former base of operations and through the woods. It was quite a walk, but he had a car parked off in some shade.
“I’m surprised the police didn’t find this,” Rowen said, mostly to herself, when they got to it.
“I moved my things here after they were finished searching the woods,” Dakota said, smiling and seeming awfully pleased with his own cleverness.
“Are they in the trunk?” Rowen asked, squinting at the car. She couldn’t imagine anywhere else his prisoners would be.
“Right you are,” said Dakota. “Which is why you’re going to be riding up front with me.”
“Can I see them?” Rowen asked, dragging her feet when Dakota began to lead her toward the passenger side.
Dakota looked down at her. He regarded her silently for a moment then nodded. “I suppose you should,” he said, leading her around to the back of the car. He took out his keys and popped open the trunk.
Tied up back to back were Eric and his brother. Rowen could not rightly say she was even surprised. Eric, however, looked up at her wide-eyed. He was gagged but still made a muffled effort to communicate with her.
“Well, at least I know where you ran off to now,” Rowen sighed, earning herself a glare from Eric. Clearly, he did not think this was the right time for snark. “You followed Edward too, huh?” She appreciated that he had tried to solve this thing on his own, but it didn’t look like it had gone very well for him.
Eric began to mumble something unintelligible again. His brother joined in, though his back was to the lot of them.
Dakota closed the trunk, cutting them all off. “Get in the car,” he said.
“Where are we going?” Rowen asked, letting herself be dragged off to the passenger seat.
“Away from here for now,” he said, hurrying around to his own side once they were in. “How do you feel about that back there?” Dakota asked, nodding back to the trunk as they began to drive.
“I’d rather you let them go,” said Rowen, though she sincerely doubted that he would. She tried a different tactic before he could respond. “You know they’re part of the family too, right? Eric and David. I’ve been dating Eric for a while. Margo is with the other one.”
Dakota nodded. “Of course I know that. I haven’t hurt them have I?”
Rowen hadn’t been sure. She didn’t think they looked hurt. She was glad to hear that he hadn’t done anything to them, though. “Could you let them go?”
“I’m still deciding,” said Dakota. He left the makeshift road he was on and pulled out onto a real one. It would take them back toward Lainswich.
“Deciding?” Rowen repeated.
“On whether or not they’re worthy.”
“Of our family?” Rowen asked. “Sure they are.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “And I’m not an idiot, Rowen. I can’t just let any of you go. You’ll go straight to the police. You’ve been brainwashed by society.”
Rowen had been hoping he was a little more unhinged than that. She thought, maybe, she could work with his particular brand of insanity. “So what exactly is your end game here?”
“I finish what I came here to do. Like I was telling you back in the woods, I just have to take care of some things here, and… Well, your mother understands better than you would. She’s a free spirit. She wouldn’t want me caged because of silly, man-made laws.”
“I’m not sure she would appreciate you murdering people,” Rowen pointed out.
“She’s a pragmatic lady,” Dakota insisted. “And she cares a lot about her family. I’m sure she’ll see the light.”
Rowen couldn’t help but wonder if seeing the light involved Dakota using Rowen as some sort of leverage. He was delusional if he thought that Tiffany would take him back because of this depraved, murderous stalker routine.
Granted, he was almost certainly delusional anyway.
“Let me go, and I’ll put in a good word with my mom for you,” offered Rowen.
Dakota just raised an eyebrow at her. Oh, well. It had been worth a try.
Chapter Thirteen
They were headed for the office, Rowen realized. Rowen didn’t ask why. She wasn’t sure she should. She also wasn’t sure whether heading there was a good or a bad thing. On the one hand, her family might be there. On the other hand, her family might be there.
Dakota didn’t know that she had called Rose before all this and told her to contact Ben. He probably thought he had stopped her from calling anyone when he caught up with her. Geez, he really must think she was an idiot.
All Rowen could really do was hope that Ben had swung by to ask questions. It seemed like there would be a decent chance of that. Rowen wasn’t one to leave people hanging. He would have heard from Rose by now and assumed something was up when he couldn’t reach Rowen himself.
Unfortunately, Rowen didn’t see his car when Dakota parked nearby. That probably meant he was at the woods near the trailer. Great.
Dakota leaned back in his seat, making himself comfortable. “This is what I’ve been doing,” he told Rowen. He pointed to the office. “I sit here, and I observe… Well, not here exactly. Normally, I go somewhere a little less conspicuous than a car, but this’ll do. People just aren’t very observant, you know?” He reached across Rowen. She flinched back from him, but he was only taking some binoculars from the glove compartment. “I’m like a guardian angel.”
Rowen snorted. “You’re like a murderer,” she corrected.
Dakota sighed but said nothing in response to that. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Rowen wasn’t afraid he was going to hurt her. It was everyone else that she was afraid for. She considered making a run for it or, at the very least, getting out of the car and screaming for help. That didn’t seem like the best idea, though. She couldn’t be sure that Dakota wouldn’t hurt Eric or David. She couldn’t risk either of them. She just couldn’t.
Dakota watched through his binoculars for awhile and then pointed. “There’s someone harassing your family right now,” he told her.
Rowen squinted. She couldn’t see much from this far away. Dakota noticed and held the binoculars down in front of her eyes. She looked through them and spotted Tina seated on the sofa. Her arms were crossed over her chest. Peony had her by the arm and was trying to move her bodily. It wasn’t working out so well. If anything, it seemed to just be offending Tina further.
Geez, she was really hurt over this whole article thing. “That’s our fault,” said Rowen. “We lied to her. She’s mad about it.” Rowen thought she was blowing it a little out of proportion, but she didn’
t mention that part. “She’s not hurting our family or anything.”
“Tina, right?” asked Dakota, surprising Rowen by knowing the name. “She terrorized your family throughout high school. Looks like she hasn’t changed.” Dakota smiled. “Your mother told me about her,” he added before she could ask how he knew. “She was one of the people I immediately looked up upon arriving here. I planned on dealing with her today before I… got company.”
Rowen was shocked her mother had even known about Tina. She hadn’t been there for her high school years. Maybe she had kept in touch with her sisters about it.