Dangerous to Touch

by Jill Sorenson

  She couldn’t sneak up behind the house, not with a dozen or more dogs who would surely alert him to her presence, so she made her way along the side, moving quick and staying low until she came to an open garage.

  Inside, there was a small black truck, its cooling system still ticking. Next to the truck sat a beige Ford Taurus with a gaping hole where the passenger window should have been. Sidney could see that the vinyl interior was chewed and torn.

  Blue had really done a number on it.

  Pulse pounding with adrenaline, she studied the door leading from the garage to the interior of the house. Reaching down, she unclipped Blue’s leash, needing one free hand to turn the knob, the other to spray with.

  Sidney didn’t allow herself time to hesitate, or to speculate on Samantha’s condition. Her sister was still alive. She had to be alive. He liked them scared, and alive.

  Motioning for Blue to follow, she crept around the vehicles, stepping forward cautiously. When she reached out to test the doorknob, it turned easily, and just like that, she was crossing the threshold from the garage into the house.

  A dark blur was her only warning before a blunt, heavy object smashed into the left side of her head.

  The next thing Sidney knew, she was on her hands and knees, gasping for air, black spots obscuring her vision. The pepper spray stick was no longer clenched in her fist. Somewhere in the background, Blue’s ferocious growling was cut off with a yelp, then nothing.

  Warm wetness flowed into her ear and coursed down her neck. Fat red drops splashed onto the floor between her braced hands. The pain was so immense she couldn’t believe she was alive, let alone conscious. Struggling to stay that way, she swallowed her fear, fighting against an almost overwhelming urge to lie down on the floor and die.

  “Didn’t see that coming, did you, psychic bitch?”

  “The police will be here any minute,” she said between gasping breaths.

  “I guess I better hurry then.” Grabbing her by the arms, he dragged her across the linoleum. Not only was she helpless to stop him, but she couldn’t summon the energy to kick her legs or fight in any way.

  On the other side of the door, Blue’s prone body lay in a crumpled heap.

  Sidney moaned weakly.

  “Is that all you’ve got?” he grunted, stretching her out on the floor next to Samantha. Her sister was alive, bound and gagged, her blue eyes glassy with panic.

  Kurtis stood over Sidney, legs splayed wide apart, arms crossed over his chest. He was much the same as she remembered him: tall and wiry, no better than average-looking, his coarse black hair falling over his forehead into dark, soulless eyes.

  A malicious smile spread across his pale face. “Now this is a dream come true. The Morrow sisters at my disposal. A slutty little blonde and a dark-haired tomboy. I don’t know who I want to do first.”

  Beside her, Samantha whimpered.

  Kurtis raised his dark brows. “You volunteering, Miz Parker?”

  Black flashes danced behind Sidney’s eyes, beckoning her to oblivion. “You don’t have time,” she promised hoarsely, her head spinning.

  He must have believed her, because he left them lying there alone for a moment. When he returned, he brought the tarp.

  Marc arrived at Kurtis Stalb’s house less than twenty minutes after ending the phone call with Sidney. He was lucky the country roads were deserted, because his driving gave the term “reckless endangerment” new meaning.

  When he saw Sidney’s truck parked by the side of the road, he slammed his open palm against the steering wheel, furious with her for putting her life in danger.

  He turned into the driveway, cut the engine a few hundred feet from the house and was out running, Glock in hand, before his car came to a complete stop. The only vehicle in the garage was an older model black Ford Ranger. Between it and the door leading from the garage into the house, there was a small yellow object, hauntingly familiar. Sidney’s pepper spray. It didn’t appear to have been used.

  Fear gripped him, squeezing his heart with a sweaty fist.

  Abandoning stealth in the interest of saving time, he kicked in the door, holding his Glock out in front of him with both hands. A hundred pounds of fur and muscle sailed through the air, right at his chest. As he fell back against the wall, he discharged a bullet into the ceiling. Plaster rained down on his head.

  The first time he’d fired his weapon in the line of duty, and it was an accident.

  Growling and whining, Blue sank his teeth into the front of his T-shirt and pulled, ripping cotton away from flesh. Face-to-face with the deranged mongrel, staring into his silver-gray eyes, Marc came to the understanding that the dog wasn’t trying to kill him.

  “Easy, Blue,” he said, surveying his surroundings.

  Underneath him, a slick trail of blood ran from the door to the kitchen, where a small pool had collected on the middle of the linoleum floor. At the sight of it, a black rage fell over him, darkening the edges of his vision. When Marc found Kurtis Stalb, he was going to tear him apart with his bare hands.

  Drag marks and smeared footprints traversed the length of the hallway, as if Stalb had pulled something along behind him. A tarp-wrapped body, for instance.

  With a mouthful of his T-shirt clamped between his impressive jaws, Blue continued to jerk him backward, toward the garage, his claws seeking purchase on the slippery linoleum.

  “Halt!” he ordered in German, hoping Blue wouldn’t take offense to the language, as Greta had. Not only was the dog ruining his crime scene, Marc needed to check the other rooms.

  Making a pitiful sound, Blue sank to the floor, panting, more worn-out than he should have been after the brief tussle. Marc noted the blood on his muzzle and wondered if the dog had already gone a round with Stalb, and lost.

  The rest of the house was empty. In the back, behind the only other locked door he encountered, there was a small, dark room. Digitally printed photos were spread out over a bare mattress. Annemarie Wilsey. Anika Groene. Candace Hegel.

  And Sidney. With him, in the truck. On the beach. At the mission.

  Some of the photos were landscapes. Guajome Lake Park. Agua Hedionda Lagoon. The most puzzling of these appeared to be a stone fountain, several feet deep. He stared at the image for a moment before he recognized the scene.

  The photo had been taken in front of the San Luis Rey Mission.

  He left at a dead run, calling for Blue to follow.

  In the trunk of Kurtis Stalb’s Taurus, Sidney woke up. The uneven gravel road had made the first few moments of the ride bone-jarringly painful. After one of the roughest jolts, she’d slumped into unconsciousness.

  Now the road was smooth, and she had no idea where they were.

  She could smell her own blood, feel it clotted in her left ear, matted in her hair, working like an adhesive to plaster the tarp to the side of her face. Her head throbbed, but her mind was clear and she felt more alert than before. If he came at her now, she’d be able to fight. Except that her hands and feet were bound together, the ropes so tight her swollen fingers tingled when she wiggled them experimentally.

  Being hog-tied, trapped in a trunk, wrapped in heavy, constrictive plastic, was a claustrophobic nightmare. She forced herself to breath evenly, knowing she had very little oxygen left. If he didn’t dump her off somewhere soon, she could very well suffocate before she got the chance to drown.

  So much for her gallant rescue attempt.

  Sidney knew that if she’d waited for Marc, Samantha would be in this truck instead of her, but that fact was cold comfort now that they both would die.

  Her arms were tied at the wrist over her stomach. She inched her hands up toward her mouth, little by little, until she felt coarse rope bite into her lips. Like a starved animal, she gripped it with her teeth and tugged. She tore at the individual pieces of twine. She chewed until her mouth bled.

  By the time the Taurus came to an abrupt stop, she’d succeeded in tightening the rope around her wrists to an
agonizing degree.

  When she felt herself being lifted out of the trunk, she was actually relieved. Until she landed with a harsh slap on the surface of water. Remembering how Kurtis had enjoyed the sight of the others struggling, she told herself to remain motionless as she slowly sank.

  Let him think she was unconscious. Let him think she was already dead.

  Cold water began to seep into the tarp, reviving her senses, renewing her chances of survival. With wet hands, she might be able to slip free of the binding. Tears of hope stung her eyes, and she heard a sound, peaceful and pleasant, like the melody of a bubbling brook, barely audible through the layers of tarp and water.

  She turned her head slightly, trying to get her sticky ear away from the plastic, and a wet flood rushed in, soaking her clothing, her hair, her swollen hands. It tasted clean and smelled fresh. She was in a fountain!

  Sidney forced herself to stay still even though water was pouring in at an alarming rate. Her body drifted lower then touched ground. Her heart leaped! Why had he not bothered to weigh her down?

  The answer came with a solid block of concrete, hitting the middle of her stomach, robbing her of breath. Anchoring her deep.

  Terror assailed her, and her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, trying to suck in oxygen. White lights fluttered before her eyes, and a low rumble, like an underground vibration, sounded in her ears.

  He was driving away! The roar of the car’s engine faded into the distance.

  Surging with adrenaline, she shoved at the concrete block on her stomach with bound hands. When it gave, she felt a frightening weightlessness. Desperate to get her head above water, she kicked her legs furiously, trying to put her feet under her so she could push off the bottom of the fountain.

  It wasn’t as easy as she thought. She was so disoriented she couldn’t tell up from down. Panicking, she flailed this way and that, going nowhere. She struggled against the ropes, but she had no room to maneuver. She had no fight left. No air. No energy. No hope.

  Sidney felt her body go slack as life left her.

  By the time Marc pulled up to the San Luis Rey Mission, he was soaked in sweat, sick with fury, paralyzed by fear.

  He jerked his car to a stop in front of the main fountain and jumped out, praying to God it was the right one. Blue was out in a flash, barking excitedly at the fountain’s edge, but the surface of the water was still as glass and dark as death.

  Swallowing back his emotion and denying the obvious, Marc leaped over the edge, telling himself this was a rescue, not a recovery.

  He waded around desperately, submerged to the middle of his chest, searching for any sign of her. When his shoe glanced off the edge of a cinder block, the same kind that had been in Agua Hedionda Lagoon with Candace Hegel, his stomach dropped. He dove underwater to find another limp, tarp-shrouded body.

  He was too late.

  Grabbing her around the waist, he brought her up in a wet heap, holding her to him very tightly, as if he could squeeze the life back into her. “No,” he said fiercely, refusing to accept the truth. Hauling them both over the edge, he laid her out on the soft dark grass, unaware that he was praying until he felt his cold lips moving.

  Padre nuestro…

  With trembling hands, he found the tiny knife on his key chain and flipped it up, carefully cutting the tarp away from her face. It was Sidney. Her lips were dark and her eyes closed. She was beautiful, even in death.

  “Te ruego,” he yelled, coming to his knees. As Blue threw back his head and howled, Marc held his open palms up to the night sky.

  “Te ruego,” he repeated. I pray to you, or I beg you. In Spanish, the words were the same.

  On the ground, Sidney coughed and sputtered.

  He stared down at her, astounded.

  Water dribbled from the corner of her mouth.

  He turned her on her side quickly, letting her purge the liquid from her stomach while he patted her back. When she was finished, he drew her into his arms and held her there, afraid to ever let her go again. He rocked her back and forth, not sure if he was comforting her or himself. Hot moisture coursed down his cheeks, and he realized he was crying, something he hadn’t done even when his father died. Or since.

  “Samantha,” she whispered, her voice ravaged by the near-drowning.

  He took her face in his hands. “Where?”

  “With him. Kurtis.”

  Marc searched the area with his eyes. A beige Ford Taurus was the only car in the parking lot. At the entrance to the graveyard, a heavy metal gate stood open.

  “Don’t go,” she pleaded, even though she’d just asked him to.

  “I have to.”

  “Untie my hands.”

  He did, using the small knife from his key chain, and kissed each swollen palm. “I love you,” he said with reverence.

  “Please,” she whispered, tears filling her eyes.

  He strode to the car, grabbing his Glock off the passenger seat.

  “Lacy will be here any minute,” he said. “Stay,” he added, meaning both her and Blue.

  She put her arm around the dog’s neck and closed her eyes, too weak to argue.

  Marc moved swiftly through the mission’s historical graveyard, thinking it was a poor place to rape, torture, or kill women. The grounds weren’t patrolled, but they were well-lit, and Marc didn’t doubt there were security cameras recording Kurtis Stalb’s every move.

  The man was no longer concerned with getting caught. His intention, in coming here, was probably to go out in a big, symbolic hurrah, and Marc was more than eager to send him straight to hell where he belonged.

  Toward the rear of the graveyard there was a stone wall with an altar upon which parishioners placed religious offerings. A dozen or more tall, glass-encased candles lit the scene. Samantha lay beneath them like a nonvirgin sacrifice. Her hands and ankles were bound, a handkerchief gag bit into her mouth and her clothes hung in tatters on her mostly nude body. She was the antithesis of purity.

  Stalb loomed over her, taking a wicked-looking knife from a sheath at his waist.

  Marc trained his Glock on the back of the man’s head, but Samantha didn’t give him the chance to pull the trigger. As Stalb cut the ropes securing her ankles, she lifted her arms and groped for one of the heavy candles resting on the ledge above her. When he positioned himself between her legs, she brought it down hard on top of his dark head.

  Marc ran forward, vaulting over headstones, gun poised to shoot.

  Stalb collapsed against Samantha, his body slack. She pushed him off her, but she wasn’t done with him yet. Wielding the glass-encased candle like a bludgeon, she bashed it into the back of his skull, again and again and again.

  By the time Marc reached them, Kurtis Stalb was good and dead.

  Samantha looked up at him, tears streaming down her pretty face, shards of glass and colored wax in her bloody hands.

  Kneeling beside her, he cut the gag away from her trembling mouth.

  “He killed my sister,” she said, her blue eyes opaque with shock. Without another word, she fainted in his arms.

  Chapter 19

  When Samantha celebrated her thirtieth day of sobriety, Sidney threw her a party at the beach.

  For Samantha, recovery didn’t happen right away, and it didn’t come easily. Between the divorce, the media attention and the police investigation of Kurtis Stalb’s death, she had several relapses. In the end, the case was quietly closed, even though the medical examiner’s findings regarding overkill didn’t exactly match up with the witnesses’ accounts of self-defense.

  Marc wasn’t fired because of his relationship with Sidney, but he was demoted from lieutenant to detective and ordered to take six weeks unpaid leave. After returning to work, he began six months of desk duty, a fate worse than death, to hear him tell it. When this penance was paid, he would be repartnered with Detective Lacy-as her subordinate officer.

  Deputy Chief Stokes had really outdone herself creating an aprop
os punishment.

  Looking at Marc now, laughing with Samantha and the girls, Sidney couldn’t see any signs of discontent. His shoulders were relaxed, his hands thrust deep in his pockets, his white shirt and dark skin contrasting brilliantly against the blue October sky. He’d accepted his fate with equanimity, claiming he’d have done a lifetime of desk duty, or even traffic detail, in exchange for Sidney’s safety.

  Greg and his secretary broke up after the divorce papers were filed, much to Samantha’s amusement. Although he wanted Samantha back, she was abstaining from relationships as well as drugs and alcohol.

  Sidney couldn’t have been happier for her sister, or more proud.

  “Isn’t it time for the cake, dear?” her mother asked, snapping her out of her reverie.

  “Hmm,” she said, making no move to get up. The sun was warm, the breeze was cool and the scenery was excellent. She’d never seen such a collection of fabulous-looking people. It was hard to believe that she and some of them were related.

  “Why don’t I take care of it?” her mother offered with a secretive little smile. “I think your young man wants to talk to you.”

  Over the past few months, Marc had charmed Aurelia Morrow with simple flattery and impeccable manners. Sidney found his gallantry disingenuous, but Aurelia ate it up with a spoon, proving herself no more immune to him than any other female. Sidney had also noticed him talking to her father this afternoon, some deep, manly conversation made up of stern eyebrows, gruff tones and firm handshakes.

  Sidney placed a hand over her lower abdomen. Did he know?

  At that very moment, his eyes met hers, with that same spark of electricity she’d felt the first time she saw him. As his gaze traveled down her body, to the hand resting on her belly, the smile fell off his face.

  He did know.

  “Maybe you’re right,” she said with apprehension, rising from her chair to stand on rubbery legs. She tugged on the hem of her knee-length yellow sundress, wondering what had possessed her to buy it. It was a whimsical, feminine creation she’d worn to please her sister. Now she felt awkward, barefoot and silly, like a little girl playing dress-up.