When she stood, he said, “You can have a few minutes head start.”
The maze of underbrush and towering trees she had considered frightening and alien was to be her haven. Her escape, if she could manage it.
“Annie.”
She blinked. It was the first time he’d said her name. An honor? A sign of respect? “What?”
“I’m counting on you for a challenge. Give me a good hunt.”
“Fuck you.” After one last glance at Sam, she ran.
THIRTY-FIVE
Pain drummed through his head. Someone was taking batting practice double-time, and Sam’s skull was the cage. Fuckin’-A, he deserved it for letting the Hunter catch him unaware.
Annie, Annie.
Somewhere in the forest, she was running like hell.
The thought of what would happen if the Hunter caught her made his stomach churn. As long as he was helpless, she was at this freak’s mercy. All he could do for the time being was play possum. Being bound hand and foot didn’t give him room for much else. Yet.
The man he knew as Ray was still there. Thrashing in the undergrowth, probably searching for the Buck knife.
Sam wouldn’t move, wouldn’t give this camo-covered ghoul a reason to strike him again. He had to save his strength.
While Annie was tying him up, he’d swum in and out of consciousness, unable to muster strength or will to move. He had only vague impressions of what had happened. Heard her question their captor. Felt her secret the knife.
He was fully aware now. Holy hell, he remembered. Annie lunged for the son of a bitch. Facing her worst nightmare, she showed more courage than any woman—no, any person, male or female—he’d ever known.
Then the Hunter forced her to strip and run. Nausea bubbled at the image of him leering at her breasts, at all of her.
Dammit, he elbowed the pain and nausea aside, focused on what he must do to save her. First job was freeing his hands.
Waiting was more torture.
Standing, the Hunter abandoned the knife search. For such a thorough predator to give up, he must figure that if he couldn’t find it, an unconscious, hogtied guide couldn’t. Sam’s pulse leaped.
The Hunter hummed tunelessly as he waited. Actually giving her moments lead time, as he’d said. Thanks for small favors, asshole. Through slitted eyes, Sam watched him hook his arms through the straps of a small backpack.
Then the man bent to check Sam’s bindings. He uttered a satisfied grunt. “Bitch did a good job. I’ll give her that.”
A kick at Sam’s side ripped pain through his ribs and blew air from his lungs. He clenched his jaw against a groan.
“Sleep tight.” On that sour note, the Hunter had trotted into the woods.
Sam opened his eyes. Sunlight stabbed his eyeballs. They felt swollen to baseball size. Using his elbows for leverage, he rolled to his right side. The movement careened hardballs around his noggin and raked his bruised left side. He’d suffered through pain before, months of it. With whining and cowardice that shamed him in the face of Annie’s bravery.
No pain would stop him now. She needed him.
Gritting his teeth, he peered at the ground cover, scanned the underbrush.
He had to find the Buck knife.
***
No more than thirty feet away from where she’d begun running, Annie crouched behind a clump of rocks. She opened her hand. Her prize had dug red marks into her palm.
But she had it, she had it—the plastic compass.
Now to get her bearings so she didn’t get lost. Her hands shook so much that she could barely rotate the device.
“Put Fred in the shed,” she whispered as she dialed the compass to position the needle’s red N in the North slot. Okay, she was on the west side of the clearing. About 170 degrees SE. Where she intended to lead the Hunter was farther east, between 165 and 160.
Looping the compass’s red cord around her neck, she listened. No footsteps. He hadn’t started after her yet.
No sounds but the hammering of her heart and the usual chirps and fluttering. Normalcy. She wanted to scream at the naïve creatures. Didn’t they know a monster stalked the woods?
But this monster had given her a head start. She intended to make good use of it.
He’d neglected to confiscate her watch. She could use it to determine distance traveled. Finding a route around and through a maze of barriers meant choosing short-distance targets, like on the bushwhacks. There. A moss-covered boulder a hundred yards away, her first target. She could do this. Her focus on the compass and the sun’s climb in the east, she took off northwest.
Heat hadn’t yet replaced the morning chill, but exertion soon warmed her. She scratched mosquito bites on her belly. At the boulder, she found a new goal, a lightning-split white pine due north.
Evergreen needles slapped her bare arms and breasts. As she beat through the dense woods, twigs stabbed her skin. Scratches stung her calves.
Panting from her efforts parched her throat. She nearly cheered when she found water in a rock crevice. Her cupped hand stirred up dead leaves and God knew what else. The water tasted brackish, but who was quibbling. It was breakfast.
She tried to avoid breaking branches and stomping on sticks, but every step resounded as if she were T-Rex thundering through the primeval forest. How the hell did such large creatures as deer and moose glide so soundlessly through this stuff?
For all the noise her feet and her heartbeat were making, she couldn’t hear the Hunter. He must have started after her by now. She checked her watch.
Twenty minutes.
That was all? She was winded, and her legs felt like she’d been running for an hour.
She headed north and west, hoping her pursuer wouldn’t figure out she was leading him.
She didn’t dare leave Sam for too long. Sam, oh Sam, are you alive?
She blinked back tears. After she ran, did the Hunter kill him? Or was Sam lying there, trussed like a pig on a roasting spit, unconscious? Or waiting for— She wouldn’t think about what the Hunter intended. That would sap her resolve and what little stamina she had.
She slogged on, forcing one foot ahead of the other.
Finally she turned east again, 110 degrees on the compass. As she zigzagged through the trees and boulders, her watch said forty-five minutes had elapsed.
Time to head south.
Her foot caught and she crashed to the hard ground. Her breath erupted in a huff of pain.
Dammit! The tumble hurt her mouth again. She covered it with her hand to muffle a groan. She wanted the Hunter to follow, but announcing her location wasn’t exactly stealthy.
When she could breathe again, she tried to sit up. The gnarled root that had tripped her clamped her foot like a leg iron. She rotated her ankle. Okay, no pain. No new pain. Only the stings of all the cuts and scrapes that tattooed her body.
She understood some of what those poor women went through, why the police reports said such marks covered their naked bodies. Her throat was tight as if a fist gripped her neck. Nausea burned. She forced a swallow and breathed slowly through her nose. God willing, she would escape the other horrors those women had endured.
Crackle. Snap.
She sat bolt upright. The Hunter.
No rationalization by saying it was a deer or squirrels would cut it. Not even a bear. Movement through the brush meant the Hunter was getting nearer. She had to beat feet.
Or she would die. And Sam would die.
Hold on, Sam. I’m coming.
Adrenaline boiling through her, she tore at her shoelace. With her foot rid of the confining shoe, she wrenched free. She jammed the sneaker back on, tied it, and took off toward the sun in a sprinter’s racing start.
Not caring if she sounded like a U.S. Army tank lumbering through the woods, she zigzagged toward her destination. Back to the east side of the homestead clearing.
She surveyed the area. Close. A little farther south—what was it? 150 or 155—had to take her
to the clearing.
Snap. Crunch.
Closer this time. He was catching up to her.
Oh God, she had to make it. She had to. She prayed for strength, pushed on southeast.
Another rustle behind her.
She glimpsed movement. The blotchy camouflage hid him perfectly when he remained still. But he was moving now, gaining on her. Her heart kicked against her ribs and bumped up into her throat.
A screen of brush blocked her way. Ignoring the new scrapes on her body, she forced herself through the snarled branches. And nearly fell into the Eagle River.
No!
She’d come too far east. She stared uncomprehendingly at the compass. Where had she miscalculated?
Bushes thrashed closer and closer to where she teetered on the riverbank.
Then she recognized the bend in the river that marked the start of the homestead. If she headed south and then cut in—
A short distance up the muddy bank a twig snapped.
She dove back into the brush. Climbed over snarled branches and shoved her way in a southwest direction through twigs tangled twigs and thorns.
“Please, please,” she panted as she heard him crashing through close behind her.
There! The grassy area. She stumbled into the clearing.
Wildflowers winked in the sunlight. Butterflies played above the waving grass. Her pursuer strode through the thicket.
She needed to play him like a bass on a hook. Looking exhausted and pitiful would require no acting, but her direction must look random. She trudged through the grass and around the cover she and Sam had created. She fell to her knees, head bowed. Defeated.
“An easy hunt. You disappoint me. No challenge at all, bitch. But thanks for taking us back where I want to be.” A smirk on his thin mouth, he didn’t look disappointed.
Or suspicious.
On the contrary. He stopped at the near edge of the grass as if contemplating his victim. Savoring his victory.
Her head swam. Was it hidden well enough? Could he see what lay in front of him?
“Please,” she gasped. “I...don’t want to die.” Closer. Come closer. One step. Another.
He tilted his head, squinted at her, eyes glittering beneath his heavy brow. “What the hell? Where’d you get that?”
Oh God. The compass hung around her neck. Her hand flew to it. She’d meant to take it off before he saw it. Before he suspected.
She pushed to her feet. Every muscle shrieked in protest at the effort.
“Don’t move, bitch!” Hands fisted, he marched toward her.
And disappeared downward in a whoosh of tarp, dirt, and leaves.
Down into the abandoned well.
“Yes!”
Annie fell to her knees. Tears streamed down her cheeks.
***
Sam ripped off the last of his bindings and struggled to his feet. He listened. Rustling noises, but not nearby. The Hunter chasing his Annie?
But she wasn’t his Annie, no matter how he felt about her. Watching over her as she slept last night, he’d acknowledged that this jumble of possessiveness, exhilaration, and panic was more than desire.
He loved her.
He loved her lively wit and her curvy butt, her dedication and her lush mouth. He wanted a life with her. He wanted kids—a little girl with her smart mouth and spunk, a boy to play ball with. A future. But as he’d known from the start, no future for them was possible. He had nothing. No present, no future, no prospects.
Nothing but the back woods.
After this, would she ever set foot in the woods again? That was as likely as him returning to the Red Sox.
One more memory twisted through him, squeezing his chest painfully.
The last words Annie whispered to him: I love you, Sam.
An emotion of the moment. Intense experience, like they’d agreed before. It didn’t matter.
He jerked up his head when he heard them running toward him. He ducked behind the maple that held the deadfall trap. He had his knife. He could use the flashlight as a club.
No. Only one person’s footsteps. Annie, racing ahead of the Hunter? Or was it him? Had he killed her? Whatever that freak did to her, Sam would see he suffered double.
The runner stopped at the tree.
His heart slammed against his ribs. Damn, he hadn’t tried to pull off this kind of ambush since he and Ben were kids playing war. He held the knife close.
“Sam, oh God, what has he done with you?”
He exhaled in a whoosh as he stepped into the open. “I’m here, Annie. I’m all right.”
Wearing only sneakers, she stood wild-eyed before him. Bloody scratches and scrapes marred her arms, her legs, the soft skin of her belly and breasts. Her lower lip puffed out in a red balloon. Twigs and leaves littered her hair. Tears tracked the only clean places on her cheeks.
She looked gorgeous.
He opened his arms and she ran into them.
“Thank God," she said. "I thought he’d killed you. How’s your head?”
“Hurts like a son of a bitch, but I’ll live.” The feel of her bloodied but whole eased the ache in his head and the bigger one in his heart. He held her loosely, barely touching her, for fear he’d add to her injuries.
Quickly he described his escape from his bonds. He’d slithered like a snake into the bushes to retrieve his Buck knife. Then holding it between his knees, he sliced away the rope strand by strand.
“I tore the duct tape off my ankles just before you found me. Hell, it seemed to take me a year to get free. I went crazy thinking that bastard had caught you.” He kissed her dirty nose. “Sweetheart, we have to hide before he sees you.”
“No, no. Sam, he’s not coming. We did it.” A hysterical laugh rang from her. “I mean the bear trap did it. I...he…” Giggling and weeping, barely lucid, she got out the words. "He's in it. In the bear trap. It worked. He fell. He fell. Oh God!"
He gaped at her. “The bear trap? How?”
She held up the compass, explaining how she’d palmed it. In breathless phrases, she described her trek through the woods. “Back to the clearing. To the bear pit. He’s in the well. He is so trapped.”
She swiped her hands across her damp cheeks, but her scraped palms left a bloody smear.
He shook his head, humbled. Whispered an oath. “Annie. You’re amazing.” He kissed the cuts on her hands, the scrapes on her shoulder. The Hunter was responsible for those wounds.
“I used the skills you taught me.” She was more coherent now, breathing normally.
“You did a hell of a lot more than that. I am so damn proud of you. Get dressed. Much as I love seeing you naked, I don’t want him looking at you like that. Then we’ll get more rope from the canoe before we go check out your trap.”
She bent and retrieved her clothes. Cut and bruised, eyes red, she looked exhausted. She needed to rest, have her wounds treated.
But they weren’t safe yet. He set his jaw. “Hurry. If the fall didn’t hurt him, he could climb out.”
***
The bleat of Justin’s cell phone startled him. He barked a greeting into the receiver.
“Uh, Detective Wylde? Philbrook here, on the Eagleton Road.”
Justin slumped. He’d hoped for news of his sister, but having it transmitted by cell phone and not radio didn’t make sense.
The state trooper was calling from the checkpoint on the dirt road to the village of Eagleton. Word of the Hunter’s location had leaked, so the authorities had to stall the media who were winging north like flocks of Canada geese in spring.
“What’s up, Trooper?” They better not let some bozo with a video camera slip through. He braced for the response.
“Got a woman here says you know her. Kinda thin. Dark hair with a streak of white. Driver’s license says her name is—”
“Rissa Cantrell.” Shit. He shouldn’t be surprised. “I know her. What does she want?” As if he couldn’t guess. She wanted to be in on the kill.
; He could hear Rissa’s voice in the background. The trooper came back on. “Says she wants to, um, see the Hunter when they bring him in.”
A bloodhound, she’d sniffed out every step of this investigation since her daughter’s disappearance. He’d be damned if he’d let her interfere in this operation. “Philbrook, tell her—” He remembered her devastated expression when he’d lit into her in Portland. His conscience nagged at him. “Ah, hell, let me talk to her.”
“Justin, is it true?” Her frayed nerves shredded the edges of her voice. “Do they really have this man Smith cornered in the woods?”
“Now, Rissa, you know I can’t tell you anything that the lieutenant hasn’t made public. We know his general location, and searchers are closing in. That’s all I can tell you.”
“What about Annie?”
Good she wasn’t so far gone she’d forgotten her friend. “As far as we know, my sister’s all right.” He prayed that was the truth. “I want you to go on home. I’ll phone you once we have the suspect in custody and I have more information.”
“Let me through. I need to see him. To know the nightmare is finally over.”
He wavered in indecision for a second longer than was professional. The lieutenant would have his badge if he let a civilian in here, even a victim’s parent. No matter how sorry he felt for her, the answer was no.
But he wouldn’t put it past her to con the trooper into thinking he’d given permission. He heaved a sigh into the phone. “Hand me back to the officer, and I’ll give him instructions.”
“Oh, thank you, Detective. I— Thank you.”
He heard a murmur as she handed off the unit.
“Yes, sir?” Philbrook said.
“Listen carefully, Trooper. Under no circumstances are you to let that woman or any other civilian through. Except for Ben Kincaid, and you know him. No matter what Ms. Cantrell tells you, I did not give her permission to come to the lake. Tell her to go home and wait for my call. Do you have that?”
“Got it, sir.”
Justin stabbed the power button. Philbrook’s voice sounded resolute. He would hang tough no matter how much Rissa fumed.
Killer Romances Page 281