Cutting Ties (Book 2) (Piper Anderson Series)

by Danielle Stewart

  He saw two cruisers pull up to the scene and engage the man. Bobby turned on his heels and ran back toward the church. Then he heard it, the unmistakable popping of gunfire. He knew instantly that this was some kind of a set up and the odds of rounding the corner in time to save Piper were slim. This was where his training kicked in, it’s what kept the fear from taking over, it kept the panic from slowing him down. He increased his speed by almost double, his gun gripped tightly in his hand. As he turned the corner he saw Agent Carlson down on the ground.

  “Where is she?” he asked frantically, kneeling beside Carlson. He saw the other officers who had arrived at the scene of the naked man coming up behind him to assist.

  “He drove off with her in a blue car, plate is C221BS. Heading west.” Agent Carlson was gasping. “I got him in the shoulder I think. Take my car, it’s faster than yours.” She pushed her blood-covered keys into his hands, and he bolted for her car.

  He crisscrossed the main streets of Edenville, flipping on Carlson’s police scanner and tuning it to the local frequency. The information Carlson had given Bobby was already buzzing over the scanner—the plate number, the description of the car, and more importantly, the urgency of officer down, pursuit in progress. When a cop of any branch is shot, every badge on or off duty becomes part of the chase. In a small place like Edenville even retired officers grab their personal weapons and hit the streets.

  Bobby sped quickly around each corner, not sure where he was headed, not clear what he was looking for, adrenaline pulsing through his veins. And then like a flash, a truck backing up too quickly from a driveway pulled in front of him. He slammed on his brakes, rubber grabbing for asphalt, but it was too late. Bobby felt the bursting of the airbag throwing him back in his seat as the car and truck collided violently. He was dazed as the driver of the truck ran to his window, trying to speak to him. Bobby squinted, blinked, and shook his head to try to refocus. The driver of the other vehicle stepped away, flagging down a passing police car.

  When he finally got his bearings again, a familiar face was opening his car door. “Bobby, are you good?” Lindsey asked, seeming to appear out of nowhere.

  “I’m fine,” he said, taking a quick inventory of each of his limbs; all appeared to be uninjured.

  “Let me call an ambulance. I’ve got to get back on the road, they’re asking all available units to aid in the search.”

  “Can I ride with you?” he asked, desperate for any opportunity to help. “He’s got Piper.” Lindsey looked him over as he stepped out of the twisted car, making sure he wasn’t injured.

  “Let’s go,” she said, hustling back to her cruiser. As they started down the road they listened to the chatter on the scanner hoping someone had spotted the blue car by now. “Do you have any ideas where he would take her? They have the whole town pretty much on lockdown. He wouldn’t have made it to any of the major highways, which have all been blocked off now. So if he were staying in Edenville, where should we look?”

  “Nothing here means anything to him. We could clear a few places like the spot they found Jules. Maybe Betty’s house, Piper’s apartment, but I can’t imagine he’d head to any of those locations.” His head was still foggy from the collision, and every scenario he ran through was more frightening than the last.

  They drove to all the locations Bobby had mentioned, each turning up nothing. The sun had set now, and Bobby could feel his sadness filling the car. There was no way Piper was still alive, he thought. Her father was desperate to kill her. He’d have done it by now.

  “Stop it,” Lindsey barked, looking over at Bobby. “Stop letting yourself think about all that garbage and start thinking where else to look.” He nodded his head, pushing back the tears starting to form and searched his mind for another idea.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “It’s like a family reunion,” Piper’s father mused, digging the gun into her ribs jestingly like he was tickling her rather than holding a deadly weapon. He swerved occasionally taking his hands off the wheel and his eyes off the road to taunt her. Piper felt herself growing numb. She didn’t speak. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of engaging him. She’d learned years ago that was what he wanted—a fight. “I’ve been looking for you.” He pointed the gun at her again in a tsk-tsk kind of way. “You really screwed me up, you know. You were supposed to be dead. Don’t you know you’re number twenty-three? You can’t go messing with something like that. I thought I’d lost you again, but I knew if I kept my eyes on that corrupt bitch who led me here in the first place, I’d find you. It’s funny what a college student will do for twenty bucks. I mean, all I said was ‘make a scene.’ Who knew he’d be bare-assed and swinging a hockey stick?” He laughed manically, proud of himself and his superior intelligence.

  “This is going to be so much fun.” When they were far enough outside of the town, he hastily pulled off the road. Before Piper could react and try to escape the car, her father was upon her, gripping her wrists with his strong hands. She saw the zip ties he held between his teeth and understood his intention. She fought him, kept pulling her arms away, but with a swift thrust of his arm the butt of the gun made contact with the back of her head and her world went black. When she came to again her hands and feet were bound, and the sound of her father’s voice was all she could hear. He was talking to himself in a way she recognized from her childhood. It was a monotone chant, something that seemed to focus him. As he saw her stir, he stopped speaking and gripped the steering wheel tighter. As she searched out the window for anything familiar, Piper started to realize they were heading toward the river, but she didn’t recognize the exact route.

  He switched the gun to his other hand and pulled out the small knife that he used to carve the number into her leg. He put the blade of the knife to her thigh and in one quick motion slit open her jeans, exposing the number carved into her leg. She didn’t wince, she didn’t move. She was stone. Whatever was about to come, she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of emotionally partaking in it.

  He looked down at her leg and his face filled with the pleasure one might get from seeing an old friend. This was the number that had lived, and after years of trying he was ready to right his wrong, correct his mistake—kill his daughter.

  He continued to drive, speaking to her about all the things she didn’t understand, trying to get her to realize how wrong her mother was, how evil and vindictive women can be, and why sometimes they just have to die. She ignored his words. She thought only of Agent Carlson, her arm shaking as she raised her weapon, too slow to avoid taking two shots to her stomach. She had gotten one shot off and it grazed his shoulder, but it took no more than a ripped shirt tied around it to stop the bleeding.

  As she stared out the window, Piper finally saw something familiar. A small, carved sign in front of a tiny pink house read, The Silter Family, and Piper suddenly knew where they were going. This was the route to the cabin, the safe haven she’d escaped to while arguing with Bobby, that’s where they were headed. Her father must have been following her, stalking her. He’d known the house was secluded and deserted. The idea of dying there actually brought Piper some peace. She’d think of Bobby, of Bruno. She’d hear the river rushing behind the house; she’d be okay with it.

  When they pulled into the driveway of the cabin he pointed his gun in her direction again and glared at her with a warning. “I’da killed you the last time you were here if it weren’t for that damn beast of a dog you had with you.” She remembered now her father’s fear of dogs. It didn’t really matter their size or their breed, any dog seemed to unsettle him. It was a memory she’d long forgotten until just now as she watched her father’s face turn in disgust at the mention of Bruno. “Don’t screw with me. Don’t try anything. You know me—what I’m capable of. This can either be quick or I can drag it on, making you pray for death. You know that.” And she did know that. She wasn’t formulating a plan to escape right now. If the opportunity arose, she’d hit the alarm system. If she go
t the chance, she’d run. But she did know her father and what he could do to someone, and she wasn’t going to make her move unless she was sure she could get away, because she couldn’t deal with the punishment if she tried and failed.

  He stepped out of the car and walked with purpose around to her side before yanking open the door and pulling her out by the arm. He lifted her and tossed her over his shoulder, carrying her like a sack of potatoes. He had always been a fit man, slimmed by his drug use but strong. Murder, the way he did it—up close and personal—required a certain strength and stamina.

  A flash of memory filled Piper’s mind. He had held her like this once before. She knew now it was after one of his murders when he had felt the sheer release and joy he got from killing. Margaret Oliver was a twenty-nine-year-old cocktail waitress who was attacked on her walk home from work. Her father had left the house the Wednesday night that Margaret was killed as a frantic, out-of-control man. That Friday he had returned home, radiating a calm that he obtained only from snuffing out someone’s life. He had announced they would have an afternoon at the park. Piper was about seven years old, and for the first and only time in her life, she’d ridden the carousel. It felt like a fairy tale compared to her normal life—the whirling and the music were like an enchanted dream. She had felt at any moment her horse, painted pink and purple, would break free of the machine and they’d ride into the world together.

  When the carousel stopped, her father reached out for her, and, smiling widely, tossed her over his shoulder and carried her halfway across the park, just as he was holding her now. They were both laughing, happy for the briefest of moments. No more than an hour after her carrousel ride, her father had set her on a park bench in one of the seediest neighborhoods in their city and went off to score some type of high. She’d waited alone on that bench for nearly two hours before she realized he’d probably forgotten about her. As the sun set that night, her little legs walked the two miles back to her apartment alone.

  She didn’t want to hold onto the memory of them laughing together, it was giving the man too much credit. It painted him in too bright a light. He laughed that day because he’d fulfilled his need to kill. He laughed because he’d taken away someone else’s ability to ever laugh again. She carried the burden and guilt that came with knowing the only fond memories she had were grown from someone else’s worst nightmare.

  He dropped her off his shoulder and leaned her against the house as he opened the front door. Piper assumed the absence of any light and the lack of blaring alarms meant that her father had cut the power. As he pulled her into the house, it became clear he’d done more than that. He had staged the living room of the house, moved all the furniture to the walls and slid the large oak dining room table to the middle of the room. He’d planned this.

  “Now we get to have some fun,” he hissed as he dragged her across the room. She wasn’t fighting him, wasn’t clawing at the floor or pleading for her life. It wasn’t because she’d completely resigned herself to death, more that she understood her father’s inner workings. She had a lifetime of watching him manipulate and control her mother. He knew exactly how to rile the woman and Piper would watch her father’s growing pleasure as her mother fell further out of control. It was this ability to manipulate someone’s reaction that brought him satisfaction. After she’d found out he was a serial killer she read every article she could find about him as well as information about other killers. At the time it calmed her to feel like she could turn his evil into something quantifiable, something you could cram into a medical journal rather than feel eating at your soul. She’d learned when her father felt like he was spiraling down the rabbit’s hole, he saved himself by finding the ultimate place of control, determining if someone lived or died. When his victims begged for their lives it made him feel powerful, it filled that need to be superior. Staying silent would undermine that, and she was finding out quickly her plan was working.

  “You aren’t afraid?” he asked tauntingly, tapping the barrel of the gun to her cheek as he slammed her against the hard table. She didn’t answer. “I guess I was right about you. You are like me, just like me.” Piper looked away, fighting the urge to disagree with him. “Oh you don’t think so? You’re standing here about to die and you’ve got nothing to say. You know what normal people do? They cry, they all cry. They beg me to let them live. They promise they won’t tell anyone. But not you, look at you,” he shouted as he lifted her and slammed her down on her back with a thud on the oak table. He’d fastened ropes to the table legs and used them now to secure her to it. Flat on her back, unable to move, she readied herself for the pain to come. “You’re just like me, you know this life is a joke, you know you’ll never be one of those normal people with a happy life, so why bother? Why fight it? You’re just like me,” he repeated, clearly goading her on.

  “Get it over with,” she said through gritted teeth, turning her head away from him. She was staring out the sliding glass door now, gazing into the dark woods. She imagined Bruno out there, sniffing the air and lapping up water from the river.

  “I will,” he replied, angry at her stubbornness. “I’d better hurry up so I can get back to that redhead friend of yours. She’s going to cry. As a matter of fact, she already did. She’ll do a lot of begging, I can tell,” he said with a glint in his eye.

  “Go to hell!” Piper shouted, unable to ignore this jab. “You won’t touch her. You’ll never find her.”

  “People are stupid. They do stupid things because their hearts tell them to.” He let his face relax into one of mock pity and emotion. “Like come to your funeral, or visit your grave. They just can’t resist it. I’ll find her. As a matter of fact, even when you’re dead, you’ll lead me to her.”

  Piper finally fought against the ropes, furious and frightened at the idea. What if he was right? If she died, and Jules was next on his radar, there was a chance he could get to her. That thought was more terrifying than the sight of the large metal spike her father had just pulled from his pocket. He’d accomplished what he’d wanted. He’d made her fight back, made her want to live. Now he could take her life and start his evil over again. Finally, he’d be free to pick up where he’d left off.

  He placed his gun down on a table next to the couch and took the small knife out again. Pulling open the slit in her jeans, he ran his fingers over the round, raised scar where he had previously plunged in the spike. He took a long look at the number he had carved two years ago. Smirking, he dug the blade into the healed wound and split it open again. She couldn’t refrain from crying out, the pain was too great. She screamed as he continued to re-carve the number into her leg. His features were demonic, as though he were possessed by a malevolent power flowing into his body. The pleasure he was feeling from the pain he was inflicting was clear.

  As he finished, Piper moaned, the agony burning its way through her leg, blood trickling onto the table. Physically it felt just as it had the first time, but emotionally she couldn’t believe how different this attack was. She knew love and friendship now. She had lived. Yes, she wanted more time to enjoy what she’d just found, but at least she had found it. Maybe that was why she’d survived the first time, so she’d get a chance to have something real, something worth missing. She wasn’t afraid to die, she only feared for what it would mean for those she was leaving behind.

  “Finally,” he groaned, looking like he was having an out-of-body experience. His eyes glassed over with evil. He yanked hard on the rope, tightening it. “You won’t squirm this time. I won’t miss again.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The only way to survive a life like his was to have incredible instincts, and luckily Chris did. They had carried him through dozens of near-death experiences, and he’d learned to trust his gut. This time, his gut feeling had him boarding a plane and heading for Edenville. He had tried to fight the nagging feeling, tried to convince himself that this wasn’t his business. Eventually he couldn’t ignore the voice in his hea
d and he gave in to it. He wasn’t about to let them walk into a trap or become pawns in a game to lure out a madman.

  He’d need to be inconspicuous, a ghost, he thought as he rented a car at Raleigh-Durham International using one of his fake IDs. He couldn’t walk the streets of his town or reach out to his friends. He was here for one reason, to quietly help if it was needed. It quickly became clear he’d made the right choice.

  He’d packed a bag of things he thought he’d retired when he moved—a police scanner, a bulletproof vest, and an assortment of other items that might come in handy. Once he was settled in his rental car, a simple white sedan that was unlikely to draw any attention, he set up the scanner and heard it all play out. Officer down, woman abducted, Railway Killer. Blue car, gone. Finding them, he thought, would be difficult, maybe impossible, but if he did find them he’d need to be armed. The only place in Edenville he had dared to leave weapons was his cabin. The cabin none of his people, enemies or friends, had ever known about. It was his safe house. Not safe enough to harbor him indefinitely—he admitted he needed witness protection for that—but in a pinch he could hide there. It was a place to keep weapons, to keep information, and to keep his son if he ever needed to. He put his car in gear and started out for the cabin.

  He’d go there first, arm himself, and then start his search for Piper. As he neared the cabin, he decided to park his car in a small clearing down the road and walk the rest of the way. He wanted to ensure it was safe, that no one from his old life had managed to connect the property to him. As he crept up the driveway he saw it. Like a lightning bolt of fate that he could only thank God for, the blue car was there, parked hastily and crooked in the driveway. How could this be? How could they be at his place?