Nolan peered through a window. The house was dark and still, except for the frantic dog. Lucy tracked him as he walked to the other end of the porch and looked through the breakfast-room window.
“Dax tells me tips are pouring in,” Talia said, “but it’s going to take an army to sort through them all.”
A light was on in the kitchen. The back door stood open, and Nolan could see through the screen door and into the backyard. The TV on the kitchen counter was on, and a saucepan on the stove was bubbling over. Rice? Grits? Looked like someone had been here recently but left in a hurry.
“I can’t believe they released it,” Talia was saying. “If he sees it, he’ll be in the wind, Nolan.”
His gaze returned to the television as a police sketch appeared on the screen. Nolan squinted through the glass. The face in the picture hit him like a sucker punch.
“No fucking way,” he muttered.
“What is it?”
“I know him.”
CHAPTER 26
The pit was taller than Grace. But not by much. If she could just get a foothold, she might be able to pull herself up and out. Grace took a series of shallow breaths. One. Two. Three. No deep breaths, or it felt like slivers of glass cutting into her lungs.
She grasped the rock, then planted her foot on a bump in the stone. Bracing for the pain, she pulled herself up, then planted another foot on a small ledge. Squeezing her eyes against the hurt, she pulled herself up and reached for another handhold.
Grace looked down, breathing hard. Her shoulder was on fire. Sweat streamed down her neck, and she was plastered to the cool stone. Her feet were bare—her whole body was bare—but the lack of shoes seemed to be helping as she curled her toes over the rock.
She looked up and squinted at the sunlight. Ignoring the burn in her side, she reached up and grasped a weed dangling down from the edge of the pit. It felt flimsy, so she groped around some more, and her fingers closed around something thick and ropy, like a tree root. Praying it would hold her weight, she pulled up.
Please, please, please, God. You owe me.
Her foot slipped, and she gasped, clinging to the root and the wall with every fiber of her being. She hung there, heart pounding, as she moved her foot around, looking for a bump in the rock. She found one and used it to lever herself up while at the same time reaching her arm over the ledge.
Thorns and grass pricked her skin. Tears burned her eyes again, but they were tears of joy this time—joy and disbelief, as she heaved her body up and threw her leg over the ledge. Clawing at roots and weeds, she dragged herself across the ground and rolled onto her back.
She blinked up at the sky. Tears and snot and spit slid down her face as she lay there, squinting at the brightness.
She turned her gaze to the cliffs. The tall limestone rock face was a creamy white in the morning sun. Trees lined the top. It looked like a slab of cake with green frosting, and just the thought made her stomach yearn.
Food. Soon. If she could just find the energy to stand up and move. But every limb felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.
A low rumble sent a jolt of fear through her. A car. She rolled over and scrambled to her feet. Glancing around frantically, she took in her surroundings for the first time. There was a cliff beside her. And scraggly trees all around. The engine noise grew louder. In a panic, Grace lunged behind one of the trees, yelping as she stubbed her toe on something hard.
She knelt behind the bushes, clutching her hurt shoulder and peering through the branches as a little green car came into view and pulled over. Grace cowered lower and glanced around, but this clump of trees was the best cover out here. The car door popped open, and Grace held her breath as someone got out.
A woman, thank God. Relief flooded her. The woman looked old, too, with curly gray hair in a loose bun on top of her head. She reminded Grace of her grandmother. As she walked around the car, Grace stood up and stepped toward her.
“Are you crazy?” the woman shrieked.
Grace froze.
“Have you lost your mind?” Her voice was shrill and piercing, and Grace stood paralyzed as she realized there was someone else nearby.
A low male voice answered, and Grace swayed on her feet. Him. She ducked back behind the tree and crouched as low as she could, trying to melt into the rock.
Her heart jackhammered. She couldn’t hear what they were saying. Didn’t even try. She was too petrified to move or think or do anything but try to be invisible.
The volume escalated. Grace pictured the blue eyes, the twisted mouth, the skin that looked ghoulish in the flashlight beam. Her chest convulsed, and she couldn’t breathe as the voices got louder.
“You idiot! You ungrateful, worthless—”
Thunk.
Grace registered the sickening sound of rock against flesh, then a body hitting the ground.
Then nothing.
Grace didn’t pause to think or plan or even breathe. She turned and ran.
• • •
Talia called Nolan from her car.
“Where are you?” he demanded.
“On my way. I just got off with Santos.”
“What’s he got?”
“Bryce Michael Gaines, age twenty-five.”
“Younger than we thought.”
“Yep. And you’re right, the police sketch they’re running is pretty good.” Talia flipped through her scribbled notes as she drove. “Mother, Katherine Hansen Gaines. Looks like she had Bryce when she was eighteen. She was arrested for possession of narcotics, let’s see . . . age twenty. Died of an overdose that same year.”
Nolan cursed on the other end of the phone. “So he was raised by his grandparents. The widow knew something was up, and she was covering for him. That’s why she lied to me.”
“That’s speculation, but yeah, that’s what it looks like. You want the rest of this?”
“Yeah.”
“If Bryce has any juvie charges, I don’t have them yet, but from Google, I learned he graduated from high school here in town and got a scholarship to Belleview Bible College in western Tennessee. He didn’t last a year.”
“Expelled?”
“I called the college, thinking maybe I could get something about an on-campus assault, rape, cheating, whatever, but the college would only tell me he withdrew from school for undisclosed reasons. Few months later—this was five years ago—he was arrested in Rocky Shoals Park for illegal camping.”
“Timing works.”
“I know.” Talia flipped a page. “Then he dropped off the radar for a while. Santos has an arrest for him three years later on a DUI in Maverick, near Big Bend National Park. And get this, a ranger out there knows him.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Santos talked to this guy. He caught Gaines sleeping in his car in the park a few times. Felt sorry for him. Helped him get some work inside the park doing odd jobs. Apparently, he was pretty good at the work, because this ranger later recommended him for their summer internship program. He didn’t make the cut, and then he disappeared. This was three years ago. Guy said he hasn’t seen him or heard from him since.”
“Yeah, that’s about when we got him,” Nolan said. “He joined Allen County Search and Rescue that same year.”
“How did that happen, anyway? Doesn’t ACSAR vet its people?”
“No idea. But even if they do, it’s probably not thorough. Illegal camping isn’t a felony. Neither is sleeping in your car.”
“I bet he did some shit at that college, and that’s why they kicked him out.”
“Yeah, well, if it was sexual assault, it probably got swept under the rug and wouldn’t be on record. Anyway, I talked to ACSAR,” Nolan said. “They haven’t seen him since last weekend, when he rescued a pair of dehydrated hikers up in Dove Canyon. Nobody’s heard from him since.”
Talia spotted the turnoff and shifted lanes. “Question is, where is he now?”
“We’re working on it,” Nolan said. “We’re
taking this place apart.”
“You got a search warrant already?”
“Exigent circumstances.”
He meant Grace Murray. If there was a chance they might find her alive, they could let themselves in and look around.
“What have you found?” Talia asked.
“So far, zilch. We’ve got a hysterical mutt closed up in the utility room, a car up on blocks in the garage, and an empty house. Elaine Hansen is missing, and so are her other vehicles. We’ve got an APB out for her Volkswagen and the Chevy.”
“I’m almost there,” Talia said. “And be on the lookout for Dax Harper. He’s on his way, too.”
“Tell him to step on it. We need all the help we can get.”
• • •
Sara bumped along the gravel road, looking for any sign of a low-water bridge. This was the right place. Had to be. A mile back, she’d passed some pumpjacks and then a sleepy herd of black cows with white stripes down the middle. Oreo cows.
She checked the map on her cell phone. But she wasn’t getting service, and it still wouldn’t refresh. She curved around a bend, and her pulse sped up as a low-water bridge came into view. She followed the dip in the road, then passed through a narrow canyon. As the walls sloped down, she took a hopeful look at her phone. Bars. Finally.
A gate came into view, and Sara pulled over. This had to be the place. She got out of her car and glanced around. Everything looked right—the ground, the trees, the craggy cliffs rising up to her left. There had to be caves nearby, the very caves Will Merritt had written about and possibly where he’d held his victims.
Sara grabbed her phone and called Nolan. It went straight to voice mail, so she searched through her contacts and found Talia.
“Hey, it’s Sara Lockhart,” she said. “I’m trying to reach Nolan. Any chance he’s with you?”
“Yeah, he’s a little busy right now. We ID’d our suspect, and we’re conducting a search of his house.”
“You mean . . . it’s official? You’ve identified Will Merritt?”
“Merritt? No, Bryce Gaines. He’s local.”
Sara’s blood ran cold. She pictured the lanky rescue worker with the friendly blue eyes who’d lent her his rappelling helmet. “Bryce Gaines, the S-and-R guy?”
“Yeah, he’s been ID’d by several witnesses, including a bouncer in Austin. His sketch is all over the news. You didn’t know?”
“No, I—” She glanced down at her phone and saw she’d missed a call from Nolan. Had he gotten her message? She’d told him to meet her here with backup, but it sounded like he was sidetracked. Shit.
“Talia, listen to me. I think I know where Grace is,” Sara said. “I think he took her to a cave complex not far from the park.”
“Where?”
“Just east of White Falls. I’m out on Red Hawk Road, and we need to get a search team here ASAP, including a tracking dog—”
Her gaze fell on a man who stood on the side of the road, watching her. Sara’s stomach dropped. It was Bryce Gaines. He must have sneaked up on her while she’d been focused on her phone call. He stood less than twenty feet away, and he held something black in his hand. A stun gun? A pistol?
Sara’s throat went dry. It was a stun gun. But she was no less afraid. She’d seen what those could do to a body.
“Hello?” Talia’s voice sounded small and distant. “Sara?”
“He’s here.”
“What? Who’s there?”
He stepped toward her, and she took a step back.
“Bryce,” she croaked, as it all fell into place. “Talia, he’s here!”
He stepped closer. “Give me the phone, Sara.”
“It was you. You were the local guide who took him around.”
She clutched the phone in her hand like a weapon and took another step back. A distraction. She needed a distraction.
She stepped back again. “You showed him the caves, didn’t you? Where’s Grace?”
His mouth curved into an eerie smile. And then he lunged.
Sara brought her fist up, smashing his chin but dropping the phone. He grabbed her arm, but she wrenched free and lurched away. She stumbled and ran, screaming at the top of her lungs. Adrenaline flooded her as her limbic system kicked into gear, and she sprinted as fast as she could, as fast as her legs would move with her thin leather sandals slowing her down.
Sara’s heart galloped inside her chest. His footsteps slapped behind her, getting closer and closer, even as she ran so hard she thought her lungs would burst.
Fire blazed through her. She dropped to her knees. Another searing burst, and then there was nothing.
CHAPTER 27
Nolan raced down the highway, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles burned.
“How much farther?” He shot a look at Talia.
“Uhh . . .” She fiddled with the map on her phone. “As the crow flies, only about a mile. But we’ve got to go around this whole pasture and—”
“Lemme see.”
She showed him the phone with their route highlighted in red.
Nolan stomped on the brakes and skidded to a halt. He threw the truck in reverse, shot backward, then threw it into drive and hit the gas. “Hold on.”
“What the— Nolan!”
The engine roared as they burst through the barbed-wire fence, scaring up a flock of birds perched in a nearby mesquite tree.
“What are you doing?”
“Cutting through the pasture.”
They bumped and lurched over the uneven terrain, hitting rocks and ruts. Nolan swerved around a giant prickly pear cactus. His heart felt like it was about to pound out of his chest as he thought of Sara. She’d been in the middle of a conversation about Bryce Gaines, and Talia had heard a struggle, then the call cut off.
He had her. Nolan felt it in his bones.
They hit a rut and pitched down, then up again. Nolan’s head jerked forward with a tooth-rattling snap. He looked at Talia beside him, gripping the door.
“Don’t look at me! Drive!” she yelled.
Nolan pressed the gas again, navigating the terrain as best he could, swerving around bushes and cacti. In the distance, a line of trees came into view, paralleling a barbed-wire fence.
“That has to be it,” he said. “Red Hawk Road.”
• • •
Sara’s body throbbed. She opened her eyes, then immediately closed them as pain ricocheted through her.
Bryce Gaines.
The name echoed inside her head.
He has Grace.
Sara sat up, wincing. Every cell, every nerve in her body was on fire. She looked around. She was surrounded by bushes. She wasn’t in the road anymore, but she could see it, maybe ten feet away at the top of an incline. How the hell had she gotten here? Glancing down, she realized her hands were tied.
Sara stared at the purple bindings with shock. She tried to move her hands, but the bindings were too tight. Her ankles were bound, too. She glanced around frantically, then looked at the bindings again with disbelief as she remembered the autopsy photos.
A hot wave of rage washed over her.
“Fuck. You,” she whispered. She went after the twine with her teeth. Gnawing and biting, she tried desperately to get through the cordage.
A distant noise.
She stopped. Her heart thrummed as she listened. Had she imagined it?
The noise was back, louder now, and it was definitely an engine. It was coming closer. It was coming here. Sara craned her neck to look at the road, and another shock hit her as she saw her black Explorer speeding toward her.
Holy, holy, holy hell. He was going to, what, abduct her in her own vehicle? Use it to dump her body somewhere . . . and then take off? He needed a getaway car now that his face and his white SUV were plastered all over the news.
She couldn’t run or hide, so instead, she played dead. She was motionless, completely still, until she could find a time to strike.
The Explorer skidded to a halt
. She listened as the door opened and closed. Footsteps on the gravel. The cargo door squeaked open.
Fear gripped her. He was going to do it. He was going to load her in the back and take her . . . where? To his cave?
Sara’s heart squeezed. She broke out in a cold sweat.
Footsteps again. Getting closer. Closer. She kept her eyes shut and tried to make her face blank. She was unconscious. Inert. Harmless.
He reached down, and Sara’s heart skipped. He wedged his hands under her shoulders and knees. With a low grunt, he heaved her up. She remained still, dead weight, even as her mind was racing a mile a minute. She had to do something.
In the distance, another noise.
A car? A truck? Please, God.
He halted. Did he hear it, too?
His grip tightened, and he moved faster, hauling her up the incline, which meant he was nearing the road.
Sara fisted her hands together and thrust them into his face.
“Fuck!”
She bucked and threw an elbow as she crashed to the ground, knocking her head against something that felt like a thousand needles.
“Fucking bitch.”
She brought her legs up, kicking at his knees and his groin, as he cursed her and reached for her again.
She nailed him between the legs, and he bent over, gasping. Sara logrolled away. Then the ground fell out from under her, and she careened down a hill.
• • •
Nolan plowed through the fence and fishtailed as he turned onto the road. He hit the gas, glancing around for a black Explorer, a white Tahoe, a green Volkswagen.
“Nolan, look!”
He slammed on the brakes as he spotted a glint of something behind a tree. A windshield.
“That’s the VW,” he told Talia. “We’re close.”
“Why is it parked there?”
“It’s not parked, it’s hidden.” Nolan sped up again, searching the road ahead for any more cars or people. Where the hell was Sara? His palms were slick on the steering wheel as he pictured her with Bryce.
He spotted a rusted pumpjack up ahead. Nolan scanned the pastures on either side of him and saw a trio of cows lazing under a tree.
“We’re getting close,” he said. “It’s around here.”
Stone Cold Heart Page 26