The crowd roared with impatience and Ian missed Jersey’s last words as a blind corner took him by surprise. The Jaguar’s tires squealed to hold the road, and Ian fumbled the phone. As he fought centrifugal force with both hands on the wheel, the phone bounced on the seat and slid out of reach into the passenger footwell.
He finally hit the brakes at the mouth of the cul-de-sac that opened onto Linda’s home at the far end. Lights were on, both inside and out, and everything looked perfectly peaceful. The short driveway that led to a detached double garage was empty of vehicles, and for a split second he wondered if he had misunderstood Petra’s clue, but that was only wishful thinking.
As Ian drove by a black SUV parked beside the road, a quick glance in his mirror told him the flashy chrome bumper that protected its front end was badly damaged. He suspected a closer inspection would reveal traces of blood, skin, and hair from a crippled lawyer who had paid too high a price for deception.
Steeling himself, he drove up the driveway and parked in front of the house.
He had no plan. No weapon. And no idea what awaited him inside. All he knew was that no one else should suffer for his mistake. It no longer mattered how seemingly small that mistake might have been, the death of his daughter and the irreparable agony of his wife rested squarely on his shoulders.
Ian climbed out of the car and walked to the front door. He tried the handle. It wasn’t locked.
THE INTERIOR of the home smelled of sugar and cinnamon, and something else—terror.
A scrape of wood against wood made him swivel to the right where he saw Jeannie tied to a chair in the kitchen. Her mouth was covered in gray duct tape, her eyes raw and scarlet with rivers of mascara streaking her cheeks.
Bright red welts ran down the length of her skinny arms, some of them beginning to darken and discolor from the force used to subdue her. The bruising was a sign that she hadn’t wilted as Ian would have expected; she had struggled, fought back.
Ian started to move toward her, but Jeannie quickly shook her head. Ian was confused until Jeannie stabbed her chin toward the ceiling. He stopped moving and listened.
A muffled thump. A grunt of exertion. A startlingly loud slap—flesh against flesh—followed by a scream. A woman’s scream. Linda!
Ian rushed up the stairs, taking them two at a time, until he reached the landing. The bathroom door was ajar and the sound of a struggle was plain. Without thinking, Ian ran forward and slammed the door with his shoulder.
A surprised yelp was followed by a large splash as someone behind the door was sent flying into the bathtub. Ian quickly entered the narrow room to see a giant of a man struggling to get out of the tub, but it was what lay squirming beneath him that made Ian’s blood boil.
With her hands tied behind her back and her ankles bound tight to the back of her thighs, Linda had been placed face down in the water to drown. The water was already bright crimson, but—just as Petra had staged at Helena’s—it didn’t appear to be blood.
The giant rolled onto his knees as Ian lunged forward and grabbed Linda by her shoulders. He pulled her face above the waterline and was rewarded by a raspy gasp as she instantly sucked in a lungful of air. The reprieve barely lasted a second before the giant smashed a ham-hock fist directly into Ian’s left ear.
Ian’s head bounced off the shower tiles, and he lost his grip on Linda for a brief moment as the room spun wildly and everything went black. When his sight returned, Ian found himself on the floor as the giant finished climbing out of the tub and lined up a foot to stomp his skull.
Grinning down at him, the giant’s scarred face looked as if an angry art student had taken a clay bust of Rocky Marciano and smashed it to the ground after receiving a failing grade.
With a primal yell, Ian launched himself off the ground like a human torpedo and slammed the top of his head between the giant’s legs. The force of the blow lifted the giant an inch off the ground as something rubbery crushed up against his pelvic wall and ruptured with the sound of snapping fingers.
The giant screamed in agony and fell back against the bathroom door, sealing it shut from both escape and outside help. It was the perfect moment to go on the attack, but Ian couldn’t leave Linda to drown.
Shaking the cobwebs from his brain, Ian plunged his arms back into the water and pulled Linda up and onto the edge of the soaker tub. Her eyes were filled with both alarm and agony, but also something else, something that Ian recognized from their early days together when Linda first approached him about opening Children First—pure unshakable determination.
“Get that fucker!” she screamed.
Ian swiveled toward the door just as the giant’s foot lashed out and found his ribcage. A pair of ribs snapped under the blow and lightning bolts of pain crackled in his brain. Gasping for breath and with his vision shrinking to a blurred, dark-edged tunnel, Ian struggled to stand straight as the giant cocked back his fist. It looked to be the size and weight of a sledgehammer.
Ian’s fighting style had come from the street, when he hung outside his grandfather’s butcher shop, the one with the metal pig for a sign. In that urban arena, one-on-one conflict was rare. Usually, you got jumped by a group of kids from another neighborhood who caught you on your own. In that situation, you had to decide whether it was best to make a stand, get pummeled and hope some of your pals showed up in time for payback, or run away and hope you didn’t get labeled a chicken.
Every instinct in his aching body told him this was definitely a time to run.
Gritting his teeth, Ian raised his fists.
The giant’s callused paw sliced through his defenses like hot piss through snow to flatten his nose into bloody mulch. The follow-up roundhouse missed as Ian fell backward onto the toilet with enough force to crack the porcelain tank. Water gushed around his feet and spread across the already slick floor.
The level of pain was excruciating and brought back suppressed memories of his youth. World War II had taught his grandfather more than one way to butcher a carcass. It had also filled him with a seething rage that always bubbled beneath the surface. To unleash a hurricane of pain and venom, it only took the pull of a cork or the wrong word in the wrong tone.
Linda screamed again as the giant slapped her in the face with the back of his hand, knocking her off the ledge and into the crimson water once more. The giant grinned at the sound of her gurgling panic as he advanced upon Ian.
Through swollen, blood-filled eyes, Ian waited, his fists unfurling into claws. One thing he had learned from his grandfather was that pain could be survived. It was the reaction to pain that lost most fights, rather than the pain itself. Professional fighters know they’ll be hit and it’s that expectation that allows them to prepare to move beyond the sting—no matter how hard—and focus on throwing the next punch.
The giant opened his hands in a move that signaled he was preparing to wrench Ian’s head from his shoulders, but the severe blow to his testicles had made him more cautious of his enemy than he would normally be.
Ian lolled his head to one side, never once glancing toward Linda as she drowned in the bathtub, clearly showing his defeat. The giant soon forgot his caution and moved in for the kill at the same time Ian used all the remaining strength in his legs to spring forward.
The giant roared as Ian’s teeth clamped down on his neck while fingernails raked across his eyes. Temporarily blinded, the giant tried to shake the smaller man off, but Ian’s jaws had been working overtime and his bite was strong.
Massive hands finally gripped Ian’s shoulders and shoved him back toward the toilet. The giant’s strength was too much to resist, but as Ian flew back across the room, a ragged chunk of flesh went with him.
Blood spurted from the giant’s torn neck as Ian landed on the toilet and immediately reached behind him for the reservoir’s heavy lid sitting lopsided on the broken tank. Without taking a breath, he lunged forward again and smashed the porcelain lid across the giant’s head. The lid broke in half as
the giant fell into the tub, but Ian wasn’t done. With a snarl of pure animalistic rage, he brought the broken half down edge first and heard an ear-splitting crack as the man’s skull changed shape.
Tossing the lid aside, Ian quickly pulled Linda free of the water. She didn’t cough or gasp because this time; she wasn’t breathing.
Trying not to panic, Ian dragged his friend fully out of the tub and laid her on the floor. Grabbing a nearby towel, he wiped the blood from his own face and began mouth-to-mouth.
He had only given a few short breaths when Linda’s body convulsed and she vomited out a lungful of red water. As she wheezed and coughed, her eyes snapped open in alarm.
“Jeannie,” she gasped. “Where’s Jeannie?”
“Downstairs. She was tied up but OK.”
“Petra’s here,” Linda wheezed. “Find her. End this.”
Ian spotted a disposable pink razor on the floor that must have spilled from the tub. Snatching it up, he smashed its plastic head with a piece of broken porcelain and used the blade inside to cut through Linda’s bonds.
“Wait here.” He glanced over at the unmoving giant whose head had remained beneath the waterline. “He can’t hurt you anymore. I’ll get Jeannie.”
Linda reached out and grabbed his arm. “What I said before, about not condoning murder.” She filled her lungs with air. “I’ve changed my mind. Kill the fucking cunt.”
AT THE bottom of the stairs, Ian stepped into the kitchen to see Petra standing behind Jeannie’s chair. She hadn’t changed much in the two years since he had last seen her, except for the eyes. The madness that twinkled behind orbs of jade and made itself known in the amount of control she needed over all things had now blossomed into full-blown crazy. Her brain was a chemical tornado—Category 5.
A large kitchen knife rested against the captive woman’s throat, its sharp edge already responsible for a thin line of blood that dribbled down Jeannie’s throat to the valley between her breasts.
The wound wasn’t fatal. Not yet. Intended more for shock value than to elicit true worry, but the panic in Jeannie’s eyes showed just how effective it was.
“I grew tired of waiting,” said Petra. “But I must admit that I didn’t expect you to make it down the stairs. My African has disappointed me.”
“He’s tendered his resignation,” said Ian.
“Is that wit?” Petra snapped, clearly not amused.
“False bravado.” Ian held his hands out by his side, palms up to show they were empty. He winced at the pain that throbbed along his ribs and numbed his face. “I’m the one you want. Not Jeannie. She’s done nothing to you. Your giant has softened me up. I’m easy prey. You’ve got the knife. Take a shot.”
Petra smiled coldly and slid the knife deeper into Jeannie’s throat, just enough to make her whimper.
“Nice try, but—
“You were right,” Ian shouted. “Your husband and I were working together. Olivier squealed like a runt pig when I violated him. His bleating was so loud, I had to stuff a pillow in his mouth to quell the noise.”
Petra stared at him in horror, her mouth going slack and her eyes growing wide. It was everything she had imagined, everything she had feared.
“Your husband taped us doing it.” Ian’s cruel mask was infallible as he forced down the bile that the lies churned in his belly. “I have the video files to post on the ’net if you continue to hurt my friend.”
The knife slid away from Jeannie’s throat.
“You’re lying,” she said.
“Am I? You were so convinced.”
“But I—
“He screamed your name,” Ian pushed, “but we told him you didn’t care. You gave him to us as our plaything, and if you were capable of that, how could you possibly love him?”
“Stop it!”
“We told him over and over how you didn’t love him. How you never loved him.”
“STOP IT!”
Petra’s face was chalk-white as she moved in front of Jeannie with the knife clutched tightly in both hands.
Ian spat bloody phlegm on the floor. “Before he died, Olivier told us how much he despised you.”
“Noooooo!” Her scream was deafening.
“He never loved you!”
With a howl that could have turned flesh to stone, Petra rushed forward and slashed out with the knife. Ian jumped back, but his broken ribs slowed his reflexes and he wasn’t fast enough to stop the tip of the blade from slicing through his soaked shirt and carving a bloody line across his chest.
With a grunt he tried to regain his footing, but Petra was surprisingly agile. The blade swung back and carved another, deeper groove across his chest. Ian stumbled and fell to the floor on his back in stunned disbelief as Petra launched herself at him once more.
The blade sliced into his shoulder, barely missing his neck, before Ian lifted his knees in time to take Petra’s weight and knock her to one side. As she spilled to the floor, Ian instantly rolled in the other direction until he found his footing.
“You’re weak,” Petra spat. “Like all men.”
“And you’re fucking nuts.”
Petra was breathing heavily, the knife still clutched in her hand. She began to move backward, her eyes never leaving Ian, but with every step she moved closer to Jeannie, trapped and terrified in the chair.
Ian could read the death sentence in Petra’s face before she made the move. He was running full bore as the knife began to rise in preparation for its fatal plunge into Jeannie’s beating chest, but in the split-second before he reached her, Petra pivoted.
It was an expertly timed move that Ian didn’t see coming.
The sharp blade plunged deep into his abdomen and Petra’s gleaming look of triumph widened as he collapsed to his knees before her.
“Do you know the first thing a doctor would tell you about a wound such as this?” Petra didn’t wait for an answer. “Don’t pull out the knife.”
Yanking the knife from his belly, Petra lifted it over her head. She aimed its tip for the top of his shoulder so that the blade would plunge straight to his heart in a matador’s coup de grâce.
“Kiss your daughter for me.”
Her final taunt ignited a hidden powder keg in the darkest reaches of Ian’s mind and he launched himself skyward so that the top of his head cracked the bottom of her chin. Petra staggered backward and dropped the knife as her hands clutched at her mouth. Blood gushed from between her lips and she spat out a chunk of severed tongue. Her eyes filled with tears of shock and pain as Ian swayed in front of her.
“You’re already dead,” she mumbled through a mouthful of blood.
“That makes two of us.”
Glass shattered outward behind Petra as the door that led to the garden patio dissolved into a million pieces, and the crack of a gunshot made both of them duck.
Ian turned to look behind him and saw Linda leaning awkwardly against the doorframe with a small revolver held tight in a two-fisted grip.
She fired again, but Petra had already decided the odds were no longer in her favor. When Ian spun back around, he saw her vanish through the shattered doorway and turn toward the street.
He didn’t know how far he’d get before he bled out, but Ian also knew that he couldn’t let it end this way.
Staggering after her, Ian left a blood trail behind as he tried to hold the knife wound closed with his hands. When he rounded the house, he saw Petra nearing the edge of the driveway, aiming for her SUV and escape.
Ian’s vehicle was closer.
He slid into the Jaguar and punched the ignition. The engine roared as he threw it into reverse and floored the gas pedal. Twisting his head to see out the rear window caused his wound to tear and his ribs to howl, but the speed at which the car gained on the woman responsible for his daughter’s death kept him focused.
Running down the middle of the road, Petra turned at the howl of the approaching car. Her jaw dropped in surprise as the trunk took out her legs and s
ent her flying over top of the low roof. Instantly, Ian twisted forward in his seat again and slammed on the brakes. When Petra hit the ground, sharp white shinbone pierced her flesh. Another compound fracture jutted from the top of her collar at a gruesome angle, but the shock couldn’t dull the still-burning look of victory in her eyes.
Accompanied by sirens, flashing red and blue lights suddenly filled the mouth of the dark cul-de-sac. While in the passenger footwell, Ian’s phone began to ring.
The signs were clear. It was over.
Only it wasn’t.
Ian jammed the transmission into Drive and pressed his left foot against the brake and his right on the gas. The rear tires squealed and smoked before Ian lifted his foot off the brake and let the Jaguar tear loose.
There wasn’t enough time to scream.
Immediately after impact, Ian screeched to a halt and tumbled out of the car. He staggered over to the broken mound of flesh in the middle of the road and sank to his knees. Petra looked up at him and tried to speak, but she couldn’t find the breath to make her voice box work.
Ian found he had nothing more to say either. Instead, he sat down beside her and watched the fear in her eyes grow in intensity before she finally died.
34
Waking up in the hospital, Ian was surprised to find he wasn’t handcuffed to the bedrail. He was also surprised to find the visitor’s chair beside him occupied by the last person he expected.
“You’re awake,” said Helena.
Ian tried to sit up, but his body erupted in pain from so many areas that he didn’t know which part felt worse.
“Don’t move,” Helena added.
“Now you tell me.”
Helena placed a small plastic switch on the end of a white cord in his hand. When he pressed the top button, the head of the bed began to rise into a sitting position. Even with mechanical intervention, it still hurt.
“How are you feeling?” Helena asked.
“Like I got hit by a truck … then run over by a steamroller … and then hit by a second truck.”
The Fear in Her Eyes Page 21