Face Off (The Evelyn Talbot Chronicles #3)
Brenda Novak
To Lee Ann Capehart, a member of my online book group and one of my most loyal readers. Thanks for the enthusiasm you have shown for my work over the years. It’s been such a pleasure knowing you!
I believe the only way to reform people is to kill them.
—Carl Panzram, American serial killer, rapist, arsonist
PROLOGUE
Anchorage, Alaska …
The cellar was almost ready. It’d taken months to put in the lighting, the plumbing, the Sheetrock and the flooring and to get it all soundproofed. Jasper Moore, aka Andy Smith, could’ve had it done in a matter of weeks had he hired a contractor, but he wasn’t that foolish. No one could know about what he’d created. He’d bought the materials in small batches from three different stores, just to mix things up, and he’d done the work himself in the hours he was off from the prison.
He tested the restraints he’d ordered from a bondage site on the Web. He’d cemented the iron rings into the floor only yesterday and didn’t think they were fully secure. He’d give the concrete another week to cure. Meanwhile, he’d finish ordering the rest of the torture devices that appealed to him. Shit like that was so much more accessible these days. God, he loved the Internet.
He stood at the foot of the stairs, giving what he’d created a final approving glance. Yep, he’d thought of every thing. He’d even put a drain in the floor so he could wash blood and other bodily fluids down with a simple garden hose. Because he’d been married most of the past twenty years—he’d needed the income of a wife, since he didn’t care to work himself—he’d never had a playground like this before. He’d always had to find an abandoned shack, trailer or barn where he could keep his victims and then worry that they might be discovered.
This was going to be so much better. He’d have constant access, complete privacy.
The excitement and awareness—the raw lust—he felt when he thought of Evelyn Talbot rose inside him, stronger and more powerful than ever.
He’d put in the time, done the work. He was almost ready to make his move.
Now that he had a place for her, a place no one knew existed, he’d be able to keep her indefinitely.
1
The weather was turning.
Sierra Yerbowitz stood at the window of the small, rustic cabin she’d rented with her brother and his two friends and felt her stomach muscles tighten as she watched a sea of dark clouds roll toward her. She’d always wanted to visit Alaska, had wondered what the last frontier was like. With climate change and population growth, she knew it wouldn’t remain unspoiled forever. Because it was vastly different from Louisiana, where she and her family lived, it intrigued her. So when her brother offered to take her on the hunting trip he’d been planning for ages, she’d readily agreed.
She would’ve preferred visiting in the summer, when daylight lasted longer and bad weather wasn’t much of an issue. But Leland and his friends Peter and Ted were each determined to bag a moose, and their permits specified that they could hunt only from September 15 to October 15. They’d hoped to come in September, but a conflict in schedules left them with no other option than to take the trip after October 8.
“Where are you?” she muttered, searching for any sign of the men driving through the trees beyond the snow that covered the ground immediately surrounding her. Surely Leland and his friends had spotted the clouds and were heading back. They’d taken the Ford Expedition they’d rented in Anchorage, along with a trailer carrying two ATVs, down a dirt road to a river. Sierra couldn’t remember the name of the river because there were rivers everywhere in Alaska and she hadn’t been paying attention when they were plotting their route. None of it pertained to her, since she wasn’t interested in hunting. All she knew was that they planned to branch out from the SUV and go wherever the moose scat or tracks led them.
She hoped they hadn’t wandered too far from their staging area. If so, it could take a long time to get back, and by then the storm would be upon them.…
She checked her watch. Noon. Her brother had said they’d return at four, which had sounded early when he’d mentioned it that morning. Now she feared it wouldn’t be early enough.
“Come on, Leland.” It would be like her brother to discount the weather, push his luck. He’d always been a risk taker and, after coming so far and going to so much expense, he wouldn’t give up easily. They hadn’t gotten a bull yet, and this was their last chance. First thing tomorrow, they had to leave for Juneau so they could see other parts of the state before going home.
Alaska could be unpredictable. She’d read that in all the literature. What if Leland and his friends got turned around and couldn’t make their way back to the truck? What if they got separated trying?
If they didn’t return, she couldn’t even call for help. There was no cell service in this area, no phone service at all. And they’d taken the only vehicle, so she didn’t have a car. Hilltop, the closest town—not that a few squat buildings and five hundred people constituted much of a town—wasn’t far as the crow flew. But she’d have to use the roads, which made the trip significantly longer. She wouldn’t be able to walk that distance even if it wasn’t storming.
Determined not to let herself get too worked up, she moved away from the window. They’d been at the cabin for three days and were low on firewood. She needed to figure out how to get more from the shed behind the cabin, so she could be prepared, if necessary. But when Leland had gone out last night to do just that, he’d come back empty-handed. He’d said the combination they’d been given wouldn’t open the lock, which hadn’t been good news. The cabin had a generator for lights and hot water, but the wood-burning stove served as the only source of heat.
Still, they hadn’t been too worried. They were leaving soon and had a few sticks they could use to get by. They’d thought they could make it. But a storm changed everything. They could get snowed in, be stranded for days.…
Sierra yanked on her heavy coat, shoved her feet into her boots and, when she left the cabin, closed the door behind her to preserve what heat there was before trudging across an icy bank of snow that rested in the shade of a thick stand of western hemlock and spruce trees. She hoped to get into that shed before the wind blowing at her back grew any stronger and the snow began to fall. Nervous as she was about being alone in this storm and having her brother and his friends out in the open, she’d feel a lot better if she at least had some firewood.
The lock was a simple padlock. She tried the combination provided by the rental company to no avail, proving Leland had been right.
Had the rental company accidentally transposed two digits?
She tried different options, stood there for twenty minutes, struggling to find the right combination.
Nothing worked.
“Damn it!” she cried, but wasn’t willing to give up.
She supposed the combination could be written somewhere as a fail-safe. They’d already looked inside, but now she searched outside, too—on the shed itself, under the rocks nearby in case there was a note, on the tiny back porch of the cabin—hoping to discover it tacked up somewhere.
No luck.