“Why?” she managed to ask. Her mouth was dry. She could taste metal. She wasn’t sure if he could even hear her. But it stopped him.
“I just wanted to scare those kids,” he said, looking at her as he dug inside a tool kit he’d found in the back of the SUV. “They kept snooping around the field house. I told Amanda to stay the fuck away.”
So it had been Mike Griffin that night with a laser stun gun.
“I’ve got a sweet deal here. I’m not about to lose it.”
“They’ll look for me,” she said and realized immediately how lame it sounded.
“Twenty thousand acres of valleys and hills and all covered with trees and thick brush. This time of year, pine needles dropping, leaves dropping over everything. In less than a month there’ll be snow. They might look”—he stopped, squinted because she was no longer in the halo of the parking lights, and tried to meet her eyes—“but they won’t find you.”
In that instant, Maggie realized this wasn’t a man to reason with. She’d met killers face-to-face before. She recognized that empty, hollowed-out stare. When they looked at you like you were an object to be removed—an object and not a person—it was already too late.
Griffin put one knee up onto the tailgate and half climbed into the back of the SUV, pulling out shovel, tarp, and rope for his readjusted plan. Easier to bury tarp and ropes than his clothes. His back was slightly turned to her. He didn’t need to worry about her running away when she had just proven she couldn’t even protect her shoulder from hitting the ground.
But that thump must have jolted more than just her collarbone. She could feel her feet. She could feel her hands and her fingers. And they actually worked when she wanted them to flex and move.
Griffin clanked around in the back of his SUV. He didn’t have to worry about sounds out here, either. Hank and the rest of the forest rangers were miles away. Maggie used his noise to cover her scuffs and intakes of breaths. She bit her lower lip to stop any groans.
Her mind raced. She’d never be able to take him down. Not with her wrists tied. Not with her muscles weak and her skull spinning. The keys were in his pocket but she’d never be able to get them and make it into the SUV without him being on top of her. She couldn’t even swing the shovel at him.
She saw him crawl deeper inside the back of the SUV. Then she did the only thing she could. She took a deep breath and rolled over the edge of the ridge.
CHAPTER 61
NEBRASKA
“This is where you get out, O’Dell.”
Griffin grabbed Maggie’s ankles and started to pull.
She couldn’t stop him. Her feet wouldn’t listen to her head telling them to kick. She could barely feel his fingers grabbing her around the ankles. With her wrists tied she couldn’t stop him and she couldn’t break the two-foot fall from the tailgate to the ground.
She landed hard on her right shoulder, hard enough that she thought she must have dislocated it. A fresh wave of pain spiked through her upper body. Better that she came down on her shoulder than her head. The pain didn’t subside and she immediately thought, maybe not better. A tingling sensation spread all the way down to her toes.
He obviously didn’t care how banged up she got now. He’d simply bury any mess he made. He dragged her all the way to the edge of the ridge. She could see only far enough in the dark to know it was a steep drop-off. She remembered climbing down to get to the crime scene. One wrong step and you’d fall until you hit a tree. He left her within a foot of tumbling over. It didn’t matter. There would be no crime-scene techs, no coroner, not even the county attorney to figure out all the marks on her body, because her body would never be found.
Now he didn’t look pleased that she couldn’t stand up. He’d done too good of a job with the Taser. She saw him looking around, devising a new strategy, glancing at his clothing. He went back to the SUV, keeping an eye on her as he looked into the back of the vehicle. He was big enough, strong enough to carry her. But that was obviously not what he wanted to do. He hadn’t dressed for the occasion. Maybe he’d been in a hurry. He didn’t want to risk getting anything from her on his clothing.
Had he heard about her visit with Amanda? Is that what pushed him to do this?
“Why?” she managed to ask. Her mouth was dry. She could taste metal. She wasn’t sure if he could even hear her. But it stopped him.
“I just wanted to scare those kids,” he said, looking at her as he dug inside a tool kit he’d found in the back of the SUV. “They kept snooping around the field house. I told Amanda to stay the fuck away.”
So it had been Mike Griffin that night with a laser stun gun.
“I’ve got a sweet deal here. I’m not about to lose it.”