“You tipped him off!” Michael shouted.
The woman cowered at his shout, avoiding looking at Michael’s angry red face. He wanted to shake her. Shake her until she bruised her brain.
Michael and Sam had returned to the compound and cornered Linda/Lila again. Detective Lusco had told him the killer had vanished from the address Linda had given them. And Lacey was missing from the same scene.
Where the fuck had Harper been?
Michael had trusted the man to stick by her. He wouldn’t have left the city if he’d known Harper couldn’t take care of her.
Michael didn’t know whom he was madder at. The trembling woman in front of him or that former pretty-boy cop. Or the bumbling state detectives. Or Lacey for putting herself in danger. He should have shipped her off to Thailand or Norway. Anywhere.
Sam pulled at his arm, urging him to take it easy on the mother of the killers. He glanced at Sam’s face, her blue eyes frowning at Lila. Sam was cool and collected. He wanted to shake off her grip, but calmness flowed through her hand and into his chest. He took a deep breath and exhaled.
Sam didn’t know what he was going through. He hadn’t explained his relationship with Lacey. He didn’t know how to describe it. She was ex-lover and best friend all rolled into one.
“You called him,” Sam stated.
The woman nodded, keeping her eyes away from Michael’s burning green gaze.
“Why?”
She shrugged, glancing hopefully at Sam, and Michael remembered Sam had been more effective with the woman the first time. “He’s my son.”
Her voice was nearly inaudible, but her statement was firm.
“Where is he now?” Sam asked.
No answer.
Michael exploded. “Did you know he’s killing people? Murdering them in some of the sickest ways I’ve ever seen! And now he’s got someone I love!” He took two threatening steps, his calmness gone, his voice rising. “If something happens to her because you’re too fucking scared to...”
“Michael!” Sam pulled him back, stepping in front of him, her back against his chest. “Lila. Where else would your son go to hide? Where could he hold someone without the neighbors noticing?” Fury sounded in her voice, but Sam kept control.
Michael held his breath, every nerve rattled. If Sam hadn’t been here, he didn’t think the old woman would still be breathing.
Lila looked at Sam, pretending Michael wasn’t in the room. Her dead, empty eyes had flashed briefly when Sam asked about neighbors.
Michael knew she’d thought of something. “Where, Lila?” he growled.
She licked nervous lips. “You could try an old hunting cabin he’s got. I’ve never been there but I kinda know where it is.”
Was she fucking with them again? “That’s the only place you can think of?”
Her chin dropped. “It’s the only one that’s kind of isolated. You know he likes to...”
“He likes to do what?” Michael snapped, pulling out his cell.
“Out there he likes to practice with the weapons he collects.”
Michael’s fingers stopped before he could dial. “What kind of weapons?”
The woman stared at the floor and Michael had to lean close to hear her. “Anything military or unusual. Old grenades, guns, knives. And he makes his own explosives.”
“Like pipe bombs? Homemade stuff?” Sam sharply sucked in her breath.
The woman looked up and an odd look flashed in her eyes like an unpleasant memory. “Sometimes. He likes to make traps. Set up things to trigger them.”
“Dear Lord.” Sam squeezed her eyes shut and placed a hand on Michael’s arm.
“Shit.” Michael hit his speed dial.
Lacey stared at the familiar outline in the dim light. She’d seen him before. It was the helpful neighbor in the Molalla neighborhood who turned out to be a killer. Bobby DeCosta.
“Kelly. It’s good to see you again. It’s been a long time.” His voice was disinterested but polite, like he’d bumped into a dull acquaintance.
Lacey turned to stare at her friend. Her two biggest suspicions were right. DeCosta and Kelly knew each other. And Kelly had left Chris and her daughter of her own free will.
Not kidnapped.
Kelly’s lips moved silently as Lacey looked at her. Trust me.
Lacey’s lips opened to ask a question, but turned into a gasp of shock as Kelly shoved her forward, sending Lacey hurtling toward the dirt floor and slamming into DeCosta’s legs. An explosion of light splintered in her brain as her knees and wrists caught her weight. She couldn’t breathe.
“Oww! Fucking bitch!” The man shouted.
Kelly had swung her oversize flashlight like a tennis racquet at DeCosta’s head, catching his temple as he tripped over Lacey. He fell and Kelly vanished out the door.
DeCosta scrambled to his feet, stepping on Lacey’s hair and shoulder. He took three angry steps after Kelly, froze and turned to see Lacey thrashing on the floor for breath. “Oh, no you don’t.” He strode forward and kicked her in the ribs with a heavy boot, tossing her onto her side and slamming her bruised head again. She felt the bile rush up her throat and she vomited on the floor.
“Jesus Christ!” He’d stepped up for another kick but stopped as vomit spread toward his boots. Disgusted, he kicked at her head. She saw the boot coming and twisted away to catch it on the back of her skull. Knifelike pains drove through her waves of nausea. He swore at her again and flew out the door. Lacey heard the bolt slam into place.
She descended into blessed numbing darkness.
The cops weren’t going to let him near the scene. Jack knew this. Making a snap decision, he told Alex to take a sharp right turn and hung on as the tires spun on the slick pavement. Jack had patrolled this town and its outskirts. A faint memory of back roads was coming to him. He’d find a different way in to the cabin, avoiding the cops. His cell rang.
“What?” He hit the speakerphone again, temper in his voice.
“Harper?” The connection was shitty.
“Who the fuck is this?” It wasn’t Callahan or Lusco.
“Brody. What the hell is going on out there? Where’s Lacey?”
“I don’t know,” Jack snapped back. “He’s got her holed up somewhere. We’re on our way.”
There was a long pause. “You’re going too? You’re with the police?”
“Not exactly.”
“Look,” said Michael. “I’ll tell you the same thing I just told Callahan. The creep’s mom says he likes his toys. Any kind of gun or knife, or things that create fire. And he likes to set traps, deadly explosive ones. You could be walking into a war zone. You’ve got to be careful. The mom said he spends lots of time up there. Months at a stretch. There’s no telling what kind of shit he’s got rigged up in the place.”
Alex suddenly pulled over and hit the brakes on the deserted dirt road. The two friends stared at each other, Michael’s words sinking in. They couldn’t go rushing into an unknown situation without thinking it through. And clear thinking was at the bottom of Jack’s list of abilities right this second. He felt Lacey fade away from him. His chances of getting her back were dwindling rapidly.
The place might be booby-trapped?
Her legs hurt. The rough jolting of her feet bouncing over the ground pulled Lacey out of her oblivion. Someone was dragging her with hands under her armpits.
“Kelly?”
A laugh barked at her tentative question. “Your friend’s gone. Some good friend, taking off and leaving you behind.”
DeCosta still had her. The realization smothered Lacey, cutting off her breath, and she nearly wept. Kelly had left. Would she get to the police in time? No one else knew where DeCosta had taken Lacey. She was alone. Alone with him. What was he going to do to her?
The empty eyes of Suzanne’s skull floated through her mind, those sad abandoned bones. Would someone stumble across her own bones one day? Lay her out on a blue tarp to try to reassemble? Get frustrated because so many pieces were missing?
At least someone who had loved her had identified Suzanne. Tears tracked down Lacey’s face as she remembered the video of Suzanne. And her baby.
“Where’s the baby?” Her words shook.
“What baby?” DeCosta dragged her into the main room of the cabin, backing toward the fireplace.
“The baby. Suzanne’s baby.” He turned her to the fire and she stared at the perky crackling flames. She nearly cried again at the blessed warmth on her face.
“Ohh. That baby. She’s not a baby anymore.” He grunted, maneuvering her beside the fireplace with her back to the wall. Lacey took her first good look at the man who’d kidnapped her. He was slender but his arms were strong. She had an impression of a lot of trim muscle hiding under his jacket. His eyes were pale, pale blue, striking with his dark hair. Those eyes had been helpful and kind back at the roadblock, but now they were angry, full of hatred and frustration. Hints of Dave DeCosta floated about his face, but Lacey would have never pegged them as brothers if she hadn’t known. This man clashed with her memory of a straggly-haired, skinny teenager who’d never lifted his head during the trial.
She? The baby had been a girl? An image of a frilly toddler danced before Lacey’s eyes. Was she blonde and beautiful like her mother?
“She’s in a good home,” Bobby sneered.
“Where? Where is she? Who has her?”
“At least I thought it was a good home. I’m not so sure anymore. The mother seems to be having some issues.” He fastened new ropes in complicated knots at her ankles to an iron ring in the floor. Lacey stared at the ring. It looked like something a horse would’ve been tied to a hundred years ago. Her vision scooted to the left. There was another ring in the floor three feet away. Then another and another.
They were for restraining people.
Oh, dear Lord. What’d gone on here?
She closed her eyes, fighting against the horrid pictures that swarmed her mind. What’d he just say? The mother?
“What’s wrong with the mother?” She needed to keep her mind off the rings.
Bobby frowned as he stepped away and poked at his fire, tossing another fresh piece of cut wood on the flames. “Well, to start with, she just nailed me in the head with a flashlight.”
Kelly? Kelly had the little girl? Lacey gasped softly.
Jessica.
Jessica was Suzanne’s daughter.
Now she saw it. The beautiful girl had Suzanne’s eyes. Had it been instinct that Lacey loved her so much? She’d adored Jessica from the first time she’d seen her.
Did Kelly know who the little girl was?
Of course she did.
Lacey sagged against the rough wall of the cabin. Relief and despair swamping her feelings at the same time. The little girl had been safe all this time.
Why would Kelly do it? And how could her husband, Chris, go along with it?
Chris had to know where Jessica had come from. Lacey squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember that jumbled year after Suzanne had disappeared. It was hard to keep things straight. Lacey had been suffering with depression and was often heavily medicated. She’d left school for a term, avoided her friends. And Kelly and Chris had broken up.
And got back together many months later.
The perfect couple had gone through a difficult time. Kelly had headed to the East Coast to put some space between them. She’d returned with an infant. Jessica.
Chris must have assumed Jessica was his. And Kelly’s.
But there were still too many unanswered questions.
She opened her eyes. He was smiling, studying her closely, enjoying her confusion and watching the revelations change her expressions. His pale gaze seemed to look right into her ripped-up heart.
“Did Kelly know? Did she know about Suzanne? About what you did to her?”
His face closed off. He stood, kicked at her tied ankles and strode out of the main room, slamming the door behind him.
Lacey cringed as she stared at the fire, the jabbing bursts of pain from her ankles shooting up her legs. Her wrists throbbed in her lap, still tied with their original swollen knots. The only light in the room came from the fire, casting a warm orange and golden glow. She sucked in a shuddering breath and tried to focus.
Now what?
Now what, thought Mason.
One hundred yards away through the dark night, dense evergreens, and boulders bigger than cars, a killer was holding Dr. Campbell.
They had to get her out of there before DeCosta killed her. If he hadn’t already.
Mason pulled his coat tighter against the icy snow pellets and focused the conversations around him. Under the generator-powered floodlights, he stared at the rough map spread on a truck hood. Captain Pattison from county SWAT drew a finger across the map as he talked. Pattison was a former marine, always prepared for whatever situation the police threw his unit’s way. Satellite imagery showing the terrain in the rough hills was being passed around in the small group of body-armored men as they listened to Pattison. In the dark and snow, the surrounding area looked completely different. Mason glanced at it, shook his head, and passed it on. Pattison’s own precise sketch was more helpful. It showed the cabin, the grounds around it, and three circled Xs where snipers with night vision trained their rifles on the small building.
“The negotiators will work first. See if we can settle this without going in.” Pattison shook his head. “I wish I knew what was inside that place. He’s a weapons freak, you say?”
Mason nodded silently. A growing sense of lack of control swirled in his chest like something was about to go wrong. Very wrong.
“Likes explosives too,” added Ray.
“Shit!” Pattison eyed his men. “Jensen’s not here yet? No one else has explosives experience, right?” Negative mutters went round the group.
“Seen Harper?” Mason spoke low to Ray as he scanned the area, squinting against the bright lights, trying to see into the dark.
“Who?” Pattison stopped his lecture with a frown.
Crap. Mason pressed his lips together. “Civilian. Dr. Campbell’s his girlfriend.”
“And he knows about this place? You told him?” Pattison straightened, snarling as he did his own scan of the area.
“Not like that,” Mason grumbled. “Former cop. Our guy snatched Dr. Campbell out from under his nose. I know he’s gonna show here somewhere. Earlier on the phone our killer offered to trade his hostage for Harper.”
“What? You just decided to tell me this now?” Pattison looked ready to use his weapon on Mason. “Do the negotiators know about that?”