CHAPTER EIGHT
Mathews couldn’t hold still. He constantly fidgeted behind her as she drove, but kept the muzzle of the gun crammed in her ear the entire time. It hurt. It was one thing to know someone had a gun to her head and another to feel the weapon digging in just an inch from her brain. Did he have his finger on the trigger? Sweat rolled down her back. Maybe she didn’t want to know.
He kept up a continual rant. “Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t speed. Don’t go so slow. Don’t even think of causing an accident. Don’t even think of trying to leap out.”
She’d be lucky to keep the car on the road. She could form only one coherent thought as her fingers strangled the steering wheel. Will he kill me?
She licked her lips. “What do you want? If it’s money, I’ll see what I can do for you.” She had no plans to give this killer a dime, but she knew she needed to start making friends fast. Her words were hoarse, and it hurt to speak with his forearm pressed against the front of her throat.
“Shut up,” he ordered. He grasped a handful of her hair in his fist and pulled her back against the seat. She couldn’t turn her head. “I don’t want money.”
She waited thirty seconds. He wants to talk. He just doesn’t know it. “Most people want money,” she stated. “I imagine you don’t make much in a tiny town like this.”
He snorted. “We don’t make crap.”
She let another long pause go by. “What happened with Will?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
Okay. She squinted in the dark. Few streetlights lit the coastal roads. She kept the car moving at a steady speed, hoping an opportunity would present itself. Someone to see her, somewhere to get away, something.
If it didn’t, she would have to create her own luck. This bastard wouldn’t dump her in a hot tub.
Why did he have to be so big?
She’d been in this situation before. Vulnerable and with a killer at her back. But Mathews was twice the size of the psycho last winter. Overpowering him wasn’t an option.
She’d have to run. But first, get him comfortable.
“What’s your first name, Mathews? I’ve never heard Terry say it,” she asked softly.
He paused, as if examining her question from all angles and finally replied. “Boyd.”
She glanced at him in the rearview mirror, his face lit in an odd way by the dashboard lights. He suddenly looked very young. What had driven him to kill?
“Did you kill both of them?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it. Keep driving.”
She swallowed hard. At least he hadn’t yelled at her again. That was an improvement. A road sign told her there were two more miles until the turnoff to the hotel’s road.
“I saw your face when you saw Patty by the hot tub. You were crushed.” Lacey glanced at him again in the mirror. A thought struck her. “Did you love her?”
“Shut up! You don’t know anything!”
I struck a nerve. A big one.
They were getting closer to the hotel. He’d killed Patty. Lacey knew it. She remembered Dr. Pillai’s comment about the size of the handprints on Patty’s neck. She glanced in the mirror at Mathews’s hand on the gun crammed in her ear. His huge hand.
She did a double take. And his hand was scratched.
Will Marino had been killed before Patty. Why?
“What did Will do, Mathews? Was he abusing Patty? Were you trying to help her?” Her mind raced to offer him a way out. Make him believe that people might think he was trying to protect Patty.
Mathews ground his teeth, the sound grating in Lacey’s ears. “She said she hated him. She couldn’t move on with her life because he was always there, holding her back. She couldn’t have a relationship or move out of the house because they were legally tied together in so many ways.”
Sympathize. “That sounds like a no-win situation.”
“I thought it would make it better. Everyone knew Will was depressed and messed-up since losing his job. No one would blink twice if he killed himself. And Patty would be free to start a new life.”
With him.
“Mathews?” Terry’s voice came through the radio. “Where are you? Is Lacey with you?”
Mathews lunged over the seat and punched the “off” button. “Asshole.”
Lacey wanted to cry. At least Terry and Jack would know something was wrong. Had they figured out Mathews was the killer they’d been searching for?
Please, please, have GPS tracking on this vehicle.
“Terry’s a good guy,” she said. “He had nothing but praise for the job you do. Even when you were puking in the bushes up at the cabin.”
Mathews had no comment.
Lacey turned onto the road to the hotel. One more winding mile. Was it time to make her own luck?
Mathews gave a fresh yank on her hair, bringing tears to her eyes. “Don’t get any ideas.” The gun ground in her ear again. The car pulled to the right, and she corrected as he yelled, “Stay on the road!”
She drove as slow as she dared, and the hotel lights came into view. “Why here?”
He snickered and said nothing.
They drove in silence until she was a hundred feet from the entrance. Part of her wanted to put the cop car through the front door. But who would help her? Jessica at the front desk?
“Drive over there. Park by the trailhead.” He gestured to the far end of the parking lot, near the path that led up to the gazebo on the bluff.
Oh Lord. No.