“Do you know which direction he went to search for Addie? Is he with other rescuers who are looking?”
She shook her head. “I’m not sure. But he should be back soon. He always makes sure I’m settled before it gets too dark.”
Kat lifted her chin toward the photographs on the back wall, forgetting Joleen probably couldn’t see. “Those are great pictures of Scott along the back wall. Who took them?”
“Oh, I did. Before my eyes started going bad.”
“You were a photographer?”
“Of sorts. Scott’s really the one who knows cameras. He’s taken pictures for lots of people around town, some of the best families. You know the Dillingers?”
“I actually work with Ricki Dillinger.”
“Ira’s daughter? Well, Scott took some pictures for Ira of the Dillinger family a number of years back,” she said proudly.
Kat remembered the photograph in Ira’s office with him and all of his children. She would have to ask Ricki about it.
“Would you like to come in for an iced tea?” Joleen invited. “Scott should be back any minute.”
“You know, I think I’ll have to pass this time, but thank you.”
“Oh, there he is now,” she said, cocking her head.
Kat faintly heard an approaching engine. Joleen’s superior hearing had picked it up sooner than she had. Panic spread just beneath her skin. Why hadn’t Blair alerted her that Scott had passed by him?
Her purse was slung over her right shoulder. She stuck her hand inside and pulled out her cell. No message. Had something happened to Blair?
“I may have to take a rain check,” she started to say.
“Nonsense. He’ll want to talk to you too. Wouldn’t it be marvelous if he found that poor girl?”
Kat had turned around and looked back the way she’d come. Nothing but the wildflowers and blue sky that was just starting to darken. Then she realized the truck was coming from a different direction. The woods. Forest Service land.
The hunting shack.
She was still holding her cell phone, and she glanced down at it, looking for Blair’s number. Favorites. No, she hadn’t put Blair there yet. But he was in Recents. She pushed the button for his number as the truck roared right up to her, so close that she jumped back in alarm. Joleen peered out from the doorway sightlessly. Scott leapt out of his truck and slung a rifle to his shoulder in one smooth motion. “Drop it,” he said, leveling the rifle directly at her.
“Scott?” Joleen asked, sounding afraid.
In a soft voice, he said, “Joleen, honey. Go back in and get both Ms. Starr and me a cold lemonade. Can you do that?”
“Did you park right by the porch?” she asked.
“Sure did. Gotta haul some equipment out of the back.”
Kat could see the bed of his truck was empty.
“Go on, then,” he said, a smile in his voice. “We’re both dying of thirst.”
Chapter 28
Joleen blinked worriedly in Scott’s general direction, then said, “Um . . . okay. Ms. Starr? You want that lemonade, then?”
Massey’s finger tightened almost imperceptibly on the trigger. Kat felt a line of sweat trickle down her back. She had a gun inside her purse, but there was no way to reach for it with the rifle’s muzzle pointed at her.
“Drop it,” Scott mouthed this time, staring at her.
The phone slipped from her fingers and landed in the dust with a tiny thunk.
“Ms. Starr?” Joleen asked.
“Lemonade would be fine,” Kat told her in a surprisingly strong voice.
“Go on then, honey.” Scott shooed his wife.
Joleen disappeared, and immediately Scott strode toward Kat, whose brain was sizzling with one word: run. But that barrel stared at her, a round, black eye, and she stayed stock-still. The man was a hunter and desperate. She didn’t doubt he would shoot her cold and claim an accident, and she couldn’t risk it. Not now. Her thoughts were tumbling, one after another in the space of a nanosecond. I’m pregnant. I have a chance for a future with Blair. I love him. I cannot die now. I have to live. For the baby, for Blair . . .
When he reached her, he dropped the rifle and grabbed her neck with both hands. Her knee shot up, but he twisted away, expecting the move. She grabbed at him, reaching for his face. She’d gouge his eyes out if she could. But he shook her like a rag-doll, and pinpoints of light formed behind her eyes. His hands tightened cruelly. Air. She needed air. Her fingers scrabbled and dug at his, wrapped hard around her throat. She gasped and fought as he stomped hard on her cell phone over and over again, effectively killing it.
“You were the one with the screwdriver,” he whispered in her ear, his breath hot and fetid.
The trees . . . the wildflowers . . . the colors darkened and faded, and she was gone.
*
Blair snatched up his cell phone. Katrina! He clicked on.
“Hey, there. You okay?”
No answer. A thumping sound and . . . strangled breathing?
Then nothing.
A pocket dial?
Hell no.
He put the truck in gear and turned down the Massey drive. He tried calling Kat back, but the phone went straight to voice mail. He didn’t want to piss her off and crash her party, but he didn’t like any part of this.
If he was barreling in where he wasn’t wanted, so be it. It wouldn’t be the first time.
*
Kat woke to a raw throat and a sense of movement. She was in a vehicle, bouncing hard. She opened her eyes to a scene of passing trees and then a small clearing with a small building on one edge, its roof obscured by a canopy of fir boughs. Her hands were caught behind her back, so tight she was losing feeling. Massey . . . the rifle . . . you were the one with the screwdriver ...
“. . . no, honey, I’ll be back soon,” he was saying. “Ms. Starr remembered she had a previous engagement. See ya before the sun goes down.”
He dropped something into the side pocket of his door. His cell phone, she figured. She started to turn her head but stopped herself, sliding her eyes instead.
But he was watching for her. “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. “Even though you hurt me.” He turned his hand so she could see the mark she’d left with the screwdriver fifteen years earlier, a small scar. He clucked his tongue. “You and your friends showing off what God gave you that night . . . I knew what I had to do.”
“You raped Ruth,” Kat tried, her voice a rasp.
“Made a woman of her,” he corrected. “She wanted it. You all want it. You just like to pretend you don’t.”
“That’s what you told Courtney? And Rachel? And Erin, before she got away from you . . . ?”
His face darkened. “You and Ruthie met with her,” he growled. “And look what happened. She’s going to die too.”
“She’s going to live. And she’s going to finger you.”
He jerked the truck to a stop beside the shack. She realized the boughs would make it difficult to see. Where were they? She had the sense she hadn’t been out that long, so maybe they weren’t on Forest Service land at all. No wonder no one had found them. “This is somewhere on your property,” she said.