“You’re smart,” he said. “Too smart.”
She reached around for the handle, trying to shove open the door. She managed, but he was laughing as he came around from the driver’s side and yanked her out the rest of the way, tossing her onto the ground. Her head reeled. He’d damn near killed her, she thought dizzily, cutting off her air. He grabbed whatever held her hands—a rope?—and dragged her toward the shack. She kicked and fought, but he cuffed the side of her head, and she saw stars.
He left her to insert a key in the padlock on the door. She tried to crawl away, but he picked her up like she was a rag doll and hauled her over his shoulder. Someone gasped, and Kat focused to see a naked and dirty Addie Donovan sitting up on a cot, handcuffed to a long chain that extended from a metal ring on the wall behind the cot.
Oh God.
He grabbed Kat and cut her loose from her bonds. Baling twine, she saw. Then he picked her up once more as if she weighed nothing and carried her to the wall where the head of the cot stood. A thick metal ring was nailed halfway down its length, near the ceiling, and it was strung through with barbed wire. Rocking D wire, she realized. Head aching, she kicked at him and connected with flesh. His grunt of surprise brought her a brief flash of satisfaction, then he was standing her against the wall, grabbing her flailing fists, wrapping them in the barbed wire until her arms were stretched over her head. Her legs were free, and she kicked again, but this time he easily sidestepped her. The barbs bit into the flesh at her wrists, and she had to stand on tiptoe to keep them from hurting her.
“You asked for this, bitch. Remember that. You always get what you ask for, right, Addie?”
“Addie,” Kat said, turning to look at the frightened girl who cowered against the wall. Her eyes were large and bruised.
“Right?” he demanded of her, leaving Kat for a moment to stomp closer to her.
“Right, Lover,” she whispered.
“Don’t talk to her,” Massey warned, glaring at the girl who looked away from Kat and crossed her arms over her bare breasts in embarrassment.
He grabbed one of Kat’s legs, and she tried kicking him with the other, but then she was yanked down on the barbs at her wrist. She yelped in pain before she bit off the sound, hanging from the wire. He lashed her leg to the wooden one at the head of Addie’s cot. She wriggled as best she could, but he caught her other leg and lashed it to a hook on the far side. She felt panic rise inside her. She hung before him, the pain at her wrists excruciating.
Then he stood back, looked at her, and smiled. “You’ve got the place of honor,” he said. “Right, Addie?”
“Right, Lover,” she whispered, her eyes downcast. Kat wanted to weep for her. She was so broken.
“Addie here doesn’t know how to please a man. She’s got a lot to learn. But you know what to do, don’t you, Katrina? All of you out there, swimming and splashing. You know what to do.”
Kat shrank against the wall as Massey came toward her. He slowly undid the buttons on her shirt and then moaned in delight at the sight of Kat’s breasts pushing up from her bra. His hand cupped one breast, and she automatically twisted violently away from him.
“Come on now,” he whispered. “That’s not how we play.”
Addie started to whimper, and he snapped his head toward her. “Look at me,” he demanded. When she didn’t comply, he shouted, “LOOK AT ME!”
She slid him a terrified look. He stared at her for a moment, then turned back to Kat. “You see? She doesn’t know the first thing about fucking. Courtney, now, she learned. She learned real good.”
Kat said through her teeth, “Courtney killed herself because of you. You had to take her body away from here, toward the Donovans. That’s how you found Addie. You poured gasoline on Courtney to hide your DNA, but it didn’t work. They have a sample of your semen.”
His eyes flared with alarm, and Kat met his eyes with a confidence she didn’t feel. The lab hadn’t found anything, as far as she knew, but Massey didn’t have to know that. He yanked her bra down, exposing her breasts. Kat steeled herself, looking for anything to help her escape. Anything! Her head was slowly clearing, down to a dull ache now as adrenaline raced through her veins. She had to save her baby. She had to save herself.
“Erin’s going to identify you,” Kat pressed.
“Erin didn’t see me.”
“Oh, yes, she did. She saw you. And she knows your voice. And your semen will seal the deal.”
“You bitch!” he roared.
Addie cried out as he pinched one of Kat’s already sensitive nipples, hard. Kat closed her eyes and counted to ten. When Massey had first kidnapped Erin and Rachel, he’d attempted to hide his identity. He hadn’t wanted his victims to see him. Chillingly, now he didn’t care about that any longer. There would be no escape.
“Rachel’s dead too, isn’t she? She fought you, and that’s when Erin got away. She got free of you, didn’t she?” Kat said triumphantly.
“Well, you never will!” he shouted, then, “You need to shut your fucking mouth!”
“You buried Rachel here somewhere,” Kat guessed. “But not Courtney. Why?”
He didn’t answer, and as Kat struggled to find how to free herself, Addie’s voice came tremulously from the corner. “Rachel haunts him.”
He whipped back toward her. “Shut up!”
“He keeps saying he loves us all,” Addie said. “He didn’t mean to kill her, and it hurts him to have Rachel nearby.”
“Another mistake,” Kat said. “They’re adding up, Massey. You won’t get away.”
Massey went over to Addie and backhanded her, hard. Then he strode back to Kat and unzipped his fly. Kat jerked her left leg, the one with the rope tied to Addie’s cot, and tried to free it. The rope stayed taut, but the cot moved. Kat threw Addie a look, and the girl scrambled to her feet. Massey was jerking at his pants, pulling them down as Kat wrenched her leg again, hard. Addie scrambled forward, allowed enough movement by her own chain to get a hand on the rope attached to the cot and yank at the knot.
Scott Massey let out a roar of fury when he saw what she was doing. He stumbled toward Addie and grabbed her hard. She shrieked with fear, cowering backward, but the deed was done. Kat hauled her leg free and swung it at Massey’s head. He turned back to her just as she caught his chin. He howled and stumbled backward toward Addie.
“Addie!” Kat screamed at her.