“That’s not much time—”
“Midnight. A minute late, a dollar short, any sign of the cops, and you’ll be scraping Mr. Stone into a pudding cup—or rather, what’s left of him. I hear suicide bombers often have much of their body vaporized by the force of the blast.”
He hung up. Jenna turned to Morgan. “Where are we going? Site of your first kill? Where’s that?”
Her words were a staccato jumble, sparked by hope. Hope was the opposite of what Morgan felt. She felt drained, empty of any emotion.
“When Clint first took me,” she said, wrapping her arms around her as rain began to fall. “He took me to a remote cabin. Up on Tussey Mountain. Taught me how to stalk prey. Survival skills. But first he made me kill animals he caught and staked out for me.”
“Boohoo for you. Where, Morgan? Tell me where?”
“It’s no good. You’ll never stop him or catch him. Not there. He knows those mountains, knows the trails, knows where to find cover.”
“I don’t care about catching him. I just want Andre back. Alive.”
Morgan’s chest heaved as her sigh escaped her. “That’s what I want, too.”
“Then it’s settled. You for Andre.” Jenna’s tone was devoid of emotion.
“I’ll take you there. Me for Andre.”
“Once he’s safe,” Jenna offered her words as a consolation prize, “then you can kill Clint. I don’t give a damn.”
Morgan wished she was half as certain of the outcome. But Jenna was right. Someone was going to die tonight. As long as it wasn’t Andre, she could live with that.
Chapter 28
THE GROWL OF an ATV in the distance announced Clint’s arrival. He was late, and Morgan was freezing, standing in the clearing, the snow alternating with sleet and rain to turn the ground to black ice. He’d planned it that way, had wanted the cold to leech all her anger and the strength it gave her.
After Jenna had gathered what cash she could, they’d switched cars and headed toward the mountain, arriving as early as possible. All Morgan had asked for in exchange for her cooperation was a quick stop to torch Pete’s body and the barn and that Jenna make sure Micah received the reward money. Jenna didn’t care about money, although she would enjoy the prestige of collecting the bounties on the Kroft brothers as well as Clint, so she’d readily agreed.
Clint had called with more specific instructions after they left their car at the end of the last stretch of drivable road. Logging trail was more like it. Thankfully, it was cold enough that the mud was frozen solid, making it passable.
At least he’d let Morgan wear her coat—that and her underwear and a pair of flats. He knew her too well, knew her proclivity to squirrel weapons wherever she could. But she also knew him, knew he would use any excuse, even an imaginary one, to renege on his word.
She’d refused to wear an earbud, despite the comfort it would have given her, hearing the others. No. She’d come as Clint instructed: naked and alone.
Also as instructed, as she waited, she held the canvas gym bag Jenna had given her. She ran through the various scenarios one last time. Most of them did not end well for Morgan. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. As long as they got Andre back.
Morgan craned her neck and looked up, stretching. The rain had finally stopped, the clouds shredded by the wind, unveiling a canopy of black ink sparking with more stars than she’d ever seen before. When she looked back down at her feet, the wet, black mud had been transformed into a mirror, and it was as if she stood on the stars themselves.
No matter how bloody the deeds Clint kept her busy at, she’d learned at an early age to search out the magical moments like this one. It felt as if she could stop time—for a short while, at any rate—immerse herself in the miracle of the world she lived in…until Clint yanked her back to his bloody reality.
More than anything, this was how she’d survived those years with Clint. These split-second vanishments where she left her life behind. Nick called it dissociation. Said it was a defense mechanism. Jenna called her frozen moments daydreaming, while Andre would say nothing, merely watch over her, protect her until she came back. Micah said she had the eye of an artist, drawn to beauty. Of course he would say that, he had the soul of a poet. In fact, one of her most cherished vanished moments was when they’d first met.
Clint’s arrival silenced the night noises. Shifting her weight to get a better grip on the canvas gym bag in her hands, she turned to face the direction the ATV would come from.
The clearing was at the top of a ridge. To the right, a sheer drop down a granite cliff onto the scraggly deadwood loggers had bulldozed over the edge and left behind to rot.