“We’ll be parking,” he said, rubbing harder.
It was all she could do to keep the car at a decent speed as they headed east on the two-lane highway. She moaned and arched, wanting to kill him for the sweet torture.
“Over there,” he whispered in her ear, his own breath coming hard and fast.
“Robert . . .”
“C’mon, turn the wheel.”
As she bumped onto the narrow shoulder, she saw the dark water of the Columbia River gliding by down below the slight cliff they were parked on.
“I—” Her words ended in something between a grunt and a shriek as he suddenly tased her. A crackle of light and an electric smell filled the car. She couldn’t move. Was locked in pain like she’d never known. She tried to talk, couldn’t, and then he tased her again. Dimly she heard his laughter.
And then he was out of the car and on her side, opening the driver’s door and pulling her to the stubbly hard ground. Her head banged hard, but that didn’t stop him. He dragged her across the ground by her feet and all she was filled with was disbelief and confusion, too frozen to do anything about it as he rolled her down the steep slope, where she got hung up on a snag, dazed, her feet in the cold water.
She came to enough to see the stars above, a billion lights flung into a black sky. Then he was on her. Yanking off her jeans and panties, unzipping his trousers, his prick already encased in a condom. Then he was thrusting inside her and yelling, “Oh, oh, oh!” in a way she’d never heard before, then groaning in ecstasy at the pinnacle of desire. She realized dimly that he’d been playacting till now. He hadn’t cared about her. He’d been waiting for this moment all along. He’d been an illusion.
“Lovely,” he said and kissed her softly on the lips. “Little bird,” he whispered, then tased her once more and rolled her into the water. She sank beneath the surface but bobbed up in time to see him climbing back up the bank to her car. The interior light flashed on and she saw he was by the driver’s side door. He was pushing her car toward the edge, she realized, getting rid of the evidence. Then she heard the vehicle’s fast descent to the water, the wrench and scrape of metal on rocks and branches, the splash as her Jetta dived into the river.
She couldn’t breathe, was choking on water.
Suddenly she heard a loud engine from the road. Oh God. Rescue! A motorcycle maybe?
She tried to scream, to do anything. A moment later she realized the motorcycle was Robert’s. He’d hidden it at this particular site, knowing what he was going to do to her. But why? Why? Why her? Was it something on her Facebook page? But there was nothing there! Why Christine Tern Brandewaite? She was nobody. Nobody! So why had he picked her? Why . . . why . . . ww . . . hhh . . . yyy . . . !
She struggled hard, but her throat filled with water. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. She gurgled fluid, her lungs filling. Her eyes closed and she lost consciousness. Unaware, her head lolled on her shoulders and she sank back beneath the flowing water.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Early Monday morning September took off for Hood River. The drive along the shores of the Columbia took longer than expected due to a delay on I-84, but September arrived at the Pattens’ home only five minutes late.
She’d called ahead to make certain Lance’s parents would be home and the wife, Raquel, had been a bit baffled by the call but had assured her that, now retired, they would be tending to their farm, ten acres just outside Hood River. Raquel’s directions and the GPS route were spot-on, and as September wound her way along a rutted gravel lane guarded by fir trees, she caught glimpses of a snowcapped Mount Hood piercing a thin layer of clouds. Not a bad place to retire, she thought, and a huge step up from the rental they’d lived in during their years in Laurelton.