She glanced at the clock. Nearly two hours had passed. Certainly someone would be looking for her.
He reached into his pocket again and withdrew his knife. Andi couldn’t help herself. She shrank back as he looked at the blade catching light from the fluorescent bulbs. Slowly he slid the blade down the length of her cheek.
“What to play a game, little girl?” he whispered in her ear, his breath hot and wet. “Want to know how you’re going to die?”
Her heart thumped hard and painful.
“I brought you to the lake for a reason. A purpose. Like the others, you’ll die in water. Like Belinda and Christine and Wendy and Lance. Although I pride myself on changing my modus operandi, keeping everyone guessing, I prefer the water.”
Andi tried and failed to swallow back her fear. He was serious. He was going to kill her. Soon. Here. In the lake.
He let the blade travel lower, along her neck, past her carotid, sliding between her breasts. “It’s no fun if you can’t play, too. So if you can figure out how to escape, maybe you won’t die tonight, you’ll gain your freedom,” he said hoarsely. She could tell he was turning himself on. “But . . . I wouldn’t bet on it.” He looked up at her, his tongue showing between his teeth. “Then you’re mine.”
Egomaniacal psycho!
She set her jaw and pulled at her wrists as his face followed the path of his knife, steamy breath blowing on her breasts and abdomen and crotch. The blade lingered at the juncture of her legs, and then, when she thought she might cry out, he moved quickly, slicing downward, cutting through her shackles.
An instant later he made short work of her manacles as well, and then, to her surprise, he pulled the duct tape from her mouth, ripping some skin, leaving some glue.
She grunted with pain, then shot to her feet. She whirled and kicked him hard but missed his crotch, her blow landing on his thigh.
“Bitch!” He hadn’t expected her to be ready.
She lunged for the gun, but he was quick, beat her to it. Whirling, she threw herself at the door. If she could just get outside, into the darkness, she might be able to run, to get away. Her reflexes were sluggish, but her muscles were working again, her brain on fire.
One step. Two. The space between the fake bookshelf and wall, the opening was just a leap away. She sprang.
“Wrong move,” he singsonged. Strong arms wrapped around her waist and dragged her down.
She fought, kicking and scratching, raining blow after blow upon him, but he was too strong, so much bigger, and when she smelled the malodorous stench again on the rag he was bringing toward her, she realized she was doomed.
“Ether,” he crowed, smashing the rag over her face. “Old school.”
She struggled wildly, but the chemical overtook her. The last thing she remembered was him hauling her off her feet and carrying her outside to his car, the one he’d bought for cash.
*
Luke passed a car coming from the direction of Carter’s cabin. He watched its taillights in his rearview mirror, the red lights disappearing in the deep night. Had that been Andi in the passenger seat? The driver had been looking down as he passed, almost as if he’d been trying to hide his face.
Was it Carter? Was it? God! He was pretty sure it was.
He turned around and followed, trying to keep back far enough to stay off his radar. They were on a trajectory toward the lodge. Luke decided to stay well back and park away from the construction site so he wouldn’t be seen.
Ten minutes later he was there. He killed the engine, then jogged toward the lodge, but there was no other vehicle there.
Where had he gone?
He heard the faint sound of an engine to the east and turned in that direction.
The summer camp.
Immediately he was racing back to his truck. He switched on the engine and the damn thing coughed and acted like it wasn’t going to catch, but then it did. Breathing a sigh of relief, he sped down the two-lane road to the entrance to the summer camp, damn near missing it . . . except for the flattened grass he caught in his headlights.
He bumped along the rutted lane. He didn’t care if Carter knew he was coming.
His headlights trapped another car in their beams, parked to one side not far from the water’s edge. Broken pieces of wood from the ruined cabins lay scattered about, along with a row of forgotten canoes. Where one had been the ground was dry, even though a misting rain had started.
Luke leaped out of the car, leaving his keys in the ignition. The parked Ford was the one he’d passed on the road. It was Carter’s. And Andi was with him.
He dragged out one of the canoes. In the headlights from his car he saw it had holes in the bottom. He anxiously reached for another. The second one looked good and he hurriedly pulled it out. He switched off the lights to the truck, then hauled it down to the water’s edge. He faintly heard the oars of a canoe dipping hurriedly in the water.
Carter was on the water and he knew Luke was coming.
“You son of a bitch,” he growled beneath his breath.
Then he was in the canoe, rowing for all he was worth.