“If you want to give me a good life, start by letting me go.”
“Of course, we can’t stay here,” he says as though she hadn’t spoken. “He’ll find us if we stay here. But nobody finds me unless I want them to. Yes, we must leave and not tell a soul. Find another quiet place where nobody will bother us. We can leave immediately, if it pleases you.”
“Why would I run away with you?”
“Because you were made for me. You’re young yet, but I trust your mother taught you about love.”
“My parents fell in love and had children. It had nothing to do with a sicko who hides in the woods and kidnaps young girls.”
His back straightens, and suddenly he seems very tall. When he closes the door, the darkness thickens and turns suffocating. He crosses the room to Jennifer. The open palm slap stings her cheek. Her eyes adjust to the deeper darkness, and she stares into his crazed eyes.
“You’re undisciplined. It’s time you learn about consequences and loss.”
As she clutches the welt rising on her face, he swivels and marches toward Sandy’s prone body. If the girl senses his presence, she doesn’t react to him looming over her.
“What are you doing?”
“Your sister, as you call her, cannot come with us. She’ll never survive the journey.”
“Then let her go.”
His head tilts back at Jennifer.
“Why would I do such a thing? Even if I unchain her, she’ll curl into a ball and lie here until she rots. Don’t you see, Jennifer? There’s nothing left to do.”
“She has a bad cold and needs a doctor.”
The kidnapper shakes his head.
“No doctor can bring her back. Listen to her, little one. Do you hear that? That’s the sound of death. Better I leave Sandy here and remember her as she was when we first met.”
Jennifer’s head drops between her knees.
“No, I’m not going with you, and I’ll never leave Sandy alone.”
“You act as though you have a choice. We leave tonight, just the two of us, but not before you learn what happens when you disobey me.”
From his pocket, the kidnapper removes a key. While Jennifer watches in stunned silence, he unlocks the two padlocks and pulls the chains off Sandy’s arms and legs.
Wake up, Jennifer wills the sick girl. The man is nonchalant as he drags the chains to the corner, leaving Sandy alone in the center of the room. Jennifer prays the girl plays possum. If Sandy springs to her feet and runs for the door, he won‘t catch her. The girl’s legs twitch, and Jennifer’s heart leaps with hope.
But Sandy doesn’t move. Only trembles on the cold, wooden floor as the madman strolls back to the center of the room. His head turns toward Jennifer.
“One day you’ll forgive yourself for what you did to Sandy.”
Panic shoots through Jennifer when she realizes what he intends. The chains yank her back toward the radiator as the man kneels atop Sandy and grips her by the throat. The attack shocks Sandy awake. Her eyes go wide as the maniac’s hands encircle her neck and squeeze.
“Oh, God, don’t do this! Stop!”
Jennifer’s pleas spur the madman to squeeze harder. Sandy coughs, her legs bridged against the floor as she tries to buck him off her hips. Pulling up on Sandy’s neck, he grips her head before smashing it against the floor.
Sandy’s legs scramble with frantic desperation as he grins down at the teenager. Turning her head, she clamps her teeth down on his wrist, eyes clenched shut. He forms a fist with his free hand and pummels the side of her face. She bites harder, drawing little rivers of blood that flow off his hand and slick his skin.
Jennifer rips at the links and throws herself toward the fight. The chains chew crevices into her flesh and trip her up. Her vision goes black when she slams against the floor. Sharp agony in her shoulder tells Jennifer she popped it out of socket, but she ignores the pain and drags herself toward the dying teenager.
She’s down on the grimy floor, breathing in the dust as tears flow off her cheeks and puddle on the hardwood. To her horror, Jennifer realizes Sandy is still three steps away. Sandy’s face turns toward hers. Desperation pours out of the girl’s eyes. Desperation and acceptance.
Sandy’s hand slaps the floor. Her sneakers beat uselessly against the wood, a last ditch signal for someone to intervene. No one hears or helps. Her legs flail ever slower. When Sandy’s eyes lock on Jennifer’s, her body goes limp.
“No, you can’t die!”
Jennifer begs the girl to fight back.
Sandy stops breathing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The anti-anxiety medication’s siren song is loud in Darcy’s ear.
Riding in the passenger seat of Hensel’s rental, she hides her hands inside her coat pockets so he won’t see them shake. The western horizon burns with the sun’s remnants, and the darkness that pours off the sea and floods the Georgia countryside makes Darcy wish for the bottle of pills. But they’re locked in the hotel room a dozen miles away as the black SUV barrels through the night. Scarlet River’s lights glimmer in the distance while Darcy concentrates on the white dividing line, averting her eyes from the blackening sky.
“You’re doing great,” Hensel says, sparing Darcy a glance after navigating a winding curve.
I can’t hide the panic attack, she says to herself. Removing her hands from her pockets, she sets them on her lap. Her fingers fidget with a loose thread hanging off her pants.
“Darcy, look at me.” She does. The dashboard lights his face in strange greens and reds, but his dead certainty they’ll find Jennifer steels Darcy and replaces the fear with determination. “Any minute now, we’ll hear from the BAU on the chat room trace. Fisher and Reinhold are canvassing Scarlet River, and Tipton’s team is ready to roll the second we get a name.”
Darcy nods and turns her attention back to the dividing line, the white stripe grounding her by giving her mind something to focus on. When he sets his hand on her wrist, she realizes her fists are clenched, nails digging holes into her palms. She forces her fists to open and takes a deep breath.
“I’m all right. Just get us there.”
Hensel gives her a cautious glance and sets both hands on the wheel a moment before he presses down on the gas. The SUV jumps forward at seventy mph, the Welcome to Scarlet River sign a mile ahead. Hensel intends to revisit Laurie’s house in case they missed a piece of evidence during the investigation. Darcy wants to help. Anything to stay busy and put herself in a position to rescue Jennifer when the FBI locates the killer.
A half-mile outside the town border, Darcy catches a ghostly shape striding down the shoulder in the pitch black. The headlights catch her face. Nina?
“Stop and go back!”
“Why?” Hensel taps the brakes and slows the SUV before it scoots past the intersection. “What’s the problem.”
Darcy throws the seatbelt off and twists around in her seat. The thin girl walks with her head down, hands in her pockets.
“That looked like Nina Steyer.”
“Are you sure?”
Could it really be Nina? They’re down the road from Maury’s, the location of recent sightings.
“Back up, back up. Come on, Eric. Before she disappears.”
Already the girl is a shadow against a dark backdrop of sky and open meadow. Hensel looks over his shoulder and shifts the SUV into reverse. The brake lights cast the girl in red, and she gives an anxious glance back at them as the black SUV closes on her.
Then she does the unexpected. The girl darts across the road behind the vehicle as Hensel screeches to a halt. The SUV rocks and settles, but the girl is already leaping the opposite shoulder and hurrying toward the side street running perpendicular to the country route.