Beg for Mercy (47 page)

The garage was detached. That meant the heating system had to be in a basement or crawl space.

But there was no way in from inside. They dashed outside and walked the perimeter of the house, eyes trained on the siding, careful to miss nothing as they searched for another entrance to the cellar. As they started down the south side of the house, Cole saw it.

Partially hidden by two green plastic garbage bins was a set of weathered wood doors, barely the height of the garbage cans, like it was built to hold them once the trash had been picked up. Cole yanked the doors open and ducked in. He descended a short staircase that led to the basement door.

Unlike the flimsy, easy-to-pick front door, this door was steel core, rigged with an electronic keypad that activated three heavy-weight dead bolts that kept the thing locked.

Cole pulled out his Glock and took aim at the door.

“No!” Jack deflected the gun with a sharp chop of his arm. “It won’t penetrate the locks and will only let him know that we’re here.”

“How the fuck do we get in there, then?”

Jack squatted down next to the keypad and tilted his head, studying.

“What?” Cole snapped.

“I’ve worked with a system like this before,” Jack said. “I’m pretty sure there’s a way to override it.”

“So do it.”

“Give me a minute,” Jack snapped, rubbing at his temples. “I have to be careful. If I do it wrong, it will set off an alarm.” Jack nodded to himself, straightened, and started to trot back up the stairs.

“Where the fuck are you going?”

“I need to get something out of my car,” Jack called down.

He was back in seconds with a small tool set. He pulled out a Phillips-head screwdriver and tried to raise it to the keypad, but his hand was shaking too bad to fit the driver with the screw head.

Cole snatched it from his hand and knelt down. “Talk me through it.”

Megan tried to shrink back but there was nowhere to go. The room blurred around her, and she feo her back, Nate straddling her chest. Her blood froze in her veins when she saw the blade flash in his hand once again.

Megan heard a feral cry that didn’t even sound human. The knife stopped its deadly path as Nate was jerked to the side by the black cord digging into his neck.
Talia!

Fear and rage twisted her beautiful face as her slender arms flexed and strained, knocking Nate off balance enough for Megan to wiggle out from under him and land a kick to his chest with her bound feet. She kicked again at his hand but couldn’t dislodge the knife.

Nate roared and thrashed around like a wounded bear. He reached one hand behind him and yanked Talia over his shoulder, throwing her to the floor in front of him. Her scream cut short as her back met the ground, and Megan watched, as it though were happening in slow motion, Nate bury his knife in Talia’s stomach. He yanked the blade out, and blood bubbled from the wound, soaking her abdomen and the hands clutching it.

He grabbed Megan by her bound wrists and dragged her across the room, through the crude door cut into the wall, and into another room. Light from the other room barely trickled in. She could smell dirt and damp. A sharp click and the room was flooded with the light of a single hanging bulb. The room was little more than a cave in the ground with a dirt floor.

He yanked her up by her hair. “Do you see? Do you see how much you were loved?”

It took her eyes a second to focus, but what she saw made her breath freeze in her chest. The only finished wall in the room was covered with pictures.

Of her.

He’d put up pictures of her from the paper, from Sean’s trial. There was even a picture of her and Sean, fishing poles in hand, taken before their parents died.

It had been on Sean’s mantel.

Nate pulled her onto a crudely built wooden platform in front of the wall, set like an altar in front of the pictures. He shoved her face against the wall, and she realized the photos weren’t just of her. Some were of another girl, pictures ranging from infancy to about twelve years old.

The girl had dark brown hair and big green eyes. It was like looking at pictures of herself as a girl.

“I loved you so much,” he whispered, his hand tightening in her hair. “I did everything for you. Did you even know how many times I saved you?”

There were other newspaper clippings, headlines screaming
BOY, 14, KILLS IN SELF-DEFENSE AFTER MAN KILLS MOTHER AND SISTER
.

Her heart dipped to her stomach. She could only catch a few words of the articles, but the headlines—and the pictures—told her enough of the story. The girl who looked so much like Megan must have been Nate’s sister.

Sarah.

She scrambled to find a way to pull him back from the edge and buy herself a little more time. “I know, Nae. I know what you did for me, how much you love me,” she said in a shaky whisper. “I love you too.” She reached out her bound hands and made herself touch him. “Please don’t hurt me anymore, and I promise I’ll love you and stay with you forever.”

He made a sound that was almost like a sob. “I want to believe you. I wanted you to be the one to save me. But it’s not you.” His hand reached out and stroked her hair.

“I don’t want you to be alone.”

His tender smile made the nausea coil in her stomach. “You don’t have to worry. I found someone new.”

“Who?”

“Her.” He sounded euphoric as he pointed to the photo right in the center of the collage.

Megan wanted to howl in protest. She recognized the ponytailed, freckled ten-year-old immediately. Before she’d streaked her hair purple, pierced her nose, and started caking on the eyeliner, Devany could have been Megan’s little
sister. Other than the brown eyes, she could have been Sarah’s twin. Nate had stolen the picture from Dev’s trailer.

“I should have known that first night I saw her that it was her all along.” His mouth pulled into a sneer. “Not a slut like you.”

He pushed her down to the platform and the knife came down. He slipped it up under the hem of her shirt, and she waited for its cold sting against her belly. She started to scream, then realized he was cutting her shirt off. Her heart lodged in her throat as her bra followed, and then she was naked from the waist up, the tip of his knife tracing the soft undercurve of her breast.

“Please, please don’t,” she whispered through swollen, bloody lips. “Please leave Devany alone.”

But he didn’t seem to hear her. “You are so beautiful, so beautiful.” He circled the knife around her nipple, almost like a caress. Then his blue eyes narrowed on her face. “But not innocent. Not like her. I would have worshipped you, and this is the thanks I get. I should have known you were nothing like Sarah. I should have seen you were a whore.” He raised the knife, and Megan turned her head to the side, knowing in her gut this was it.

No more playing, no more taunting.

“You were supposed to set me free,” he whispered.

She felt the muscles of his arm shift as he raised the knife higher.

The room exploded in noise as a deafening cacophony assaulted her ears. Startled, Nate loosened his grasp on her and she flung herself away.

“No!” he screamed, and launched himself at her, knocking her to her back.

Megan shoved her hands up, felt the knife bite into her
palms. Through the wail of the alarm, she heard a shout but didn’t dare look away as she managed to bring her knees up against Nate’s stomach. She shoved hard and he rolled to the side, bringing her with him.

A gunshot blasted, and a spray of dirt hit her face. She needed to get out of the way. She kicked, bucked, squirmed, but couldn’t break his hold. Nate rolled to his knees and jerked her up in front of him, using her body as a shield, the blade of his knife pressed against her jugular.

The alarm cut out, leaving eerie silence in its wake.

“Let her go,” Cole said, his voice calm, his gun perfectly steady as he held it on Nate.

The hot sting of the knife made Megan gasp.

“I don’t think so,” Nate said with a laugh that was like an icy finger down her spine. “I think it would be much more fun to kill her while you watch.”

Megan tracked the bead of sweat trickling from Cole’s hairline, its path mirroring the warm tickle of blood sliding down her throat. “Let her go, and you’ll have a chance. You kill her, you die too.”

“I think your suffering will be worth it.”

Megan shrank back into Nate’s chest as the pressure against her neck increased.
Don’t look,
she wanted to shout to Cole.
Don’t watch.
But she couldn’t make her mouth move.

“Look,” Cole said, holding his gun out to the side. “I’ll put down my gun. I’ll let you walk out of here. Just let her go.” He dropped the gun to the ground and held up his hands, a naked plea in his eyes.

She could feel Nate’s arm tensing, the muscles bunching. Megan squeezed her eyes shut.

There was a scuffle and a shout from the other room. “Oh my God! Is she dead? Where’s Megan?”

Devany. No! Megan didn’t want Devany to see this anymore than she wanted Cole to.

The girl appeared in the doorway and froze when she saw the scene laid out in front of her. “No.” She swallowed hard. “Don’t. Please don’t. Not Megan too.”

Megan felt the tension in Nate’s arm ease almost infinitesimally.

“Sarah? Sarah, you need to go. You shouldn’t watch—”

“Let her go!” Dev screamed.

Nate’s hold slackened another degree. He still had his fist in her hair and his forearm locked around her, but maybe he was distracted just enough….

Megan threw herself to the side, felt the cold pain of the knife slicing into her shoulder as she went down. Cole was a blur of motion as he dove to the side.

Gunshots thundered and Megan felt the hot spray as blood and flesh exploded from Nate’s chest.

Another shot, and Nate fell to the side, half of his face blown away.

Then strong arms were around her, holding her tight as the bindings on her hands and legs were cut.