HOSTAGE (To Love A Killer) (15 page)

              Of course she hadn’t. She was probably back there somewhere. But oddly Hunter didn’t feel afraid by that probability.

              The detective was interested in Hunter’s father. She could be heading to the farmhouse directly. She could be heading back to Brooklyn. Hunter didn’t know. All she knew was that she wasn’t afraid of the woman, but she had to remain cautious. Ash had told her that the detective hadn’t arrested them because she didn’t have enough to arrest them with. Maybe she was planning on waiting, watching, allowing Hunter the space to kill, so that she could get her on something new. There was really no telling.

              The thought that Sarah could have been telling the truth, however, made Hunter’s heart rate quicken. If Sarah Voss really was more interested in her father, which implied that Sarah knew about or at least suspected what was going on up there in the barn, then Sarah could end up being their greatest ally. It just seemed like such a reach. Why would a two-bit Brooklyn detective care about anything that happened far away in a different state?

              It seemed off to her. And why had the detective brought up Hunter’s mother? That was especially strange. It had been as though Sarah Voss thought she could find some common ground between the two of them since Sarah also didn’t have a mother, but why had that even come up in the first place?

              That detective obviously knew much more about Hunter’s life on the farm than she had let on. What was she after?

              Hunter tried to follow the logic, piece together the fragments of information connecting that Sarah had revealed to the possible motivations behind why she needed Hunter to know, but every time two pieces seemed to fit, the reasoning fell apart. It was turning into more of a cat’s cradle the harder she thought about it. But the mystery of it all, how illogical it all seemed, helped Hunter realize the ever-churning constant feeling that was underlining it all: Sarah Voss had seemed familiar.

              Hunter racked her brain for an answer as to why that might be. She flipped through the names and faces in her memory of everyone she could recall that had come into the Brooklyn coffee shop she had worked at, but it didn’t feel right that Sarah had been from there. There had been no women at the farmhouse during her years there, so that couldn’t have been the connection.

              It would have been maddening if Hunter hadn’t been so tired. She needed to find a motel for them, or at least start the hunt for a place to stay that would take cash. Ash had realized that it had been Hunter’s debit card that drew the Brooklyn detective up north, leading her straight to them. Under no circumstances were any of them to use a debit or credit card, nothing that could link them to a location.

              Hunter turned onto a main road that she knew would cut through a series of towns. There would have to be a number of motels along that strip. And hopefully one of them would take cash.

              As she traveled along, it occurred to her why Sarah Voss had seemed so familiar. They had the same eyes. Sarah’s eyes had been large, round, and deeply brown. Hunter figured a lot of people had eyes that fit that description, but there had been something about Sarah’s that weren’t just similar to her own, it had been as though they had the same exact essence. It had been like looking in a mirror.

              Hunter looked over at Ash, who was lifting up from his slouched position in the passenger’s seat, his eyes blinking, his mouth stretching wide with a lazy yawn.

              “I’m looking for a place to stay. There should be a number of motels on this strip,” said Hunter, returning her gaze to the road ahead.

              “We could push through,” he said. “We’re less than an hour away.”

              Hunter thought about it for a minute.

              “I want to be well rested,” she said. “I also don’t know what to make of that detective. I don’t know if we should be expecting more surprises.”

              “She was messing with you, Hunter,” said Ash abruptly. “I know how the police work. The can either arrest, or they can’t. When they can’t arrest someone, their tactics degrade into all kinds of weird, psychological crap. She was trying to get under your skin. Don’t let her.”

              “But even still, she found us. Shouldn’t we consider the possibility that once we get to the farmhouse, she will too?” asked Hunter.

              It was a decent point. A point he had made to Hunter the second they had gotten back on the road after that cop had stopped them. They were now being followed and had to anticipate that the detective could show up anywhere at anytime.

              “Then maybe we need to let her do our work for us,” said Ash.

              “What do you mean?” asked Hunter.

              “Grizzly is expecting you to show up. That detective is obviously interested in the farmhouse. She either knows a lot or a little, either way she has enough to go on to check it out. There’s no way Grizzly is expecting that. Let’s let her get there first. Let’s guide her there. And let’s make sure she shows up at just the right moment.”

              “That would mean Blair’s fate is in her hands, not mine,” said Hunter. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.”

              Ash stared at Hunter’s profile in the low light. The issue for Hunter wasn’t that Blair might be left vulnerable, or that her rescue was now at risk. Ash knew that the issue for Hunter had to do with killing. If the detective led the way, Hunter wouldn’t have the opportunity to murder all the men who had so viciously and heartlessly tortured her for nearly her entire life.

              “Sometimes you have to let someone else get their hands dirty,” said Ash.

              “How would we even orchestrate that? It leaves too much to chance. Ash, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

              “What if we sat down with the detective?” he asked.

              “What do you mean?”

              “What if we talked to her?” he said.

              “You mean tell her everything and let her deal with it?” Hunter asked, raising her voice. This conversation was making her angry. “We could’ve done that back in Brooklyn before all of this started. I could’ve done that years ago when I escaped. We would’ve done that if it were a good solution, Ash. It’s not. That’s why we haven’t.”

              “I don’t know if you noticed, Hunter, but that woman has a screw loose. She’s not doing anything by the book. She probably shouldn’t even be here. Who knows what kind of vigilante mission she’s on.”

              “So to you that makes her reliable in terms of taking on the farmhouse?” Hunter challenged.

              “No,” he said. “It makes her an excellent pawn.”

              “She’s smarter than that.”

              “I don’t think so. I think that whatever’s driving her has clouded her thinking,” said Ash.

              “So you think we can just ask her to coffee, explain that the farmhouse is a front for a massive child pornography ring, and as a result she’s going to simply waltz in there with her handgun and deal with the matter herself?” asked Hunter, growing even more furious that she was being put in the position of having to shoot down this terrible idea. “She’s a cop, Ash. The bigger this thing is to her, the more paperwork she’s going to have to do. If we tell her that, then she’s going to want a team, she’s going to need a warrant. She’s not even from this state. She’ll have to get the Feds involved. There are a million things she’s going to have to do, and in the meantime, Blair is going to get tortured to death. To death, Ash. We don’t have time to put our faith in a stranger just because you think it’s an asset that she has a ‘screw loose’.”

              She paused, waiting for Ash to respond, but he fell silent.

              “As far as I’m concerned,” Hunter went on. “Sarah Voss is on our list of people to kill. I just need to make sure everyone at the farmhouse is dead before I deal with her.”

              “Let’s try that motel,” said Ash, pointing to a Motel 6 just up ahead on the left.

              Hunter slowed down and made the turn into the motel parking lot.

              “Here’s what I want to know,” she said before killing the engine. “If Grizzly okayed us driving this car, that means he’s communicating with the police, so how do we know Sarah Voss isn’t working with him as well? What if the detective is working for my dad and she doesn’t even know it?”

*              *              *

              The girls hadn’t eaten in days and were losing track of how long they’d been there, what time of day it was. They were being held in some kind of basement, or so Devon thought. She sensed it. She could feel that they were deep in the earth. There was something about the coolness, the humidity, damp and rich with the scent of dirt that told her they were underground.

              At least they hadn’t been harmed.

              Each on their own bed, the girls sat upon their sunken mattresses with their wrists shackled to the rickety bed frames. Every so often a man had entered, terrifying all of them with his presence, though he had done nothing to hurt them, only gave them water.

              Devon had reached a point of delirium from hunger. At one point, she had even thought they were drugging her, all of them, with crushed sedatives in the water, but that turned out not to be true. Margot had assured her from the neighboring bed. For some reason Margot had been holding up better than any of them. She had become the voice of reason, the heart and soul of their survival.

              At least all the girls were together. Margot was past Jenna, and on the other side of Devon was Andy. The only thing that terrified them at this point was that they didn’t know what would happen next. No one had spoken with them about why they were being held in the small room. The men wanted to keep them afraid in the dark, in a perpetual state of dread, and the girls were.

              Margot kept reminding all of them that they were too old to be of any real interest to the men, Grizzly included. That had seemed to quell their panic for the most part, though no one felt comfortable enough to sleep. Margot had suggested they sleep in shifts, but the attempt had failed. Everyone had been too scared to fall asleep. Even now, the girls lay awake, their eyes wide open, their ears keenly trained, listening to the steps and creaks of the floorboards overhead, holding their breath that the footsteps wouldn’t travel down the stairs and to their door.

              Devon jumped at the sound of the door opening and pulled herself towards the headboard of her bed, tucking her knees under her chin, turning herself into a tight ball. She hadn’t heard footsteps coming down the stairs. How was it possible that someone was now at the door?

              The door slowly opened, filling the room with the grating squeal of metal against wood, the sound of sticky hinges. Devon stared at the doorway where she had expected to see a man. Instead, a girl stood there. She seemed young, petite. Though it was hard to see her in the low light, Devon could tell she was wearing a white nightgown. Her long blond hair fell in airy wisps over her shoulders. She was holding a pitcher of water.

              After a long moment, she stepped into the room. Devon figured that was how long it took for someone’s eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room.

              “Who’s there?” asked Margot in a whisper.

              “I was told to bring you water,” said the girl, as she picked up Andy’s glass and filled it.

              “What’s your name?” asked Margot, again whispering.

              The girl hesitated to answer.

              “I’m Margot,” she said. “We used to live here, all of us, but we escaped last year. They brought us back. How long have you been here?”

              The girl held strong to her silence.

              “Do you remember us? That’s Andy, and Devon, and down here is Jenna. Step into the light so we can see you,” said Margot.

              The girl didn’t move.

              “What’s going on upstairs? Have you heard anything?” asked Margot, knowing she probably wouldn’t get an answer.

              “Does anyone have to go to the bathroom?” asked the girl.

              “We all do,” said Margot, who suddenly fell silent as shame seized her. “We’ve just been going here.” She said finally, to which Jenna whimpered from the back, confirming that Margot was being truthful. They had been urinating into their mattresses.

              “I can take you one at a time,” said the girl.

              “Did you get permission?” asked Margot. “We don’t want any trouble. We won’t go with you unless you were given permission.”

              Margot hadn’t lived here in well over a year, but had already fallen back in line with the abusive protocol of the farmhouse. The punishment for acting without permission had always been far worse than the shame and discomfort of living a certain way. She didn’t want any of her girls getting whipped, beaten, or worse simply for using the toilet.

              “Answer me,” demanded Margot. “Did you get permission?”

              “I’m worried about you guys,” said the girl.

              “Worry about yourself,” said Margot. “If you don’t get permission, they’re going to kill you for overstepping your bounds.”