Into the Storm (44 page)

No, the branch pinning Deck in was only going to prove a logistical nightmare in getting him out of the truck—it hadn’t hurt him. At least not in addition to the undetermined length of wood sticking into his gut. “The truck’s totaled. Decker’s badly hurt.”

“Oh, my God,” Sophia breathed as he described the injury. “I’ve called for help, but I don’t know when they’ll be able to get there.”

“As long as we’re asking for the impossible, we’re going to need a medic,” Dave said, as he looked at his map. “You might as well request that, too. As far as I can tell, the closest house is that of the Misses Rogers and Kittford.” The pot ladies. Although their home was at least five miles back. Five miles, through a dead zone, where he’d have no contact, no chance to call for help. Which was moot, since there was no help to be had.

Apparently Sophia was looking at a map, too. “You’re going to walk five miles through a blizzard, carrying an injured man?”

With a broken wrist, but she didn’t need to know that.

“Who loves ya, baby?” Dave did his best Kojak, but of course she didn’t recognize it. She was too young.

She said something back, but he couldn’t make it out, not before their connection crackled and died. Which made the dead zone thing doubly moot.

Dave pocketed his phone—Decker’s, too, grabbing it from the floor. “Okay, Deck,” he said, taking several deep breaths, getting ready to take the unconscious man beneath his arms and pull him across the parking brake. There was no way he could do it without using his broken wrist. “I take comfort in knowing that this is going to hurt you as much as it hurts me.”

“Finish her,” the monster said, “or leave her for me.”

Tracy could see indecision in Beth’s eyes—the woman was actually considering it.

Two against one.
Beth had been flashing hand signals to Tracy when she’d first come down here, two fingers and then one, but now she’d stopped. Now she looked at that knife as if she actually might use it. But then she looked back, hard, into Tracy’s eyes.

“Look at her,” Beth said. “She’s terrified. Sure, she’s standing there as if she’s not, but I take one step toward her? She’ll cower in the corner and cry.”

Okay, there was a definite message there. Beth lifted her foot, took a deliberate step toward Tracy.

“Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me,” Tracy said, curling into herself. The tears were easy to produce, even while thinking,
please dear God, let Beth have some kind of a plan.
Two against one was well and good, but he had a gun. Of course, if they both attacked him, he could only shoot one of them at a time. Providing they were close enough to him…

“Let her have the keys,” Beth told the monster.

“No,” he said. “You have until ten, nine…”

Resignation replaced hope in Beth’s feverish gaze. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to Tracy. “I tried.”

“Eight…”

“I’m so sorry. I’ll make it quick, I promise.” Beth advanced, holding that knife in a clearly practiced stance. “I can’t let him take you.”

“Seven…”

“Please don’t,” Tracy said, but Beth wasn’t Beth anymore. She’d changed—into Number Five. Her eyes were feral, her face tight.

“I’ll make it quick,” she said again. “It’ll be over, and you’ll be free. Water will punch you, but you won’t feel a thing.”

Okay, now she sounded as well as looked crazy.

“Six…”

Tracy backed away from that blade, as far as her chains would allow her. “Don’t do this,” she said. Dear God, she didn’t want to die. “Help! Someone
help me!
”

Lindsey couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t leave, not without checking the barn to see if another car was inside.

And sure enough, as she went through the side door, she could see it there, in the gloom. It was covered with a tarp. She lifted the heavy canvas and…

A dark blue Impala. New Hampshire plates. Complete with a nine.

She should have called Tom Paoletti right then and there. Except he would have ordered her back to her car, to wait for the freaking backup.

Instead, she made the decision to approach the house. Just to walk around the outside. Quietly. Stealthily. Maybe look in a window or two. Get as much information as she possibly could.

The wind was howling, and the snow was blowing. No one would see her or hear her. And even if they did, she’d do her so-called ninja thing and get herself to safety.

The shades were down in the front of the house.

Lindsey saw the security system that Sophia had told her about. Drat, she should have asked for more details. Although, with this wind, any motion detectors would have to be off, or the system would be tripped every ten seconds.

She rounded the back of the house. There was a little porch, and a back door that led into a drab kitchen, where a single light was on.

It was there, as she looked into the window, that she heard it.

Someone help me!

And then no words, just screams. Long, piercing, high-pitched screams.

She had her phone out and dialing. First Sophia. Then Tom Paoletti. Both times, she was bumped straight to voice mail.

She called Jenk. Same thing.

She left him a message: “Please don’t be mad. And please, God, I hope you’re close. I’m still here at the Thorntons’. There’s an Impala in the barn, with a nine in the plate. I’ve heard screaming from the house—a female who sounds like Tracy begging for help. I can’t wait for backup—I’m going in.”

Lindsey pocketed her phone and looked more closely at the security system. No way was she getting into the house without Richard Eulie knowing about it.

Which meant that there was only one thing to do.

When the news came in about Dave and Decker’s accident, Jenk asked Lopez, who was taking the call, to find out if Lindsey was with them.

“No,” Lopez reported, “and Sophia says she hasn’t heard from her in a while.”

Those were not the words Jenk wanted to hear.

“We’re approaching from a different direction,” Lopez continued his phone conversation, “so we don’t need to worry about the downed tree, but Danny’s marking it on the map.”

“Can’t we go any faster?” Izzy fretted from the backseat.

“I’m going as fast as I can,” Jenk told him. “Visibility’s about eighteen inches. If I get up too much speed, same thing that happened to Dave and Deck could happen to us.”

“I could fucking run faster than this,” Izzy said. “Even in knee-deep snow.”

Yeah, Jenk could, too. In fact…He jammed his hat onto his head, and zipped up his jacket. But stopping on these roads was a four-ring circus. Even if they didn’t slide into a ditch, getting started again would be another whole event.

But at this speed, they didn’t have to stop.

“Gillman, take the wheel,” Jenk ordered. “Right now. Just slide over.”

Gillman thrust the map he was holding back to Lopez, as Jenk opened the window. The wind was blowing too hard to open the door.

A boatload of snow swirled into the car, and the wind pushed the map up into Lopez’s face. “Hey, I’m trying to talk on the phone! It’s hard enough to hear…”

Jenk hoisted himself up so that he was sitting on the open window, with the SUV still in motion. Before he pulled his legs out, he turned on the brights, which, with the whiteout from the snow, brought visibility down to even less than eighteen inches. That, however, was going to change.

“Dude!” In the back, Izzy had rolled down his window, too. “You’re the balls! I’ll relieve you in ten.”

Jenk nodded, and ran—easily—past the SUV. Without the glare from the windshield, his visibility increased—not by much, but by enough. Of course, it was a lot colder out here. Not that he felt it. He positioned himself about twenty feet in front of the vehicle, right where the headlights reflected off his jacket, and hauled ass.

Gillman, driving behind him, picked up speed.

Was there a good way to die?

Tracy had always thought that dying in her sleep would be the best way to go. To just go to bed one night and never wake up. It would be peaceful and painless.

Now, however, her two choices were both violent and painful—quick, via Beth’s knife, or slow, with the monster in his death-kitchen.

“Just close your eyes and it’ll all be over soon,” Beth said, over Tracy’s screams for help, as the monster droned on, “Six…Five…”

No. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. If she was going to die, she would die fighting.

Tracy stopped screaming and kicked at Beth with her best Tae Bo roundhouse, knowing full well that she was probably going to get stabbed. Tae Bo was about muscle toning, not self-defense. But she couldn’t just stand there and be slaughtered.

She missed the knife, instead hitting Beth’s other arm—the injured one.

Beth cried out, fumbling with the knife. Tracy kicked her again—damn this chain that jerked her back! But the knife fell to the floor with a clatter.

Her opponent was sick and injured—which was at least as big a handicap as Tracy’s chain—possibly more so. She tried to land a third kick, but this time Beth was ready for her, grabbing her leg and knocking her off-balance.

Tracy landed on the concrete, on her back, all the air forced from her lungs. Beth leaped on top of her, her hands around Tracy’s throat.

Dear God, no! Now she really couldn’t breathe.

But then, as she fought to throw Beth off of her, she could breathe. Beth’s grip had loosened, yet she still held on to her.

“Die!” Beth told her, shaking Tracy as if she were still squeezing the life from her. “Die!”

And Tracy understood. She jerked and thrashed. And then went limp. As Beth’s hands left her throat, she forced herself not to move, not to gasp for air. She could hear Beth breathing hard.

She heard the monster speak. Chidingly, churlishly. “You said you’d use the knife.”

“She overpowered me,” Beth told him. “I’m not as well as I’d…oh…”

Tracy heard a sound that had to be Beth collapsing beside her, onto the floor. She didn’t dare open her eyes to look.

Would he approach? Thinking Tracy dead and Beth unconscious? Beth surely had that knife near her.

Unless she really had fainted.

Please let this work. Please God…

It was then that something hit Tracy, hard, in the back. It was all she could do not to move, to react, to flinch from the sudden pain.

It was water. From some sort of high-pressure hose.

Beth had warned her about this, back when Tracy thought she was talking crazy.
Water will punch you…

He was testing her, testing them both.

She forced herself to remain limp, to let the water push her. And finally, after what seemed like minutes, but surely was mere seconds, he shut it off.

Tracy heard a
clunk
as he set down whatever it was—a tank?

She heard the steps creak as he descended the stairs, coming all the way into the basement. She heard his footsteps on the concrete.

And she braced herself, praying that Beth was bracing herself, too, ready to attack him—
two against one—
when he got close enough.

Ding-dong.

The man stopped.

What was that? Distant, from up the stairs…?

It rang again.
Ding-dong.

A doorbell?

He turned, and went back upstairs, picking up whatever he’d left on the steps. He shut the door behind him, locking them into darkness.

Lindsey stood on the sagging porch of Serial Killer Central, and rang the bell again.

She had her .22 in her hand, in her left jacket pocket, her finger on the trigger as the door opened, and there he was. Tracy’s hot guy—although in truth he looked more like Sean Bean than Ralph Fiennes.

He had
GQ
stubble—and eyes that reminded her of a chicken’s. Or maybe a snake’s. Or both. She was convinced that birds and reptiles were more closely related than one would think, considering the seemingly vast difference between feathers and scales and okay, a little focus would be nice.

“I am
so
sorry,” Lindsey said, doing her best impression of a small, helpless female, “my car went off the road about a mile back. I’ve been walking and walking and thank God I found your house. Please, may I come inside?”

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-ONE

B
eth’s head pounded.

When he’d sprayed her, the water had pushed her back into the wall, and she’d hit her head. As if she wasn’t dizzy enough from being ill.

She sat up in the darkness—he’d turned off the light—touching her head. Her hand came away wet. Warmer than the water. Sticky.

Bloody.

“Beth?”

She heard the clank of the chain as Tracy shifted.

“I’m still here,” Beth said. Like she’d be anywhere else. She started to laugh, except it came out sounding like sobs.

“Thank you for not killing me,” Tracy whispered.

Lot of good that had done. Lord, they had been so close. For the first time in forever, Beth had had real hope.
Two against one
…They could kill him and end this nightmare. But the truth was that she’d never be free, never again.

“It’s occurred to me,” Tracy said, “that he may not have bullets for his gun. Or maybe it’s not real. He had it—the gun—in the pharmacy, but he killed the clerk by bashing in his head. Have you ever heard or seen him use it?”

“Shhh!”

The floorboards creaked directly overhead as he moved into the kitchen. Beth could hear the murmur of his voice—he was talking to someone. A reply—the second voice was higher-pitched. Female. The person who’d rung the doorbell was a woman, God help her.

Another wave of dizziness swept through her.

God help them all.

Marky-Mark’s cell phone beeped from the slot in the dash, where he’d left it before he did his little Mario Andretti exit-the-car-from-the-window trick.

They were moving about three times faster than they had been, but fucking slow times three was still fucking slow. Still it was better than nothing.

Izzy leaned over the front seat, taking the phone and looking at it. Jenk had a message. From Lindsey—whom Sophia had lost contact with. “What’s Jenkins’s cell phone code?”

No one answered him.

“I know you know it, Lopez,” Izzy insisted. “Cough it up, this could be important. It’s from Lindsey.”

“Yoda,” Lopez told him. “You know—nine six three two.”

Yoda. Right. Jenkins was a
Star Wars
nerd. Izzy keyed in the numbers, brought the phone to his ear. And listened to Lindsey tell Jenk that she wasn’t waiting for backup. She’d heard screams that might be Tracy—Christ—and she was going inside.

Izzy opened his window and climbed out of the still-moving car.

Lindsey sat at the kitchen table while a kettle heated on the gas stove.

“This is a wonderful house,” she lied. “Perfect for a large family.”

Richard Eulie—and it had to be him. She was 95 percent certain. But Eulie hadn’t offered to take her jacket, so she’d kept it on. Even if he had, she would have made some excuse about being too chilled to take it off, so she could keep her hand on her weapon. She kept its barrel aimed at the suspect as he moved about the kitchen, getting mugs and a canister of tea bags from a creaky-doored pantry.

Not that she’d actually drink anything he gave her, but when he’d offered, she had told him that a cup of something hot would be nice. It gave him something to do instead of sitting silently across from her at the table. He was extremely taciturn—he’d said maybe three sentences to her since he’d let her inside.

The kitchen was large but as shabby as the outside of the house. It had ancient linoleum—complete with a faded but totally un-PC picture of a smiling, turban-clad African American woman à la Aunt Jemima, right in the center of the room.

An old-style, stand-alone gas range with a griddle in the middle, was across from the door to the hallway. Its white ceramic sides were rounded, same as the ancient icebox over on the other side of the kitchen, but both were grimy and discolored. The sink, positioned in front of a window, had similar ceramic cabinets beneath it. Someone had attempted to build a counter in the corner between the sink and the stove, but their lack of skill left it crooked, like a badly constructed workbench. Its surface had at one time been covered with colorful Mexican tiles, many of which were missing. The rest were cracked and chipped.

Something definitely didn’t smell right in here. Not as bad as if there were a body stuffed under the sink or in the pantry, but something was definitely funky.

And this table, at which she was sitting, had had its finish completely scoured off. It had been cleaned recently—she could feel the residue of the cleanser, gritty beneath her fingers.

The lights flickered but didn’t go out. “Maybe we should light some candles,” she said. “You know, before the power goes? It’s probably better to find them now, rather than crashing around in the dark—”

“I don’t have candles,” he said.

Of course not. Serial killers thrived in the darkness. “Not even birthday cake candles?” she asked. “Everyone has birthday cake candles.”

A can of Campbell’s Chicken and Rice soup sat on the tiled counter, along with a handcrank opener. A two-liter bottle of ginger ale was next to a pill bottle—its label that of the pharmacy that had been robbed.

“I don’t. Besides, the power’s already out. The generator’s on. It won’t fail.” He smiled. “Unless I want it to.”

Okay. Lindsey wasn’t close enough to check the name on that pill bottle, but she did gesture toward it. “Looks like someone in your house has been fighting a bug,” she said, herself fighting the urge to just plug him. Right there. Pump him full of bullets until he was dead. Of course, if she turned out to be wrong about his identity, she’d never forgive herself. “I had
such
a sinus infection last month—it just would not go away. I had to have a double dose of the antibiotic. What a pain in the butt.”

There was a door with a window next to the sink—it was that back door that she’d peered through when she’d heard those screams. All was silent now, but she’d definitely heard something. She hadn’t imagined it.

What had he done to the woman who’d screamed?

A door, hanging half-open, knob gone, led to the dimness of the pantry. Another door, right next to it, was closed and locked with a series of dead bolts. Its hinges were shiny, as if they’d been replaced far more recently than the other renovations to the kitchen, which probably dated back to 1939.

“And of course the stomach flu’s going around,” Lindsey continued, “it’s that time of year. You know I heard there’s this new anti-nausea medication that really works and…Is it your wife who’s sick?”

He made a sound that might’ve been yes, might’ve been no, as the kettle began to whistle. He turned off the gas, poured the water into the mugs. Tall and lean, he was one of those men who looked really good in faded jeans, especially from the rear. Yes, he had an attractive back-of-the-head, in a plaid hunting jacket and hiking boots kind of way. And his face would have been handsome, too, if not for those eyes.

No doubt about it, from the distance in particular, he might’ve been mistaken by Tracy as a very hot guy.

But up close…Brrrr.

“I’m so sorry,” Lindsey told him. “And then for me to come barging in…”

It was then that she saw it. Hanging in the window, over the kitchen sink. Drying on what looked like an embroidery hoop.

He saw her see it—long golden hair. Human hair—Connie Smith’s? Still attached to a scalp.

She considered bluffing—
what an interesting dream catcher
—but really, why bother? He’d seen her eyes widen.

“I’m armed, Mr. Eulie,” she told him. “Keep your hands up, in sight, or I’ll shoot you, right here, right now.”

“I haven’t been called that in a long time.” He’d turned back to get the mugs, and now he froze, his better side to her, his hands on the counter. “Your hair’s not long enough,” he said. “It won’t look as good. But you’ll scream as I slip the knife between your scalp and your skull—”

“Don’t talk,” she ordered him, taking out her phone. “Don’t move, don’t talk.”

“I’ll miss this place,” he said. “I liked it here.”

“Shut. Up.” She dialed Jenk’s number. Nothing. Sophia. Tom. Dave. No one answered, damn it. How long was she going to have to sit here with him, like this?

He turned his head slightly to look at her reproachfully. “Be polite, and I’ll kill you quick.”

To hell with that. Lindsey pulled the trigger and shot him, right through the pocket of her jacket.

Jenk ran even faster.

“Mark,” Izzy said, running alongside him. “Let me do this for a while. Go back to the car.”

“How much farther?” he asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” Izzy told him. “Somewhere between three and five miles.”

Lindsey should have waited. But
he
wouldn’t have waited if he’d heard screaming.

“Go call her,” Izzy persisted. “Maybe you’ll get through. Maybe it’s all over. Maybe she shot him when he answered the door.”

And maybe she hadn’t. Maybe he’d overpowered her. Maybe he was with her right now, cutting her.

“Call her,” Izzy said. “Take five minutes, get warm, then get back out here. My ass is already freezing off.”

Eulie didn’t fall.

He dove for the doorway leading into the hall.

Lindsey fired again, but he was through it and gone.

There was no blood, no spatter, no spray. She’d hit him with that first shot—she’d seen his body jerk from the impact—so there should have been blood.

Unless he was wearing some kind of body armor beneath that jacket.

Weapon held at ready, in her right hand now, with her left steadying her grip, Lindsey stood with her back pressed against the kitchen wall, next to that door to the hall.

She looked—just a quick peek, leading with her handgun.

The hall to the right ended at the doorway to a small bathroom.

To the left, it led down for quite some ways. What looked to be a living room was off to the right of that, a series of closed doors to the left. It opened into the front foyer, where there was a curved staircase going up. Lindsey couldn’t see it from the kitchen, but she knew it was there. She’d seen it when she’d first come in.

Eulie was nowhere in sight. She could only hope that he’d taken that first bullet and had crawled off somewhere to die.

And okay. All right. She would bet big money that Tracy was in the basement behind that door with the new hinges. How else could Lindsey have heard those screams so clearly while standing out in the backyard?

Once she found Tracy, they’d hunker down here in the kitchen, waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

Lindsey now quickly built a barricade, tipping the table onto its side. They could huddle here, between the table and the fridge. And Lindsey would shoot anyone who came through that kitchen door.

Although, God, what if there was a second route down to the basement? What if Lindsey was wrong, and that wasn’t the basement at all, but instead another closet?

Before she could get to the door and unlock the bolts—as quietly as possible—the lights went out.

Great. She definitely hadn’t killed Eulie. And now Eulie had killed the generator.

So much for her theory that he didn’t have bullets for his gun. Tracy was shaking, but at least she wasn’t dead yet. It felt very good to not be dead. “Do you think that he killed her?”

And who exactly was the woman who’d come to the door? Lindsey? Tess? Alyssa? Tracy knew that the Troubleshooters were looking for her. They had to be. Except it didn’t make sense. Why send only one person—a woman—to the door? Why not bring an entire team crashing through the windows, like in the movies?

Unless the woman at the door was just an unlucky Mary Kay representative. Or a political petitioner, looking for a signature. Or…

“No.” Beth’s voice was grim in the darkness, even with its soft Southern twang. Grim, but slurred, almost as if she were drunk or on the verge of falling asleep. “He’d never shoot to kill. Never.”

“Why isn’t she screaming?” Tracy strained her ears, but she heard nothing. Not even the squeak of footsteps on the floor overhead.

“I don’t know. Lord, I’m going to be sick. I’m going to…Connie Smith, Jennifer Denfield, Yvette Wallace, Paula Kettering…”

“Beth,” Tracy said sharply, feeling for the other woman in the darkness, hands out, searching. “Don’t lose it.” And wasn’t that just too crazy? She herself was on the verge of panic. It was crowding her throat, filling her with fear and dread—and
she
was the levelheaded one. “Stay with me. We need to make a plan.”

“A plan.”

She connected with Beth’s leg. “Where’s your hand?” There it was. Thin and cold, her grip not as strong as Tracy had hoped. Her chains clanked. Step one in any plan would involve getting out of these chains. “Do you know where he keeps his keys?”

“In the kitchen, on a hook by the door,” Beth said, her voice getting even softer. Almost dreamy. “I’ve never seen it, but he told me. He always told me, because he knew I’d never get there, I’d never reach them. I was always chained—”

“You’re not chained now,” Tracy told her, giving her a shake. “Can you make it over to the stairs, and turn on the light? At least then we can see what our options are.”