Jack Stone - Wild Justice (20 page)

“Take a look,” Stone hissed. “Do you recognize
her?” He had the wallet open so the photograph of his sister was visible behind the clear plastic window. “Her name is Susan. Was she one of the girls you held here?”

The sheriff’s brow furrowed like he was concentrating. He used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe sweat from his eyes and stared at the photo for long seconds. He shook his head. “No
t her,” he said, his tone adamant. “Never seen her. The girls that were delivered to me all had dark hair.”

Stone wasn’t sure if he was relieved or disappointed. The idea of his kid sister being in the hands of this predator revolted him – but at least he would have been closer to finding her. He put the wallet back into his pocket.

Suddenly Stone heard the sound of a car outside. The sheriff heard it too. For a moment the little piggy eyes widened and froze with incredulity as though it must be the sound of his backup finally arriving. As though Stone had lied and bluffed him about the death of Hank Dodd.

Stone knew otherwise. He went to the
open doorway. There was another Crown Vic parked across the muddy drive, headlights blazing, red and blue lights flashing, but no siren. Through the sheeting rain he could see the young ginger-headed deputy behind the wheel and Lilley Pond in the passenger seat beside him. Stone went back to where the sheriff was kneeling.

“It’s over for you, Cartwright. Your time is up.” Stone bunched his fist, cocked it like a
sledge-hammer. He wanted one punch. Just one punch to release everything he had kept boiling up inside before the deputy arrived. One punch that had every ounce of his anger and frustration behind it. Then he could walk away and leave the law to do the rest.

But the sheriff was
looking somewhere else.

Stone turned round and saw a
head appear from out of the trapdoor. It was the head of a young blond girl, climbing uncertainly up the ladder. Stone recognized the face from the photo the librarian had given him. It was Margie Bevan. He went to her, and she reached up and took his hand. She was thin and frail, covered in dirt. Her hair was encrusted with filth and mud. But Stone could see streaks of blonde. She was naked above the waist; small pubescent breasts, and wearing just a pair of ripped panties. Her body was covered in a criss-cross of livid red welts. But it was her eyes that shocked Stone the most. They were enormous, and beneath each was a dark smear of purple bruising. Her pupils were huge and dulled, milky and dazed. Stone lifted her up gently and set her on the floor. She tottered, seemingly bewildered or drugged, and leaned against Stone for support. Then she saw the sheriff and her eyes grew even wider. She began to wail and tremble. She clutched desperately at Stone and he pulled the girl too him, wrapped his arms around her body and held her. She was sobbing against his chest, shaking feverishly. He saw another movement over his shoulder, and realized it was Stella, the second girl who had been kidnapped. Her head appeared, her eyes vacant and blinking. She had a cut on her forehead and her long dark hair was a mess of knotted tangles. Stone left Margie just long enough to help lift the second girl out of the pit.

T
hose few seconds was all it took.

Stone h
eard a sound behind his back. A scream. A wild scream of rage. He started to turn. Everything seemed suddenly to slow.

He saw the deputy and Lilley coming through the front door. Lilley’s mouth was
open and her eyes were wide with horror. The deputy had his gun out of its holster, drawn and leveled at the sheriff. He was shouting something. Stone had Stella in his arms, holding her thin naked body close – and behind him Stone realized too late that Margie Bevan had picked up the shotgun.

It was in her hands, unsteady, shaking, w
avering with the weight of it. Her face was a mask of nightmarish terror and horror. Her eyes were wide, lifeless. She was sobbing. Stone turned.

T
oo late.

The shotgun exploded. A tongue of flame leaped out from the barrel,
lighting the scene like the flash of a camera. The sound was battering and horrendously loud in the confined space. Stone kept turning, saw the sheriff on his knees falling backwards, saw the gout of blood erupt from the man’s torso, saw his arms flail, lifeless even before his body hit the ground. The heavy charge caught him full in the chest. At such close range there was no spread of shot and it tore through sheriff Cartwright like a solid ball.

Stone kept turning, everything still slowed. He saw Lilley
sagging to her knees in shock, saw the deputy’s eyes go wide with alarm and disbelief. Kept turning until he saw Margie Bevan falling to the ground, thrown from her feet by the massive recoil of the weapon as it fell from her hands.

A second. Maybe two.

And it was all over.

For a long moment nothing happened. No one moved. There was just the crushing sound of shocked silence. Finally Stone picked up the shotgun. He handed
the weapon to the deputy and then stared down at the dead sheriff’s body. His whole chest was a mess of red blood. He was completely still. His head was turned to the side, his cheek against the floorboards. One arm was flung out, the other by his side. His eyes were open, his dying expression one of absolute shock.

Stone
felt no sympathy and no mercy. Justice had been served, that was all.

A wild justice – but
that was fine by Jack Stone.

Thirty-Two
.

Stone woke late the next morning, and the moment his eyes opened his mind started working.

He was lying in Lilley’s bed. She was curled up under the sheets beside him. He was lying on his back, naked
apart from the neat white bandage wrapped tight around his thigh. There was a bright rectangle of sunlight on the far wall and Stone stared at it while his thoughts played back over the details of the night before.

He felt satisfied – but not the deep satisfaction that comes with the attainment of success. Rathe
r, it was a temporary sensation. He knew he would never feel truly satisfied until the day he found Susan.

He rolled over onto his side so he was pressed against Lilley, their two bodies fitted together. His chest was against her back, his lower body hard against the firm roundness of her butt. He inhaled the scent of her
; the smell of her hair and the fresh musky perfume of her body.

His hand slid over her
shoulder and cupped the shape of a breast. He felt the nipple stiffen reactively and Lilley moaned.

He realized then that she wasn’t asleep.

“I’m leaving,” Stone said softly.

Lilley was silent for a long time. “I know,” she said at last. “When?”

Stone sighed. “Today.”

“What about your leg?
” Lilley said suddenly. “The knife wound? The doctor said you should rest.”

Stone shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

Another long silence, like Lilley was deciding how she could convince him to stay. She sighed. Spoke softly.

“I’ll drive you,” she said. “Tell me where you want to go.”

Stone shook his head. “No. I’d rather hitchhike,” he said. “And I don’t know where I want to go. All I have is a cell phone number. It’s my next clue to finding the man who took my sister.”

Lilley rolled over
onto her back, her face an inch from Stone’s. He propped himself up on one elbow and marveled at the luster and smoothness of her skin, at the subtlety of coloring where the sun had darkened it to the shade of burned honey, and at the contrast to the soft creamy skin of her breasts. He looked into her eyes. He touched her cheek with one finger, tracing a line down to her throat.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered
, and he saw the flicker of a response that was something deep and passionate, pass like a shadow behind her eyes.

“Then stay, Jack. Stay with me.”

He shook his head. “I can’t Lilley. I can’t stop looking for my sister, no matter where the trail leads me, no matter how long it takes.”

Lilley nodded like she knew.

“Then give me something to remember you by,” she said, and her gaze was suddenly brazen and direct. “Give me one more reason to think about you every day and dream about you every night.”

Her face clouded with sudden emotion. Like she might cry. Stone lowered his mouth to her and kissed her with a fierce intense passion that lasted for a long time and took her breath away
. When she opened her eyes again, there was something altogether different in her expression.

“You’re the perfect man,” she said huskily, “and that’s how I’m going to remember you,” Lilley decided. She wrapped her arms around his neck and licked her lips. “You take a stand against injustice. Not many men do that, you know. Most men see the greys in life, and leave it up to us women to be outraged about all the things wrong in the world around us. But you don’t, Jack Stone. Your sense of honor makes you just as outraged, and your attitude make
s you do something about it.”

Lilley
lifted her head and kissed him again, then fell back against the pillow, her long dark hair fanning about her face in delicate tendrils. “And I’ll never forget the way you have treated me. You made me feel like a woman. You’re the perfect love affair; a man who has come into my life, left me sweating and panting and completely exhausted. And now you’re going, and I know I’ll never see you, and never hear from you again. You’re the ultimate fantasy, Jack Stone, because there isn’t the chance of any mess or any complications.”

Stone smiled. “
Woman, you talk too much,” he said and then covered her mouth with his own, gagging her feeble struggles to protest with his lips so her sounds were muffled. Then, when she protested no more, he kissed her again, this time longer, and more deeply. His tongue slid between her wet open lips and welcomed him. His hand cupped her breast, then slid urgently down over the soft smooth skin of her body exploring every contour, every fold. Her legs fell wide open for him and his hand reached all the way down until his fingers were teasing the aching nub of sensitive flesh at the center of her passion.

Lilley groaned. She broke the kiss and buried her face in his shoulder, kissing and biting him there with growing frantic need while his fingers teased and aroused her
so that she became quickly wet and willing for more.

Stone covered her body with his, and she felt small and delicate
beneath the size of him. She clawed her hands down the broad muscled expanse of his back and raked her nails into his skin. She had never felt so overpowered and helpless. He slid deep within her and the hardness of him was like a thrilling shock that she was unprepared for.

“Oh, God!” she groaned.

Stone paused for a heartbeat and then thrust again, using his hips to drive himself all the way inside to make her completely his. Lilley whimpered; a good sound. A sound of deep satisfaction. And then she was moving with him. Grinding her body and undulating her hips to intensify the sensations of every plunge.

They rocked together, writhing on the bed, and Stone’s mouth was on her throat and breasts and lips, devouring every inch of her perfect smooth skin. She clung to him, desperate to make every sensation last
, until finally she surrendered all sense of control and began to cry out as her orgasm engulfed her.

Stone tensed. His back arched. He felt himself tipping over the edge, and it was like falling from a cliff into boiling surf. He groaned. Thrust one last time.

And then they were lost to the blinding moments of release and joy that swept over them.

Thirty-Three.

Lilley pulled over to the side of the road in a soft cloud of dirt and dust. Stone picked up his
knapsack. Opened the passenger-side door.

“Goodbye,” Stone said.

Lilley smiled. “Goodbye, Jack Stone. Thanks for everything.” She winked at him and blew him a kiss. Stone leaned across the seat and kissed her properly.

When he got out of the car, he
didn’t look back.

Stone
reached the highway and turned west, walking slower than normal and favoring his injured leg. He was following the two-lane ribbon of black road towards Phoenix. It was just past mid-day. It was hot. The sky was clear blue, the ground already baked dry after the downpour of the night before.

H
e walked with his back straight. Walked for a couple of miles with his thumb out as the traffic streamed by him; cars and trucks with their windows wound up and their air conditioning cranked all the way.

Walked another mile before he heard the sound of a car slowing down.

Stone turned and glanced over his shoulder. A white Chevrolet Cruze was edging off the blacktop, its indicator flashing. The car looked brand new. It was immaculate.

Stone stood still. Waited. The car crept up alongside him and the passenger-side window slid down. Stone looked inside. He saw plush two-tone grey upholstery and
inhaled the unmistakable new-car smell that carried to him on a chill little breeze of air-conditioned air.

Lifted his eyes and looked at the driver.