Out of Place (21 page)

Chapter 39

Zack pulled the large door down on the carwash and started looking around for the tracker he suspected was there. He didn’t want any potential prying eyes to know that he was looking for it.

Dropping down to the concrete surface
, he started at the rear of the car. And in almost no time at all he saw the blinking red light. “Found it!” He slid out from under the car and looked up at Emily. “I knew it.”

She blew out a breath and tentatively bit her lip.
“I still don’t like this.”

He got up, leaving the tracker exactly where it was. “It’s the only
thing I can think of.”

“It’s just so sketchy.”

“I know.” He wiped his hands off on his jeans. “But we have to try something, and this way, we get the drop on them.”

Emily
got into the driver seat and started the car. When they got to the rental place, she dropped him off and drove away. He hated the idea of them being separated even for a short time, but this was probably the best plan. Or the worst plan.

Zack
went inside the building and walked up to the smiling bleached-blonde behind the counter. “Hi, welcome to All City Rentals. How can I help you?”

Zack
plunked his driver’s license and a credit card down on the desk. “I need a car for the day.”

She started going into her routine
about options and all those goodies but he stopped her. “Please, I’m in hurry, so just give me the basic agreement.”

She nodded and started typing until the printer started spitting out pages. Sliding a page for him to sign down on the desk
, she said, “Here’re your keys. The car is parked in space C-20.”

Zack
signed, snagged the keys, and headed out to the lot. He gave a quick scan of the area and saw the blue Nissan Altima sitting by itself. He hit the key fob and the lights blinked to confirm it was the right car.

A wave of relief hit him when he saw Emily sitting in the silver Chevy waiting for him. She pulled out in front of him
, so he could follow as planned. He hoped to lure whoever was chasing them out and into the open.

***

Emily felt her nerves getting the better of her as she looked up in the rearview mirror at Zack behind her. She couldn’t disagree that this was the best play, but it didn’t make it any easier to do. It was starting to seem almost crazy. No, it was past almost.

She most certainly didn’t like the idea of being a piece of bait on the hook. At the same time, though, she was completely sick of running.
And there was nowhere to run now. Whoever this person was, they had access to her mother.

Pulling up the hill
, the road started to wind up and stretch narrow as thick trees crowded the roadway. Emily saw the old sign Zack was talking about and slowed to turn into the abandoned warehouse.

She g
ot nervous as he drove past her up the street. The driveway was wide and spacious, and for an apparently abandoned warehouse, the place was still holding up well, which made Emily think it hadn’t been abandoned for long.

Pulling the car close to the building, she turned off the engine and waited.

**
*

Zack parked the car and hurried down the paved footpath to the other building. He knew this large corporate park was mostly abandoned. Here on the east side of the park there was nothing but empty buildings and warehouses. The occupied parts were a half mile to the west and north.

This warehouse section was empty even back when he was in high school. He and his friends used to come here when they started
driving to have illegal drag races around the outside of the complex. It was better than doing it on the roads and risking the life of some innocent driver.

At the edge of the grassy area
, he stood near the overgrown hedgerow and looked at the silver Chevy. He sent Emily a text:

You all good?

A-OK
,

she replied.

He didn’t want to be seen by anyone so he just waited.

**
*

Emily kept an eye on all the mirrors of the car, occasionally glancing over to see where Zack was hiding, but she couldn’t see him. The afternoon was getting long and she was starting to think this idea was a bust. Maybe whoever was stalking her was too smart to fall for a plan like this. Maybe he couldn’t be drawn out into the open so easily.

She looked down at her phone again and wished it was her real phone
, but Zack thought this was a good idea, too. Her good phone was in her pocket. This was an annoying piece of junk. The screen was horrible, but it had to be this way. She’d be happy when she could throw it into the trash.

After another hour, no one was around
and nothing was happening. Clearly, this plan was a total failure. She sent a text to Zack saying as much and he agreed. He said he was going to head back to the car and to meet him at the end of the driveway.

She started the car and began driving away when a large truck turned into the lane.
Waiting a second, she figured he was just going to drive by, but instead the truck sped up and slammed into her car, sending it backwards and crushing it into the concrete wall of the massive warehouse.

The airbag exploded into her face, knocking her dizzy. She reached blindly for the seatbelt, got it and clicked the button. Her door wouldn’t open at first
, but she shoved it hard and got out of the car just as the interior popped in an explosion of fire from something that flew in through the passenger window.

Emily backed away when the heat hit her in the face. She turned into the barrel of a gun.

Chapter 40

Zack turned the corner and was stunned to see the wreckage, a large dual-wheeled box truck had crushed into Emily’s car and flames were streaming out in all directions.

He jumped out of the car and approached slowly
, but the gas tank on the silver Chevy exploded, sending a concussion wave into the large truck. Zack got back into his car quickly and pulled out of there, afraid the large truck was going to blow too, and he didn’t want to be around for that.

Speeding out of the lot,
Zack prayed that Emily wasn’t in that burning car. He was pretty sure she wasn’t since the GPS tracker on her phone was still tracking. A quick glance down at his phone told him she was tracking somewhere close. The dot wasn’t moving, which bothered him. Maybe whoever had taken her found the phone and tossed it. He gave her a decoy phone, hoping the person wouldn’t look for her real phone.

He was just about to get out of the car and start tracking on f
oot when the red dot on his map started moving. Zack drove out to the main street and cut the wheel right to follow the moving marker.

The area was familiar to him
, but he still didn’t know where most of these roads led. He just had to follow at a safe distance and wait for a chance to make a move. He didn’t want to give away his position.

***

Emily sat in the back seat with the gun to her head, held by just about the last person she expected on the planet. She turned to face her captor, Cheryl Moulton, Harry’s only child. “Why are you doing this?”

Cheryl gave her a dirty look. “
Give me the phone.” She tossed it out the window and then looked back to Emily. “You ruined my family.” She looked up at the scruffy man driving the car. “Here, pull into this driveway.”

They pulled up a winding
dirt driveway that led to a rundown house. The place looked like it had burned down long ago, but most of the structure still stood.

Cheryl told the man behind the wheel to stop by the side of the house. He turned off the car, and she promptly shot him in the back of the head.

Emily was shocked by the noise and the action. She looked into the menacing brown eyes behind the gun and saw the same psychotic look that danced in Harry’s.

“Get out.” She shoved Emily out the door and followed too closely for any chance to escape.

Emily felt the gun press hard into her back. Cheryl was much bigger, at least four inches taller and probably forty pounds heavier. That alone wouldn’t stop Emily from fighting back if she got an opening, but Cheryl was prudent and pushed her up the steps and through the tattered door.

They stepped into a broken down old house
. The interior matched the outside perfectly. It looked like a smoky fire had done serious damage to the home. Emily turned to face her. “What is this place?”

“This is where we used to live, this was the last place my family was happy.”
Cheryl kept the gun on her.

Emily felt the floors moving under her feet. It was not a stable platform
. She was barely one hundred thirty pounds and she felt like she was going to fall through in places. “Why are you doing this, Cheryl?”

“I told you
: you ruined my life.”

“How did I ruin your life?”

“Because you took my father away from me.”

“I had no choice
. He was going to kill me.”

Cheryl made a face and used her free hand to punch herself in the thigh.
“That’s not what I’m talking about, you stupid bitch.”

“What’re you talking about?”

She moved in closer, putting the gun right to Emily’s face. “He always liked you better. No matter what I did, it was Emily this and Emily that. Why can’t I get good grades like Emily, why can’t I play sports like Emily. Then when you got older, you’d flaunt that hot little body of yours all over the place. He would rather spend time gawking at you than looking at my mother or talking to me.”

Emily was stunned that this was coming back again. She had no idea any of this was going on. “Cheryl, I never intended anything like that to happen. I didn’t do anything.”

“You knew what you were doing, you little whore—you knew it. Nobody wears skimpy clothes like that without some ulterior motive.” She shoved the gun towards Emily. “Look at you right now! Those little pink shorts couldn’t be any tighter if you painted them on, and that tight T-shirt showing off those boobs. You’re a whore and you know it.”

Emily shook her head. “Cheryl, everyone dresses
like this.”

“I don’t! How would you’ve liked it if I dressed like that and went sticking my goodies into your father’s face?”

“You don’t know anything, you stupid bitch!” Emily didn’t mean to say that, but it slipped out and she was mad. “Did you know that your mother had an affair with my father? Did you know that?”

Cheryl’s face started to tremor with ticks. “
Of course I knew, you fool. That’s because my mother was a whore just like you.”

“Cheryl, I’m sorry
. I’m sorry if your father was obsessed with me. But I never did anything to lead him on.”

“It’s too late now.
” Cheryl went over to her and pushed her up against the wall, sticking the gun into her already sore stomach. “When my father pulled that trigger, I demanded he shoot you in the head. I called checkmate on the game, but he refused.” She slid the gun down, pushing the barrel against Emily’s crotch. “I should torture you just for the fun of it, but I’d rather watch you burn alive.” Before Emily could move, she felt her hand being cuffed and latched to the water pipes that ran from floor to ceiling along the wall between the kitchen and dining room.

Cheryl disappeared out of the room. Emily yanked the pipes as hard as she could
, but couldn’t break free. The thick pipe didn’t budge at all.

Cheryl came back into the room holding a large can of gasoline. “Don’t even bother. Those are old cast-iron pipes
, they’re not going to move. In fact, when they find your body, you’ll be dangling from that pipe. Unless your arm burns off, which is entirely possible, I guess.”

She made a trail of gasoline around the room. “I love fire, Emily.
Do you know that? I’ve loved it since I was a kid. They blamed me for the fire in this house, but it wasn’t my fault. If my mother wasn’t so stupid, collecting all those old newspaper clippings, it wouldn’t have gotten out of control.”

She continued pouring gas on the walls and floors. “Fire is
so cool, it’s so fun to watch things burn. The way it consumes and leaves no trace. I love the way it has no limits. It can just get hotter and hotter and hotter, only dependent on the fuel you feed it. It can melt steel—it can even melt rock when it gets hot enough. It’s the most powerful force in the Universe. You can’t stop fire, Emily, you can only delay it.”

She pour
ed gasoline on the kitchen cabinets across from Emily. “Chess was the only game my father would play with me. We used to play all the time until I went away to school. It was about the only time I could get him to be impressed with me. I never once heard how Emily was good at chess, but I was.”

She took out the matching rook and knight pieces and placed them on the floor in front of Emily. “
So when he asked for my help to play one more game I couldn’t resist. All I had to do was place a couple timely phone calls, book a couple remote cabins, no big deal. He thought I was helping him, but I was going to kill you the moment I had the chance. When he finally got you to that cabin, I planned to burn it down. I was going to get him all to myself once and for all.”

Emily shook her head. “You’re crazier than he was.”

Cheryl laughed and returned to pouring the gas again. She poured it all around the front door, and then came to Emily. She stopped short of pouring the last bit on Emily. “Hmm, I think you’ll suffer more if I don’t pour the gas right on you. I don’t want you to die of smoke inhalation, that’s no fun. I want you to feel the heat. I want you to watch the flames crawl across the wood planks towards you. I want you to feel that pain of burning alive, because that’s what I felt every time my father looked at you. I felt like I was burning alive.”

She poured some gas down the sink. “
I tried to burn up my father’s mess at your house to protect him, but he was stupid. And if he knew anything about setting a fire like I taught him, that boyfriend of yours would have never gotten out of that cabin. But he put the propane tanks in the wrong spot and he opened the valves too much.”

She poured
a few drips of gas around Emily’s feet and onto her shoes. “This way, you’ll catch on but you won’t burn up right away. It’ll take some time.” She tossed the can across the room and took out a fancy silver lighter and a cigar. She lit the cigar with a few turns and puffed some thick smoke into the air. The smell of gas was so thick that Emily thought they were going to explode right there.

“Well, Emily Bontrager. Do you have any last words before I watch you die?”

Emily looked outside, praying that Zack was somewhere ready to spring out. She had to delay as long as possible. “Cheryl, I never meant any harm.”

She puffed the cigar and then held it tip down towards the pool of gasoline in the center of the room. “The best part about this whole thing is this.” She took out her phone. “Mike, it’s me
—bring in the boyfriend.”

Emily felt her heart sink when she saw
Zack walk in with his hands held up high. He stopped at the front door. But Emily was confused when no one else was with him.

Cheryl tilted her head in confusion
. Zack dropped his hands, pulled out a gun. “Sorry, Mike’s not going to be joining us.” He shot her in the chest.

Cheryl
groaned and stood there, looking at him, then, she looked over at Emily and dropped to her knees as blood poured from her chest. She then flicked the lighter and dropped facedown to the floor.