The Body in the Woods (23 page)

The muscles on either side of Becker's jaw bunched themselves. His lips pulled back from his gums, exposing long teeth. All pretense fell away. With his free hand, he pulled something black from the pocket of his pants. Ruby was still figuring out what it was when he thumbed it open, revealing it to be a folding knife. It was like watching a magic trick in a nightmare.

“I said you're coming with me.” His voice was no louder than it had been, but now it held an edge as sharp as the knife's.

All Ruby could focus on was the blade as long as his hand, shining silver in the moonlight. She imagined the knife slipping over her throat, leaving behind a wet red smile. Or plunging into her gut and ripping up to her heart.

Becker was braced, waiting for her to pull away from him. Instead she stepped toward him, throwing him off balance. She kept his bulk between her and the point of the knife. At the same time, she twisted her wrist so that it pushed against the weakest part of his grip, his thumb.

With a curse, he was forced to let go of her arm. But Ruby's muddled brain hadn't made any further plans. What should she do now? Becker was standing between her and the way back out of the park. And if she ran farther down the trail, he would easily follow her.

So Ruby chose the third way.

CHAPTER 45

WEDNESDAY

HE'S GOING TO KILL HER

“Wait!” Nick heard Alexis calling out behind him. “Nick, wait up!” He ignored her. Even though he had never imagined ignoring Alexis, there was no time to wait. He had also never imagined seeing a man pull a knife on his friend.

Nick had a combat knife at home, bought off eBay. Sometimes he practiced with it in his room, grunting and thrusting it into the air, but he could not imagine ever using it on a person. Let alone a slight red-haired girl.

As he galloped up the hill, Nick held his phone up in front of him. It was hard to find the right button to push, not in the low light of the setting sun, not when he was running full tilt. He finally found the icon for the phone—almost tripping over a curb in the process—but when he pressed it, he didn't get the keypad on the next screen, just some words in a box. He squinted. They read
RETURN CALL.

He pressed it, then held the phone to his ear, trying to quiet his breathing enough so he could hear.

The phone rang just once. Then the detective grunted, “Harriman.”

“He's after Ruby,” Nick gasped. “He's chasing her. I think he's going to kill her.” He spoke in bursts, sucking air in between. He was still running flat out.

“I do not have the patience for this. Who is this? Who's after Ruby? Do you mean Ruby McClure?”

“It's Nick Walker. That birder guy, Becker”—Nick felt a fleeting sense of triumph as he remembered the man's name—“Becker's chasing her. Into Forest Park. And he's got a knife.”

CHAPTER 46

WEDNESDAY

INTO THE SHADOWS

With her hands outstretched, Ruby ran into the shadowy darkness under the trees. It was impossible to be completely quiet, so she concentrated on putting as much distance as she could between herself and Becker. Night was falling, and she hoped that her dark clothes would provide some camouflage. As she lurched between trees, branches slapped her cheeks, tore at her hair, and plucked at the sleeves of her coat. She stumbled over the ground ridged with roots.

Ruby's thoughts should have been urgent, but they felt as soft and worn as old corduroy. She was thinking too slowly. Moving too slowly. Her legs didn't want to obey her. What had Becker put in that cocoa?

In a mostly futile effort to avoid getting scratched, she held her hands in front of her face. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to keep hurtling forward, to ignore the little voice that told her to stop, to lie down, to give up.

She had to keep moving. She didn't have any choice. If she stopped, Becker would find her. He would find her and kill her. Just like he had killed those other girls.

But why her? She certainly wasn't Hispanic. Then a memory swam to the front of her mind. The clump of blond hair Nick had found on their evidence search. Now she realized that that hair had been cut, not pulled from Miranda Wyatt's head. So Becker had killed a girl with black kinky hair, a blond girl, and a girl with straight black hair.

And tonight he planned to add red hair to his collection. Her hair.

But not if she could help it. Ruby just hoped she was managing to hold on to some sense of direction. That she was running parallel to the border of the park, not deeper and deeper into its heart.

She didn't know how long she had been running. Ten minutes? Twenty? It was getting harder to churn forward. Wet ferns washed her pants. Her legs felt numb. Ruby caught her toe on a rock and fell headlong. She landed so hard that it forced the air from her lungs. For a long moment, she lay stunned, until finally something loosened and she was able to suck in some air. It hurt nearly as much going in as it had going out, but the next breath came easier.

She was mentally yelling at herself to get to her feet when she realized she could hear—nothing. Nothing but the sounds of a nearby stream and faraway traffic. She held her breath. Still nothing.

Had she lost him, then? Or—and the idea sparked a distant fear in her—maybe he was only a few paces away, regarding her? Deciding the best place to slip in the knife?

Moving as quietly as possible, Ruby pushed herself up to her hands and knees. She turned her head from side to side, ignoring how everything seemed to ripple and shift. She was alone. She took a breath that sounded more like a sob.

Now what? Ruby decided to count to a hundred before she got to her feet.
One jelly bean, two jelly bean, three jelly bean.
Every fresh bruise ached, every scratch stung.

When she reached twenty-three jelly bean, a sound cut through the stillness. To her left, someone was crashing through the underbrush, but it sounded at least a block away.

Ruby had done it! She had lost Becker. She got to her feet and started to move as quietly as she could in the opposite direction. The sounds also seemed to be moving farther away.

Her heart lightening, Ruby rounded a big fir tree.

And realized how wrong she had been.

CHAPTER 47

WEDNESDAY

ALIVE TO HIS FINGERTIPS

When Ruby had first darted off, rabbited into the woods, a red rage had filled Becker. How dare she defy him? How dare she run off?

The other girls hadn't caused him any trouble. They had been unsuspecting. The first death had surprised even him.

So he had cursed when he had been forced to chase after Ruby. But as Becker pushed his way through brambles and bushes, he became aware of how strongly his heart was beating in his chest. Then he paused to listen for Ruby, to look for signs of her passing. As he sucked in a breath of sweet air, he realized he was alive to his fingertips. All his senses were working together to track her down.

This was, he realized, even better than those other times. What kind of challenge had they offered, really?

He wasn't the type of man who would buy a trip to one of those game farms where you shot unsuspecting exotic animals from twenty feet away as they placidly grazed. No. Man was meant to be a hunter. To match wits with his prey. The surrender was then all the more satisfying for the struggle.

He made himself move deliberately, rationally. Ruby was younger and fitter, but the GHB had leveled the playing field by affecting her thinking and coordination. And, of course, she still had the tracker on her. He took out his phone and found Ruby's tiny moving dot. And then he cut around and got in front of her.

Ah, and here Ruby came now. Blundering right toward him. He flipped the knife closed and slipped it into his pocket. He would use it later.

But not just yet.

CHAPTER 48

WEDNESDAY

ONLY GOT WORSE

Legs churning, Alexis was desperately trying to keep up with Nick, but she kept falling farther behind. He was already way ahead. His legs were a blur, and he seemed undaunted by the steepness of the hill. Alexis felt like she was dying. Her knees hurt, her thighs burned, and there was a stabbing pain in her side that got worse with each rasping breath.

And what was going to happen when they caught up to Becker and Ruby? How exactly were they supposed to save her, let alone protect themselves? Neither she nor Nick had anything resembling a weapon. Her Leatherman multipurpose tool was in her SAR backpack on her bedroom floor. Even if she'd had it, its tiny knife would have been dwarfed by Becker's, which had glinted in the light of the rising moon.

Becker's knife was scary enough. What if he had a gun?

What they needed, Alexis thought, was something they could use to hold him at bay. To hurt him, if need be. As she hurried up the hill—it was no longer quite a run, Alexis simply couldn't manage more than sort of a lurching trot—she scanned the yards she was passing, looking for something useful she could grab. Her frantic gaze found a ceramic pig on a porch, a loose brick on the sidewalk, a yellow recycling bin in a driveway, a hose coiled on a lawn, and a rose-covered wooden trellis against a house. She tried to imagine converting each into something she could use to hurt or even kill Becker. Tried—and failed.

Nick must have been thinking the same thing, because ahead of her he suddenly veered to the left and grabbed a rock as big as a cantaloupe from a garden. Clutching the rock to his chest, he disappeared into Forest Park.

CHAPTER 49

WEDNESDAY

TIME TO LET GO

Ruby rounded a fir tree, pushed her way through a blackberry bush, and entered a small clearing—where she came face-to-face with Becker.

He was holding his binoculars clasped to his chest. This did not seem terribly ominous.

Until he lunged forward and looped the strap around the back of her neck, jerking her forward.

His hands were fisted around the cord, which let the loose binoculars thump painfully against her ribs. The strap sawed into the back of her neck. Becker's face was only a few inches from hers. His breath was sour and rotten. He was close enough that she could knee him. But before Ruby could even complete the thought, he stepped behind her, the strap sliding sideways around her neck. Then he pulled it even tighter.

As the cord slipped around her neck, Ruby raised her left hand. She managed to hook two fingers between it and her neck just before it tightened across the front of her throat. The cord dug into her skin, pressing against her windpipe, squeezing her arteries and veins. Far from helping, her own knuckles were being forced against her throat, only increasing the pressure. She was making sounds she had never heard anyone make before, barking coughs and desperate gurgles. The sounds scared her as much as anything. They sounded like they were coming from someone who was dying.

With her free hand, Ruby frantically groped over her right shoulder, trying to find Becker's face. If only she could pull his hair, yank his nose, gouge his eyes! Anything so that she could take a breath. Take a breath and stop making those awful sounds.

Her scrabbling hand found nothing. In an effort to gain an inch or two, she arched her back and went up on her toes. Her lungs screamed silently for air as the cord sawed deeper into her neck.

Then Ruby's fingertips skimmed the skin of his cheek, brushed the edge of his shoulder. He grunted in surprise.

Yes! If she could just make him loosen his grip. She had to breathe. Her lungs were hollow with need.

But with one of his heavy hiking boots, Becker viciously kicked her calves. Pain shot from her Achilles tendons to the base of her spine. He kicked again. Ruby's cry of agony was stillborn, choked off along with her air.

He was, she realized, trying to knock her off her feet. If he succeeded, she would add her own weight to his.
Dead weight
, Ruby thought, as the strap sliced into her fingers, into her throat. She would be dead weight.

Her vision spun like water swirling down a drain.

“That's it,” Becker murmured into Ruby's ear as her struggle began to slow. “That's it, Ruby. Let go.”

She stopped fighting. Stopped trying to breathe.

“It's time to let go now,” he whispered. So gently. He kissed her temple.

Her vision tilted. The moon spun in the sky. The world darkened, then dwindled to nothing.

Ruby's knees sagged. Everything went black.

CHAPTER 50

WEDNESDAY

CRY OUT IN HORROR

Nick sprinted up the trail, running as fast as he ever had in his life. At what he thought was the same spot where he had seen Ruby and Becker disappear, he plunged into the woods. He ran flat out for a few minutes, branches slashing at him, then stopped to listen, trying to hold his breath. There. A noise. To his left.

He darted forward, but when he stopped again a minute later, he heard nothing. Nothing. His heart was a bird trapped in the cage of his ribs. Where was Ruby? Was he too late? Had Becker already found her? Found her and killed her?

There—did Nick hear noises to his right? He started running again, somehow managing to keep to his feet even when he tripped over a root. And then he heard it. Someone was choking and coughing. The sound both let him know that Ruby was alive and that she wouldn't be for long.

He found them in a little clearing. But Ruby was on the ground. On the ground and unmoving, her face slack. Holding the knife, Becker was leaning over her body. Nick cried out in horror.

The older man spun around. In his hand, the wicked-looking knife glinted silver. When he saw Nick, the corners of his mouth lifted, but it wasn't a smile. It was a thing he did with his mouth.

With a banshee yell, Nick threw the heavy rock right at Becker's head.

And watched the other man duck. The rock sailed over his shoulder and thudded harmlessly on the ground.

Leaving Nick with nothing but empty hands.

He closed them into fists and leapt forward, swinging wildly at Becker, trying to drive him away from Ruby.