RESCUE AT CARDWELL RANCH (15 page)

She looked around, terrified to see where he’d brought her.

“Well, hello,” Jason Mathews said from where he stood nearby. “Nice to have you back.”

With relief she saw that she was still dressed, but that several of the buttons on her blouse were open. She shuddered at the thought of this man’s hands on her as she lifted her gaze. The room was small. A walk-in closet or maybe a pantry. Were they still at the Warner house? She didn’t think so, but all of these high-end houses had similar features.

Drugged, it took her a moment to realize he hadn’t gagged her. She opened her mouth and tried to scream. The sound that came out was weak. She tried again, stopping only when he erupted into a fit of laughing.

“No one can hear you. There’s no one around for miles. Not that I mind hearing you scream. I plan to make you scream a whole lot more before this day is over.”

His smile curdled her stomach. She tried to fight down the terror that weakened her as much as the drug he’d given her. Her mind raced. Had she told anyone at the office where she’d gone? Yes, Jennifer. She’d told her she was meeting a husband and wife at the Warner place. Not that there would be reason for anyone to start looking for her for hours. More like days.

Her heart dropped at the thought as the man stepped in front of her, forcing her to raise her gaze to his.

“Finally, we are alone,” he said, smiling. “I was worried it wasn’t ever going to happen. We are going to have so much fun. Well, I am,” he added with a laugh. “First I want to show you the house. It is only polite, since you showed me several houses.” He stepped behind her and, kicking off the wheelchair brake, propelled her out of the small room into a larger one.

She saw that she’d been right about the space he’d had her in being a walk-in closet, even though there were no shelves or rods on the walls yet.

“The master bedroom!” he announced with a flourish. “I haven’t had time to decorate, or even get a bed, so we’ll have to make due.”

Dust coated the floor. She frowned, trying to make sense of where they were. Not in the Warner place. She’d shown it before and it had been clean, although empty for some time like a lot of other houses in the neighborhood this far out of town. Were they in one of those houses? Some had been abandoned by the contractors when they’d gone broke and the banks had been slow to move on selling them.

Her gaze stopped on a pile of items in the corner of the room. Terror turned her bones to mush at the sight of the duct tape, handcuffs, gag ball and an array of sex toys, including a whip.

She closed her eyes, dropping her head, unable to look. She couldn’t let herself give in to this. She had to find a way to escape. This wasn’t the way she was going to die, not in this dirty, abandoned house with this madman.

“You need to wake up,” he said next to her ear.

She didn’t open her eyes. She needed to get away from him. She needed a weapon. She needed even half a chance. She could still feel the drug in her bloodstream. It made her limbs feel lifeless, her reflexes slow.

While driven, she’d still always been a realist. No one was going to save her and she didn’t see any way to save herself, bound the way she was. He’d done this before. He knew what he was doing. And since she’d gotten away from him once, he had made sure she wouldn’t this time, she thought as she tested the tape on her wrists and ankles.

He was going to kill her.

But not until he hurt her. She had seen the cruel glimmer in his eyes as soon as she’d looked at him moments before. For whatever reason, he liked hurting women. It must make him feel superior, not that his reasons mattered.

“I must have given you too much of the drug,” he said, sounding disappointed, even angry. “I don’t want you to miss a minute of the fun so you are going to have to wake up.”

She kept her eyes closed. Let him think it was the drug.

The slap made her eyes fly open and slammed her head back against the webbing on the wheelchair seat. His face was inches from her own now, his breath rank as he laughed.

“I thought that might bring you out of it,” he said with another laugh, and stepped behind the chair again. “Pay attention or the next time, I’ll have to do something much more painful to get your attention.”

He wheeled her through a door and into the large master bath. Her heart stopped at the sight of a roll of plastic in the bathtub and several new blue tarps spread over the floor. “That’s for later. I want to put that part off as long as possible this time. You deserve my best after what you’ve put me through.”

She heard the underlying anger in his voice. It made her blood run cold. He planned to hurt her for as long as he could keep her alive. A sob caught in her chest. “Why?” she cried, hating to let him see how terrified she was.

He laughed as he shoved her into the bedroom again then whirled the wheelchair around to face him. The blade of a pair of scissors caught the light, shimmering in his hand. She gasped and tried to draw back as he moved in closer.

“Why?” he asked mockingly. “Because I can.”

The knife blade cut through the tape holding her to the chair an instant before he stepped behind the wheelchair and unceremoniously dumped her into the middle of the master bedroom floor. The sound of the blade cutting through the tape reminded her of it cutting through her hair.

“Tour over,” he said. “It’s time for the fun to begin.”

She looked up at him from the floor where she lay on her side, bound and helpless. If she couldn’t get away, then there was only one thing to do. She had to make him so furious that he killed her quickly.

Chapter Fifteen

Hayes hit a rain shower near the mountains. It was still spitting rain as the Warner place came into view. The massive house sat on a small rise with a stand of aspens and pines behind it. From the third floor, he would guess there was a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the valley. The house was just as Jennifer at the agency had described it. Massive, tan with matching stone and a circular driveway. The driveway was empty.

“No!” he yelled and slammed his fist against the steering wheel as he slowed. She couldn’t have already come here, shown the house and left, unless... Once off the narrow paved road, the circular drive was an intricate pattern of cobblestones. Unfortunately, Montana winters had done their worst, breaking some and dislodging others. His tires rumbled over them as he neared the elaborate front door.

Unless the couple she was supposed to show the house to had called and canceled. He tried her number again. Again, it went straight to voice mail. Still, he was about to grasp onto that theory like a life raft when he saw the muddy footprints.

Hayes threw on the brakes. The rain had stopped. His windshield wipers scraped loudly across the dry glass. He shut them off, then leaving the rental running, got out.

The prints appeared to be muddy boot tracks. What had caught his eye was how they had trailed onto the cobblestones from the side of the house.

So she had shown the house to someone? He started to follow the tracks along the side of the house. The landscaping had never been finished except for a little out front. Peering in a window, he found the house was empty. It had that never-lived-in look and he was reminded of something McKenzie had told him about overbuilding back in the early two thousands. Building contractors had gone broke, leaving grandiose spec houses for the banks to deal with. This appeared to be one of them.

As he neared the back of the house, he expected the tracks to head for the rear entrance, assuming they must be from whomever McKenzie had shown the house to.

But the tracks veered off into the trees. Strange. The hair rose on the back of his neck as he realized the tracks had been heading out of the woods behind the house—and ended on the cobblestones out front.

What the hell? He’d put on his gun and shoulder holster after the call from the policewoman. He checked his gun now as he realized what he was seeing. Whoever had recently come to the Warner place from the trees hadn’t walked back. They’d driven.

* * *

“D
OES
YOUR
WIFE
KNOW
?”

He’d never let the others talk. He’d kept their mouths duct taped. He hadn’t needed to hear their screams. The eyes were more than windows into the soul. He had been able to see their terror as their eyes widened in disbelief. None of them had been able to believe it was happening to them. When the realization that they were about to die finally hit them, it, too, was in their eyes. He hadn’t needed to even hear more than their muffled screams.

“If Emily really is your wife, then she
must
know,” McKenzie said. “No woman could be that stupid.”

“Don’t talk about my wife. She doesn’t know anything,” he snapped.

“She probably turns a blind eye, just thankful it isn’t her.”

“Emily isn’t like that. She’s sweet and kind and... If she knew...” His voice trailed off, the thought too horrifying. Emily loved him. She trusted him. She looked up to him. She wasn’t like these successful bitches who looked down their noses at him. If only she had come along years ago before...the others.

“I bet she can smell it on you when you come home. Does she make you shower? Or does she like it, the smell of another woman’s pain on you?”

“Enough!” he bellowed, his voice echoing in the cavernous empty room. “You don’t know anything about it.”

“Don’t I? You know she can see it building up inside you, then you leave and when you come back...” She met his gaze, hers hard as stone. “Believe me, she knows.”

He kicked her, catching her in the stomach and flipping her over. A painful cry came out of her so he kicked her again, shutting her up except for the second groan of pain. He flipped her back over to face him as he dropped down beside her and cupped her face in his hands, pulling her a breath’s distance from his own face.

“You want to know why I do this? Because of women like you. You think you’re so smart. Bitches, all of you. But once you realize that you’re mine to do with whatever I want, then you change your tune. Like the others, you will cry and whine and plead with me.”

She spit in his face.

He screamed in fury, releasing her to slap her as hard as he could. Her head snapped back, smacking the floor. He hurriedly wiped her saliva from his face with his sleeve, cringing at the horrible feel of it on his skin. “I am going to kill you!” he yelled. “I’m going to—”

“Big man, killing a woman who is bound and helpless. This is what makes you feel better? If you were a real man—”

He snatched up the whip from the corner of the room and swung it at her. She tried to roll away from him, only managing to flip over once before the cattails sliced the back of her blouse open along with her skin. She screamed.

* * *

A
S
H
AYES
ENTERED
the dark stand of trees, he pulled his weapon. Droplets from the rain still shone in the bright green leaves of the aspens and dripped down occasionally as he followed the tracks.

He hadn’t gone far when the trees opened a little. He glimpsed the backyard of another house. Around him, everything was deathly quiet. He didn’t even hear a birdsong, just the drip of the trees.

Hayes moved along the edge of the trees until he could see the front of the house. No vehicles and yet the tracks were fresh. Two sets. Both disappearing into the garage. His heart began to pound faster as he worked his way toward the back of the house, keeping out of sight of the rear windows.

He passed an old greenhouse, the door dangling open. Inside he would see where the vegetation had taken over, but rather than being green, everything appeared crusted with a thick layer of dust. It was the kind of thing that had creeped him out when he was a kid exploring old houses with his brothers.

He moved past the greenhouse and through an old garden spot, the dried cornstalks giving him cover until he was within a dozen yards of the back entrance to the house.

The muddy tracks ended on the back step. He drew out his phone and called 911. He was headed for the door when a scream pierced the silence.

The back door wasn’t locked. That was because the man inside hadn’t been expecting company? Or had set a trap for him? Hayes took a chance, slipping through and moving fast through the big, empty house.

He couldn’t tell where the scream had come from, but there were tracks in the dust on the floor. One set of man-sized footprints and two narrow wheel tracks. What the hell?

* * *

“N
OT
SO
MOUTHY
NOW
,
are you?” Jason said as he crouched down next to her.

The initial pain had been incredible. She’d never felt anything like it and could no more have held back the scream as she could have quit breathing.

Worse, she knew this was just the beginning. She could feel blood soaking into her blouse, running down her back.

He was kneeling next to her, his face close, so close she could feel his breath on her again. It took all her courage to look up into his face, knowing what she would find there. Satisfaction. He knew now that he could break her. There had probably never been a doubt in his mind. She was the fool for thinking she could trick this man into killing her.

He smiled. “I’m sorry. Did you have something else you wanted to say?”

As he started to move back from her, she swung her arms up, looping her bound wrists around his neck. She brought him down hard, pulling him off-balance and slamming his face into the floor next to her.

McKenzie knew it had been a stupid thing to do. She knew it wouldn’t knock him out. If anything, it would only make him more furious and more determined to make her pay. She’d acted out of pain and fear and desperation.

He let out a bellow of pain and fury. She tried to slam his face down again, but he broke free of her hold, swinging wildly at her. She managed to roll away after only one blow, quickly rolling a second time so her back wasn’t turned to him when he stumbled to his feet.

Dazed, his nose appearing broken and bleeding, he stared at her for a moment. He was breathing hard and looked unsteady on his feet. As he started toward her, she swung around on her butt and kicked him, knocking his feet out from under him.

He went down hard, hitting the wood floor with an
uhftt.
This time, he got up much faster and even as she tried to push herself back into the wall, he was on her, grabbing a handful of her short hair to drag her out into the center of the floor again.

“You have no idea what you’ve done!” he screeched at her as he held one hand to his bleeding nose and groped in his pocket with the other hand. Something silver flashed in his free hand an instant later.

McKenzie saw the scissors blade gleam in the late-afternoon light an instant before he lunged at her.

* * *

H
AYES
HADN
’
T
GONE
far into the house when he heard what sounded like a battle going on overhead. Of course, McKenzie would put up a fight just as she had the night she was attacked in the grocery-store parking lot, fighting for her life.

Rushing through the massive house, he finally found the stairs. What he saw brought him up short. There were no footprints in the dust on the steps and for an instant he stood confused, fighting to make sense of what he was seeing. He could hear sounds of a fight going on upstairs and yet—

That’s when he spotted the elevator and the tracks leading into it—the same ones he’d found just inside the back door—a man’s muddy boot prints and the two narrow wheel tracks.

He took off up the stairs at a dead run, weapon drawn. McKenzie’s scream filled the air as he topped the stairs. He followed the sound, still running, breathing hard, knowing he would kill the man. Blinded with rage, he wanted to tear the man limb from limb. Hayes had never felt that kind of anger. It scared him and yet it also fueled him as he ran toward the heartbreaking sounds. He just prayed he would reach McKenzie before the madman killed
her.

* * *

A
S
J
ASON
M
ATHEWS
lunged at her with scissors, he let out a roar. She caught a glimpse of the insanity burning in his eyes. He came at her like a wounded animal, only this animal didn’t just want to fight back. This animal yearned for retribution as only a human animal can.

He came at her so fast, she didn’t get a chance to swing around with her feet. He came at her face, slashing the blades wildly. Had he simply tried to stab her, she might not have raised her hands to protect herself. But then again, she might have instinctively. She would never know.

She felt the blades slash across the backside of one wrist where she was bound by the thick tape. Because of that, she didn’t feel the pain at first. She’d drawn her feet up as he’d struck her and managed to kick out at him, catching him in one knee. She heard screaming and thought at first it was her.

His leg buckled and he came down on top of her. She tried to roll out from under him, but he was too heavy. He had her pinned to the floor as he tried to struggle to his feet.

He rose just enough that he could get the scissors between them. He was going to kill her. Not the way he had wanted. But he could no longer hold back. She saw it in his expression as he struggled to rise.

Defeat, it was in his eyes, as well as disgust and pain. His nose was still bleeding and there was a bruised spot on his forehead from where it must have connected to the floor. The bright red blood had run down onto his white shirt.

How would he explain that to his wife?

That crazed, terrified thought came out of nowhere. The random thought of a woman about to die.

Hayes. The thought of him came with such regret she felt tears well in her eyes. She didn’t want to die without at least telling him that she’d fallen in love with him.

Jason steadied himself as he timed his next thrust, this one aimed at her heart. They were both breathing hard, his breath making a loud almost snoring sound because of his broken nose. Neither of them heard the pounding of footfalls in the hallway.

Jason raised the scissors, meeting her gaze with one of rage and pain. He looked as if he was about to cry. McKenzie wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. Her eyes locked with his. He almost looked afraid of her. He just wanted it to be over, she thought and realized that killing her this way wouldn’t give him what he needed so there would be other women—and soon. That thought filled her with more sorrow than the thought of her own imminent death.

With the look of a man about to drive a stake into a vampire’s heart, he grabbed the scissors in both hands and brought the blades down.

The sound of the gunshot was like an explosion, even in the large master suite. Another shot filled the air. Then another and another.

McKenzie had accepted that she would die. She’d told herself not to fight it as Jason drove the scissor blades down at her heart. But the gunshots into his back threw off his aim and gave her a few seconds to shift her body to the side. The blades came down into her side in a searing pain. Her cry was lost in the echo of the gunshots.

* * *

H
AYES
THOUGHT
OF
the first time he’d laid eyes on McKenzie Sheldon. She’d been lying on the ground bleeding and then her eyes had opened....

He shoved the madman’s body off her and dropped to his knees next to her.