Nowhere to Hide (40 page)

A pause. “How do you know this?”

“I just need to know where September is!”

“Mr. Westerly, I don’t know where she is. I’ll try to find her.”

“You do that, and call me back.”

He clicked off, feeling impotent. He was sitting in the Tahoe at her apartment parking lot. He needed a direction.

Nine, where the hell are you?

“Do you remember me?” he asked her with a faint smile.

Yes, she remembered him, September realized. He had been in her second grade class. The boy who’d wet his pants. One of the three Amelia McBride had said had caused so much turmoil and trouble.

“Peter . . . Cargill,” she said, finally coming up with the name. Her voice sounded thin and it was hard to talk.

“You do remember,” he said, and the way he smiled at her made her blood run cold.

“You weren’t in the second grade picture, but you were in my homeroom.”

“I missed that day. I missed a lot of things in grade school.” He shook his head at her. “You found me at Mel’s,” he said in disbelief. “How did you do that?”

“You hung blinds for my stepmother.”

“She told you.”

“Sort of. You saw my schoolwork at the house and you knew it went to the storage unit. You followed Jorah.”

“Yes. It was an opportunity. She called up. Mrs. Rafferty.” He was pleased with himself. “I knew then I had to be the one to go there. I traded with someone to get the job.”

“But why . . . ?”

“You know.”

He came very close to her and she had to fight herself to keep from shrinking back. She was sitting on the floor, bracing herself with her hands. The phone was in her pocket. If she could distract him for just long enough to place a call . . .

“You’re the one,” he told her. Then his expression darkened, and he said hatefully, “But I haven’t forgotten that you laughed.”

“I laughed?” she repeated and suddenly he had the knife to her throat and they were nose to nose.

“Don’t act like you don’t know.”

After a few moments he pulled away and September racked her brain to keep him talking. “Why did you bring me here?”

“You already know the answer to that, too. Because you came here with him,” he hissed. “Upstairs.” He waggled her gun to indicate the floor above. “Jake Westerly.”

She silently thanked the gods she’d turned off her cell phone ringer and left it off, because if Jake were to happen to call her now . . . The idea made her shudder inside.

She had to be careful. She wanted to scream at him about May, but she couldn’t upset him. Her life was in the balance. “You sent me—the leaf artwork.”

“I liked the sea anemone report better.” He stared at her unblinkingly, in a way that clutched her heart.

“What else do you have of mine?”

“Your
All About Me
book. I’ve had that piece of your hair until now. I have all your treasures.”

“You did kill May,” she repeated, unable to stop herself. She kept her voice even, the emotion out of it.

She stared at him and watched his expression darken again. “I didn’t mean to,” he said angrily, glancing away, pacing. In that moment she slipped her hand into her pocket and clasped the phone. “I thought she was you,” he said dreamily. “I saw you and I followed you. Except it wasn’t you, and I . . .” He shook his head. “And then I saw Erin. I knew she would tell you about me. I couldn’t let that happen! You understand, don’t you?”

September froze as he looked her way. She’d pushed the buttons on the phone from memory, hoping she was making the right moves, sliding through the screens to the call list on her phone.

“She saw the fur,” he said, sounding disgusted. “She knew it was her cat.”

September’s throat throbbed. She was having a little trouble following. “You—killed her cat?” she asked in horror. She purposely shook her head, moving her body in the process. As she did so, she hit her thumb to the top of the phone screen, where her last call, either in or out, had been made. The top two calls were Jake and Gretchen. If she reached either one of them they should be able to hear her.

God, she hoped so.

“She lived right next door,” Cargill was going on. “I thought she was you, y’see? I thought she was you! Then they looked at me . . . they both looked at me and started
laughing.
”

“May and Erin. You’re talking about May and Erin Boonster. . . .” She remembered driving near the Boonster farm when she and Gretchen had gone to talk to Stuart Salisbury and his mom. She’d mentioned to Gretchen that they were near May’s friend’s house. Erin Boonster.

She slid her hand from her pocket, afraid he would notice soon that it wasn’t on the floor. She lifted it to her face, just to prove where it was. She didn’t have to fake its trembling.

“Put your hand down!” he barked, and she immediately dropped it.

Was the phone on? Had she connected? She hoped she’d calculated correctly and hit the right button. She needed to talk, to give whoever was listening some clue to her whereabouts. “But this is Westerly Vale Vineyards,” she said. “Someone will come. There are people around. Colin Westerly or Neela . . .”

“Neela,” he repeated.

“Colin’s wife. They live in an apartment here, on site at Westerly Vale Vineyards. There are people at the tasting room. You can’t get away.”

He gazed at her hard and her heart pounded. It felt like he was looking right through her. “There is no getting away. This is where we belong. Outside . . .” His eyes looked past her. “At the end . . . in fields where they lay . . .”

When Nine’s number popped up on his screen, Jake snatched up his cell and wanted to scream into the phone. But Nine was already talking about her sister May and Erin Boonster. And then she was saying “. . . Westerly Vale Vineyards . . .” and he knew instantly it was some kind of message. He’d been sitting in his car at her apartment, sick with anxiety. And then when he heard a man yell, “Put your hand down!” he’d known. He’d covered the bottom microphone of the cell with his hand and slipped the Tahoe into gear.

He kept the cell to his ear as he drove madly, wildly. He should call someone but he didn’t want to lose his tenuous hold to Nine. And as the conversation went on, his insides grew colder and colder. Cargill had her at Westerly Vale.
And he’d killed May Rafferty and Erin Boonster!

September’s heart raced. “What about Sheila Dempsey? And Emmy Decatur? And Glenda . . .”

His pacing had intensified. “I had the beast under control,” he hissed. “But then you started playing games with me. You did that. I saw your picture. You became a cop! You set the beast free!”

September gazed at him helplessly. The beast? “You saw the article in the
Laurelton Reporter
.”

“Yes. You put it there. And I couldn’t control the beast any longer. The hunt started and there was Sheila. At that cowboy bar. She looked like you and she knew me. She knew about the knives. The beast wanted her. You started it.”

“Tell me about Emmy,” she said, licking her lips. Her throat was on fire.

“She was at Grandview. Thought she was better than me. Got me in trouble, but I almost got her to the park.”

“The park?”

“I wanted to take her to the park, but . . . I had to wait . . . years. And then I saw her again. At that other bar. There she was, dancing, grinding away on those men.” He gazed at September, dead-eyed. “They all go to bars and dance. She recognized me and she wanted to have sex. She was begging for it. I took her home, but then . . . but then . . . she started fighting. Changed her mind. But she wasn’t you, either.”

“Peter, I think you might have the wrong impression of me.”

“Wart,” he stated flatly. “Dance for me.”

“I wasn’t trying to play games with you.”

“DANCE FOR ME!”

“I—I’m no dancer,” September protested.

“C’mon. Get up. Get on your feet.”

He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her up. September swayed. Her head was woozy and thick. Her throat ached and burned.

“Dance!” he commanded.

She took two steps forward and stumbled. He caught her and pulled her close. She felt bile rise in her throat and tried to hold it back. He stroked her hair and started crooning to her. “Lovely, lovely hair. You want it, don’t you, Nine? You and I. I always knew it. Come on. We’ll go outside. Forget upstairs. That doesn’t count with
him.
You and I . . . we’ll go into the fields.”

He was fifteen minutes out when his phone cut out and Nine was gone. Had Cargill found out about their connection? Did he know? Jake didn’t know, but he didn’t hesitate. He phoned the Laurelton PD station again and barked that he needed to speak to Detective Sandler. This time Sandler came on the phone faster. “Yes?”

“She’s at Westerly Vale Vineyards. I’m on my way there. He’s got her.”

“If that’s true, you need to stand down, Westerly. You need to—”

“Bullshit. Just get there!”

He clicked off.

A faint sound was heard. A tinny voice. Oh, God, the phone! Did he hear?

September was still in his embrace, fighting an inward battle with herself. She wanted to knee him in the crotch, or punch him in the nose, kick and spit and fight. But she knew she was more likely to infuriate him than incapacitate him for long. She needed some space. A way to run. And a weapon.

Hearing the voice, Cargill suddenly thrust her to arm’s length. He cocked his head and September realized at the same time he did that it was coming from outside, not from her phone.

“Fuckin’ bitch,” he muttered furiously. He stood her on her feet, then suddenly pulled the cord from her neck, over her head. September eyed him warily, but then her hopes sank when he grabbed her hands behind her and reused the cord, red with her own blood, binding her hands together behind her back.

“Sit down,” he snarled at her.

She glanced around the room looking for something—anything—that she might be able to use to fight him.

And then from down the hall, a male voice called: “Neela?”

Colin!

Oh, God.

Cargill clapped a hand over her mouth and slowly sank with her to the floor. He’d set the gun down on the worktable in the center of the kitchen, but now, as he pulled away from September, he snatched it up. He pointed it at her briefly, his eyes silently warning her not to make a sound.

Colin’s footsteps neared, but then made an abrupt turn before they reached the kitchen. The apartment, September realized with relief. He wasn’t coming into the kitchen.

Cargill held the gun in front of him, aimed at the door that Colin would come through if he did. September could tell how unfamiliar he was with it. But the knife was another matter. It was in his other hand and he twirled it unconsciously, a familiar old friend.

She couldn’t let Colin meet his doom without any warning. She inhaled to take in a breath, ready, should he decide to keep coming. But then his footsteps retreated toward the living room and the front of the building.

Cargill left her and moved almost silently from that door, back to the swinging one that led to the dining room. He opened it a crack, putting his eye to it. “He’s going,” he said with satisfaction. “Along with those fucking tourists.”

September gathered herself, poised for flight, but then he suddenly turned back to her and she didn’t move. He was lean and tough and had the blankest eyes she’d ever seen. Had she gotten through to Jake? Or Gretchen? There was no way of knowing if she couldn’t look at her phone.

The tinny voice was heard again, along with some soft pounding. Cargill swore and looked through the back window. “I’ll have to kill her,” he said, as if he were talking about the weather.

“Who? Neela? You’re talking about Neela?”

“If she’s the blonde in the trunk,” he said, then dragged September by her bound hands over to the table. Quickly, he worked the bonds until he had enough cord to tie her hands to the table leg. “Make a sound and I slit her throat,” he said, then he headed for the back door.

“Don’t hurt her,” she burst out.

He’d opened the door, but now he paused to look at her hard. “It’s our time, Nine. Only ours.”

“Wait, Peter! Wart!”

He swept back and hit her with the gun and she saw stars and slumped down.

Time seemed suspended. She heard something outside, but she couldn’t place it beyond the ringing in her ears.
Bastard,
she thought suddenly, violently.
Bastard.

She fought the dizziness.

The phone. In her pocket. Could she still reach it with her hands bound?

She struggled, but she was tied to the table leg. Fighting to get her feet under her, she put her shoulders beneath the table and then she strained and pushed, lifting it with an effort, till it suddenly tumbled over with a loud crash. Staggering, she yanked her hands free of the leg, then looked anxiously around the kitchen.

There was a wine bottle opener on the counter. Her eye had passed over it before, but now she could see it had a small foil-cutter knife tucked inside. She backed over to it and maneuvered it between her hands, then quickly lay back down on the floor and began to moan as he returned noisily inside the back door.

He yanked her forward by her feet, breathing hard. “Bitch!” he cried. She dared not open her eyes, just moaned and moved her legs as if in pain. He threw himself on her, pulling open her eyelids. “You think you can get away from me?” he snarled.

“What?” she said. “What?”

She saw then that there was blood on his knife. Blood on his shirt.

“You’re playing games. It’s your fault.”

“Neela . . .” September asked unsteadily, staring at the blood.

“Not her. Westerly’s brother. She’s just . . .” He didn’t finish his thought as he grabbed her by her upper arm and yanked her to her feet once more. “It’s our time now,” he said.

Westerly Vale looked deserted in the late afternoon sun. Bronwyn only worked in the mornings and it looked like Neela had closed the wine tasting room early because no one was around. Nine had said she was at the house, so Jake parked outside the tasting room and made his way toward the back of the building, though he knew anyone looking through a window would be able to see him.