Dead in Her Tracks (9 page)

He’ll need a place to hide them. Somewhere he’s comfortable.

That big old house of his mother’s.

Acid emptied into his stomach, and Zane looked at Kenny. “Notice anything unusual when you were over there?”

Kenny shook his head. “Donald seemed real concerned we couldn’t find Stevie. Said to call him if we needed help.” His face cleared. “Security camera. He’s got a camera aimed at the front porch. I noticed one on the corner of the house too, pointing at the side entrance. Think it’s a warning system, not a security system?”

Basement. Concrete blocks.

“Let’s go find out.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“
Let’s get him out of there,” Zane said to Kenny as he drove toward Donald’s home. “Since Donald offered to help with the search, call and tell him we desperately need every extra vehicle on the road. He helped search for Bruce. Tell him we need him again. Don’t let him say no. As soon as he leaves, we’ll go in.”

“Got it.” In the passenger seat, Kenny pulled out his cell phone. A stricken look crossed his face. “We still don’t have a phone number for him!”

“Shit.” Zane mentally shifted gears. “You’ll have to knock on the door again. Convince him we need his help.”

“But what about you?”

“You’ll drive up his long driveway. Let me out at the road and I’ll sneak up in the shadows. I’ll get into his house somehow.”

“Zane, you can’t do that.”

“Right now I don’t really care. Who’s going to fire me? Stevie’s brother?” He looked at his officer. “This is
Stevie
we’re talking about.”

“Right.” A determined look crossed Kenny’s face. “But I’m letting the county sheriff know where we’re going. We might need backup.”

“Not if we can get Donald away from the property.” Zane said a silent prayer. He didn’t give a shit about his job. Every cell in his body told him that Donald had Stevie, and he’d be damned if he let her vanish or turn up dead in a motel room.

She is going to be my wife.

Zane pulled over and leaped out of the car, the keys still in the ignition. Kenny came around the back of the car and slid into the seat. “Get him out of that damned house,” Zane repeated, holding eye contact with Kenny. “Keep ringing the doorbell until he answers. I don’t care if he’s in his pajamas. I’m counting on you to sell this.”

“Got it.” Kenny pulled the door shut and gunned the gas, sending slushy snow flying as he headed up the long driveway.

Zane ran after him, hoping he didn’t trip and break an arm. He could barely see. Ahead, Kenny’s taillights disappeared around a curve and left Zane in the dark. He kept running, the icy air stinging his lungs.
What if she isn’t there?

She’s there.

He rounded a curve and the house came into sight. Donald believed in lots of outside lights, but as Kenny had theorized, it was possibly to protect his activities, not his home. Zane kept to the shadows of the trees, swinging wide around the house. On the front porch, Kenny continuously rang the doorbell, calling Donald’s name. He beat on the door with his fist.

Zane crouched in the dark and waited.
Come out, you bastard.

Or I’m coming in anyway.

Donald had returned to the basement. He’d changed into a black-and-red basketball jersey and baggy black shorts. His legs were insanely white and his arms were muscular. Much more muscular than Stevie would have expected from the quiet pharmacist.

Strong enough to slice through Bob Fletcher’s neck?

His muscles flexed as he set down a coil of thick rope and a stack of neatly folded towels.

Stevie stared at the items as her brain begged her to look away.

She held strong.

He didn’t have the best of her yet.

How much will he hurt me?
She didn’t see any knives or items to create pain. Vanessa’s body hadn’t shown signs of abuse outside of rape and choking. Stevie breathed evenly. She could handle rape. It usually wasn’t sexual for the aggressor; it was about the power over the victim. Take away the power trip and he might lose interest.

It’s just my body.

I’ll be damned if he messes with my head.

Her mental defenses ready, she watched him tie odd knots in the rope. Time for some answers.

“Why me, Donald?” she asked.

He blinked his owl eyes at her. “You were meant to be, Stevie. You’ve always been my ideal, you know.” He focused on the rope in his hands. “All the rest were temporary substitutes.”

“The rest?”

“Other women. It was all practice leading up to you. When you walked into the pharmacy tonight, I knew it was a sign that it was time.”

“You’ve always had a thing for me?” she asked in a kind tone.

He leveled an even gaze at her. “No whore’s tricks. Don’t pretend that I’m your best friend. I know how you see me.”

“Where are the practice women now, Donald?”

He went back to his knots, a small smile on his lips. “Here and there.”

Stevie wondered how far she could push him. “Did Bob kill Vanessa? We know it was her on the video.”

Donald frowned. “No. Just because he killed Amber Lynn it didn’t mean he would do it again.”

“So who killed her?”

“Thought you police were working on that.”

“We are. We’re working on Bob’s murder too. You know, he didn’t have anything nice to say about you when he was put in his cell. He kept claiming you were selling illegal prescription meds,” she lied. “I found it amusing that you said earlier that you were friends. Bob didn’t seem to feel the same way.”

A flush filled his face and his movements with the rope became jerky and short. His lips moved.

“What? I didn’t hear you.”

“Asshole got what he deserved.”

“Sounds like it,” said Stevie. “No one seemed to be upset when he died. Whoever killed him practically did the town a favor.”

Donald smiled.

“You killed him, didn’t you, Donald?”

“You’ll never know.”

The smug look on his face told her everything she needed to know.

He stepped closer to the bed, the knotted rope in his hands. “Lift your head.”

A green light next to the door started to flash, its brightness startling Stevie.

The flashing caught his attention, and he turned to stare at it. “Damn it. Maybe they’ll go away.”

It didn’t stop.

Stevie realized it was the same type of light she’d seen in a hotel room. An indicator for the hearing-impaired that someone had rung the doorbell. Donald’s mother had been deaf at the end of her life.

Her heart leaped.
Someone knows I’m here.

Zane watched Kenny turn away from the front door and stare into the shadows of the woods, searching for him.

Damn it. Don’t stop now. Be the pain in the ass.

Kenny pushed the button several more times, and Zane exhaled in relief.

Three minutes passed. Donald’s sedan was parked under the adjacent carport. He was home.

Stevie had to be in there.

We have to go in.

He jogged out of the woods and into the bright glow thrown by the numerous outdoor lights. Kenny saw him coming and let up on the bell. “He’s not answering, Zane.”

“I noticed. We’re going in. I’m going in,” he corrected. “You stay here.”

“Like hell you’re going in alone.” Kenny dashed down the steps and popped the trunk of the patrol car. He pulled out a small battering ram and took the steps in one leap to stand by Zane. “Let’s do this.”

Zane grabbed one side and they swung it into the wood near the knob. One blow blasted the door open.

“Donald? Are you okay? Solitude police!” Zane shouted. He and Kenny both drew their weapons and moved carefully into the home. The lights were on in all the rooms. “Donald?”

Kenny nodded at a door off the kitchen. “That’d be the door to the basement,” he whispered.

Zane pulled it open and shouted down the steps. He could see the beginning of a hallway with at least two other doors.

No answer. Faint sirens sounded from out on the road.

“Go meet the county guys,” Zane told Kenny. “I’ll wait right here.” Kenny nodded and dashed out the door.

Zane looked back down the basement stairs, wondering if Stevie was behind one of the doors.

He froze as all his hearing focused on a faint sound from the basement.

Stevie is screaming.

He stepped silently down the stairs. He couldn’t wait.

Stevie sucked in a breath and screamed again.

Donald had taken a step back with fear on his face at the first burst from her lungs, but now he was angry. She didn’t care. The green light hadn’t stopped flashing. Someone was still ringing the doorbell, and she would scream her lungs out while she had the chance.

He lunged at her and tried to wrestle the rope around her neck as she jerked her head back and forth, never letting up on her screams. He bent over the bed, his face close to hers, and spit flew out of his mouth as he shouted at her to hold still. She thrashed, jerking her bound hands and feet, wishing she could get a fist or toe into his ribs. Behind his thick lenses, his eyes were crazy.

Eyes of a killer.

Yanking her hair, he looped the rope around her neck and pulled it tight.

Her screams were cut off. She couldn’t breathe. The rough rope burned her neck as he tightened it again, and her vision immediately tunneled, leaving only his face. The skin on her hands ripped as she tried to tear her hands out of the shackles. She felt the metal dig into the tendons of her hands.

Donald grinned, knowing he’d won.

She didn’t want his face to be the last thing she ever saw.

Behind him the door crashed open and Zane stepped in the room, his gun and glare leveled at Donald. Stevie turned her head, the rope mangling her neck, her tunnel vision finding Zane. She breathed in the sight of him, committing it to memory.

“Drop the rope.”

Donald spun around and held up his end of the rope like a weapon. “Put down your gun or she dies now.” He started a steady pull, strangling her. Her vision shrank to nothing and Zane’s face vanished. She wrenched her head, sinking the last of her energy into finding a way to breathe.

The rope held strong.

Zane!
Shoot him!

She heard the single gunshot.

“Stevie!”
Zane’s hands were on her throat, yanking loose the rope. She sucked in a deep breath, ignoring the pain in her neck, and blinked hard as her vision abruptly returned.

Zane’s face was inches from hers, terror in his eyes.

“Donald?” she asked.

“He’s down.”

Several pairs of boots thundered down the basement stairs. Shouts of “Medic!” and “He found her!” filled the room as the county deputies entered. Stevie tuned them out.

Zane didn’t break eye contact with Stevie. “You’re going to be okay,” he said three times, running his shaking hands over her face as if comforting a child.

She knew he was saying it for his own benefit, reassuring himself that he hadn’t been too late.

“I know I am.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“When’s the wedding, you two?”

Stevie smiled. “Sometime this summer,” she repeated. Nearly every person at the town party had asked her the same question. Zane simply nodded at the curious local and then spun her away on the dance floor of the grange. Stevie had rushed to get ready for the New Year’s Eve party, needing a shower to scrub the odor of illegal fireworks from her hair and skin. She and Carly had initiated Brianna into their secret rite a few hours earlier, explaining how their father had always taken his daughters far out of town to set off fireworks on major holidays. After his death, the tradition had evolved as they moved the launch site near his grave.

Brianna had been delighted to be included, and they’d made her formally swear not to share their ritual with the male members of the Taylor clan.

Now two mirrored balls scattered a thousand pieces of light through the hall, and Bruce’s band played a slow country tune. Bruce sat in a chair on the stage, his fiddle blending with the other instruments. Her heart swelled with happiness to see him finally play again after Amber Lynn’s death.

New Year’s Eve. A time for new beginnings and a chance to put the past behind us.

Donald Montgomery hadn’t survived Zane’s bullet to his chest.

Stevie wanted never to think about him again, but the horrors that had been discovered inside and behind his mother’s home kept coming back to haunt her. The bodies of six women had been found buried behind the home. Three had been identified. Samantha Lyle and the two missing Medford women. The other three were being compared with data on missing women in southern Oregon and Northern California. Zane speculated Donald had placed Vanessa Phillips in her motel room to empty the police station, knowing how few people would be working Christmas Day, creating an opportunity to silence Bob Fletcher. Somehow the meek Donald Montgomery the town had always known had grown bold enough to believe he wouldn’t be caught. It wasn’t the first time hubris had tripped up a criminal.

Next to Donald’s bed, investigators had found a small box of jewelry. Vanessa Phillips’s missing bracelet had been identified, along with Stevie’s engagement ring. Zane had handed it to her, asking if she wanted a different one, worrying that it was associated with bad memories.

Stevie had slipped on the ring and stared at it on her finger as different emotions battled inside her chest. “No. I’ll keep it. It’s a reminder of what we’ve been through. And it’s proof that we can overcome what life throws at us.” A battle scar.

Her doctor was concerned that she’d have permanent scarring on her neck and hands. Currently it looked like she’d been burned. The rough, knotted rope and shackles had ripped away the top layer of her skin. If they did scar, it would be another reminder of the strength of her and Zane’s connection.

A special connection.

Zane had studied the room that Donald had locked the women in, noting the extensive soundproofing, and then asked Stevie to return with him that morning. She hadn’t wanted to go back to the house, but she’d humored him. A wave of panic had swept over her as he closed her inside the basement room with directions to scream while he stood at the top of the stairs. She’d sat on the bed and screamed her lungs out. Fifteen seconds later he’d opened the door and she’d lunged into his arms, needing out of the enclosed space. His face had been white, and he’d said he hadn’t heard a single sound even when he’d stood right outside the door.

How did he hear me that night?

Her mother had told her not to question it.

The master bedroom in Donald’s home appeared not to have been disturbed in the two years since his mother had died. Her bathrobe lay across the foot of the bed and her hearing aids sat on her nightstand as if waiting for her to wake.

Donald had slept in a twin bed in a small bedroom. It was bare of decor and reminiscent of a jail cell with its metal bed frame and single chair. In this room they’d found a small stash of loose oxy that Zane theorized had been stolen from Bob Fletcher’s home. He believed Donald had broken into Bob’s home after his death to remove any possible links to himself. A large hunting knife had also been found in the bedroom, a small spot of dried blood on its handle. Stevie had no doubt that testing would reveal it to be Bob Fletcher’s blood.

“Stop thinking,” Zane ordered as he pulled her tighter to him on the dance floor.

She gratefully obeyed, resting her head against his shoulder. “I’m so happy, Zane.”

He moved his face to her hair. “That makes two of us.”

“I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”

His chest vibrated in a chuckle. “Most people don’t consider seven months to be too long. I’d rather have you confident in your decision instead of always wondering.”

She lifted her head and met his gaze, overwhelmed with love for her man. “I’m confident.”

As if on cue, fireworks lit up the sky outside, flashing colored light through the windows of the grange. Everyone stopped dancing to look through the giant windows. Zane looked behind him, studying the crowd.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Looking for your fireworks partner in crime.” He gestured at Carly, who was watching the fireworks with Seth’s arm around her shoulders. “I thought maybe this was the Taylor women at work, but it looks like you guys took a night off.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Stevie replied, avoiding his gaze.

“I love you even though you’re a lawbreaker.”

She looked into his dark eyes and adoration for him flowed through her. “I love you too.”

His smile melted her heart.