Hunting Fear (27 page)

Apparently, he’d been successful, because he felt like he’d been sleeping for a hundred years.

He yawned and tried to shift a bit, realizing only then that he couldn’t move. His eyelids felt as if they’d been lined with sandpaper, and it took three tries to force them to scrape across his undoubtedly bloodshot eyes and open.

Everything was blurry at first. He blinked painfully until his eyes finally teared a bit so he could see.

What he saw didn’t make sense at first. It didn’t make sense because it defied belief. Sturdy wood. A rope—no, a cable. And a heavy, gleaming blade of steel.

A guillotine?

Now, what in the world—

He turned his head a little, watching the light glint off that sharp, sharp blade. The blade that was poised to drop.

He didn’t really get it until he tried again to move, then craned his head to see as much as he could. What he saw, finally, made sense.

Terrifying sense.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered.

“Did you know it would be Metcalf?” Lucas demanded, nearly two hours later as they gathered once more in the conference room.

Samantha shook her head. “If I’d known that, I would have told you.”

“What did you know?” His voice was flat, hard.

“I knew there’d be another abduction. But you knew that; it was hardly something I had to tell you.”

“What else?”

“Again, what you know yourself. The object of this twisted little game is for the good guys to find the victim before his time runs out.” Suddenly thoughtful, she said, “Except that in this case he didn’t set a time limit, did he? No ransom demand.”

“So how long do I have?”

She looked at him, brows lifting. “I’m supposed to know that?”

“Do you?”

Samantha glanced at the silent Jaylene, then looked back at Lucas and said with deliberation, “Is it with all your women, Luke, or just me? I mean, since this is the second time with us, I have to wonder.”

His frown deepened. “What’re you talking about?”

“I got close once before. Too close, apparently. And just like now, you spent the morning after grilling me about what I knew or didn’t know.” She paused, then added coolly, “It hurt a lot, last time. This time it’s just pissing me off.”

“Sam—”

“I don’t have to be here, Luke. I don’t have to be involved in this investigation. In fact, I’m sure it would be a lot safer and certainly less troublesome if I went back to the carnival, packed up, and asked Leo to leave a few days early. If I went back to minding my own business. I’m here because I was under the impression that I could help. So why on earth would I lie to you about any of this?”

“
Because
of last time,” he snapped.

Jaylene, watching and listening calmly, was highly aware of the precious minutes ticking past. But she was even more aware of the vital need for these two to come to some understanding; at odds with each other, she thought, both were at least somewhat hamstrung. So she watched, and listened, and said nothing.

“Oh, I see.” Samantha shook her head with a bitter little smile. “It’s revenge I’m after. Is that it? Do you really believe I’d stand by and allow innocent people to die just because you walked out on me three years ago? Because if that’s the case, Luke, then you never knew me at all.”

“I never—” He stopped, then said evenly, “No, that isn’t what I believe. What I believe is that you’re holding back on us, Sam. The vision that brought you here—”

“Wouldn’t help you find Metcalf or the killer even if I told you every single detail. And as I’ve already said, I don’t intend to share any further details of that vision with you. I have my own reasons for that. You just have to believe—trust—that the reasons I have are good ones.”

She held his gaze steadily. “You didn’t trust me before. Maybe that’s why everything went to hell, or maybe that had nothing to do with it. Either way, this time is a bit different. So you have to decide, Luke. Now. Either you trust me, or you don’t. If you do, I’m willing to do whatever I can to help you in this investigation. If you don’t, I leave. Now.”

“I don’t like ultimatums, Sam.”

“Call it whatever you like. But make up your mind. Because I’m not going through this little song and dance with you, not again.”

Before Lucas could reply, Deputy Champion came into the room, his young face haunted. “Nothing,” he reported without waiting to be asked. “No sign of the sheriff anywhere. You guys were at his apartment; did you—”

It was Jaylene who said, “No sign of a struggle or a break-in, though your forensics unit is still out there. His car was in its normal spot. Looks like the bed was slept in.”

Lucas turned away from Samantha with a somewhat jerky motion, and said, “Maybe not. He’d been sleeping on the couch, according to what he told me.”

Jaylene pursed her lips thoughtfully. “His weapon was on the coffee table, so that fits. And there were a hell of a lot of beer bottles in the kitchen garbage can; I’d say he drank a lot last night.”

“He’s been drinking every night,” Lucas said briefly.

Samantha moved to the opposite side of the conference table from him and sat down, mildly offering her opinion. “I wouldn’t have said he was the type to drink until he passed out. So maybe he had help.”

Somewhat fiercely, Champion said, “The only way anybody could have taken the sheriff was if he was out cold. Otherwise, he would have fought. And kicked ass. Even if he couldn’t get to his gun, he’s a black belt, for Christ’s sake.”

Lucas and Jaylene exchanged glances, and he said, “Which makes some kind of drug even more likely. Wyatt’s not a small man, and handling a deadweight isn’t easy—but it’s a hell of a lot easier than struggling with a big man who knows how to use his muscle.”

“Maybe the kidnapper had a gun,” Samantha suggested.

“Maybe,” Lucas agreed. “Probably. Question is, did he use it to control Wyatt?”

The young deputy was impatient. “The CSU will test all the bottles they found at the sheriff’s place,” he said. “But even if we find out he was drugged, so what? So what if we know this bastard has a gun? It doesn’t help us find the sheriff. Why aren’t we out looking for him?”

Quietly, Jaylene said, “The chief deputy is calling in everybody even as we speak, Glen. Every car will be out searching for the sheriff, and every other deputy and detective will be out as well. But . . .”

“But,” Lucas finished, “as yet we have no good way of narrowing down the area that has to be searched. This is a big county, remember? With too damned many inaccessible or remote places.”

“Then why aren’t you doing your thing?” Champion demanded.

“We’ve sent the original of the note off to Quantico—”

“Not the FBI thing,” Champion said, even more impatiently. “The other thing. Your thing. Why can’t you feel where he is?”

“It isn’t that simple,” Lucas said after a moment.

“Why not?”

In the same deliberate tone she had used earlier in a much more private conversation, Samantha said, “Because he has to open himself up in order to do that. And right now, he’s closed down tight as a drum.”

Lucas turned his head to look at her, an expression almost of shock passing briefly over his features. Without another word, he walked out of the room.

Champion looked bewildered. “Did we make him mad? Where’s he going?”

Soothingly, Jaylene said, “Probably just out to check with the chief deputy. Don’t worry, Glen; we’re going to do everything in our power to find your sheriff.”

“Well, let’s find him before it’s too late, huh?” Champion’s tone was a bit uneven suddenly; it was obvious he remembered only too well the sight of Lindsay Graham floating lifelessly in her watery tomb.

“We’ll do our best,” Jaylene told him. “And you can be a big help. We’ll have to recheck those inaccessible locations on the list, and especially check out the ones we didn’t get to when we were looking for Lindsay. Form up armed search teams like before, each with at least one member who really knows the terrain.”

The deputy nodded and, given a task to accomplish, hurried from the room.

When he was gone, Jaylene looked at Samantha with rising brows. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

Half under her breath, Samantha muttered, “Christ, I hope so.”

Jaylene nodded, a hunch confirmed. “So it is deliberate, the way you’re needling Luke. And has little if anything to do with the last time you two tangled, I’m guessing. Something to do with the vision that brought you here to Golden?”

Samantha frowned down at the table, silent. Her hesitation was obvious; just as obvious was the decision she reached, and her continued silence.

Undaunted, Jaylene said, “It’s a dangerous tactic, Sam, pushing him.”

“I know.”

“He has to do this his own way.”

“No. Not this time. This time he has to do it my way.”

Wyatt Metcalf was new to terror. Personal terror, anyway. He hadn’t honestly felt anything close to terror until Lindsay was taken. Now, as angry and ashamed as it made him, he knew he was terrified for himself. Not that he didn’t have reason.

There was a fucking guillotine suspended above his head.

And he was almost completely immobile, strapped down to a table so that all he could do was just barely lift his head. That small movement was just enough for him to see how securely he was strapped in place. It was also just enough to show him that this guillotine was designed a bit differently from those he had seen in pictures.

The table he lay on supported his entire length; no basket was placed below to catch his severed head. Instead, the table bore a deep groove just beneath his neck, where the heavy steel blade would finally come to rest—between his body and his neatly severed head.

The head probably wouldn’t even move, except maybe to roll gently to the side.

Jesus.

He tried very hard not to think about that. Or about the rusty-looking stains all along that groove that looked to him like dried blood. Which made it fairly obvious that the kidnapper hadn’t tested his little contraption by using heads of cabbage.

Probably on Mitchell Callahan.

Instead of dwelling on that, being a cop, Wyatt tried to get the lay of this place. What little he could see from his position was mostly darkness. Two floodlights—or spotlights—were focused on him and this death machine, which made it pretty difficult to see beyond the glare surrounding him.

“Hey!” he shouted suddenly. “Where are you, you bastard?”

There was no response, and the faint echo told him only that the room was mostly hard surfaces without much if any furniture or carpeting to deaden sound. So he was likely in a basement or cellar or, hell, even a warehouse somewhere. He did have the sense of vastness all around him, lots of space.

But that could have been his imagination, he supposed. Or simply the darkness.

He felt very alone.

And he wondered, suddenly, if this was what Lindsay had gone through. Had she freed herself from the duct-tape bindings—which they had discovered partially cut, presumably so that she
could
free herself within some given time—only to slowly realize that the glass-and-steel cage in which she was imprisoned would cause her death?

Had she known from the very beginning, or had the bastard toyed with her, allowing her to believe that she might escape the tank? Had she been in the darkness, or in a blinding spotlight as he was? Had the water begun to slowly drip from the pipe, or had it gushed?

With a tremendous effort, Wyatt pushed the useless, haunting questions away.

Lindsay was gone. He couldn’t bring her back.

And he was going to join her in death unless he got himself out of this. Or . . . unless Luke really could do what he claimed.

“I find people who are lost. I feel their fear.”

Wyatt thought about that, keeping his head turned and his gaze directed beyond the spotlight and into darkness; it was better than looking up at the damned blade hanging over him.

Could that quiet, intense, steely-eyed federal agent really feel someone else’s emotions, their fear?

His first reaction was a deep embarrassment that another man might feel the sick terror crawling inside him, might know that about him.

Wyatt didn’t want to believe that Luke—or anyone—could do that. Everything in him shied away from the mere possibility. But . . . he had to admit that Samantha Burke had been right when she’d told them Lindsay would drown. She had warned Glen Champion about his defective clothes dryer, which very well could have caused a fire. And as hard as he’d tried, Wyatt hadn’t been able to connect the carnival seer in any viable way to this kidnapping murderer and his schemes.

And Champion had described to him, in halting, wondering tones, what Luke had done. How he’d been able to find Lindsay, and how eerie and shocking had been his apparent mental or emotional connection with her in the final tormented minutes of her life.

If he was genuine . . . If Samantha was genuine . . .