Blackout (33 page)

He takes his beer with him, which doesn’t set me at ease. Him walking toward her drops into my stomach like a hydrogen bomb. When he reaches Lisa, she climbs up his leg like a ladder.

Her arms swing around his neck. “Oh Dare. It was awful.”

Maybe she did lose her whole family. He leads her a little way down the beach, their toes shuffling in the water, his feet soaked.

I slip out of my sandals and let the foam lap at my feet. The sickle of the moon burns in the night sky. After I’ve walked for a minute, I turn back toward them. They’re farther down the beach now.

Dare isn’t holding her hand, but he walks alongside her. Her thumb is hooked into his pocket. She pulls her thumb out and thrusts her large breasts, barely contained by two patches of fabric, into his chest. Her mouth smashes into his. I can’t bear to look at them. She was his first. If he decides to get back with her, I can’t fight with that.

My feet stroll down the beach of their own volition but not in the direction of my house. The pounding in my ears deaden the sounds of the waves and the gulls squawking. I don’t want to cry, but he should’ve blown her off. My feet hurry away from them, away from her sobs and her arms holding onto his waist.

He’s not worth it, though he’s almost given me what I need—my memories.

I don’t know how long I jog, my mind cluttered by betrayal. I don’t even once think about the stalker and being alone and vulnerable on the beach until the storm clouds rustle on the horizon, and a crack of thunder startles me. I slow and steady my rapid breathing.

I turn around to head back. This was stupid because the beach is deserted and the lights of civilization twinkle in the distance. I need to get back to my house. I start for the road where people and the string of restaurant lights glow in the darkness.

Lightning skitters across the sky, lighting up the ocean and whitecaps tumbling over each other and racing into shore. Lightning crashes so close the hairs on my arms jump up. I jog back now. I don’t want to die out here. My breaths come in quick pants.

The scent of rain flares my nostrils. The pounding of it on the surf intensifies, closing into shore. My heart throbbing in my chest hurts. I should’ve paid closer attention to the storm.

I hear the labored breathing behind me just before I feel the hand on my back.

It pushes me down into the waves straddling the beach. I land reflexively on both arms. Pain shoots up my broken arm, and my pinky cracks awkwardly backward. I cry out.

He grabs a handful of hair and snaps my neck back. My good arm reaches behind me and finds tufts of hair on his neck and back.

I yank it out, and he screams out, “Bitch.” He has the scratchy voice of a smoker. I know it, though I can’t quite place it.

He forces my face into the water, and I inhale saltwater. He lifts my head back up by my hair.

The tang of his sweat and reek of a cigarette sting my nose. It’s him. It’s the monster that held the saw. He jams my nose and mouth in the water while the rain hits the shore and bowls us over. I scramble to my knees, but before I can climb to my feet, he shoves me down again. The grit of the sand fills my mouth. I spit it out but his arm slams into my back and drives my face into the waves tumbling over us.

He buries my face and ears in the surf. His excitement presses into my ass and through my soaked skirt. He says something, but the sound is garbled. Something about my mama, how beautiful she was. She’s dead? I don’t believe it.

He’ll kill me before I learn what he did to Mama.

I struggle under his firm grip. He lifts my head, and precious oxygen flows into my burning lungs. He lifts my skirt and shoves my face back down. I think I hear him say, “Nice panties. Your Mama…something…something.”

I wore the lace underwear for Dare. My hands claw at the sand for leverage. I don’t want to die. I submerge again, and a confusion of images pelts my vision. The masked woman has waves of coppery hair, much like my own, much like Mama. Her voice lilts and is airy like what I’d expect a fairy to sound like.

Some sort of collar tightens around her throat. She cries in what I first believe is agony, but a smile and look of satisfaction crosses her lips. Why is she smiling? He’s hurting her.

They are all naked, the two men and she. I don’t want to see them this way, but I can’t stop looking. What are they doing?

The man ramming her from behind with his belly blurs through my tears. There’s some discoloration staining his stomach, like a birthmark. Ugly long hairs grow from it.

Fur-like hair covers the man’s back and chest in front of her. I’ve never seen so much hair on anyone. He resembles the apes I’ve seen at the zoo.

I don’t want to see this, so I focus on the pretty, sparkling masks. I should leave and find Dare. The man from behind slaps her with a short leather crop between her legs, and she moans, grinning. Why does she like it?

Her mouth takes the larger man’s penis, and I cover my ears to escape the horrible slurping sound. He grabs her hair in his hand while tightening the collar and jerking her head back. It’s the same monster attacking me. I know it is.

I retch into the seawater. The pummeling rain washes the vomit from my hair. A loud boom of thunder brings me back, my throat gagging on too much water. His large hand clasps around my throat as he brings my face from the water.

Through the downpour and lightening spritzing through the sky, I hear the unmistakable sound of him unzipping his pants. I don’t freeze but push as hard as I can off the sand, my broken arm screaming in pain, but it’s of no use. I’m powerless in this position.

His stiff stalk rubs against my bare buttocks. He’s going to rape me. I struggle underneath him, fighting, the pain in my arm and finger keeping me conscious. I scream as loud as I can—the thunder suffocating my pleas for help.

Yelling comes shortly after a deafening rap of thunder. It grows louder.

“Teal,” Dare shouts. “Where are you?”

The man hovering over me stops. He zips up his pants. His hand forces my nose and mouth into the water. He submerges my ears, so I can no longer hear Dare.

I choke on seawater. My throat closes to prevent it from entering my lungs but neither can life-giving air. Black clouds form at the edges of my vision, but then the man lets go and the slapping of his feet in the water runs away from me.

Gasping for air, I roll up onto the beach. I hadn’t even noticed that my purse is still slung across my shoulder. I crawl completely out of the water, coughing and gagging, and collapse on the sand.

Dare runs up to me, kneels beside me, and pulls my head into his lap. “Are you hurt?” The rain has matted his hair. He’s drenched.

“I’ll be okay,” I choke out. “It was him. It was the man who chased me in the swamp.”

“Could you identify him?”

“No,” I sob. “He grabbed me from behind.”

Dare picks me up and carries me off the beach. I shake, like a billboard in a hurricane.

“It’s okay, Teal. You’re safe now.”

“No, no.” The sound of a scared little girl escapes from my lips. “It was him. It was the monster.”

The lights of Harley’s form halos in the downpour. I hadn’t realized how close I was to safety. If I’d been paying attention to the weather and to my surroundings, I wouldn’t be returning to the ER for my cast and now a broken finger. I mentally kick myself for my stupidity.

Dare doesn’t once falter but hauls me up the back porch. My head rests against his soaked chest, the strength, brilliant warmth, and safety of his body slowly arresting the panic terrorizing my heart and lungs.

Ella’s face peers through the back door of Harley’s. After Dare climbs the steps, she opens the back door and hustles us into the restaurant. Carolina gathers clean towels from the back room and mops at my hair and clothing. Several patrons stop eating to watch us.

“What the hell happened?” Carolina says, her eyes wide with fright.

“Call the police,” Dare instructs.

Ella pulls out her cell and dials nine-one-one.

Dare presses his forehead against mine. “You’re safe now. I need to take you to the hospital to have your cast redone again.”

“Please don’t leave me.” I cling onto his soaked shirt. The thought of being without him sends waves of terror into me.

“I won’t.” He pulls out his phone from his drenched jeans and makes a call to my daddy. Dare tells him to meet us at the ER.

After he ends the call, he says, “Why did you leave? I looked all over for you.”

“You kissed her,” I mumble. It seems stupid now.

“And if I would’ve seen that coming, it would’ve never happened. Her boyfriend dumped her, and she thought I was easy seconds, but I’m with you Teal. You’re the only girl I’ve ever chased, and I keep having to run after you. It would be easier if you’d stay in one place. You could’ve been killed.” His face scrunches up with pain and worry. He holds me tightly to his chest.

I almost smile. He’s chosen me. This gorgeous, sensitive man wants me.

But what if I get him killed? What if he disappears like Graham?

My body is so keyed up from tonight, I don’t allow Dare to leave my side while the doctor recasts my arm and splints my broken pinky. For the moment, the cast doesn’t itch my arm, but that will return in a day or two or sooner. I also lost the pen that I keep inside my cast for emergency scratching.

“Oh my God,” Daddy says as he rushes to the gurney I’m propped up on. Worry tenses his shoulders and lips.

Dare steps aside and immediate distress sets my pulse racing. I grab at him, so he walks to the other side and sits, resting his hand on mine. “It’s okay.”

“Would you give us some time?” Daddy rasps.

“No,” Dare says. “I’m not leaving her. Every time I do, something happens.”

My good hand reaches for Daddy’s. “I don’t want him to go. If it weren’t for Dare, I would’ve been raped and murdered, and I need him. We need to find out what happened in the swamp that night and what happened to Graham.”

“Who’s that?” His voice wavers, like what I’m saying couldn’t get any worse.

“A man I went out with a few times. He disappeared and the man who assaulted me tonight may have taken him.” And probably killed him.

Daddy grasps my arm, like it’s a lifeline. “I can’t lose you. I want you home with me tonight. You’ll be safe there.”

Dare shakes his head. I know he has to work, but the daytime so far hasn’t been an issue. The person stalking me probably has a job.

“I’m glad you came home, but I’ll spend the night with Dare. You aren’t going to lose me, Daddy.” I kiss him on the cheek.

“You can stay with me whenever you like, Teal.” Dare holds my good hand. “I’ll drop her off in the morning and keep in touch with any new developments.”

Daddy’s eyes plead with me. “Please come home.”

I shake my head. My arm shouldn’t itch already, but it does. “Do you have a pen or something?”

Dad pulls an expensive Cross pen out of his sport coat. I scratch my arm then slip the pen into the cast where I kept the last one. He doesn’t say anything about me keeping his pen.

Despite the nurses’ protests, Chia Pet Jimmy barges into the room filled with several partitions separated by curtains. Remy skulks behind him.

“What in tarnation is going on here?” Jimmy shoots off the tip of his tongue. “Are you all right, Miss Covington?”

I nod. It’s a little late for that.

“We have searched high and low for Graham Darnell. I put out an APB for him yesterday. And now this.” His arms frantically wave in the air. “We have to catch this stalker of yours soon. This morning I spoke to the feds, goddamn berry pickers.”

I hadn’t realized the police had gotten so involved.

“Did you get a look at this perp?” Jimmy asks.

“No. He was big though and strong and hairy, and I’m almost certain it’s the same man who chased me in the swamp ten years ago.”

“I just read up on that, not a lot to go on in the case documents. Do you remember any more about that night?”

I hold back from him because frankly I don’t trust any of the police. “With my new therapist’s help, my memories are resurfacing.”

“Well, the sooner you get them back it would help this investigation tremendously.”

“The man smokes,” I say.

“Well, that’s something. We’ve had a cop at your house most nights, but that hasn’t stopped this guy from breaking in. We have to figure something out, right quick.” He takes several notes before leaving.

Daddy begs me to come home, but I trust Dare, and I know he still has a shotgun and other firearms at his cabin.

“Daddy, I’ll call you when we reach the house, and I’ll be home in the morning.” I kiss his cheek again.

His hands are shaking, and he swallows back emotions. “I can’t lose you. You’re all I’ve got.”

I’ve always known he loves me, but I never knew the depth. “Dare will take care of me, and we’ll work hard to get to the bottom of this.” I just hope it’s before anyone else gets hurt.

When Dare helps me into his truck, Daddy appears more than displeased. Dare pulls out of the ER and remains silent until we push our way into the refuge.

As he drives into it, chills skitter across my chest. The high pocosin casts long shadows on the road. A bear’s eyes shine back from the headlights. Dare slows to give the animal a chance to cross the road.

As if reading my mind, his hand rests on mine. “Don’t worry. We’ll sort through this.” He lifts my hand to his lips to kiss it.

I pull my hand away because his comforting stops the visions. I need to dig them out while they’re close to the surface. “I want to see.”

“Are you sure?”

I nod and glue my eyes onto the ominous shapes of the tall trees and dark void of the swamp. I stare into the refuge. I’ve always avoided this, but I can’t avoid it anymore. My eyes blink back tears, but I don’t look away. Dare slows and pulls into the refuge, leaving the truck idling. He doesn’t reach for me.

As my gaze fixes onto the inky darkness of the bog, my throat closes, stealing my breath. Blackness swallows the trails leading into the swamp. The pounding of my heart hammers my chest.